The rest of Tony's night passed by quickly as his mind ran through countless possibilities.
J.A.R.V.I.S. had found nothing on the man named Varis, and even Tony's own efforts came up short.
As soon as he got home, he immediately got to using his full resources.
When he had put on his glasses earlier that night, he had immediately taken a full facial scan of the man's face. He had gone through every database he had access to, including several he technically wasn't allowed to access. Social security records, passports, financial networks, damn near everything.
He had been at it for three hours, but the name turned up nothing.
Not minimal results.
He found nothing.
"Jarvis."
"Still nothing, sir. The facial composite has been run against approximately forty million records across nineteen separate databases. No matches." The robotic voice echoed from the ceiling above.
"What about the name?"
"Varis returns eleven thousand, two hundred and sixteen results globally. None of them match the profile of the individual you encountered."
Tony took a breath whilst looking around his workshop. Suit components were spread across three separate benches in a way which would seem chaotic to anyone but him. He'd been making good progress before tonight's roadblock.
"Cross-reference with Hellfire Club known associates."
"The Hellfire Club does not appear in any database I have acce-."
"I know that. I'm asking you to try anyway." Tony cut the AI off with mild irritation.
"Understood, sir."
Tony leaned against the bench and looked at the hologram of Varis's face.
His mind kept returning to the problem of what he was doing. The kid technically hadn't done anything too wrong; he'd attended an event, had a conversation, dropped a name, and left.
Once Tony found out who he was dealing with, what would he do then?
He looked at the suit several meters away from him.
He couldn't exactly show up at someone's door as Iron Man because they'd thrown out a name at a dinner party. Even by his standards, he knew that was a bad look.
What really confounded him was the apparent nonexistence of 'Varis'. Every person who lived in a modern society left traces, even the ones who tried to hide themselves.
This was on a different level.
"Sir, the search has returned no results."
"Figured," Tony couldn't bring himself to be disappointed in JARVIS.
He was about to pick up a soldering iron, ready to work on the Mark VIII, before an idea came to his mind.
"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database. Not the consultancy access they gave me, the real one. Find me a backdoor."
"Sir, I'd like to remind you that such action would be highly illegal."
"Yeah yeah, get to work."
Tony waited hesitantly as J.A.R.V.I.S. paused, hoping that he'd finally be able to come up with something.
"Sir, I've found a vulnerability, but I wouldn't be able to access it without S.H.I.E.L.D. realising they've been compromised."
"Just do it."
A display popped up in front of Tony, displaying JARVIS's rapid movement through the system. Tens of thousands of personnel files, operation reports, and highly confidential assets were read in no longer than a minute.
"Sir, I've found something unusual."
"Go on."
"There's a deletion record in the system. A file named 'Marcus Alexander' was scrubbed approximately six weeks ago. The file itself is completely gone, log wasn't wiped. The deletion was authorised by Director Nicholas Fury himself."
Tony was quiet for a moment.
"Fury left a loose end."
"That would appear to be the case, sir."
"Okay, what's left in the log?"
"Very little. A photograph partially survived the wipe; it's degraded, but cross-referencing with your scan gives an eighty per cent confidence match."
Tony stared at the image of Marcus Alexander and overlaid it upon Varis. The hair colour was slightly different, being more blonde, but that was easily explained by the man not keeping his dye routine up.
"Fury authorised the wipe personally, huh?"
For Fury to authorise that himself, the guy had to be a big shot.
But something seemed off to Tony.
He reviewed what he knew about Fury. The man practically screamed paranoid. He wasn't someone who left loose ends. If Nick Fury had personally erased someone from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s system, there would be no relics left over, no deletion logs, nothing.
Which meant Fury hadn't left it.
Tony's thoughts rapidly began to shift.
From everything he had seen of Fury, he knew the man was meticulous beyond belief. So if the log was still there, it wasn't because Fury had been sloppy.
Fury had authorised the deletion himself, but whatever grunt had actually deleted the file had kept it partially around deliberately.
Tony leaned back slowly.
Why would a random grunt want to keep the file around, directly disobeying the director of their organisation?
Warning someone on the outside that Varis or Marcus Alexander existed? Keeping leverage? Or perhaps something else entirely.
"JARVIS. Who else had clearance to access that deletion log?"
"Determining that would require significantly deeper access sir."
"Take as long as you need."
"Understood."
Tony stared at the hologram of Varis for a few seconds before shooing it away and picking up his tools to begin work on his latest suit.
Varis was one problem, but Tony had a gut feeling that he had just stumbled upon something much more concerning.
Fury was certainly running an interesting operation.