Sentry – Chapters 1-3

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Title: Sentry
Author: Jilly James
Fandom: MCU, NCIS
Genre: Crossover, Drama, First Time, Science Fiction
Relationship: Tony DiNozzo/Thor, Tony Stark/Steve Rogers
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Explicit Sex, Canon-level Violence, Kidnapping, Torture and Graphic Violence, Medical Experimentation, Mentions of Hate Crime/Hate Speech (because Hydra)
Author Note: See Notes Tab on Main Story Page
Challenge: Originally created for Rough Trade / NaNoWriMo November 2018 (Not Quite Human thematic challenge), and finished for WIP Big Bang 2021.
Timeline: Takes place after Iron Man 3 but before Agents of SHIELD
Beta: The dance of destiny with Grammarly.
Artist: AngelicInsanity. Cover art and all chapter banners were created by Angelic. Thank you so much!
Word Count: ~103,500
Summary: When Steve Rogers disappeared into the ice, Peggy Carter considered it her duty to stand watch over the daughter Steve never knew he had. She watched from a distance, ensuring Steve’s legacy was safe, extending her watch to Steve’s grandson.

As her mental faculties declined, she charged the only person she truly trusted, Phil Coulson, to continue her vigil. Project codename: Sentry.

When Tony DiNozzo vanishes off the streets of DC, Phil forces Fury to take him to see Steve Rogers so they can enlist the aid of the Avengers in finding Steve’s grandson.

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Chapter One

February 2013

Tony stepped into his cell without further prompting, taking a few shuddery breaths before collapsing gracelessly on the cot. It jarred his newly injured shoulder, and he gasped, fighting off any further outward reaction to the pain.

The door slammed shut, but he knew he wasn’t alone. The man responsible for fucking up his escape, again, was in the cell with him. Whoever he was, he always seemed to be watching even though Tony never spotted him until it was too damn late.

The man stepped close. Cold metal fingers tipped his chin up, and Tony didn’t even bother to fight it. He’d learned the hard way that this man was much, much stronger than Tony could ever hope to be. Warm, real fingers prodded the new shiner around Tony’s eye. He forced himself not to flinch.

“Nothing broken,” the man said in a monotone. The guy had zero affect. Stoic to the nth degree.

“Yeah, I know.” He’d fractured his cheekbone when he was a kid and his orbital bone when he was a cop in Philly. He knew what it felt like.

The metal hand continued to hold his head still while human fingers prodded along his skull and neck. Then his head was released, and both flesh and metal hands began assessing his shoulder.

Tony couldn’t stop the pained reaction this time. He knew it was a bad dislocation. Even though he was pretty sure nothing was broken, it hurt like a son of a bitch.

“Stop trying to escape.” The tone was almost wooden this time.

Tony stared at the wall, trying to figure out how to navigate this situation. He’d been here for three days. Three days, three trips to medical, three escape attempts. All three were foiled by Mr. Metal Arm, who appeared from nowhere with superhuman strength and moves that nothing in Tony’s training had prepared him to deal with.

“I can’t do that,” he gritted out as the guy carefully moved Tony’s arm around.

There was no reply.

Tony huffed out a breath. “Will you at least tell me your name?” He asked every damn time, trying to make a connection, trying to get information. He’d been trained how to handle these kinds of situations, but nothing was working.

The hands stilled for a moment. “Soldier.”

Tony blinked then glanced up at the other man, noting the blank expression. “Soldier is a job. A role. Maybe even a vocation. But it’s not a name.”

The man said nothing.

There was a painful turn of his arm, and Tony’s vision whited out for a second. “I think I’ll call you Stoick. Did you see that movie? You probably didn’t. For some reason, I can’t see you hanging out for an animated double feature.” He took a careful breath as the pain faded a bit. “Stoick the Vast. Leader of his people, slayer of dragons. Great at everything except understanding his kid.”

Stoick blinked at him a few times, expression unchanging.

“I mean, I’m not saying you look like a Viking or anything, but perhaps some comparisons could be made.”

Another blink.

“Or not. I’m still gonna call you Stoick.” He looked into blue eyes that stared back unflinchingly. “Unless you tell me not to.” He wanted the guy to tell him something, make some kind of preference known, even if it was just about a stupid nickname.

Stoick stared back for several seconds as the metal hand tightened on his shoulder. In the next second, his arm was pulled sharply, and his shoulder popped back into the socket.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Tony cradled his arm to his chest and breathed through the pain.

“I won’t help you,” Stoick said woodenly.

“Yeah, I figured.” Tony forced himself to sit up straight. Stoick was leaning against the wall, arms crossed. The position made the robotic arm look even more intimidating. Tony hadn’t even known prosthetics were that advanced yet. “But you haven’t broken me either, and you sure as hell could have.”

One eyebrow twitched. It was the most facial expression Tony had seen.

Tony huffed a bit. “I think we can both agree that I did most of this,” he gestured vaguely to his shoulder, “to myself. You’ve got a powerful grip, but nothing is seriously damaged. You clearly could have broken every bone in my body, but you didn’t.”

“They don’t want you broken, so I won’t break you.”

Tony considered that. “And if they change their mind?”

“Then you’ll be broken.” The delivery was so flat and unemotional that Tony had absolutely zero problem believing in Stoick’s sincerity.

“Well, it’s always good to know where you stand.” He pursed his lips briefly. “I won’t tell them anything. No matter what they do to me.”

“They don’t care about anything you know.”

And that’s what Tony had been afraid of. It had been three days, and no one had asked him questions. Just trips to a medical facility to give blood and tissue samples, including cerebral-spinal fluid. And that was a special form of ouch.

When he’d been kidnapped right off the street, right around the corner from his home, he figured someone had learned what he really did, that someone wanted the intel that Tony had access to. Because nothing else made sense. It wasn’t a crime of opportunity, and Tony wasn’t an opportune victim. The team who took him knew his routine, knew where to make the grab. They even knew Tony’s strengths and weaknesses in hand-to-hand combat.

But then nothing. Nothing but time in a cell and minimal opportunities to attempt escape. Every attempt was foiled by a guy with a robotic arm, who seemed familiar for some reason. Tony couldn’t place why or where, but he’d seen this guy before.

He met Stoick’s gaze again. “Then what do they want? Why am I here? Because there is literally nothing interesting about my life. And I can’t imagine there’s anything interesting in my bone marrow. So…why?!”

Stoick cocked his head to the side and looked like he was actually considering answering. “They will remake you.” There was a brief pause. “If you’re unlucky.”

Tony stared, feeling like the breath had been punched out of him. “What?” His whisper barely carried to his own ears. His brain latched onto the “unlucky” bit. “And if I’m lucky?”

“You’ll die.” Stoick thought death was the lucky outcome.

“Did they remake you?”

There was a tick in the muscles of his jaw.

Tony sensed he was close to crossing a line. “If you can’t tell me why, tell me who. I clearly can’t escape, and with death being the favorable outcome, I’d like to know who is doing this to me.”

“Will knowing make it better?”

“Oddly, yes. It’s human nature to try to understand. It’s certainly my nature.”

“Knowing will change nothing.”

“Perhaps not. Maybe it’ll make my inevitable demise when I refuse to give them what they want a bit easier. Because I don’t want to go to my death not understanding why!” Tony had been battling to keep his anger in check, but he was having a hard time compartmentalizing in the face of Stoick’s grim certainty about the bleakness of Tony’s future.

There was a flash of something in Stoick’s eyes. “You will give them what they want. You have no choice.”

“Did you just resistance-is-futile me? Seriously?”

For a moment, Stoick looked confused. “It is futile.” He stared at Tony as if trying to read his mind. “Hydra.”

It felt like a non sequitur, so it took Tony a moment to piece that into any kind of framework that made sense. “Wait. Like World War II Hydra?”

There was a very faint tip of his head.

“Are you telling me that fucking Nazis arranged for my kidnapping and…” he trailed off and swallowed heavily. Jesus.

Stoick pushed off the wall. “Stop trying to escape,” he repeated his order from earlier.

Tony never broke eye contact, repeating his own reply. “I can’t do that.”

“You will stop.” He crossed to the door and thunked it firmly with the metal hand, one of the regular guards coming to let him out. “Eventually, they all do.”

With that chilling pronouncement, Stoick left Tony alone.

– – – –

Steve pulled his motorcycle into the underground parking garage of Stark Tower—though it had been recently renamed Avengers Tower. Steve didn’t really get that, but he was pretty sure Stark was trying to do a good thing. He didn’t think anyone but Bruce, so far, had taken Tony up on the offer of residency in the Tower.

He wasn’t sure what Stark had done to his motorcycle, but he was allowed access to the high-security parking area where Tony kept his cars. Steve understood very little of the technology of this century—maybe his access had nothing to do with his motorcycle at all.

As soon as he approached the elevators, the doors slid open and, a moment later, Jarvis greeted him. “Good afternoon, Captain Rogers.”

“Hello, Jarvis.” Steve wasn’t fully comfortable with the AI. He didn’t get it. Jarvis sounded and spoke like a real person, but everyone had made it clear to him that Jarvis was just a computer. To be fair, Stark had never said that. He talked about Jarvis like he was a person. Steve felt there was something there that he didn’t understand, but he didn’t know how to ask the question. Or even what question to ask.

He cleared his throat and resisted the urge to look for the camera. “Can you tell me why I was called here?” He’d been at loose ends for about a week since his last assignment in Singapore, so it wasn’t inconvenient to answer the call to meet at the Tower, but Steve wasn’t particularly fond of mysteries.

“Sir is waiting to discuss the matter with you before joining the others.”

“Others? Who else was called?”

“The entire team was summoned.”

If it was something related to the Avengers, he wasn’t sure why he’d been summoned by Stark. Why hadn’t his handler or even Fury said something? “Is Thor back?”

“To my knowledge, Mr. Odinson has not been back to Earth since he left with his brother nine months ago.”

“And is everyone else already here?”

“Indeed, sir.”

“That’s…” He felt out of the loop, which he didn’t like when it came to the team since he already felt out of the loop on life. “Okay.”

There was a faint chime indicating arrival. It amazed him how quickly an elevator could ascend to such a height. He blinked at the flashing “80” on the display. That was Tony and Pepper’s personal apartment. The few times he’d been to the tower during and after the repairs, he’d always gone to the 81^st floor.

He smiled faintly, remembering how Tony had considered not repairing the Loki-shaped hole in the floor. He felt a familiar flash of guilt about Tony but pushed it away as he stepped out of the elevator.

Tony was standing near the windows, staring out of the city, a glass of something in his hand.

“Tony?” he prompted.

When he turned, Tony’s smile was too bright. It felt fake. “Capsicle! Long time no annoy. How are things in SHIELD these days?”

Steve frowned then his attention was caught by something missing. There was no light coming through Tony’s T-shirt.

“Ah. You hadn’t heard I’d finally had the shrapnel removed. Just a plain old, fully organic human here.”

It felt like Tony was trying too hard. Forcing something. “Are you okay?”

“Of course.” He smiled that fake smile again. “Better than ever.”

“Tony.” Steve stopped and took a breath. “Please stop.”

Tony froze, blinking in obvious confusion. “What?”

“Just…” Steve paused and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, okay?”

Brows drawing into a frown, Tony stared for several seconds. “For what?”

“I was in Ukraine when your house…” he trailed off and cleared his throat. “I didn’t even hear about it until I got back, and it was long over with by then. And I’m sorry I wasn’t there. To help. Or whatever you needed. Fury should have told me, told the team.”

“Yeah, well, he wouldn’t.”

Steve knew Tony had issues with Fury, so he didn’t respond to that part. “Regardless, we should have been there. And I should have called again, made sure we talked since I know you were busy.”

“Again?”

“When I talked to Pepper, she said that everything was fine but that you were really busy. I wanted to give it some time, but I still should have tried again. Told you in person that I was there if you needed me.” That was how things were done when Steve was younger. You talked to people directly. You didn’t text or send things on computer devices.

Tony turned back toward the windows, posture stiff and rigid. “I’m not your responsibility, Rogers.”

Steve sighed. “I thought we weren’t going to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Do the last name thing again. I thought we were going to try to be friends, Tony.” Steve felt a little like an ass even saying the words. SHIELD had been keeping him so busy after the battle with the Chitauri. He should have tried harder to stay in touch with Tony.

“We barely know each other, Cap.” He spun around again, expression fixed in that parody of a smile. “And I really am not anyone else’s responsibility.”

“But–”

Tony’s expression seemed to shatter and become closed off. He held up a hand. “Pepper left me, okay? She never told me you called. I appreciate the sentiment, but what’s done is done.”

It took Steve several beats to recover from his shock enough to remember to close his mouth. “I thought you guys were good…great even.”

“Yeah, me too, Cap. But she couldn’t deal with me being Iron Man, and I’m the asshole who couldn’t give it up.”

Steve frowned.

“Don’t be pissed; I doubt she purposefully forgot to tell me you called.”

“It’s not that,” Steve quickly protested. “I can’t believe she made you choose like that.” While he knew he struggled to understand Tony, he knew how vital Iron Man was to him. Why would someone who loved him want him to stop being…himself?

Tony made a dismissive gesture that made Steve want to yell at him to stop pretending. “Meh. Don’t worry about it. I figure it’s all the uncertainty of being married to a cop, a pilot, and a race car driver in one shiny red and gold package. She needed the certainty that I would be home at the end of every day in one piece. I couldn’t give her that.” He took a deep breath and looked like he was steeling himself for something.

“Tony—”

“Nope! No more sentiment, Cap. I’ve had all the emo I can stand for one day.”

“Emo?”

“My terribly tragic love life is not why you’ve been summoned here.”

Steve frowned, somewhat reluctant to let it go, but one thing Tony had managed to impress on him was that he couldn’t force people to deal with things his way. “Then why are we here?”

“I actually have no idea,” Tony said brightly.

“Pardon?”

“I don’t actually know why we needed to have this little soirée today, but I do know a piece of the puzzle. I wanted to fill you in alone, without the Bobbsey Twins providing color commentary.”

“Bobbsey Twins?” he echoed.

“Legolas and Natashalie.”

“It sounds like you’re saying you don’t trust them.”

Tony’s eyebrows shot up. “I don’t trust anyone whose first loyalty is to SHIELD.”

“And you don’t think my first loyalty is to SHIELD?” Steve was sounding Tony out. Though if Tony had made that conclusion, he wasn’t wrong.

Tony scoffed. “I think your first loyalty is to your sense of right and wrong. If SHIELD got on the wrong side of that, I think you’d make them regret it.”

“So, you trust me, then?”

“Not as far as I could throw you.” He snorted. “Well, when I’m not wearing the suit. I could throw you way farther while wearing the suit than I trust you.”

Steve felt a pang of hurt but refused to give voice to it. “I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done that made you not trust me.”

Tony blew out a breath and rubbed his hand over his face. “Steve,” he began, his tone more sincere than anything Steve had heard so far, “I want to trust you. And that’s a problem for me. Because Fury and SHIELD are controlling the information flow to you. I’m pretty sure they’re manipulating you in the same way they tried to manipulate me. And I get the feeling they’ve been pretty damn successful. So I can’t afford to trust you.”

Steve crossed his arms and considered that, wondering what Tony saw that Steve himself hadn’t. Something didn’t feel right at SHIELD, but Steve had no evidence to explain his feeling.

“But that isn’t why we’re here.” Tony’s expression was brittle somehow.

“Maybe not. But I’d like to revisit this discussion when the current problem is dealt with. Because if there’s something I should know, information I don’t have, I want to hear about it, Tony.”

Tony’s lips pressed into a thin line before he nodded with what seemed like reluctance.

“So, then, tell me what’s wrong.”

“I got a strange email in the wee hours of the morning. Anonymous sender, blew right by my filtering protocols. It was chock full of information about a top-secret SHIELD project called TAHITI.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar.” Steve was trying to reserve judgment about someone mailing classified information to someone outside SHIELD. Not that SHIELD didn’t routinely give Tony top-secret information, but this felt akin to espionage.

“Well, I doubt SHIELD would ever expose you to their morally questionable activities. You being a boy scout and all.”

Steve frowned at the sarcastic tone. Tony winced a little and shot him an apologetic look, which Steve figured was the best he’d get. “So what is Project TAHITI?”

“Apparently, the Chitauri were not our first major dust-up with an alien race. Some race called the Kree were up to nothing good, and somehow the dead body of an alien was in the hands of Hydra around the time you were making their life really damn difficult.”

Steve stared. “Hydra,” he repeated woodenly, fighting off the memories the name evoked and how much he despised them.

“When Hydra was defeated, the SSR found the alien corpse and confiscated it. About four years ago, Nick ordered some sort of medical research into said corpse and put the project under Coulson’s supervision.”

Feeling a stab of grief at the reminder of Coulson, Steve had to push the feelings away to focus on the problem at hand. “To what end?”

“Apparently, some sort of mumbo jumbo about healing should a key asset ever fall. Particularly an Avenger should Fury ever get the initiative off the ground.”

“I’m not sure I…” he stopped and cleared his throat.

“I’m really curious what word you stopped yourself from saying.”

“Approve. I’m not sure I approve. And maybe I don’t understand modern technology, but that seems inappropriate.”

“Ethics are ethics, Rogers. It doesn’t matter what century it is.” Before Steve could reply, Tony continued. “And Coulson agreed with you. He recommended that the project be shut down. With prejudice. And then he refused to work on it any longer. I guess a bunch of people went crazy and died or something.”

“Or something?” he repeated incredulously.

“Yeah. I may be a genius, but the medical stuff is not my forte.” Tony made a dismissive gesture. “I don’t need the mental clutter. Bruce is in his lab reviewing all the data our anonymous source sent over.”

“Okay. So how did we get to here?”

“The email specifically said it was information I needed to get to you. Urgently. I don’t know why because that part was never revealed. Just that I had to get you here and everything would be explained. So I called you, but then Fury called and said he knew I’d been sent some questionable materials and that he was sending over our deadly duo. That he himself would come down from on high and would be gracing us with his divine presence as soon as he could get away.

“And that’s all I know. Someone wanted me to see that, validate it, get you here, and presumably, we’ll have the big reveal. Then Nick inserted himself and SHIELD into the mix.”

Steve was getting better about reading between the lines with Tony. “And you wanted me to have the whole story before this goes any further.”

“Yeah, well, I figured I could intercept you, bring you up to speed, we could go down and talk to Brucie-bear, see if the info is on the up and up, and then meet with Fury et al. with our ducks in the proverbial row.”

“I don’t understand why someone thinks I need to know about or understand incredibly complicated scientific information. Because I’m not going to get it, no matter how slowly Dr. Banner explains it.”

Tony snorted, and it sounded like real amusement. But his expression was more serious. “Yeah, I don’t get that part either, Steve, but we’ll take it as it comes.”

– – – –

Steve entered the meeting room on the 81^st floor, the Avengers’ communal level. He was followed by Tony, with Dr. Banner bringing up the rear. He moved to greet Clint and Natasha. He’d spent half an hour not understanding a word Banner and Tony had said, but the gist was that the information seemed legitimate. The only thing he fully grasped was that Dr. Banner was very unimpressed with the nature and method of the experiments performed.

There was still no answer as to why any of this was relevant to Steve. But they’d left off their conversation when JARVIS informed them that Director Fury was due at any moment.

Everyone took their seats around the table. Steve frowned when the nature of Natasha’s teasing seemed to take a cruel edge when she was mentioned Tony’s house falling into the ocean. Maybe he didn’t get modern humor either, but her amusement at Tony’s expense seemed…inappropriate. Tony joked and seemed, on the surface, to take it fine, but he didn’t really seem okay with it.

Dr. Banner frowned at Natasha in a way that seemed to get through to her, and there was a quick subject change.

A few seconds later, Nick Fury stood in the door to the meeting room, seeming to take up all available space. “First, I never planned to release the details of Project TAHITI to any of you, but the decision was taken out of my hands this morning. Second, TAHITI isn’t why we’re here, though I’m not even sure myself why any of this is necessary.” He frowned and shot a stern look over his shoulder.

“You got a shadow, Nick?” Tony asked, smiling as he slouched in his chair. “And why exactly would someone want us to know all about TAHITI if it’s not relevant to why we’re here?” Before Fury could reply, Tony jerked upright, eyes narrowing, fists clenched. Steve was instantly on guard. “Wait a minute. You used it, didn’t you? Who did you…? Oh, Jesus.” Tony’s eyes were round as saucers, and he actually looked a little panicked. “Tell me you didn’t do that to him. After everything he said about why the fuck you should abandon that project.”

Steve blinked, trying to put what Tony was saying into context.

“I couldn’t afford not to try,” Fury replied, finally stepping into the room.

“I had a hunch you’d work it out, Stark,” a familiar voice said. Then Phil Coulson entered, looking exactly the same as the day he’d died.

– – – –

Steve fiddled with the bottle of Coke Tony had given him. It never really tasted how he remembered Coca-Cola, but it wasn’t bad. Picking at the label was barely keeping his attention diverted from whatever was going on behind the closed door of the meeting room.

It was an understatement to say that Coulson being alive was shocking. While Steve and Banner were affected to a lesser degree, Tony had seemed devastated in a way that surprised Steve. While Tony’s reaction was quiet and seemed full of pain, Natasha and Clint’s reactions were also obviously pained, but they were loud. There had been yelling.

Tony had slipped out in the melee, and Bruce had softly suggested that they let the SHIELD agents sort themselves out. That was how he wound up on the sofa in the living area. Then Tony had turned up, looking unconcerned, with three bottles of Coke in hand.

“Do you think he’s okay?” Steve finally blurted out. When the two geniuses fixed him with incredulous stares, he added, “Everything you said… It sounded like these experiments made people crazy. Everyone died, right?”

Dr. Banner cleared his throat before replying. “One thing we didn’t discuss is that the doctors had decided erasing the memories of the, uh, test subjects was the next thing to try. The poor results coupled with that horrible idea was part of why Coulson wanted the project shut down. The fact that he’s here and seemingly not crazed after nine months leads me to believe they worked out the kinks or he had some terrible procedure that took a chunk of his memory away.”

“What I think,” Tony replied, voice somehow brittle, “is that Coulson said ‘hell no’ to this idea. That he’d have never wanted it. And that Fury didn’t give a fuck about Coulson’s wishes.”

Dr. Banner flinched a bit, and Tony closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Bruce.” Their eyes met, something passing between them that Steve didn’t understand. “I hope you know that I would do everything in my power—and I’d like to think that that’s quite a lot—to ensure that SHIELD could never impose their will on you again.”

And Steve got it and felt not a little like an idiot. “Do you think they’d really do that?”

Tony shot him an incredulous look. “I think Fury did it to his favored son. He prefers to stay on Bruce’s good side because he knows he has no method of controlling Bruce.” Tony huffed. “Except maybe a honeypot.” He chugged the Coke, not seeing the way Bruce’s jaw tightened. Steve saw everything going on, but he was, once again, frustrated that he didn’t really understand the subtext. “But if Fury had a way to control Bruce, I’m pretty sure he’d do it.”

Banner got to his feet and went into the kitchen.

“Tony.”

Tony shot him a look. “You think he doesn’t know, Steve? Really?”

“You don’t need to poke him.”

“You think that’s me poking him. Jesus.” Tony scrubbed his hands over his face. “That’s me being supportive, okay? That’s me telling Bruce that I get where his paranoia is coming from, and it’s not unfounded because I see the same worrying behavior. I’m not gonna lie to him and tell him SHIELD is sunshine and kittens when they pull shit like this.”

Before Steve could formulate a response, Banner stepped back into the room, leaning against the doorjamb. “He’s not wrong, Steve. I don’t need to be placated and told everything is going to be fine. I know better. And people patting me on the head feels disingenuous at best and deceitful at worst. So please don’t.”

The calm, cool delivery made it easy for Steve to accept it at face value. “I can do that. And my apologies, Dr. Banner.”

“Bruce, Steve. Call me Bruce,” he said with a faint smile. He’d asked before, but it was oddly difficult for Steve to drop the formality with Banner. Still, he’d try.

Before anything else could be said, the door to the meeting room opened, and Coulson came out first, followed quickly by Clint. Natasha came out a few seconds later and then Fury. Clint still looked upset, Natasha and Fury were inscrutable, and Coulson looked…determined.

He pinned Steve with a look. “I need to impart some information to you. It’s rather personal in nature, but it’s up to you if you want to talk alone or not. I do think we’re going to need the help of your team. At least Dr. Stark. But probably SHIELD too.”

Steve frowned. “Personal…about me?”

“Yes.” Coulson shoved his hands in his pockets and waited, expression revealing nothing. Fury was watching Coulson very closely.

Steve couldn’t imagine what could be personal, but the fact that Coulson said they’d need help meant that Steve wasn’t going to try to do this twice. Besides, he’d rather everyone hear the same story. “Just tell everyone.”

“If you change your mind, just tell me to stop.”

“Okay.”

“I sent the information about TAHITI directly to Stark because I needed you to understand how I was still alive. Director Fury tried to hide that he’d used TAHITI on me from me, and I didn’t reveal that I’d figured that out until it became imperative to stop beating around the bush. I knew Fury would not want to reveal my survival, so I took the decision out of his hands.” He shot Fury a look. “Because I made a promise to someone.”

Fury’s eyes narrowed, and he looked like he was figuring something out. “Is this about Sentry?”

“What’s Sentry?” Steve asked.

There was a stare-off between Coulson and Fury.

“Sentry was the codename of a top-secret project of Agent Carter’s,” Natasha offered from where she was leaning against the wall, arms crossed. “No one ever knew what it was. She never shared the details of it with anyone, not that it stopped people from trying to figure it out. Or, rather, figure out who it was. Because we were pretty sure it was a person.”

Coulson turned away from Fury and met Steve’s gaze again. “Peggy Carter had a short list of things she cared about, and she relayed to me once that she’d had to compromise on those things too many times. She’d had to hurt people she cared about to protect SHIELD, to keep it running. SHIELD was her first priority. Save for one thing.” He gestured to Steve. “The debt she felt she owed you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Peggy allocated budget for a project she’d codenamed Sentry. The money went straight to her, and it was never clear what she did with it. But when she first failed her cognitive assessments and was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she knew she’d have to pass on the torch regarding Sentry before she could no longer remember.” He shot Fury a look. “I’m pretty sure Fury tried to ask her about it once the disease began to take its course, but Peggy was so used to not speaking about Sentry that she clammed up the minute it was mentioned.”

Fury just shrugged, looking unapologetic. “I had to try.”

Steve didn’t approve of Fury taking advantage of Peggy’s disease, but this wasn’t the time or place to discuss it. “Who is Sentry?”

“Sentry isn’t a who. It’s an activity. Peggy was standing watch over something important. Something she considered her duty. And she decided that she needed to pass on the torch to someone she trusted, someone who would take up the watch for her.” He shot a glare this time at Fury. “And Nick trying to mess with my memories could have compromised my ability to carry out my duty to Peggy and Steve.”

“You could have just told me,” Fury countered.

Coulson’s glare felt like it could set the room on fire. “It’s the one thing Peggy didn’t trust you with. It didn’t have anything to do with SHIELD, but you couldn’t leave it alone because you need to know everything.”

“I have to do my job.”

“Okay,” Bruce interjected, “the SHIELD soap opera is not why we’re here.”

Coulson looked torn but reached into his pocket and pulled out something small. He passed Steve a wallet-sized photograph. “Do you recognize that woman?”

Steve stared at the photo, the memory easily slotting into place. “She was a nurse at an Army hospital in England. Elizabeth, um…” The last name came to him suddenly. “Rossi.”

“And you two had some sort of intimate relationship?”

“You know that…how?” Steve felt a little like his privacy had been violated.

“Oh, Jesus,” Tony said, dropping his face into his hands, then he looked over at Steve. “Really? You knocked up a nurse?”

“I did not!” He looked up at Coulson. “Did I?”

Coulson just nodded.

Steve felt like he’d been sucker-punched.

“Steve Rogers had a kid out there,” Fury interjected, “and Carter didn’t think SHIELD needed to know?”

“Hey!” Steve jumped to his feet. “You didn’t need to know. It was none of SHIELD’s business.” He shook his head. “Wait. Stop. I’ve got a kid?”

“Had.” Coulson looked sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Steve. Your daughter, Claire, died in a car accident in 1981.”

Steve felt like there wasn’t enough air in the room. “She’s dead.”

“But she had a son,” Coulson hastily added. “That’s who project Sentry has been looking after.”

“Oh.” He sat hard on the couch. “I have a grandson.” He looked back up. “How old?”

“He’ll be forty in June.”

“Oh,” he repeated, unable to come up with anything else. Everyone let him be for a moment, and Steve finally managed to ask, “What’s his name?”

“Anthony. He goes by Tony, actually.”

“Yeah, that’s not gonna work,” Tony said under his breath, and Steve nearly smiled.

“How could she know it was Steve’s kid?” Clint asked.

“Peggy said she verified it as soon as the technology was available to do so, but she never really had any doubt. Also…” He trailed off and pulled out another photo, passing it to Steve. “That’s your daughter, Claire.”

Steve’s throat felt tight. “She looks just like my mother.” And she was already gone. He’d lost her before he ever knew he’d had her.

“Peggy said the same thing about Claire. And even about her son. That the resemblance to your mother’s side of the family was…marked.”

Tony reached out and squeezed his arm, and Steve appreciated the gesture of support. “So what happened to him?” Tony asked.

“Something happened to him?” Steve echoed, feeling panicked.

“Well, there must be a problem, or I don’t think they’d be telling you, Steve.”

“I would actually,” Coulson countered. “I had always planned to tell you. I just didn’t plan to get killed before I’d set up a long-term contingency plan for protecting him.” Coulson took a deep breath. “That said, Stark isn’t wrong in his conclusion even if his reasoning was faulty. He disappeared three days ago. And if I’m right about what’s going on, we’re going to have to pull out all the stops to find him.”

---

Chapter Two

Steve stared out over the Manhattan skyline from Tony’s penthouse, fists clenched, trying to find some calm in the maelstrom of emotions. Right after Coulson’s announcement, Steve had lost it. He hadn’t been like that since he’d lost Bucky. He’d felt completely out of control.

Fury, Natasha, and Clint had been talking over each other, demanding answers—as if they had the right—when Tony had stepped in and taken charge. He started by telling Fury off, made promises to Steve that he would do everything in his power to find Steve’s grandson, and then sent Steve downstairs.

Tony had given Steve access to his home so that Steve could have privacy to come to terms with everything.

“Steve?”

He spun around, so lost in thought that he hadn’t heard Tony arrive. “Any news?”

“Nothing yet. Jarvis is doing some very questionable hacking, Coulson is reviewing security footage and creatively threatening Fury when the Spy-in-Chief tries to take over.” Tony’s expression was hard to read. “How are you?”

“I’m angry.” Startled by the words that had come out of his mouth, he pressed his lips together for a second. “I’d meant to say I’m fine.”

“But you’re not, are you?”

Steve’s jaw clenched. “I don’t even know why I’m angry, but…I’m furious. I believe Coulson when he says he planned to tell me, so no one was deliberately misleading me. But I feel like this rage is consuming me.”

“It’s a lot,” Tony murmured, perching on the arm of the sofa. “You’ve been through so much and lost even more. Anger is part of grief. Finding out you had a daughter you’ll never know…” Tony glanced away. “I’m sorry for your loss, Steve. Truly. I wish there was more I could do.”

Steve had noticed how Tony used humor and sarcasm to deflect anything personal about himself and to keep people at arms’ length. It had created a bad first impression when they’d met, but then Steve saw another side. The side that was determined and brave. And now he saw a compassionate side he wouldn’t have credited Tony with. He felt a stab of guilt at how he kept underestimating his teammate.

“You’re already helping more than you know.” Steve blew out a breath and glanced out the window again. “I feel helpless.”

“Which probably doesn’t help the anger issue.” Tony stepped next to him, about a foot away, joining him in staring at Manhattan. “When you’re ready, we should get back to it. We don’t have answers yet, but there is information to discuss. But it’s up to you if you want Fury and SHIELD involved. If you ask me to, I’ll have security escort the good director and his little minions right out of the building.”

Steve was tempted, but he knew it would only be out of spite. Fury had been less concerned about a man who had apparently been kidnapped than he was about how he’d been left in the dark. It left a bad taste in his mouth and made him question things. “Part of me wants that, but I think we might need SHIELD.” He glanced over. “Don’t you?”

“Maybe,” Tony hedged. He met Steve’s gaze. “How about we keep them in the loop unless it becomes clear that we don’t need their help, and then we can show them the door?”

“Yeah.” He felt himself relax a little, knowing that Tony was going to back him up. “That works.”

Tony tilted his head toward the elevator. “I’m gonna go back downstairs. If you need more time, take it. There’s not enough concrete information yet, so any briefing can wait.”

“I’ll join you. Thank you for the breather, but if I don’t stay engaged, I’ll just stay here getting angrier.” As they stepped in the elevator, he added, “Just, uh, don’t seat me next to Fury.”

Tony huffed a bit, and it sounded like a laugh.

Steve felt himself unwind a little more. “It’s weird that my grandson is older than I am.” This time, he was sure it was a laugh. He smiled faintly as he watched the floor numbers on the elevator change.

He hadn’t thought to question downstairs when Tony mentioned it but, apparently, after he left, they’d moved to Dr. Banner’s lab. Tony said it was because they had the computer equipment they needed there. Steve had never been in Bruce’s lab. It was huge, taking up the entire 75th floor. Computers with holographic displays were running through video footage at a rate Steve couldn’t even track. The technology was so far beyond anything Steve could understand that it was dizzying.

There was a small meeting room surrounded by glass, and that was where everyone was waiting. Coulson and Fury were arguing about something. Natasha and Clint were seated at the table, Natasha poking at a tablet-thing. Bruce was at the far end of the table with three computers, seemingly ignoring everyone else.

Tony pushed open the door, and the tail end of Coulson and Fury’s argument made Steve grind his teeth. They were arguing over who was taking point on the mission. Tony blocked the doorway right in front of Steve and crossed his arms over his chest. “Steve is taking point. It’s his family out there, and he’ll be the one deciding how this goes down. He’s already got carte blanche to decide which of you SHIELDians stays in my building. So stop the dick measuring, and let’s get on with this.”

Fury mirrored Tony’s stance, arms crossed, and glared. “Rogers is emotionally compromised. He can’t take point on rescuing a high-priority asset.”

“Do not ever,” Steve said lowly, “refer to my grandson as an asset. Do I make myself clear, Director?”

Fury tensed. “Except he is an asset. He’s the biological descendant of a super soldier. Something we’ve never seen before. Aside from rescuing him, SHIELD needs to do a threat assessment.”

“That sounds like you mean to study him.” Steve glared, fists clenched.

“Oh boy,” Tony murmured as he stepped out of Steve’s way and gestured grandly toward Fury. “Everything is glass or tile, so if you get blood everywhere, it’ll be easy to clean up. Just give Bruce a heads up so he can shield his computer.”

Bruce huffed a little but didn’t look up or reply.

“I have no plans to engage in a fight with Director Fury, but if he’s not on board with our mission parameters, then I’ll be taking you up on your offer to have him removed from the premises.”

After several tense seconds, Fury unbent a little and made a placating gesture. “We all want the same thing here.”

“I’m not sure we do,” Coulson snapped, surprising Steve. “I don’t know what your agenda is anymore, Nick.”

“I know you’re upset that I ordered—”

“You’re damn right I’m upset! Was it your plan to never tell me? To leave me thinking that I’d miraculously survived being stabbed through the heart?”

Fury shoved his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heel. “No, Phil, I’d have never told you. I’d have hoped that there were no side effects and you never remembered.”

Coulson’s jaw was clenched so tightly that Steve imagined he could hear his teeth grinding. “Because you didn’t want to have to look me in the eye and deal with my anger over you doing something to me that I explicitly said no to.”

Fury nodded. “Yes.”

Coulson turned away and braced his hands on the table. “If I hadn’t put safety precautions in place because of Project Sentry, I’d have never figured out what you’d done. You asshole,” Coulson finished in a whisper. Before anything else could be said, Coulson straightened up and met Steve’s gaze. “I agree that Captain Rogers makes the final call on what we do and when we do it. And if SHIELD tries to do anything to… Well, let’s just call him Sentry, shall we? Two Tonys is a nightmare,” he muttered. “If you violate his consent and body autonomy, Nick, I’ll personally help Steve raze SHIELD to the ground.”

Fury raised his hands in a surrender gesture. “I’m not going to do anything to Captain America’s grandson.”

“Damn right you won’t,” Steve said sternly.

“Did Captain America just use a dirty word?” Tony said sotto voce.

Bruce snorted. “Steve was in the Army, Tony. He’s probably even said ‘fuck.’”

“Ugh.” Tony flopped into the seat next to Bruce and started working on one of the computers. “Leave me my illusions, Brucie.” Before anything else could be said, Tony looked up at Steve. “So… Agent gave me Sentry’s real name so we could do the questionably illegal searching, but he did not give it to SHIELD trio. We can’t keep tap dancing around the guy’s identity if we’re gonna get this done. Make the call, Cap. Are they in or out?”

Natasha and Clint both made assurances that they were just there to help, but Steve had no illusion that they reported to SHIELD first and foremost. Although, both of their body language was closed off toward Fury. Both of them practically leaned toward Coulson. He didn’t understand enough of the interpersonal dynamics to know which way any of that was going to go.

Steve took a moment to consider and then nodded. “I’ll take all the help I can get.” He met Fury’s stare head on. “But don’t put me in a position of choosing between you and my grandson.” His grandson. That was still peculiar but amazing at the same time. Steve had living family. After everything, he still had ties to something, and he was determined to keep it that way.

“Understood.”

He knew enough to understand that Fury didn’t exactly agree, but it was enough for now. “Then let’s get this done.”

Bruce finally looked up from his computer. “Interestingly, Homeland Security had footage of the abduction that was not obtained from traffic cameras or nearby businesses. There were hidden cameras trained on, uh, wait. Are we using the guy’s name, or are we going to keep tapdancing around this?”

“Use his name,” Steve answered because he felt like it was his right to make the call.

“Okay then. There were hidden cameras on DiNozzo’s building entrance, the parking area, side streets. Anywhere he might be outside his apartment building on the way to his car. The cameras are still in place, and the feeds are highly encrypted and go straight to a Homeland Security IP address.”

Steve puzzled that for a second. “Why?” He knew Homeland Security was a fairly new government agency, but he’d yet to delve into the nuance of how they differed from the NSA or any other agency focused on protecting the country.

“That I can’t figure out. They’re monitoring him for some reason, which is weird since he’s one of their agents. Do they not trust him? But Jarvis found several other feeds being piped to the same server that have nothing to do with him. So they’re monitoring more than one person but, again, the why is not clear. It’s easier to get the video from their servers than to figure out who they’re watching and why.”

Fury leaned forward, glaring at Coulson. “DiNozzo? How can that be? We flagged him as a potential recruit in 2003, but Peggy didn’t pass Sentry on to you until 2008.”

Coulson gave a toothy smile. It didn’t seem like a nice smile. “A really bizarre coincidence. Peggy was amused by it.” He looked to Steve. “I tried to recruit DiNozzo to SHIELD while he was still with NCIS—that’s the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.”

“Navy cops,” Tony chimed in.

“Right.” Coulson nodded. “He turned us down, said he had no plans to leave NCIS, but then he did leave in 2005, following his former director to Homeland Security. I tried to recruit him again, but he said no dice and still wouldn’t disclose why he left NCIS. We keep tabs on potential recruits; I have dozens flagged in the system. When Peggy told me who the target of Project Sentry was, I knew pulling him from the system would be suspicious, so I left everything in place. It actually made it easier to keep eyes on him since there was already foundation.” He glanced at Fury. “It made my backup plans, should anything happen to me, easier since anyone nosing about his files wouldn’t arouse much suspicion.”

Fury just sighed. “Fortune favors the levelheaded.” He shook his head in what looked like amusement, or maybe amused exasperation. “What else, Dr. Banner?”

“I don’t know. We have a clear video of the abduction.” He fiddled with the computer then a holographic display sprang to life, showing several videos in different squares in the image. One at the front of a nice apartment building; a couple showed images of the streets around the building; and several more were inside a small parking structure.

A man appeared, exiting the apartment building. Steve sat up straighter. “Is that him?”

Coulson shot him a quick look. “Yes, that’s Anthony DiNozzo.”

Steve was riveted on the videos as the man seemed to move from one frame to the next as he walked to his car. “I see my mom in him,” Steve whispered, throat feeling tight.

“Well,” Tony murmured, sounding thoughtful, “you may see your mom, but he’s got your jaw and chin.”

Steve gripped the arm of his chair and swallowed heavily. The abduction happened near his grandson’s car. It was so quick and efficient that there was no doubt that it was planned. “They were after him specifically. It wasn’t wrong place at the wrong time sort of thing, right?” He looked to Tony.

Tony just shook his head.

Bruce added, “And they knew enough to know exactly how to dose the sedative they used. Putting someone out quickly requires very precise dosing of any sort of sedative. Otherwise, you risk severe respiratory complications. So this wasn’t opportunistic.”

“And we have no idea why?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Coulson offered, drumming his fingers on the table. “At first blush, the obvious answer is that it’s related to his work at Homeland. They had a tactical team on site within thirty minutes, and all of his access was suspended.”

Fury frowned. “What do you know? According to our records, DiNozzo is a standard HSI agent.”

“HSI?” Steve echoed.

“That’s Homeland Security Investigations,” Coulson supplied. “It’s the criminal investigative arm of ICE—Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Except that the whole ICE thing is a cover.” He shot Fury a speculative look before continuing. “DiNozzo runs HELIOS.”

Steve stared as all the SHIELD personnel reacted. Natasha and Clint sat up straighter, looking astonished, and Fury looked, well, furious.

“You’ve known who runs HELIOS? Dammit, Phil!”

Steve was getting frustrated with not understanding what was going on.

Before he could say anything, Tony rapped sharply on the table. “Hey! Save your little family dysfunctional moment and fill in the rest of us so we can focus on the damn problem!” Then he waved them off. “Never mind. I don’t want a spy slant. J, tell me what HELIOS is.”

“Certainly, Sir. HELIOS is an intelligence think tank, for lack of a better term. The project is run under the auspices of Homeland Security. The acronym stands for Homeland’s Extended Leading Intelligence and Oversight Services. They vet high priority intelligence from and for every agency, including some critical allies.”

“I don’t—” Steve cut himself off, tired of saying the phrase I don’t understand. “What’s so different about HELIOS?”

Coulson replied, “Intelligence work is a careful balance of gathering, analyzing, and then taking appropriate action. The first and third parts are, well, they aren’t easy, but we have sound, proven methods. Intelligence analysis, really good analysis, is, unfortunately, more art than science.

“Someone at Homeland got the idea to recruit the true artists, as it were, and put them together to vet, to profile the intelligence data. To help sort the good from the bad. They don’t do much first-line analysis, but they assess almost all high-threat analyses done by other agencies. If someone wants to know if a terrorist threat is real, HELIOS gets the assignment. We even send them our most critical intelligence to review.”

“I needed to know this, Coulson!” Fury thundered.

“No, you didn’t!” Coulson snapped. “I only found out because the only way to take care of my duty to Project Sentry was to get someone close to him. And my contact trusted me enough to explain what the hell DiNozzo did and that Homeland was always watching. Because they can’t afford to let what he knows fall into the wrong hands. You never let anything go, Nick! How do I explain how I know who runs HELIOS? And, also, you actually didn’t need to know. HELIOS responded to every project you sent them. You just wanted to get them onside, at SHIELD. And as much as you might want them, you don’t get all the toys!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Tony got to his feet, making the time-out gesture. “Enough. We all agree that Agent has good reason to be pissed at Fury. Hell, I’m pissed at Fury. And I fully support locking you two together in Hulk’s rumpus room until Agent feels better about Uncle Nicky’s betrayal. But that has to come later.”

“My apologies,” Coulson said, tone flat, but his eyes were sincere as he looked at Steve.

Steve nodded. “So, my grandson is really good at analyzing intelligence, and we think something he knows or is working on is why he was abducted?”

“That’s just it and why I’m so confused,” Coulson replied. “I don’t think his cover was blown. There has been zero chatter about a breach at HELIOS. Also, DiNozzo isn’t ‘good,’ he’s exceptional. He’s like a savant. If most analysts are doing paint by number, he’s Rembrandt. He and his people are the best, but the price for what they do is that they give up most of their privacy. Homeland monitors them constantly.

“They all have iron-clad cover identities. DiNozzo formerly was an exceptional field agent, so his cover is that of a field agent. No one questions it. Also, he comes across like a hyperactive jock most of the time, so no one is looking at him to be the head of the most secret intelligence program in our arsenal.

“Unless there’s a spy in the group, which, again, I’ve heard nothing about. Also, the skills they use to vet intelligence they apply to who they recruit for the program. They’ve never messed up. Never. Believe me, we’ve tried to get someone into HELIOS. It’s the most successful secret project probably in the history of the US intelligence complex. DiNozzo was recruited early on as an analyst and now runs the whole show. Homeland is assuming this has to do with HELIOS, but I don’t think it does.”

Leaning forward, Steve met Coulson’s gaze directly. “Tell me why you don’t think it has to do with his work? Because, based on Fury’s reaction, his work is the likely suspect.”

“It’s a gut feeling. It just doesn’t feel right.” He sighed. “Look, when I tried to recruit Tony, uh, Anthony, to SHIELD back in 2003, we talked about the difficulty in our line of work in sorting fact from fiction. Be it during interrogation or intel or just running down leads. And something he said to me sticks out in my mind. He said, ‘It’s not that complicated, Phil. If it feels wrong, it probably is.’ And I’ve been hearing his voice in my head for the last two days every time I try to figure out if this has to do with HELIOS. It just doesn’t feel right.”

Steve stared at Coulson for a long time, considering what he’d said. Coulson never wavered. Finally, Steve nodded. “Anthony’s employers will have the narrow focus of running down anything related to HELIOS. Our focus should be broader. Let’s look for anything it could be and not try to prove it’s one thing.”

– – – –

Steve paced around in Bruce’s lab, tired of being confined in the small meeting room. Bruce had made it clear what parts weren’t safe to go in and not to “touch anything!” Steve was the least helpful person as they tried to figure out what had happened to Steve’s grandson.

Anthony Dominic DiNozzo. He smiled faintly, liking the sound of the name. Tony had started calling him “Dom” out of self-defense, or so he said. It was kind of catching on in the room. Steve didn’t want to call him “DiNozzo.” It felt too impersonal. This was Steve’s only family. Family that he wasn’t able to help right now because Steve was more of a blunt instrument who couldn’t even properly use a telephone in the modern day.

It was frustrating, but, right now, the burden rested primarily on Tony, Bruce, and Jarvis.

“Steve.”

He stopped his circuit and met Fury’s gaze. Everyone else was still in the room. “Director Fury,” he acknowledged stiffly.

“I wanted to explain, and—” He hesitated, looking frustrated. “And apologize for my reaction in there.”

“I can’t say I wouldn’t mind understanding.”

Fury looked away. “We’ve been plagued for several years now by what I’d call bad intel. I never wanted to rely on outside intelligence resources. SHIELD has always sourced our intel ourselves, and our intel was always better than anyone else’s. And somehow that changed, and I don’t know why. Too many missions where we lost people—good people—pursuing something that wasn’t even there.”

He met Steve’s gaze again. “I finally asked for help. Secretly. And the director of HELIOS has been quietly helping me double-check the riskiest of our intel. Whether it was DiNozzo directly or someone under him doing the work, I don’t actually know. But I was talking to the guy in charge. They use codenames over there. Have a real Greek mythology thing going. DiNozzo went by Hermes. Or Assistant Director Hermes, as the case may be.

“Point being that Hermes weeded out our bad intel. And he was right every damn time. I needed that at SHIELD. More than that, I needed someone with that kind of damn gift to help figure out why. What happened and how did it happen? We needed it so desperately that every asset of Phil’s level had a standing order to recruit anyone from HELIOS if they should ever find out the identity of one of them.

“It’s thrown me that Phil’s been defying that order for four years. I thought I knew him better than that.”

Steve cocked his head, considering, and realizing that Nick Fury’s perspective was pretty skewed. He couldn’t afford to let Nick’s narrow focus affect him. “Peggy helped found SHIELD and had permission for a secret project. She passed that project to Phil Coulson. His duty to Sentry was somewhat in conflict with his duty to SHIELD. But it doesn’t sound like he ever stopped trying to recruit Anthony to SHIELD. So he did what you asked. He just never told you something he wasn’t allowed to tell you.”

“I can’t have people who have priorities that trump their duty to SHIELD.”

Steve frowned at that. “That’s unrealistic, and you know it. Duty is important. Sacred. But you can’t demand that someone’s duty to their employer always supersede everything else. And people who tell you it does are lying to you, and you shouldn’t trust them. It’s that or they have nothing in their life to anchor them, in which case, you run the risk of them finding something they like better than you.”

“And maybe the world doesn’t work like that anymore, Captain Rogers.”

The manipulation was easy to spot, which was a rarity for Steve. Somehow, he was seeing the director more objectively. “I can’t believe that’s changed. The best people I ever worked with all had something to fight for. It doesn’t make sense to ask that the reason they fight be less important than you, Director.”

“SHIELD, not me, Captain.”

Steve smiled faintly. “If it’s about the agency, why are you taking it so personally?”

Fury’s jaw clenched. “I take divided loyalties seriously. And, yes, personally.”

“Everyone’s loyalties are divided—divided amongst the things we care about, the things we think matter. I think the word you’re looking for is ‘conflicting.’”

“And you don’t think Coulson’s loyalties are in conflict?”

“Coulson’s loyalties seem fine to me. Perhaps I’m too straightforward, but it’s your loyalties that seem in conflict. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have violated that man’s body and his wishes.”

Through the glass wall, Steve noticed Tony get to his feet and wave them back in.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Fury said in a low tone as Steve headed back toward the conference room.

Steve paused. “No, I probably wouldn’t. But, then again, I’m getting used to not understanding things these days. The difference is that I don’t want to understand what would drive you to do that to a good man.”

He put Fury’s dilemma out of his mind and strode back in to meet with the others.

Natasha practically had her face up against the holographic display, and the video she was watching was of the van driving away with Anthony. The video was going at a slow speed.

“What’s going on?”

“Something about this guy,” Natasha pointed to the driver, whose profile was barely visible, “is so familiar. I can’t place it. I just need his head turned a few degrees.” She looked at Bruce. “I know the quality of Homeland’s feed is better, but can you get the traffic cameras through all the area we tracked that van? Some other angle on his face might jog my memory.”

“Compiling the traffic camera footage now,” Jarvis replied.

Natasha didn’t reply, so Steve said, “Thank you, Jarvis.”

“My pleasure, Captain.” Barely a few seconds passed before Jarvis said, “I’m streaming the feed to the display now. The green line on the map is the route they traveled out of DC, and the red dots are traffic cameras. Select a red dot to view the feed.”

“Thank you,” Steve replied again when Natasha said nothing and began going through the video.

“Captain, Sir,” Jarvis said again, “I have found an anomalous piece of information that I believe the task force from Homeland Security will have overlooked.”

That got everyone’s attention. “What’s that, J?”

“Director DiNozzo’s NCIS records were accessed three months ago. Specifically, his medical records. The hack was quite good and went undetected by the monitoring protocols, but there is an access entry from an external IP address.”

“And where does the IP address lead?” Tony prompted.

“To a VPN server in Spain. I can obtain nothing beyond that.”

Tony sighed. “Cautious people are a pain in the ass. Okay, why wouldn’t DiNozzo’s records have been sealed? Why is that information even out there?”

“Because it would be suspicious,” Coulson replied absently, rubbing his jaw. “You don’t build a good cover by erasing your past.” Then Coulson’s eyebrows shot up. “Jarvis, did they get all his medical records? DiNozzo was with NCIS for about four years. He left in 2005 after his partner was killed by a terrorist, but I recall that he was frequently injured in the field.”

“No, Agent Coulson, it was the records from 2005 that were accessed. I’ve cross-referenced and found that his records from Walter Reed were viewed as well. Also from 2005.”

“The plague,” Coulson said, rubbing his forehead.

“What plague?” Tony asked, sounding bewildered.

“The plague,” Coulson replied. “The Black Plague. Yersinia pestis. Specifically, pneumonic plague. It was a weaponized strain that was sent to NCIS. DiNozzo was the only one infected.”

“Ugh.” Tony shuddered and reared back a little. “Biological warfare freaks me out.”

“Word,” Bruce said deadpan from his seat.

“Word?” Steve whispered, not getting it. Again.

Bruce leaned forward. “Weaponized how?”

“Antibiotic-resistant,” Coulson replied.

“And he lived?” Bruce asked in astonishment.

“Whoa.” Steve held up a hand. “Lived?”

“Yeah, Steve. The mortality rate of untreated pneumonic plague is almost 100%. Bubonic is about 85%, but I didn’t even know there was a case in the last five decades a pneumonic plague victim surviving without treatment.”

“Well, there’s one,” Coulson said. “And it was never that big of a secret. The infectious disease specialist who follows DiNozzo’s case uses a code name for him in medical journals, but amongst the alphabet soup, many people know DiNozzo was the survivor of that. USAMRIID seized all the samples and supposedly destroyed them.”

“USAMRIID?” Steve queried. Why people kept using acronyms around him, he could not figure out.

“Uh, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases,” Banner supplied.

“So, is it destroyed or not? And who developed it?”

“It’s probably not actually destroyed,” Coulson answered. “It was developed by a pharmaceutical company. They were authorized to do the type of research they were conducting, but that their research was used to attack a federal agency sort of pissed people off.”

“I’ll just bet,” Clint muttered. “So, break this down for me… Is this DiNozzo guy running around with antibodies to an untreatable strain of plague? A sample of which may or may not still exist?”

Bruce’s eyebrows shot up, and even Natasha turned and stared at Clint.

“What? It’s like you think SHIELD keeps me around just because I’m pretty.” He slouched down in his seat.

Bruce snorted. “That’s it exactly. The antibodies part. But DiNozzo is only useful if you’re looking into research on vaccines. And I’ve read about the plague guy in the journals. He’s willingly given his blood samples to the CDC, Walter Reed, and USAMRIID to study. He’s clearly cooperative. No one needs to kidnap him to get his blood.”

“Unless someone is interested in making a form of plague that can get around any vaccine the CDC might be researching,” Nick offered from where he was leaning in the doorway. “Or they already have something developed and need to test it.”

Steve reared back like he’d been slapped. That couldn’t be the reason. He couldn’t accept that. Anthony had been gone for days already. If someone was testing the efficacy of a bioweapon on him, he could already be dead.

“Steve,” Tony said softly, appearing right in front of him, “it’s just a theory.”

He rubbed his forehead. “But it’s the best theory we’ve come up with.”

Coulson shot him a worried look. “I think it’s reasonable to make the connection to the plague incident. The fact that it was specifically his records from 2005 that were accessed and the records at Walter Reed make it highly probable that someone was looking into weaponized strains of the plague. And that would take them right to DiNozzo.”

Steve braced his hands on the table and took a breath. He looked to Coulson again. “He recovered okay? I mean back in 2005?”

Coulson smiled faintly. “Yeah, Steve. He was sick for a long time, but he’s tough as nails. I figure he gets that from you.”

“And that begs the question,” Bruce said, sounding distracted. He was looking at nothing, hands still. “What else did he get from Steve?”

“You mean other than Steve’s authoritative chin and stern jaw?” Tony asked.

Steve huffed and nudged Tony with his elbow.

Bruce seemed far away. Then he focused on Steve again. “Yeah, Tony, besides the rugged features. What did he get from you, Steve? Based on all the birthdates, you were already, well,” he gestured to all of Steve, “like that. Super soldier serum, ‘vita’ rays, the whole deal. You are not your typical human. So what did you pass on to your daughter?”

Coulson shook his head. “Nothing. Peggy monitored Claire closely for any signs that she might be like Steve. There was nothing. She got the flu like everyone else, and she died very quickly in a run-of-the-mill car accident. No evidence of advanced healing or super strength or anything.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean anything.” Bruce got to his feet. “You can inject someone with super-soldier serum, but if you don’t activate it, it does nothing. That serum is running around in Steve’s blood. What did he pass on to his daughter? Can the serum be passed on biologically?”

This time Nick was shaking his head. “Not that anyone has ever noticed. A lot of people have had some form of the serum over the years. And we’ve checked their kids. They have no traits.”

“Traits don’t mean anything,” Bruce countered. “Stop thinking like a spy and think like a scientist. What if whoever did this was, maybe, looking for one thing but found something else? Something they couldn’t explain.”

“If I could interject,” Jarvis said. “There’s nothing in Director DiNozzo’s medical records that would raise any questions of the nature Dr. Banner is suggesting.”

“And has he seen the doctor and given a blood sample any time recently?”

There was a pause before Jarvis replied, “Director DiNozzo had his annual consultation with Dr. Pitt, infectious disease specialist, this past December. Blood samples were taken. According to police records in Bethesda, a phlebotomist who worked at Walter Reed was found dead in his home, shot twice. The case remains unsolved. The homicide took place two days after Director DiNozzo’s appointment at Bethesda.”

“Well.” Tony sat heavily in his chair. “That’s pretty unambiguous. Nice work, J.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

Steve sat, too, feeling overwhelmed. “How do we find him?” He gripped the arm of the chair, trying to steady himself.

“I may have an idea.” Natasha broke in. She’d been standing quietly, arms crossed, listening to everything. She pointed at the paused video over her shoulder. The picture was grainy, but the angle on the driver was somewhat better than the other videos they’d seen. “I do know this guy. If I’m right about who that is, Clint and I crossed paths with him in Budapest, and I caught sight of him in Madripoor. Ostensibly, he’s a mercenary for hire who primarily works for terrorist groups.”

“Ostensibly?” Bruce repeated. “So, what do you actually suspect?”

Natasha exchanged a brief look with Fury, but then turned her attention to Coulson. The two stared at each other for a long time, and Steve was starting to get impatient.

Finally, Coulson gave a sharp nod. “Just tell him.” It was probably telling that Natasha was looking to Coulson for a final decision and not Fury, but Steve wasn’t prepared to worry about the SHIELD dynamics now.

“Steve,” Natasha said slowly, “you have to understand that there hasn’t been a reason to bring up that…” she paused, pursing her lips. “This man, and his associates, are suspected of having ties to Hydra.”

The chair arm cracked, plastic and metal warping and fracturing in Steve’s grip.

---

Chapter Three

Instead of his morning trip to the medical laboratory, Tony was forced into a room that seemed to be an office of some sort. There was a man in a lab coat poring over some papers, seated behind a folding table. There was also a woman tied to a chair in the corner, duct tape over her mouth. She was flanked by two goons, obviously armed.

He thought that was probably a bad sign.

Tony was shoved into a chair opposite the man in the lab coat, and he winced at the way his shoulder was jostled. The pain was less than when it was dislocated yesterday, but the ache was profound. He hadn’t seen Stoick since the incident, but the guy only seemed to appear when Tony was trying to get away. Run-of-the-mill assholes escorted Tony around.

“Do be careful with our guest,” the lab coat dude said without looking up. “We don’t want him damaged prematurely.” He flicked a glance to Tony’s shoulder. “Well, any more than he already has been. You have my apologies for our asset’s lack of restraint. I’ll be sure to take him to task for his failure.”

Tony felt unaccountably concerned about Stoick’s well-being. “Does that kind of failure in logic permeate everything you do?”

The guy arched a brow and set down his pen. “Failure in logic?”

“I dislocated my shoulder trying to get out of your, uh, asset’s grip. Curious how you translate that into a lack of restraint on his part rather than mine. But, hey, you do you.”

He cocked his head. “Are you concerned for the asset?”

Tony laughed. “Well, no, but allow me the luxury of mocking the man who seems to be behind my imprisonment.”

The man smiled thinly. “The time for luxuries is short so, by all means, Mr. DiNozzo, revel in it while you can.”

“That’s not bad. I mean, I’ve heard better bad buy impressions, but not many. Good on you. Also, it’s Agent DiNozzo. Before that, it was Detective DiNozzo, and before that, it was Officer DiNozzo.”

The man’s smile was truly humorless. “Revel in your identity while you can still recall it, Agent.”

“Scary,” Tony deadpanned. “Now that we’ve covered who I am, I don’t suppose you’re feeling in a sharing mood?”

“I’m Dr. Johnson.”

“Johnson? Really? That’s so…normal. Aren’t villain doctors supposed to have last names like Death or Doom?”

“Enjoy the mockery; you won’t be able to for much longer.”

“Well, I feel I’d be remiss in not asking whether you’d truly considered spending your life being called Doc Johnson. But, hey, to each his own. In any case, I was thinking of moving on from mockery to sarcasm.”

“In point of fact, we’ll be moving on to the interrogation. I will ask questions, and you will answer them.” Johnson’s tone was flat and dry as the desert.

“And if I’m not feeling chatty?”

Johnson smiled again and tipped his head toward one of the guys in the corner. A mere second later, there was an awful sound followed by a muffled scream. Tony twisted around to see the woman’s arm sticking out at an unnatural angle, blood dripping off her elbow. The bindings that kept her in the chair were probably the only thing keeping her upright as she attempted to curl over her arm. The guy who had obviously snapped her arm was smirking.

“Why the hell did you do that?” Tony yelled, trying to get to his feet and being summarily shoved back into it. His shoulder lit up in agony from being grabbed, but it was incidental to his reaction to that woman’s arm being snapped so casually and callously.

“It’s an object lesson, Agent DiNozzo,” Johnson replied placidly. “Our experiments have, unfortunately, shown that certain, shall we say, procedures are less likely to succeed if the subject is in poor physical condition. As a result, I cannot afford to torture answers out of you. So if you fail to be forthright or if I find your answers lacking, she’ll receive your punishment. Consider her suffering to be your incentive.”

Tony felt a sick horror nearly choking him. He’d been questioning the whole idea that this was really Hydra, but he now was convinced.

“You don’t have to hurt anyone,” he gritted out. Though he wasn’t sure it was even true. If this was about HELIOS, he’d have no choice but to let that woman be hurt for his non-compliance. But he truly didn’t think this was about terrorist intel. It was something else—something about him personally.

“Pain is a powerful motivator, Asset. But with your history, your decision to serve and protect, someone else’s pain is rather more convincing, don’t you think?”

He wanted to throw up. And that wasn’t even factoring in that Johnson had just called him Asset. “Don’t hurt her. Don’t hurt anyone. Jesus.” He rubbed his hand over his face, trying to collect his thoughts. The stark brutality of that had thrown him. “Just…what do you want to know?”

“We’ll start with some easy questions—ensure that you’re cooperating fully. If you are not, we’ll stop to apply some incentive and then try again.”

Tony just nodded.

“Full name and date of birth.”

– – – –

Tony stared at the ceiling of his cell, trying not to feel anything, trying not to hear the sounds. Trying to forget the smell of someone suffering so much they’d lost control of their bodily functions.

The “interrogation” had lasted three hours. Three hours of questions that were pretty damn easy for them to find the answers to. Like who his parents were and was he adopted. Questions about his recovery from the plague. Most of the questions were innocuous, and he’d had no reason not to answer honestly, so he did. Anything to prevent that woman from being hurt again.

But Johnson frequently didn’t believe Tony’s answers. If Tony answered too quickly, Johnson said he was lying. If he answered too slowly, he was lying by virtue of formulating a response. And sometimes, Johnson never believed Tony no matter how many times Tony repeated his answer.

No, he really wasn’t adopted.

He’d put some pieces together about what was going on and what they were fishing for; he just didn’t understand the picture they made. If he wasn’t so numb, it’d be driving him crazy because Tony wasn’t used to not seeing the picture. It’s what he did. Seeing the solution from a set of random pieces is why Tony had the job he had. And despite the cost of it, it had been the most satisfying work of his life. Tony’s team had helped save thousands of lives. The biggest downside of it was that Tony had become reluctant about letting people get too close to him. His biggest fear was that his cover would be blown and someone he cared about would be used as leverage against him in an attempt to get secrets that could cost thousands, or even millions, of lives.

The idea that he’d have to make a choice to let someone he loved die to protect others had left him cold. It had worried him to such a degree that he’d kept people at a distance. He worked hard to make sure his team wasn’t compromised so that none of them ever had to be in that situation.

But here he was in a situation where someone was tortured so he’d cooperate, and it wasn’t about HELIOS or even anything that mattered.

The worst of it was that they’d killed her anyway. No matter how hard Tony had tried to placate Johnson with answers, when they were finished, one of Johnson’s goons put a bullet in her head.

“Why’d they kill her?”

“She was always going to die.” Stoick had made an appearance after Tony had been taken back to his cell. He just sat in the chair in the corner and said nothing. The mental nickname felt absurd and even inappropriate in the situation, but Tony somehow knew that Stoick used to be Tony. Used to be someone with a family and a life. Someone with a name. Tony couldn’t bring himself to even think of the guy, no matter what he might do to Tony someday, as the asset.

“Why?”

There was no answer.

After a long time, Tony turned his head to meet Stoick’s gaze. The guy’s eyes seemed dead. “Why are you here?”

“To ensure you don’t kill yourself,” was delivered without emotion.

They had him on a suicide watch. Great. He was tempted to ask how much of a problem that was here, but he really didn’t want an answer. “So, you’re just going to watch me sleep?”

“You won’t sleep.”

“No.” Tony stared back at the ceiling. “No, I won’t.”

– – – –

“Good morning, dollface,” one of the friendlier medical staff chirped as Tony was escorted into the lab. She’d always been the most outgoing and forthcoming of the people here, and something about it set Tony’s teeth on edge. “Aw. You look sad. Guess the reality of your situation has sunk in, huh?” This morning, it was just her and the escort. None of the other medical personnel were around.

“Certain things have become clear, yes.” He was hoping he could get some information, and being recalcitrant didn’t seem like the way to handle her.

She winked at him. Winked. It was obscene. “Figured it might. Some of them take forever to figure out what’s going on, but you seem like a sharp little cookie.” She looked to the escort then put her hands on her hips. “Where’s the damn asset?”

Stoick seemed to appear from nowhere. “Here.”

She pointed to the escort and ordered, “Get him in the containment room and on the table. The soldier will supervise. You know how they like to fight.”

Something new. Joy. “Just point me in the right direction, and I’ll save us all some manhandling.”

She grinned brightly. “Well, good for you. I like a man who accepts the inevitable lying down.”

And, really, he’d never wanted to punch a woman so badly in his life.

The four guards and Stoick escorted him further into the lab and into a room with heavy doors and walls with thick windows for viewing. There were radiation warnings on the doors. Tony focused on taking in the details and tried not to think about what any of this meant.

He somehow managed to get on the table without balking. He handed over the sling he’d been using for his shoulder and didn’t fight when they used thick metal restraints to secure him to the table. Metal. Jesus. And it wasn’t five-point restraints, it was more like ten.

Once he was secured, the goon squad left, and the woman entered. She made a dismissive gesture to Stoick. “Go wait in the lab, and don’t wander off. If things go well, we’ll need you to help get him in the chair.” She smiled at Stoick, and it had an edge of sadistic menace. “And then, after it’s recharged, it’s your turn, sweetcheeks. I wouldn’t want you to start showing any personality.”

Stoick didn’t react; he just turned and left.

When they were alone, she turned back to Tony and patted him on the cheek. “Don’t fret. We probably won’t need to put you in the chair as often as that one. He’s so damn stubborn. Our records say they spent years breaking him. The chair works as well as it does because they developed it to get that one under control. You’re lucky.”

“It’s practically my superpower.”

She laughed. “Oh, sweetie, it’s so sad that snarky sense of humor is gonna get erased. I’d have liked to keep you around.”

Wasn’t she just a fucking peach? Tony’s hand curled into a fist. He had so little movement it was absurd. What did they think he was gonna do? “I don’t suppose you want to tell me what’s on the agenda for today…?”

“Sure, why not.” She sat on a rolling stool and moved close to him. “It’s all gonna be over soon anyway. You’ll either be an asset or a failure. If the former, you won’t remember anything, and in the case of the latter, you’ll either die during the procedure or we’ll throw you in the resource pool.”

“Resource pool?”

“Yeah, the failures who aren’t a wreck. If we can’t do anything with them, we always need people to test new weapons on. And there’s always a warm body on hand when we need to torture someone as an incentive to someone else. We prefer to keep the women for that, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

Tony forced his emotions into little boxes to be dealt with some other time. “Aren’t you guys just a bunch of sunshine and rainbows?”

She shook her finger at him in mock chastisement. “Saving the world is a difficult business, young man.” She laughed again. “Besides, it’s fun. But if it’s any consolation, I’m hoping you’ll be a success. You won’t be so sweetly snarky anymore, but, oh…” She sighed dreamily. “This could be the culmination of Dr. Johnson’s work. Finally, he can prove to the Baron that what we do here has merit. You have no idea how many times they’ve thought about shutting us down for lack of results. I would have expected von Strucker to understand that, in science, a negative result is still a result.”

He filed the names away. “It seems like you already know how to do whatever it is that you do. So what are you trying to change?”

She pursed her lips. “It’s true that a super soldier program isn’t exactly novel. Everyone does it, right?”

“Right.” She was out of her fucking mind.

“But no one has ever gotten it to be as good as what Erskine did with Steve Rogers. And it’s not just the serum! Hydra theorized that Erskine’s ‘vita’ rays were really gamma rays, but that was never quite right.” She blew out a breath. “We got close. I mean…” she flapped her hand toward the door. “Barnes is a key example.”

Oh.

The name snapped everything into focus. Jumping Jesus on a cracker. He filed that away for later.

“He’s good, the best we have, unfortunately, because he can be a giant pain in the ass, but Rogers was better. But we can’t think small, you know? We don’t just want to achieve what Erskine did in the ‘40s, we want to do more!

“And then we had this serendipitous moment—everything just came together. Dr. Johnson got some old SHIELD records that were actually financial and inventory information from the SSR. He said he had a breakthrough about the nature of the supposed ‘vita’ rays. We were so close to our next-generation super-soldier program shut down, but he persuaded them to give him one more sip at the well. We knew we had to go all out.

“But then!” She rubbed her hands gleefully. “At the same time, I was doing the daily grind work of our division, which is bioweapons, in case you hadn’t sorted that out.”

“I had,” he said dryly. “No one asks that many questions about the plague without it being relevant.”

She grinned. “See? I knew you were sharp. Anyway, I was trying to find a new angle on our research and looking through what had and had not been successful in the past. And there it was. The greatest failure in the history of biowarfare. The attack happened, but no one died. I mean, how odd is that?”

“Don’t you think you’re mischaracterizing what happened? It was a crazy woman not thinking straight who sent a letter that managed to only infect one person.”

“Meh.” She waved his comment away. “It still meets the bar for a bio attack. And anyway, it got me curious and led us here. Because I dug into it and realized it was a brilliant bit of genetic engineering, and I could definitely do something with it. We have someone inside USAMRIID and the CDC. It was easy enough to confirm that the samples existed and that both were working on a plague vaccine using your very helpful antibodies.

“First step, get your blood. We wouldn’t have even needed you, really. You had a lab appointment already scheduled at Walter Reed. We applied some creative leverage to the phlebotomist. He took more blood than he had to because, yeah, your blood going missing would be weird. We had to kill him, of course, but there wouldn’t be any connection to anything with you.”

“You murdered a guy to get my blood samples?”

“Is that a judgy tone I hear?” she asked, sounding way too cheerful. “Don’t be an asshole, dollface. I’ll make it hurt extra hard when we get you in the chair if you piss me off.”

“My apologies. Do continue. You were up to the point of murdering someone for my blood samples.”

She grinned. That demented grin that made him want to get as far away from her crazy as possible lest he catch something. “I knew you were into the story.”

“How can I not be. I literally am the story. And I do like hearing about myself.”

Her sigh was nearly tragic. “I do like you, so stop being charming. It’s throwing me off my game.” She moved the stool a little closer, braced her elbow on the table near his shoulder, and propped her chin in her hand. “Your blood was a revelation. I’ve never seen Johnson so excited in all the years we’ve worked together. Your doctors had written off the oddities as ‘anomalous proteins, likely related to untreated Yersinia pestis.’ Fools. You may be the only person to survive pneumonic plague without intervention in nearly a century, but there are plenty of survivors of bubonic who didn’t have treatment, and they don’t have ‘anomalous proteins.’ And we were curious, of course.”

“Of course.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you mocking me?”

He really didn’t want to get on the wrong side of whatever the fuck was wrong with her. “No. You’re a scientist. I’m pretty sure curious is a basic requirement for science.”

“Yes! It figures you’re the first person on this table to really ever understand that.” She pouted a little. “It really is sad that we’re going to have to turn you into a mental turnip.”

“And why exactly must you turnip me?”

She shot him a withering look. “Super soldiers are not useful if they don’t obey. Step one is to get you serumed up, step two is erase everything you are, step three is reprogramming. Repeat steps two and three until the desired result is achieved. Of course, it would be easier on everyone if we could reprogram you before changing you physically, but we’ve discovered that only a super-soldier constitution can withstand the chair. The pain drives normal people insane, turns them into drooling idiots, and the serum doesn’t take properly afterward.”

“What a trial,” he says dryly.

“Yeah.” She looks far away. “We just need one to go right, you know? We can justify our continued research into improving the super soldiers if we just have a success. We can do better than the damn Winter Soldier program.” There was a mad sort of conviction in her tone.

“And somehow, you think the key to this success is in my blood.”

She moved closer to his face, and it was less of a strain to see her expression. He managed to rein in a flinch when she reached out and stroked the side of his face. “Oh, Tony, don’t you understand?” Her expression was practically fervid. “Your blood carries super soldier serum. It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Every bit of blood or tissue we looked at is practically wrapped in it.”

“Someone injected me with serum?” How the hell had that happened?

“No…we only see the serum permeate the cells when it’s active and it’s already altered someone physically. If it were just injected, your body would eventually process it out, just like any foreign substance. There might be some traces, but nothing noteworthy. But when the serum is successfully activated, it becomes part of you. Your blood looks like the result of an activated serum but…not. We were perplexed until Dr. Johnson theorized that you inherited it.”

Tony stared. “You think one of my parents was a super soldier? That’s absurd.”

“At first, yes, that was the logical conclusion. But there’s no sign of it in your father, and your mother succumbed to injuries that wouldn’t have harmed a super soldier.”

“How do you know about my father’s blood?”

She finally stopped touching him as she waved her hand dismissively. “We arranged a hospitalization for him and took his blood samples. It certainly would have been easier to just take him, but we didn’t want to draw your attention prematurely. He’s fine.” She actually seemed disappointed that the body count leading to Tony’s abduction wasn’t higher.

“If you have my father’s blood, then why all the questions about adoption? Shouldn’t you have been able to confirm my father is my father?”

“Well, yes, but that would have told us nothing about your mother, and we can’t get a blood sample from her. But Anthony DiNozzo isn’t your biological father, so it stands to reason that you’re likely adopted.”

“What?” he asked weakly.

She waved her hand. “Irrelevant detail. You did manage to convince Johnson that you don’t know that you’re adopted, but that must be it. Considering he didn’t get the answer from you, our working theory is that one of our assets slipped their leash enough back in ’72 to get someone pregnant. We’re running a DNA analysis against all of our assets, but the results aren’t back yet. That’s more useful for determining who needs some reprogramming time. Doesn’t have any bearing on your situation.”

It was an effort not to react. God, what if Barnes was Tony’s father? And he was pretty damned sure that Stoick was James “Bucky” Barnes. That’s why he looked familiar. Tony had seen pictures of him in history books in fucking grade school. He focused on the most irrelevant part of what she’d said just to keep her talking and give him time to compartmentalize.

“You need to reprogram someone for something they did forty years ago?”

She shot him a hard look. “Hydra does not forgive lapses. Regardless of how far in the past they were.”

“So, it’s more punishment than reprogramming.”

“Tomato, tomahto.”

“Right. Those are the same.” This lady was a sadistic psychopath. “I take it the grand plan is to activate this serum?” He wasn’t sure if he hoped they’d succeed or not. Failure seemed to mean pain and death. Success would be losing all sense of himself. To become an asset.

“Oh, we’re not just gonna activate it, babycakes. We’re going to enhance the serum with our latest research and Johnson’s latest alteration to the gamma rays.” At something she saw in his expression, she patted his cheek. “Don’t worry. We’ve tested the new activation protocol.” Her jaw clenches. “Even though it’s more successful, it wasn’t enough to keep us going. Oversight said it was ‘too expensive for incremental improvement.’ Assholes.”

She went back to the creepy cheek stroking. “But we’re pulling out all the stops. You’re going to be a masterpiece.”

“Indeed,” Johnson said as he moved into the room. Tony couldn’t quite see him yet, but the crazy lady spun around with a smile on her face that was dripping a sick kind of devotion.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Are we ready to proceed?”

“I just need to attach the last restraint.”

“I’ll handle that. Go prepare to initiate the system.”

“Yes, sir.” She spun around on the stool and nearly sprinted for the door.

Johnson moved to the top of the table and secured a heavy metal restraint across Tony’s forehead. “We used to have this final restraint across the throat, but the pain of the procedure is quite intense. We lost a few to self-strangulation, and we can’t have that.”

“Right. I can tell how tragic you find that.”

“Do you ever stop?” Johnson’s head was cocked to the side as if he were really asking.

“What would you consider an appropriate reaction in these circumstances? Because I’m legitimately curious.”

“Fear, Agent DiNozzo, fear.”

“How about I get right on that.”

“This is going to hurt like nothing you’ve experienced. Fear won’t be hard to find.” Then a needle was rammed into his arm. “All of my best enhancements to the serum. I need you to survive this, Agent. Please don’t disappoint me.”

“Making you happy isn’t high on my priority list. Just so you know.”

Johnson’s smile was definitely in smirk territory.

The door clanged shut.

– – – –

Tony stared at the ceiling, bored out of his mind. The ceiling was the only thing he could look at because his head was still in restraints. There’d been some clanging sounds for a bit, and Tony’s skin had prickled. Then it was like the room was vibrating. Then nothing.

Finally, he broke. “Okay, I can’t stand the boredom. If you’re going to do something awful to me, can we just get on with it? It feels like it’s been hours, and all I can think about is that I wish you’d taped a Far Side on the ceiling so I’d have something to do! Eventually, I’m gonna have to pee, and then we’ll all be sorry.”

The door slammed open, and Johnson came into view with psycho girl hovering behind him. “What the hell happened? I told you to make sure everything was working!”

She was wringing her hands. “I don’t understand what happened. Everything says the gamma radiation was released.”

Johnson looked like he was ready to murder someone. “You used too much vibranium mesh, you incompetent twit! Too much will absorb the radiation instead filter it. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get enough vibranium for these experiments? Get blood samples, then send him back to his cell. Reset everything and then make sure your failure didn’t damage my new asset. I’ll handle the vibranium myself in the morning.”

“Tomorrow?” Her tone was plaintive.

“Yes, you fool! Balancing the new serum research against his biology requires very careful work. I need time to make another dose. And I need to prepare to report this failure to von Strucker.”

“Sir—”

“Don’t argue with me, Sheely. Fix it!”

Johnson stormed out.

Crazy lady took a few deep breaths then let out a little scream. She kicked the table. “Dammit!” She turned to look at him. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to remake you today. I promise we’ll get it right tomorrow.” As if he were disappointed.

She took a blood sample quickly then summoned his usual guards and Barnes. To the latter, she said, “He doesn’t really seem the suicidal type, but check on him at least every hour tonight. Metabolizing that serum is hard on the body, so he should sleep. Any changes in his behavior should be reported immediately.”

Barnes nodded, and the guards took off the restraints. Tony was really glad to get some damn movement back.

The routine of him being escorted back to his cell was jarring for it being so normal. The guards left one by one until Barnes was the only one remaining, standing in the doorway, arms crossed. Tony was unaccountably tired, and he really didn’t want to think about everything he’d learned today.

“Are you James Barnes?” He wanted to verify his conclusion that, somehow, this man who looked younger than Tony was the supposedly long-dead member of the Howling Commandos.

There was a faint twitch of his eye, but all he said was, “Sleep.”

Tony’s gut said the guy who called himself “Soldier” was indeed Bucky Barnes. And there was a chance the guy was Tony’s father. Great.

He was unaccountably tired, so he just collapsed on the cot, not even bothering with the sling, and went to sleep.

– – – –

Tony woke abruptly, wide awake, senses sharp. He could hear his own heartbeat, felt the most minute vibrations coming through the floor and walls.

He sat up slowly, immediately noticing that there was no pain in his arm and none of his other bruises bothered him.

Something was very different.

He opened and closed his fists, feeling an odd humming under his skin. He gripped the edge of the cot frame, which was solid steel bars, and the whole thing was bolted to the floor. The metal flexed and buckled under his grip.

Well.

Time to go.

– – – –

Picking himself up off the floor, Tony stared at the utter carnage around him. There was a crater in the floor and unconscious—or maybe dead—bodies all around him.

The last thing he clearly remembered was breaking through his cell wall and then engaging in a fight with his guards. Barnes had quickly shown up, and the fight had seemed to go against Tony. Then he’d felt that humming get more intense. Then…nothing.

Barnes was one of the bodies. An alarm started to blare, and Tony had a fraction of a second to make a decision.

Knowing he was being an utter idiot, he grabbed Barnes and flung him over his shoulder. Distantly, he was astonished at how it was like the guy weighed nothing.

He met some resistance getting out of the detention area, but every time he punched someone, they just crumpled like a marionette with their strings cut. Once out of the detention block, there was remarkably little security.

He made it up to the ground level and found a bunch of assembly-line machinery of some sort. Their supervillain science lab was underneath some old factory. There were some metal pipes and rods, all covered in dust, leaning against a wall. He took a few precious seconds to bend the bars around Barnes, not sure it would be enough to hold him, but it was all he had. The guy was out cold, with significant bruising forming on his face. It also looked like there were some burns on his arm, chest, and the side of his neck. But he was definitely alive.

There were few cars in the parking lot, and he had to deal with a couple of security guards. He had to drop Barnes for the fight and to hotwire a car. Then he shoved him in the trunk. He grabbed wallets from both unconscious guards and the jacket from the one closest to his size.

He forced himself to drive calmly, trying to get his bearings and figure out where he was. He made lots of turns, navigating the streets from an industrial to a commercial area. When he’d gone about fifteen minutes and was sure there was no one on his tail, he took the risk of stopping at a convenience store. He parked in the far corner, knowing that Barnes might wake up and make noise. There was no one else in the lot, but better safe than sorry.

He hoped the jacket over the weird pajama things he was wearing would make the outfit pass for scrubs.

A stack of newspapers by the door revealed he was in Hartford, Connecticut. He scrubbed his hands over his face. Well, it could have been worse.

He grabbed a cheap burner phone and some water. There was a single map of Hartford next to the state map of Connecticut. He grabbed both.

He smiled at the bored-looking clerk and paid for everything in cash.

Back in the car, he took a moment to get his bearings on the map and get the phone charging. It was a risk not to switch cars, but the older model sedan he’d chosen was unlikely to be LoJacked, and there hadn’t been any opportune cars for him to switch to.

Not wanting to stay still, he headed for the nearest freeway. He needed some distance between him and Hydra before he tried to get help. For all he knew, there was a tracking device in Barnes’ damn arm.

He sighed, frustrated with himself. Taking Barnes was stupid. For so many reasons. Not the least of which was if he were on his own, he could go to ground until he could figure shit out, but with Barnes on board, he had to find some help. Fast. He couldn’t just keep a super soldier prisoner with nothing but a trunk and some steel bars. The surrealness of him being able to bend steel was rattling around in the back of his brain, but he couldn’t deal with it right now.

The real problem was, he had no idea who to call. The whole existence of Hydra made some things clear with regard to the problems he’d seen at SHIELD, so calling them was out. Hydra was a little beyond Homeland’s purview, and he really didn’t want to put himself in the hands of the US government until he knew what had been done to him. He thought he could probably call Tom Morrow, on a personal level, but he wasn’t sure what the hell Morrow could even do to help Tony.

Frustration, anger, and helplessness were starting to overwhelm him. He needed a few minutes to think, to vent. But he didn’t have a few minutes, dammit!

He felt that odd humming in his skin, particularly in his hands. The water bottle he was holding suddenly exploded.

“Shit!”

He wrestled the car back into its lane and focused on breathing, feeling the humming fade.

What the fuck had they done to him?

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Main Page | Chapters 4-6

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