Fic: If You Want Blood, Chapter 2
If You Want Blood, Chapter 2
By: Mytay
Rating: PG-13 for some swearing, and later on, some violence.
Summary: Tony has three names on his list, and a Captain willing to help him get them. Name number one, your time is up.
Disclaimer: Marvel and its characters in no way belong to me - Disney owns almost all of my childhood. The story and chapter titles belong to songs by AC/DC.
Spoilers: For Captain America: The Winter Soldier, if somehow you haven't seen that yet.
Notes: This story is also posted here on AO3 and here on fanfiction.net.
Chapter 2: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
Tony was fairly sure that Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes had not killed his parents.
While the Winter Soldier had been a ghost with a staggering amount of legendary kills reputed to be his, that ghost could only be in so many places. Barnes had been carefully eliminating several higher-up members of the Chinese Communist party at the same time that Tony's parents crashed their luxury BMW E24 635. (Tony had examined the wreckage of the car himself, and then he'd taken apart a fully functional BMW of the same line; he'd never found any discrepancies, why, what had he missed?). Winter Soldier had spent his Christmas vacation over in mainland China, as far removed from Howard and Maria Stark as he could be. Hydra had used other means - other operatives - to arrange for an accident on the seventeenth of December 1991.
It was for that reason, and that reason only, that Tony had forwarded details on Barnes' potential locations to the Captain. Rogers had a file, one Natasha had been so kind to acquire for him; Tony had everything else. He had his satellites, his own contacts, his AI that was smarter than most geniuses, and his knack for viruses that retrieved information. Steve needed all the help he could get - Barnes may not be the Winter Soldier anymore, but he was definitely still a ghost. Tony respected Steve's need to track down that ghost and to finally lay it to rest.
As for his own 'ghosts', all Tony needed was a plan for them. He had been researching for several weeks now, ignoring the constant stream of news as the world continued to reel over each and every secret Hydra had concealed.
Tony thought revenge had too ugly a reputation, and justice was an ideal that was nice to strive for but unrealistic to expect.
He simply wanted to ensure that the rule of cause and effect applied to these people; they had taken something out of the universe, and the universe would balance out the equation. One of them had died years ago, but there were three more he could track down. Three more he had tracked down. He had medical histories, marriage certificates, places of employment, and any parking tickets that remained outstanding. At the moment, he was compiling the last bit of information on his final target, and then his clear and articulated planning could follow.
This process was disrupted by a phone call Tony had not expected to receive.
"Steve's calling?"
"Yes sir, shall I put him through?"
Tony continued to stare at the faces he had memorized weeks ago. "I suppose so. Wouldn't be right to ignore Captain America."
"That's much appreciated, Tony," came Steve's dry reply.
"Hey there, Cap'n, found some Hydra over there in Italy? You'll break my heart if I find out gelato is a Nazi thing."
"There was a small cell hiding under a cannoli place," Steve said with some amusement. "Also, gelato? Really, really good - no way that's a Hydra conspiracy."
"Glad to see that's something you can laugh at now," Tony observed. "Are you needing more intel? You've got all I've got, Rogers - there's nothing else for me to give. Gimmie time and more might make itself apparent."
"Understood. The trail's run cold for now. He's been cleaning up a few ops, but I seem to be getting to them after the deed is done." Steve paused, and the slightly weary tone disappeared when he next spoke. "I called because I know what you're doing. Natasha gave me a heads-up."
"I won't even ask how she knows." She probably had some secret spy superpowers . . . or she had just talked to Pepper. Tony suddenly realized he hadn't been too subtle with his CEO; he'd told her he would be taking a month or so off to deal with some 'newly unfinished business' and to not expect any contact until said business was concluded.
"Cap, do not start in on the whole grand truth-justice-honour before all else speech. I'm doing this for -"
"I understand. I want to help."
Tony stumbled over his last few words. "For my-myself and - wait, what?"
"Howard was my friend, Tony. He was a good man and someone else that Hydra took from me." Steve's voice was flat. "Bucky's trail has gone cold for now. Let me help get the bastards that did this. For Howard."
"But what about the whole truth-justice-honour whatever -"
"Tony, tell me where to meet you. I'm on a jet halfway to the States. I'll be landing in JFK in a few hours."
He glanced at the clock sitting on his desk. The digital display read 14:00. "I can be there in time to meet you. Then we take a flight over to Washington. There's a man there. One of three on my list." There had been four directly responsible, but Ferdinand Holtz had died of liver failure two and a half years ago, leaving behind a grieving widow and a stepson who apparently thought the world of his stepfather. Tony would not shatter the illusion; a good father was hard to come by. Since Holtz was dead, any further action would only punish those who were both innocent and ignorant of his past.
"Copy that. I'll let you take the lead on this. We'll talk more when I land."
Tony gave a sound of acknowledgement and then hung up.
He wasn't sure what was happening, but somehow his plans were increasing in complication despite his meticulous calculations. He stared at his screens, at the information glowing out from them, and hardened his resolve. The good Captain was welcome along for the ride, but Tony knew how he expected this to end - and Steve Rogers could either lend a hand, or stand aside.
Eliot Nizar was not his real name, but he was Syrian, formerly a member of the Arab Deterrent Force and briefly stationed in Lebanon. He took on a name that matched his cultural background, though he hadn't set foot in Syria since the mid-1980s and held no particular allegiance to his country of birth.
He had a comfortable living, a house that was beautiful but not ostentatious or grandiose. It was protected by security systems typically used in government buildings, and he had since added attacks dogs and hired a few thugs to discretely stand guard at varying distances.
He was planning on leaving the country the day after Tony and Steve landed in Seattle. Nizar would have left earlier, but Tony had put a freeze on his assets. The bank apologized for this mistake only that morning, and now Nizar was packing.
Nizar must have thought he had time, since it was his birth name released onto the World Wide Web in the great S.H.I.E.L.D. scandal, not his alias of the last twenty odd years. Tony had found that alias, and afterwards it had been all too easy to follow the forged identities and the bank accounts in the Caiman Islands to Seattle, Washington.
"Who is he, exactly?" Steve asked. They were sitting in a café several blocks from Nizar's house.
"He's someone that blends in easily, had multiple aliases while working for the, uh" - Tony paused as a waiter passed them by - "people we didn't know about until recently." Tony watched the waiter smile and laugh at a young boy that demanded 'fries with nugents'.
Steve took a gulp of his coffee, staring down into the mug afterwards as he asked, "And what did he do?"
"He was their inside man, so to speak. He'd been working for Stark Industries for about a year and a half before the accident. Made himself invaluable as a P.A. to the head of Research and Development at the time."
"He wasn't the one who tampered with the engine?" When Steve looked up, his expression was difficult to parse. Tony wasn't sure what to do with the indifferent tone of voice either.
"Work was too sophisticated for his skill set. He greased all the wheels, metaphorically speaking, and left all the doors unlocked, literally."
Steve nodded. "Got it. What's our plan?"
Tony had been waiting for this question, and he launched into his ready-made explanation. "We go in, tonight. Wait for him to set the alarm, and then I bypass all his systems and we enter through the garage. Aside from a few pigeonhole cameras he's installed himself - which I can also access and bypass - there shouldn't be any problems. Which is, of course, inviting the irony gods to come down and smite us, but we're used to that by now, aren't we?"
Tony immediately regretted that statement as a shadow crossed the Captain's face. Barnes must be on his mind constantly, and never mind the enormity of what S.H.I.E.L.D. had been doing all these long years . . . But then the shadow passed, and Rogers smiled a little bit. "So, let's flip them the bean."
"The bird, Captain."
Rogers half-shrugged. "That too. Also, how does that make any more sense?"
Tony felt his mouth quirk up involuntarily, and Steve gave him that small smile in return.
That brief flare of warm camaraderie faded as soon as night descended. Tony hovered a few miles away from Nizar's home, JARVIS keeping him informed about the movements of his dogs, his bodyguards, and of the Captain working his way around them. The guards checked in with each other every ten minutes, and it was only when Steve got within a hundred feet of the house that he finally encountered one he had to knock out.
Tony immediately patched into their comms and issued the 'all clear' from the unconscious guard at the appropriate time. Steve got to the wire box and followed Tony's simple and concise instructions.
"Bingo." Tony inhaled sharply. "A closed system is only as good as the locks you keep on it."
"You couldn't have broken in over the Internet?" Steve asked, sounding mildly curious and not at all winded. Tony had to wonder at what it would take to get him to sound out of breath; he had watched him execute some fairly spectacular acrobatics while getting around the guards. He would say he was impressed, but Steve would only shrug off the compliments.
Actually, Tony had seen Steve out of breath. The Captain had been overwhelmed by Loki's army, but he held down the front like it would take at least another three armies to get him to lie down. Apparently, being shot a few times and falling off a helicarrier could get him to rest for a day. Not a bad soldier to have at your back.
Tony answered the Captain's question, shaking off half formed theories as well as the sudden desire to design Rogers far better armour than what S.H.I.E.L.D. had made for him.
"A closed system means no signals being broadcasted out, nothing for me to piggyback on unless I'm directly connected. And since you've done that for me, keep a weather eye open - I'm coming in."
Steve blinked in surprise upon seeing Tony swoop in near silently. They hadn't seen each other since their lunch debrief, hiding away until their mission commenced. "That's not the usual armour."
Tony grinned, always happy to show off his genius because he was a genius, first off, and secondly, he was damn proud of his latest creation. It was sleek, it was soundless, and it could conceal itself in the way S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarriers could - only better. The heat emissions were a problem, but he had worked out a solution that was satisfactory in a work-in-progress kind of way. It wasn't perfect, but it was enough to fool run-of-the-mill heat sensors.
The only downside was the boring colour scheme - a black that didn't shine, even in direct light - but it was necessary.
"So in another words," Steve said, after Tony had explained all this (while simultaneously wiring himself to Nizar's security systems), "you're The Invisible Man."
"As near to as you can get without magic," Tony agreed. "Or without being a scary red-headed assassin."
Steve's small smile was back, though his eyes were scanning the perimeter every few seconds, and Tony could almost feel the way Steve was straining his hearing to catch any sign of trouble. Tony still had JARVIS patching the all-clear every ten minutes from Sleepy over by the garage entrance, the guard carefully concealed and out of anyone's path.
It wouldn't last forever. Tony had to get in before anyone alerted Nizar and sent him on the run. If Tony gave chase, stealth suit or no, it would likely become a noisy affair. And if that happened, it would end up on the news where one or both of the other two conspirators might see Iron Man acting with extreme prejudice, possibly alerting them to Tony tracking them down. Tony preferred all his targets to be unaware of what awaited them.
"We're in," he said briskly once JARVIS gave the all-clear for a third time. He didn't repeat the plan to Steve - he knew he didn't have to. Tony moved slowly - the suit was the least bulky of all his suits, but it still added about fifty pounds to his frame. He got into the house through the garage door, and then he set himself hovering to eliminate the sound of his heavy steps. Steve glanced at him, blinking rapidly as he observed Tony's armour in better lighting.
"Damn impressive. I know how loud those things usually are." He nodded at Tony's boots and gloves.
Tony had to smirk at that even as everything in him tensed. He was looking at a framed picture of Nizar on the wall over the fireplace, Nizar in the centre of a group of laughing friends, all of them raising glasses of wine up high.
"Nizar is in his bedroom, sir." JARVIS gave him a layout of the house, which Tony had long since memorized but he appreciated the reminder.
"Up we go, Cap." Tony let Steve handle covering his back as he moved on towards the stairs, scanning everything as he went. There was no hired muscle inside the house. Nizar enjoyed his privacy.
This personality trait did the man no favours when Iron Man and Captain America simply walked into his bedroom. The look on his face would have been comical, but Tony was finding himself without a sense of humour for the first time in a long while.
"Hello there, Nizar. Jack Dweck is who I'm looking for, the name you used for a time a few decades back, so that's what I'm going to call you from here on out." Tony took off his helmet as he spoke. He watched as Nizar-now-Dweck glanced frantically towards his panic button. But Tony had already disabled that function, and he pointed at where it was concealed by the foot of the bed. "Go ahead. No one's going to hear you. Pay attention, because I'm going to give you two choices. You have certain death on one end, and a long, long stay in prison at the other."
Dweck blinked, mouth opening and a whole lot of stupid pouring forth. "Mr. Stark, there's nothing between you and me, I can't possibly be a target for the Avengers. There isn't any -"
"You are going to shut up because death is getting closer and closer to being your only option." Tony stepped forward and then stopped. He didn't trust himself to get within arm's length of the bastard. He could kill him in a hundred different ways - most of them he didn't even have to fly out to Seattle for - but there was something so viscerally tempting about just getting his hands on him. Steve closed the distance for him, standing to the right of Dweck, ready to pin him down if necessary.
Tony was increasingly grateful for the other man's presence. He took time to gather his thoughts, calming his nerves. Dweck was a gray-haired man in his sixties, but he was clearly well muscled and healthy, even with wrinkles indicating natural aging. He was a classy dresser, his house decorated in a tastefully modern style with hints of more traditional American ideals in the brick fireplace and light wooden floors.
These details were nonsense, meaningless to Tony, but cataloguing them helped him focus.
"One: I give information about how many of the heavy weapons you collected in Lebanon ended up sold to anyone with the cash, on either side of that conflict, and then I send you to whichever side is more pissed off. In those prisons, I'm sure you'd be dead inside a year. Or maybe they'd just shoot you outright." Tony watched the man's face drain of colour. "Two: I hand you over to the FBI with a nice, fat folder of all your domestic crimes, evidence neatly tagged and organized, and you live the rest of your life in a prison where you might stand a chance of living a longer, miserably confined life."
"W-Why? Why are you doing this to me? I have retired from my previous work and lived an untroubled life for years." His hands shook, weathered and calloused, as they reached for him imploringly. Begging.
Tony looked at Steve. All he received in return was a blank stare.
"I'm doing this because you denied my father a chance to be a better a man, and you took my mother down with him. If you're looking for sympathy from the man you made an orphan or" - he nodded towards Steve - "the man whose friend you helped murder, you're talking to the wrong crowd. Maybe the firing squad back home will be kinder."
Dweck's breathing wheezed out of him, and Tony waited, his hands curling into fists. His father had died instantly upon impact, the coroner's report said. His mother had bled out. It had taken the emergency crews seventeen minutes to reach them. For seventeen minutes his mother had lain in confusion, in pain, strapped in next to her dead husband.
His hands shook as they whipped out from his sides, his fingers clawing into Dweck's shoulders, the suit giving him added strength; capillaries were bursting beneath his fingers, Dweck was crying, and Steve wasn't saying anything.
Tony lifted the man from the bed, staring at his wet and wrinkled face. He dropped him, hard, onto the floor and stepped back before he could change his mind.
"Make your call, Dweck."
Eliot Nizar, now also known as Jack Dweck, was arrested by the FBI in the morning.
Tony watched him get shoved into a van as his house was swarmed with navy blue jackets, the news reporting it as yet another arrest made in the Hydra scandal. Tony's fingers ached with punches they hadn't thrown, with the sensation of a throat they hadn't gotten to wrap themselves around.
"Tony, it's time to go," Steve said, his first words in six hours.
Tony nodded without looking back at him and unclenched his fingers, blinking away a haze of red and gray.
Maybe it would be the next one. Maybe the next name on his list would feel the seventeen minutes and two decades worth of pain.
Author's Note: Here we go, more angst, and my second chapter in as many days. Thank you very much for reading, and see ya tomorrow for yet more angst! :D
Next part: Chapter 3: Night Prowler