A/N: Here's the next chapter! This one's quite a bit longer than the others. I got a bit carried away... Thank you to all who reviewed, favorited, and followed!

WARNING: Rating may go up.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing! I make no profit off of this. This is solely for my enjoyment and hopefully for the enjoyment of others! ;)

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Twelve Days Ago

"What's his name?"

Tony flicked his eyes up at the display to the photo of a man with dark brown hair dressed in an orange jumpsuit. The billionaire had become so familiar with the man's face over the last twelve hours that he could have described it to you perfectly while blindfolded.

"Maxwell Magnus, 38 years old," he said tiredly, twirling a pen between his fingers as he sat in desk chair with his feet kicked up on the table. "Arrested for dogfighting, illegal gambling, and petty theft; all separate sentences. Finished serving his last sentence a few years back and has supposedly been straight ever since."

May closed her eyes briefly as Tony finished off his diction. "This is the man who has my nephew? He took Peter?" She finally managed, voice wobbling ever so slightly as she looked back at the mugshot.

Tony clicked the pen rapidly a few times before responding. "Yeah," he said shortly. "But, uh," he scratched his nose, "he's going by a new look now. FRIDAY, bring up the image from the SpiderCam, time stamp 10:51:49 pm."

"Yes, Boss."

Magnus's mugshot slid over to the right as a second image popped up. This one showed a man with neon green hair and silver eyebrow piercing, but the face was unmistakably the same. May blinked at the image for a moment, expression stony. "Tell me you know where they are."

Tony swung his legs off the table, tossing the pen onto the holographic surface. "Working on it."

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Nine Days Ago

"Bring the most recent images to the front," Tony said, dragging a hand through his hair, eyes red rimmed from lack of sleep and hands shaking from too much caffeine.

Photos of Magnus slid and shifted on the screen as FRIDAY obeyed his command, compiling images from street, traffic, and grocery store cameras– any sighting of Magnus that might give them a lead as to where the man lived or operated.

Unfortunately, he had been a lot of places in the last six months, making it incredibly difficult for Tony to pin a location on him.

Tony groaned, burying his face in his hands, shutting his eyes for more than five seconds for the first time in days.

There was no time to rest. No time to sit down and take a break. Every second mattered. Peter was out there, god knows where, with a psycho who was doing god knows what.

Peter had been missing for five days. Five days. And they were no closer to finding him than they had been three days ago.

May had been an absolute wreck, constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown, switching from explosive anger to uncontrollable sobbing at the drop of a hat. Tony didn't blame her in the slightest. Peter was all she had left, and to not have any clue where he was, or what was being done to him was hard enough for Tony who barely even knew the kid.

Tony thanked his lucky stars for his fiancée, however, because didn't know the first thing about dealing with emotions like the ones May was experiencing. But luckily Pepper did. She stepped in without needing to be asked, because that was just the kind of woman she was.

Having been left to his own devices, Tony had expected to figure the whole thing out in a day. But here he was three days later with next to nothing to go off of.

"Close anything that's not from the last two months," he said, dropping his hands from his face to watch the screen again.

FRIDAY quickly closed the images, leaving about fifty behind.

"Run those photos against Karen's SpiderCam," Tony said, reaching for his mug of coffee that had long since gone cold. "See if Magnus has popped up on Peter's radar before. Maybe he's been following the kid and Peter just didn't notice." He shook his head as he took a sip of the cool brew. He really hoped that wasn't the case. The kid was supposed to be smarter than that.

"Will do. This could take a few minutes," FRIDAY replied.

The lab was silent for a moment while the computer worked, before she spoke up again.

"Colonel Rhodes has arrived."

Tony frowned, setting his mug back on the table. "Why're you telling me?"

"You told me inform you if anyone showed up at the Tower."

His frown deepened. "No, I didn't. Did I? Doesn't matter. What's he here for?"

"To see your sorry ass," a new voice said.

Tony whirled around as the elevator doors slid open and Rhodey stepped out, jacket in one hand and a water bottle held in the other.

"Sorry ass? My ass is amazing, thank you very much. Here you want to feel it? I've been doing squats. I promise, it's a wonderful handful–"

Rhodey tossed his jacket over the back of one of the chairs, rolling his eyes at his friend's antics. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. It's good to see you, man," he said, gripping the other man in a tight hug.

Tony clapped the older man on the back, the human contact revitalizing him slightly after three days set apart from people. "You too, Rhodes. That for me?" He pointed at the water bottle still in the other man's hand.

Said water bottle was instantly forced into his hand. "Since you've probably had nothing but scotch and coffee over the last couple days," Rhodey said, quirking an eyebrow at his friend.

Tony twisted off the cap and drained a third of the bottle in one go. "You know me so well," he said once he' swallowed.

Rhodes rolled his eyes and looked past him the images still up on the screen. "That him?"

The billionaire nodded without turning around, rolling the water bottle in his hands.

"Tony, why didn't you call me?"

The man sighed, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. "You're here, aren't you?"

"Yeah, 'cause Pepper called me," Rhodey said as Tony walked away a few steps, one hand massaging the back of his neck. "Why are you trying to do this alone?"

"I'm not–" Tony spun around, his voice coming out much louder than expected. He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply through his nose. "I'm not trying to do this alone. May's been talking to the cops," he said, crossing his arms. "Other than FRIDAY and Vision… you're all I've got right now, Rhodes. And I knew you'd come."

Rhodey was silent for a minute before he nodded. "Fresh pair of eyes. Catch me up on what you've got.

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Six Days Ago

Tony shot up from the couch with a gasp. "Tattoos!" He panted.

Rhodey turned around from where he stood in front of the display, watching one of the videos FRIDAY had pulled up from the SpiderCam. "Come again?" He said, quirking an eyebrow at his friend.

After a momentary struggle with the blanket he'd had wrapped around him, Tony stumbled over to the screen Rhodes was standing in front of. "FRIDAY, pull up that photo of Magnus in that disgusting old wife-beater."

The video minimized into the bottom of the screen as three pictures popped up, each on showing Magnus in a different colored shirt. In two of the photos, his left side was toward the camera, but in the third, his right side proudly displayed a fully tattooed sleeve on his right arm.

"Close those two." Tony flicked his finger at the first two images and they quickly disappeared. "Zoom in on just the tattoos, please."

The image magnified until only Magnus's arm was visible.

"What are we looking for here, Tones?" Rhodey said, leaning his head towards the other man slightly but never taking his eyes off the image.

"Dogs," he said, zooming the image in even further on Magnus's bicep. The tattooed animal was depicted in red and black, the dog's short ears standing to attention as its tongue lolled out of its mouth, slobber dripping from its jaws and tongue. It's wide-set head was lowered on its thick neck as it stared with eyes that were pure white.

"Well, can't say that's better than having 'Mom' permanently etched into but…" Rhodey trailed off as he continued to stare at the image. "What made you think of this?" He gestured at the tattoo, glancing over at Tony.

Tony swiped the image off to the side, leaving it up on the screen as he searched through a set of files. "I'd seen it before," he muttered, fingers flying over the screen as he worked. "It was in one of Peter's patrol videos. On the side of a building, I think?"

He fast-forwarded a video he'd selected, then quickly closed it. Choosing another one, he did the same thing. He did this with five different videos before Rhodey asked, "Can't we just ask–"

"There it is!"

Both men leaned forward to stare at the frozen frame of the video. Peter's knees and feet were visible as he sat on a rooftop with his legs dangling over the edge. But sure enough, on the building opposite the teenager, painted on the very bottom corner, was the same dog tattoo that Magnus had on his arm.

"How the hell did you even see that?" Rhodey wondered, brows pinched together. "What even is it? A bulldog? A pitbull?"

"There was another one somewhere else," Tony continued, completely ignoring the man's question. "It's in another of his suit's videos. God, I'm so glad I put that camera in there," he muttered to himself as he looked for the recording.

The image of the dog was spray-painted on the wall of an alley in the next video, more obviously this time.

"What do you think it means?" Tony said as he stepped back from the screen.

Rhodey shrugged but wrote scratched something down about the symbol on his list of notes. "Hell if I know, but at least it's something. We should get this over to the police, see if they know anything about it."

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Three Days Ago

"Stark?"

Tony paused the video from Peter's suit cam he was watching for the umpteenth time as his name was called. He raised his head from where it had been propped against his fist and swiveled in his chair to face the room's newest occupant.

May Parker stood just inside the doors, wearing a matching set of flannel pajamas and holding two steaming mugs aloft. Her hair was thrown over one shoulder in a loose braid with a few curly tendrils escaping here and there. "I couldn't sleep and I figured you probably wouldn't be either so…" She brandished the mugs and shuffled farther into the lab.

She placed one of the mugs on the table next to Tony, the rich familiar smell of coffee instantly filling his nose.

"Thanks," he whispered, picking up the mug and sipping at the hot contents. May pulled out a chair across from him and sat down, pulling her knees up to her chest as she drank from her own mug.

They sat in silence for a moment, enjoying the warmth of their drinks before May spoke again,

"You know, when I first talked to the police, they first thing they did was ask if I was sure that Peter hadn't just run away."

Tony glanced over at her, but her eyes were focused on the liquid in her mug.

"It took way too long for me to convince them that Peter wasn't that type of kid," She sniffed, brushing a loose hair out of her face. "Even when I thought I'd swayed them, they were still skeptical. But they reassured me that they'd do everything to make sure that Peter was brought home safe.

"They asked if there was anyone who would want to hurt Peter," she laughed humorously, finally looking up. Tony resisted the urge to flinch at the tears he saw brimming in her eyes. "What was I supposed to say to that?" She said with a one shouldered shrug. "You know the kind of life he leads, probably a lot better than me. He doesn't talk to me about all this superhero business," she waved a hand through the air.

"I think he thinks I won't let him continue being a hero if I knew half of what he gets himself into," she mused, taking another sip from her mug as a lone tear finally escaped and rolled down her cheek. "He's wrong, of course. But that doesn't matter right now. What matters is bringing him home, safe and healthy– however unreal my expectations may be."

Tony set down his mug, twining his fingers together. "May, I–"

"You know, I haven't said thank you yet," she interrupted, looking at the man over the rim of her mug.

Tony blinked and looked up from the tabletop. "You don't have to–"

"Yes, I do," May said simply as she set her feet back on the floor and put her mug on the table. She stretched her arm across the tabletop and grabbed ahold of Tony's interlocked hands. "I know you haven't found him yet, but I want to thank you for looking for him so hard. I know you're going to find him, Tony."

Ah, shit. There she went with the first name again.

Tony removed one of his hands from underneath her's so that he could place it on top and give the woman's a quick squeeze. He quickly moved his hands off the table after that, however, still not big on physical touch.

May retracted her hand and picked her mug back up, pushing up from her chair. "I'm going to give the whole sleep thing another try," she said with a little yawn. "And as much as I appreciate what you're doing down here, you should try it too. You're no good to any of us if you're dead from sleep deprivation."

The man spared her a tired smile as he picked up his mug. "Shouldn't have brought me coffee then."

"It's decaf." She winked at him as Tony spit his mouthful back into the cup with an indignant splutter.

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Present Day – Morning

"FRIDAY, give me a map of Queens."

The 3D image of the city began to etch over the holographic table in bright blue.

"Pinpoint each spot there's been Magnus's dog tattoo spray-painted on a building," Tony said, narrowing his eyes at the display. "Only the ones from the SpiderCam."

Six red lines shot up from the map.

"Now add in the ones from the street and traffic cams."

Fourteen more red lines joined the grid.

Rhodey stood on the other side of the table, arms crossed, eyes flicking back and forth across the map. "You seeing what I'm seeing?" He said after a moment, looking across the display at his friend.

Tony, in lieu of response, scrambled up onto a chair to see the map from a higher view. He stared down at the grid, a spark of amusement flickering in his eyes. "It can't be that easy."

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Present Day – Evening

It was that easy.

"Look at the earrings on that guy," Tony said, peering down from the top of the building into the alley below. All the spray-painted symbols had added up to be a map of their own, the last one ending up over a gated doorway in an alley in one of the sketchier parts of Queens.

Tony and Rhodey were currently staked out on a the rooftop of the adjacent building, watching as people had gone up to the door's entrance and pressed the buzzer. Each person, or set of people, had muttered something into the intercom and then had been buzzed in.

Whatever was going on, it was a private affair. It did absolutely nothing to calm Tony's nerves. In fact, it was only thanks to Rhodey that Tony hadn't already blasted through the door and gone inside hours ago to wreak havoc on the place.

"We don't even know if Peter's in there, Tones," Rhodey had said. "We need to play it safe."

Peter had to be in there. He had to be. Because Tony didn't know what he was going to do if he wasn't.

They'd been waiting on that roof for nearly thirteen hours, watching all sorts of peculiar characters enter the building. Some looked like your average Joe and Jane, while some looked like the kind you didn't want to encounter alone on the street when it was dark.

Tony counted at least 300 people who ducked inside, although the building they disappeared into wasn't very large. He had FRIDAY scan the building and she came back with reports of an underground system much larger than the one built on the surface.

He pulled himself back the ledge and glanced down at his watch with a sigh. 8:13.

"Screw it," he muttered. "I'm going in." Tony marched over to the roof's ladder, ignoring Rhodey's protests as the man followed behind him.

"Tony, you don't know what you're walking into. You saw how many people went in there. You can't take them all on your own," the Colonel whisper shouted as Tony stepped onto the ladder. "Hey!" Rhodey shot out a hand, grasping onto one of Tony's before the man could begin his descent.

"I don't give a damn about me right now, Rhodes," Tony said, glaring back into his friend's face. "If that kid is in there, then we don't have any more time to waste. He's waited long enough. Now, are you going to help me or not?"

It was times like these that Rhodey began to question why he'd been appointed as this Stark's keeper.

"Yeah, I'm coming. But can we take the stairs? I don't you looking at my ass the whole way down."

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"Passkey?"

"Cherry Adventurous Gate Ecology Disease," Tony said as the words rolled over the HUD of his glasses, silently thanking FRIDAY for eavesdropping on the people from earlier.

"Welcome to Mattermind."

"Thanks," Tony muttered as the lock disengaged and he was able to swing the gate open. Just inside the door were two doorways; one was plain wood, the other was also wood but had the familiar artwork of a slavering animal on it.

Easy guess of which one they were supposed to go through. On the other side of the door was an elevator that took carried them down at least five floors. Before the doors had even opened, both men could hear the deafening sound of cheering and screaming. Feet were being stamped, boos and howls echoed off the walls, reverberating down the hall as the elevator doors slid open.

Tony's heart began to beat faster as the pair walked towards the source of the noise, the hall depositing them on the ground level of what appeared to be an enclosed wrestling arena.

A collective cry of "Ooh!" rose from the crowd as something Tony couldn't yet see happened.

"He's back up! I thought he'd be down for the count, but ladies and gentlemen, this kid just does. Not. Quit," came a magnified voice that echoed around the arena.

They were closer now. They were inside the room. Almost every single high-rise chair in the domed room was full, all faces turned towards the brutal fight going down in the gigantic black steel cage in the center of the room.

But it wasn't the savagery of the fight that made Tony's blood run cold. It wasn't the blood smeared across the mat. It wasn't the glee on the spectators' faces that made him want to throw up right then and there.

What made his heart nearly stop beating was that one of the fighters, bruised, bloodied, and looking as if he were about to keel over, was Peter.

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