"Jarvis, I need that location," Tony called, rushing to prepare the suit.

"Tony, you can't fly out there in the suit," Pepper argued, following him around the workshop. "She's probably off with friends, and you going out there in that-"

"Signal has been lost sir," Jarvis explained. "Miss Greene's cell is no longer functional."

Tony's heart was racing, and he could see the look of dread taking over Pepper's expression.

"Play back the last part of the call," he ordered.

The workshop was filled with the sound of horns blaring, the sound of Grace's voice panicking to find an answer for her father, and then a gasp. A gasp that was broken off with a loud crash before the signal was completely lost.

"Satellite cannot find the location, is it likely to have been destroyed, sir."

Tony could feel every nerve in his body, he could feel every muscle clenching and his stomach twisting in knots. Grace was out there, in danger, and Tony didn't know where to look first. His best bet was going to the last location of the signal, but since that was twenty minutes away, he was sure Grace would be long gone by now.

He didn't care about the time of day or the rush hour traffic, he didn't care what sort of headlines he caused, he was going to find her.

"Tony," Pepper began cautiously. "What can I do?"

She had already been on the phone all evening talking to Rhodey, letting him know the situation and what to look for, and to Dave for any information on Lewis. Happy was out looking around all the malls nearby, about to widen the search to surroundings areas. Everyone was doing their part, but it didn't seem to be changing a thing.

"Just...just stay here, okay?" Tony breathed out, trying to calm himself. "Don't go out, in case...I can't..."

Pepper moved in close, putting her hands on his armoured shoulders, running one hand up to cradle the back of his head and force his gaze on her own.

"Hey, you'll find her," she assured. "She's a smart kid, Tony. And a lot tougher than we think."

"Still a kid though," he sighed. "My kid. She's my responsibility Pepper. Ours."

"We're going to find her," she told him again. "Go on, I'll stay right here in case I hear anything."

Tony gave a slow nod, his mind still reeling, thinking of where he was supposed to start and what he was supposed to do. If this were an assignment, if he had been given a person or a group to go after and bring in, he would be thinking clearer than ever. But this wasn't a mission that Tony could just switch to auto-pilot to get in and get the job done. This was Grace, and this was his biggest fear.

Pepper stepped back, watching the roof retract above Tony, the faceplate coming up to cover his worried face, before he was gone.


Grace could barely look at the man driving them through the streets, afraid to make eye contact or spark an outburst. Jonathan Hames had a very short temper, and any kind of comment or facial expression could hit a nerve.

He had been muttering to himself as they rounded each corner, hit every red light, passed endless traffic. Grace didn't have the courage to ask where they were going or what he wanted with her, so instead she sat there quietly and endured the unknown.

"You don't want to cause a scene," he mumbled, his hands gripping the wheel. "You don't want that, do you?"

Grace forced herself to look over to him, wondering if he was speaking to her.

"N-no," she whispered. "I don't."

"Good," he nodded, taking a deep breath. "A lot of people have been asking me about you."

"I know-"

"I'm not finished," he snapped. "They've been asking me why there's no information about your time with me and Theresa. Like none of it existed."

"The courts sealed it," Grace explained. "You know that."

"Everything those courts sealed are lies," Jonathan seethed. "And you're going to fix that."

"Fix it? How am I supposed to-"

"You're going to fix it!" he yelled, accelerating down the highway. "I'm sick of my life being dictated by you and everything you made us put up with! We can't move to a city you're in, we can't travel where we want to, we can't get the jobs we want to!"

"Are you kidding me!" Grace fired back. "You didn't even to any jail time for what you did! All you got was charged and let out on bail, and you've been coasting ever since! Anyone else would have been-"

Grace was silenced with a slap to the face, Jonathan reaching over to throw his hand against her face hard enough that she hit the window at her side. All of the might and energy was ripped from Grace in a flash, a gasp escaping her lips instead, as she sat there looking at the car door and wishing she could open it and roll out onto the hard concrete road of the highway. But Jonathan had the doors locked, and she couldn't fight to open them.

You don't want to cause a scene.

"I should have never taken you in," he shook his head, anger in his voice. "All you've done is cause us trouble, even after you left. And now you're with Stark, getting all his money while we sit back and rot with nothing. Can't even make money from an interview, can't make money from anything because of you!"

Grace sat in silence, staring out in the window in the hopes something would happen for her to escape. A red light, she could open the lock and scramble out of the car. But Jonathan would chase her, and he would yell and scream and people would film it and it would be all over newspapers and news stations for weeks. It would cause a scene, and Jonathan knew Grace didn't want that.

The last she or Tony needed was this in the media.

"You're going to tell the reporters what really happened," Jonathan explained. "You'll tell them all the lies you told the police, how you made it all up and hurt yourself just to make it look like we were bad people, like we were bad parents."

Grace could taste blood on her lips from where her teeth had stabbed into her skin, but now she was biting at them as if to draw more out. Her eyes were stinging with tears of frustration, and she she could think about once again was rolling out of this moving car.

"So, you're going to fix it," Jonathan repeated. "And you're going to make sure we have the money we're owed. Do you understand?"

"How am I supposed to fix that?" Grace asked, pushing her luck with Jonathon's mood.

"We're going to make a video, a confessional really, from you. That'll be our press release, and that's where we'll start to get our money."

"A video?" Grace repeated. "Look, wherever you're taking me...people are going to be looking for me,"

Jonathan shook his head.

"I'm not an idiot," he muttered. "I have a place in mind, Theresa's meeting us there and we'll have it done within the hour. I'll be taking bids from channels by midnight,"

Grace's panic began to heighten. If they were going somewhere nearby, and if Jonathan intended to have this 'confessional' within an hour, this would be all over every media outlet by morning. This was happening.

And it was going to be her own fault. She had been the one to skip out on school, to lie to Tony and Pepper and leave town without letting either of them know. And now she was going to ruin the family she had wished for her whole life.


Tony found Grace's found smashed to pieces in the gutter just outside Santa Monica. It hadn't been dropped accidentally, it had been thrown down with force and intention. Someone didn't want Grace to be found, and Tony felt his whole body fill with adrenaline at the physical evidence. He easily ignored the gasps and snapping cameras around him as he stood by the road in the Iron Man suit, looking down at the cell in his hands. But he didn't stay long, taking the destroyed phone with him as he rocketed up into the night sky.

"Tony, Lewis is calling," Pepper's voice filtered through.

"Is she with him?" he asked, anxious.

"No," she sighed, disappointed.

"Put him through,"

They had been trying to reach him ever since Tony had received Grace's text that she was meeting with him, but just like Grace, he hadn't been responding.

"Mr. Stark?"

"Lewis, when did you last see Grace?"

"Uh, we...we were at the mall," Lewis stuttered, obviously nervous.

"I don't care if you guys were out of town or skipped class right now, alright? I just need to know where you were, no bullshit."

There was a slight pause.

"I don't want her to be in troubl-"

"She's in trouble right now kid, dangerous trouble," Tony explained. "Where were you guys?"

Lewis debated for a moment, but knowing Grace was in danger pushed him in the right direction. They always had one another's backs, always. Each time they broke a rule, each time they were somewhere they weren't supposed to be, they always covered. But he needed to help her.

"We were at a mall in Santa Monica, just eating pancakes and talking, we didn't go anywhere else and that's all we did, I swear. Grace got on a bus back to Malibu and I went caught another back home. I saw her get on that bus Mr. Stark, I promise."

Tony's mind was reeling, thinking of the possibilities.

"Why did you guys go to Santa Monica? Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"Grace asked me to meet her to talk, and we said we'd meet halfway," Lewis explained.

"Talk about what? Was she wanting to...to leave?" Tony asked.

"No, no she doesn't want to leave. She was talking about...about Hames, you know?"

Tony could feel his chest tightening.

"What about Hames?"

"Just that she found out t-that you were looking into him and talking to lawyers and she freaked out because she didn't want everything to come back up and for you to find everything and if the media started digging...she was just worried, that's all, and I was there when it all happened, so...so I think that's why she wanted to come talk to me about it."

"Jarvis, update on Hames immediately," Tony ordered. "Lewis, has he contacted her?"

"No, no he hasn't," the boy explained. "I'd kick his ass myself if he did."

"Grace has told me about him, that's why I've been looking into it,"

"I don't think she's told you everything," Lewis sighed. "I don't want to tell you anything she hasn't but...that guy is a lot worse than she's letting on."

"You want to elaborate on that?"

"Sir, Mr. Hames left his residence early this morning and has not returned." Jarvis cut in.

Tony had been flying around in circles for a minute now while talking to Lewis, but at the news of Hames, he was immediately tracking the man. He had eyes on him for weeks now, but Jarvis was sending through coordinates for the last sighting of his vehicle. Unsurprisingly, it was a lot closer than Tony would have liked.

Now he had his target.

"You don't think...Grace was going straight home, I swear-"

"I know, I believe you kid," Tony assured, soaring through the sky to get closer to the tracking coordinates. "Listen, what did you mean Grace hasn't told me everything?"

There was another small pause.

"Hames didn't just break Grace's arm. That's the only one they got him on, but he's a bigger asshole than you or anyone else thinks. His wife is batshit too, I don't even know how they got approved to be foster carers. They took her in for the pay check but they weren't meeting the standards and spent none of the money on Grace. They only saw her as an income."

"He's hurt her more than once?" Tony asked, blood boiling.

"Pushing her down the stairs was the worst of it, but...yeah," Lewis explained. "W-what can I do? I want to help!"

Tony couldn't even find words at the moment. All he could think about was Grace as a little child. Helpless, innocent, full of life and laughter and awe, and Hames hurting her over and over again. His daughter. While Tony was out who knows where.

But he couldn't focus on that right now. He needed to find her and protect her, just like he should have all those years ago.

"No, stay home," Tony insisted. "If you hear from her, you call me."

And with that, Tony cut the line.


Grace thought about running. It was the logical option. Any hostage would run, scream, get the attention of anyone around them and get away from their captor. But all Grace could think about were the cameras and the stories they would run. The picture they would paint of Tony being a bad father, letting his daughter be taken for ransom, unable to help her. Grace couldn't do it, because this was as far from Tony's fault as possible.

As Jonathan pulled into the parking lot of a busy 7-Eleven, he turned off the car and looked to Grace warningly.

"You don't run, you don't scream, you follow me," he ordered. "Got it? Because this could go a lot worse."

Grace stared into his mad eyes, wondering if he was on something. He seemed so much more on edge now, like something had kicked into his system. He was getting crazier by the minute. Grace knew he was a drinker, but she couldn't smell anything on him.

Jonathan got out first, walking over to Grace's side and opening the door gently with a blank, bored expression.

"Slowly," he whispered, closing the door behind her and locking the car.

Then he walked them over to a new, shiny white Prius. He opened the back door, gesturing for her to get inside. As soon as Grace moved into the vehicle, she knew exactly who was sitting in the driver's seat. She could smell the perfume instantly, and it made her stomach churn.

"Sweetie," Theresa smiled, brown teeth and raspy voice just as Grace remembered. "It's nice to see you."

"Yeah, best day ever," Grace deadpanned. "Do either of you know what you're doing right now?"

Jonathan closed his door, pulled on his seatbelt and nestled back into his chair.

"I know that Tony Stark would be looking for you, and he'll be looking for a green Ford," he sighed. "And he'll find it right there, parked on the opposite lot of the security camera."

"And we'll be nowhere near it," Theresa added, reversing out of the park and driving them back out onto the highway. "It'll be over in an hour, tops, Grace."

"That makes me feel so much better," she bit back. "So you grew some brain cells since we let met, huh?"

"I see you've still got that smart mouth," Theresa shook her head. "I don't know where you got that attitude as a little girl Grace, but it doesn't suit you."

"Must have picked it up along the way, you know, I had such exemplary role models around me,"

"And you wonder why you drove us crazy," Jonathan groaned. "You're going to sit there silently until we get to the motel, you got that?"

"Motel? Jeez, for someone with no money you sure have expensive taste,"

"What did I just say?" he yelled, startling Grace further back into her seat.

"Just sit there!" Theresa snapped back.

Grace watched her hands gripping the wheel, shaking, trembling. They were definitely on something, and right now they were just climbing and climbing and Grace really didn't want to be around when they reached the top. Theresa was speeding, Jonathan was yelling, and Grace was once again back at mulling over jumping out of the moving car.

All she wanted right now was to go back to this morning and change every decision she made today. At least Jonathan was right about her. She was the same kid she had always been. Making mistakes and messing up everything.


"Jarvis I need footage from the parking lot," Tony ordered.

"Footage does not show the car, sir."

Tony groaned, scanning the area once again from above where he flew. He could see people in the streets pointing their cell phones toward him, snapping photos of Iron Man hovering above them.

"Tap into the street cams," he directed. "Use progressive captures, anything you can get. Bypass public code, I'll deal with that later,"

"Scanning now, sir."

Tony looked around the streets as best he could from his vantage point, but he was seeing no sign of Grace or Hames. It was obvious that the man had abandoned the vehicle, knowing that Tony would be tracking him, and he was growing angrier with each passing second. Tony could see lights soaring down the highway, traffic beginning to build up once again from the lights at the end of the road near the gas station, and he began scanning as many cars as he could for anything suspicious.

If Grace was thrown into the trunk, he would be able to see it. If someone was struggling in the back of a car, he would see it. But nothing came up that alerted him, and he was quickly worrying that he just was simply too late to find anything valuable to go off.

"Pedestrian security footage picked up a match for Jonathon Hames three blocks away," Jarvis alerted.

Tony pulled up the image on screen. Jonathan was in the passenger seat, eyes wide open and full of panic.

"Did you get an I.D on the driver?"

"Currently scanning for another angle, sir."

"Follow the security footage from that street, I need a car model and registration. Anything you can get me, now!"


Grace was surprised they hadn't been pulled over by police. Theresa was barely staying inside the painted white lines, and she certainly wasn't obeying the speed limit. She was positive now that she was in a car with two high, extremely agitated people who seemed to be unravelling before her eyes.

When they finally pulled into the motel parking lot, both Jonathan and Theresa were shaking.

"Stay there," Jonathan ordered.

Grace had no plans to move anyway, too busy looking around for any sign of other guests or security cameras nearby. Jonathan stepped out first, making his way around to meet Theresa at the front of the car. They muttered among themselves for a few moments, glancing back at Grace a few times to make sure she wasn't planning to run or make any trouble. Then Theresa walked over to a room with lights peeking through the curtains, opening the door and looking back for Jonathan to follow.

With a small gesture, Jonathan called Grace out. She didn't move at first, wondering if it would be worth running. There were no people around, no one to catch a photo opportunity, no one to worry about. She could run and find somewhere to hide, she could find a payphone, she could run to a gas station bathroom and lock herself inside. But all of her thoughts were halted immediately when Jonathan opened the car door, holding a small, glistening knife in his hand.

"Don't make me use this," he growled. "Get your ass out of the car and into the room, now."

Grace slowly slid out of her seat, standing by Jonathan's side and feeling the knife just at the edge of her ribs. There was no way Jonathan was going to stab her, he could never get what he wanted out of all this if he did, but he could make it hurt enough to have her cooperation.

"You're insane," Grace bit out, looking up to Theresa by the door. "Both of you."

"This is what you've driven us to," Jonathan shook his head. "We wouldn't be like this if it weren't for you! Do you think it's fair you get to live in a mansion with everything you could ever want while we have nothing?"

"You did that to yourself," Grace shook her head, listening as the door closed behind them.

"We live from day to day!" Theresa yelled. "Jonathan can't work, and the money I make barely gets us by. Every other family you made your way through get to sell their story and make some money off putting up with you, and what do we get? We can't even say your name without being threatened! We get thrown in jail the minute we talk about you, all because of the bullshit you told the police!"

"Oh, bullshit, was it?" Grace yelled back, growing infuriated. "So you didn't shove me into the walls every night? You didn't spend the money on booze every week and just send me to school with stale bread? It's called child neglect and child abuse, and I didn't push either of you assholes into that!"

Jonathan moved in nearby once again, grabbing Grace around her throat.

"Watch your mouth!" he warned.

"Go on, hit me!" Grace countered. "Your video will mean shit! You're going to put me on camera to stand up for you two when I've got your hand prints on my face? You're both delusional!"

"Don't push me," Jonathan grunted, shoving her back into the wall. "This could go a whole other way Grace,"

"No it won't," she laughed, struggling now for air. "You won't get your money."

Theresa grabbed Jonathan's back, pulling him away from her. Grace inhaled as deep as she could once his hand let go of her throat, reaching up to rub the swelling skin. He looked mad, like he was on a whole other planet. They were both sweating now.

"Shit, shit!" Jonathan groaned, kicking the edge of the couch. "I need...I need another hit, and then we'll start."

Theresa nodded, moving to the bag she had sat on the bed.

As Jonathan moved away to join his wife, to grab whatever drug they both needed to get by these days, Grace made her first and final snap decision. Running to the door, she grabbed the handle and yanked it open, only to find the chain lock attached to the wall. After the initial resistance, she undid the lock and tried again, but she felt Jonathan's arms around her waist before she had another chance, Theresa's voice screaming in the background of the mayhem,

"No! You don't get to leave us!" she screamed.

Grace kicked her legs out, trying to get out of Jonathan's grip, and she couldn't help feeling like a child all over again. No matter what she did when she was little, she couldn't get out of Jonathan's hold, and that had remained unchanged.

"Shut up! Shut up!" he yelled, looking to Theresa and then back to Grace. "You little shit!"

Grace reached out to hit him in the face, but it was doing nothing but anger him. Soon enough, the knife was back, pressed against her collarbone with enough pressure to surely draw blood. She could feel it wetting her crisp, white school shirt, and she bit down on her lip and held in a scream.

"You will fix this-"

Grace could feel Jonathan's body fall into hers, the knife slipping from his hand and bouncing off somewhere on the floor. The motel room door now laid behind Jonathan's crouching body, slamming into him enough to knock him down. Theresa's scream filled the room once more, and when Grace looked over, she could see the woman crouched down with her hands above her head, cowering.

"Stay down! Stay down!"

Grace knew that voice. It was Rhodey. He was standing above Jonathan, just beside Theresa, pointing a gun between the both of them with a hard, furious expression. Her whole body was shaking as she watched on, but Rhodey's eyes only glanced at Grace for a moment before they turned back to the other man by his side.

Tony. Standing by the door, his red and gold Iron Man suit slowly retracting around his body so he could step out.

Grace had never seen someone looked so angry in her life. It was a look she couldn't ever imagine on Tony, and yet here he was, his expression speaking louder than the screams coming from Theresa in the corner.

She watched him march over to take hold of Jonathan's shirt, flipping the man over before reaching down and grabbing him by his collar. Tony lifted him to his feet without a word, staring directly into his eyes as his jaw clenched and brows pulled together. For a second, just a second, Grace wondered if Tony was going to kill him right there and then with just his bare hands.

"The police are a minute out," Rhodey reminded him, his voice breathy and low.

Tony continued staring at the man, and Jonathan's mouth quivered as if he was looking for something to say. But it was obvious he was terrified to his core, and with good reason.