A/N: Thank you to everyone who has encouraged me along the way and sent me feedback! Special thanks to MagicWarriorDragon, gandalf537, Sekiya1997 and the two guests who took the time to review chapter 4! I really appreciate it.
It was all over the news by morning.
The New York Times had live coverage on the kidnapping on their website and The Wall Street Journal had a detailed but terribly dull analysis on how "Anthony Stark's kidnapping could affect the stock prices on a large scale." Daily News published shaky footage of a helicopter leaving the Stark Tower the evening before and various other media sites speculated on who was behind the kidnapping and what their motives were.
With a weary sigh, Peter put his phone upside down on the table and ran a hand through his hair.
He had been woken up some time before two that morning by Aunt May who had told him to get dressed now, Peter, because Mr. Stark had been kidnapped and the police wanted to have their statements of the evening's events as soon as possible.
"We need to go to the Stark Tower," Aunt May had said, pulling a brown worn-out sweater over her pink pajamas, apparently having grasped the first item of clothing at hand. Usually so careful about her appearances, she hadn't even taken the time to apply make-up. "Tony's CEO called me and she said that the faster we can make it there, the better. Tony needs us to be quick, Peter, so hurry."
It was now six AM and during the four hours Peter and Aunt May had spent in one of the offices in the lower levels of the Tower, they had had to answer detailed questions about the evening Mr. Stark had spent with them – and not only to the police, no. When the detectives had left, Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes and Vision had come in to ask the exact same questions the detectives had asked and after the two of them, there had been private detectives of the Stark Industries and then military officers – particularly memorably, an angry general, who hadn't even bothered to introduce himself and hadn't been impressed when Peter had taken a quick glance at the time on his phone.
In Peter's defense, as soon as Aunt May had told him about Mr. Stark's kidnapping, he had hurried to put on his Spider-Man suit. He was now wearing it under his jeans and his hoodie with the mask carefully tucked into his pocket, ready for action – someone had abducted Mr. Stark and Spider-Man would give his all to bring him back home safely. Yet, instead of having been out there looking for Mr. Stark, he had been stuck in an office with a man who kept asking him and Aunt May – in a rude manner – the same questions they had already answered many times.
But it wasn't like Peter could have just walked out, was it, not with all the police officers and generals needing to have his statement.
While the general had been demanding Aunt May to list all the ingredients she had used to make the dinner, Peter had tried to glance at the time on his phone as subtly as he had caught Mr. Stark doing on a few occasions. By then, it had been 5.24 AM and Mr. Stark had been missing for at least eight hours. Apparently Peter's attempt at being subtle with the phone hadn't been very good, however, because when he had raised his head, frustrated that Spider-Man hadn't yet done anything to help Mr. Stark even if Peter Parker was giving the search and rescue teams all the information he had, the general had been giving him a stern look.
"Is this conversation boring you, boy?" the general had asked with his grey mustache trembling, eyes sharp and intent on Peter's face.
"What? No!" Peter had been taken aback, suddenly unreasonably paranoid that the man had been able to read his thoughts about Spider-Man. "I was just… checking the time."
"So I won't be late," he had added lamely and finished with a whispered, "For school."
The general had given him a suspicious look, but eventually all he had said was, "Put the phone away, boy, and focus."
"I might tell you the same thing," Aunt May had stepped in, eyeing the general coolly. "Except instead of 'the phone', I would ask you to put your unnecessarily rude and aggressive behavior away. We are here to help, so you really don't need to treat us with an attitude like this."
And that had prompted the sputtering general to start demanding Aunt May to tell him if she and Mr. Stark were having "a sexual affair" and if she had "a jealous boyfriend who could have been behind the kidnapping" and she had answered every question with the same cool demeanor she usually only ever wore when she had a high hand on Poker but was trying to hide it.
After the general had finally left, it took a quarter of an hour for the next person to enter the office and Peter and Aunt May might have left before that hadn't the secretary sitting at his desk outside the door specifically asked them to wait for a while longer. As they waited, Peter checked the news before putting his phone upside down on the table and running a trembling hand through his hair.
It was six AM and their day was only just beginning.
Miss Potts, Mr. Stark's CEO, whom Peter had met a few times in passing, entered the room precisely fifteen minutes after the general had left, bringing with her the scents of freshly baked scones and strawberry tea. She put two mugs of steaming tea and a large plate full of scones down onto the table in front of Peter and Aunt May (whose pink pajamas collar was sticking out of the neckline of her sweater, but she didn't seem to notice and Peter didn't think to mention it to her – he had other things to worry about, namely, Mr. Stark).
"You must have missed breakfast," Miss Potts said by way of greeting. "I'm Virginia Potts, the CEO of the Stark Industries."
"Yes," Aunt May hastened to stand up to shake her hand, "we spoke on the phone earlier. Any news on Tony?"
"I'm afraid not," Miss Potts sighed and Aunt May's face fell as she took her seat in silence.
Still standing, Miss Potts pushed the scone plate towards Peter.
"You must be hungry, Mr. Parker," she said with a bit of a smile. "Boys your age usually are."
Peter wasn't hungry – how could he have been when Mr. Stark was missing! – but he had been raised to be polite and so he thanked Miss Potts and reached out dutifully to take one of the scones. The scone, fresh from the oven, warmed his fingers and Peter bit into the soft texture.
Miss Potts walked around the table and sat down on a chair opposite to their seats. She crossed her legs, looking composed and elegant in her grey blazer dress but for the air of almost tangible worry around her.
"I wanted to personally thank you for your co-operation," she said. "You have been very patient and I appreciate it as Mr. Stark's friend."
"We will, of course, do all we can to help him," Aunt May assured. "He is our friend too, after all."
Miss Potts blinked before narrowing her eyes and looking Aunt May slowly up and down as if to assess whether she was good enough friend-material for Mr. Stark. Eventually she offered a tense smile and said, "One can never have too many friends."
"Indeed," said Aunt May, eyeing Miss Potts now in an equally critical manner, while Peter attempted to eat his scone.
"It appears," Miss Potts said after a while, folding her hands on the table, "that Mr. Stark has given you both a rather high security clearance status when it comes to the matters of his personal life. There were – should I say – very specific instructions that you two should not be kept in the dark if he was to get injured, killed or, as the case now is, abducted. You are also on the list of the very few people allowed to visit him in the hospital without having to clear it first with his next of kin, Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes."
Peter had, of course, been already aware of all that because Mr. Stark had been the one to tell him about it. His clearance status as Spider-Man was even higher.
"It's just a precaution," Mr. Stark had said in a nonchalant manner, though his eyes had been serious. "One day you might be in a situation where you have to get information as Peter Parker to help Spider-Man and this is my way of making things easier for you."
"Of course," Mr. Stark had added, turning his face away to look out of the window, "if something was to happen to me, I would… appreciate it, if you and May would come to see me once or twice, whether by a hospital bed or by a grave. If you had the time, of course - I don't mean to make you feel like you'd had to come, Peter, I'm just saying that I'd appreciate it if you wanted to. Come see me, that is."
Then Mr. Stark had twirled around and clapped his hands together, all gloominess forgotten.
"You must remember to look surprised when they tell you about your clearance," he had said, "so it'll come across as something eccentric I would do on a spur of a moment rather than anything that would raise suspicions about you, especially regarding any spider-related things. That's why I'm giving May a higher status, too - to make it look like it's one of my whims, something I'd do for my new friends because I like them, but not because they're secretly superheroes or anything."
They had then gone to stand in front of a mirror in the hallway, where they had together made all kinds of faces in an attempt to come up with "a believably surprised expression". It had been fun and they had both been laughing by the time Peter had managed to perfect his "believably surprised expression".
Now that Peter forced the "believably surprised expression" on his face in all seriousness, there was nothing fun about it, although he could almost hear the echo of Mr. Stark's laughter in his mind.
"Because of Mr. Stark's instructions," Miss Potts continued, frowning down at her folded hands, "I will now do as he wishes and fill you in on the current situation. I can only trust Mr. Stark's judgement of you when I ask you to not go to the press or to talk about these matters with anyone outside this room, as that might further endanger Mr. Stark."
"We wouldn't purposefully put Tony in danger," Aunt May's tone was sharp. "As I said, he is our friend and he must consider us his friends in turn since he has shown us this level of trust."
Miss Potts inclined her head in acknowledgement, but Peter had the feeling that she was still rather reluctant to share any information with them. He couldn't blame her - she didn't even know them and Mr. Stark likely hadn't told her about their security clearance status beforehand. She must have indeed gotten the impression that it was the result of something Mr. Stark had done on a whim without thinking the consequences through.
"First of all," Miss Potts nevertheless began, "there are now marines searching the area of Mr. Stark's last known location – which just happens to be a spot right above the Atlantic Ocean, not too far from New York City – but so far they have found nothing."
"We got the coordinates to Mr. Stark's last known location from Mr. Stark's AI, FRIDAY," she explained before neither Peter nor Aunt May had had the time to ask. "According to her data, the people responsible for taking him threw quite a lot of his possessions into the ocean."
Peter's mouth went dry and Aunt May wrung her hands, as she tended to do when she felt particularly anxious over something.
"You don't think-" Aunt May began, giving Peter a worried glance, "I mean, Miss Potts… You don't think that they… that Mr. Stark ended up in the water, too?"
Miss Potts unfolded her hands and put her palms flat down on the table.
"There's no evidence to suggest that Mr. Stark would have ended up in the water," she said carefully and Aunt May raised a hand to her heart.
"Thank god," she said softly and Peter saw her closing her eyes.
"However," Miss Potts continued and Aunt May's eyes snapped open at her sinister tone, "there's no evidence to suggest that he didn't, either."
A silence fell in the room. Peter put the partly-eaten scone down onto the plate, losing what little there had been left of his appetite.
"In any case, it isn't quite clear whether-" Miss Potts cut herself off, her mouth tightening into a thin line. She tucked a loose strand of red hair behind her ear, and while her face was one of cool professionalism, Peter saw the tremble of her hand. When she eventually spoke, her voice was soft but steady, "As I was saying, there is no certainty that Mr. Stark was even still alive when he was taken from the Tower. It is not yet clear if we are looking for him or just for his body."
Aunt May covered her mouth with her hand, but Peter could only stare at Miss Potts.
"What do you mean?" his voice came out as a whisper.
Giving Peter a sympathetic look, Miss Potts filled Peter and Aunt May in on the way Mr. Stark had found a scorpion figurine on his nightstand and how the figurine had later stung him, seemingly stopping his heart and his breathing. At some point as Miss Potts had been speaking, Aunt May had moved her chair closer to Peter's and her arms were now around him, but Peter barely felt them, his heart pounding in his ears.
"FRIDAY could not detect any vital signs," Miss Potts explained and Peter felt suddenly so dizzy that he had to lean forward in the chair and put his head in his hands, not willing to accept that Mr. Stark – awesome, fun, cool, clever, understanding Mr. Stark – might have been gone from his life for good.
Aunt May was rubbing his back and Miss Potts hurried to continue, her voice sounding faraway to Peter's ear, "Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes insists that Mr. Stark was alive when the men took him away. He has suggested that the scorpion's venom was some kind of a paralyzing drug and FRIDAY is already running various analysis, but it can take up to weeks before we get any answers."
"What do you know of the suspects?" Peter said when he had managed to compose himself, rubbing a hand over his mouth. "Do you have any footage of them?"
"We do," said Miss Potts. "The security camera footage on the landing pad shows the pilot and the two men who came here with the pretense of being paramedics trying to help Mr. Stark. FRIDAY is currently working on the facial recognition. We haven't yet released the footage to the public, but we do consider it."
"What do they want?" asked Peter, referring to the people behind the kidnapping. "Have there been any demands?"
This time Miss Potts wouldn't answer his questions, claiming that the answers were above their security clearance status.
Peter and Aunt May didn't stay in the Tower for too long after that, even though Miss Potts offered to take them to a guest room, where they could rest.
"I must take Peter home," Aunt May declined politely, her arms around Peter. "He… looks up to Tony. They like each other. Please, Miss Potts, have someone call us when you find him."
"I will call you myself," she promised.
Later, when Peter and Aunt May were back at home, sitting at the kitchen table in silence with an untouched cereal bowl in front of Peter and an equally untouched bowl of granola in front of Aunt May, their gazes were inevitably drawn to the empty chair, the chair on which Mr. Stark had been sitting the evening before.
"You don't need to go to school today, Peter," Aunt May said with a sniff. Her eyes were red-rimmed like she had been crying, but the gentle hand she put on Peter's neck was a promise of support and strength – I would take all the hardship on your behalf if I could, it seemed to say. "I can call Principal Simmons and explain the situation. I could take the day off and stay here with you."
Peter shook his head. He had to go look for Mr. Stark and pretending to go to school would give him many hours to do so without raising Aunt May's suspicion.
"No," he therefore said, his voice hoarse. Clearing his throat, he quickly gave an excuse, "I'd rather go to school and get something to occupy my mind with. Otherwise I'll just mope around, worrying."
Aunt May gave his neck a reassuring squeeze before she pulled her hand back.
"I understand," she said and he felt terribly guilty for lying to her yet again, "but call me any time and I'll come get you home."
"Thanks, Aunt May, I will," said Peter, knowing that he never would.
An hour later in the Stark Tower, Spider-Man stood in front of Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes and Vision and told them that he was there to help them to find Mr. Stark, that he would give his all to bring Mr. Stark back home.
He meant every word.
They received the first photos of Mr. Stark precisely at 10.23 AM when a tiny transparent scorpion brought an envelope to them up to the penthouse, carrying it carefully in its claws. Peter didn't waste any time in shooting web from his wrist at the figurine-like creature and so they managed to catch it alive and without breaking it – it felt like the first step forward they had taken since Mr. Stark's capture.
"Well done, man," said Rhodes, giving Peter a clap in the back. "Nice reflexes."
"Thanks!" Peter said, feeling taller all of a sudden. He was quite pleased for having caught the scorpion and his first instinct was to look around to see Mr. Stark's reaction, but his moment of triumph disappeared as soon as it had come when he realized that Mr. Stark obviously wasn't there.
Rhodes and Vision were already leaning over the glass figurine and, cautiously, Peter stepped closer as well, studying what little he could see of its form, covered in web as it was. It had to be similar to the one Mr. Stark had encountered earlier, Peter decided. Before he had shot the web at the scorpion, Peter had seen it clearly, down to the very last detail, due to his heightened senses and it had looked similar to the one pictured in the letter Rhodes and Vision had shown him.
Peter's fists clenched as if of their own accord when he recalled the contents of the letter.
Where is SR, your ever so loyal friend? You may tell him that hiding is
as useless as his efforts to "do good".
We are hungry and we are coming.
We are salivating for blood.
Whose shall it be?
His?
Or yours?
That depends entirely on you, Anthony Stark.
It felt horrible, absolutely horrible that someone would write to Mr. Stark like that! Reading the letter had made Peter angry and he was now even more determined to find Mr. Stark and the people responsible for his abduction.
"Perhaps I should be the one to take it for the analysis," suggested Vision, shaking Peter out of his dark musings. Vision tilted his head slightly, observing both Peter and Rhodes. "I do believe I could stand its venom better than you two, if it managed to sting one of us."
"No," said Rhodes sharply. "We will use a dustpan to put it into a box with a good lid on it and then we'll take it for the analysis together. I'm not leaving anyone alone with that thing for a second. FRIDAY, find out how the glass scorpion managed to get in, will you."
"Very well, James Rhodes," came FRIDAY's answer. "I will assist you in finding Boss in any way I can."
They put their plan in motion: Three pairs of eyes focused their attention on the glass scorpion placed in a transparent box, as they made their way into Laboratory 4. FRIDAY was quick to confirm that this scorpion was similar to the one Mr. Stark had encountered earlier and then she scanned the letter the scorpion had brought for them, presented to her by Rhodes, who had taken it from the scorpion's grasp with tongs, careful to not get too close to its stung, just in case it would still manage to move despite of the web.
While FRIDAY began an analysis on the material the scans had given her, Rhodes put on latex gloves and carefully cut the envelope open with a letter knife. There was a memory card in it and Rhodes slipped it into the nearest memory card reader.
"Check out what's in that thing," he advised FRIDAY, "and mind any viruses."
"I always do," sighed FRIDAY and, after a heartbeat, added, "It appears that there are three hundred and fourteen data files in the memory card, most of them image files, although there is at least one video file as well. The data file sizes vary from 106k to 811Mt."
"Put them up, starting from the latest files," said Rhodes, squaring his shoulders as if preparing for a battle.
The lights dimmed automatically when FRIDAY lit up one of the walls, and despite of the circumstances, Peter's heart jumped a little and he had to yet again be impressed by Stark-tech – the wall had looked like an ordinary white laboratory wall up till the moment it had turned into a dark screen.
The latest file in the memory card was the video file.
"Play it," said Rhodes and FRIDAY did.
Peter tried, he really did. He didn't want to let Mr. Stark down and so he tried. He tried to stand there between Vision and Rhodes and watch the video.
They watched as Mr. Stark smirked straight at the camera before raising his gaze to look at someone standing behind it.
"A little too 1990's, don't you think?" he quipped with a raised eyebrow, gesturing at the camera with his head. "If you untie me, I can build you a better one with the stuff I can find in this room. Tell you what, let's make it more challenging and say that I can only use the things I can find on this side of the room. Or only the things that are blue. You decide."
The people behind the kidnapping had tied Mr. Stark onto a chair and he kept fidgeting on the rocky chair as if he couldn't find a comfortable position, which he quite likely couldn't. His hair was a mess, sticking out at odd angles, and his bare chest and arms had various cuts, though none too deep-looking, thankfully. He was shivering and his trousers were drenched and torn and muddy, and he looked like he had been through a lot since his capture, but his smirk never once wavered as he studied the people behind the camera.
"At least this proves that he wasn't dead when they took him," Rhodes said, relief audible in his voice even as his jaw was clenched, as he took in the state of his friend. "And now we also know that they didn't dump him into the ocean."
"It does look like they did 'dump' him into the ocean," put in Vision, eyeing Mr. Stark's drenched trousers, "but I'm glad to note that they didn't leave him there."
"Before we begin," spoke a voice unfamiliar to Peter from behind the camera, "I want you to know that you can end this at any time."
"That's one of the paramedics that took Tony," Rhodes noted instantly, crossing his arms on his chest, "the smaller one. I recognize his voice."
Peter had seen the security footage, Rhodes had shown it to him, and he remembered the two men who had carried Mr. Stark into the helicopter. The shorter one's hair had been fair, he recalled, and he had worn glasses, while the taller paramedic had had dark hair and a demeanor that had reminded Peter of the cave troll in Harry Potter.
"All you need to do," the shorter paramedic continued, "is to tell us where to find your friend."
"Sounds simple enough," said Tony who had tilted his head slightly and was now pursing his lips as if considering the matter in earnest, "but how about we make the rules a bit more interesting, yeah? I go to the tunnels, while you count to ten. Then you shout 'Marco' and I – might or might not – shout 'Polo' back at you."
The first punch startled Peter more than it seemed to startle Mr. Stark. Peter stared with wide eyes as Mr. Stark moved his jaw from side to side before making a remark about "the importance of learning to give criticism in a constructive manner."
The man who had punched Mr. Stark was now standing in full view of the camera with a black commando mask covering his face.
"That's the bigger paramedic," said Rhodes through clenched teeth. "And for the record, he'll pay for what he just did."
"Indeed," said Vision, sounding distraught. "I wish I had followed my instincts – I should have gone with him."
Rhodes never took his eyes off the video.
"You couldn't have known. Neither one of us did. Don't blame yourself."
"Where is your friend hiding?" the taller paramedic was demanding, but as he was only given a blank stare as an answer, he soon hit Mr. Stark in the face again. Flinching, Peter squeezed his eyes shut just as the fist hit its target. He heard a stifled gasp and the "fuck you" Mr. Stark spat at the man who had hit him.
Peter clenched his fists. He wished he could have been there for Mr. Stark.
"It's a simple enough question," came a new voice and another tall kidnapper stepped into view, "but it does require a simple answer: where can we find your friend?"
Mr. Stark sat with his head held high, but he didn't say a thing apart from quite a lot of cursing, and they hit him again, and again, and again, and again, and he couldn't even raise his arms to protect himself, and Peter couldn't watch it, he tried to keep on watching, he really did, he tried so hard for Mr. Stark's sake, tried to take some of his pain if only like this, if only via a video, but when the men began to hit Mr. Stark with broken cords, tears filled Peter's eyes and he had to turn his face away.
"They need to stop," he heard himself saying. "Stop it! STOP IT!"
But they didn't.
"Perhaps it would be best, if you waited outside," Vision said gently, laying a hand on Peter's arm. "You are young; you shouldn't be here. We will go through the files, while you can try to sooth your mind. Perhaps with some chamomile tea?"
"Thank you, Vision," Peter sniffed, very much shaken but determined, "but no. I do need to stay. I can't leave Mr. Stark, not like this."
"He wouldn't mind," Vision insisted. "I believe he would actually prefer it, if you didn't see him in the state he is in the video recording."
"Yeah, well," Peter sniffed again and the mask – designed to instantly evaporate any extra sweat – dried his tears as soon as they rolled down his cheeks, "Mr. Stark's wishes are now secondary to his needs and he does need me to take a look at the files. I might notice something important."
Despite of his words, when the taller paramedic suddenly wrapped the cords around Mr. Stark's throat and began to strangle him, Peter had to turn his back to the screen and put his hands on his ears. He couldn't, couldn't, couldn't look at Mr. Stark gasping for air, struggling to breathe, and he felt dizzy with tears flowing down his cheeks in earnest now, even if the mask didn't leave any traces of them.
Peter couldn't know how the video would end and so he feared that there would be a body at the end of it, he feared that Mr. Stark's eyes would lose their sparkle and turn into dull voids of nothing. He couldn't bear to see it, he couldn't bear to even think of it.
When the video ended – with Mr. Stark still thankfully alive by the end of it – silence fell in the laboratory. It was eventually broken by Vision, who asked for FRIDAY to show them the rest of the files. FRIDAY instantly complied, filling the wall-sized screen with hundreds of photos of Mr. Stark.
Mr. Stark on his knees with rifles pointed at his head giving the camera a smile so bright his white teeth seemed to shine, Mr. Stark covered in mud and blood with a black boot stepping onto his back, Mr. Stark being held underwater with pure terror in his eyes, Mr. Stark lying on some kind of an altar, wrapped in duct tape, covered from head to toe with red blood…
No-one spoke. Vision was staring at the photos from afar, hovering in the air, visibly tormented, moving his gaze steadily from one photo to the next, while Rhodes paced in front of the screen, moving even with the help of his leg braces more clumsily than usual, making distressed noises at some of the photos. Peter, for his part, did his best to study the photos in case he happened to see something that could give them a clue to Mr. Stark's location, but it was a battle against nausea, one that he soon lost.
Having lift the mask in time but only just so that it revealed his mouth, Peter threw up in a dustbin with his back to Vision and Rhodes.
He was, after all, only a schoolboy – superhero or not – and he wasn't used to seeing torture, especially not done to someone he cared for and looked up to.
Vision filled a glass from the sink and brought it to Peter, turning his face tactfully away to respect Peter's wish to keep his identity a secret, and Peter thanked him, both for the water and for his consideration, taking a sip to rinse the bitter taste of vomit away.
"Fuck," Rhodes was swearing, seeming to speak more to himself than to Peter and Vision. "This is too much, way too much. I'll make the damn phone call! At this point, I don't care if Tony wouldn't want me to."
When Peter turned around, having masked his face again, Rhodes had a flip phone on his ear and a murderous look on his face.
"No, this is not Tony," Rhodes hissed when someone apparently answered the call, "and don't you fucking 'Tony' him – you've lost the right, jerk face. It's James Rhodes speaking, and you better listen closely or I swear I'll call Ross the minute you hang up and I'll tell him you're hiding in Wakanda. Yes, I know where you are, but that's not the point. The point is that you did all you could to save your best friend – and now I'm going to do the exact same thing for mine."
A/N: Oh Peter...
Feel free to share your thoughts with me, hint hint. ;)
