Steve wanted to be back at the basement, staring at the television, watching Bucky die. But Daisy had said that torturing himself like that wouldn't have been productive and it was important to give him an alibi. So instead, he was sitting in a totally different basement and having automated turrets pointed at him.
"Do not move," the machine voice said, in a tone perfectly calm and softly masculine. "Mr. Stark will be here momentarily. I repeat, do not move."
Weren't AIs illegal? Steve wondered idly as he waited for Tony Stark to come down the steps. The basement had a bunch of nice cars and an array of Iron Man suits, all silent, with a variety of paints. Soon enough, Tony was walking down the steps behind a glass wall, stepping into the open.
"Ballsy," he said, holding a drink as he pushed the door open. "Stupid, but ballsy." Tony gave Steve a once over as he took him in, no doubt noting the total body coverage Steve was wearing from baclava to socks. "You can't steal them, by the way, they're registered to me, Rhodey, and Pepper if she ever wants to use one."
"Noted," Steve said, his hands still in the air. "But I'm not here for the suits."
"Oh?" Tony said, putting the drink down on a desk and walking over to the Iron Man suits, putting his hand on one's chest and opening it, "What are you here for?"
"I wanted to give you something," Steve said, hoping it didn't come to activating the quantum tunneler rapid-fire in this instance.
"Ah, that's nice Santa Claus," Tony said, getting into the suit. "Very toned, though, getting into summer shape, I suppose?"
"The gift is in my left pocket," Steve said, motioning with his hand, "Can I give it to you?"
Iron Man stepped off the platform and walked over, "I've got it," Tony said through the metal mask. Was it being output by a voice machine? There wasn't an echo like Steve would've expected.
Tony slid a metal hand into the pocket and took out a flash drive, "Ooh," Tony said, holding it out in front of him. "I should warn you if there's some kind of virus in this thing it won't work, the drive is too small."
"Not a virus, just some information," Steve said as Tony reached up and tore the mask off his head. That had been anticipated, it had been part of the plan to put Steve somewhere that he couldn't be framed.
"Wow," Tony said. "Ballsy but stupid really was on the nose wasn't it?"
"Mr. Stark, look at the flash drive."
"Should I report him to the authorities?" the AI asked Tony.
"Hold off on that Jarvis," Tony said, walking over to the desk where his computer was and sticking in the flashdrive, "let's see what the golden boy has given us. Pull it up on the projector."
A set of documents appeared in the middle of the room, floating in the air. Steve was still not used to the wild tech that people had at this level, he'd never used a hologram projector himself. But as he looked closer, he could see all the notes, all the information Ward had accumulated on Garret, all the facts he knew because he'd shepherded all the crimes himself, were up on the screen.
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Tony walked into the middle of the documents and began to flick through them, grabbing a sheet in midair and then flicking it out to an extra-large size where Steve could read it even from a distance, "Names, bank accounts, payments. Interesting," Tony said.
"Most of these bank accounts are defunct, Mr. Stark," Jarvis said, spinning the documents in the air around Tony. "All of them are here alleged to have payed out substantial sums to the current Director of SWORD, John Garret. The names cover a variety of forensic accountants, some with black market connections."
Tony turned to Steve, "So you bring me a bunch of outdated information about, what, maybe bribery?"
"We can't track it down," Steve said, "and if we released it, it wouldn't be viewed as reliable. But you can look into it."
"Why would I do that? Your best friend is being executed right now for murdering my family," Tony pointed out, taking a drink. "Who gives a shit if Garret is on the take?"
"Look," Steve said, shaking his head, "What the Winter Soldier did is wrong," he couldn't bring himself to attribute it to Bucky, "but I wasn't involved in it it. Your father was one of the founding member of SHIELD, he worked with Peggy for decades why would she have him killed? And Daisy is the person who brought SHIELD down, it doesn't make sense, the story Trent is telling doesn't add up. I think you know that."
Tony looked over at Steve, flicking up the face guard of the Iron Man suit, "You know," he said, looking at him. "My dad talked about you all the time. He worshipped the ground you walked on."
Steve felt his face heating up. Howard had been a friend, a good friend. There hadn't been that sort of reverence when they'd known each other, but that had been before he had joined the ranks of the sainted dead. "He was a good man. I'm sorry for what happened to him."
"Yeah," Tony said, walking around the documents in the middle of the room, flicking and reading them. "Alright, well, I'll take a look at these. Why don't you click that tunneler get out of jail free card you think I don't know about before I arrest you myself."
Steve smirked at that. Starks. Always too clever. "He'd be proud of you," Steve said.
"I kind of doubt it," Tony said, taking a sip of his drink. "He was a hardass, my dad. Now, like I said, get out of here."
Steve flicked the trigger in his shoe and the nanomachines swarmed over him before he vanished into the Quantum tunnel.