Hey everyone! I'm not sure what it is but I keep getting these story ideas that just will not go away until I write them down, so here's another one. This is going to be a bit longer than the last few I've written so I hope you're in the mood for a longer story this time. This one takes place in my loose, post-Infinity War timeline so in my mind, this takes place between "I'll Always Come When You Call" and "Never Let You Down". If you haven't read any of my other stories, that's totally fine, you don't need to for this to make sense but please know it is Irondad/Spideyson so if you don't like that general story line, this might not be a story for you.

I hope you enjoy this new story!


"The best made plans of mice and men…" How did the rest of that saying go…" he asked internally before the spark of remembrance had him murmuring the rest of the quotation, "often go awry." The newest wrench thrown into his plan, stepped out of the back of the café with his target, of course it was a kid. "Dammit," he whispered a bit louder before he leaned forward and put his hand on his man's shoulder. "Take the shot." He ordered.

"Even with the kid there?" The man with the rifle asked, a bit unsure of his newest job.

"Yah, we'll just have to be quick about it. Make sure we get there fast enough to take Stark while he's still unsure of what's going on." The man answered, annoyance clear in his tone.

The sniper gave a one-armed shrug which also served to readjust the rifle. He took a deep breath, watching the two interact as he lined up the shot. Stark was laughing at something the kid said as he dug keys out of his pocket. The sniper lined up his shot, released the breath his was holding and pulled the trigger. He watched then with disbelief when he missed. The dart didn't deviate but it was the kid who went down hard, not Stark. "What the…" the sniper turned back to his employer, with an incredulous look, "that kid just stepped in front of the shot."

"On purpose?" The man asked disbelievingly.

The sniper loaded another dart as he pulled the scope back up in an attempt to find out. Stark was on the ground next to the kid, phone pressed to his ear as he scowled at the dart he had just pulled out of the kid's neck. "I'm not sure," the sniper responded, "there's no way he could have seen it coming…" he trailed off before immediately shifting back into a professional voice, "I have another shot."

"Make sure to get Stark this time." His employer scoffed even while there was no real anger behind the tone.

The line was easy and only a few moments after the kid had hit the ground, Stark was lying next to him. The sniper heard his employer give the order and the van quickly skid up next to the unconscious pair.

Two men jumped out and threw Stark onto the floor of the van but as their employer was closing the door, something gave him pause. He took a precious second to look at the kid on the ground. He was young, around sixteen or seventeen and he had a Stark Industries badge clipped onto the pocket of his jacket. In a split second decision the man called back to one of the men in the van, "Grab the kid too."

"Thought we were only here for Stark?" He argued.

The man rounded him and snapped, "Did I ask for a summary of my plan? The kid has a badge and he was at lunch with Stark, whose to say we can't used him as leverage? I should not have to explain things to you. Just do what I say." The verbally assaulted man grumbled as he stepped back onto the sidewalk before none too gently throwing Peter up over his shoulder and dumping him unceremoniously into the van next to Stark. The door slid closed behind them.

Before the van started, the man leaned over the unconscious Stark and pulled a knife out of his jacket pocket. He murmured to himself as he started his bloody work, "And just to make sure he doesn't cause us too many problems before we get what we need from him," the man slipped the knife under the nanobot storage on Tony's chest and started to cut away at the housing just under his skin. Stark jerked a bit at the pain but the tranquilizer had been a strong one so there was really nothing he could do to fight back. It only took a few minutes for the man to cut the nanobot storage away before he pressed a bandage to the bleeding wound. He called up to the driver, "Alright, time to go." The man dropped the storage container into a lead-lined box. It was an old solution to problems of shielding but that didn't make it ineffective. He knew that the container probably sent a distress signal somehow but by the time anyone got to where the signal had been sent from, they would be long gone.

They handcuffed Stark's wrists together before doing the same thing to the kid on the floor next to him. The man was surprised that the kid started to groan as the cuffs were closed. It was as if he was waking up. But still, he didn't open his eyes and his body didn't stiffen so chances are, it was just a reaction to the rough treatment. As both their victims were contained, the man pulled the kid's badge off the front of his jacket, "Peter Parker, huh?" He looked the kid over again and whispered, "This is just not your day, Pete." He pocketed the badge, taking one last look at the newest addition to his plan before he turned back to his target. The man started to rifle through Tony's pockets, putting his phone and anything else that could possibly transmit a signal into the box with the nanobot container. He glanced back at Peter again and decided to do the same. He took Peter's phone and his watch but left his wallet and the few other odds and ends he found in his pockets, it seemed a bit cruel to steal everything from a kid who was already collateral damage.


Peter woke up handcuffed in the back of a van.

It was a jarring experience for a teenager and even more so for a teenage superhero because there was little doubt in the back of his rapidly analyzing mind that he could quickly get out of this but he forced himself to slow down. Natasha, Clint, and Steve had, on multiple occasions, beat it into his skull that it was necessary to understand the situation before acting so he stayed still. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing in an attempt to deal with his overactive spidey senses. Opening his eyes again, the first thing he saw was Mr. Stark's back. His hands were cuffed behind him as he was laying, rather uncomfortably on his side. Peter squashed the anger and fear that rose immediately in favor of continuing his exploration. A man with a rather large gun was sitting on a bench built into the side wall of the van. His head was resting against the wall and he seemed to be dozing with the gun clutched surprisingly tight against his chest. Then he caught sight of a man crouched between the driver and passenger seats, talking to, he assumed, two men based on their voices. They were talking about their final destination, something about arriving in the next twenty minutes or so. Then they started talking about him.

One of the men at the front, had a croaky voice and was in the middle of complaining, if his annoyed inflection was anything to go by, "Why the hell did we grab a kid? The job was Stark, now we've got another person who could identify us."

The man who was crouched between the chairs aggressively turned toward the man in the passenger seat, "Because I told you to and I'm paying you. I already explained this to you once and if you want me to continue paying you, or if you don't want me to throw you out of the van right now, I would suggest shuttin' up." The crouched man stared at froggy a little longer before he turned away, obviously ignoring any further argument.

Peter watched the interaction intensely, trying to get as much information as he could about the people who had taken them. Unfortunately, that attention was noticed.

"Hey boss," the man with the gun called over the sound of the traveling car, "the kid's up."

Peter's attention immediately snapped to the man who had been asleep only a few moments before and he cursed himself for not paying more attention. He watched as the leader shot a surprised look at the man with the gun before covering it and stiffly standing. The man walked with a slight limp and immediately Peter's mind flashed to the limp Tony had walked with since the battle with Thanos, then he realized that had no bearing on the situation and he forced himself to refocus his attention. The leader crouched down in front of him and fixed him with an intelligent, searching gaze. "Good morning, Peter." Peter recoiled at the silky tone that somehow knew his name, but he bit his tongue to keep from responding. The man seemed put off by Peter's lack of response but continued anyway, "I feel the need to apologize for the inconvenience we're about to cause you but you see, you don't work for the most reputable employer and unfortunately for you, you might become the next in a long line of collateral damage caused by Tony Stark. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that but I feel its best to warn you that it might be the case. Ultimately, it really depends on this man," the leader stood in a flash and kicked Tony hard in the back near his kidneys earning an unconscious grunt from him, "and what your relationship is." The leader was incredibly forthcoming and Peter thought about telling him exactly what their relationship was but at the same time, he was incredibly nervous about giving away information without knowing what was really going on. Still before he could answer, the man crouched and spoke again, "But for right now, I need you to go back to sleep." As he said it, Peter felt a needle jammed into the side of his neck and his senses started to rapidly slip away from him. His last thought was that they would need a way out.


Tony woke up, tied to a chair. Again. Great, he snarked to himself, as his blurry vision caught up with his complaining head. But as soon as his vision came back, a sharp pain slipped into his mind, it felt like someone had cut his chest but looking down at the dark shirt, he couldn't see any indication of that. He pulled against the cuffs in frustration and then immediately stopped because of the pain the action caused. Then he realized what it was and nausea rolled his stomach. He wasn't sure why he knew but he was sure without being able to see that his nanobots were gone. He sat still for a few moments breathing through the pain before forcing his attention to the other huge problem. Rolling his head on stiff shoulders, which of course meant that he had been sitting like this for an indecently long, he groaned to work out the kinks. While he did that he tried to take in his surroundings only to stop dead when his eyes fell on Peter slumped in a chair less than a foot away from him. Tony's mind nearly short-circuited. Whatever this situation was, it just got increasingly more dangerous. And in that moment Tony made the decision to avoid letting whoever had taken them know who and what Peter was. He was going to keep the attention on himself and tell any lie he needed to, to keep them away from his kid. That meant he needed Peter's attention before the inevitable arrival of their kidnappers.

"Kid," Tony hissed, trying to keep his voice low enough that it would not be picked up by any cameras in the area. He needed time, not to bring them down on their heads.


Peter was sitting as still as he could with his head on his chest. He had already woken up once when he wasn't supposed too, he didn't want to make the same mistake again. As he sat, he tried to listen to the world around him. He wasn't getting much, there were a few people milling around in the hallway, there was some kind of quietly beeping electronic in the room, and he could hear Tony's even breathing but not much else. The longer he sat there, he tried to come up with ways to get them out. It was unfortunate that he had been unconscious for the trek into their newest location or he would have gotten them out almost as soon as their kidnappers left the two of them alone. As he went through all the permutations in his mind, he heard Tony groan and hiss as he started to wake up but it wasn't until he heard his nickname whispered nearly imperceptibly that it was safe to be awake. "Mr. Stark," Peter quickly and quietly responded. He couldn't talk as quietly as he knew he needed too because Tony's hearing wasn't as good as his. Plus, it gave him a chance to slowly 'wake up', or at least to use the method that always worked on May. He heard Tony whisper "Thank god" before he continued talking.

"You alright?" Tony asked, a little louder for the benefit of the camera or whatever they were using to monitor them.

"Good. You?" Peter responded. He was about to say more when he heard footsteps outside their room, he whispered as low as he dared, "They're coming."

"Little groggy but nothing a hot shower can't fix." Tony answered for the benefit of their captors before adding almost silently, "Don't tell them anything."

Peter gave a short nod and was about to say something else but the door to their holding cell swung open. The man Peter knew to be the leader strode into the room with a confidence that seemed out of place given the slight hitch in his assured steps. He was flanked by two more men, one of them Peter knew to be the man with the gun. The other was hulking brute seemed to be more along the lines of dumb-looking Cap. Still, the leader clapped his hands together and the lights in the room flashed on without any warning. The bright light seared Peter's brain and caused his eyes to water even as he slammed them shut against the light. He could not help but grunt at the pain it caused but he tried not to be too obvious about it. When he finally managed to squint open his burning eyes again, the man was sitting in front of them on a chair of his own and Tony was talking.


Tony watched Peter flinch as the lights came on suddenly. As it was, Tony had trouble adjusting, his eyes squinting hard against the harshness but anger flared in his chest when he watched Peter, knowing the pain abrupt changes like that caused because of his senses. Tony took the opportunity to sit farther forward in his chair, making himself into more of a target, more of a threat. He covered the motion though with an unassumingly bored expression as he waited for the man sitting across from him to start talking, to give him something that he could use to solve this mess.

"Hello, Tony." The smooth voice started convivially, juxtaposing the situation threatened by the solid, white walled room.

Tony cocked his head slightly to the side as he turned his full attention to the man, "And here I am without a way to respond to you."

"Hello works." The man responded with a smile.

"Yah but you knowing my name and me not knowing yours really just takes all the friendliness out of that greeting."

"Fair enough," the man thought for a moment before his bright eyes flicked to Tony's conspiratorially, "You can call me Jeff."

"Really?" Tony asked annoyed, "Jeff?"

"You didn't actually think I would tell you my real name?" Jeff answered back in equal annoyance.

"Fine, Jeff," Tony turned the name over with a haughtiness that only someone born to money can truly master. "How about you tell me why I'm here?"

Jeff leaned back in his chair, the laid-back nature strange in the sterile room. He spoke conversationally, "We can get to that later. First I want to know who the kid is? Do you have a love child the world is not privy too?"

Tony threw a look over at Peter like he just realized he was there. Tony managed to keep his expression schooled to one of disinterest and mild annoyance, one he kept when he looked back at Jeff. Casually shrugging, Tony answered, "He's no one. Just an intern who works in the lab. I think his name is…" he looked back over at Peter, "it's Patrick right?"

It had been the first test to see how far Peter was going to go with this and Tony couldn't help but be impressed by his acting ability. Peter looked at him wide-eyed and haltingly shook his head negatively before he answered, "I-its P-Peter, Mr. Stark."

"Oh…right," Tony answered before turning back to Jeff, "His name is Peter, he's been working on propulsion technology for some of our low level rockets."

Jeff narrowed his eyes dangerously at Tony, his laid-back demeanor cracking and showing a much more highly-strung nature. When he spoke, there was a disbelieving note to it, "You really expect me to believe that you take interns, whose name you don't know, to lunch?"

Tony shrugged off any indication that he was lying and decided to play to the asshole nature he had cultivated for so long, "I found it's the easiest way to figure out if they've thought of anything I haven't. You know, something rarely comes of the effort but, if it works, it makes business sense. If they think of something, I can capitalize on it, so I bite the bullet and take them out from time to time. On a rotating basis of course. Plus, it looks good if I'm seen working with the interns instead of just forcing them to slave away in the lab." Tony prayed that reasoning made sense.

Jeff's was a bit put off by that answer, it seemed to make sense even if it was not what he had expected. Needing a way to either break or compliment the answer, Jeff turned his gaze on Peter, "Is that true?"

Tony prayed that Peter took the cue he was trying to set up, or that he was not stubborn enough to contradict him. But he couldn't risk looking over at him, it would not make sense for him to care about a kid whose name he didn't even know.

Peter understood what his dad was trying to do and while it made him sick to his stomach, he was unwilling to give away more information to the men before the two knew more about who had taken them. He played up the stupid, nervous teenager thing, "Ya…yah. I…I've only met him once before today…we…we had lunch about f-five months ago…this is t…the second time."

The man scowled in Peter's direction but didn't really have a way to discount what he was saying. Then he looked back at Tony, lines of frustration clear on his composed face, "You have an intern who would step in front of a bullet for you?"

Tony's condescending tone affected a disbelieving edge and he started with a scoff, "You think he intentionally stepped in front of a bullet? How do you know the person who fired it was not just a bad shot?"

Jeff glanced back at the man over his left shoulder, a look Tony caught. That had been the man who had shot his kid, he mentally made a promise to himself that he would die first. Still, the man shrugged noncommittally. That seemed to work out better for Tony and Peter. "Fine," Jeff spat and he sat back down, immediately composed but now looking at Peter.

Tony did not like that attention, so he started talking again before Peter could glare back, "So now that we have that out of the way, what do you want?"

Jeff lazily fixed his gaze back on Tony, "Oh you know Stark, the usual. You have something I want and if you don't give it to me, I'll have to make you. The normal, pedestrian requests."

"Money then?" Tony asked, duly unimpressed, "You went to all this trouble for a payday. Just a run of the mill kidnapping? I'm not sure why I assumed it would be something more…imaginative than that."

Jeff just smiled, amused, as he shook his head, "Oh no, I don't want money. I have money, I need something a bit more...creative."

"BARF," Tony blurted out, trying to come up with his most ridiculous invention, "Its BARF you want, isn't it. Still need to fix that name." Tony pressed on, "So, what happened? Did your parents not love you enough? Do you want to go back to fix that?" When the man didn't respond, Tony continued to poke, "Take it from someone whose infamously maladjusted because of that, doing dumb things, like kidnaping Iron Man, does not make up for the lacking connection." He fixed the man with his most exasperated look.

Still the man just smirked back, a knowing look in his eye, like he had anticipated this level of bravado. It was not an insight of any extraordinary proportions but it was a little disconcerting that he was not the least bit put off by Tony's comments. Tony, for the first time, felt panic creep into the forefront as his mind, Jeff seemed to have a much better handle on what was going on that Tony wanted. But at the same time, Peter was with him, and that made it infinitely worse. He wanted his kid to be anywhere else but here. In order to cover the panic and fear, Tony turned it into arrogance, "So if it's not my stellar advice that you want, what is it? Unfortunately, 'normal' and 'pedestrian' are not super descriptive."

Jeff narrowed his eyes again, "Does it often happen that people just tell you exactly what they want?"

Tony was a bit taken aback by that question, "Yah, usually that's exactly what they do."

Jeff fixed him with a disbelieving gaze and shrugged, "Then I apologize for the vagueness. Truly I only want a few things from you. And I feel like they are not completely unreasonable requests." He continued with a businesslike tone as he listed his demands, "I want the formula for your reconstructive technology, your nanobot research, oh…and I need the name of the man who calls himself Spider-Man."

Tony was mentally nodding along until Jeff asked about Peter. "Why?" Tony immediately responded, before he realized he responded too quickly, and he tried again, "Why do you need those things. That's a strange combination and at least two of those are closely guarded secrets." He mentally applauded himself for keeping his voice even, as he worked to squash his panic and fought to keep his eyes off the kid beside him.

Jeff just smirked, "Lets just say, I have a business stake in the matter. As a businessman, I assumed you could relate." The man sneered at the thinly veiled moment of panic he had seen on Tony's face. He knew he had hit a nerve, now he just needed to figure out exactly what it was. He pulled just a little farther, "I don't particularly want to hurt you, or the kid," he said as he stared at Tony, "but if you don't give me what I want, I will."

Tony refused to give the man any indication that Peter was somehow important. He kept his expression neutral even while he promised himself that if the sniper guy was going to die first, Jeff was going to be close behind him. His mental distraction seemed to work because Jeff stared at him intently before he scowled in Peter's direction, as though part of his plans did not work out the way he wanted. He turned back to Tony, "So I'm guessing you're not going to give me what I want?"

Tony shrugged again, a smirk of his own plastered on his face, "Sorry, not that easily." Then he added, "I'm sure you understand, being a businessman and all." Poking angry bears was not usually a good idea but Tony was pissed and this was really the only way he could deal with it.

Jeff sighed heavily, as if he was going to hate whatever he was going to do next, "If that is your decision, then this is on you."

For a moment, Tony's heart froze in his chest. It ran through his mind that meant that Peter was in danger but then the brute who had been standing behind Jeff's right shoulder, stepped up and unceremoniously slugged Tony in the face. His head snapped toward Peter and he could feel the blood pooling on his split lip. Sucking in his bottom lip, Tony pressed the attention. Looking over at Jeff, he nodded in the direction of the guy who had just hit him, "That's it? That's what you're going to do? You're right, this entire thing is not very creative."

Jeff leaned forward onto his knees, "Just because something is not creative, doesn't meant it's not effective." He leaned back into his chair and flicked his hand up at the big guy again.

Tony knew what was coming. He braced for the impact and sent a silent apology to his son. Peter was never going to forgive himself for this.


So that's the first chapter. Let me know what you think in the reviews!

I hope you have a wonderful day/night and stay creative!

-Lily