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I woke with a pounding headache. For one second I had to ask myself why I was tied to a chair before I remembered. Someone had kidnapped me.

Oh god.

I instantly started panicking. Who had done this? Why? How long had I been out? How long would it be before someone noticed I was gone?

It took a few minutes of hyperventilating, which was hard with a piece of tape over my mouth, and a few tears before I reminded myself I needed to stay calm. If I was going to get out of this, I would need to be calm, rational and take in every detail to try and work out who had done this.

First of all I tired looking around at the room I was in but it was difficult to see anything as the room was completely dark, save for a small sliver of light coming through underneath the door. Next I tried tugging on my bonds. I was sitting in a wooden chair with my arms tied to the armrests. I pulled at my restrains with everything I had but all I accomplished was making my arms bleed. I tried freeing my legs but it was a wasted effort.

My face was aching like a bitch thanks to the punches the attacker had thrown. My lip was split and the blood that had flowed out of my nose was now dried and crusted on my face. I wondered how long I had been here in this room. I had no sense of time in this dark room. Was it night? If I didn't turn up at the Expo, would Pepper realise something was wrong? Had she been the one calling me when they had grabbed me? Or had it been dad?

I suddenly had a horrible thought. What if I never saw dad again? The kidnappers hadn't bothered to cover their faces and I'd watched enough TV shows to know they only did that if they didn't plan on letting you go. They were going to kill me and I would never tell my dad how sorry I was. The last conversation I had with dad I had yelled at him. He would always remember that as our last conversation.

A tear slipped down my face at the thought of never seeing him again. He had told me after mom died he had been a wreck and the only thing holding him together had been me. How would he cope when I was gone?

It was too painful to think about him anymore so I turned my mind back to my kidnappers. I had seen their faces but neither of them had looked familiar. Both had been average looking men with crew cuts. Nothing distinctive or memorable about them. I doubted they were the masterminds behind this plan so someone else was pulling their strings.

The sound of a door being opened broke the silence and I could see someone's shadow through the small gap under the door as they walked by.

"Hey buddy." I froze as I heard that voice through the door. It was Hammer's voice.

Had Hammer kidnapped me? Why? The man was a giant douchebag but I didn't know he'd do something as bad as kidnapping.

"Ivan, we had a deal," he said.

Ivan? Ivan Vanko? No, he couldn't be here. He was dead. It had been all over the news. He died in an explosion. How could he have survived? Even if he had, what on Earth was he doing with Hammer?

I got my answer as Hammer spoke again. "I save your life and you give me suits."

It felt like I had been punched again. Hammer had faked Ivan's death so he could make suits for him? I had known the man had been desperate to be better than dad but this was unbelievable. He would actually go this far to get a suit like dad's? Is that why he had kidnapped me? To get dad to hand over his designs or his actual suits? No, he had Ivan who was obviously smart and skilled enough to build a suit. So why am I here?

"That was our deal. And you did not deliver." I could see Hammer's shadow under the door as he paced in front of it. "I don't know if you're a genius or a fraud. I don't know what you are! Something really, really great fell into my lap. And if it hadn't, I'd be at your mercy tonight. Now I have a piece of Stark Tech that I pimped out myself."

Oh god. Rhodey you son of a bitch. He had gone and given it our suit Hammer. After everything they had been through, it had only taken him a day to turn around and betray dad. Sure, I had been angry after dad's drunken meltdown but I wouldn't have done something so stupid. Hearing Hammer say he had dad's suit made me want to punch him but it also strengthened my question of why am I here? He had a suit, he had Ivan, why did he need me?

"Now your overpriced paperweight are gonna look like a backdrop to my demonstration. You dig what I'm getting at here?"

Someone then said something in Russian, and even in a different language, I could recognise the voice. His cackling laugh was still in my head. Any hope I had that it was a different Ivan out there vanished.

It was Ivan Vanko. The man who hated my father so much he had tried to kill him. I suddenly realised why I was here. He had said he was going to wipe out the last 2 Starks and he was going to deliver on his promise. Hammer probably had no idea that I was in this room. It was all Ivan.

My fear increased at the knowledge that he was out there, waiting to kill me. I tried to scream, to alert Hammer that I was behind the door, but all that came out were muffled sounds thanks to the tape across my mouth.

"I don't know if you know this," Hammer was saying. "But I don't speak Russian! I'm going to leave now. I'm gonna go to the Expo. Your see these guys? They're your babysitters. When I get back, we're gonna renegotiate the terms of our agreement. And you're going to make good on our arrangement. Because if you don't, you're going to be exactly where you were when I found you; a dead man. You got that?"

Hammer obviously left as I heard the sound of a door being open and his annoying voice could no longer be heard. A few minutes of silence followed before footsteps echoed through the room. My heart started pounding as a shadow fell over the door a second before it opened. I blinked at the sudden light flooding into the room. I looked up to see one of the men who had been in the van. He grabbed both of the armrests and pulled me out of the room.

My worst nightmare came to life as I looked into the face of Ivan Vanko. He was sitting on a camp bed, chewing on a toothpick and looking like he didn't have a care in the world. The man dragged my chair until I was in the middle of the room, facing Ivan. He reached across and yanked the tape off my mouth. I grimaced in pain until I controlled my features. I didn't want to show any fear or pain in front of this man. I wouldn't give him what he wanted.

Ivan motioned to the door with his head and the men instantly left.

I could almost laugh if I wasn't tied to a chair. Hammer thinks these men work for him when really Ivan's got them under his thumb. Hammer couldn't even control his own men. How on Earth does he run a company?

"You're…you're supposed to be dead," I said, trying to control my tone. "You were dead."

"Obviously not, little girl," Ivan said. "I live, thanks to Hammer."

My heart was pounding as I stared into his eyes. They were cold, emotionless. The face of a killer. I wanted to deny that I was afraid but just being in the same room as the man scared me half to death. I didn't know what it was about him; the numerous tattoo's covering his body, his ragged hair and unnerving eyes or the aura that surrounded him. Everything about this man screamed death and danger.

"So, Hammer got you out of prison and in return you build suits for him?" I hated talking to him, looking into his face, but I was hoping the more I talk, the more distracted he would get. Hammer had said he was going to the Expo and the clock on the wall said it was just before 7. I had promised to meet Pepper there at 7 so I was stalling for time, hoping she would soon realise I wasn't coming and something was wrong.

"Hammer thinks I build suits for him," he said as he cracked his knuckles, obviously an attempt to frighten me even more. It worked.

"You're not?"

"I do not make suits. I do not care about money like Hammer."

"What do you care about?" I asked as I eyed the clock on the wall. 7o'clock. Pepper should be wondering by now where I was.

"I only cared about one thing," Ivan said as he stood up from his bed and started walking around the room. "My father. And thanks to your Grandfather, he died a poor, broken man."

I frowned. What did my grandfather have to do with Ivan and his father? "My grandfather? What did he do?"

"He stole from my family. My father worked with Howard Stark, developing the arc reactor. As soon as they finished it, Stark deported my father. While he got all the fame and money, my father got nothing."

That explained his grudge against the Stark family. I knew he hadn't tried to kill my father over nothing. He believed because of my grandfather's actions, my father and I deserved to die. But I didn't believe that what he said was all there was to it. I knew my grandfather had been a cunning business man but I refused to believe he would destroy a man's life simply to gain all the recognition and glory. Something more had to be going on. There were always 2 sides to a story and Ivan only had one side; his father's.

My pulse quickened as he walked behind me, out of my line of view. "So you would kill my father, and me, because of something my grandfather did? I'm innocent yet you condemn me to die?"

"You are not innocent," he spat. His Russian accent thickened as his anger increased. "The whole Stark family are butchers and thieves. Your father lives because of technology my father built. Your father gets the glory and money that my father deserved. And you, as his heir, are just the same. You live a life of riches and luxury that you do not deserve. But after tonight, that will change."

A shiver ran down my spine as he came back into my view with a smile upon his face. He would actually enjoy killing me. My heart increased its pounding as the full reality of my situation hit home. I was going to die. I was actually going to die here, strapped to a chair, by a crazed Russian man because of something my grandfather might have done. I wanted to scream and cry but I refused to die with tears on my face. I would die with my head held high.

Ivan pulled something out from beneath the sheets on his bed. My handbag. He must have been hiding it from Hammer, which cemented my thought that Hammer had no idea that Ivan had kidnapped me.

He pulled out my phone and a sense of dread filled me. He walked past me and began fiddling with something out of my eye line. After a few minutes he came up behind me, slapped some more tape across my mouth and spun my chair around so I could see what he was doing.

Set up against the wall was a work station. My eyes were immediately drawn to the computer monitor, displaying the words "Calling Dad". He had plugged my phone into the computer and was using that to place the call, probably so I would be able to hear my father.

"Hey Morgs. I'm so glad you called." Dad's voice echoed through the room and it cut through me like a knife. I suppose this was like some form of torture, being able to hear his voice but not being able to speak to him. "I wanted-"

"Hey Tony, how you doing?" Ivan smiled at me from where he sat, obviously enjoying the knowledge that dad would be frozen in fear at his voice and the fact that it was coming from my cell phone. I hated to think of what he was feeling right now.

"If you hurt her-" Those few words were laced with so much anger and fear that it made my heart break.

"I double cycle," Ivan said as he cut over dad.

"You what?"

"You told me double cycle's more power. Good advice." As soon as Ivan turned around on his chair to face the computer, I began trying to pull the tape off my mouth. With my arms tied, all I could do was try to lift a corner of the tape up using my shoulder. All I wanted to do was get one word out: 'Hammer'. I figured that I was in Hammer's warehouse and if I could get the tape off, I could let dad know where I was.

"You sound pretty sprightly for a dead guy."

"You too."

I frowned at that? What did Ivan mean that dad sounded good for a dead guy?

"Now the true history of the Stark name will be written. What your father did to my family over 40 years, I will do to you in 40 minutes, starting with your daughter. I hope you're ready." He hung up before dad could say another word.

I cursed myself for not doing more. My efforts to remove the tape from my mouth were wasted. Dad wouldn't even know I was alive. For all he knew Ivan had killed me long ago and was simply using my phone to call him. I couldn't even image the pain he would be feeling right now. His only child was in the hands of crazed murderer hell bent on revenge and he had no idea what state I was in. Was his mind conjuring up image of me lying dead in a pool of my own blood? Did he think I was being tortured this very second? I hated thinking of him in so much pain.

Ivan began typing away on a keyboard and I began wondering how long I had left to live. He made a promise to rid the world of the last 2 Starks and I knew he would deliver on his promise. Would he kill me now or keep me alive for a bit longer, maybe to torture dad some more? I was trying to prepare myself for death but it was a hard thing to do. I couldn't give up hope, not yet. Dad would have traced the call so I have to assume that he's on his way here now. Unless Ivan had somehow managed to block the call. Even so, I knew dad would find me. I just had to buy him more time.

"Why didn't you sell the arc reactor?" I asked. Ivan's fingers paused above the keyboard and he slowly turned around to face me. "If you had the designs for arc reactor, and the capability to actually build it, why not sell it on the black market?"

"Because unlike Stark's, I do not want wealth and power. I want revenge. Your father needs to pay for his crimes before he dies." He turned back around to continue typing.

Something in the way he said 'before he dies' was odd. "What do you mean, before he dies?"

Once again he paused in his typing. "You do not know?" he asked.

"Know what?"

A sick smile spread over his face as he wheeled his chair close to mine. I wanted to recoil in disgust but I couldn't. "Your father is dying." He seemed to relish the words as he spoke them, glad to be the one to destroy my world.

I shook my head. "No. He's fine."

"The palladium core in his arc reactor is poisoning him. Painful way to die. He only has weeks to live, days maybe."

No, no, no. He had to be lying. He had to be. Dad couldn't be dying. He would have told me if he was. If the arc reactor core was poisoning him, we would have found a replacement. Ivan was only saying this to torture me some more.

"You're lying," I said but the words sounded unconvincing even to my own ears.

Dad had been sneaking around, spending even more time in the garage and on his computers, not letting me know what he was working on. For months I had been thinking he was hiding something. Was this it? Was he dying?

I tried to tell myself if he was dying he would have told me but I knew it wasn't true. He wouldn't have wanted to burden me with that knowledge. As much as I wanted to deny it, it was starting to make sense now. His secretive behaviour, the changes in his attitude, the slight weight loss and paleness. Memories came flooding back. The pain in his voice when I'd talked about what I would do with the company and suits if I lost him, his reckless idea to drive an F1 car, his reluctance to return to the US after Monaco, the tears he had shed over my scrapbook. Even his stupid behaviour at his party made some sense now. If you knew you were never going to have another birthday, you make your last one count.

Although I had promised myself that I wouldn't cry, this new knowledge made that hard. My dad was really dying. In as little as a few days, according to Ivan, he would be dead. Tears leaked from the eyes at the thought of losing him.

Ivan, still watching my reaction to his words, smiled at my pain before returning to the keyboard.

I couldn't imagine a world without dad in it. Even after all the shitty things he had done, I still loved him with all of my heart. But soon I would lose him. Forever. Just like mom. I was going to be alone in the world.

I felt what little will I had to live slipping away as I thought about dad's impending death. I didn't want to be left here alone. How could I ever move on from losing him? I don't think I could.

It wasn't fair. I'd just gotten him back from Afghanistan and now I was going to lose him again, permanently. He'd come back from that place beaten and bruised, but alive thanks to the arc reactor. But now the thing which had saved his life was now killing him. Knowing dad, he would have researched everything, tried anything to keep his heart beating but based on his recent behaviour, I guess his research and experiments came up with nothing. He'd given up hope and accepted the fact that nothing could save him from death now. Nothing was going to save my father. A small sob escaped me.

"Don't cry little girl," Ivan said as he stalked over to me. "You will die long before your father does."

"You're pathetic," I spat, letting my emotions get the better of me. "Blaming people for things that aren't their fault."

"It is your fault," he hissed back. "And your father's fault and his father's fault. It's all your faults that my father died poor. That I went to jail for stealing food to keep us alive while your father was living in luxury. Do you know what they do to you in prison?" He leant forward and wrapped his fist around my left pinkie finger. "This."

I only had a second to prepare myself before he tugged on my finger. The pain hit me instantly and I couldn't contain my scream. Ivan smiled, the enjoyment written all over his face. I gritted my teeth and tried to take in deep breaths to help with the agony that was my broken little finger.

"They break all your fingers as an initiation." He held up his hands to show all of his tattooed fingers were thick and bent slightly, indicating that they'd all been broken and never set correctly. "You think this hurts? Just wait until all your fingers are like this."

I was prepared for it this time but it didn't mean it hurt any less. But this time, as he broke my ring finger, I managed to keep myself from screaming by biting the inside of my lip. My mouth quickly filled up with blood.

"You deserve this," Ivan said as he reached for another.

As he leant down, I spat the blood into his face. He instantly recoiled and wiped some blood from his eye.

"You deserve that," I said. "And I don't deserve this."

He said something in Russian which I can only assume was profanity before his fist descended down across the side of my face. Pain exploded in my head and dark spots danced at the corner of my vision. My head was now another thing to add to the list of things that were throbbing like a bitch. I spat some more blood onto the floor while Ivan went over and retrieved something from the desk.

My blood ran cold when he turned around to show a large knife gripped tightly in his hand.


I love cliffhangers!

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