godfather
Sometime after the Vulture incident at Peter's Homecoming dance, Tony sits Peter down for a talk in the upstate building. He lets the kid into the kitchen, makes sure he gets more than enough to eat, and sits with him at the kitchen counter. “So, Spider-Boy,” he says, “we…”
“Spider-Man,” mutters Peter.
“…need a code word.”
“What?”
“A code word,” Tony repeats, and already he feels like the idea is stupid. “Like something to let me know that you’re in trouble.”
Peter’s chewing through a mouthful of leftover lasagna when he answers, “Okay…”
Tony scratches his head. “Or… if you feel unsafe. or if you think someone’s following you, or if you’re feeling terrible and you need me to come. Anything. If you get kidnapped and the guy makes me call you for random money? You can say it and i’ll know you’re in trouble.”
Peter forks through the tupperware for another good bite. “Um,” he says, mouth full, “If someone has me, and he calls you about something as dumb as ransom money, I can probably take him. I’ll literally be home for dinner, no problem.”
“Well—what if he has a gun?”
“I can take a guy with a gun, Mr. Stark. I’m literally Spider-Man.”
“Forget it—forget it! No more hypotheticals. Look, at some point you might need my help, and if you do, I need us to have a code word. Something. I just want to make sure that you always feel comfortable telling me that you’re in trouble, like with that Eagle—”
Peter chimes in, “Vulture!”
“—guy or whoever else comes after you. No matter what kind of trouble you’re in. We just need a word you would never say. Like…bazooka or sugarplum or Kansas.”
Peter frowned. His eyes suddenly lighten, and he stops chewing, swallows, and pushes the tupperware away with one hand. “Mr. Stark, are you… Are you saying we should have a safe word?”
Scandalized, Tony stares at the kid, who’s still grinning at him like a maniac. “Peter Benjamin Parker, please never say that to me again.” He puts his hands over his eyes. “Oh my god you are a child, you should not know these things—“
“I’m literally sixteen, that’s the age of consent in like, most states—”
“Not in this one, so shut up shut up shut up—“
Ultimately, they decide on The Godfather. Tony had been harassing him about seeing the movie for ages, so Peter says, “In any universe where I’m watching the Godfather, I must be literally dying so—that can be our safe word.”
“CODE WORD, PETER. I SAID CODE. WORD. THIS IS NOT A SAFE WORD—“
Peter starts laughing again.
This code word was an easy way to alert Tony that he was in danger and needed immediate help. At first, Tony thought it might become a joke between them, but the Spider-Kid took it seriously. They started using the code word during fights first; whether they were fighting an alien or a robot or a witch, if Peter got hit too hard, Tony would hear, “Godfather, godfather!” over his radio system. That meant he needed immediate help, medical or otherwise. Then, Tony would drop everything to get to him and solve the danger he was in.
And it worked the other way around, too. If Tony’s suit failed during a fight, or if he get overwhelmed, he’d say the code word and Peter would rush to his aid.
It became easier and easier for that little dark-haired teen to admit when he was in trouble. They’ve only joked about it a couple times, Peter threatening to say it over every minor inconvenience, but they don’t do that anymore.
It only took one day in late May with Peter for Tony to stop joking altogether.
TUESDAY, MAY 15 — 7:34 PM
Peter’s voice is young and pained and fucking shaking when he says Tony’s name.
Not even his name. His last name. Mr. Stark. As though he, the man who put him through all of this torture, is somehow still worthy of being called by such a formal title.
“H-hey, buddy,” he says back, because he doesn’t know what else to say. On the television he can see that empty room: all concrete and linoleum and vibranium, with the chair in the center. them all: the girl who delivers his supplies, the boy who drives her, and a few other crew members.
Onscreen, Peter Parker looks nothing like the dirty, battered boy he’s so used to seeing. His head is wound in bandages and he’s half-dressed in a blue hospital gown. His leg is trapped in a cast. With one hand cuffed, he’s got Charlie’s phone in the other hand; before he answers, he cries silently, no noise over the phone. Grainy, live-streamed tears come down his cheeks, his nose running into the cracks in his lips. He’s sniffling and he’s sniffling and all at once he’s crying. “Mr. Stark,” he says again, and it’s so wet and full of tears that it’s hard to make out. “Hi, hi, hi.”
They've cleaned him up nicely, wiped him down so that his pale skin shines. Tony puts a hand on the flatscreen. “What's going on? What's happening? Are you—are they—”
“They’re here,” he says. “They said I could talk to you. That they’d leave me alone today.”
“Oh. Oh. Oh—okay.”
“Yeah.” A sniff. “They got me a doctor.”
“They did?” His voice is surging like a rocket taking off. “Tha-that’s good. That's good. And your head? I saw the—the—“ —blowtorch, punch, hammer, blood— “the hit.”
“Doctor fixed it. Did some surgery.” He’s holding the phone so close to his ear that it’s buried in his mess of dark hair. His other ear, Tony knows, is still burned into a melted clump of flesh.
The kid’s crying again. “It's real good to hear your voice, Pete,” Tony says. He’s gripping the phone so tight it hurts. “Real good.”
A choked laugh. “You, too, sir.”
“I think we’re a little past sir, bud.”
There’s a stretch of silence so long it could’ve wrapped around Tony’s throat and strangled him where he stood.
Another sob. “Is it gonna work?”
What else can he say? “It’s gonna work.” Now he’s fucking crying. “It’s—it’s gonna work, I’m close, I am. I—I am. I’m gonna get you home.”
Sobbing, sobbing, his kid is sobbing and all he can do is hold the damn phone. “Do you promise?” manages Peter.
Tony tries to act like he’s not lying through his fucking teeth. His left arm is aching, and now numbness prickles up to the elbow. “Of course I do. I promise. I—I—I promise. You’re gonna be out of there soon, I promise.” He’s so fucking exhausted; he’s been taking sleep supplement pill after sleep supplement pill, so many that he barely sleeps an hour a night before his body startles himself awake.
Peter, quietly, between hiccups: “Okay.”
He’s so quiet. He’s so damn quiet. The Peter he knows usually never shuts up, but this one has head surgery and a busted leg and is looking around on the screen like someone’s about to hit him.
“You know,” says Peter. “I have a lot of time to—to think in here, and I… I’ve been thinking about…” A wet sniff. “…what we're gonna do when I’m out of here…” The kid can barely get a word out now—he’s crying hard, gasping.
On the screen, Charlie’s guys watch solemnly, some whispering to each other, but they’re not close enough to the phone for Tony to catch their words.
“Yeah?” prompts Tony; his fingers ache now from holding to his phone so tightly.
They’re stuck. They’re both stuck. Neither of them can say anything too strong without repercussion: Tony because of Charlie’s rules and Peter because he wants to keep talking. “We could watch the Godfather.”
Tony’s stomach twists into a tangled knot. “Peter,” he chokes out.
Peter’s never managed to get their code word out like this before—never been able to have a conversation with Tony since he was taken. And here he was, tied to the chair in that horrible room, begging for Tony to come help him with one simple word.
He’s crying harder now. “I’m never gonna see that fucking movie, am I? I'm never gonna… Everyone’s seen it, but me, I’m gonna die here, I’m gonna—” A scream and “Don’t touch me!” and all of a sudden Peter is thrashing on the screen, whipping the phone at the nearest person’s head. A man behind him pins him down by one arm and stabs a needle into it, pushing down the plunger before his thrashing slows, and then he’s sobbing more, just slower, crying out, “Godfather, godfather…” until at last he slows fully, thrashing in slow, sloppy flails.
The girl beside him takes the phone from his sedated grip, and her voice is clear and nasally, like she has a cold. “We gave you a gift, Stark,” she says. “So give us what we want. Give us a good prototype, and maybe we’ll let you talk to the kid again.”
It’s late when Peter calls.
Way too late. It’s near-midnight; Tony and Pepper are asleep. They’re both awoken by the sudden ring of Tony’s cell. His phone’s set to silent—except for Pepper, Rhodey, Peter, and a couple others—so it does in fact ring out loud. That stupid Cantina theme song from Star Wars is the kid’s ringtone; Peter set it himself.
Tony doesn’t need to rub his eyes awake; the kid’s late-night call sobers him up aplenty. He fumbles for the phone and picks up just as Pepper says, tiredly, “Is that Peter?” She recognizes the ringtone, too.
Tony nods. On the other line is a chaos of tinny noise: talking, music, laughing… Peter’s voice sounds funny. He shouts something incomprehensible, and immediately Tony knows something is up.
“Peter?” he calls out. His voice is still grainy with sleep. “You okay?” He slips on a pair of pants and a T-shirt from the floor.
There’s way too much sound going on behind Peter’s voice. Tony hears something, but most of it is swallowed by the background noise—dozens of people talking, some laughing, pop music blasting.
Finally, Peter’s voice, fast and rambling, ankle-deep in a conversation about fraternities and engineering majors. He’s shouting, laughing, and then there’s a crashing sound— “Oh, shit! My phone!” Another series of clatters, like the phone’s been dropped on hardwood, and at last Peter’s voice becomes clear through the chaos. “Oh— oh, shit —everyone shut up, I think my—” A giggly laugh. “Ohmygod shut uuup! Someone’s calling me! Everyone shut up!”
No one shuts up; if anything, the people around him only gets louder. “Peter,” says Tony. So he’s at a party—usually when Peter calls past eight o’clock, it’s with an emergency.
Before he can continue, the kid’s addressing him. “Hey, Mr. Stark! Heyyyy! Hey… Yeah, what’s up?” He’s laughing again, but there’s something wrong. His laughter is too hard, his voice too slippery, his words too sloppy. “I think—heyyy, man—what d’you need? I’m kinda… Kiiiinda…” He trails off, and then he’s talking to someone else.
It takes too long for it to click in his head. Peter’s drunk. “Peter—buddy—are you okay?”
“Duuude—Mr. Stark—sorry!” Peter laughs again, like he can’t help it. “You don’t need to check up! I swear, it’s all good! It’s allll gooood…”
At once, Tony moves through his lab to reach his computer. He mutes the phone, tells FRIDAY to access the Spider-Kid’s location, and then unmutes again. “Kid, no joke, where are you?” Peter is fifteen and much too young to be this drunk. Yeah, Tony did much worse at his age—but Peter is Peter, and this is unusual for him. So something has to be wrong. “Did something happen?”
The kid’s rambling right now, but his voice is clearer now, as though he’s gone outside or into a separate room—the background noise dissipated into a low buzz. “…but I’m literally, like, not on a mission right now! I finished finals! And I just wanna… Just wanna… Like, let me live! So I’m at like ONE party; sorry, sorry I’m having a good time!! ‘Cause I—like not everything can be school, school, schoooool, you know?”
“I know, buddy, but sounds like you’ve had enough good time for one night.” Peppers behind him now, tying a robe around herself and mouthing, He okay?
Party, Tony mouths back, with a little drinking motion—thumb and pinky extended from a fist, a little shake in front of the mouth—and she nods back, hair messy, and rubs her eyes again. I’ll call May.
Almost as soon as Pepper leaves—maybe to find her phone—FRIDAY’s system announces: “Sir, no location could be found from Peter. Both his suit and his emergency tracker are offline.”
He’s gone from confused to concerned in less than a minute. Peter has yet to tell him where he is.
Tony’s chest goes cold, like a window frosting over. “Peter.” His voice sounds so serious he sounds like his father for a second. “Why did you turn your tracker off?” he’s trying so hard not to freak out on the kid, to get him to stay on the line. instead of getting annoyed and hanging up
“Mr. Stark, chill out! I’ve got everything under controool, alright? I’m good!! So thanks for calling, but seriously, there’s nothing to worry about!!”
“Peter,” he starts, and the kid stops talking. “You called me.”
That’s when Tony remembers. Peter can’t get drunk. Not really. For someone with his metabolism, he would need such an obscene amount of alcohol that it would take an entire fraternity to match him, and he’d burn through in the same amount of time it took for him to drink it. For Peter—drugs, substances, medications—they only ever lasted a fraction of what they should.
So there was no possible way that Peter was drunk.
“Oh, shoot—um, sorry—soorrrrry! I must’ve—must’ve accidentally—um…”
“How much have you had to drink, buddy?” he asks; at the same time, he types a few more commands to FRIDAY, trying to reroute whatever hacking the kid had done. He’s gonna kill that Ed—Ned—whoever. Or give him a job. Whatever keeps him from putting Peter in danger.
“What? None! I didn’t—” A pause. “Are you mad? You sound mad.”
“I’m not mad,” he says, but the tones of freakish concern bordering on how-could-you-be-so-stupid really do sound mad. “I’m not mad. Just tell me where you are. I’m gonna come pick you up.”
Peter makes a sound that’s halfway between annoyance and amusement. “Mr. Stark! Literally, it’s gonna burn through me anyway, just let me do this!”
“No, Peter, I’m picking you up. Tell me where you are right now, I’m serious.”
“You’re not my dad—I don’t need you to come get me!” All of a sudden he’s laughing, laughing harder than before, and then he’s gasping, sucking in air between each laugh. “I’m gonna… I’m gonna…”
“Peter? Peter!” He’s laughing again, and Tony panics. “Talk to me, buddy! Hey! What’s going on?”
Another laugh. “Sorry, I think—I'm getting kind of slow, this is so weeeeeiiird! I feel… I feel…”
“Buddy, I’m gonna pick you up. This is a college party? Do you know what college?”
“Ugh, Mr. Stark, literally,” whines Peter. “It’ll burn out of my stem in, liiike, five seconds, I’m gooood…”
“Peter,” he says slowly, like he’s chewing on a tough piece of meat. “Tell me where you are. Right now. I’m not kidding.”
“I’m… Um… Sorority?” The kid seems to ponder the questions. “Some girl’s room… She likes Harry Styyyles, she’s got a poster on the ceeeeiling.”
His voice is slurring again, one vowel slipping into the next. Tony asks, “Did anyone come with you? Ned? MJ?” Those kids’ names come to him crystal clear.
Peter hums and then he goes kind of quiet. “I don’t know, I’m kinda tiiiiired…”
“Peter!” God, he’s gonna kill this kid once he gets home safe. “Hey! Stay awake and talk to me—is there anyone with you? Did you take something?”
“Mr. Stark…” More laughing. “I only had like, one drink! MJ felt, like, sick, so sheeee… She went home, and I had the rest of hers…”
“Okay, okay, just—do you know where you are?”
“Somewhere… The Bronx… I dunno… You know, I never got” —a noise that kind of sounds like a gag or a cough— “my driver’s… uh, my… driver’s license… We took the traaaaain...and MJ had a friend…who has a friend…who has a, um, brother? Who, who goes heeeere, to the party… To the…”
Tony can’t track a train. Tony can’t track a train. “Damnit, damnit, damnit! Okay, Peter, listen to me, I think someone put something in your—”
“You know… This is, like, so funny, Mr. Stark…” A hiccup. “‘Cause you told me… You told me… You…” Another hiccup, and then a gagging noise. “Told me I… I couldn’t get… Drunk, but… I proved you wrong, huh? Right? Funny, right? Just one…” He gags again. “Mr…. Stark?”
“I’m right here, Peter, I’m coming, okay? Do you know what street you’re on?” He manages to get into Peter’s suit at last—FRIDAY alerts him with its location: the Parker home in Queens. “Damnit, Peter! You didn’t take your suit?”
Peter’s laughing, but it’s slow and sickly. “I feel so…” He inhales a little too fast and then back out again. “I’m… I’m…”
“Peter? Peter!” When Peter goes quiet again, Tony knows for sure—something’s seriously wrong. A clatter—he must’ve dropped the phone. “Stay awake, buddy! I want you to throw up if you feel like it, you hear me? I need you to get this out of your—“
There’s a sudden bang —a door hitting the wall behind it. A couple girls laughing.
“Ohmygod—Katie, there’s a guy in your bed!” Giggles and giggles. “Heyyyyy…”
Peter doesn’t respond; Tony keeps shouting his name.
Pepper’s back by now, beside him, and she looks just as concerned as him, her strawberry-blonde brows twisted. She’s tapping into her phone about as fast as Tony’s typing into his computer, and then she’s speaking into it, something about police and locations and boroughs and alerts. How does he get access to the kid’s phone? He has to find a way…
“Peter!” barks Tony, and he’s typing again, typing and typing and typing to get the kid’s location. Bronx—sorority—he could be anywhere! “Peter! Talk to me!”
Nothing on the other line; he can now hear the music blast behind the kid, some shuffling, some more whispering from the girls, and then—
Peter’s voice: “Wait, wait—“ in what could only be described as panic.
Tony freezes.
THURSDAY, MAY 25 — 8:00 AM
Maggie and Jim Paxton arrive thirty minutes early to their meeting.
It’s a warm day, so Jim dresses in cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt; Maggie arrives in her work clothes—a purple blouse and black skirt—with her nametag still pinned to her cotton top.
The meeting’s not with the police, although Officer Paz does attend—clad in police uniform, vest and all. The meeting is at the regional office for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Officer Paz and a sweater-vested man meet them there; they are almost immediately ushered into another room with a conference table and rows of plastic chairs. Inside the room are two other NCMEC employees: a younger woman and an elderly one, but they stay at the other end of the table without speaking. “I know you’re not used to this organization,” says Julia Paz. Her hair is pulled back in a bun, but her hairstyle doesn’t hide that it looks like the policewoman hasn’t washed her hair in a week. “But I swear the NCMEC does good work here. We work with them on most of our missing children cases.”
The man gives them both slight smiles and shakes their hands. He’s black, overweight, and middle-aged; he’s dressed like he walked out of a 70s sitcom instead of a child abduction office. “Welcome to our regional office. I know this is difficult, so I’m going to get straight to the point. Of the missing children reports that come through us, most involve runaways and family abductions.” The man has a manila file with Cassie’s full name on it. “Of almost three thousand of our missing children cases last year, eighty-seven percent were runaways, ten percent family abductions, and less than one percent were non-family abductions—that’s you.” He points to a photo of Scott and Cassie stashed in the file. “Although her file states the biological father as our top suspect for your child’s abductor, you did witness non-family members abducting her, right?”
Maggie answers, “That’s right.”
“So, because of that, we do refer to your case as a non-family abduction, so they went to my department for assistance.”
“Now, statistically speaking, children abducted by non-family members are likely to die within the first 3 hours with their abductor—but because we have proof of Cassandra—”
“Cassie,” corrects Jim.
“—living as soon as May 14th of this year, over a month after her abduction, there’s a very good chance she will stay alive. Unfortunately, that does mean that, if they are keeping her, the likelihood she is physically alright, especially in the absence of her father, the presence of sedatives in her forensic reports, the state of the woman she was associated with… All this does mean that our department and the police station have one general conclusion about what has happened to Cassie. It is, in all likelihood, child sex trafficking.”
Maggie grips the back of Jim’s uniform so hard that it tightens around his shoulders.
“NYPD arrested a man just last week with illegal possession of photos of children. Thousands of photos. Big cases like these can be really helpful for non-family abductions. Any children who resembles missing ones, like your Cassie, their families have been alerted and brought to offices just like this one.”
He brings out a laptop this time, where he opens a folder, and in it another folder, and on and on until he reaches one labeled a series of numbers followed by an underscore and LANG. “I’m going to show you a few of these photos, and if you could attempt to tell us if this is indeed Cassie in the photos. I know it will be difficult, but this is necessary. If you feel the need to leave at any time, my coworkers” —he gestures to the pair of women on the other side of the conference room— “can help you outside. Get you water, food, a quiet place, whatever you need.”
They both nod.
The man shows them photos—dozens of them—so many and so horrific that Maggie holds her breath seeing each one. The worst of them are blurred out, but the faces are left intact. “No,” she chokes out, as the man clicks to the next photo. “No, that’s not her.”
He clears his throat. “I want to remind you that your daughter may not look like she did on the day she was taken. Her abductors may have adjusted her hair color, hair length, even some of her facial features. She may have a different weight, some scarring, even open wounds. None of these are unusual.”
“Do you think,” starts Jim, “we could get some time alone with these?” He’s looking green, and he keeps chafing the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.
“We don’t generally leave family members alone with photos like these. It’s a matter of privacy.”
“For who?” spits Maggie. “The bastard that did this?”
“No,” says the employee. For the first time since she met him, he looks sad, his mouth tight and grim. “For the children.”
Maggie grimaces. All of a sudden the feeling of her blonde hair against her neck is nauseating; she pulls it away from her neck with a black hairtie.
“Mr. Paxton, sir?” Jim’s looking greener by the second; he keeps swallowing and swallowing and pressing his hand against his stomach. “These photos may be disturbing, but I assure you we’re doing anything in our power to locate the children in them—do you need a break?”
Jim shakes his head, brown hair barely shifting, but then he nods, his head going up and down like a bobblehead. When he gets up from his chair, he stumbles a little, tripping over the leg, and then walks out with his hand braced against the doorjamb. One of the NCMEC employees follows him out, her ebony heels clicking.
As soon as Jim’s gone, Maggie sits up: spine straight, hands clasped, knees taut. It’s almost like the tighter she winds herself, the more self-assured she will be. “Sir,” she says, “I’m not sure that—that she would even be in any pictures…like this. Scott would never let anything like that happen to her. He loves Cassie; he’d never let anything happen to her.” She shakes her head, gesturing to the laptop, but still she wonders when Jim’s going to come back.
“We don’t know that he’s still with your daughter,” says the man brusquely. “More often than not, family members are the ones who open children up to exploitation. For money, for drugs, for—”
Maggie interrupts, “Scott wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t do this.” There’s a spot in her chest that aches over how many times she’s said this. Not Scott. Not my Scott. They may not be together anymore, but they are raising a daughter together. She knows him through and through. “He
Gently, Officer Paz prompts, “Remember what Officer Woo said? What I said? It’s possible that Scott didn’t do it on purpose. If he got mixed up with the wrong people…”
“Never,” snaps Maggie. “He’s not like that. He doesn’t get…mixed up. I don’t know what happened to him, but I’m telling you, he would never do anything to hurt Cassie! That’s his daughter! Our daughter! His crimes… Everything he’s done, he did for our family and for Cassie. He would never put Cassie in harm's way. Never.” She scowls. “You know, not every person who’s been imprisoned is running around trying to destroy people’s lives. Scott—he had a life before he went to prison. He’s a person, too, you know. He doesn’t do drugs. He barely drinks or curses. Do you even know what he did?”
The man taps the file. “Burglary. Breaking and entering. Unauthorized use of a computer system with the intent to commit a felony.” He opens the file containing Scott’s information. “The fact is, your husband—ex-husband, excuse me—is a felon. He went missing at nearly the same time as your daughter. Neither of them have been seen since. Statistically speaking, he probably did something to your daughter, whether with his own two hands or by someone else’s.”
They go through more photos—little girls with hair dark like Cassie’s, others with her eyes or her face or her hands. None of them are Cassie. None of them are her baby girl.
She’s not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad one. If they find her, that means she’s alive, but trapped. Surviving the worst things imaginable. If they don’t, then they have no idea if she’s alive or dead.
There’s no happy ending for her Cassie.
They sit afterwards.
After taking away the photos and files, the workers let them stay in the conference room. It’s not a very populated building. In their morning here, they haven’t seen more than a couple families pass through, and no more than a dozen employees. It’s disturbing. It’s more than disturbing. Why isn’t everyone doing everything in their power to find all of these missing children? Runaways, kidnappees, throwaways, accidents? Babies, toddlers, kids, adolescents, teens, young adults? So many lost, and so few found.
Just a week ago, they were given a new glimmer of hope—a strand of Cassie’s hair in that McDonald’s wrapper, found on that dead girl at Lake Champlain, Vermont. Together, Maggie and Jim hunted every trace of their daughter that they could. Although the police had already searched, they went to each McDonald’s in Vermont, showing the workers photos: of Cassie, of Scott, of that dead girl Ava Starr… No one had seen them. In their free time, they go door-to-door, asking Vermonters about anything they’ve seen.
All of that work—all of their attempts to find Cassie—and still nothing. Nothing.
In the conference room, the television is on, set to some national news channel. On it, they’re showing video footage of some New Hampshire doctor who walked out of the clinic where he worked mid-shift and hasn’t been seen in days. “ Dr. Leonard Skivorski, known lovingly by Coos County as Doc Samson, works as a pediatrician at Weeks Medical Center in Lancaster, New Hampshire. Both his son and ex-wife have reported him missing as of a couple days ago. If anyone has information concerning…”
Maggie wishes they would just turn it off, not because she feels bad or because she doesn’t want to see it, but because she doesn’t care. It's harrowing how much she doesn’t care about this random doctor. Has she really lost so much empathy?
Jim starts to say something but stops. “Breakfast?” he says instead.
Maggie nods. She rubs her eyes, then her temples, and then the back of her neck.
“Where?”
For just a split second, she thinks of McDonald’s.
Rustling cloth. Giggles. A girl says, “Hey, he’s kinda cute…”
“Wait.” More gasping, and then so quietly that he’s not sure the girls themselves even hear it, “Godfather, godfather…”
Tony doesn’t waste one second; he gets up, tells Pepper to keep him on the phone, and leaves the building in nothing but his pajamas. There’s an emergency Iron Man suit by the front door—a Mark 42 suit—which, when he motions, attaches itself to Tony one piece at a time as he runs, until he’s out the door and into the sky, helmet closing over his face.
FRIDAY blinks to life in his helmet. He entered the suit so quickly that his flannel pants are caught in the cracks of the suit. “FRIDAY, access all cell towers within The Bronx area and ping for Peter’s phone by IMEI.”
“Boss, the legal ramifications of privately operating cell towers—
“Do it, FRI!”
“Pinging cell towers.”
With a digital map displaying before his eyes in neon green, FRIDAY announces, “An IMEI matching Peter’s was found within a twenty-mile radius containing three colleges and—
“I need better, FRI!”
A pause that is far too long; at last, a ping of successes “Peter’s phone found between Southern and Webster, a one-mile radius between—”
“Smaller!”
He’s flying four hundred miles per hour, then five hundred, then six hundred, and now he’s passing Jetblue and Delta and Southwest with ease, whipping past cabins of curious passengers.
His chest hurts. Peter said the code word. The code word. He asked Tony for help, whether or not he had known he was doing it. Something in him remembered that Tony was able to help. “Access reserve power—go as fast as humanly possible, you hear me?”
“Accessing reserve power.”
He feels it get faster, and faster, and faster; his speedometer keeps flying up—seven hundred, seven-fifty—and now Tony’s flying so fast that he can feel the gravity of his acceleration pulling on his face. There’s a pull, and a pop! and he’s broken the sound barrier. Eight hundred, nine hundred, a thousand miles per hour…
A bing! of failure from FRIDAY. “Unable to retrieve a smaller radius, boss.”
“Okay—search nearby university databases for girls named with any variety of Katie—Kaitlyn, Catherine, Kathy, whatever.” FRIDAY creates a list so long that Tony snaps, “Forget it.” What else… “Go through Peter’s whole conversation, sort out the background noise by person—pick out any proper nouns and show me.” A list of kids’ names, random people, and other names. Okay, sort for Greek letters—order by nearest to the center of the circumference. Delete any that aren't sororities or co-ed frats.”
FRIDAY grants him a list of Greek-letter names: five of them.
“Eliminate any outside of Peter’s IMEI radius.”
“Three possibilities left, boss.”
“Okay, delete any that don’t have a live-in resident named Katie—Katherine—Kaitlyn—any of those.”
“Still three, boss.”
“DAMNIT, FRI!” He needs something else, something to narrow it down. What else did Peter say? God, he knows this! Peter never s hut up about Harry Styles’ new album when it came out earlier this month. “Check Instagram for any Katie’s who posted within the last month about Harry Styles.”
“Only one—Katherine Wright of Alpha Xi Delta. Junior.”
“Where does she live?”
“Top floor, boss.”
“Map me the fastest route.”
“With or without—“
“Destruction of property included. Avoid any heat signatures.”
A ping! from FRIDAY. “Route mapped.”
“Take me there, FRI.”
FRI goes silent, and Tony keeps flying, rerouting towards Webster and Southern. It takes less than five seconds to reach the building; in those five seconds, Tony thinks only one sentence: Peter needs me.
Angling high above the building, he bashes through the ceiling, through layers of roof and insulation, to smash into Katie Wright’s room; he slows down enough to hit the floor with minor damage.
In the same second, Tony turns and sees. He will only ever get a half-second glance at the scene: Peter sprawled starfish on the bed, the girl on top of him, her hand halfway down his pants—her friend in the corner with her phone up.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that he’s completely unconscious.
The girls don’t even have time to react; Tony blasts them both in the chest—a non-lethal reactor shot that knocks the first girl off of Peter and the second girl into the poster-plastered wall. He fires at them again, this time a series of magnetic metal circles that clasp around their white wrists and snap them together. Now sure that the girls are out of commission, Tony scoops up Peter from the bed, and he flies straight up through the hole in the roof.
As soon as he’s in the air, he asks FRIDAY, “Nearest enhanced-friendly hospital?”
“St. Barnabas—ten blocks.”
The route alights in his helmet, radar glowing the streets a bright red, and he follows the path as fast as possible without causing Peter any further harm. Peter is pale and limp in his arms, but FRIDAY alerts him to the kid’s vitals—still breathing, still beating, just way too slow.
As soon as they arrive at the hospital, Tony stumbles out of the suit in his pajamas, still carrying the unconscious kid, and he screams for help like he never has.
Emergency room personnel sweep him away on a gurney, and he says at least three times, “He’s enhanced, he’s enhanced,” until finally a nurse pulls him away and directs him to a steady stack of paperwork.
“Pepper and May Parker have been informed of your new location,” FRIDAY announces, rooted remotely inside his chestpiece. “They should be here shortly.”
“Call the police,” he says, “and send them to where we were. Send a drone to that location, and make sure those girls are behind bars. And that phone, too. Send the footage to the police as soon as they arrive and wipe it from the girl’s phone. I’m staying here.”
“On it, boss.”
SATURDAY, MAY 27 — 11:31 PM
Riri arrives at Stark’s lab late on Saturday with her hood drawn low over her head. The man lets her in quickly, locking the door and putting down its heavy steel plating.
His hair is graying (more salt than pepper) and he’s got on a stained MIT sweatshirt and a pair of flannel pants. His hands are trembling—like he’s got the shakes, like from withdrawal—and his eyes are twitching more than they’re blinking. What the hell is wrong with him? “Got more food,” says Riri. “Supplies. Those chemicals you asked for, too, but they were kinda hard to find.”
“Your—your—” starts Stark, and when she turns to look at him, he’s staring at her blatantly, without any shame.
Her bruising from Charlie’s beating last week is still there; her brown face is colored by yellows and greens and blacks. The swelling has gone down, but she still looks like someone who’s been beaten. Her hands are still darkened by bruises: her palms from defending herself from his fists, her wrists from Charlie grabbing them.
She scowls at Stark and drops his box on the counter. He ducks his head then, mumbling to himself and plunging his hands into the box. Riri finds herself thinking of Scott Lang—in the way he talks to himself, the way he avoids eye contact—and remembers that, like Lang, Tony Stark barely gets any human contact.
“Brought you more protein this time,” she says. “Tuna. Corned beef. Pork.” She takes the cans out. “A couple expired, but not by long, so you should be fine. You have a list for me?”
When she looks to Stark for an answer, the guy is staring again, examining her face as a scientist would a cavity slide. He’s frowning so hard that his nostrils flare. “What?” she snaps, whipping around, and he jumps at her outburst, skittering off into another room.
As he comes back, he trips in a doorway, catches himself, and finally brings her a pile of Post-It notes—maybe ten or twenty. “I’m trying something—something—new,” Stark says, dragging his knuckles over his forehead. Charlie always does that when he has a headache. “But I’ve got a new, uh—new prototype. Dum-E? Queens Project Mark 14, now.”
The little robot brings over a weapon—much bigger than the others and with more weight around its barrel—and drops it in her arms. “Is it any good? It’s kinda…”
“Better than the others,” he assures her.
Stark is still staring at her like she’s lost her head. She tilts her head so that the hood drapes over the visible side of her face, but he won’t stop looking. “Worse than it looks,” she says, and she digs through the box of canned food. “How do you feel about beets?”
“Who hit you?” he asks; he has a lilted cadence to his voice now, like he’s too tired to remember exactly how to talk.
She ignores him. “I brought some more veggies, too. Peas. Spinach. Even some lima beans, if you like those.”
He ducks again, instructing his little robot to empty the box of its scientific supplies and sort the items throughout the laboratory. As the robot obeys, Stark picks up a couple of cans—one of beef ravioli and another of sliced beets. Seemingly, the man takes the hint: Riri doesn’t want talk about her fucked up face.
But instead of taking the food, he starts putting it back in the box with his shaky hands. “Give it to Peter,” he says, frowning. “He needs it.”
“Parker gets enough—”
“He needs more,” interrupts the man. “He’s not like other kids. He’s… He’s…”
“Spider-Man, yeah, I know.”
Cans in hand, the man stops mid-transfer and blinks at her. Did he forget that she knew? “Yeah.” His eye is really twitching, spasming with a vengeance. “He needs… Here.” He pushes the box to her. “Give him mine.”
There’s a lot that Riri wants to tell Tony Stark. She wants to say, We’re keeping the doctor, so Peter will be safe. She wants to say, Don’t worry, we won’t kill him. We need him just like we need you. But she can’t. If Tony knows that Peter is safe, then he won’t make the weapon. And if he doesn’t make the weapon, they can’t save the world.
“Keep your food,” she snaps. “Parker gets what he gets.”
All three of them are awake when Peter wakes up: Tony, Pepper, and May.
Peter’s fine. He had a mixture of alcohol, ketamine, and a shit-ton of Rohypnol in his system, all of which was enough to take out someone for a night, or to kill someone as small as his friend MJ. For Peter Parker, it only knocked him out for a couple hours. Whoever spiked MJ’s drink probably didn’t expect someone to chug it like they would water—because for Peter, alcohol was generally the same due to his high metabolism. So the drink hit Peter hard—and fast—and knocked him out before he could finish a phone call that he didn’t even remember starting.
The doctor warns them that the kid might not remember much of the night, or the day before, or the day after. He might be fuzzy for a while until all of it’s out of his system. And he’s groggier than he ever was on the phone when he wakes up.
May is stationed on his right side, Tony and Pepper on his left.
May was on a night shift when she got the alert, so she’s still in her scrubs. Hers are a violet-purple, and there’s a coffee stain on her front. Her hair is tied back in a french braid, and she wears glasses and a lilac long-sleeve beneath her scrubs. Like she’s done since she arrived, she’s holding Peter’s hand, rubbing it as though to keep it warm. When his eyes blink open, it’s slow, and she whispers to him, brushing his hair out of his eyes with her fingers.
He’s still groggy, though, slow-blinking, his head heavy on his pillow.
She talks to him, explaining and explaining, but the kid doesn’t seem to remember much. Once he’s a little more lucid, squinting with clarity at his face and May’s, then May motions for Tony to come over. “He was there the whole time,” says the kid’s aunt, although that’s not entirely true. “He’s gonna tell you what happened, okay?”
Peter nods sleepily; his brown hair sticks to his forehead in dark clumps. He’s got some more color in his cheeks, at least, and his blood pressure—from what Tony can tell—looks normal. “How’re you feeling, Pete?” he asks, scooting a chair up by his head.
Peter sniffs. His face looks raw, like the white peek of dermis under a cut. He’s not laughing anymore. “Feel weird,” he answers. “What happened?”
Tony does his best to explain, but Peter is going in and out of consciousness the entire time, so he’s not sure what sticks. “I didn't see everything,” he continues, as Peter’s dozy eyes fall on him. “Just a little. And from what I could see she didn’t get very far. But I wasn’t there the whole time, I wasn’t there the whole night, and the doctor said your memory might be a little patchy. So they can do a” —Tony has to choke the words out— “rape kit.”
Tony doesn’t know if it’s the drugs, or the trauma, or the sleepiness, or what—but after he asks, Peter yawns, blinks a couple times, and turns onto his side. “Hate those,” he mumbles, and he goes right back to sleep.
He probably won’t remember that he said it at all.
It’s difficult to wake him after that; the doctor did tell them that Peter may need to sleep a lot, so they let him rest. May stays with him, holding his hand, and Tony sits beside her. “Thank you,” she says, without looking at him. She’s crying, but silently; she keeps wiping away her tears with her sleeve, so there’s a dark spot on her forearm. “Thank you.”
When May leaves for a cup of coffee, Tony takes her place—holding Peter’s hand, brushing his hair back, pulling the blankets up to his shoulders, responding to his confused, sleepy mumbles…
And he feels at home.