Author's Note: All the angst. Here have some more! I own nothing.

37. Runaway

Piper woke to a sharp bleeping nearby. She thought it was her alarm and for a moment. She reached out and her hand met an unfamiliar wall. She started awake and looked around. She was still in her hammock outside the Osborn residence. Fuck. That meant that last night hadn't been a dream after all. It had all been a nightmarish reality. She held back a sob as she remembered her fathers, Tony's face as he'd caught her in her lab. She pulled herself out of her hammock, her ribs still sore. She could feel the blood starting to flake on her face, they hadn't had a chance to clean her face back at SHEILD, she hadn't let them.

She crawled along the wall, peeking inside the room at its sole occupant, still dead to the world even through the beeping of his alarm. She sighed and waited for him to wake up. She wasn't going to leave him alone.

Sam sat in his room. He hadn't gotten more than an hour or two of sleep. None of the team had. Ava had slept in Danny's room, not exactly abiding by the rules but none of them really cared at the moment. It was too much. First Fury, now Piper had abandoned them. They had been confined to quarters after she'd left. There was a knock at the door. Sam stood up, he was still in his costume, he had only taken off his helmet last night. He stepped over to his door and scrubbed at his face for a minute before standing up a bit straighter and opening the door.

He'd been expecting Coulson, or worse someone in the new higher ups. But instead he found Danny, Ava and Luke at his door. They hurried in closing the door behind them. Sam raised an eyebrow at them. Luke spoke first.

"We're going after her, you in or out?" Sam stared at him.

"We cant go after her, we've been confined to quarters. We aren't even supposed to leave our rooms." Luke nodded.

"But we're doing it anyway." Danny stepped forwards.

"We know you are hurting most of all of us but hear us out. We think there's more going on than we can see." Sam sat down on the bed and nodded slightly.

"Ok tell me, tell me there's a reason for her walking out on us now. Now. After Fury died. After everything that has happened, she left! I thought… I thought we had something! I thought we had a team… I thought…" Ava sat down next to him.

"You thought that you and her were close. I think you are. I think she cares about all of us, I think that's why she left." Ava said as she rubbed his shoulder. Danny paced in front of him.

"She wasn't acting like herself. Short sentences, too short. The Spider's best weapon is speech. We all know that, she proved it on Asguard. But she did not use it." Sam nodded. Luke put a hand on Danny's shoulder.

"Long draw out explanations later. We think she knows something we don't. We also know she's in trouble. The Goblin is out there and she never finished getting looked over by medical. And knowing her she's gonna go after him anyway. Family looks after family, no matter what the higher ups say." Sam looked up and nodded.

"You're right. Lets go."

Tony stared at the table in front of him. He hadn't been able to leave her lab after he'd seen her run from him. That was a sight he'd hoped he'd never see, his daughter running from him. He remembered being younger and having to run from Howard, especially after he had been on one of his extended drinking binges. So he had stayed in her lab. He'd just stared out the window after her for moment but he hadn't done it long, instead turning to the drawer she'd left open. It was filled with small cartridges of what looked like white fluid. Webs, it had to be. Well that was a slight relief, at least she wasn't shooting webs out of her arms like he'd always suspected Spidergirl of doing. He set down the cartridge and turned to the rest of the lab.

He hadn't been in here in years. Not since he'd given it to her. Her face had lit up like a Christmas tree when she'd seen it. It had seen quite a bit of use too. He opened the drawer under the web cartridges and found it too full of the same. So was the next one. Each set was different though, as if they each fit into something different. A short search came up with what the cartridges seemed to fit into. Two different sets of web-shooters. One of them looked like it rested at the pulse point of the wrist. It was small about the size of a watch face, something that could easily be slipped into a pocket on the go. The other looked like it had been built around a bracelet. They were sectioned off into seven pieces, each of which looked like it could hold a single cartage from the middle drawer. He picked one up and the it whirled in his hand. It looked like each section could be spun into place with the simple flick of the wrist or finger. It was elegant and could have been easily been mistaken for a bracelet if worn in public. A pressure pad had extended from the contraption when he'd spun it. It would most likely rest in the center of the palm.

He set it back down on the table and spotted something shining in the trash can. He stepped over to it and fished out a lens. It was white and broken. He recognized it. He'd seen her wearing it what felt like years ago. He sat down hard on the floor. It was then he caught a glimpse of a corner of fabric in one of the lower drawers near him. He pulled it out and stared at the costume in his hands.

Pepper went looking for Tony when the sun rose. She found him in Pipers lab, which looked a bit like a hurricane had hit it. Tony was standing in front of one of her work tables several slightly varied versions of the Spidergirl costume were laid out on the table. He looked up at her, there were tears in his eyes.

"Spandex. She's been fighting crime in spandex. She could have died." A tear slipped down his face.

"Nearly two years and she's been running around in spandex, getting shot at, stabbed. Electrocuted. I could have lost her so often Pepper." Pepper stepped up to him and let him burry his head in her shoulder. She rubbed his hair.

"I have to make something. Something better, she can't keep running around in spandex. She's gonna get hurt." Pepper smiled slightly as she ran her fingers through his hair.

"Tony, you need sleep." He shook his head.

"No! I need to get started. I have to figure out how this happened." Pepper pulled back slightly.

"I think we'd all like to know that. But you cant do this like. You and her need to sit down and talk. She'll come home." Tony shook his head.

"She ran away. She left. I think she's afraid of me. I don't want her to be afraid of me." Pepper was going to ground Piper's ass when she got back.

"I don't think she's afraid of you. I think she's afraid of what you will think, or what you would do when you found out. But I'm not." Tony looked up at her, confused.

"Your first thought wasn't that she needed to stop, it was that you needed to help her, to protect her." She kissed the top of his head, she loved that he was shorter than her. "You're a good father Tony. She's just a scared teen, she'll come around." Tony nodded into her shoulder.

"What would I do without you Pepper?" Pepper kissed him on the top of his head again.