“Your friend kidnapped my son.”
“Miss Granger, you’re looking… whatever an appropriate compliment is for a sixteen year old girl.”
The girl blinking at Tony on his pop-up screen in his office was entirely too shocked to be anything other than an awkward teenager who seemed to struggle with a hairbrush, but Tony kept up his charming smile regardless.
“Um… hi,” Hermione eventually said, her brown eyes appearing as wide as Tony’s entire fist. “Is- is Harry okay?”
“Harry? He’s perfect,” Tony said, his smile slipping to something more genuine. It was a point in the girl’s favor that her first question was about Harry. “I actually called to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind. Think of this as a consumer product survey for the one of a kind cell phone you have.”
“Oh, okay,” Hermione’s face relaxed and Tony thought he could see some bookshelves behind her, she was probably in a library if Harry’s reports on his friend could be trusted.
Which it could be, in Tony’s opinion.
“What do you need to know?” Hermione asked politely.
Tony pulled another screen up with his list of questions and clicked on a transcriber to record Hermione’s answers.
“How frequently do you make calls to people other than my son?” Tony asked her.
“I call my parents every Friday,” Hermione answered promptly. “But I do let others use it to call their parents as well. I’d say, aside from daily calls to Harry, that the phone makes approximately twelve other calls a week.”
Tony raised a curious brow at her. “Has anyone ever told you that you talk like a textbook reads?”
Hermione twisted her lips to the side in a small smirk. “Yes, sir. Frequently, in fact. Would you like the numbers on that as well?”
Tony chuckled, unwillingly charmed by the dry humor that must have attracted Harry to such a studious friend.
“No, let’s stick to the phone,” he told Hermione. “Okay, next question…”
Tony was able to swiftly flip through his dozen questions as Hermione answered each question factually and with a reasonable amount of intelligence.
“May I ask you a question now?” Hermione asked once Tony told her he was finished.
“Only if it’s incredibly personal and wildly inappropriate,” Tony quipped.
Hermione blushed lightly, but held his gaze. “It is, I suppose. I just wanted to know how Harry’s doing? He’s rather evasive and we worry about him.”
Tony rolled his neck and tried to think of a response that would satisfy the girl and wouldn’t piss Harry off once she undoubtedly quoted Tony later.
“His grades are improving and he’s a big fan of making himself become a human flashlight,” Tony told her.
Hermione smiled rather patronizingly. “And you won’t tell me anything else? Perhaps about his friends or eating and sleeping habits?”
Tony smiled brightly and shook his head. “Afraid not.”
“Is he still getting headaches?”
Tony actually had to think about the last time Harry had a headache from his ‘cursed scar’. “You know what? He isn’t,” Tony said thoughtfully. “Probably low odds that Darth Vader accidentally blew himself up, huh?”
“Probably,” Hermione agreed. “I should get back to my studies, Mister Stark. Thank you for letting Ron and I come next month, we’re terribly excited to see Harry.”
“And thank you for being the Guinea pig of the soon to be seen in stores Stark Phone,” Tony said with a tip of an imaginary hat. A new call blipped up on his screen and Tony smiled at the familiar contact photo. “Duty calls, farewell.”
Tony switched calls with a click and leaned back in his seat with his earpiece in.
“Hey, kid, what’s up?” he asked cheerfully.
“Wrong kid, sorry,” a raspy voice said from the other end that definitely wasn’t Harry. There was a wet cough that had Tony leaning forward intently, something telling him he was really not going to like what he heard next.
“Three blocks east of you is a closed bakery, any chance you can hurry?” the familiar voice asked. “Like… really freaking hurry?”
Tony already had his suit in hand and began clicking it in on him. “Where’s Harry?” he asked as he opened his window for easier take off.
“You’re going to love this about as much as I do…” The voice coughed again, a wet hacking in Tony’s ear that made him cringe. “I’m pretty sure he’s been kidnapped by a fucking psycho.”
Tony saw his own vitals raising on the screen inside the helmet as he took off toward the bakery he’d once taken Harry to.
“Red hair and hot as can be or one arm and oozes crazy?” Tony demanded.
“One arm and fucking insane.”
Tony was going to crush James Barnes and Steve Rogers both beneath his boot.
Before he even landed, Tony blasted the front door from the building and had all his weapons honed and ready to attack if he saw so much as a flash of silver.
“Back here,” a voice called, the same one echoing in Tony’s earpiece.
Tony followed a trail of blood that made him feel sick to the kitchen of the shop and looked around until he saw a body slumped against the wall like the pot of gold at the end of the morbid rainbow.
“JARVIS, tell Sirius I want him at my location now,” Tony ordered. He couldn’t even properly process the fact that he really hoped Peter Parker, Harry’s friend and ex, was wearing a belated Halloween costume instead of actually being the terrorist swinging around the city.
Jesus Christ, did Harry know his bff Spiderman was the kid he got in a fight with a few weeks ago?
Not important…
“Help is coming,” Tony told Peter, visually assessing what looked to be an abdominal stab wound. “Where’s Harry?”
“The dude had a car, black mustang, plate number GRY3518,” Peter told Tony quickly. “It sounded like he drove west.”
“Probably stolen,” Tony muttered. “JARVIS, alert all departments with that description. Get ahold of Steve, and I want you searching through every god damned camera in the—”
Crack!
“Oh, you’re fucking kidding me, mate.”
Sirius and Pietro appeared from thin air directly in front of Tony and Sirius immediately knelt down beside Peter and pulled his wand out.
“Does Harry know?” Sirius asked Peter.
“Barnes has Harry,” Tony told them briskly before Peter could answer. “I’m hitting the skies, Pietro start running the streets. He had a black mustang, but this guy’s a pro, he might have dumped it by now. Sirius, stay with Petey here and keep your phone on you.”
To their credit, neither Pietro nor Sirius wasted time with questions, though Sirius did snarl in a way that Tony mentally agreed with.
Tony hit the skies and had Steve on his earpiece immediately while he began searching.
“Hey, buddy, long time no talk,” Tony spat. “Where’s your friend at? You know, the one that’s like family to you?”
“He left, Tony,” Steve said calmly, probably even honestly. “I told him to leave Harry alone and he said he was heading out of town.”
Tony zoomed in on a black car and scowled to see a middle-aged woman driving it.
“Yeah? That’s super interesting because fucking Spider-Man just told me that your friend kidnapped my son,” Tony snarled furiously. “Call him, beep him, I don’t care, but find a way to reach him because if I find Barnes first he’s dead.”
He was dead either way, but Tony needed everyone out looking for Harry. In his opinion, it wasn’t too early to call in SWAT.
Or the National Guard, at a minimum. Rhodey was Harry’s emergency guardian, surely he’d call in whatever favors he needed to get a search team together.
“What?! Tony, are you sure?” Steve asked, his voice entirely too shocked to be complicit in the plot to take Tony’s son.
“Spiderman was pretty damn confident,” Tony snapped. “Get your asses out here and find them, now. JARVIS will send you what we have. You report to Sirius, is that fucking clear?”
Tony didn’t have time to have a pissing match get in the way. Sirius had the only goal Tony did- find Harry.
As far as Tony was concerned, Sirius could lead the whole damn team eventually. Steve clearly couldn’t make any rational decisions.
“Crystal,” Steve said curtly. “I’m sorry, Tony. We’ll start searching.”
Tony hung up on him, his anger at Steve multiplying every second that he couldn’t find Harry.
“JARVIS, pull up the location of all Harry trackers,” Tony ordered, desperately trying to remember what Harry had on before he left the house.
Tony didn’t want to be a cliché, but it seemed like he’d joined the group of parents whose kid went missing and he couldn’t even remember what the hell he’d been wearing.
“Their locations are on screen, sir.”
Tony flipped through the tags; Harry’s black converses were at the tower, his leather jacket was at the tower, the phone was still at the bakery, but…
“Go, there, now!” Tony ordered JARVIS as soon as he saw one pinging in an unfamiliar location.
There was a tag Tony stuck on Harry’s Invisibility Cloak and it was still pinging in New York. Tony had thought that tag might be overkill, but he thought if the kid could turn invisible, Tony needed to be able to find him.
It seemed like Tony hadn’t actually tagged enough of Harry’s belongings, but the cloak was a good start.
The cloak’s location was pinging on the corner of Bergen Ave and Newkirk St in Bergen, which meant that Barnes was hauling ass.
Tony was faster though and it looked like Barnes had stopped for something.
Sirius called and Tony answered quickly as he flew full blast to where Harry’s location was pinging.
“Hey, Tony?”
“Yeah?”
“Peter said that Barnes struck Harry in the back of the head, knocked him out,” Sirius said, his voice shaking with the same fury and fear echoing in Tony’s chest. “Peter said Harry was definitely breathing though.”
“Excellent, great.” Tony was so damn close to Harry’s location. “Leave Pete wherever you are and do that magic shit to these coordinates. They’re there- the goal is to get Harry, whatever means necessary, understand?”
Tony didn’t need to tell Sirius of all people that Harry’s safety trumped any other concern, but it was still worth saying aloud.
“Got it.”
Tony disconnected with Sirius and started descending on the scene, zooming in to try and spot that familiar head of hair.
Sirius appeared on the scene just before Tony landed and they both looked around with weapons ready.
“JARVIS, ping the tracker,” Tony murmured. Harry and Barnes could be beneath it and Tony wouldn’t even know it.
A ping echoed in the little alleyway and it took a split-second for Tony to realize it was coming from the metal dumpster. If he wasn’t able to see through the metal walls, he would have been hyperventilating.
“Accio backpack,” Sirius said hoarsely after diving over to the dumpster and sticking his head in it. He held up a nondescript black bag that Tony was fairly confident he’d seen on Harry’s back earlier. “You tracked my bag,” Sirius said flatly.
Tony lowered his face shield and stared at the bag in a blank sort of horror. “Harry’s cloak must be in that bag. I was tracking the cloak.”
Tony was wasting time tracking a fucking backpack while his son was slipping further and further away.
“Then Barnes is running the show,” Sirius said. He opened the bag and pulled Harry’s cloak from it, holding it up for Tony to see. “Harry never, never, would have thrown this in the trash.”
Barnes was a professional, that much was clear.
Sirius peered in the bag and his face scrunched up for a moment. “Harry swiped enough potions to heal an army of people…”
And then Barnes threw them in the dumpster when Harry himself might need them.
A chirp from Sirius’ pocket had him quickly grabbing his phone, a spark of hope in guys desperate grey eyes.
“Yeah?” he said. The spark died quickly and Tony activated his thrusters, ready to hit the sky the moment he had whatever information Sirius had.
“No, I’m sure it’s- it’s Harry’s,” Sirius said, tripping over his words some. “Break in the office, find a number for a manager or something. I want to know in the next five- no, three- I want to know in the next three minutes what’s missing. I know. I don’t give a damn about Steve, have Peter tie his arse up if he starts his shite, got it? Thanks, I’ll call you soon.”
Sirius hung up and the two men shared a deep look of absolute misery.
“Barnes dumped the car at a lot car just off the 280,” Sirius said dully. “Pietro’s going to see if he stole something else.”
Tony turned and slammed an iron fist against the brick wall beside him, bursting through the brick and leaving a pile of dust on the ground.
If Barnes had a new car then he had a head start on them and Tony had no fucking way to track his son. And Tony could trace his path easily- the 280 led to the interstate right out of New York.
“You’re sure what was Harry’s?” Tony asked, needing the answer to the only puzzling bit of information.
Sirius swallowed hard and Tony swore his face lost another couple of shades of color.
“Blood in the backseat,” he said shakily. “Pietro asked if you wanted it for a sample.”
Tony closed his eyes for just a moment, one moment to process that.
Sirius was right, Tony was certain it was Harry’s.
Tony called Rhodey as soon as he and Sirius split up- Tony to the skies and Sirius to get a new vehicle report.
“Hey, what’s—”
“I need interstate 80 shut down and checkpoints every ten miles,” Tony said, having no time for pleasantries. Every nanosecond that Harry was gone increased his odds that Barnes would kill him.
“What?” Rhodey was confused, but not unwilling, Tony knew him. “What’s going on?”
“James Barnes, alias Bucky, alias Winter Soldier, has Harry,” Tony told him. “I’ve got no way to track him, no idea what they’re in, but it looks like he’s headed west out of state. Barnes is trained, dangerous, and he has my fucking son.”
A message from Sirius popped up, a description and photo of a silver sedan that was missing from the car lot.
“Silver sedan now,” Tony told Rhodey. “I’ll send you the full description.”
“I’m going to make some calls,” Rhodey said, all business. “Let me call you back.”
As soon as Tony disconnected with Rhodey, someone with an unfamiliar number called him.
“What?” Tony snapped. He was attracting a lot of attention as he flew just high enough to look through the windshields of every car he passed on the highway, but no luck so far.
“Uh, Tony? It’s Peter,” Peter said. “Hey, I just heard Steve say that Bucky has a cabin in Montana. It’s up by the Rockies, just past Seeley Lake.”
Tony did some quick calculations. “That’s a thirty six hour drive and there’s no chance Harry gets on a plane willingly. JARVIS?”
JARVIS’ voice pinged in the background, confirming that he would have law enforcement go scope out the cabin.
“This is probably a bad time to mention it, but Harry and Bucky are friends,” Peter said, talking loudly over the rush of wind in the background on his side of the call. “I’ve seen them hanging out, talking, you know. It’s- fuck- it’s my fault Harry was there, I’m sorry.”
Tony was an excellent multitasker- he could panic in his head while searching for any sight of Barnes or Harry and demand Peter explain exactly how his son managed to get close enough for Barnes to snatch him all at the same time.
“Bucky was fighting with these guys when I found him, one of them did something and cut his leg, bad. There were two of them- nevermind, not important- anyway, I got Bucky, moved him to the bakery. I knew Harry was friends with him and thought maybe he could patch him up or something.
“Next thing I know, Bucky drives a knife through my stomach and left. Harry shows up, Bucky comes back, whacks Harry in the head and drags his body out the back door.”
“You’re damn right this is your fault,” Tony spat, his blood pressure soaring even higher to a level that had it flashing red on his screen. Tony took a moment to breathe in and out, it was a shit time to have a stroke.
“No, it’s Barnes that did this,” Tony said, mildly more calmly to Peter. Peter was Harry’s age, just a kid. “You did good calling me, kid. Where are you now?”
“I’m following Rogers,” Peter reported.
“You hurt?”
“No, Sirius fixed me up.”
“Good,” Tony said. “Stay on Rogers and call me if he says or does anything suspicious. Got it?”
“Got it,” Peter said. His voice lowered some, the same concern bleeding through it that was coursing through every vessel inside Tony’s body. “We’re- we’re going to find them, right?”
“It’s seven against one right now,” Tony said with as much false bravado as he could. “There’s no way he gets far.”
Tony prayed to any god that was willing to listen to him that he wasn’t lying to Peter and then hung up and called Bruce, adding an eighth member to the party.
After quickly explaining what happened, Tony had Bruce pulling up video footage from the Tower, sending a clothing description and recent photo of Harry to every police precinct in a five hundred mile radius. And then he gave him instructions to add the ninth member to the search party.
“Call Pep, have her coordinate with Rhodey to get road blocks out,” Tony instructed Bruce. “Amber alert on Harry, whatever we need. This is my son, my kid, if there’s a single god damned rock in this country, I want it flipped. I want Harry and Barnes’ photos on every news station, every fucking milk carton.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Bruce said, the sound of him typing away heard clearly in the background. “I’ll call you if I get anything.”
“You do that,” Tony said.
Tony had JARVIS send a message to all members of team ‘find Harry’ after another hour of searching with no results.
Pete, go to the tower, I’ll meet you there.
Sirius, start spreading everyone out of state.
PD has the alerts, cooperate but don’t let them BS you.
Everyone else, follow Sirius’ commands and call me if you spot them.
He sent a separate message to Sirius, instructing him to have Pietro tail Steve since there was only so long Tony could have a minor out searching the streets. And Tony desperately needed every single bit of information from Peter about Barnes’ recent movements as he could get.
Tony got a slew of confirming texts back, all of which he ignored to answer Pepper’s call.
“Tony, I’ve got Fury on the other line,” she said, obviously just as distraught as Tony was. “He’s got a full report on the Winter Soldier he’s sending you.”
“Good work, Pep,” Tony said genuinely. He set his destination to home, he needed to get some sort of idea where Barnes might be headed.
“Tony?”
Tony sighed at the shake in Pepper’s voice, the fear that they wouldn’t find their kid in time.
“I know,” he said heavily. “I know.”
“When we find Barnes, I want him locked up in whatever prison Sirius was in,” Pepper said, as harsh as Tony had ever heard her speak. “I want him fucking buried, Tony.”
Tony wanted Barnes buried almost as much as he wanted his son found safely.
“When we find him, there won’t be a body to bury,” Tony swore. Tony didn’t give a damn how much Steve, or Harry, was attached to Barnes.
Harry was Tony’s son and every single minute he was missing was giving Tony time to come up with the most horrifying and painful forms of torture for Barnes.
Pepper, wonderful pacifist she was, sounded as hard as Tony felt.
“Good,” she snarled. “Hurry up, I’ll get started on the research.”
It was a mark of how all of Tony’s mind was focused on finding Harry that he couldn’t even appreciate what a mama bear Pepper was turning out to be.