Tony was no stranger to loss. His parents had died when he was 17. His father had never hugged him, and his mother was distant. That loss wasn't too bad.

A year later, he had lost Jarvis. The human, that was. Then, he met Virginia (she was a spitfire, so he nicknamed her Pepper) and fell in love, got married, and celebrated the birth of their son, Elliot Osrid Stark.

But the worst loss of all was the loss of his two and a half year old son.

Honestly, Tony was surprised he had even managed to keep both his son and his wife secret for so long. But Little Elliot had been found missing a few years after he was born, and Tony didn't even know who took him, because he had never told anyone, anyone, about his son.

Six years after the disappearance of his son, Tony was back to his drinking ways, just trying to forget about his son. He had his wife, Pepper, posing as his PA, just to keep her close to him.

Today was a particularly hard day. It was also the day Elliot went missing . He would have turned fourteen three months ago.

Tony knew Pepper was in a bad way too, but she forced herself up and into the office to do CEO things. In all honesty, Tony never did those things himself. He was far more content designing. Pepper handled all of the financial stuff and all of the contracts.

As it was getting close to noon, Tony forced himself up and out of bed, heading to the penthouse bar he had reinstalled after Ultron. Most of the other Avengers were at the Compound, searching for Bruce.

ooO0Ooo

His son was taken the day before Christmas, and it was odd to the both of them that little Elliot hadn't come running into their room at the crack of dawn like he had the year before. (Of course their son was walking at 15 months old, he was the son of a genius) So Pepper had gone into Elliot's room to see a rumpled blanket on the floor and nothing else.

At this point, JARVIS was a thing, but he was still new, so Tony didn't completely trust him yet. After getting a full scan of the house and nothing conclusive, Tony searched himself. All of the nooks and crannies were empty, and Tony almost gave up on life then.

Elliot was a lifeline for him. Totally unexpected, but totally accepted. Tony worked hard over the next eight and a half months to completely abolish his drinking problem. He wanted to be nothing like his own father, who was either drunk or drinking to get drunk or ignoring Tony completely.

Elliot was the light at the end of the tunnel, and when that light disappeared, Tony fell over.

He was just lucky that Pepper seemed to understand and gave him a bit of space. Ok, a lotta space

ooO0Ooo

In 2012, there was the Mandarin to keep him busy at this time. He was honestly so busy that he forgot the days and how close it was to that day. But Herley had reminded him so much of what he had lost, he thought his son would be just like the kid. Happy, smart, and you know what, he might even look like him now. Tony had spent a couple days after that looking into Harley's past, and though Harley wasn't his son, he still practically adopted the kid and took care of him, checking in every other week.

In 2013, there was nothing to keep him busy, so he and Pepper went to a remote location, honestly on a camping trip, really. It was nice to be alone for a couple of days, even if it was spent in grief.

2014 brought a mission to bring down a minor HYDRA base, which Tony jumped on. It was simple, but it got his mind away from it all.

Now, in 2015, they were all still searching desperately for Bruce, and Tony had gotten lost, he had almost forgotten the days. Though they had mostly given up by now. With it being Christmas Eve, everyone else had gathered at the Compound, except for Clint, who was with his family. (turns out he was there every Christmas, and not just on missions. Rude) Tony wished he could have his with him. The day his parents died passed without much incident, Tony just drank an entire decanter of alcohol, and fell asleep in Pepper's arms again, same as every year before. But today was going to be harder than any other year. It had been thirteen years since Elliot had been taken.

Tony was going to try and find all that he could on his baby boy. Years ago, he had found out that it was Stane who had ordered the kidnapping, and he hadn't been able to ask any questions with Agent being there. No one could know about his marriage or son until it was safer. And perhaps now it was, but he only wanted Pepper (duh), Rhodey and Happy in on the secret.

Today, he was going to go into his company record, and see the transactions Stane made in the year 2002, for the whole year. If he couldn't find anything, he was going to continue to go back, further and further until he found something.

He was glad he hadn't made the mistake of naming the despicable man Elliot's godfather, instead, it was Rhodey. He was disappointed that he had told him about Elliot, though. It was probably what had caused the kidnapping, there wouldn't be an heir to take over after Tony, and Stane could take over and sell to anyone. If there was any reason Stane did anything he did, then it was to take over the company and practically rule all warfare and, eventually, the world. Probably.

He couldn't wait to find his son.