Luca's expression turned serious after the document was unfolded.
This is not an ordinary document; its format is quite unusual.
Luca has seen many different file formats.
He had access to classified reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, and even Pentagon Department of Defense.
But he had never seen this thing before.
Most of the document's content was blacked out.
Moreover, the edges of each blackened area are neat and tidy.
Only a few scattered pieces of information were not covered.
This looks like it was left there on purpose.
The first instance is in the date field at the top of the document, which reads: [Date: December 16, 1991]
Luca's finger froze in mid-air.
December 16, 1991.
He didn't need anyone to remind him what the date meant.
This was the day their parents had the accident.
That year, Tony was in his prime.
He was very young too.
Human memory is often hazy, but some things are etched into our very bones, remaining as clear as yesterday no matter how many years have passed.
He remembered that the maid woke him up that night.
I remember hearing the hurried footsteps and suppressed sobs of adults everywhere.
I remember Tony standing in the living room, his face flushed, clutching a phone tightly.
I remember looking at them blankly, but I never cried.
It wasn't that he didn't want to cry.
Rather, they are too young and do not yet understand what death truly is.
Even though he was exceptionally intelligent, remembering everything his father taught him, including all the English words...
But death was not in his concept.
That night marked the first time he had ever seen her.
It wasn't until many years later that he truly understood what had happened that night.
By then, tears were no longer enough.
Luca snapped out of his reverie and continued reading.
The second place.
[Mission Code: WS-1991-D16-0347]
A string of meaningless codes.
It begins with the letters W and S, followed by the year and date, and ends with a serial number.
Luca memorized the code, but couldn't immediately determine what it meant.
The third place contains a line of remaining text.
[Target confirmed and cleared. Assets recovered.]
The next line follows immediately.
[Target: Female, dealt with. No witnesses.]
Luca stared at the two lines of text, his eyes icy.
Clearly, this isn't a car accident report; it's more like a mission report.
Moreover, this was a post-operative report on an organized and premeditated assassination operation.
Their target was Howard Stark.
The target woman was undoubtedly their mother, Maria Stark.
"Processed".
"No witnesses."
Luca's brow furrowed even deeper.
Then he saw the photo.
Yes, the document included three photos.
The first picture shows the back of a long-haired man.
The photo was taken from a very unusual angle, as if it were footage captured from a hidden surveillance camera.
The image quality is poor, with noticeable noise and timestamps.
Fortunately, the content of the image is clear enough.
The content shows a long-haired man choking someone with one hand.
The person being choked was kneeling on the ground, their hands weakly gripping the other person's wrists.
Although the image quality is blurry, facial features are still recognizable.
This is Howard Stark, their father.
Luca's breathing became rapid, and the force field around him trembled slightly.
The second and third photos show the wreckage of the vehicle.
A black sedan crashed into a tree on the side of the road.
The front of the car was severely deformed, and the hood was dented.
But that's not the point; Luca noticed a mark on the side of the car.
This doesn't look like damage from a head-on collision.
There is a noticeable impact dent on the right rear of the vehicle.
Judging from the angle and depth of the dent, the car was first hit from the rear by another vehicle before it lost control and veered to the side of the road.
This was no ordinary car accident.
After all, in the event of a car accident, there wouldn't be a collision mark at this angle on the side of the car.
Of course, the most important thing is...
There would certainly not be a long-haired person choking the driver.
Luca took a deep breath and looked at Tony.
Tony was quiet, his gaze fixed on the photograph.
But sometimes, silence is the most abnormal state.
Tony had seen a lot of battlefield footage.
In a cave in Afghanistan, he witnessed scenes ten times more brutal than this.
But they were all strangers.
And this photo shows his father.
He was the man he had admired and resented since childhood, the man he both wanted to surpass and who deserved his recognition.
December 16, 1991.
He remembers every detail of receiving the phone call that night.
He was attending a school party.
The call was from the housekeeper, who only said one sentence.
"Mr. Tony, your parents were in a car accident."
Yes, a car accident.
Everyone says it was a car accident.
The police said it was a car accident, the media reported it was a car accident, and the forensic report also stated it was a car accident.
He never doubted it.
The young Tony Stark accepted this conclusion, then turned his grief into anger, and his anger into paranoia.
He threw himself into his work with fervor, frantically developing weapons and relentlessly proving himself.
He wanted to prove something to his deceased father.
You've never really looked at me properly in your entire life, but I will become someone greater than you.
His later dissolute behavior, Playboy ways, and drinking strong liquor alone late at night were all just ways of getting his father to see him.
But my father is no longer here.
That's cruel enough in itself.
And now.
Someone told him that the car accident that took his parents away was not an accident, but murder.
Someone orchestrated all of this.
Howard Stark and Maria Stark were murdered intentionally, and the truth was kept secret for seventeen years.
Tony's heart was racing, and his fists were clenched tightly.
The two remained silent for almost a minute.
Then, Tony spoke.
JARVIS.
"Yes, sir."
"You need to analyze the email's sending path at full speed, including each proxy node, IP redirection, and relay server."
"Track everything. At all costs."
"It's already being done, sir."
Preliminary analysis indicates that the email passed through nineteen proxy nodes before disappearing into an offline server cluster in Eastern Europe. A complete tracing will take time.
"I don't care how long it takes. Just give me the results."
Luca heard the tremor in Tony's voice.
He knew Tony was furious.
Fortunately, he didn't lose his mind.
Getting angry now is pointless, and smashing things won't solve the problem.
Find the long-haired man, find the organization behind him, find the person who gave the order.
This is what's meaningful!
" Tony," Luca spoke up.
"Calm down first."
"I'm very calm," Tony replied expressionlessly.
"No, you don't. Your hands are shaking."
Tony glanced down at his right hand.
It's very slight, but it's definitely shaking.
He took a deep breath, loosened his fist, clenched it again, and loosened it again.
Finally, Tony looked at Luca.
"Okay."
"Say what you want to say."
Luca nodded, forcing back his reddened eyes as he spoke.
"This email itself is problematic."
"You're right, and there's a big problem."
"Someone is sending files to your private email address. What is their purpose?"
Luca pondered for a few seconds.
"The first possibility is that this person is an insider who only leaked the information now for some reason. Perhaps it was a change of heart, or perhaps they were forced into it."
"The second possibility is that this person is a defector from some organization. He's using this document as a pledge of allegiance, trying to establish contact with us."
At this point, Luca paused, blinked his reddened eyes, and then continued.
"A third possibility is that this person is an enemy, deliberately leaking information to mislead our investigation or to test our reaction."
Tony listened and remained silent for a few seconds.
Which one do you prefer?
"I don't favor either of them," Luca shook his head.
"There are too few clues to draw conclusions too early. But one thing is certain."
"Anyone who can bypass JARVIS's firewall and send files directly to your private email address must be highly skilled."
"And anyone who has access to this level of classified documents must be of a high rank."
"Anyone who can use military-grade encryption with a custom algorithm must have a powerful background."
Luca paused for a moment.
"People like this are few and far between in the whole world."
Tony paused for a moment, then thought about it carefully.
"You mean S.H.I.E.L.D.. and Hydra?"
"It's possible," Luca said.
"As a national-level talent, my dad is definitely on their protection list. If someone wanted to harm him, S.H.I.E.L.D.. couldn't possibly be completely unaware."
"You mean S.H.I.E.L.D.. knew about it?"
"No, Tony, I mean, whoever did it, whoever the organization behind it, S.H.I.E.L.D.. definitely knows something."
"A top talent died, and they didn't even give us a single explanation. Seventeen years have passed. Don't you think that's strange in itself?"
Tony's eyes darkened.
To be honest, he had never thought of it that way.
Because he always thought it was just a car accident.
But now, the preconditions have changed.
"And that cotton machine," Luca continued.
" Nick Fury, you remember him, right?"
"I remember."
"Is it possible that he knows about our parents' situation but chooses not to tell us...?"
Luca didn't finish his sentence.
But the rest of the meaning is already quite clear.
If that's the case, then it's not just concealment, but complicity.
After a moment of silence, Tony asked a crucial question.
"Who is this long-haired person?"
The two looked over; the blurry photo was still there.
The long-haired man's back view showed him gripping Howard's neck with one hand.
The movements were swift and decisive, unlike anything an ordinary person could do.
I don't know.
Luca stared at the photo for a few seconds, then shook his head.
"But this person is definitely not an ordinary person. Look at his range of motion and control of power; he must have received professional training. And his left arm..."
Luca pointed to an unnatural reflection in the photo.
"Don't you think this doesn't look like flesh and blood?"
Prosthetic limb?
"Possibly. But it's not a regular prosthetic. A regular prosthetic couldn't maintain such a stable position while holding an adult male by the neck with one hand."
So this is a weaponized prosthetic?
"Or perhaps it's a modification," Luca said.
"In short, this is definitely a highly trained combatant. It couldn't be a hired assassin."
"Or rather, it's more like an asset of a certain organization."
"Assets."
Tony repeated the word.
He remembered that the word was used in the document as well.
Asset recovery.
The name itself reveals some information.
Calling a person an asset implies that this person is not a person, at least not in the eyes of that organization.
Therefore, he was merely a tool.
A tool that has completed its task and is awaiting recycling.
An organization that possesses such assassins is certainly not an ordinary organization.
These characteristics are somewhat similar to those of the Hydra they know.