AN – AHA! I do have someone looking into photo-manip. So exciting. Can't wait to see it! And neither can anyone else, for that matter. =)
What exactly happened last chapter? Does anyone know? Do I know? …Kind of. Yes. Maybe. Ask me tomorrow.
I rewrote this twice, just because I wasn't completely pleased with the feel of it.

Chapter 14
I didn't ask for this.

"Mister Stark?" I kept hearing my name. Who was calling my name? I didn't know that voice. Leave me alone, I'm tired, my head hurts…

But I didn't have that choice.

I jumped up quickly, hearing something fall near me that was metal. A dark room, a basic bedroom. I was on a bed I didn't know, with a guy I didn't know, who was looking at the suit.

The suit that wasn't on me anymore.

It was together, set against a dolly of sorts. Whoever this man in white was, he was a little too close to my property.

I moved instinctively to get up, but found my wrists chained to the bed I had been on. And so were my ankles – quite tightly too. I had bloody cuts all over them – I only then noticed the pain I had on my skin. I was shirtless, my arc not set in the cylinder, and my neoprene suit was laying against a chair nearby. I had on some sort of scrub pants in a weird dark green. Why was my arc hanging there? It felt warm on my skin, but I couldn't fix it. It just lolled lazily against my chest. I wanted to fix it. It could come out at any moment. …That meant he had been looking at it, now the suit. This guy…who the hell was he?

"Good to know you're awake. We were worried we lost you." The man spoke, but facing away from me. He was still examining my property. He seemed too interested in trying to lift pieces to peek underneath.

"Look buddy-"

"Ah ah, please, Mr. Stark…I'm only observing the changes you made. The Mark I is very primitive in comparison…"

"…excuse me?" I was trying to take in where I was. It was a small room, like I thought, bedroom style. A dresser, a bed, and a lamp. But there wasn't much else in the room. Though there was a whole lot more I couldn't see that seemed to be bathed in darkness. Something definitely wasn't right. The room didn't smell right. The guy didn't smell right. And my head was killing me…probably that rock that hit me. Was I bleeding still? I didn't feel any dried blood on my back. They probably cleaned me up. What use was Tony Stark with a head injury?

"The suit Obadiah had was a behemoth, unnecessarily large. Why waste the resources in size when it's not necessary…"

"Where the fuck am I." Come on, get right to the point.

"That shouldn't be your main concern. I'd be more interested in how I could get out, if I was in your place."

I already hated this guy. Not only because paid someone to hit me in the head with a rock (…seriously?) but now he had his hands all over my suit. Now I know why my hands were so bloodied. It hurt terribly to pull against that metal, but what else could I do?

"I have a proposition for you, Mr. Stark."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Where was he? Jarvis said something went wrong. The suit wasn't reacting, Emily was gone, and Happy was in the hospital. The brand new Bentley was destroyed and down in the surf along the PCH. I couldn't handle this. Both of them, in the same day.

Jarvis said that he was in the middle of telling Tony that Emily had disappeared when the suit went offline. Something was wrong. This was too well done. At the exact same time.

"Rhodey?"

"Yeah, Pep? …you sound terrible…"

"Tony…he…and Emily!...oh, Rhodey…"

"I'm on my way, Pepper. Breathe, keep calm."

"Early this afternoon, the car of Tony Stark, holding his young daughter and driver, was run off of the Pacific Coastal Highway. The driver is in critical condition, but the daughter's whereabouts are unknown at the time. Stark Industries has not put out an official word…"

It was already all over the news. The police were around, keeping the press from the premises. I didn't have much to tell them. Did Tony have enemies? Way too many for words. Most I don't even know. I couldn't be alone. Only myself and SHIELD knew that something was wrong with Tony in Mexico. Fury had someone going down to where he was to see if he could find anything. A body, a suit, something. Anything was better than what I had. Which was a friend in the hospital and two missing people.

One of which was 5 years old.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Look, I'm not exactly…that way, and I'm kind of in a relationship, so it would get weird quick-"

The man just laughed at me. He finally turned around and walked towards me strapped to my bed. He was tall, built, and had an interesting face – thick jaw, but deep inset eyes and an unnecessarily large nose. There was no way I was going to be able to take this guy seriously. He looked like a caricature of evil. It was too funny for me not to laugh at, and right in his face too.

Which he silenced by punching me right on the left cheek. That came at a bit of a surprise, and it did shut me up. I was spitting blood for a little while after, and I noticed with my tongue that one of my molars was loose afterwards – something I would have to get fixed when I got back home.

"This isn't a time for jokes, Mr. Stark. I thought you would realize that."

"Yeah, sorry. After having been in a cave for 3 months when I could have died from infection, stray bullet, coal in the mouth – I'm not really taking this seriously." I shrugged as best I could. I knew I was pushing buttons. I had blood running down my chin and my hands both, but I was still cracking jokes. I got out of a cave – I could definitely get out of a more modern setting. Ten to one they wanted some sort of weapons – the suit, more than likely. If they wanted the suit, why not just shoot me and take it off of me? So that meant there was something more. Or they needed me to fix the malfunction.

The man looked down for a moment and nodded his head softly, apparently in thought. His mouth turned up slightly then he turned his eyes back to me.

"I think I can make this a little more real for you."

Two men came from the blackness and undid the cuffs on my ankles, then just unhooked the ones for my wrists from the bed and instead to each other. With a little help, I was on my feet and off the bed.

"Oh, hey, one thing, though?" I asked of the coated man. He had to be running this. But how could he really be running anything with that face-

"Yes, Mr. Stark, what can I do for you?" It was a completely joking tone. I realized I was a prisoner in all of this, but if they wanted me alive-

"Could you reset the reactor? It could fall out, get damaged, kill me-" I was halfway through my second sentence when he reached up and yanked it out of the socket. I gasped sharply, and within seconds the guards had me picked up by my arms and were running me out of the room and down the hall. I was trying to take in the scenery and what was around while trying to not feel the pain in my chest. This never got old. I never got used to the pain of going into cardiac arrest.

It took them seconds to stop and drop me down against a window, my head lolling. My breathing was short, and I was trying to catch it but I couldn't. Finally, my eyes focused, and I could see what I was supposed to.

Emily. Sitting on a rug, playing with toys, and watching Go, Diego, Go!. There was a guard sitting in front of the door, playing on his phone but occasionally looking up. She seemed happy. She wasn't being bothered. She was playing and talking to herself. She looked like she did every day she had spent down in my workshop.

But they had Emily. If they had Emily…

I couldn't keep myself up anymore, and I slid down the wall to lay on my side. Blood was seeping out of my mouth more and more, but I couldn't do anything.

"Is that better, Mr. Stark? Now do you understand?"

"Y-y-yes. Yes. YES." I was trying to use all of my strength to answer him, which is why it went from measly to yelling. I sprayed my blood on the floor as I did so, but I didn't care, and apparently neither did he.

"Good. Maybe now you'll listen when I'm talking."

Something happened after he stopped that I don't remember – all I remember is everything going black, and a little girl's voice beyond the wall.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"We know that Emily was abducted by an unmarked van and Tony's MIA. That's it. The suit's out of commission, and the homing device within it isn't working. How screwed up could this be? You would think the man would have some sort of chip implanted in him by now. Two kidnappings within 3 years?" Fury wasn't funny. He thought he was, but really he wasn't. Especially not in my current state. Natasha was even stoic faced, and here I was bawling my eyes out on my friend's shoulder.

"What do we know? What about Happy?"

"Still unconscious, sir." Natasha piped up behind him. Why was he here, again? Was it necessary for me to hear all of this? Because it wasn't like I had anything to input. Rhodey was trying to calm me down, and keep me breathing, but nothing really helped. It made sense – take Iron Man's kid, yes, get the money, sure – take both of them? For what purpose?

I had stopped crying for a moment, and Fury was staring at me. My mind was racing. Tony and Emily, both of them, why both of them, wouldn't make-

"Collateral, Miss Potts."

The one-eyed black man's voice woke me from my dream land.

"…Collateral."

"The only reason anyone would take Tony and Emily both would be collateral. Make him do something. Give something up. Give us the suit or the kid gets it. Bargaining 101. Without leverage, what use is making someone do something when they apparently have no fear of death?"

That completely made sense.

"What…what would they want him for?" After saying it, I realized how dumb of a question that really was. What had they wanted him for in Afghanistan? Weapons. Missiles. Well, now we really knew that they were supposed to kill Tony, not tell him to build something. But this was very different already.

"The suit. That thing in his chest. Weapons. Too many possibilities. I'm more interested in WHO, than WHAT at this moment. He went to Mexico and didn't come back. Jarvis lost contact AFTER the 'fight' ended. Sounds staged." He looked way too comfortable. Too comfortable for my comfort. He was used to this, I realized, but I wish he looked like he cared more. I knew he didn't care about Tony, but a little girl? Didn't that mean something to these military guys?

"Have you looked into what the mission was about?" Rhodey did pipe up. He really didn't know as much about this as I did. Hell, he was still wearing his fatigues.

"Drug cartel using hostages to get money. Cut and dry. Most of the time, Iron Man lands, the roaches scatter, game over. Same thing happened today. Except we have no Iron Man."

"…is there…is there anything I can do?" I sounded too weepy, too sad, too scared. What use am I? I'm not a weepy woman. I've never been this weak.

"Hmm…this isn't a coincidence. Stark Industries will be scared of losing it's figure head and the next generation. You have to keep the calm. We'll handle the dirty parts. You with us, Colonel?"

Rhodey nodded beside me, and I nodded too. Keep calm, carry on – I had seen that on a sign in a shop recently. It made a whole lot more sense now.

"I'll be going to Mexico this evening. Need anything? I hear tequila is cheap down there." Fury joked. He always joked. But with this dead-pan face. He was already up and out of the door with his woman secretary by the time I came back to reality.

If it was normalcy they needed, normalcy they would get. Work would keep my mind off of crying and off of the emptiness of the house now.

But I had a thought.

"Jarvis – is there any way you can track the reactor in Tony's chest?"

Rhodey looked at me like I was crazy, but he must have thought for a moment and realized how good of a question that was.

"That is possible, Miss Potts. I will make the necessary calculations."

"Thanks…" I smiled sadly. A ray of hope of sorts. It would make sense for Tony to put a chip in himself or at least in his chest piece in case something like last time happened again. Or maybe he didn't think he would ever be in that situation again. But everyone has weaknesses.

Even Iron Man.