FINDING HOME
SUMMARY – Renee Dwyer was Tony Stark's half-sister. When Renee is murdered in her home in Jacksonville, Tony knows something isn't right. He is distraught and needs answers. When his digging unearths several more related deaths and a niece he never knew existed, how will he react? Can Bella overcome the horrors of her past and make a new life with the only family she has left?
MARVEL'S AVENGERS X TWILIGHT CROSSOVER…
COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER – All Avenger's characters belong to Marvel Comics, and all Twilight Saga characters belong to Stephanie Meyer. I own nothing, and no copyright infringement is intended.
CHAPTER 1
Tony Stark was not typically a sentimental man. And he certainly wasn't one who got overly attached to anyone. Outside of the Avengers… And that small group of friends had taken months of fighting and near-death experiences to worm their way into his heart. Sure he loved Pepper, but she was the exception to every rule in his book, and he had been her boss for years before anything beyond mutual respect even began to make itself known. He was not emotional, and he had no ties to family that anyone knew of.
So, understandably, Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanov were beyond confused when they found this unemotional, carefree, detached fighter Monday morning. His workshop looked light a disaster zone, designs and equipment strewn everywhere as if a tornado had ripped through the room. And in the far corner of the workshop, passed out drunk, his dirty, unshaven face stained with the telltale signs of tears, was Tony Stark.
"What the hell happened here?" Natasha wondered aloud, her eyes betraying her utter shock at seeing her friend and teammate in this state.
"I have no idea," Steve answered honestly, making his way through the chaos of the space to try and wake Tony. Nudging his shoulder softly, he kept his voice calm and quiet so as not to startle him, "Stark? Come on, wake up, man. Stark? Stark? Tony?!"
Finally, the man grunted and rolled over, rubbing his puffy eyes and trying to orient himself. "What the hell?!" he barked, irritated at being woken up, but unsure what was going on.
"That's what we were going to ask you," Natasha returned patiently, trying to keep her concern from coloring her tone, "What happened?"
Looking around at the destruction he wrought on the room around him in his previous drunken state, Tony suddenly remembered what had set him off… She was gone.
"Renee," Tony breathed the name, his voice thick with tears.
It didn't take a genius to understand the unspoken message there. Renee was important to Tony. He might have even loved her. And somehow, she had died. Tony was very obviously grieving. Both of his friends could gather all of that from the way he said that one word, the way her name fell from his lips as if the world might end now that she was gone.
The only problem was neither of them had a clue who the hell Renee was, or what her relation was to Stark, and they couldn't really help him until they did.
"Who's Renee?" Steve asked gently.
"My sister," he croaked, to the utter surprise of the other two. They didn't think he had any living family. In fact, they were both fairly certain he didn't have any siblings at all, living or otherwise.
"Your sister?" Romanov parroted stunned.
"Half-sister," Tony clarified with a dry chuckle that only sounded partially forced, "The dirty little secret of the Stark family, Renee, my baby sister... We shared a father, but her mom kept that a secret for a long time. We only found each other when we were both teenagers."
"What happened?" Rogers asked, keeping the question open-ended, unsure how much history he needed to give to explain what had landed him in such shape this morning.
"I was too late," he whispered.
"What do you mean?" Natasha asked, confused.
"We had a falling out when Renee was seventeen," Tony began explaining, grabbing a full bottle of liquor he had stashed in the desk beside the wall, and taking a long swig, "I was only a few years older myself, but I was about to take the reins of the family business from Dad. Renee hated Dad, understandably, and she always hated the damn weapons business. Basically told me that if I ever got my head out of my ass long enough to turn the business around to give her a call, but until then she wanted nothing to do with me.
After I came to my senses and pulled Stark Industries out of the black hole of war profiteering Dad built, I wanted to call her, to try to fix things. But then the Iron Man missions took over everything in my life. And then Pepper and I finally got together. And then everything that happened in New York with the rest of the Avengers. Before I knew what had happened, years had gone by and I didn't know how to make things right. I kept telling myself I'll call her tomorrow, and then there would be something tomorrow and I would push it off again.
And now it's too late," Tony broke down completely at this point, "I finally decided yesterday it was time to track her down, to call her, to do something to fix it. But Jarvis… He found her, and she's dead."
His friends already knew that she was gone. That was the only way to explain this sort of reaction from the usually composed Stark. But hearing about this part of his history no one on the team had ever even guessed at was horrible. How could neither of them have known that he had a sister? What happened to her? If they'd known, they would have pushed him to salvage the relationship, wouldn't they? Would she still be alive if they had?
"What happened to her Tony?" Steve asked.
"She and her family were murdered in their home," he told them, his eyes focused on some image far away in his head, "She was married to this minor league baseball player, Phil Dwyer. I had no idea she had gotten married. What kind of brother doesn't know that his only sister got married? Her little girl died too. Sabrina, my niece. She was only two years old. I had a niece, and I didn't even know she existed until after she was already dead!"
"Shhh, you're ok," Natasha tried to comfort her friend as he curled up on the floor, letting the grief take him.
Steve took a step back from them, trying to keep his own cool. Seeing someone he considered a brother broken down like this was tearing him apart inside. "Jarvis?" he addressed the AI quietly once he was out of Stark's hearing range.
"Yes, Captain?" came the automated voice through the speakers beside him.
"Can you access the police reports for the deaths of the Dwyer family?" he asked, knowing he probably didn't want to know any more details about this, but also sure he needed to do something to help Tony with this.
"Certainly, Captain. Renee Dwyer, husband Phil Dwyer, and daughter Sabrina Dwyer. No arrests have been made, and the case is considered closed at this time. No new leads and no viable suspects as noted in the file."
"How long ago were they killed?" he asked, knowing that even if there was absolutely no evidence at all, a case wouldn't be closed without an arrest for several weeks at least.
"Three years, Captain," Jarvis responded, pulling up the full report for Steve to view on the screens. The images were enough to turn the soldier's stomach, not an easy task after all the things he had seen in his long life.
"Was there anything else noted by the investigators?" he asked, "Anything that might be of use to us now?"
"There was a letter found at the scene," Jarvis informed him, "The police weren't able to find any prints on it, and it didn't give them any usable information."
"Pull it up please," Steve instructed. Even if the Jacksonville PD couldn't make use of it, they might be able to learn something from him. And Steve knew that Tony needed to find the ones responsible for this if he was going to heal.
Natasha approached behind him and began reading the letter now on the screen.
B,
This will never end. You can never escape me. I will have what I am owed.
- V
"Well at least that rules out a random home invasion," Romanov commented, "But I'm guessing we have no idea who 'B' or 'V' are?"
"Jacksonville PD didn't seem to have any ideas what any of it might mean," Steve told her, pulling back up the file for her to read through, "They couldn't find a motive at all."
"Jarvis?" Natasha called, "Did Renee have any other family?" They knew that Tony's parents were dead, and there were no other shared siblings that he knew about, but maybe someone on her mom's side of the family might be able to shed some light on things?
"Renee's parents are both deceased. She had no siblings aside from Mr. Stark. Her husband's parents are both also deceased, and he was an only child," Jarvis told them both, "My records show that Renee was married once before, to a man named Charles Swan. He is also deceased. Charles and Renee had one child together, Isabella Swan, who is now twenty-two-years-old. There is no death certificate for Isabella, but she has not held a permanent address or filed her taxes in three years, so there is no way of knowing for certain if she is still alive."
"Three years?" Natasha mused, and Steve quickly understood what she was thinking.
"Jarvis, what was the nature of Charles Swan's death?" he asked.
"He was killed in his home three years ago, Captain, just days after the deaths in Jacksonville," Jarvis confirmed his suspicions, pulling up the accompanying Forks PD file, "The nature of the attack was quite similar to that of the Dwyer family, but due to the divorce and the fact that they lived on opposite sides of the country, the cases were never tied together."
The local police might not have made the connection back then, but it was blaringly obvious to the two of them now.
"Was there a letter found at the scene of his murder as well?" Natasha asked.
"Yes, Agent, there was," Jarvis answered, "And it was also addressed to 'B' and signed 'V'."
B,
This was fun, but I'm far from finished. You will pay for what you've done. I will avenge him. There is nowhere you can hide from me.
- V
"Whoever did this, they obviously have a serious fixation with this 'B' person," Steve commented.
"It looks like Forks PD had a theory on that at least," Natasha told him, flipping to the last page of the case file, "It seems his daughter, Isabella, went by Bella, and the whole town called her Bells or B."
"And she disappeared the night that Charles died," Steve finished, "She's the commonality between the killings."
"And likely the only one who might be able to tell us who 'V' is or why they did this," Natasha continued on his train of thought, "Both letters make it clear that the killer had no intention of stopping any time soon… Jarvis, were there any other unsolved homicides in the area with a similar MO?"
"Yes, Agent," Jarvis informed them, "There were several violent homicides in the area in the month following Charles Swan's death that might be related. William Black, the Chief of the Quileute tribe, and Sue and Harry Clearwater, two Quileute tribal elders, were all found dead in the Black family home three days after Charles' death. It was noted that all three were longtime friends of the Swan family. A letter was recovered at the scene, but it was not addressed to Miss Swan, and it was not signed."
One look at the crime scene photos told Agent Romanov that this was the same killer, and she also noted that each killing grew more and more violent, like the killer's rage was building as the true object of their attention continued to evade them.
The letter simply read, You cannot keep her from me.
"This is definitely the work of the same killer," Steve stated confidently.
"So if we want to find the person that killed Tony's sister, her family, and friends…" Natasha began.
"We need to find my niece," Tony finished, suddenly there standing behind them.