AN: Okay, sorry for the delay. There's a couple reasons:

1. I realized I had sort of left something really important out of this story - until I had it fixed, I didn't want to post anymore since I wasn't sure what chapters would need revising.

2. My ADHD meds aren't working right, so it's harder for me to focus on certain things

3. I'm currently obsessed with Encanto and have been fighting plot bunnies for that while trying to work on this - plus reading tons of Encanto fanfictions. (If you have any suggestions, let me know!) Seriously, if you haven't watched it, you totally should

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy!

Tony often lost track of time while working in his lab, and today was no exception. He was fine tuning part of his own suit, and he was having some trouble.

Peter was going to help him after dinner that night, and he was sure the kid would have ideas that Tony couldn't dream of. The kid was brilliant. It was a Friday, and on Fridays they often spent the evening in Tony's lab, working on whatever project they felt like.

Ever since Peter had come home, Tony had made his Friday nights with Peter his top priority. He didn't think he would ever forgive himself for the fact that Peter had believed that he wasn't wanted - and he was determined to prove to his son that nothing could be further from the truth.

Tony was startled out of his project by FRIDAY, his AI.

"Boss, Dr. Banner has requested that I ask if you've heard from Peter today."

Tony's blood ran cold. Peter always went to his internship with Banner after school until dinner. It was one of his favorite parts of the day - his kid had fallen in love with medicine. He never missed his internship.

A quick check of the time showed that Peter should have been home an hour ago.

Tony tried to remind himself to breathe - with hands that were shaking slightly, Tony pulled his phone out of his pocket, hoping desperately for a missed call or text from his son.

Nothing.

"Tell Dr. Banner I haven't." Tony's voice was shaking. "FRIDAY, track Peter's location."

"One moment, Boss." The AI was silent while she analyzed.

"I am not able to pick up a current location."

"Can you track the last location?" Tony asked, already standing up with his phone to his ear.

"Hey babe," Tony's husband said from the other end of the phone, sounding out of breath.

"Steve, I think-"

"Tony, what's wrong?" Steve must have picked up on the anxiety in Tony's voice.

"I think - I think Peter's missing."

"I'll meet you by the car." the phone went silent.

Tony called a suit to him, running to meet his husband. Steve was just arriving, with Bucky and Natasha with him.

"We'll take another car." Nat told him, taking a set of keys and hopping in. "We can cover more ground that way."

"FRIDAY, share all information that you have on Peter's last whereabouts with us and with Natasha and Bucky."

"We'll head to that location," Steve told the other two. "Can you two head to the school and work your way out from there?"

"Got it." Nat said, and she was gone.

"Tony, baby, let me drive." Steve said gently, taking the keys out of Tony's hand. Tony had been frozen since they had gotten there, his eyes not really seeing. "Tony." Steve said more forcefully. "We're going to find him. This isn't like last time."

"Right." Tony huffed a laugh, and forced his legs to move, hopping into the passenger seat. "Let's go."

Friday sent the coordinates of Peter's last location to the GPS in the car, and Steve took off. He reached out and took Tony's hand, bringing it to his lips and kissing it. "This isn't like last time." He whispered.

Like last time. Last time almost killed each of them. Last time tore them apart. Last time they had fought and blamed each other and argued so much that there were times Tony was sure they would never heal, would never be able to come back together as a couple again.

"What if it is?" Tony asked, his voice hard. "What if we messed up again and he left?"

"No." Steve shook his head. "We've come too far, made too much progress. Peter knows we love him. Peter wouldn't leave again." Tony didn't respond. "Tony, we have to trust him."

"I do." Tony said immediately. "I just… I know how this is going to sound, but I sort of want this to be his choice. At least if it's a choice…"

Steve's heart sank at Tony's implication. "If it's a choice, he's alive." Steve finished. "And probably pretty safe."

"We know he can survive on his own. He did it for two years." Tony whispered. "But if he's been taken-"

Steve flinched, swinging the car into an illegal spot and hopping out. He followed the instructions that FRIDAY had given them to the alleyway right near the car.

Behind the dumpster, they found exactly what they didn't want to find.

Peter's backpack was there. His phone was smashed, and so was his watch. The earplugs and contacts that Peter wore were scattered on the ground around the backpack, and Tony kneeled down to get a closer look at the pool of blood.

"Damn it." He muttered, standing up. "That's the tracker from his shoulder."

Steve's breath caught. Peter had actually asked for that tracker, a couple months after he had been home. Peter knew that Tony had put trackers in other items he used all the time, but had wanted one that he wouldn't be able to lose. He had made them promise not to track it unless it was an emergency. And Tony and Steve had been all too ready to agree to the tracker, their fear of losing their son almost all encompassing.

And they had agreed to put it low on the back of his shoulder, where no matter how Peter twisted and turned, he couldn't reach it.

If Peter had chosen to run, he'd had help.

But he had never thought that Peter had run. And now he was sure.

Peter had been taken.

"Tony-" Steve's voice broke as he looked at his husband, his face as broken and panic-stricken as he was sure his own was.

They were interrupted by Steve's phone ringing. He yanked it out of his pocket and answered it on speaker.

"Yeah Nat?"

"Peter left school like he always does." Nat's voice was tight. "We took the liberty of calling Ned, they split on their walk where they always do, and Peter was fine. Ned said Peter was telling him about - about the project he and Tony were going to work on tonight and the work he was going to do with Bruce this afternoon. Steve, if he's missing, it wasn't willingly."

"We found his stuff." Steve said.

"We just got to your location." Nat ended the call, but appeared in the alleyway almost immediately. "What'd you find?"

Steve showed her the backpack and the other items, including the blood and the tracker.

Nat pulled on some gloves and carefully bagged all of it. "We'll get this to S.H.I.E.L.D." She told them, after everything had been bagged. "They'll check for DNA and fingerprints." Neither man responded.

"Hey," Bucky snapped his fingers in front of Steve's face. "Steve, you have to keep it together right now. Your kid needs you."

Steve shook his head, focusing on Bucky. "Right. You're right." He glanced at Tony, who was nodding slowly.

"What do we do now?"

"Let's see if FRIDAY can track anything with surveillance cameras," Bucky suggested. "We can try and follow their path."

"Yeah, okay. Good idea." Tony said flatly.

Bucky plucked the keys out of Steve's hand. "I'm driving. I don't trust either of you behind a wheel right now."

Steve didn't argue - it was the same reason he had taken the keys from Tony in the first place. He just followed Bucky to the car while Nat took the other one to deliver the - the evidence.

"FRIDAY, can you start analyzing the surveillance cameras from our current location and track Peter?" Tony asked the AI.

"On it, Boss." FRIDAY responded. There was silence for a moment before FRIDAY started directing them, but they came to a dead end when they reached an area with no surveillance - an area where the black SUV that FRIDAY had determined they were in could have gone in six different directions, all on different interstates.

"Damn it." Tony pounded his fist against the door.

"FRIDAY, find that car again." Steve commanded.

"I am running a license plate check on the car." FRIDAY responded. "I will start searching surveillance cameras, starting with New York and working outwards. That search will take a long time."

"Get it started then, FRI." Tony said with a weary sigh. "Its the only thing we've got to work on at the moment."

Bucky's phone rang then. He answered it. "Hey Nat, you're on speaker."

"Fury's ordered the search for Peter to be highest priority." Nat's voice came from the other end. "They are processing and analyzing everything as we speak. Did you guys get anywhere tracking their movements?"

Bucky explained where they were and what they had FRIDAY looking for.

"Damn it." Nat muttered. "Okay, let's meet at the compound and regroup. I've called everyone I can in, they are all on their way."

Steve and Tony both were functioning on autopilot at this point. Back at the compound, they met with the team. They spent days running down every possible lead they could think of. They slept when they literally couldn't function anymore, normally falling asleep at a chair or on the floor where they were.

On day six of their search for Peter, Tony's phone rang, an unknown number appearing across the screen.

Steve and Tony jolted into action. "FRIDAY, track this call." Steve commanded. The others in the room at the moment, Bruce and Nat, were silent, and Tony answered, putting the phone on speaker.

"Hello?"

"Hello Mr. Stark." A deep voice drawled on the other end.

"Who are you?" Tony asked, his voice level.

"You don't know?" The man sounded amused. "I thought you were a genius. Maybe the tabloids were wrong about you." He laughed, a hysterical sound that shot fear through all of them.

"I don't know who you are." Tony admitted, keeping his voice calm, though he wanted to scream into the phone. "But I assume you are the man who has my son."

"Ahh, so you do have a couple of brain cells there." The man said. "Yes, I have your son."

"Is he alright?"

"He's alive. For now." Tony's jaw clenched. He had to remind himself to keep calm - going off on this guy was an almost surefire way of getting Peter killed.

"What do you want?" Tony asked.

"I want you to suffer." The man hissed. "I want you to suffer like I've suffered. I want you to suffer every single day, wondering if your son is alive, and knowing there is nothing you can do about it. I want to break you, the way you broke me."

Tony was lost. He didn't know what this guy was talking about, but he still had to try and keep him talking as long as possible.

"You know, Peter's only a kid." He decided to try and humanize his son. "He's on the Decathlon team at school. He likes chocolate ice cream. He loves Star Wars. He hasn't done anything to you, I have. Trade Peter for me - you can have me, you can torture me, you can kill me."

"And maybe, if I had been the one to die due to Stark Industry technologies, that option would have been considered." The voice on the phone was hard. "But this is an eye for an eye situation, Mr. Stark. You won't be able to find him, you won't know day to day if your son is dead or alive. You will suffer the way I have." The phone went dead.

"FRIDAY, please tell me you got something." Steve begged, wrapping his arms around his husband's shoulders from behind. "You did great, babe." He whispered, trying to offer comfort. Tony squeezed his hands, but didn't respond verbally.

"I have an address in upstate New York." the AI announced. "The helicopter is ready to launch."

They all shot out of their seats, immediately gathering what they would need for their rescue mission. Nat jumped in the driver's seat while the rest that were available gathered in the back - Tony, Steve, Bucky, Bruce, and Sam. Clint had been unavailable all week, and Rhodey was working on tracking the kidnappers through his government resources and was in DC.

As they were taking off, Tony's phone dinged with a message, and a picture popped up that almost made him sob.

"Steve," He breathed, passing his phone to his husband to see.

Steve's breath caught as he took in the image too. It was Peter, looking grimy and pale. His hands were behind his back, and his ankles were bound to the legs. His clothes were torn, and he was bleeding. It looked like his nose was bleeding and he had a cut across his face. The newspaper that was hanging from his mouth was from that morning - Tony had to zoom in to make sure. Their son looked startled, like he wasn't expecting the picture.

The phone got passed around to the others, allowing them to see the damage done to Peter.

"We're going to get this bastard." Bucky said, his voice hard as he took in the picture of his nephew. "Nat-"

"We're two minutes out." Nat announced in response to the unfinished question. "I've determined an isolated spot to land, and then we will make our way to the location quickly and quietly - but we don't want to alert them to our presence, so it has to be a ways out."

They all knew that that was the best strategy, and followed Nat's lead until they came to a building that surprised them - it seemed to be a simple cabin in the middle of the woods.

"FRIDAY, assess for any threats." Tony commanded from inside his suit.

"Assessing." FRIDAY stated, and then was silent. After about 30 seconds, she spoke again. "There are four people in the building. One person underground that could be Peter. One is in what appears to be a kitchen, and three are in the front room."

"Sam, Steve, go around back to the one in the kitchen, Nat, Bucky, and I will take the front three. Bruce, you wait here to keep a look out and so that we can start treating Peter as soon as we get him out." Tony's voice left no room for debate, and it was a solid plan.

For once, it seemed like everything was going smoothly. Sam and Steve quickly overtook the woman in the kitchen - she didn't give up any fight. Steve arrived in the front to help finish taking care of the three men.

"This is too easy." Nat muttered, and Steve glanced at her.

"What do you mean?"

"They go through all the trouble to kidnap him, to keep him alive until now. They don't demand anything, just for Tony to suffer. We trace their call, we subdue them as if they were bugs. Something is wrong."

"We have to get Peter." Tony insisted, his voice shaking.

"I didn't say we didn't. But stay on your toes." Nat warned.

Tony led the way down the stairs and through the twists and turns that took them all deep into the basement. Bruce gave a report that S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were dealing with the four upstairs.

And then they entered the room from the photo, and Steve and Tony rushed towards their son.

"Peter? Peter, its us. Wake up, son." Steve's voice was shaky as he spoke. Peter's face was no longer bleeding, though his face looked like a bruise was developing, and the cut hadn't healed yet, but he was slouched, with his head against his chest, his eyes closed.

"Peter! Peter, wake up." Tony begged, falling to his knees in front of his son.

Nat pushed her way forwards and brought her fingers to Peter's neck. "He's got a pulse." She announced, the air leaving her lungs in a breath of relief. "Lets figure out how to get him off of here."

Bucky stepped forward. "I got it." He said. And he did. His metal arm was very advanced and made of vibranium, and he made quick work of freeing Peter's legs and arms from the chair.

Steve lifted his son into his arms, trying to ignore his frustration as he realized that his son had lost a decent amount of weight - weight he still couldn't afford to lose after his time on the run.

"I got you, Pete." He said to his son, who remained unresponsive in his arms.

They got him out of the cabin quickly, and Bruce immediately started checking him over.

"His vitals are good." Bruce announced, though he sounded puzzled.

"What?" Tony asked.

"I - I'm not sure." Bruce said, as he listened to Peter's lungs again.

"Bruce-" Tony started, but Steve put a hand on his shoulder.

"Tony, let him check him out." Steve said gently. Tony turned to snap at his husband, but stopped when he saw the pain and worry he was feeling reflected on his husband's face.

"Sorry." He muttered, falling silent. Nat, who had gone to retrieve the helicopter, appeared while Bruce continued to exam Peter.

"I'll have to get him back to the compound to fully check him out." Bruce said, sitting back. "But he's stable to travel."

"Bruce-" Tony started again.

"Tony, I'll tell you everything I observed once we are in the helicopter. We need to get him home."

Tony begrudgingly let it drop as they piled back into the helicopter, getting Peter situated. Once they were in the air, Bruce spoke.

"I could hear wheezing." He said, his voice sounding more puzzled than it did concerned.

"Wheezing?" Steve asked.

"Like before he was Spiderman - when I listened to his lungs, I was always able to detect a faint wheezing from his asthma."

"What else?" Tony asked, his voice tight.

"His face isn't healing. And there is a pinprick on his shoulder that indicates he was injected with something."

Steve opened his mouth to ask his own question, but Bruce kept talking. "And his temperature is normal."

Steve furrowed his eyebrows and looked at Tony, who looked just as alarmed as he did.

"Bruce - are you telling me he's not Peter?"

"No, Steve." Bruce said quietly. "I'm telling you he's not Spiderman."

AN: Honestly, I write these more for the angst with the fluff that follows as opposed to plot - so if something doesn't make sense, I apologize. If you point it out, I might fix it, but chances are, you will probably just have to roll with it...