Resistance Is Futile
Tony shivered as he remembered that he was all alone in the house. He and Peter had spent yesterday working on projects and such until his aunt asked for him to be returned home. Tony had tried to immerse himself in improvements to the suit. He had succeeded for the entire night but the daylight filtering into his workshop through the glass wall reminded him that he had to do something other than work. He wiped his face, which did little to reduce the amount of grime since his hands were equally dirty, but did allow him to realize that he was crying. With a start he realized that he wasn't just alone in the house, he was alone. Pepper had called for a temporary break, saying his arrogance would be his downfall and she couldn't bear to watch it happen - how temporary could it really be? And Tony Stark was bad for Peter - he had to remember that and keep his distance.
But no human could take being alone, and Tony was no exception. He tried to stop the tears but they just kept coming until he couldn't help it and he sank to the floor, head in hands. Sobs racked his body as he felt himself slipping into hopelessness. Then a voice echoed in his head. Peter's.
I understand. I just - I just wanted to be like you.
And I wanted you to be better.
But Peter was better. So much better than Tony could ever hope to be. Maybe though, maybe, he could try to live up to Peter's expectations. Maybe then he wouldn't be alone.
"Sir?" FRIDAY's voice snapped him out of his reverie.
"Yeah, what?" Tony frowned. His voice was still thick with tears and he struggled to get it under control
"An incoming call from May Parker," FRIDAY announced, "Would you like to take it?"
May? What the hell? Why was she calling him?
"Yeah, take it," he took a deep breath.
"Mr. Stark, I'd really like my kid back now," was the first thing she said. Tony's initial emotion was confusion, but it settled into dread at the pit of his stomach.
"I sent him home last night."
"No... he called to say he was staying over one more night," May corrected.
"FRIDAY, do a sweep to see if he's in Stark Tower," Tony instructed. FRIDAY did as told - there was no one.
"I sent Happy to take him home yesterday," Tony said, "It was Happy's last task of the day, and he has today off."
"You mean, you don't have him?" May's voice rose a notch.
"I'm coming over," Tony said, and ended the call. He massaged his temples, another lump appearing in his throat, signaling tears. He pushed it down. Now was not the time. He had a kid - his kid - to save.
Peter shivered in the cold, dark room. His body was fully wrapped in netting, making it impossible for him to move without tangling himself more. He was in his normal clothes. What he would give for Karen to be here, giving him advice in her comforting, robotic voice. The ground below him was hard and unforgiving - he already had cramps and aches all over his body. He could smell steel and something salty (which he hoped was iron and not blood) but heard no voices or even footsteps.
He remembered Happy driving to Ned's where he was going to stop by and tell him about staying with Mr. Stark. He could see Ned's front door in his mind's eye and then... nothing. He didn't even remember blackness. It was as though nothing had happened since then and now - though things most certainly had. He could feel his eye swelling and his split lip and been reopened. His gut also felt sore, as though he had been punched there many hours ago. He could feel numerous cuts stinging all over his arms and legs, made worse by the chafing of the netting. He perked up for a second, convinced he had heard something. When he strained his already super-enhanced ears, though, there was nothing.
For a long time, Peter sat in the silence. He tried to speak occasionally but just opening his mouth hurt and he was parched and raspy. Talking was painful, so he decided to forgo it. Eventually, when he was certain more than two hours had passed but it could have been three or ten, he heard the steady sound of footfalls coming towards his room. The door on the other side was flung open, revealing strobe lighting in the other side. Peter squeezed his eyes shut, momentarily blinded. He felt whoever had entered haul him up. His entire body protested, pain shooting through his leg. Peter realized that his ankle was twisted. The person pushed him forward, leading him roughly through winding corridors.
Mr. Stark I need you.
Peter was more afraid than he realized. He didn't know if he could withstand torture although he had to try. He had no idea what whoever had him wanted him for, and he had no idea if his friends and family were alright.
If I cause them to get hurt, I'll never forgive myself, he thought miserably.
"Well, well, well," a voice purred in his ear. He was forced on his knees and, though he hadn't opened his eyes once, a blindfold was wrapped around his eyes. He could feel plush carpet beneath his knees and he relaxed as much as he could.
I can do this.
No, I can't. Not alone.
Mr. Stark, please.
"Hello, little one," the voice said again. It was female, and vaguely familiar. "Are you ready to begin?"
"Oh my god," May said. She was pacing the living room, hands clutching long strands of brown hair. "You're saying that the man who was entrusted with my son's safety is completely useless?"
"Happy is bedridden, yes," Tony said. He himself was fighting the urge to jump off the sofa and take a few shots at the wall of May's apartment but he had to maintain the appearance of calm. "He's not useless. It's not his fault someone got the jump on him."
Oh god, Peter, where are you?
"I put a tracker on his spider suit, that was dumped in a random alley. I've been trying to reactivate Karen, Peter's AI," Tony said, "That's when I got the call about Happy. His memory's been wiped. He has no recollection of yesterday's events."
"Well, lets go," May said, grabbing a small brown bag off the counter.
"Go?" Tony asked, momentarily confused, "You want to come with me?"
"I can't stand sitting around doing nothing while my baby is missing," May hissed. Tony understood more than he cared to admit.
Don't think about it. Don't think about Peter sitting alone, terrified, in his cell. Don't think about him waiting for you, only to be let down again. Don't think about the pain inside you right now, don't think about the fact that you want to cry, don't think about the cracked thing inside you that people call a heart.
It was getting harder not to think about anything relevant.
The pair arrived at Stark Towers in less than twenty minutes. Tony had decided to ignore a few traffic rules (all traffic rules). In his lab, Peter's suit was suspended right above his table.
"I've tried contacting Karen, boss," FRIDAY sounded over her speaker, "Nothing."
"May, you can sit down wherever," he gestured to the mess around him. "Fri, try running a scan on Karen's latest messages."
"One hit within the past twenty four hours," FRIDAY said immediately, "She sent out a distress call and a video recording. Unluckily for us, it can only be accessed by herself."
"Lucky for us, I created her," Tony said, his words not quite matching the intensity of his tone, "I can hack her in two minutes."
Tony brought up Karen's security code on the holoscreen in front of him. He tapped out a few lines of code and the screen whirred with commands, crashing through Karen's state of the art firewall. One and a half minutes later, Tony found the video and pressed play.
There was a bulky man and woman approaching the suit. Tony heard Peter's voice, asking for a negotiation. He nearly doubled over, feeling his heart breaking in half. That was his kid, forever kind and gentle. The attackers were not moved. The woman sent a punch at Peter's face which he ducked with no problem - straight into the man's arms. Faster than Tony had ever seen a normal human move, he plunged a needle into Peter's neck. No normal syringe would've been able to pierce through the suit, and no normal formula would've been able to take Peter out. Apparently this wasn't normal, because Peter slumped in his arms. The woman cast a glance towards Peter's fallen backpack, stripped him of the suit, and stuffed it in the pack, and zipped it up. The feed went black with lack of sunlight, and then it stopped.
"FRIDAY run face recognition on the assailants," Tony instructed, struggling to keep his voice even."
"Sir, they've both been identified as part of the Chicago Mob."
"I didn't even know Chicago had a mob," Tony muttered, which wasn't strictly true but kept his mind off more important things. Unfortunately, May was not wasting time with distractions.
"How the did the Chicago Mob know how to deal with Spider-Man?" She demanded, "How did they know Peter was Spider-Man? And what the hell do they want with my son?"
Tony hung his head with weariness, then lifted his head again, determination filling his eyes. He would find Peter Parker, no matter what it took.
"Your purpose here is small, at best," the female voice crooned, "I have been given instructions to tell you only this - Tony Stark will come for you. And when he does, he will be taken down."
Peter fought back a sob at the thought of being Tony's downfall. His worst nightmares were coming true, one by one. He tried to focus on his surroundings to make his mind clear, the feel of the carpet under his knees, the hitman's tight grip on his neck, the sound of the woman's voice. The sound of the woman's voice... it sounded like a distorted version of the voice of -
"Pepper?" Peter asked, surprise getting the better of him. The woman - Pepper - growled.
"Virginia Potts was a fraud, an imposter," it hissed, the voice cracking, "I am the true master of this body, as I should always have been."
"Whoops," Peter tried for a laugh, "My mistake."
This seemed to satisfy the thing that used to be Pepper. Peter assumed that they had injected some sort of subservient chemical into her, and she now believed whatever they told her. Whoever 'they' were. They said that they were using him to get to Tony - maybe they had tried with Pepper first, but Tony must have thought that she was mad at him so not returning his calls. Peter vaguely realized that Pepper hadn't been around recently. Then they captured Peter, though how they got a sedative into his enhanced senses was beyond him.
"So, what do you plan to do with me?" he asked, trying for a nonchalant tone. He failed and it came out as more of a squeak.
"We plan to liberate you from the idiocy of Peter Parker," Not-Pepper said, and Peter could hear the evil smile in her voice. He remembered with a chill that Not-Pepper had said that she was the true master of this body. Were they going to do the same to him, change him so that he was only a slave to the whims of these cruel people?
"You won't be able to figure out a formula powerful enough to counteract my spider sense," Peter bluffed. They had created a sedative, it was only a matter of time before they did the same with this injection.
"We will soon enough," Not-Pepper crowed. Peter bit back a smile - so they hadn't done it yet.
"We'll see," he snarled. In return, he felt a stinging slap across his face, and sharp nails tearing into his flesh. When the hand withdrew, he could feel the sharp pain caused by the cuts, but ignored it. He was soon dragged back to whatever cell he had been in before, left to wallow in his pain and fears.
Tony swiped through various made up sightings of the Chicago Mob. He needed solid evidence of where the headquarters were.
"Boss?" FRIDAY asked, and Tony could've sworn she almost sounded nervous.
"What is it?" He snapped.
"Incoming text," she began but Tony cut her off.
"Ignore it," he ordered.
"Sir, the number is unknown, but the area code traces back to Chicago," FRIDAY continued. Tony froze.
"Show me," Tony said.
"Its a video recording," FRIDAY said, "Would you like just audio or audio-visual?"
"Audio-visual," Tony side-stepped his work bench and focused on the holoscreen in front of him. A video began to play, the figures in the scene grainy and hard to see.
"Run face recognition," Tony ordered absentmindedly. Then, the one standing up front began to speak. Tony stared.
"Hello, Tony Stark," Pepper said, but it wasn't exactly Pepper's voice. She never had that hatred underlying her words. She had been angry with him, yes, exasperated, yes, but there was always a certain level of fondness in her speech. Tony winced.
"As you can see, I have been kidnapped," Fake Pepper said, "By whom, and for how long is not something you need to know. However, know that they have Peter Parker, and will kill him if you try to rescue him. Do not test them, Tony Stark."
She turned away, and the video ended. Tony slumped onto the table behind him.
"Fri, you get anything?" he asked hopelessly. First Peter and now Pepper? No - that wasn't quite right. Pepper must have been kidnapped earlier. And he hadn't noticed? Yes, they were taking a break, but that was inexcusable.
"Two things, boss," she said with a little more forced cheerfulness than usual, "first of all, the men with Ms. Potts were identified as members of the Chicago Mob. Secondly, there was an injection site on Ms. Potts neck that I thought you might want to know about.
Tony sat up, "That means that she has something in her system that's keeping her in the mob's service! They must have gotten a sample of her blood to make a chemical that strong."
"What?" May entered, carrying two sandwiches. Tony gratefully accepted one and explained his findings to her.
"If they got some of Peter's blood," she paused for a moment, recollecting herself, "if they got some of my son's blood, they could potentially create a sedative."
"I guess," Tony said, "but there's no reason to suppose that he has that chemical in him. He may still be Peter."
"Has he been hurt lately?" May asked anxiously.
Tony thought for a moment, "No, not that I can remember. They'll easily be able to get a sample of blood from him now, but to get the original sample to create that strong of a sedative... I can't think..."
"Well, I would hate it if he was hurt in a fight," May said protectively, forgetting that this left them again with no options. Tony froze.
"No, wait," he said, "he had a split lip from a fight a couple days ago with some kid in the school. It wasn't one of his vigilante mission, but it could be that. Do you think-?"
"Mark was the kid that was bullying his friends," May said, excitement building.
"If he's the only one that made Pete bleed, he's the one we want," Tony said, "Warning, though, May. This search will probably lead to nothing."
"It's worth it," May said, "It's for my baby."
Peter squirmed in his chains, trying desperately to get out. He was no longer encased in the netting, and could twirl his ankle without pain, but the moment he tried to stand he keeled over. His good foot was cuffed to the ground and he didn't have the energy or strength to break it. They had kept him in a state of constant tiredness, never letting him sleep. Every time he'd dozed off, they'd come and shock him, his spider senses making it a thousand times worse. Occasionally they let him sleep for a few minutes, but the end was inevitably an electric shock.
"Time to feed 'im," a gruff voice came from the other side of the heavy metal door. A little slot opened and food was pushed through. The disgusting, soupy mess of tough meat and rotten vegetables stank like hell but Peter forced it down anyway, ignoring the way the slimy food slid down his throat. He heard two pairs of footsteps coming towards him in the hall before they stopped in front of his door. One voice he recognized, the other he did not. He quickly pretended to be asleep, but they didn't open his cell.
"Tony Stark has received and viewed the message," Not-Pepper said, but her voice was meek instead of harsh. Peter guessed she was talking to someone with more power than she.
"Good, it is only a matter of time before he tracks the signal here," the other voice whispered. It sounded like a snake's, slipping and sliding through other people's weaknesses.
"We... we made the signal untraceable, and took the video from thirteen miles out of Chicago," Not-Pepper's voice trembled, "that is standard protocol, I didn't realize-"
"You fool!" The other voice hissed, sharp as broken glass, "now we will have to resend a traceable video, and then Stark may realize what we're up to! But maybe - just maybe - he'll be too emotional to think of the possibility that we want him here. Imagine having the great Tony Stark under our control!"
The two cackled and began marching off down the hall.
Peter came in and out of sleep, each time he came close to true unconsciousness he would wake himself up. It felt like a horrible half-life - he couldn't fight, he couldn't give up, he couldn't even see anymore. Everything was blurry. When the footsteps came down the hall again, Peter Parker didn't hear them. When the cell door opened, Peter Parker didn't notice. And when the needle slid into his neck, ejecting a very special formula, Peter Parker ceased to be Peter Parker any longer.