Chapter 39 - A Promise

Updates were Tony's thing. He'd always been great at updates. It was a common misconception that his ingenuity came from random eureka moments where he would just come up with some innovative shit. In reality, he would analyze a system, catalog the flaws, and then work the problem. It was problem-solving skills. Sure, the solutions required him to come up with some innovative shit, but even a huge chunk of his innovative instincts was grounded in his solid analytic mind.

The project in front of him was the best example. Sure, nanotechnology was highly innovative and there was nobody on the planet who came close to the level of functionality Tony had been able to implement in the housing units, but all that came from the need to update his technology. The suit hadn't been good enough, so he had analyzed the weaknesses and was en route to fixing the issues.

He tapped the modified arc lying on the workbench in front of him. Two taps and the nanoparticles spread out around the arc, forming a layer of armor encircling the housing unit. He tapped the unit again and just as quickly the nanites retreated into the unit. He had managed to fully implement the nanites in a watch-sized housing unit and it sure had saved his life in Berlin fighting against the Winter Soldier, but it wasn't enough. He needed more control, more flexibility in a fight. A method for them not just to form the pre-programmed piece of armor but to adapt into whatever form of weapon or shield he would need at any given time. He needed that sort of control over his suit and he needed it fast.

"Catalogue that one under the 4.1 Nano Arc test series, FRI."

"Right away, Sir."

He had a suit to take out of course. The one he had taken to Siberia was beyond repair, but even without the Iron League, there was always more than one suit available. That clash with the Rogues earlier that week had been another red light though. He shuddered at the thought of how exposed the armor still was in the strategic places when his opponent knew what those places were.

Ross had been on his case for days. Of all the things that irked him about this mess, it wasn't the kid's idiot move to go off on the Rogues in an attempt to live out some kind of twisted revenge fantasy. It wasn't fucking Rogers and his buddies showing up in New York City either. In fucking Brooklyn of all places. It wasn't even all the lies and the bullshit the kid had pulled behind his back.

But fucking Ross. Fucking Ross had been faster to see what was happening in his city, with his own damn Spiderling before Tony had. He should have seen this. He had had everything in place to notice what was happening. He fucking did have everything in place to monitor it. All it would have taken was a look at the damn Spider-code. At the files. At what was there and especially what was missing. The video files from the late-night patrols and investigations the kid had erased. He might have erased those but hadn't thought of adjusting the file names. Never fixed the missing numbers. One glance at those and Tony would have known that something was up.

Instead, he had trusted a pubescent super-powered vigilante.

He was such an idiot.

It was the third day now that he had barricaded himself in his rooms at the Compound. Rhodey had left for D.C. on Wednesday morning and nobody had come to bother Tony for the past days. He had worked well into the evening, but then he didn't need that much sleep. He was fine. Between his office, the lab and his personal rooms he had everything he needed.

Most importantly, he had some me-time. He needed to let go of the bullshit he had to deal with and needed to focus on what was vital. He needed more charges against Ross to stick. It's not that Tony hadn't expected Ross to be on his case, but so far they had at least pretended to each other and everyone else involved that they were on the same side. On the Accords side. Tony had meant to let Ross believe that it was in his own interest to get the Rogues under control. Nobody would ever truly control the Rogues, the last weeks had made that fairly obvious. Least of all him. Definitely not Ross. There had to be a better way to deal with everything though. The first step to fix that was to erode the corrupt cancer in the system. Ross and his cronies. Maybe Tony would get the new technology done in time to have to man shackled with nanites. That would be a personal victory if he ever managed to open up the damn housing unit again to—

"Boss, there's a call from Peter Parker's cellphone waiting for you."

Tony's hand slipped and the screwdriver he had used to open up the unit rolled over the workbench, leaving loud metallic clicking noises to echo through the lab. He cursed, then spread out the fingers of his right hand and shook off the light cramp that must have surely been the cause for the screwdriver mishap.

"Boss?"

Tony huffed and send an eye-roll to the ceiling. "Kinda busy here, FRI. I told you I don't want to be disturbed." He needed to stretch himself over most of the table to reach the runaway screwdriver. "Just take a message, Fri."

"Sir, my records show very unusual activity on Peter's phone. I do recommend that you take this call."

"Fine." He waved his hands in annoyance. "This better be important, boy. I'm in the middle—"

"Well, well, well, the great Tony Stark. What a pleasure."

The coldness that rolled off the man's voice sent a shiver from Tony's scalp all the way over his back and then down his legs to the very soles of his feet. He had grabbed the edge of his workbench by reflex but it didn't do much to steady him. He didn't recognize the voice but there was only one category of people that sounded like this.

"Where did you get this number?"

"Oh, the phone wasn't all that hard to crack."

Tony went for measured indifference, hoping his voice didn't betray the sheer terror that started to creep into his heart. "You hacked an SP3-10? Gotta say, I'm a little impressed."

"Well..." The man belted out a hearty laugh that didn't sound funny to Tony at all. "Hacked may be overstating my technical skills. I relied on my staff's expertise for this and your boy didn't do all that well with their, well... enhanced interrogation." He laughed again. "Or very well. I guess that depends on one's perspective."

Tony's heart was beating in his throat. This wasn't real. It couldn't be true. This had to be a ploy. There was no way a douche like that could overpower the Spiderling.

"At first I thought we'd be in for a whole night of fun but when my guy pulled out his knives your boy broke so fast, we didn't even get the pleasure to waterboard him. Such a shame. I heard that's one of his daddy's favorites. Isn't it, Stark?"

Tony felt sick. This was about him. Of course it was. But Tony wouldn't bite for amateurishly teasing like that. "Does this conversation have a point or are you just trying to sell a screenplay for a subpar episode of 'Law and Order'? So far, not really hooked."

"Is that right? Not at all distressed that I have your little boy? You know, I did always find your public begging for help in the search of your poor innocent son kinda pathetic. Always thought, you laid it on a bit thick there." The man sneered and laughed and Tony had a sudden vision of murdering that bastard with his own bare hands. Slowly. Painfully slow.

"If I had a penny for every time someone has claimed to have my son I'd... oh wait. I already am a billionaire."

He pulled up the holo-keyboard with a wave of his hand and started typing soundlessly. Location first. He needed to know, where they were.

"I'm starting to feel sorry for your boy, Stark. Maybe I should put you on speaker, so he can hear first hand how little daddy cares for his well being? But I guess he'd already know, wouldn't he? What kind of monster experiments on their own son? I guess that's one reason to have him disappear."

Tony's breath was catching. They had his Spiderboy, didn't they? It couldn't... It was Pete's number so they'd have to have caught him somehow and must think...

"What do you want?"

As soon as he had sent off the command to calculate the phone's location he put in another line of code that activated the camera on Peter's phone.

A warehouse. Empty except for a few cars, a handful of people and... shit. Fucking shit. A small-framed boy huddled on a chair, head bowed down low, arms locked behind his back, feet chained to the floor, a heavy metal chain slung around his torso. His shirt was pulled off and there... Tony's stomach turned. There was quite a lot of blood on the kid. He pulled up the front-facing camera as well, but all Tony could make out were dark shadows. The guy probably had the phone pressed to his ear. His eyes shot back to the camera's shaky feed of the boy in the chair. They actually thought that... that Peter was Tony's son. That... Tony took a few breaths, deep and slow. He felt sick. This was insane. The boy was roughed up as it was, if they were to find out that it wasn't true. That that only had his intern, what would—

"Come on, Stark, no empty threats? No trying to keep me on the phone longer to find out where I am? Not even gonna ask to speak to your boy?"

The dark shadows in front of the camera disappeared and a bald head attached to the hardened face of a textbook criminal flashed up in front of Tony. Scars spread across his face, features pulled in a constant shit-sniffing grimace. Obviously oblivious to Tony's control of the camera's feed, the guy stepped closer to Peter. His dirty hand snaked through the boy's hair, grabbed a fist full of it and pulled his head back. The guy squinted at the phone, found the camera function and then used his other hand to point the phone's back camera right into Peter's face, an open broadcast of the kid's state for Tony's benefit.

"Look at that, Stark! See that?" He tightened his hold of Peter's hair and gave his head a sharp shake. Only a soft whimper escaped Peter's throat. "Why don't you say 'hi' to Daddy, boy?"

The kid's face was bruised. A cut on his right eyebrow had bled over a good portion of his face. Blood that had not quite dried yet. Tear tracks, some smudgy, some had only recently rolled from his lashes. Peter's eyes were almost closed, unfocused. He didn't even seem to register the camera phone that was shoved in his face, only craned his neck, desperate to escape the pull of his hair.

Tony's heart seemed to stop at the sight.

"Pete?" His voice was rough, caught up with more emotion than he had been willing to disclose, but Peter didn't move. Maybe he didn't hear him. Maybe he actively tried to block out everything around him.

The guy gave Peter's head another sharp shake. The kid's featured contorted in pain. "I said, say 'hi' to your Daddy, boy!"

"Take your fucking hands off him!" Tony was seething. How could he keep his cool? How? That asshole was manhandling his Spiderling right in front of him, taunting.

"Da-Dad?" Fresh tears trickled down the boy's cheeks, eyes wildly jumping back and forth, unseeing.

Oh god... "It's... It's Tony. Pete, it's—"

Fuck. Fucking hell. What the fuck was he supposed to do? He reached for his phone that lay discarded on the other end of the workbench. A quick command typed onto the holo-keyboard and he turned on the front-facing camera on his own phone. The kidnapping asshole visibly jumped as Tony's face popped up on Peter's phone screen.

"Give him the damn phone! I want to speak to him!"

The guy tried to quickly duck out of the screen. Pathetic. It took all of Tony's willpower to not let an eye roll give away that he had, in fact, witnessed the man's ridiculous attempt to hide.

"Turn the fucking camera and let me speak to the boy," Tony snarled.

"Oh yeah? Why would I do that?" The guy slowly came back into the center of the frame, apparently convinced that Tony couldn't see him. Idiot hadn't even managed to hide from the camera in the first place.

"You want to make demands of me, you better let me talk to my boy first."

Tony's heart was pounding. He wasn't really in any position to make demands, but he couldn't allow them to have all the power. He had to... He had to catch them off guard somehow to overthrow them. The guy sneered a wet "Fine..." then covered the camera with his other hand and only a few low curses and some rustling told Tony that he was playing with the settings. Tony's own hacked feed from the back camera was still live and all he could do was stare at the shaky video of Peter in that chair until the angle changed completely.

Then the front camera's stream flashed white from sudden overexposure until it quickly focused on the boy. His head had fallen back down, dangling almost lifeless, chin on his chest.

"Pete?" Tony swallowed but there was no getting rid of the tension in his chest. "Pete, you hear me? Try to focus, buddy. It's Tony. I'm right here."

Painfully slow the boy did move after all and brought his head into an upright position. "Mr..." Peter drew a couple of shallow breaths. "Mr. Stark?"

But he still didn't seem to recognize the phone as what it was. He was so out of it. This... this was not good. "Look at me, kid! I'm right here."

Puffy red eyes squinted in the right direction but didn't really see. He pressed his eyes closed before he blinked once, twice and again fresh tears fell from his lashes onto the boy's cheeks, but this time the brown eyes focused on the phone screen in front of him.

"I'm right here, Pete."

The boy's face crumbled but his eyes wouldn't stray from the video feed. "Mr. Stark, I—" A deep sob rolled out of Peter's throat. "Mr. Stark, I'm sorry, I don't—I don't know—I don't know—I... I..."

The desperate plea on the boy's face made Tony's stomach turn. "It's okay, buddy. You're gonna be fine, alright?" Tony tried to nod encouragingly, tried to emanate some form of comfort and strength to help. "Everything will be alright, Pete. I promise."

There was a snort on the other end of the line and Peter's face disappeared from the screen.

"Tut, tut, tut. We'll have to see if you'll be able to keep that promise, Tony."

"I'll make you another one. Touch another hair on that boy's head and you're a dead man," Tony spit into the phone's receiver. A quick line of code killed the video he was sending out. Pete's phone was pressed against the man's ear again and as he paced up and down in that otherwise deserted warehouse, Tony could only catch the odd glimpse of Peter shaking in his bonds when the rear camera happened to point in his direction.

"Do you really think you're in any position to make threats, Stark?"

"Not a threat. A promise." A quick command on his keyboard opened up a new projection. The map that displayed FRIDAY's progress on their location. She was singling in on... Istanbul. That... Fuck.

"Oh, Tony, Tony, Tony." A dirty laugh rang in Tony's ear. "Who knew you'd make all this so much more enjoyable?" He laughed again, this time adding an unappealing snort into the mix. "How's your location scouting going? Found us yet? Come on, I know you'll want to try and catch us. Though I can't promise we'll still be here by the time you finally make it, daddy."

"What do you want, asshole?"

"You and your little band of weird misfits have been messing with my supply chain. I'm going to accept a generous offer from you, dear Tony, to make up for my losses."

Tony gritted his teeth to keep himself from reacting to that man's provocations.

"You'll have the blueprints of the arc reactor delivered to us. Building sized as well as the one that fits into your little suit. And how about you throw in a little extra? Bit of an incentive to keep the boy healthy?" The asshole laughed again. "I mean, as healthy as he is now."

He was gonna kill that guy and it would be his pleasure. He wouldn't even use the suit. He'd use his bare hands to cut off his airway, watch the asshole's eyes bulge as his brain was slowly dying from the lack of oxygen and then he would reanimate him just to do it all over and over again.

"Incentive? If you want my suit, have the balls to come out and say it."

"Nah, not gonna bring one of your little programmed Terminators anywhere close to my house. In fact, let me make one thing quite clear: If one of your little toys gets anywhere near us, I'll know. I don't know what kind of trackers you buried in your guinea pig's spine or something, but if I see as much as a blip of your little suit or your fancy Quinjet on my radar, daddy can say bye, bye to his little munchkin. Capisce?"

Tony couldn't hold back his agitation. He should be better than this but he simply wasn't. "Fuck you too, asshole."

The guy just laughed. "I will take the full arsenal of weapons you have stored in your underground bunker in Pennsylvania though."

Urgh, fuck. Tony stayed quiet, desperate to get his emotions into check.

"You know, all those weapons you never sold? Not gonna need them anyway. Might as well give them to me. I like to shower my boys with gifts." A dirty snort shook Tony back to attention. "I'm sure you can relate."

"Sure thing, I'll be happy to deliver them personally and give you a little demonstration on how they work."

"You'll find that your snark is not gonna be all that good for the health of your boy."

"If you touch him, you'll get nothing from me."

"The faster I get my merchandise the less time I have to spent on your kid, Stark."

Tony's breathing was still rugged. He had to start thinking. He had to start working on a plan. "How exactly do you expect me to move multiple truckloads of weapons to you?"

"Oh, you won't move anything. You will leave the door unlocked and I will have my people collect the prize. If the transaction went to my satisfaction, we'll let your boy go."

"You honestly think I'll be stupid enough to agree to that?"

"As things stand, your bargaining position is lacking a little... well, power, Tony." A weak scream from Peter echoed in the background. "I think we'd best go with my plan."

The hair on the back of Tony's neck stood tall. He was gonna throw up. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! He had to keep a lit on his panic, his pulse was getting out of hand. He couldn't freak out. He had to keep it together.

"You want my stuff and you're not gonna get it until the kid is safe. You will not have a single bullet without reassurances that he's safe!"

"Hm, I'm gonna give you a little bit of time to think about that on and come to the right conclusion, but not too long. I'm not interested in becoming your boy's wet nurse. You will send word by sunset tomorrow or I will have to think of another way to, well... let's say convince you."

As the guy hung up another painful gasp from Peter echoed through the line.

"FRIDAY, I want to know where they are. I want to know right now. What do you have?"

"Boss, I'm still decoding the signal. They are using some form of virtual network proxy to hide his location that I cannot decipher. The phone's data on its location services has been hugely corrupted."

"Show me."

He looked at the specs she projected in front of him and while he was trying to find the pattern, telling FRIDAY what decodes to try, what methods to use, his thoughts were circling around the bigger problem. How was he going to get to Peter out of there even if he knew where they were? It had been a whole group of people in that warehouse, multiple cars parked just waiting to take off, even if he found that location who was to say they'd still—

"FRI! Analyze the footage from the call. The cars. Are there any license plates on them?"

"Positive, Sir. I can make out the license plates on three of the 4 cars in the footage."

"Run them, give me everything you can find! Run analysis on the faces from the video feed. How many people are we dealing with?"

He couldn't stand still. This might work, but what if it did? What if he found them. He couldn't get the kid home without—

"Fuck. FRI, I'll... shit. What about the kid's aunt?"

He rubbed a hand across this face. Even if he found them, Peter was not going to come home that night. He was hurt. He'd need to recover even with his healing abilities, even if Tony managed to buy his freedom fast. "We need to send a text that looks like it was sent from Peter's phone. Tell her... fuck." This was bad. This was so bad.

Tony had her pull the kid's text messages to his aunt off the server. He scrolled through a few of them. He'd messaged his aunt whenever he was on his way to the Tower, then on his way home, specifically over the last few weeks. Tony cursed under his breath. The last one had been from that very day, telling her he was off to the lab. The kid had never told his aunt then. He'd never told her, that Tony had kicked him out.

He felt like an ass. He should have never—

This wasn't the time. Peter was counting on him. He had to make this right. Trying for a similar pattern he sent out a message to May Parker telling her in his best impression of the kid's slang that he was going to be staying at the Compound over the weekend for a special project. He added a special hourly rate that Peter would get paid for helping out on Saturday and Sunday, hoping that it would make it less likely for her to object. Otherwise... otherwise he might have to bring her in. There was a chance that he could still keep the kid's Spider powers quiet, but if May Parker were to inquire, there would be no way Tony could keep Peter's disappearance quiet.

An answer came quickly, unhappy about the short notice. Asking Peter for regular updates. That was at least one problem that he had somewhat under control then.

It took him and FRIDAY a few hours to sift through databases and find connections who theses licenses plates were registered for. Faces and the names and details that went with the faces popped up all around him. Tony nodded to himself, carefully studying everything on these people, but it wasn't until 4 am that he finally found more detailed information on the asshole himself. A short profile popped up in front of Tony.

Jordan Sallic, ties to domestic terrorism and international crime. Never been able to be tied to any offense.

Tony's jaw popped as he gritted his teeth heavily. He was going to make him pay for all of this. He was not going to get away with hurting the kid. He would never hurt anyone ever again.


##


The sun was still pretty high in the sky above him. It had taken him about an hour to drive to Massachusetts. With the suit, it would have been minutes, but he couldn't risk that. He couldn't spook them, cause he had no idea what these assholes would do if he pushed them into a corner. The location hadn't been easy to find. It's mere existence in the first place and then the specific coordinates, but the details had checked out. Peter's cell phone's location and movement data was almost entirely corrupted, but with the kid's online and text message activity Tony had a rough idea, how many hours had passed since Peter had been taken. The Mount Washington State Forrest on the south-western tip of Massachusetts was definitely in the range of where they could have gone since the kid had disappeared.

Tony had left his car a good mile off the entrance to the hideout. It was still possible that they had registered his arrival, depending on the equipment the bastards were using, but he had little choice. He had wanted to come sooner. He had wanted to come as soon as he had found the location but there had been preparations he had to make. He couldn't just storm in. That was a fail-safe way to get himself killed and the kid along with him.

At sundown, he was supposed to send word that he was willing to open his warehouse to these assholes and he would have to make it clear before then that the only way that was going to happen was if they released Peter to him before that. He would assume the negotiations might find a compromise of them releasing Peter at the same time as he would open his doors to them, but as negotiations went, he didn't have the best lever to use against them. Peter's safety was his first priority. Everything else didn't matter. He found himself not even thinking twice about giving up the blueprints for the arc. He would. Hell, he'd give them the keys to the Tower but not unless he knew that the kid would be safe.

While he had forgone the suit just like the asshole had demanded, he still had a couple of tricks up his sleeve that he would use to protect the kid as best as he could, including the watch that was literally up his sleeve, a handy little gadget that had once before saved his life in Berlin. He'd have to trust his instincts. FRIDAY was on standby with orders to open the doors to the hanger that contained the great majority of the weapons Stark Industries had produced but never sold. He should have never kept them. He should have blown them up somewhere in the desert, get rid of them so his own weapons could never be used against him ever again. But he had made a compromise with the board to store them. Just in case. He had just wanted them to get off his case so he had agreed even though he had known better. And now he was paying the price.

Not until he had seen the boy though. With his own eyes. He wasn't going to play their games, he—

Tony froze. He shot a glance over his shoulder but couldn't see anyone. He had heard something though. Either that or his paranoia was in full swing. Nobody knew he was there. He had not warned the asshole, was just going to force their hand. It would be hard and he'd have to stay strong but it would be the best—

The hair on his back rose. There was someone behind him, slowly getting closer. Tony tried to control his breathing, to keep calm and stay in control of the situation. A flick of his wrist was enough for the Iron Man-style glove to form around his hand. He quickly turned as it did, thruster stretched out in front of him.

"Impressive. That was fast. And you didn't even have to explicitly tell it to assemble?"

His pulse was thundering in his ears. The short newly colored blond hair, the wig, who knew... it didn't disguise her at all. He could only guess that it helped distract people who didn't actually know her, but Tony would recognize Romanoff's face drunk off his ass in a line up next to her genetically identical twins.

His eyes flickered to her left at Barton who had his arms crossed and his signature resting bitch-face popping in full effect. Rogers hung back, which was ridiculous. Did he think someone with his stature would be able to hide behind the Black Widow?

"What is this?" Had this been a trap? "What... what are you doing here?"

He should have brought the fucking suit. He should have brought something to defend himself. This, this had been such a bad—

"Just take a breath, Tony." Natasha didn't move but she had placed herself strategically in front of Rogers and Barton. Why, was a mystery to him. If she thought he'd trust her any more than he did the other two idiots, she was wrong. "We're just here to help."

"Fuck you too, Romanoff."

At least she had the good sense not to try and play this as friendly banter.

"You don't want to go in there on your own. It's too risky."

"Too risky? At least I will only have to watch my front, not my back. Get the fuck out of here." His had was shaking. He could feel it and he was sure they could see it too. It wasn't just the weight of the gauntlet either, not that he would ever admit that. "This... You want to fight this out, we can fight this out, but not... not now. Just... please. Just fuck off."

"This isn't really about protecting your own back though, is it?" She didn't come closer. She didn't even look threatening minus the fact that she was still one of not the deadliest spy on the planet. "It's more about Aiden."


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[author's note: Thank you guys for reading and commenting.

Your feedback has been so great, it really boost my need to share the next chapters of the story with you.

A lot of the past two and the upcoming chapters has been written and waiting to be put out for so long, so it's super exciting to see all your reactions, theories and interest of what's coming next and it's so much fun to see how some of you are picking up on the little clues I have tried to subtly scatter over the length of this story. You make this a lot of fun for me to share. Thanks so much for that :)]