I am so sorry for shortness, hopefully early update makes up for it. I promise that the next chapter will be longer. Also sorry if Rhodey is out of character. I'm not very familiar with his character.
Chapter 6
Tony had been searching through the woods for almost an hour when his friend arrived, wearing his Iron Patriot suit- aka War Machine. He still couldn't believe that Rhodey actually agreed to have his name changed to that. There was always a strange mix of emotions that came with seeing James Rhodes now days. It was like a mixture of happiness, envy, and guilt. Happiness because it was always nice seeing an old friend, envy because no matter how hard he tried he could never be as good as the man that stood before him, and guilt because of what had happened to him almost two years ago.
Ironically the very event that caused Tony to make contact with Peter Parker in the first place was the same event that caused his other best friend to lose the use of his legs. Tony had provided a special machine of his own invention to help Rhodey walk again, and over the last couple of years the man had gotten to the point where he you could forget that he was even using the machine.
But Tony would always know and remember. That whole mess over the Sokovia Accords ruined a lot of things. If that had never happened his friend would be using his legs without the aid of a machine, and Tony may have never gotten into the life of Peter Parker. Which means he wouldn't be ruining the kid's life. That kid might actually be home with his Aunt right now, happy. Not somewhere out here in the cold, possibly dead.
Which means all this was Caps fault. Tony Stark had no problem whatsoever blaming all his problems on Captain freaking America. He'd been doing it for years now. "Where's Happy?" Tony asked when the two men both lifted their faceplates to talk.
"He's back at the compound," Rhodey replied.
"Well he needs to get out here with us. The kid could be anywhere."
"Happy told me that the kid should have a cell phone, have you tried calling him yet?"
Tony stared stupidly at his other best friend. That should have been the very first thing he tried. It seemed that in all the chaos of finding out that Peter was missing, he had overlooked the most logical thing that could be done to find the boy. He'd already wasted so much time; they might have found him by now. "Friday, call Peter Parker," the billionaire ordered without responding to his friend's question.
"Calling Mr. Parker," the A.I. responded.
The phone rang and went to voicemail. But this phone lead led to a few other options he could look into before they start mindlessing roaming the woods again. "Friday I need you to track Peter's phone, tell me exactly where his phone is right now."
It took a few minutes for Friday to come up with the exact location. "Mr. Parkers phone is currently in Queens."
"Isn't that where the kid lives?" Rhodey asked sounding confused. "You haven't checked their yet?"
"Yeah… No I didn't think the kid would be able to make it that far on foot. Probably went back to his apartment." Tony sighed deeply. "I guess I better head over to Queens and get the little runt before he freezes to death."
"Want me to come with you?" Rhodey asked.
Tony thought for a moment before answering, "Yeah, you probably should. To make sure I don't rip the kid of new one for for scaring the shit out of me like this."
The billionaire then told Friday to call up Happy, and after a few moments the other man answered. "Did you find him?"
"Not yet," Tony responded. "I tracked his phone, he's in Queens now. So I want you to stay at the Compound just in case he comes back." Tony figured that that if the little runt could make it all the way to Queens in just one night, then he must have some other kind of transportation other then on foot.
"You just thought of this now," Happy asked sounding like he was rolling his eyes.
"Don't even start. Just keep him with you if he comes back."
With all that Tony ended the call and set his route for Queens. The two metal suits of armor had been flying for about five minutes before Rhodey bean to ask him questions. "So this kid is Spiderman?"
"Yes," the billionaire responded.
"But he's younger now?"
"By about fourteen years. He got hit by some type of alien weapon that deaged him."
"So how old is he now?"
"He's like two years old-"
"Two! Jesus Tony, we'll be lucky if he's not frozen to death by the time we find him." Tony chose not to respond to this. These had been his exact thoughts the moment he found out that the kid was missing. He didn't need a verbal reminder, "You say he's aged down fourteen years? How old was he when we fought with him in Germany?"
Tony knew that question had been coming. He knew that the minute he decided to bring his friend in on this, that he would be eventually wanting to find out how old this spiderman kid was that he took under his wing. The billionaire knew he would have to answer this question, so after a long pause he replied. "I'm not totally sure. I think he was fourteen."
Rhody did not respond to this. Tony assumed the man was thrown speechless from the shock of finding out how he was; he himself had been shocked when he first found out the kid running around stopping busses with his bare hands and fighting petty crimes in nothing but pajama's was only in high school. The two were silent the rest of the way to Queens, but Tony knew that this conversation was far from over. His best friend would certainly have some words for him on the subject.
Once they made it to Queens, Tony led the way to where Peter lived with with his aunt. They decided to try knocking on the door first, so after getting out of their suits the two friends went up the seventh floor of the apartment building and knocked on the door. "Peter!" Tony called after a couple of moments of silence, then knocked again.
"I'll go out and look through the window, see if I can see anyone inside," Rhodey suggested, and walk back towards the elevator without wait for his friend to answer.
Tony knocked at the door for another five minutes before deciding that the kid was either ignoring him or wasn't in the building. He met up with Rhody again in front of the apartment building, who was back in his Iron suit. "I didn't see anything in the windows. It looks like no one is home," he said as the other man approached.
"So if the kid's not here, then where the hell is he?" Tony asked almost shouting. The constant frustration he'd been feeling lately was beginning to consume again. But there was something added to the frustration this time. A different feeling that made his heart ache, a feeling that he usually associated with with Pepper. Could it be worry? Tony ran both hands through his hair, and grabbed onto the locks, squeezing them tightly in his fists."
"Tony you need to calm down," Rhodey told the man placing a comforting metal hand on his shoulder. "We know that he's here right? I mean you tracked his phone here?"
The billionaire took a couple of deep breaths trying to regain his composure. "Y-yeah…" the man took another steadying breath then spoke to his A.I. "Friday, give me exact coordinates for Peter's phone."
"I've located his phone about thirty yards west of your current location," The A.I. responded after a moment of silence.
The two men began walking in that direction, with Friday leading them into an alley, where they found the phone under a dumpster, but Peter was nowhere in sight. They still spent several minutes looking up and down the alleyway, and checking any place a two year old might be able to hide, and they didn't find anything. "We know the kid was here," Tony said to no one in particular. The phone is proof that the kid had been here since he left the compound. Which means that he couldn't have made it far. The billionaire pulled his phone out of his pocket and began thumbing through it. "Ok here's the plan. Someone had to have seen him or noticed him, so we're going to go around and ask around to anyone we see. I just sent a picture of him to you."
Rhodey who was out of his iron suit again, pulled out his phone and looked at the picture Tony had just sent him. It was the picture the man took of Peter last night when he thought he might need it to convince the boy's aunt that her nephew was indeed a little toddler now. No other words were said between the two men. They both went in different directions, carrying their phones and showing the picture to anyone that was passing by to see if they had seed the kid.
This went on for hours. Precious time was wasted by people fanning over the two heroes, and having to give explanations as to why they were looking for a two year old child. Tony was at the point where his whole body felt numb from the cold weather. He couldn't stop through, he had to keep looking. He had to find his little spider, even if it meant not sleeping. The man couldn't help but feel that he was responsible for this happening. He hadn't been very patient with the kid since he showed up asking for help, it had to have been him driving the kid to do something so stupid. If he found the kid froze to death under some bridge later, he'd never forgive himself. "Excuse me ma'am," Toy stopped a woman who was passing by and held up the picture on his phone.. "I'm sorry to bother you. Have you seen this kid?"
The woman didn't seem to recognize that he was Tony Stark. That was a rare occurrence but did happening occasionally for people that were just so busy they didn't recognize what was in front of them and those who didn't' watch much television. The woman stared at the picture for a moment before shaking her head. "No I'm sorry. How old is he?"
"He's- two-" the man found himself choking up at answering the question. Peter was nothing but a helpless two year old now, and he was lost, alone, scared, possibly dead out in the cold. Why didn't he realize that the kid had been missing sooner.
"Have you informed the police?" the woman asked now looking deeply concerned at the knowledge that a two year old child was lost in New York in the middle of December.
The police were the last people he wanted involved in this situation. The last thing he needed was child protective services getting involved with his spider child. He wasn't about to tell this woman that, so he lied and said, "Y-Yeah, there- there looking elsewhere…"
"Ok, well if I see him, then I'll be sure to inform the police."
Tony thanked the woman, but wondering if maybe he just made the situation worse. He partially hoped that the woman wouldn't be the one to spot the kid. The man was about to move on when another voice spoke up, startling him from his thoughts, "You looking for a little boy?"
It was an old homeless man, dressed in thin threadbare clothing, sporting a gray scraggly beard. Tony hesitated in answering the man for a moment, before realizing that people that loitered on the street all day and night may know more than just random passersbys. So the man hesitantly stepped closer, and held his phone out close enough for the man to see the picture but far enough that he couldn't just snag the phone suddenly. This may not have been even necessary as who would ever try to steal anything from Ironman… unless the guy didn't recognize him. "Yeah… have you seen him?" Tony asked.
The old man frowned for a moment at the picture then his brown eyes glanced back up at the billionaire. "You're Tony Stark right?" Ok so apparently he was recognized. Tony expected for man to demand something in return for his information, but to his surprise a moment later he just responds with, "Yeah I saw him… last night… he headed towards the old sewing warehouse." the homeless man pointed over to an old run down abandoned building some distance away.
After tracking Rhodey down, the two friends were standing outside the old building that was looking like it was close to falling down. "Friday scan for lifeforms in this building, and please don't include animals, insects, parasites or any of that shit. Are there any human life forms?"
After the few moments it took her to scan the building, Friday reported. "I've detected one life form in the first floor."
That was good enough for them. Tony kicked the front door in, and charged inside the building calling out the child's name. "Hey kid you in here? Peter!" the man glanced around and saw that a part of the building seemed to have caved in, as there was probably two or three floors worth of rubble piled up on on the ground about thirty feet away from him. He dearly hoped that the kid was not underneath all of that. "Friday, where's the life from?"
"It is about thirty-five feet to your left."
"Jesus, NO! PETER! PETER!" Tony ran over to the pile of rubble with his friend following as best as he could. The other man hadn't mastered running yet on the machine that helped him walk.
To Tony's immense relief, he heard a squeaky child's voice respond with a shriek. "Mr. Stark! Mr. Stark please help! I'm stuck! I can't move!" the relief he felt was quickly replaced with fear as he realized how terrified the child sounded.
"Peter I'm coming!" Tony yelled and began to throwing pieces of rock and rubble aside until Rhodey stopped him.
"Wait! Tony you have to be careful. If you jostle this pile the wrong way, you could cause more of the rubble to crush him," the other man warmed grabbing Tony's arms to stop him from moving anymore.
Using Friday to help figure out the best pieces to move, so it would jostle the pile the least amount; the two men began carefully picking up pieces of rock, glass, concrete, metal, and tossed it aside. Even with their careful calculations, there was still an ominous rumble and sound of rubble shifting dangerously after Rhodey picked up a large piece of concrete with the use of his iron suit. Both of them had found themselves in their suits to help aid with the heavier pieces.
Peter immediately began to scream at the sound. God this was it. He was being crushed, they weren't going to get him out in time. "Peter what's wrong?" Tony yelled trying not to panic and failing miserably. "Talk to me! Tell me, are you hurt?" The billionaire could feeling the panic rising in his chest, his heart was beating rapidly, his hands went numb all the way to his fingertips. He was obviously about to have a panic attack. Rhoedy began speaking to Peter, but in his anxious state, the billionaire couldn't register what was being said between the two of them. All that was consuming his mind was how he had killed this kid. The one kid fate had placed with him, to teach and protect, and he failed. He failed to protect the kid.
After an undetermined amount of time, a voice finally made its way through the blind panic. "Tony! Would you f-ing listen!" Rhodey yelled, and the billionaire turned his attention towards his friend. "He's still ok, but he's really scared. We need to keep him from panicking. If he moves around too much it could make it worse."
Tony had to take another couple of breaths before he could trust his voice not to break while speaking, then raised his voice enough for it to trail through the rubble. "Hey kid! Can you hear me?"
"M-Mr. Stark!" the young child's voice shot through the rocks, and smacked Tony right at his heart strings. He didn't even realize that he had heart strings before now. The boy's voice voice sounded like it was horse from tons of screaming and crying. In fact the man's ears were able to pick up on the sobs that fell from the spiderlings lips. "Mr. Sta-rk please- I'm really scared!"
"I know you are buddy," Tony called loudly but still in a soothing voice through the rubble. "But you're going to be ok. I'm going to get you out of there, and then I'll take you on that ride on my Ironman suit, and I'll take you to your favorite ice cream shop- heck I'll take you to the moon if you want me to kid."
The task of unburying the kid was 'pull your hair out' slow. Or at least it felt like it was. Rhodey did most of the works because Tony was now weighed down with the task of making sure the child didn't panic which was actually harder then he thought it would be. Anytime their topic of conversation got slow or not that interesting the kid would began to freak out about not being able to move. On the plus side, the two men noticed that the further they dug into the rubble the less muffled the kid's voice was, which meant that slowly but surely they were getting closer.
Finally Tony removed a large piece of metal and through a tiny hole they could see bright blue eyes looking back at them. The kid's face looked dirty and pale but he appeared relatively unharmed. When Peter saw the two men looking in on him, he burst into a new set of fresh tears, somewhat startling Tony. He had expected the child to maybe shout for joy, not start bawling. Unless he was suddenly hurting, or maybe he just didn't recognize Tony in his suit.. Tony pressed the arch reactor on chest to make the Ironman suit go away, just in case. "Hang in there Pete, we almost got you out," Tony spoke in a gentle voice.
Peter reached a tiny hand towards the hole, and as if some magnetic force was pulling them closer, Tony suddenly found himself reaching into the hole with his own hand and allowing his fingers to close around the boy's tiny frozen ones. It took about ten minutes for them to make the hole large enough for Tony reach in and try to pull the kid out. But the kid's foot was stuck. "Ok Tony, I'm going to reach in and pull the slab of concrete under his foot up, and as soon as I do that you need to pull the kid out as fast as you can," Rhodey told him, and he waited for the billionaires nod of confirmation before reaching into the hole. "Ok on the count of three. One..." Tony got a good grip on the child and pulled just enough feel his foot resisting. "Two… THREE!"
As soon as Tony felt the foot get released, he pulled the child as fast as he could out of the whole. Just seconds later, and small hole that had been Peter's prison was now filled with five hundred pounds of rubble. But that didn't matter anymore, because the little spiderling was no longer in the hole, he was in Tony's arms.
Peter clung to the man, melting into his embrace as tears flowed from his shiny blue eyes, leaking onto Tony's t-shirt. The billionaire wrapped his arms around the trembling child, and squeezed him as hard as he dared. He felt a strange urge to never let this child go, to shield him and protect him from everything that surrounding them. In Tony Stark's mind right now, nothing else in the world mattered or existed, the only thing that did matter was he had his kid back, and he was safe. And there was no way he'd ever let anything happen to his little spider.
Tony happened to look at the time on his watch. And Ironically it was 2:05pm exactly. But that didn't seem to matter anymore. For some reason, getting on that plane didn't seem as important as it did a few hours ago.
Again I apologize for shortness. There was supposed to be more fluff in this chapter, but this just seemed like the perfect spot to end the chapter. This chapter and the last one isn't really my best work. I'll be honest I was getting as impatient as the rest of you for the fluff to start so I kind of sped things up a bit.
As I've been promising from the very beginning folks, starting now till the end of the story will be nothing but shameless Irondad/Spiderson tooth rotting fluff with a little bit of angst and whump thrown in so you guys don't all get diabetes.
Finally, next update might take a bit longer than usual. I'll be out of town this weekend and I don't know how much computer access I'll have.
