Iron Man and War Machine arrived at a dark house on the edge of town. The mailbox next to the door read Stane on the side. They were at the right place. Luckily, Tony had spent a good deal of time at Whitney's house when they were younger, so he knew his way around and he knew where she would and wouldn't keep things.

"You search the left side of the house. I'll go right." Tony said. Rhodey did as told and went their separate ways to search the house. Tony searched the kitchen, bathrooms and bedrooms on his side while Rhodey searched the living room and the bedrooms on his side.

Tony had found nothing in the kitchen and bathrooms so decided to search Whitney's bedroom. He didn't like snooping around in their stuff, but he needed to know where she was before it was too late. And he didn't even want to think about what would happen if it got to be too late.

Iron Man approached Whitney's bedroom and hesitated before opening it. The door squeaked open to reveal a dark, empty room. There was no sign that Whitney had been here recently. No sighs besides a note left on her vanity. Tony picked it up.

Hello once again, Stark. I suppose you tried looking at my house for me…you really think I'm that predictable? Yeah right. I'm not here. But I will give you one clue to my location. It's the last place you'd look for me. If you think real hard you may just find me. Good luck, though.

Tony found Rhodey down the hall and showed him the note.

"She's not here." He explained.

"Where's the last place we'd look for her?" Rhodey asked. Tony shrugged.

"I don't know, it could be a lot of places. You'd be surprised how many places she's never been before in her life." Tony responded with an exasperated sigh. Rhodey could tell this was a lot for him to handle. He knew how much his friend loved the redhead. Heck, when she got her armor he was on edge for at least two weeks before he finally took a deep breath and relaxed. But he was still overprotective of her.

"Are you gonna be okay?" Rhodey asked.

"No, I'm not! I can't keep doing this when I know Pepper is 24 hours away from death! I need to know she's going to be okay, I need to know she's not going to die on me." Tony exclaimed. Rhodey placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Dude, she won't be okay unless we find that antidote. That's hour best shot at saving her, and we need to keep going. We can't stop for a second or we'll lose valuable time. Whitney is just playing a game with us, Tony. We have no choice but to play along." Rhodey said. Tony sighed. He was silent for a moment as he looked down to the floor.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Come on, I know the next place we can search." Tony said sternly as he walked out of the house and took to the skies, headed towards Stark International. It was worth a try to look, considering Pepper was in the hospital room included in the Stark International building. It was a very unlikely place to hide out, so it could very well work.

~…~

In the Stark International hospital room, Pepper lay on the hospital bed as if she were sleeping. It had been a hectic series of events. He had just gotten out of the shower, and he was ready to climb into bed when there had been a frantic knock at the door. When he answered it, a very panicked Tony was standing there.

"Oh, hello Tony, Pepper is already in bed-" Virgil began, only to be ignored as Tony rushed past him and into Pepper's bedroom. Virgil quickly followed, sensing that something was wrong. When they got into the room, they saw Pepper sleeping in her bed.

"What's wrong? What's going on?" Virgil asked.

"Pepper's been poisoned, I'm rushing her to the Stark facilities hospital room!" Tony explained quickly as he scooped her up in his arms and rushed out of the apartment building. Tony laid Pepper down in the backseat of his car and he and Virgil got in the front seats and drove to Stark International. Tony made the call to Dr. Yinsen on the way over. He rushed her into the building and into the elevator. The hospital room was in the basement. When they got there, Pepper was laid out on the bed and Virgil sat beside her.

"Stay here while Rhodey and I look for the antidote." Tony demanded as Rhodey arrived and the two rushed out. Ever since he'd been sitting in the same room, talking with Dr. Yinsen about her condition.

"The antidote will be hard to recreate. Our best bet is for Tony to find the antidote that was already made." Yinsen explained.

"Who did this to her?" Virgil asked.

"I don't know. Tony called me and said she'd been poisoned, but that's all he said." Yinsen answered.

Suddenly, a mysterious female voice echoed through the room. The two couldn't trace its source, but it sounded like it was coming from some sort of speaker or cell phone or something.

"Hello, Potts." It began. "I suppose you're wondering what has happened to your daughter. Well, she's going to die. In 24 hours. Unless her precious hero, Iron Man can find the antidote and save her. But I'll be keeping him busy for the next 24 hours on a wild goose chase, so you may as well say your goodbyes now. Iron Man can't come to the rescue this time." The voice explained. Virgil couldn't recognize the voice, it was being disguised too well. The only thing he knew about it was that it was definitely female.

"Should we be helping Tony find the antidote?" Virgil asked.

"No, leave that to them. We need to stay here and keep working on an antidote." Yinsen explained. Virgil nodded and looked back to his forever slumbering daughter.

~…~

In a dark room somewhere in the city stood a dark figure, staring out a window down to the streets. Her arms were folded behind her back and a sneer was sitting on her face.

"Stupid Stark...he's taking my bait like a starving fish. He should have known that I don't care about him finding me. I'm not giving him that stupid antidote just because he's able to find me." She said to no one in particular.

"I'm just going to let him find me. Because when he does I'll make him mine again whether he likes it or not." She said with an evil chuckle. "He's going to forget all about his stupid girlfriend. She's as good as dead." As she cackled loudly, the antidote sat on the counter behind her.

"I've got him right where I want him…in the palm of my hands."

Well, another chapter. I find that this story is going to be an interesting challenge. The whole story has to be set in the same 24 hours, and all my other stories are never set in the same 24 hours. They're usually spread out over a few weeks. Like, I just wrote this story for El Tigre set over a 9 month period (pregnancy story) and having just gotten out of that, this should be fun. But, before I bore everyone to death, review!

EDIT: Wow, I'm so dumb D: I left my notes in the beginning of the document and totally forgot they were there…I erased them, but still, just forget they were ever there…can anyone say fail? X3 Silly me, I'm so embarrassed! XP