Chapter Text
Tony fidgeted where he sat, wide eyes turning on Steve. "The young heir to the Stark fortune - but is he really?" Steve stood and paced his way back and forth across the room. "Despite the flashy parties and the showy expenses, most of Stark's money is tied up in the company. And the company was tied up in Mr. Stane.
"Mr. Stane's interest in Stark Industries made it almost impossible for Mr. Stark to accomplish the things he had planned. He was a road block at every turn, constantly redirecting the company back to the weapons its initial success had been built on. Multiple witnesses said that Tony and Stane fought regularly and always about the same things: the company and money. In fact, the two of you had a fight last night, didn't you?"
Tony's expression didn't shift, held cool and impassive. "Yes, we did."
"Your guests all said that wasn't unusual for you. No one can account for your whereabouts when Stane was shot. Stane had a gun in his desk, but that wasn't the gun used to kill him, which suggests premeditation. Perhaps, it had all just become too much. You fought. Stane still refused to see things your way. The arrival of Mr. Barnes interrupted your argument, but even after bringing your unexpected guest to his room, you were still angry, fuming. You knew about the gun in Stane's desk, but how to get to it without him realizing what you were doing, calling out? No, you needed a gun in hand when you walked in.
"So you went down the hall to Lord Barton's room. Perhaps you'd seen a gun there earlier or perhaps you checked everyone's room until you found one. Either way, you hid the gun on your person and snuck back down the stairs. You waited until the butler delivered Stane's nightcap and returned to the servant's quarters and Laufeyson had been in and out. Then you walked in, shot Stane before he had a chance to cry out, threw the gun in the dumbwaiter and immediately returned to the party. You made a joke about the noise, knowing everyone would attribute it to the weather or another backfire. People are a lot less jumpy about the second time they hear an odd noise - it's just background at that point."
Tony opened and closed his eyes, panic starting to leech in past his cool exterior.
"Is that what happened?" Steve asked.
Tony shook his head. "No. That's not it at all. Obie and I had always fought but he was family to me. I never would have hurt him!"
Steve tapped his fingers on the edge of a table then made a fist and rapped sharply. "I know."
"What?"
"I know you wouldn't hurt him. Even if he hurt you. That's not who you are. But most importantly, if you did kill Stane, it wouldn't have been like that. Everyone I spoke to agreed on two things: you and Stane had a difficult relationship, and you'd do anything to protect your friends. Killing Stane at the party would put everyone you loved in danger. No… if you killed Stane, it'd be when no one but you could be suspected. You're a genius, Mr. Stark, but even if the cover of the party was your safest choice, it's not a choice you would have made. You as the killer also doesn't explain all the facts. And besides, there's a witness that can attest that you weren't in the room at the time of the murder."
"There is?"
"There is. Two witnesses, in fact."
Steve waited, eyes fixed on Tony until there was a soft clearing of a throat from the other side of the room. He smiled.
"I saw him," Rhodey said. "We saw him. Pepper and I weren't outside for a walk. That's why there were no footprints. We were upstairs, and we saw him from the landing. We were waiting for him to move so we could come downstairs."
Steve turned to him and nodded. "Ah, yes. Because you hadn't yet told Mr. Stark about your engagement, had you? You didn't go for a walk which is why there were no footprints from either of you in the soft ground. You used the distraction to sneak upstairs and spend some quality time alone together. Miss Potts left her shawl in your room and when you returned downstairs, you realized it was missing. You planned to return it to her after bedtime, but when Obie was killed, you realized your whole story would be called into question if it suddenly changed and the shawl was found in your room.
"You snuck upstairs to hide the shawl and that's why Romanov and I caught you on the stairs. You heard us coming before you could put it in Miss Potts' room so you shoved it down the dumbwaiter." He paused for a moment as everyone stared at Rhodes, wide-eyed. "That alone, comes close to exonerating you - who would be careless enough to shove their lover's shawl down the same dumbwaiter where the gun was hidden? Especially when there are four such dumbwaiters to choose from, one of which goes to the laundry, I'll add. No, you panicked and you put it there, having no idea it was about to become tangled up in the murder weapon. I'm sure if I stood here today and accused Miss Potts, you would hurry to correct me."
"Absolutely."
"But, on the other hand, if it hadn't come up…"
Rhodes acknowledged that with a rueful tilt of his head. "I had no desire to expose our relationship in this way." He turned to Tony. "I'm sorry, Tones. We wanted to tell you but…"
Tony shook his head. "It's fine. I'm happy for you two. It's a good thing." He reached over and squeezed Miss Potts' hand. Her eyes welled with tears.
"So Colonel Rhodes places Mr. Stark in the front hall at the time of the shot, while he and Miss Potts were both upstairs. It would take a complicated web of lies and leave several unanswered questions if Mr. Stark were to blame, and not necessary, I think, when there's a simpler answer." Tony tilted his head in curiosity, but Steve turned away, taking in the whole motley crew. "No, it wasn't Mr. Stark that killed his uncle."
Tony looked around at the gathered group. "But… that's everyone. If we're all innocent -" he glanced at Loki "- of the murder, anyway, then who could it possibly be?"
Steve leaned back against the table and steepled his fingers in front of him. Then he shrugged. "Perhaps Mr. Stane killed himself, overcome by guilt at his shady business practices." Tony and Pepper both opened their mouths to protest and Steve raised a finger, silencing them. “Then again, perhaps the butler did it.”
As one, they all turned to look at Mr. Jarvis.
He was standing at the back of the room by the door, hands folded carefully in front of him. He met Steve's eyes and there was a sadness there ringed by a fierce determination that Steve had only seen flashes of over the past two days.
"No!" Tony said. "You're grasping at loose straws, Detective Rogers. Why, Jarvis has been in the family for years! He wouldn't hurt a fly. He loved Obie."
"There's only one sequence of events that explains everything," Steve said. "And it begins and ends with Mr. Jarvis." Steve looked at the butler who gave him a small nod, encouraging him to go on. "Mr. Jarvis knew about Stane's double dealing, but more importantly, he knew about Stane's plot to have Tony Stark killed. He was the one who took the phone call that night - the call that pulled Stane away from dinner. He'd had his suspicions, I imagine, of the double dealing - perhaps he saw the same evidence Laufeyson had - and so he listened in after Stane retired to his study. He heard much that concerned him, and on the notepad by the hallway phone, he wrote down two words of import: Raza and Gulmira.
"Jarvis loved Tony as dearly as his own child and vowed to prevent Stane from ever being able to hurt him. Permanently. Only Jarvis can say for sure, but I imagine he'd been looking for the right opportunity to do what needed to be done for a while now. Finding out about the kidnapping plot meant his timeline was limited. Stane was about to transfer the money to finalize the hit, I'm sure, which would mean it would take place even after his own death. When Mr. Jarvis found the gun in Lord Barton's luggage, he stole it, along with a bag of ammunition, hoping that at some point over the weekend, he'd find his opportunity.
"And find it, he did. Jarvis' primary goal was to protect Tony from suspicion. As the victim of Stane's plot, Tony was of course, the obvious suspect. But Jarvis also wanted to protect himself, as much as was possible, without pinning the blame on any one other person. So he needed to manufacture a crime where everyone was a suspect and no one was. I think, had he known just how much deception and trickery was at play in this house, he might have done things differently."
Jarvis smiled ruefully.
"On the night of the murder, everyone was playing cards in the sitting room when Mr. Stark decided to go speak to Obediah Stane. They fought, which everyone heard clearly, and Mr. Stark left the room, annoyed. In the hall, he ran into Laura, the housemaid, and they spoke briefly. While they were together, Jarvis - who no one had noticed leaving the sitting room - slipped into the sitting room and shot Stane."
The room broke into confused chatter, and Steve held out a hand to quiet them.
"The backfire everyone heard wasn't a backfire at all. It was Stane being shot. A moment before, Jarvis had seen the motorbike stop at the end of the drive and Mr. Barnes start his way up towards the house." Steve turned to Bucky. "Mr. Barnes, did your bike backfire loudly when it failed?"
Bucky tilted his head to the side. "Well. Not really, I wouldn't say so. It kind of puttered out. There was a bang, but likely not loud enough to be heard at the house over the wind, I suppose, not from the end of the drive, at least."
"Jarvis was counting on that. There was a loud bang and then a moment later a knock comes and a man in bike leathers says his bike has failed. Of course, everyone assumes it's the explanation they were looking for. By then, Jarvis had put the gun in the dumbwaiter, locked the study behind him, and made his way to the front hall. He asked Tony and Laura if they knew what the noise had been, gesturing towards the front window as if, to him, it had come from that direction. Tony looked in on the sitting room, asking if anyone else knew what it was, but when Barnes arrived, the question was marked as answered: a backfire."
"Then what was the second noise?" Hill asked.
Steve took a deep breath and continued, "Mr. Jarvis was faced with a problem at this point. Stane was dead, but Tony was the last person to see him alive, and only Laura could attest that he hadn't been in the room when the shot was fired. Additionally, Jarvis had no alibi for himself. In order to protect Tony and himself, he needed to find a way to change the time of the murder. So that's what he did. He waited until Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes went out to the garden, Tony went upstairs with Barnes, and Thor, Jane, and Lord - er - Mr. Barton went back to the sitting room. Then he took a tray into Stane's room and asked him loudly if there was anything else he needed. That meant Stane was still alive when he received his nightcap. Jarvis even drank a little from the glass so it would look like Stane had started drinking when someone else had come in and shot him. Jarvis waited, watching, until Tony came back downstairs, headed for the sitting room.
"Jarvis decided that It was the perfect time to create the killing shot. Tony would be safe in the sitting room with three eyewitnesses - Barton, Thor, and Jane. Rhodes and Miss Potts had gone outside via the French doors and wouldn't have been able to go around the house, back through the front door, and to the study without being spotted, Barnes was upstairs with Laura, cleaning up. Everyone was safe.
"He slipped down to his quarters, making sure to be seen by the entire kitchen crew. There was no way he could make it back up to the study without passing the kitchen again. He opened the dumbwaiter and pulled it down to his room where he collected the gun. He pulled the dumbwaiter back up, just high enough to get his arm under it, then closed the door around his arm, with the gun inside. He fired straight down. The noise echoed up the dumbwaiter shaft to the hall by the study and everyone heard it clearly. At this point, however, everyone was jaded to the loud noises. Since the last one had been innocent, everyone easily laughed it off at the time being.
"In order to cover up the idea of the second shot, Jarvis opened the gun and replaced one of the spent bullets with a fresh one. He made one mistake, though. The packet of ammunition he took from Barton's case wasn't live rounds, but blanks, used in his circus tricks. Jarvis didn't notice the difference, only looking at the rounds from the back, but at the front, the pinched nose of the blank is rather obvious. He put the gun back in the dumbwaiter, thinking everything had gone off without a hitch.
"However, when Jarvis went back out, visibly passing the kitchen and even commenting on the loud bang to them, he realized nothing had gone to plan. No one was where they should have been. Tony hadn't gone into the sitting room, hanging around in the hallway - which we now know was because he was in the closet rifling through Barnes' jacket. Rhodes and Pepper came back into the sitting room from the north door, which meant they hadn't gone outside through the French doors, but rather through the front door, which meant no one had seen them leave. Which, it turns out, they didn't. And - uh - Jane Foster, as she was, had gone to the telephone to call into her home office.
"Even Mr. Barton wasn't where he should have been, having snuck upstairs to make time with the housemaid. It meant the entire house party had no alibi. The only person who had multiple people who could vouch for his whereabouts at the time of the shot was Jarvis, himself. Thor, or rather Loki, only had Agent Hill and vice versa, same for Potts and Rhodes. Barnes and Laura could speak for each other, and apparently no one had seen Tony at all.
"Or that was what Jarvis thought. Tony did have an eyewitness, though, two of them. Because Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes were at the top of the stairs looking down, waiting for their opportunity to sneak back down and pretend they'd been in the garden. And they saw Tony go into the closet for a moment, come out, and lean against the wall until the shot went off.
"They couldn't admit to that without admitting they had been in Rhodes' room instead of in the garden, however. And they each chose to act in such a way as to bring suspicion on themselves. Miss Potts found the note by the phone when she went to powder her nose during dinner - Raza, Gulmira . Rhodes knew what it meant and told her. Fearing it implicated Tony after the murder was discovered, she burned it in the fire in her room. And when we showed up and Colonel Rhodes panicked about the shawl being found in his room, he dropped it down the dumbwaiter. It fell down the shaft and landed on top of the car. When Jarvis later wheeled the dumbwaiter back up to the study so the gun could be found, the shawl got caught and was dragged along as the car went up. Upon examination, it looked as if the shawl had been used to wipe the gun down, perhaps even used to silence the shot itself, and was then stuffed up between the dumbwaiter car and the shaft to hide it.
"In a bizarre twist, Loki Laufeyson was the best alibi Jarvis had. He visited Stane's study after the first shot, something that wasn't supposed to happen and wasn't recorded in Stane's diary. He found the study locked, but that didn't stop someone like Laufeyson. Perhaps he intended to have it out with Stane and demand another payment for his silence. They'd agreed to meet late, after eleven - the L.L. in his diary - but Laufeyson preferred to challenge him with the guests awake, put more pressure on Stane to cave to his demands and prevent them being found out.
"But when he made his way inside, he found Mr. Stane dead - shot. Knowing that he would no doubt be a suspect, Laufeyson relieved the safe of its contents, and slipped back out again. But first, he added a new name to Stane's diary - Thor. That way no one would find it unusual that he had gone to speak to him so early on the day, and the initials L.L. would point to someone else.
"Mr. Jarvis couldn't have predicted Rhodes hiding the shawl, Miss Potts burning the note, or Tony going to the closet instead of to the sitting room. He didn't imagine Barton falling for the maid, Thor Odinson being a wanted criminal and Miss Foster being an Agent of the CIA, or Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes going upstairs instead of to the garden." Steve nodded to him. "I believe you really tried your best to make this a murder with no suspects, but unfortunately fate was not on your side, and so you have been found out."
Everyone stared wide-eyed at Steve. "My goodness," Miss Potts said weakly.
"I wasn't completely sure until I found this." Steve pulled the little bag with the bullet out of his pocket. "I was embedded in the cellar floor, at the bottom of the dumbwaiter shaft. It made no sense to take the bullet out of Stane's body and drop it down the shaft, nor did it make any sense to fire down the dumbwaiter - unless, someone were trying to change the time of the murder."
Tony's eyes were wet and wide. "Jarvis… is it true?"
The old butler nodded slowly. "I'm afraid so, Mr. Stark. I heard on the call that he was going to wire the money to order the hit the next morning. Once the money was paid, even Stane's death wouldn't stop the attack and I didn't believe I could prevent you from travelling. And I'll admit, I was very angry. I had trusted this man, as had you, and nearly everything he had done would cause you pain.
"I have been protecting you since you were a babe in arms, Master Tony." Jarvis' voice drifted softly into the past. "I couldn't let this happen, sir. I just couldn't. It's as he says, exactly. There was no way I could prove to the police the harm he intended before it was too late, but I could make him pay for it. And protect you at the same time."
Tony covered his mouth with his hand. "Oh, Jarvis…"
Natasha walked over to Jarvis who presented his hands to be bound with the cuffs. She led him out of the room. Shocked, the rest of the gathering shuffled out with him, Hill marching Laufeyson out to a car that had appeared out front for her.
Tony caught Steve by the door. "I can't believe it."
Steve nodded. "And yet, it is true. I'm sorry, Tony."
Tony sniffed sharply. "That's alright. It's rather fanciful isn't it? Shouldn't be hard for a team of very expensive lawyers to sow doubt in the minds of the jury, eh?"
Steve raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"Yes. I wouldn't be surprised if a few months from now there was a rather well cared for older gentleman called "Parvis" taking residence in one of my beach houses in the Caribbean…" He turned a cheeky smile up to Steve, looking through his thick, dark eyelashes.
Steve couldn't help but smile too. "You know? I imagine that may be a fitting end, after all. Even I find the tale rather bizarre. Conviction seems unlikely, I agree. It is not as if I have any real proof, after all, merely a hunch. Him loving you dearly, after all, isn't a strong case for the prosecution, is it?"
Tony shook his head.
"I am sorry, nonetheless. I'm sorry for your loss, of both of them."
"Well…" Tony sighed softly. "I suppose the one wasn't really much of a loss at all, was it, sir? And for the other, I believe I can save him."
"I hope you're right. This time… I hope you're right." Steve reached to shake Tony's hand but he caught Steve's wrist instead, shifting closer.
"You know, I'd better thank you properly. I was definitely going to go down for this. Even I was beginning to wonder if I might have done it, and my defense is quite a bit weaker. You saved my life." Tony leaned forward, one hand braced on Steve's chest, and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. "Is there anything I can do to repay you?"
Steve's hand came up unbidden and covered the spot Tony had kissed. Tony was still so close, his weight a warm pressure against Steve. "How about… dinner?" Steve asked. "Once Jarvis is safe. If you want to."
Tony grinned, lighting up the room. "I'd be delighted."