Happy Holidays! :D I hope you all had a wonderful time hopefully spending time with family! I guess it's not very festive, but a story nonetheless, or should I say, update...? Since for the first day in my 15 years of my life, we were home for Christmas. So, I got to update a story! I figured since this story seems to be in my mind lately, and I'm hoping to end it soon, i though might as well...Oh well, i'm boring you now aren't I?

Disclaimer: Nah, it's the Holidays.

Sitting around the dining room table, they ate in near silence. Mainly because Sim, or Simon, wasn't there to yap his mouth off as he lied through his teeth to them. It didn't help that two of them weren't exactly in the talking mood, instead they were busy scarfing down their food. The others didn't want to disturb the peace.

Judy, as the old woman introduced herself, hardly ever left Tony's side other than to grab something for him. Ellen, whom always stayed to her 'side' of the mansion that she was assigned to tend to, even came out to help Harriet clean tables.

When they finished, Judy offered keys that she had for some of the locked doors around the mansion. Not all of them, but some. Even so, it was a great help to begin searching for a way out.

Tony and Pepper stayed behind with Judy and the other servants while Howard and Rhodey searched the locked rooms.

"What exactly will I be searching for?" Rhodey asked of Howard, as they searched their third room.

"He is a scientist, so I would assume some sort of lab." Howard replied. "Maybe a hidden door or something."

That sparked a though in Rhodey's head. "Wait! I know!"

"You know?" Howard questioned. "What?"

"Where we found Pepper! It was a hidden stairway to some sort of giant laboratory!" Rhodey exclaimed. "Maybe we can find something there!"

Howard though for a moment. "Actually, that would make sense."

Rhodey nodded as he began leading Howard to where he hoped the way outwas.

Meanwhile, Tony and Pepper were sitting across from each other, cross-legged on top of one of the two beds in the room. They weren't really doing anything, they – or at least one of them – found it comforting to be near the other, so they didn't exactly need a reason to be so close.

Tony being the only one doing something that wasn't considered just sitting around, instead he had a sketchpad laid out on his crossed legs, a pencil scraping against the surface to create a sketch. Pepper was currently preoccupying herself in watching him do just that—actually she was doing a little more than watch, she was 'modeling' for him. Not necessarily in a professional way, but when she sat down he had asked if he could draw her, and she gave him the okay. Though, she stated quite clearly that she wasn't posing or anything. He just smiled at her as he went on sketching the outline of her body, working hard to work with his two broken fingers.

"Are you making me look fat?" She asked, leaning over to see a little better. From her point of view, the drawing was upside down.

Her blue-eyed friend laughed. "No, you're just not looking at it right."

He twisted it around to let her see, proving that she hadn't looked fat at all. Instead what she had thought was her 'fatness' was actually the pillow that was behind her. So then she figured out he was not only drawing her, but what was behind her.

Then he started sketching again,

"You're pretty good." She commented, trying to resume her original position for him. "When did you learn to draw so well?"

"I don't really know." Tony replied, pausing his sketching motions. "I think I might have known how to before….I came here. And I just practiced more and more here when I was sick."

Pepper nodded, not finding a verbal answer that wouldn't make her sound too nosy.

She resigned to listening to the noises the pencil made as it scratched against the paper. Aside from the seemingly constant shuffling and movement of the servants outside the door that separated them from the rest of the mansion; the pencil was the only sound made.

It was peaceful.

That is until he started coughing. At first, it was light and nothing to be concerned about. Her first thought was that he just inhaled some dust or something. But her concern shot up instantly when he started coughing so violently, the sketchpad he was using was thrown to the ground.

"Tony?"

Leaning over, she patted him on the back in hopes of helping him. But found that it did nothing more than make it worse. At that point he was practically buckled over, barely keeping balance on top of the bed.

"I'll go get some help." She assured him as she helped him sturdy himself more on the bed.

As she rushed to the door, she took one last glance at him to find that he was coughing blood into his hand, which encouraged her to hurry.

Rhodey led Howard to where Tony and he found Pepper in. Lucky for them the door was unlocked, allowing them full access like before. And when they got down there, they only found a few 'scientist' looking people down there tending to some papers on a desk. Those scientists freaked out when they saw them enter the place. All of them telling the two to leave that place.

Too bad for those scientists Rhodey was having none of that, and Howard couldn't care less of the consciousness of a few scientists who aided in hurting his son…As long as they weren't dead, of course.

"This is the room that we found Pepper in." Rhodey said opening the door.

The room was different than it was the last time he was there with Tony. Last time he was there, it was neat and tidy; hardly anything out of place, and nothing had seemed out of order. Now needles and vials were strewn across the floor and lab carts were tipped over, papers lay scattered on the ground; crumpled and forgotten.

"What happened in here?" Rhodey asked, genuinely surprised at the mess.

"You guys didn't do this when you left?" Howard inquired.

Rhodey shook his head, eying some papers on the ground. "No," He narrowed his eyes as he crouched down to get a better look at the papers. "Wait a second…"

The papers that spread out through the ground were actually folders containing pictures and hand-printed documents. Looking even closer, or picking one up, Rhodey was starting to realize something. The first one he picked up was the picture of a boy. He was about the same age as Tony, if not a little older. But what bugged him so much, was the boy's face. Especially his eyes.

His dark brown, almost black eyes.

The papers below it read that his name was: Harry Benitz

They knew him as: Harriet, the cook.

Handing those papers to Howard who was looking over his shoulder, he grabbed the next folder that was under the mess of papers that were, Harry Benitz. The picture that was with this one was also familiar. Except this one was a girl. Her light toned hair stood out most, along with those dark blue eyes of hers. Her name: Elliot Shiro. Or as they knew her, Ellen.

Below Elliot, was the gardener, whom went by the name: Meredith Somers. And below Meredith, there was another guy, and so on and so on. Until he hurriedly reached the bottom to a woman. A woman he couldn't exactly forget. She had blond hair and blue eyes. Madam Ruby. Or as read on the paper: Rosetta Dumay.

"Rhodey," Howard said lowering the first paper Rhodey had looked at. Harry Benitz. "Look at this."

Rhodey read where Howard was pointing to. There was two lines he was pointing to. One line read:

Status in North Dakota: Dead (Killed in fire).

The other line read:

Current Status: Alive (Cooperative)

He looked to the others and read similar statuses. Ellen, or Elliot was from Minnesota and had "died from bridge collapse." Another one was from Florida, and another from Iowa. Madam Ruby, or Rosetta Dumay was from California and "killed" in a forest fire.

Rhodey stopped reading them. He understood enough to know what was going on, and what he was reading. It was bad enough to know that whatever happened in this room happened to Tony, but now? To find out that it happened to plenty more? He couldn't wrap his head around it. And if this was all the people that were in that mansion, or in this town, then where was Tony's and Pepper's?

"We need to go." Howard said, sounding urgent.

"Why?" Rhodey said standing up.

"Grab all those papers and let's go." Howard pressed.

"Okay, is something wrong?"

Howard was standing by the door now, waiting for Rhodey. Rhodey gathered all the folders neatly in his arms and stood by Howard. Then Howard led them out the way they came at such a quick pace, Rhodey had to jog to keep up so he wasn't left behind. As they went Howard paused, and as quick as he could, checked through papers and folders that were laying around.

"What are you doing?" Rhodey asked.

"Someone must have took Tony's and Pepper's," Howard began. "I read through some of them and they explain the procedures and everything that was done to, and almost every single one was different, but had the same result."

"What are you saying?"

"You know how Tony keeps having those attacks?" Howard asked, rushing through the halls to find the staircase.

"Yeah?"

"Well, I think whatever they did with Tony had the same results, but something was wrong. Something went wrong where others had gone right. Whoever took his paper's probably wanted to know where they went wrong, and fix it."

After letting himself absorb that new possibility, Rhodey narrowed his eyes. "Then why take Pepper's as well?"

"Some of them were done the same, and I'm guessing that they did the same thing to Pepper as they did to Tony, but for some reason it worked on her and not him." Howard rushed. "So they want to see what they did differently, or what she had that Tony didn't that could have caused things to go wrong."

They rushed out the door of the hidden lab, and were on a straight path to the mansion. Rhodey was just behind Howard's heels, as they pulled up to the backdoor of the mansion.

"Who do you think took it?" Rhodey questioned.

Howard sighed. "I have an idea…and I really hope I'm wrong."

With Judy and Harriet at her side, Pepper rushed through the mansion halls to the room where Tony was. As they neared the room, Pepper's blood ran cold as she heard a voice. It wasn't too familiar, but she knew it nonetheless.

"…are friends aren't we?" Said the voice.

"I uh…"

"Then trust me, and drink this."

Both Harriet and Judy stopped cold in their tracks. Pepper urged them to go in, not wanting to go alone. Harriet, the more daring one, stepped forward. But Judy stayed where she was, holding the health kit for Tony.

"Don't make me force it down your throat, Annie." Growled the voice inside the room. "Now, please if you would…"

She shook her head. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I can't interfere, it'll make things worse."

"Then wait here!" Pepper said, signally to Harriet to follow her.

Pepper didn't wait for Harriet's response, she only shoved the door open. "Leave Tony alone!"

Inside the room stood Simon, hovering over a crouched over Tony, who was heaving out choked breaths. Simon held a closed vial of some sort of liquid, and was holding Tony's struggling arm behind his back.

Simon looked to the door, unfazed. "Oh, I see. I've got another audience."

"Leave. Him. Alone!" Pepper snapped.

"Leave him alone? I'm trying to help him!" Simon responded, twisting Tony's arm a little causing him to yelp as he coughed. "Drink it!"

Through his coughs, Tony managed to speak one word. "No."

Simon growled and threw Tony to the ground on his back, not only causing Tony to cough, but to wince in pain. "I told you, if you don't do it willingly, I will force it to go down your throat one way or another."

"No."

Just as Simon was about to open the vial, and probably try and force Tony to drink it, Pepper launched herself at the man. Only she hadn't thought it through very well, for the instant she made contact, he shoved her back, her back crashing into the bed frame. Though, lucky for her, she had managed to send the still closed vial rolling under the bed.

"Damn it!" Cursed Simon, as he reached to grab hold of the vial, but he wasn't fast enough.

Pepper stood up, groaning. "Ow…"

Harriet walked over to her, still a bit nervous being around Simon. "You okay?"

"I'm fine."

Pepper then realized that Simon didn't have the vial, and wasn't paying much attention to them, but to the vial he just lost. So, she took the chance to try and tackle him again. Only this time, as thought out it was, she had still forgotten that he had two hands this time around. He didn't just knock her back this time around, this time he picked her up, and threw her against the wall.

"Honestly, why must you guys make me resort to such violence?" Simon questioned.

Pepper was blinking away spots in her eyes as she rubbed her head where it made contact with the wall. She was just focusing her vision when she noticed Simon pull something that was tucked into the back of his belt.

A knife.

He laughed at their shocked faces. "Now that's what I like to see! The promising face of cooperation!"

His hand shook as he grinned down at Tony who had stopped his struggling to stare at the sharp knife. "Now, now. There's no need to be afraid, Annie. You just need to take a breath, I'll fix you right up!"

Simon's body practically shook, with what looked like excitement and madness. He was taking deep breath, and the hand that held the knife loomed dangerously close to Tony's throat. He grinned even wider as he glanced over at Pepper who was still trying to make her vision stop spinning so much.

"Hey you," He started laughing. "Be a sweetheart will you, and grab that vial that's under the bed?"

Her vision calming down, she realized what he was doing. With the knife being held so close to Tony's neck, it left her little to none space for error. She couldn't refuse, but she couldn't listen. She swallowed hard and shook her head.

"I can't do that."

"Sure you can, sweetie!" Simon said, smiling. "It's not like I'm going to stab your back as you reach it for me! Who do you think I am?"

A crazy psychopath. She wanted to say that, but couldn't bring herself to do so when Tony was so close to that knife.

So, slowly and cautiously, she got off the bed to get the vial from under the bed. She couldn't let him get the vial, but maybe if she gave it to him, he'd put the knife down and then that would make it easier to get the vial and Tony away-

"Pepper!"

She wasn't half way under the bed, when she heard Judy's voice scream out her name. Only seconds after the shout there was a gun shot and a scream.

Then there was silence.

DUN DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNN! Wait, such a horrible cliffhanger!? On the Holidays? What kind of present is that!? Oh I don't know, the present of Suspense? A good chapter (Hopefully)?

Fun Fact: Christmas is my favorite holiday, despite it being in my LEAST favorite season.

I think the most interesting thing I got for Christmas this year was a Black Butler hugging pillow. Yeah, my big bro gave me crap for that one. XP I was so mad.

REPLIES~!

PercyJacksonLover14: Battle of the cliffhangers, huh? Okay, lets go! :) And thank you for the entire review! It was great, it put a smile on my face for sure! And YAY! You forgive me! You won't unforgive me now, will ya?

MissPotts27: Thanks! I really try to make them interesting! Are they still interesting? Especially now with the end coming up! Speaking of crazy, wasn't he just insane this chapter? In my head I totally envisioned some crazed man with a knife just waiting to kill. It was kind of creepy... ;)

Well, Happy Holidays! SilverPedals!

P.S. I don't mean to be asking, but I was a bit lonely last chapter...I like replying to your guys' reviews! So can you review to share what you thought of this chapter? :P Pwetty pwease?