Fighting And Helplessness

Steve’s eyes drifted open slowly. He blinked away the remnants of his sleep and sat up carefully on the couch, his muscles groaning slightly in protest of being in the same cramped position for so long. His eyes flickered around the room, Natasha was taking slow sips of water on one of the couches, eyes cast to a stark pad resting in her lap. Rhodey, Sam and Clint were sat at the computers, Tony’s chair was surprisingly empty for once, and as Steve strained his hearing he couldn’t hear the man shut in the bathroom, starving off another attack.

“Rhodey, did you finally get Tony to take a break?” He asked hopefully, scratching the back of his neck as he stretched on the couch. The other man turned in his chair, shaking his head a solemn ‘no.’ Steve sighed and opened his mouth to ask where he was but Rhodey interrupted.

“He went to his room for a bit, not sure what he’s doing but I’m sure it’s something productive” he spoke through an exaggerated eye roll. Steve nodded and checked the time, he should organise food, he thought idly. A minute later, he was stepping into the hallway and speaking with much hesitation.

“Uh – F.R.I.D.A.Y?” He addressed the AI cautiously, not certain how exactly do work the newer system but assuming the basics.

“Yes, Captain Rodgers?” The female voice replied immediately.

“Can I order food… through you?” He wasn’t sure through was the right word, he figured he should have said with you or something similar. Nevertheless, the AI assured him he could, and listed off a few of the regular places that were ordered from. It hit Steve then, that the options were probably suggested because of what Tony and Peter ate. He could imagine Tony getting home from a mission and ordering takeout out of sheer laziness, but he found it harder to picture the man getting food for himself and his child.

Pushing away the thought, Steve poked his head back into the lab, gaining everyone’s attention. “Hey guys, what does everyone feel like eating?” He smirked when Clint called an extremely eager demand for pizza, looking back at the room to gauge their reaction to the suggestion. Natasha shrugged, unbothered either way, while Sam and Rhodey nodded without too much care. “Alright, pizza it is then, I’ll just check with Tony.”

He walked to the Stark’s room, his thoughts drifting to where Peter’s room must have been. He couldn’t help but continually think of the teen, the fact that his friend had hidden something so big like a kid from him for so long, was just… thought provoking and question prompting. He briefly wondered how the man had dealt with having a superhero son, how much extra worry that must have been for a parent. He still remembered the first time he had spoken with Peter, and he smiled to himself as he reminisced the anxiety and energy that had practically rolled off the boy in waves.

----

Peter dropped his bag next to the counter and pulled open the cupboard, swaying and bouncing on his heels lightly as he craned his neck to see any possible snacks. He leaned forward on his tiptoes and pulled down a box of cereal, swinging the door shut with the back of his foot as he expertly grabbed a bowl and spoon from the other cabinets. He could do this with his eyes closed, the boy and his Dad hadn’t changed the kitchen around in about a decade. He pushed the fridge closed, the milk bottle rattling slightly as he grabbed his snack and pulled his bag over his shoulder, making his way to the labs with his Dad in mind.

Steve had been sitting quietly behind Tony, balancing his sketchbook on his knee. He had read somewhere that drawing new objects could help improve his skill, and he didn’t often draw any mechanical items. The Stark’s lab had plenty of mechanical objects to choose from, and the man had happily obliged to let Steve sketch quietly behind him, making some joke about him barely being better company than his robots. Both men had worked in moderate silence, but it hadn’t been uncomfortable quiet, it had been an easy silence. The white noise of Tony’s tinkering was oddly calming to Steve, and the footsteps he could hear from down the hall peeked his interest. He quirked his head up before Tony heard the footfalls.

When the mechanic had heard them, he visibly straightened in his chair, looking almost agitated. Did the footsteps belong to someone he didn’t agree with? He stood from his chair as Steve put down his pencil carefully, as to not smudge his work as he lightly closed the book. Tony stood and angled his body, so he could see both the doorway and the other man in the room.

“Cap, how’s that drawing coming along?” He said quickly, his voice louder than normal. His eyes darted to the door, as if he could hear the footsteps waver at the words. Steve heard the steps hesitate and then shuffle forward again, and his curiosity perked at who was about to walk into the lab. Tony stepped forward and smiled widely as the owner of the footsteps wandered cautiously into the lab.

To Steve’s surprise, it was a meek looking teen, holding a bag and a bowl of cereal. The boy’s eyes flicked from Tony to the man behind him, a small, shy smile gracing his lips. The kid adjusted the bag further onto his shoulder and looked down at his feet timidly, his cheeks flushing a soft shade of pink.

“Pete, meet Captain America,” Tony clapped the boy on the back encouragingly as he gestured to the man as he stood and extended a hand. “Cap, meet Peter… My intern.” The boy in question looked up from the floor, his eyes widening slightly at the offered hand, before switching the bowl into his other arm and grasped the hand eagerly. He looked awestruck, but Steve didn’t miss the way his eyes still darted back to Tony every so often. They dropped their hands and Peter stepped back, unconsciously seeking out his Dad again, but Steve didn’t notice it as he spoke.

“Nice to meet you kid, you working for Tony, huh?” He asked curiously, smiling at the boy who looked up at him as if he couldn’t really believe who he was meeting.

“Uh, y – yeah, I’m just the intern.” The boy stuttered quickly, gripping the cereal between his shifting palms. He twisted one of his feet, always moving something Steve noted. The kid’s energy reminded him of Tony’s, always bouncing, tapping and playing with something distractedly.

“The intern? I hope Tony’s paying you well” he said jokingly, attempting to offset some of the teens nervous vibes. The corner of Peter’s lips turned upwards as he placed the bowl down on the mechanics desk carefully.

“That’s for you Mr. Stark” he turned back to Steve and replied happily “he’s paying me well and I enjoy working regardless – gets me experience y’know?” He tapped his temple, his finger brushing a loose curl off his forehead carelessly. Tony smirked behind him, watching the kid with something akin to, what Steve recognised as, fondness. Steve eyed the two, watching as Tony thanked the boy for the snack and asked if he needed help with anything before walking him to the door and murmuring quietly.

“I’ll be done in here soon, you can uh…” his eyes shifted back to Steve briefly before he continued speaking, “you can finish with the papers and head home when you’re ready.” He fixed the teen with a lingering gaze, his eyes presumably saying something Steve didn’t bother to interpret. The boy bobbed his head in an okay before saluting and backing out of the room with a “thanks Mr. Stark” falling from his lips.

Tony slipped back into his chair after the kid had trotted further down the hallway. He opened his mouth as if to speak before turning back around to continue tinkering. Steve said and thought nothing more for a few minutes before the man turned back around in his chair.

“Thanks” he said evenly, still fiddling with some pieces of metal that Steve didn’t understand. He raised an eyebrow at the man.

“For what?” He asked.

“Don’t know, being nice to m – the kid?” Steve nodded in understanding and opened his book back up again, picking up his pencil and flipping to the right page.

“Don’t mention it, he seems nice. I didn’t know you had an intern program.” Tony’s brow creased in thought for a second before he replied.

“Oh, I don’t. It’s just the kid, he’s… he’s smart and damn helpful.” He looked down at his hands, still fiddling with the metals. “Plus, Pep adores him, so there’s that.” He smiled down to himself again, affection buried in his eyes. Steve smiled too, glad his friend was content.

“He must keep you young” the Captain teased lightly.

“What do you know about young, Mister ‘I don’t know how to work a proper phone.’” They both chuckled and went back to their work, Tony’s mind drifting to his kid and wondering if he would head over to his friends or just camp out in his room like normal.

----

Steve let his smile fall as he heard Tony’s hurried, pacing footfalls trod from within his room. He knocked softly, making sure not to startle the man who was clearly on-edge. The door clicked open and Tony stood, pushing his phone into his pocket.

“Sorry to interrupt, I just came to ask how you feel about calling for pizza?” The mechanic in the doorway relaxed slightly, running a hand through his hair.

“Sounds good, need me to order it?” Steve shook his head, he was confident enough to talk to F.R.I.D.A.Y and figure out how to. “I was just about to head back to the labs, I was just… making a phone call.” His expression looked forlorn and he seemed extremely out of it, and Steve was filled with an urgency to comfort the distressed man.

“Tony…” he began, unsure of how to console the man without coming across as insensitive. He took a breath and began again, “Tony, I know this situation is hard to deal with and you blame yourself, which you shouldn’t, but the lack of sleep or rest isn’t going to help find Peter. I don’t know the kid well but from what I gather, he wouldn’t want you to become sleep deprived to the point of collapsing from exhaustion.” He eyed the tired man carefully, hoping he hadn’t crossed the line with speaking about Peter.

“I can’t stand the thought of doing nothing. I won’t be able to sleep knowing he’s out there, going through god-knows what.” Steve exhaled through his nose patiently, shifting his weight onto his other foot.

“Overworking yourself is going to hurt more than help. Besides, everyone else will be working while you rest, the only reason I’m not working now is because I’m sorting food for everybody who is.” He managed a sympathetic smile, wishing he could get through to the stubborn man.

“I’ll have pizza and work till its dark and then I’ll take a small break – only to get you off my back” Tony said, a small hint of humour in his voice as he slid past Steve and began to head back to the lab.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y? Can you order a pizza?”

“Of course, which restaurant, type and quantity do you request?” Steve listed off what he figured everyone would want before walking back to where Tony was now working heavily.

----

Peter felt extremely hazy when his eyes blinked open. His head felt like it was being drilled open, the migraine pounded in his skull and he felt sick. Ryan’s face swam slowly into focus above him and he vaguely realised that his lips were moving because he was talking.

“pider – Spider? C’mon be a good boy, open those eyes Pete. You wanna see your cell, don’t you?” Peter blinked, and his mind scrambled to find some semblance of a reply before he was punished. His throat made a scratchy whining noise as he tried to push words out, he coughed, and his head disliked the movement. The noise wasn’t enough, and Peter barely had time to flinch before Ryan’s eyes hardened as he placed his hands on the teens chest and abdomen, pushing down with enough force to make Peter’s still raw back press against the metal of the table. He cried out as his wounds flared, everything came rushing back and hit him with what seemed like the force of a truck.

He remembered the sensation of the bullet being tugged out of his shoulder, the feeling of the scalpel slicing rows upon rows along his back. Then, he recalled his own tears, mixing on the table with his blood as Ryan sawed into his bones, the noises of his own sobs mixing with the grating of the tool as his hip, knee and shoulder were brutally operated on. He felt sick, his face burned when he thought about how he must have looked, whimpering and crying on the bench. Peter wanted his Dad, he didn’t want to see whatever Ryan had done to his cell, he just wanted to go home and curl up in his Dad’s arms.

“Answer the question,” Ryan urged angrily, shoving Peter down more forcefully before stepping back to wait for a reply.

“No, not r – really. I’d rather just go home if that’s cool.” He closed his eyes, expecting a blow from the man above him. He tensed as he felt fingers press down on his bruised cheekbone, a thumb ran over the jutting bone, prodding the sensitive skin harshly.

“I want you to remember when you say bratty shit like that, because then, when you cry and ask for anaesthetic you can use the memory of the pain to shut up next time.” Peter stared blankly at the ceiling, too tired to do or say anything. He thought briefly about wiggling around his chains again, but instead his mind drifted to the deep soreness that seemed to radiate through his whole body. He felt very odd, like he was just now realising the severity of the situation he was in. Peter could die here, he could be killed, he might never see his Dad again. He might never get to hang out with MJ and Ned or fight with the avengers or hug his Dad or annoy Happy and show Pepper his science project. He may never eat pizza with his Dad on the couch, a movie buzzing in the background lulling him to sleep. He could never put his suit on again and do patrol or feel the wind or swing from buildings or save someone.

There was an actual probability that Peter would die here, alone, without even getting the chance to say goodbye. If that happened he wouldn’t graduate, wouldn’t go to college or get a job, and the idea of that was terrifying. He faced more danger than a regular teen, than any regular person, but he always figured he would die as Spider-Man, saving the city or world or universe, or maybe just old age. He never really considered the possibility that he could die as Peter Parker. The only times he’d ever really thought about this was when he was under the building during the Vulture incident.

He stayed quiet while the guards unattached his restraints from the table. He kept his gaze focused on the floor when they stood him up and the room swung, the edges of his vision greyed out as the pain in his knee screamed in protest under his weight. As they pushed him back into a sitting position on the bench he heard one of the doctors speaking quietly to Ryan.

“Perhaps we should wheel him back to his cell on the table, so he doesn’t pass out on us again.” He didn’t know how to feel about that, he liked the freedom of not being chained to the table. It gave him the option of fighting, not that he was going to try and run, he wouldn’t be able to with the amount of injures he had, but the idea of being secured to the bench again made his skin crawl. The main thing that upset Peter about the situation was that he was helpless, there was nothing he could do. If Ryan decided to kill him, to strap him to the table again, to experiment more, there was nothing Peter could do to stop him.

“No, he can get back to his cell without passing out,” Ryan replied to the doctor with ice in his tone. Peter may have actually thanked him for not putting back on the table, if he weren’t the world’s biggest psychopath and asshole rolled into one. He turned around to face Peter, a fire in his eyes despite the chill in his voice “if you pass out I’ll break a few ribs while you’re out.” He nodded hastily, remembering how he felt when the building collapsed on him, it had hurt badly, especially when he breathed, so he could only take very shallow breaths.

‘I definitely shouldn’t be walking with my knee after that surgery but forgive me if I’m not all that eager to experience broken ribs again.’ Peter thought grimily, opting to keep the words to himself for fear of being hurt again. Ryan slipped the same burlap sack over his head again, and although it helped filter out the harsh light, Peter hated the deprivation of his eyesight.

The guards hoisted him to his feet again and he was purely horrified to admit that he reluctantly let the guard on his right take some of the weight off his knee. The wound began to sluggishly bleed, blood dripping slowly and uncomfortably down the front of his shin, blemishing the painfully white tile below him. He took a sharp inhale through his nose and bit the inside of his cheek, where the skin was still raw, as his leg fully extended. He could practically feel where Ryan had removed part of the bone, but that was most likely his imagination – or similar to placebo effect. The room tilted again as he was pulled forward, and he slackened slightly in the guards’ grip, but they held him up and he pushed through the nausea and light-headedness in favour of not passing out.

Peter tried his best to keep as much weight off his right leg as possible, but it was hard to do so when the guards were pushing him from behind and Ryan was marching off ahead of them. His breathing became more laboured as the effort to stay conscious and ignore the pain became more difficult. He could feel his own breath against his face from under the sack, and he thought it smelt slightly coppery, metallic like his own blood. He coughed, and his chest felt uncomfortably tight, like someone had a hand wrapped around his lungs and was beginning to squeeze. He moaned at the combined pain of his chest, knee, hip, shoulder, back and head. The noise was muffled from under the burlap and one of the guards dug his nails into where he was holding Peter’s bicep, it left small crescent shaped indents in his skin.

They turned once more and then the gripping arms yanked him into a rough stop, jolting his knee mid step and making him bite back another pained cry. He closed his eyes and allowed the guards firm grip to keep him somewhat upright while he tried to catch his breath and steady his breathing. He heard footsteps from somewhere in front of him moving closer and he instinctively tensed, preparing for a blow that didn’t come. Instead, the burlap sack was pulled off his head and he blinked as his eyes adjusted to the light in the hallway.

“Ready for your updated cell, Spider?” He swallowed against the lump in his throat, coughed as his chest flared in pain again and then managed a weak, unconvincing ‘yes’ before Ryan was pushing open the door.

The first thing Peter noted was the cold. It hit him hard as he was ushered through the doorway, and it stung his eyes and sinuses as he sucked in a shallow breath. He shivered as the chill pricked against his bare chest and worry settled deep in his gut at a realization. He spun around and looked at Ryan with fear laced deep in his brown eyes.

“H – how did you know?” Ryan’s face was painted with a self-satisfied smirk as he replied evenly.

“What? That spiders can’t easily regulate their temperature and are cold blooded? Or that I knew it would affect you more than it would others?” Peter opened his mouth before shutting it again, looking down at the ground as Ryan pressed on, tauntingly. “The fact of the matter is, I didn’t. I wasn’t sure if you would react the same way as a spider, but it didn’t really matter if you did, because at this temperature it would still affect a normal person.” The way he said ‘normal person’ was degrading, and almost dehumanizing to the now shivering teen.

Peter scanned the room and was surprised to see that not much had actually been changed. The things he noticed were the cuffs and chains that hung from most of the walls, at varying heights and lengths and sizes. He assumed most were for his wrists and ankles, but a few of the metal pieces looked like they were for his neck, eerily resembling that of a collar, which made the lump in his throat squeeze in fear. There were two video cameras in opposite corners of the ceiling and what he assumed to be microphones were attached to them. There were speakers high on each wall of the room and there were a few metal cords that snuck around and snaked their way into the lights, there were several sprinklers on the ceiling along with them. Peter barely had the chance to think about how that was definitely an electrocution hazard when he felt his right knee give way from underneath him.

At first, he thought it had the weakened knee had finally given under his weight, but the back of his knee hurt too. His leg bent forward as his body careened into the floor, and he realised the back of his bad leg had been kicked roughly. He cried out in pain as the injured and weak knee had crashed into the hard, unforgiving tile. He clutched at the now bloodier and agonisingly painful appendage and desperately willed the pain to subside. He moaned as a hand gripped his bad shoulder and shoved him further to the floor, so the scalpel wounds covering his mangled back were pressed relentlessly into to freezing tile.

It felt like he was being pinned down to a slab of ice, and it was so cold it felt like burning, he could feel the fiery heat of the numb cold seeping through his wounds and into his bones. He was about to groan or whimper or cry out or moan but an aggressive hand came up and covered his mouth, the thumb resting on the side of his nose for balance and the fingers wrapping around the side of his bruised cheek. He let out a muffled cry of protest as the hand squeezed down on his nose, effectively cutting off all of his breathing passageways with a single hand.

Peter grasped and tore at the hand feebly, his strength weakening as quickly as his need for air was increasing. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was the force of falling on his back, lying flat on the ground, or the burn for oxygen, but Peter began to feel like he was suffocating and drowning again, like there was still water filling his lungs and flooding his windpipe. He continued to scrabble flimsily with the strong grip, he scratched with his nails, which only succeeded in the tightening of the pressure the man was putting on his bruised cheekbone. His eyes flew open and flailed around frantically before locking onto Ryan’s cold, calculating, sickeningly fascinated ones above him.

Ryan wasn’t sure, but he thought the eyes looked pleading, as if the weak and helpless boy trapped under his hand was begging. The mere idea that the teen’s eyes were silently begging him made a pleasant chill tingle through his spine. ‘That much closer to breaking – to screaming’ he thought to himself. When Ryan looked into his eyes and saw the absolute, unprecedented, pure fear and terror and panic in them, he felt a surge of power rush though him. He pressed his palm down further, narrowing his eyes as he mumbled to himself – and to the kid in a way.

“See Peter – I told you that you were just a pathetic, weak, kid.” Ryan watched as the struggle and fight slowly leaked out, along with his strength to stay awake. “I’m gonna make you scream and pick you apart until I have everything I need – then I’ll make sure your ‘Dad,’ doesn’t even find a body salvageable enough for an open-casket funeral.”

Tears slipped down the barely conscious teen’s face and his eyes rolled back into his skull, eyelids sliding shut as his resolve to fight it faded. Just as he was about to spin into the land of haunting nightmares, the hand released, and he could breathe again. Or – he would have been able to if his lungs cooperated. Peter jolted to the side, coughing violently as he tried to get a single, steady breath. He hacked and choked, his wobbly arms barely keeping him propped up on his side. Ryan didn’t bother to help, just took a step backward and watched him with curious eyes. Eventually, Peter coughed up frothy and blood-streaked saliva, which splattered against the tile and laid, stark against the pure white of the tile.

“Oh – oh… god” he murmured, his gaze fixed on the diluted blood he had just coughed up. What the hell was going so wrong inside his body that he was coughing up blood? His mind flicked through all the possible causes for what was happening to him, infection, problems in the blood vessels, the lungs themselves? Did he just bite his cheek too hard? He gently prodded around at his gums in search for any bleeding wounds, and the skin was tender, but not bad enough to bleed.

Peter was tugged from his health concern spiral when Ryan moved forward again, doing nothing to slow his movements even as he flinched away from the man’s touch. He wiped the tears from under the boy’s eyes and cupped his chin gently. The contrast between suffocating the teen and practically stroking his face was almost as strong as the contrast between Peter’s crimson blood against the glaring tiles. He curled away from the touch and whimpered as it followed him, tugging at his chin and running a soft finger along his jawline and mottled cheekbone.

“P – please. St…op, I – I don’t…” Ryan cut off Peter’s plead with a hush before pulling back his hand and bringing it down again with a swift and precise slap. He smiled darkly as a cry of pain echoed though the newly updated cell.

“Did I speak to you then?”

“What? I – I don’t…” Peter trailed off before looking up and seeing a wrath fuelled glare in the man’s eyes, threatening him. “No – no you didn’t” he finished quietly.

“Then do not speak.” Ryan put emphasis on each word, drilling the point into the shivering teens mind. Peter nodded, hating how he was just giving in and complying for the sake of avoiding more pain. His cheeks flushed as he thought of what his Dad would think if he saw him right now, huddled on the floor, coughing up blood and begging for his captor to stop, to please stop. God, he really was pathetic.

----

Tony stood in the light warehouse, his hands shaking as he took an unsteady step towards the unmoving figure curled on the ground. The hunched form was blue and purple and was covered in speckles of red blood, the only thin breaking up the horrible galaxy of bruises was the small fraction of unnaturally white, pale skin that shone through in-between wounds. He kneeled in front of the body, reaching a hand forward only to pull it back as if he had touched dry ice, because what he felt was so, so cold it hurt his fingers.

“P – Peter?” The trembling man waited for the head to move, for the mop of brown curls to flop as his kid rolled over and smiled at him – perhaps begging for five more minutes of sleep before he had to get up. But nothing happened, nothing moved at all, the teen before him stayed silent and still, like the corpse he so obviously was. But he ploughed on, pressing his warm hands over the frozen arms, the chilled neck, the lifeless face. The head moved when Tony ran a hand along his cheek, it fell to the side. The older Stark’s eyes met the glazed, empty, staring ones of his kid and a choked sob escaped his lips as he lied to himself that Peter was fine.

“Pete – c’mon buddy, get up baby. Peter? Time to get up, you can’t nap on the floor.” His voice wobbled as he continued to deny the situation, because his child was fine, he was. “I promise, you can take all the naps you want when we get home Pete. Come on, time to move, time to come home with me. For me…” Nothing. Nothing at all. “Peter?” He leaned forwards, resting his forehead on the boy’s cool chest. He continued to mumble things aloud, asking his kid to get up, to move, smile, blink, raise his torso with a breath.

The corpse was almost as cold as what Tony’s heart felt when he realised it was just that, a corpse.

He fell forward and his head hit the floor of the grey warehouse. He reached his arms out and when he couldn’t feel the body anymore a small flicker of hope ran through him before he looked up. Had he moved? When he brought his eyes up the flicker burnt out as he realised the body hadn’t moved, it had just disappeared. He turned around desperately, swinging his eyes around the empty warehouse, a silent plea echoing through his mind. ‘Please, please Peter don’t leave me all alone here – I can’t do it without you… I can’t deal if you’re gone.’

He collapsed to the floor, his chest heaving with breaths that should have been Peter’s. His son should be the one breathing, living, not a cold, dead body on the floor of an abandoned warehouse. He hit the floor with his fists, dust floating up into the air and swirling around the grief filled, mourning man on the floor, curled up where his son’s body had been moments before. A twisted experience of bitter irony that may have made him laugh acidly, if he wasn’t too preoccupied with the tears escaping his haunted eyes.

There was a sudden bang that reverberated around, bouncing off the walls and ceilings, making the genius on the floor jump and snap his head up. When he looked up, his eyes fell on the knarred, hunched, broken forms of his child. They surrounded him, hundreds of them filling the warehouse floor in various stages of decay and death. Some of the versions of Peter were still breathing, most clinging onto life where only a select few looked like they could still be saved. Tony turned in a wide circle, his tormented eyes taking in the gruesome scene before him. Some of the forms crawled brokenly toward him while others just reached out with bloody fingers, reaching out for their Dad. The worst thing, Tony decided was that they were all talking to him, most questioning, begging.

“Dad why are you asleep? Why are you resting when you could be looking for me? Please don’t stop working to find me. I don’t want to go, I don’t wanna die Dad. Please.”

Some of them were yelling, upset and distraught and even angry with him.

“How could you? You’re leaving me to die, I’m dying, and you aren’t even trying to look for me. You gave up and now I’m going to die!”

Tony’s eyes searched through the Peter’s, trying to find one that was the most alive, the most living version of his child. His eyes caught the figure of a Peter with the least bruised skin, the least bloody wounds. He rushed over, weaving between the littered corpses and barely breathing bodies. He pulled the boy into a tight embrace, nestling the kid into his neck and pulling him closer and tighter. He clung to Peter, letting his tears stream down his face as he took in all of his son. His living son. He felt strong hands on his shoulders, but he shook his head forcefully, refusing to let go of his kid.

“Dad?” He heard Peter’s voice from just below him. “Dad, why’d you stop looking?” He didn’t, he would never stop looking, “you took a nap while I died.” No, no Peter’s not dead. Peter isn’t dead because he couldn’t be, he was safe, Tony was holding him right now. He could feel the rise and fall of his small torso against him. “You were sleeping while I was being murdered… I would be alive if you had just kept working!” Peter’s voice had risen, he was yelling now, and his voice was filled with anger. His voice which was always so soft and excited and optimistic was morphing into a cruel twisted rage as he struggled in his Dad’s arms.

He felt strong hands on his shoulders as Peter continued to yell. “Wake up! Wake up and save me! Wake up please help me! Dad please save me - help me!” He was screaming through his hoarse throat, begging Tony to wake up. The hands tugged at him as he felt Peter disappearing in his hold, the feeling of his child crumbling away into bedsheets was a shock to his system as he peeled and forced his eyes open.

----

“Wake up! Tony wake up!” Steve held his shoulders still and Rhodey yelled, trying to wake him up as he struggled and yelled through his nightmare. Tony jolted violently upward into a sitting position, tears clouding his vision and sweat beading on his forehead. He seemed to not realise where he was as he stared blankly up at Rhodey and Steve, his eyes and brain not connecting the dots for a moment before the two men saw clarity rush though and clear his stunned face.

“I have to go. I – I have to keep working.” He spoke seemingly to himself as he got up out of bed and ran frantic hands through his sleep-mussed hair. Steve put a steadying hand on his shoulder as Tony went to walk for the door. He jerked away from the touch, moving around the man and storming through the door, rushing back to the lab as the two men jogged after him.

“Tony, come back you need rest.”

“You need to drink some water, you’ll get dehydrated.”

Tony spun around to face them when he reached the door to the lab. His voice was angry, and he spoke in a whisper-shout.

“I do not need any more rest. I just slept. Just let me work, leave me alone. I can’t lie around and do nothing while there are people out there with my kid, hurting him and worse.” Rhodey looked down at the floor, brow furrowed in concentration.

“Tony you slept for thirty-two minutes, that’s not rest.” His friend spoke cautiously, trying not to further upset the man.

“You don’t know that’s what’s happening to him…” Steve countered quietly. Tony turned to him, ignoring Rhodey completely in favour of chewing out the soldier.

“Bullshit Steve. You saw how they took him, you saw the bruises – bull. Shit they’re not hurting him. I can almost promise you Peter won’t tell them anything willingly, he’s a tiny me with half the self-preservation and twice the teenage recklessness. He won’t say anything, they won’t let up, he gets hurt. Or killed.” He stared back at the two men, huffing from the effort of his anger as the two men, who he knew were trying to help him, stared back, sad looks plastered over their faces.

“You can’t take your nightmare as fact, it wasn’t real.” He rolled his eyes and pushed open the lab, frowning at the eyes that peered at him from over the computer screens.

“I’m assuming you heard all that? Yeah, so leave me alone and let me work” he snapped, the words coming out harsher than he meant. The eyes ducked back below the screens and began typing again as Steve and Rhodey walked into the lab, watching as Tony sunk down into his chair and immediately began to work once again. They sighed and Rhodey rubbed his eyebrows in concern, Steve resigning to sitting down on the couch and scrolling through a Stark Pad to look for any news reports involving the Spider.

“I’m always here if you want to talk about anything Tones.” Rhodey stood next to Tony’s chair, speaking in a low voice to give the two some semblance of privacy. He grumbled and rolled his shoulders, trying to keep all his attention back on the screen, refusing to let his mind slip to how Peter had felt in his arms, or how his small voice sounded, warped in fury.

Tony worked for eight hours before he even stepped away from the screen, and even then, it was only to walk hazily to the bathroom and suffer through another panic attack. When he had passed the worst of it, and he was curled on the floor against the cabinet, he reached into his pocket with shaky fingers and pulled out his phone. Running on pure default he dialled Peter’s number, his eyes prickling as he heard the familiar, soft, comforting voice of his son on the other end. Of course, it was only his voicemail.

“Hey, it’s Peter! Leave a message or call again if it’s important and I’ll get back soon.” The beep sounded after the pause that followed his words. Tony regretted to admit it, but he spoke into the receiver. He blinked past tears to stare at the tiled wall of the bathroom as he let his mouth take over and murmur comforting promises into the phone long after the beep sounded a second time, signalling the end of his message. It grounded him, not just hearing Peter’s voice but knowing that maybe, there was a tiniest sliver of possibility that he would hear the message. It calmed him, and so he continued whispering into the phone whenever he felt the cold grip of panic beginning to wrap around his heart.

----

Peter craned his neck, eyeing the speakers, wires, lights and cameras positioned around the room. Ryan watched the boy carefully, viewing him with the same curiosity, but much less worry. He curled his lips into a smile as Peter tried to inconspicuously shuffle away from him. He stepped further forward, leaning into the teens space, making sure he felt his breath against his ear when he spoke.

“So, you wanna see it all in action Spider?” The kid stumbled back from him, nausea bubbling in his throat as the man’s hot breath ran across his neck, his senses prickling in discomfort. Although the breath was warm, it felt far less inviting than the dense chill that wrapped the room like ice over a frozen lake.

“N – n – no.” His teeth chattered and his whole body shook from the cold, but he still answered, the biting pain in his knee serving as a reminder to always answer the man. “I’ll set it on for a minute for now, because while I want to stay in here and watch you squirm, it’s a slight annoyance to my senses.” He emphasized the word ‘my,’ as if implying if it was an inconvenience to him, it would be hell for Peter. He turned on his heel and pressed himself against the opposite wall, along with the rest of the guards and doctors. He nodded and they all cupped their hands over their ears and Peter distantly wondered if he should follow suit and do the same. Before he could do so, it started.

He fell to his knees and desperately clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as possible. Strobe-style lighting popped from the ceiling, illuminating the room in an overpowering flash of extreme brightness and then plunging into pitch black, before repeating again. As the lights seized, the speakers screamed at such a high volume that even with fingers dug into his ears, Peter felt like his skull was cracking at the sheer sound. It was high pitched and made him lock up and clench his teeth in pain. His head pounded, and he felt sick, his body shook from how hard he was tensing, and everything blacked out as all he could focus on was the resounding roar of the speakers and the blazing flash of the lights he could still see from behind his eyelids.

After a full minute of the torturous assault on Peter’s senses, everything shut off. He hadn’t realised he had been crying, or sobbing his throat raw, but when he finally, lifted his hands away from his ears and opened his eyes, his whole body was trembling vigorously. He didn’t bother to wipe at his tears as Ryan circled him, running a finger along the back of his neck, digging his nail into one of the cuts, ripping at the scab that had formed over the wound. Peter couldn’t bring himself to care, he was shaking and could barely take in any air through his panic. His breathing was unsteady and too rapid to be healthy. The teens feverishly panicked mind or the lack of oxygen must have been too much, because he did something horribly stupid. He stood and sprinted for the door.

Well, he tried to sprint, but the most he managed was a frantic and hurried limp. Before he could even curl his frozen, shaky fingers around the door handle, one of the guards’ hands wrapped around his throat and threw him backwards with such force that he tumbled at Ryan’s feet. He slumped to the floor, pressing his head against the cold tile, hoping it would somehow cool the burning pain that flared inside his skull. He choked on a broken sob, his breath stuttering like an old car motor as he whimpered and cowered under the man’s gaze.

“P – Please, god. Do – don’t do that again, please… pl – please.” Ryan looked down at him and felt a sadistic pleasure at the boy begging beneath him. His sick pride burnt away into fury as he saw the teen eyeing the door again, mentally sizing up the distance he would have to cover. He raised his leg and brought it smashing down onto Peter’s ankle. The kid screamed and writhed, tears flying from his crumpled face as he shook his head and brokenly slapped the tile, trying to drag his exhausted body away from the weight crushing down on his ankle. He couldn’t pull away because tugging the ankle from under Ryan meant using his knee, and that was not an option with the state it was currently in. “No – ah… get off! It – it hurts, please!” Peter’s cracked cries prompted Ryan to lift his opposite foot, so his full weight rested on his ankle. The boys screams intensified as the pain got so much worse before Ryan stepped off him casually, as if he hadn’t just heard the snap of the ankle bone echo through the cell. He crouched in front of Peter, tilting his face towards him to meet his eyes as the teen clutched and cradled his broken bone.

“Want to try to fucking run again, huh? Next time it won’t just be a broken ankle you hop away with – you brat.” Peter was silent except for the heavy, hitched breaths he was shakily sucking in. He coughed again, disrupting his breathing and making him choke on another sob. As Ryan left the cell, he turned, motioning for the guards to follow him out as he spoke, “give him another thirty minutes as a lesson.” There was silence for a few glorious seconds, before everything broke out into the same flare of absolute hell.

And as Peter laid, curled in a tight ball on the icy floor of the cell, he endured possibly the worst thirty minutes. The metal table and the surgery had been agonising, but the pain was focused to mainly one area at a time, but now, it was an all-consuming convulsion of torturous pain. The thing that made it worse was the fact that Peter knew how pathetic and weak he looked during those thirty minutes, and he couldn’t really imagine being in any more pain or looking any more pitiful than he already did. But he could be wrong, and he was – so, so wrong.

----

It had almost been three days. Almost three days since Tony watched the footage of his bruised and drugged child being thrown into an unidentified van and being taken away somewhere he couldn’t follow. Anything could happen in almost three days, and to Tony, the idea that his kid could already be a corpse like the ones in his dreams, was unbearable and terrifying, at best. He watched as everyone cycled through their shifts, always hearing the soft sounds of sleep or the concentrated buzz of someone working. Tony watched from the chair at his own computer as the shifts blurred together, he didn’t have a solid grip on time, the only times he even stood from his chair was to go back to the bathroom or pad to his bedroom and call that same number, listen to that same voicemail and leave the same teary message at the beep.

Steve and Rhodey got him coffee when he asked and continued to ignore their constant pleading for him to ‘have a break’ or ‘get air’ and ‘eat more food, drink more water.’ It was exhausting to say the least. Honestly, he was tired, he was somewhat hungry and if he wanted to, he could fall asleep in seconds because his eyes felt so heavy. But he couldn’t let himself, because he knew if he slept he would have another nightmare, he would see that lifeless face again. If he ate, it would just come back up later as he hyperventilated and heaved over the toilet, and regardless, he wouldn’t rest while Peter was still missing, still alone, still not safe or in his arms.

Eventually, they met a compromise. Tony would go on patrol with Natasha, Clint and Sam, three times a day, for an hour at a time. ‘Patrol’ was more along the lines of the Iron Man and Falcon flying around and scouting any shady or suspecting buildings while Natasha and Clint biked below them and called for the all clear, so he could head in and search the place for any signs. It was a longshot, and there was barely any chance at all that it would lead them to any clues, but it was helping and getting Rhodey and Steve somewhat off his back, so Tony complied and participated.

Falcon saw the van first, Natasha gave the all clear, and Tony blasted down the doors with probably more firepower than they needed. The small flame of hope he had felt was quickly extinguished when, a few hours later, it was confirmed that the van had been abandoned on the street almost two days ago and served no further clues. Tony couldn’t even find footage of the men driving the van because they had parked and exited it far from the view of any cameras. He left a dent in the side of the van before he agreed to end patrol on the sour note, the taste of failure burning in his throat and the need to call Peter’s phone alight in the forefront of his mind. He landed and disengaged his suit, storming past the lab and shutting himself in the bathroom. As soon as he had closed the door his knees seemed to give way, he slid down the cabinet until he was on the ground, curled in on himself as he cried quietly.

Steve turned to look at Rhodey as Tony rushed past the door to the lab. When Natasha, Clint and Sam slowly filed in, grim expressions painting their faces, he knew something must have happened. He listened as they spoke solemnly, and even the assassin who masked her emotion had the barest hint of empathetic sadness flash across her face as she spoke.

“We found one of the vans from the footage, but we searched it and there were no camera’s anywhere close enough, so there wasn’t any information we didn’t already know.”

“Well, it does tell us that whoever took him must have been smart, or at least planned it out well enough to not get caught.” Rhodey tried to speak in optimism but confirming the fact that whoever took the kid was intelligent enough to cover their tracks well enough that the Avengers were taking this long to get them, somehow didn’t seem too optimistic. Steve nodded to Natasha when he heard the very faint but unmistakeable sounds of Tony hiding away in the bathroom. He walked down the hallway, trying to make sure his footsteps were heard by the man currently huddled behind the closed door. He knocked softly, hoping not to startle the mechanic.

“orry, ‘m coming. I promise, I’ll find you. I will.”

Steve felt bad hovering outside the room, but he felt worse eavesdropping, so he pushed open the door slowly. Tony was pressed against the cabinet on the opposite wall, his face was tear streaked and his hair stuck out from all over his head. The low lighting caught his face and drew attention to his dark bags, his tired eyes and his murmuring lips. He was whispering into his phone, the screen tilted away so Steve couldn’t see who he was calling but could make a good guess based on what he could hear.

“I will find you, I swear. I’m not gonna give up, I will never stop looking Pete.” His hoarse voice cracked on the boy’s name and he hung his head as the beep of the message signalled the message was over and sent. He looked up at Steve with grief-stricken eyes and the man felt a need to comfort again.

“Steve… I – I can’t do this” he admitted quietly, dropped his eyes and fiddled with the phone still clutched in his shaky hands. “It’s – It’s too much and I… he’s – he could be hurt or – or god, he could be dead already and I wouldn’t know. Fuck… I – I need my kid back.” He resisted the urge to say ‘language’ because he knew now wasn’t the right time. He slid his back down the sink until he was next to Tony, who was hugging his knees to his chest. Steve moved as slowly as he could, he really felt dangerous in these uncharted waters, unsure what was okay, what wasn’t. He didn’t get the chance to gauge how angry the Stark still was at him, he didn’t know if he had the right to talk about Peter or reach out and place a comforting hand on the man’s arm or shoulder.

“I know Tony, this is… this must be so hard for you and I’m so sorry I can’t fix it – but I’m trying, I really am. I just want Pe – the… the kid to be safe and get him home to you. Because you’re an amazing Dad and I don’t even need to see you raising him to know that.” Tony had lifted his head and he had wiped away most of his tears and was now looking at Steve with an unreadable expression in his eyes.

“You can say his name, Peter’s I mean” Steve cleared his throat almost awkwardly before nodding. “Are you… you weren’t talking about this situation just before, were you?” The men both looked at the ground, averting eye contact while Tony wondered if he should have asked, and Steve struggled to find the right way to reply.

“I – yeah I think I may have been… not purposely. I just think I feel like we have things to discuss – not now though, we can wait until – until we get Peter back.” The genius shrugged, taking his first steady breath in a while before speaking.

“No, it’s fine we can now. Uh, it helps take my mind off things, but I want to keep working too.” Steve nodded in understanding before getting up and wandering back to the lab. Tony fiddled with the phone, picked at a hangnail and wiped away the last of his tears before the man walked back into the lab. He was balancing a cup of coffee, two Stark Pads, a pillow and an apple. Placing the cup of coffee next to Tony, he dropped the pillow on the ground next to him and laid the apple on top of the Stark Pad, sliding it across next to the mug of coffee. He sat down on the pillow and began to half heartedly tap at the Stark Pad, drawing up more news reports that had some mention of Spider-Man in them. Tony gratefully picked up the things, taking a bite from the apple and pulling up the police database of all recently released criminals that may have had a vendetta against himself or his kid.

“You sure you’re cool with talking about it?” Tony nodded, glancing up from the device on his lap. “We can stop at any point” he rolled his eyes good naturedly.

“You’re acting like a therapist. Yeah – it was a shitty situation –”

“Language” Steve interrupted, unable to hold it back this time.

“And we didn’t handle it that well” Tony continued, “but we can talk about it now, it’s fine.” They both felt reassured, contentedly tapping away, half attention on the conversation, the other on the work on their laps.

----

“How was that Petey?” He thought he was going to throw up, he knew when Ryan spoke in that sickly-sweet way it meant he was going to be in his space, touching his face and playing with his hair. The man’s emotional state was unsteady, unpredictable and flew between disgustingly affectionate and furious too quickly for Peter to track. He moaned, whimpering as he tucked himself into a tighter ball, flinching as he heard the footsteps of the guards and Ryan drawing closer.

“Pl – please don’t” his voice was fractured and hoarse from sobbing and his throat felt raw and scratchy.

“M’ not gonna hurt you right now spider, you can relax a bit.” He lifted a finger off his eye for a second when he heard the soft sound of something being carefully placed by his head. He was about to cower away from it, expecting it to be something designed to hurt him, but he was surprised to find a small plastic cup filled with water, resting just inches away from his face. He licked his dry lips, swallowing with his parched throat, how long had it been since he had his last drink of water, breakfast on the morning he was taken. How long ago was that? It must be almost three days then, not counting the non-consensual dunking of his head into that tub, because he didn’t drink that water, he inhaled it and drowned. “Go on Pete, I didn’t drug it.” He slowly unfurled his good arm, gingerly propping himself upright as he reached for the cup. To be perfectly honest, he half expected it to be a test, and for Ryan to lash out and grip his arm.

He brought the cup to his cracked lips and guzzled the water, relishing in how much better it made his throat feel. His headache began to subside, but he still felt like crying over the overwhelming pain now in his ankle, hip, shoulder, knee and how hard it had gotten to breathe properly. It was so much worse when he laid down, he physically could not pull in enough of a breath if he was lying flat. He finished the cup and placed it on the floor with shaking fingers. He froze as he felt Ryan’s fingers lace in his hair and scratch through his curls gently, lazily, as if he wasn’t invading the teens space and making bile rise in his throat. Peter wanted to scream, he wanted to shove the man away without holding any of his power back, he wanted to kick at him and rip his offending hand out of his hair. He felt sick, he felt like gagging and the lump in his throat raised and it was getting near impossible to breathe.

“S – stop! Get off me… please st – stop” he choked out his words as he began to sob again. He heaved and tried to squirm away, but Ryan dragged him closer with his free hand wrapping around the front of his chest, pulling the small teen and caging him in against his front. Peter broke down, whimpering as tears slipped down his cheeks and fell onto the floor between his legs. “N – n – no, no, ple – please stop…” His voice was small and buried under the sound of his crying. Ryan nestled the boy under the crook of his own neck, gently tugging his hair to force him to lean back and rest his weight on him. The movement only made Peter feel more sick, acidic bile rising further up his throat until he tasted a disgusting flavour in his mouth that was akin to blood. He continued to beg and whimper quietly, stopping to take gulping, desperate breaths as the fingers continued to card through his curls.

“You know Pete, you’ve been pretty good so far, apart from before, but you got a broken ankle and another session as punishment, so I’m willing to offer you a deal.” The boy took a shaky breath and bit the inside of his cheek, holding back another sob. “If you give me one good reason why I should stop, or explain to me why you don’t like this – then I might hold off for a bit.” Peter felt Ryan’s jaw move above him, and he knew it meant he was smirking.

“B – because I – I don’t like it…” He barked out a shout of laughter that made Peter flinch and tremble in his arms.

“That’s a terrible reason Petey” his fingers tightened slightly in warning before continuing to pet his head “I’ll give you one more chance, then I get to do whatever I want, whenever I want.” Peter felt like shooting back with a comment about how he’s been doing that anyway, and it wouldn’t change anything, but he bit it back and thought hard.

“I – I want you to stop… because the – the only person who I let touch my hair is – is…” he trailed off, cutting himself off with another choked sob. “Is my Da – Dad…” He looked down, too disgusted at how uselessly pathetic he was to gauge Ryan’s reaction. The fingers stilled in his hair and he heard the man hum, the vibrations rumbling deep in his chest, so Peter could feel it against his still wounded back.

“Mm, and who is your Dad little spider?” He shuddered at the nickname, and Ryan knew his epithets put the teen on edge, which is why he switched them up so frequently. Ryan also knew the Avengers had been searching through New York, looking through abandoned buildings, which is why he had taken the boy completely out of New York. He had hidden the teen away in an old, abandoned science facilities basement, in Bridgeport. It was perfect, the way things had worked out, the boy lived in New York, Ryan had his organisation in Bridgeport, therefore all he needed to do was drug the kid and get him to the inconspicuous science building where he operated from. He also had an abandoned warehouse in Queens which he used for backup and lesser subjects, it was also where he had originally taken Peter, before he realised the Stark intern was exactly who he was looking for. Ryan was smart and had enough of a brain to piece together a relatively strong hypothesis, the ‘Stark Intern’ who went by the name ‘Peter Parker’ was kidnapped by him, not too long ago. Almost immediately, the Avengers began to look for something, or someone and it was obvious to him because there had been plenty of news reports flooding his desk.

“Avengers band together again to search New York” … “Iron Man and team inspect abandoned buildings of NY!” … “Tony Stark cancels all press and meetings in favour of Iron Man related issue” …

The papers and news alerts grew and grew on Ryan’s desk, he began to assume the worst, he had underestimated how much Tony Stark would care for his intern, or something Spider-Man related was setting off the Avengers on their wild goose chase. Why did they care so much? What was so special about the kid he was holding right now, in his arms. He looked down at Peter, swirling his fingers in his hair and squeezing him as he repeated the question, anger rising in his voice. “I said, who is your Dad?” He let his nails dig into the boy’s scalp and chest roughly, giving him as much of a warning as he deserved before he lost his temper.

Peter yelped from under him, as his grip tightened, the direct and confronting question making him uneasy.

“I don’t w – wanna tell you that…” Peter’s voice trailed off, he closed his eyes and tensed as much as he could, preparing for the blow that was sure to come.

“Is it Stark?” His eyes snapped open and he, impossibly, tensed more as Ryan pressed the subject.

“W – what? No, no, no I – Mr. Stark isn’t my… my Dad. I’m just the intern!” He squirmed in the man’s hold, managing to uncomfortably twist his body around enough to crane his neck up to face Ryan. Did he know the truth? Was it just a guess? Had he gotten confused and thought Tony was his Dad because of the internship? Questions raced through Peter’s anxious mind too quickly for him to grasp onto any solid explanation for why Ryan would ask.

He jolted and fell back, knocking over the empty plastic cup as a deliberate punch caught his jawline with enough force to make him taste blood. Another came down beside his mouth, splitting his lip and making it sting. He attempted to defend himself from the next three punches that littered his face, his legs kicking uselessly underneath him. Ryan stood over him, clutching his hair for traction that he used to rain punches down on the teen.

“You’re gonna fucking lie to me? I’ve been watching the Avengers, they’re searching all of New York for your sorry ass! Why would Tony Stark care about a shit like you, huh?” His voice was low, teeming with absolute fury as he screamed at Peter, who was slipping on the bloodied tile beneath him.

“S – stop” punch. “Ah! I don…” punch. “I don’t know why he ca…” kick. “Why he cares about me” the snap of a broken rib. “I’m just an intern! Ple…” the horrid sound of Peter’s blood splattering on the ground. “Please! Sto – stop. I can’t, I can’t b…” a dull thud as his head smacked against the cold tile. “I can’t breathe! I can’t… I don’t know – I – I… I’m… intern.” Peter had begun to black out from the lack of oxygen his head was getting, and even his weak hands wouldn’t cooperate enough to feebly block the blows. Punch, black eye. Punch, bloody nose. Punch, head against the tile, one more and he was out.

Ryan paced the cell, his gaze only flicking to the still, bloody form that lay atop the white tile. The guards wiped away some of the old blood on the floor, took away the plastic cup and left Ryan alone in the cell with the limp, unconscious teen. He walked around the room, running his hands along the cuffs and chains that lined the wall, adjusting the temperature so the cold was more biting than before. He startled slightly as his phone buzzed in his pocket, eyes wandering over to the unmoving body across to him.

“What is it now – talk to me.” He demanded, halting his pacing to nudge the boy with his foot, checking that he was truly out cold before listening to the other man on the phone.

“Boss, we checked the phone and got the techie to make it untraceable like you requested – but we found some messages you’ll probably wanna hear.”

“Fine, send them through to my phone, clear out the warehouse now that you’re done with the phone, Stark and his crew have been tearing apart New York looking for the fucking kid.” He hung up when he got an affirmation, leaning down over the boy who still laid across the tile, his skin a mess of mottled bruises and bloodied wounds. He ran his fingers over the lesser injuries from the preliminary healing test, noting that they had calmed slightly, the skin less raised and red. He pulled out his phone as it vibrated again. The voice of the boy’s suspected Father filled the room, his voice shaky and distraught. The pain and grief he was clearly causing the normally tough man was the only good thing about it, because the idea that Iron Man and the rest of the Avengers were now looking for his latest subject, put Ryan on edge.

Twelve minutes later, as the final message ended, Ryan called for two of the guards and they entered on his command, standing stiffly at the ready for any instruction he would give. “Either of you know how to work a camera well enough?”

“Yes Boss, I can” one of the guards responded. He outlined what he wanted the guard to do as the other one helped him shift the boy slightly, angling his face upwards towards the light. Ryan carefully adjusted the body until he was satisfied, stepping backwards to admire how much younger, smaller, and weaker the teen now looked. The light hit his bruises, which were almost as dark as the angled shadows that carved the boy’s jawline, and almost everything stood stark against his pale, chilled skin. The fluorescent lights reflected and bounced off the blood that pooled around the form, covering the still bare torso.

The first guard reappeared at Ryan’s side, clutching a camera in his fingers. Ryan nodded, and he crouched down, snap. He backed away for a wide shot, snap. He stepped close, the lens almost brushing against the skin of the defenceless boy, snap. After a range of angles were covered, Ryan stepped forward towards Peter.

“Don’t dare get anything but my hand in these next shots, if you are responsible for blowing this operation I swear I’ll have you killed before you even get the option of imprisonment.” Ryan growled, asserting his authority over the makeshift photographer as he once again buried his fingers and palm into the soft curls that covered the boy’s head in loose, brown ringlets. He guided his hand through the hair, combing and ruffling it in a way that would be loving, if the feeling didn’t integrate itself into the teen’s nightmares. “I guarantee this will fuck off Stark when he get’s these” Ryan said absentmindedly, his attention mainly on Peter. He checked through the images, checking them off before murmuring his instructions to the guard holding the camera, still carding his fingers through the wavy swirls, brushing some of the strays off the boy’s forehead.

“Print those out, take them to the warehouse where we first took the kid. Then, get the techie to lay them all out and unblock the phone’s signal. Confirm everyone’s out of there before you unblock the signal, clear out and make absolutely sure you aren’t seen or followed on your way back here.” He sent the guard off to fulfil his order and turned back to look at the teen.

He noticed Peter stir slightly, waking slowly from a nightmare. Ryan reluctantly pulled his fingers away from his hair and stepped further away from the sluggishly waking figure.

“Mm, wha – what’s happnin’?” His voice was slurred, and he was clearly still hazed enough to be confused. Ryan waited patiently for the kid to get his bearings, because he wanted him at least somewhat coherent for what he planned for next. He squirmed further away from Ryan, pressing a hand to his broken rib and wincing as he wheezed while the guard and Ryan hoisted him to his feet.

“If you struggle I won’t hesitate to cut you foot off next time, not just break the ankle.” Peter went slack in his grip and he smiled to himself at how quickly the kid had listened, almost praising him. He pressed the boy against the far wall by his throat as the guard fastened the ankle cuffs and secured his wrists high above him, stretching the boy taught like a piece of string, not letting his back press against the wall much for support or allowing his feet to touch the ground too much. He smirked as the boy whimpered at the coldness and aching positioning of the restraints. He stood on his tip-toes and held onto the wrist bonds to try and keep his body weight off of his wounded shoulder.

“Wh – what are you doing?” He cried out as Ryan moved to the door along with the remaining guard. He turned, throwing Peter a dark look as he called back to him.

“Letting you decide if you want to refuse to answer a direct question ever again.” Before he left, he fiddled with the temperature once more and turned on the lighting and speakers, making Peter cry out in fear and distress at the idea of enduring another session. “Have a nice, long night Petey. Oh – and if you even dare try and fall asleep I’ll turn the sprinklers on too, and you can freeze.”

Peter couldn’t even hear the clang of the door over the sound of the speakers and his own scream of pain as it swung shut and sealed his fate.

----

Tony and Steve had only just settled back at their computers in the lab after their talk, when the mechanic’s screen blared, making everyone’s head snap up and shoot him curious and worried looks. He peered at the screen to figure out what the information it was receiving was, and when his tired brain finally caught up with what he was seeing he jumped from his seat so quickly it almost fell over backwards.

“Everybody suit up now. Peter’s phone must have been turned on because I have a signal.” Everyone immediately jumped into action, buzzing around the room, pulling on their equipment and prepping the vehicles. “It’s a warehouse we haven’t searched yet… in Queens!” Tony called out to the room full of now eager and ready heroes. The suit moulded over the restless Dad, his repulsors fully charged, all power diverting to the thrusters as the Avengers who couldn’t fly scrabbled to find fast enough modes of transportation as Tony burst out of the house and blasted through the sky. He was on a warpath, his kid had been followed, hurt and kidnapped – and someone was going to pay when he got there.

Tony landed first, only having to wait two more minutes for the Falcon and War Machine to fall next to his position across the street. The rest not far behind, pulling up only minutes later, dismounting their bikes. There they all were, lined up and ready to storm the building, the genius ready to get his son back and break some bones in revenge. He clenched his fists, the metal sound of his suit grating on his hears, grounding him, the pounding of everyone’s collective footsteps pounded as they approached the doors that stood beside all the boarded up and cracked windows.

“Natasha, Clint, Sam – go around back to find another way in, give us the signal through the comms when you’re in position.” They nodded and stalked into place without argument or hesitation. Rhodey murmured to Tony as they waited for the all clear.

“Keep your head in there Tones, don’t let anything distract you from getting the kid out. We’ll cover the rest.” He nodded a thanks and planted his feet more firmly as the staticky signal from Natasha sounded in his comms. He motioned with his iron-clad hand to move and then they surged.

Tony fired a repulsor blast straight at the door, blasting it off it’s old hinges as Natasha, Clint and Sam burst through the back. Rhodey passed through the smoke still clearing around the door and Steve smashed his way through a window, rolling as he hit the ground and coming into a standing position, brushing off the glass with his gloved palms. The Iron Man suit walked through the smoking wreckage of the door, stepping beside and in front of Rhodey and Steve in a line, staring back at Natasha, Clint and Sam who were mirroring the exact same stance from the other side of the warehouse. He overlooked the way their positions imitated the same ones they had before they fought in that German airport.

“Nobody’s here” Steve said plainly, his voice a mask of battle, devoid of emotion unlike at the tower. Tony surveyed the area, taking in the large, empty space before his eyes landed on the far corner of the warehouse. His suit retracted as he stumbled forward, running across the large room and dropping to his knees and taking in what he was seeing.

The remnants of a broken chair laid, strewn across the floor as if it had collapsed under force, ropes were wound loosely around the legs and arms of the chair, indicating it had once held someone. Not too many feet away Tony could see a splash of dark, long-since dried blood that stained the floor. Steve was holding a small piece of paper in his hands, and his expression made worry flood through his veins.

“What’s it say?” He asked, his voice came out higher and more strained then he meant it to. Steve’s lips were pressed in a hard line, and he shook his head, sliding the paper across to the anxiety-riddled mechanic, unable to say the words.

‘This is where we shot your son, because he tried, and failed, to run.’ The printed letters were there specifically to hurt him, and Tony understood that, but it didn’t make the fact hurt any less. The fact he knew that was Peter’s blood wasn’t even the worst thing, because when he forced his eyes back to the scene around him, his gaze fell on something that made his eyes burn, throat squeeze shut, and nausea bubble up within his now weak stomach.

Printed images of dark, bruised, bloody and torn skin littered the floor. Vibrant red leaked out of pale, blue-tinted skin and covered blaring white tile. His eyes flicked from photo to photo, tears slowly falling and rolling down his cheeks as various gory angles and images of his son burnt themselves into his mind. A faded surgery scar was barely noticeable through the mass of angry slices that patterned the whole of the boy’s back, eighty of them, varied in depth and how much blood had obviously leaked out of them, the worst being lower down. The depth of the wounds on the hipbone, right knee and shoulder were unfathomable, and Tony could clearly see were segments of the bone had been removed from each. One of the ankles on the teen had been crushed, twisted at a horrible angle, the bone had likely been shattered from whatever concentrated force had done that. The skin surrounding one of the upper left ribs was tarnished and smeared a nauseating array of purple, blue and black, it reminded Tony of the galaxies he saw before he fell through the hole above New York. Raw burns and bruises lined both wrists and ankles, probably having been made worse by thrashing and tearing at what bonds may have encased them. The normally soft, carefree smile that graced the boy’s lips was marred by a pained expression, a split lip and bloody nose smeared the ashen skin. An angry mark that shadowed one of the teens eyes was accompanied by similar discolouration over the majority of his face.

The dirt and blood that caked Peter’s cheeks were broken up only by the tear tracks that cut through them, and it broke Tony’s heart knowing his boy had cried. The window the tear tracks gave, allowed him to see the little skin that peeked through dark bruises, and it was so, staggeringly white, bloodless and pallid. The only colours that could be seen on the kid was the blue tinge to his lips, assumingly from lack of oxygen, dark smears of thick, bloody red, and the bruises ranging from fading yellow-green to fresh, angry red, purple, blue and black. The only features of Peter that weren’t dulled by his quickly deteriorating health were things like his dark lashes, wild brown curls, sharp jawline and pronounced cheekbones. In fact, if anything, the lack of proper food was most likely highlighting the latter two features of the boy’s face.

Tony slowly picked up a wide shot of his kid with shaking fingers, his tears began to fall from where they had only graced his cheeks, and land quietly in his lap. He took in the photograph, suddenly realising how much smaller and younger his son looked. Peter should never look that pained, that hurt, that broken. His baby should never look that close to death. It had barely been three days, how could anyone do so many horrible things, to such a pure, innocent child? How could he let anything happen to the one thing that mattered most in his world, let alone something this agonisingly detestable. He put the photo that displayed how defenceless and young his kid looked, his trembling hands finding another, with a whole darker aspect of torture buried in its contents.

Tony never knew that seeing one hand would make him want to destroy a person so badly. He had promised himself, long, long ago, that when it came to Peter, he wouldn’t lose it, because he was so afraid of scaring him, and deeper down, Tony was afraid he would turn into his own Father, Howard Stark. But seeing that hand, that fucking hand, buried in his child’s curls – that made him want to end somebody’s life. The longer he stared at the collection of photos, in particular the close-up of the kidnapper’s fingers buried in unconscious Peter’s hair, the quicker his anger gave way for nausea. Bile rose in his throat, he suddenly felt sick, the inside of his mouth flooded, he felt waves of cold and hot, he turned and ran.

----

Steve rolled on his shoulder, using the momentum of his jump to carry his body further forwards as he extended his legs, coming into a standing position easily, a practised move he had done do many times in training. When there was no immediate threat – he reached and brushed away the small pieces of glass that clung to the shoulders of his uniform. He walked forward a few steps, so he was in line with Rhodey, they exchanged a glance before locking their gazes ahead of them, scanning the place through the smoke. Tony stepped between them, doing the same scan from within his armour.

“Nobody’s here” he concluded, keeping his voice as steadily impartial as he could – right now he needed to be as logical as he could, because one of the most logical people on the team was fighting on pure emotion, for good reason too. Steve watched as Tony’s head casted across to the opposite end of the warehouse, then stepped forward on instinct to comfort him as his suit disengaged and folded off him. He moved to catch the man as he stumbled in desperation, but he quickly caught his balance and ran to the corner of the warehouse.

He moved to follow and was almost close enough to see what was making his friend so upset, when something caught his eye. He had seen the blood earlier, and it had made him worried for the kid, but the note he now held in his hands made him feel more for Tony. ‘This is where we shot your son, because he tried, and failed, to run.’ It was glaringly obvious that this had been a set-up, and he would have much preferred it if the reason had been an attempted trap, but it hadn’t been, and the reason they were all here ran a lot deeper. The people who took Peter had set up the warehouse for the sole purpose of hurting the boy’s Dad, and it had worked, judging on how worried the man looked as he shakily asked Steve what the note said.

There was no way he was reading that out to Tony, he didn’t even try to explain as he slid the paper across to the man. His lips parted, and he wanted to say how sorry he was that this happened, but he knew the Stark didn’t want pity or apologies, he wanted his child back. Steve could only offer comfort and support as he looked for the boy, and so he stood, looking over the unsteady shoulders of his friend, watching as he fell apart.

“Tony…” He began, but the man stood, silently, his face was pale and his breathing unsteady.

“I – I can’t deal with this, I’ll see you back at the tower.” Steve saw a tear roll down the man’s face, grief clouding his haunted eyes as the suit materialised and closed around him. He nodded solemnly and let the suit carry the grieving man back to the tower.

“I’m going to head back too, make sure he’s… alright. Are you guys alright to uh, clean this up?” Natasha nodded from behind them, an unreadable expression on her face as she agreed to the task. After Rhodey left, she was the only one willing to collect the photographs and hide them away in a case file while the rest of the team took care of the rest.

----

Tony landed the suit gracelessly, beginning to run before it had even fully retracted from his form. He collapsed in the bathroom, heaving over the toilet bowl and not bothering to hold his tears back anymore. His breathing was hitched, and he felt vaguely as if he were drifting further and further away from his body. Even if he may have not been fully there, he felt Rhodey’s comforting hands on his back, guiding him to his room and gently directing him to the bed like he used to when Tony was blackout drunk. He fell asleep to the piercing image of a hand that definitely wasn’t his running through Peter’s hair and massaging his curls as his sons terrified screams filled the air.