Chapter Text
Every time Tony comes-to he gasps, like a drowning man desperate for air. There are shadows, and moving shapes that won’t come into focus, and soft hands that roughly shove pills into his mouth and then hold it shut, crushing his nose until he swallows. He does, but the hands never let up. He jerks and writhes and tries to shake his head loose from the firm hands over his mouth and nose, but his own hands are tied behind him and he is never able to. Each time his stomach spasms, as though that could compensate for the missing air in his lungs. Each time he loses and the darkness overtakes him while those soft hands keep holding his head in place, and each time his last thought is no, not like this.
But he doesn’t die, not like that. The cycle repeats, he doesn’t know how many times. The first time he wakes and is not immediately suffocated he’s too dazed to really be thankful. He doesn’t know—anything. His head is heavy, but floating, and he’s being dragged across light and metal and doors. He can’t feel his feet.
They stop. He’s dropped—heaved—and his head must split wide open. He doesn’t know how he’s still alive. The pain embraces the nausea bubbling somewhere between his stomach and his throat, and he vomits. He’s too weak to move, and his hands are bound anyway, so he just lies on his stomach and gags, bringing up only a sliver of something bitter and yellow.
“iğrenç,” he hears, and then a boot is crushing his back. He can’t breathe again, but it only lasts a minute as a pair of hands releases his. Another is pulling off his shoes, his socks, and now he feels his feet because they’re freezing.
There’s a noise, something slams loud enough to make him wheeze with the agony it ricochets inside his head. He shuts his eyes against the pain, and it doesn’t help. He curls into himself, hoping that when he wakes up he’s, he’s—he thinks his goodbyes in his head, because he didn’t get a chance to say them before and he’s not sure he’ll wake up.
But he does wake up, cold and dizzy and nauseous and not exactly alone, and Tony wishes again he’d gotten to say goodbye.
~*~
R…e, Happy’s forefinger traced the keyboard as he hummed lightly, one of those stupid Christmas songs that have been stuck in his head since November. He hated the winter but loved the holidays, and even though it was well into January, the joyously cheesy songs were a gift that kept on giving—oh—P and o right next to it, he loved it when that happened, r…t. Updated asset-security report. He knew that Pepper rarely read them, she trusted his judgement and she didn’t really care about the particulars, but he liked doing things the right way.
He sat back and considered changing the font, but before he could decide his phone rang. He picked it up on the second ring, still vaguely guilty that barely four months ago, he’d have let it ring through to voice mail.
“Parker.” He glanced at the time on his computer. “School’s not even out yet, what’s up?”
“Hey, Happy.” The kid paused, and when he spoke again it was with a certain hesitancy. “So, um, this may sound a little weird, but have you heard from Mr. Stark? I texted him earlier but he hasn’t answered me yet.”
“Well, actually,” Happy said, and even though he was sure he pulled up Tony’s calendar, “I haven’t spoken to him, but that’s expected. He went abroad late last night, to a conference in, uh, South Sudan, something to do with irrigation tech. He’s probably still in the air. Didn’t he mention that yesterday?” Happy sat back, and pulled up his report again. He made the font a little bigger.
“Well, that’s the thing.” The kid lowered his voice, probably to avoid being overheard. “He never showed yesterday.”
Happy stopped dicking around with the font and closed the document, because it was distracting him. He was mishearing the kid.
“What do you mean, he didn’t show? He never misses your little dates. I saw him just before he left.”
“I know, Happy. That’s why I texted him. I thought maybe something came up—I know he’s busy, but he never—I mean, he usually doesn’t—but, it’s fine if he did, I just thought maybe you spoke to him?”
Happy heard what the kid breaking his tongue trying not to say, and he agreed. Tony never skipped out on the kid, would never ghost him like that. He looked forward to the days he was able to find an excuse to be in the City so he could check in or make sure he was on the up and up or whatever stupid little name he tried to call his visitation with the kid. Happy knew that Tony sometimes rearranged his whole schedule to keep Tuesdays clear, because he knew that was the day the kid finished a little earlier and they’d have some time to catch up before patrolling.
He tucked the phone between his shoulder and cheek, and logged into his localized Friday interface. He hadn’t wanted it, but Tony thought it was prudent for his head of security to have access to his AI.
“Just a sec, kid, let me see what I can see,” Happy said. He started typing, but he couldn’t find the damned i anywhere on the damned keyboard, so he decided to use the voice command, instead.
“Friday, do you have a location on Tony Stark?”
“Sure thing. Let me Google that for you,” Friday said amiably, and ran his request, verbatim, through a search engine.
“Fuck. Where is Tony Stark right now?” Happy tried again, enunciating as carefully as he could, his voice loud and clear.
“Showing results for, Fuck wear Tony Stark,” Friday said, and Happy didn’t look away as fast as he should have. He tried to close the window, but only managed to mute and then unmute the scene before him. So he shut the browser altogether, but he couldn’t stop the disgusted ich that escaped him. He’d found Tony in some compromising positions in his time—who of his friends hasn’t? —but the image of Iron Man wrapped only in red-and-gold leather straps, boning a very convincing Tony Stark lookalike, was now seared into his retinas.
It had to be a lookalike, right?
A bell rang over the phone, and he pushed the thought aside.
“Listen, Parker, something weird is definitely going on. Tony’s AI just became more useless than Alexa. Let me ask around an I’ll call you back, yeah?”
“Yeah, okay. Thanks, Happy. I gotta get to class, anyway. But let me know?”
Happy promised he would, and hung up. The kid was worried, which worried happy even more than Friday’s sudden dip in IQ. The last time the kid was worried about something he’d been on the fringe of one of the most competent criminal groups to target Tony in years.
The first thing Happy did was check in with the airfield. The jet was still there. This was actually typical of Tony, who often chose, last minute, to take his suit. It was faster, if a little less comfortable. He’d have to take manual inventory of all of Tony’s suits, to see if one was missing. He grabbed a pad and jotted down call pp, check suits, and then he made his phone calls.
They didn’t put his mind at ease. Pepper had also noticed that Friday was operating in an extremely limited capacity, and was in the middle of setting up backup software. She also thought Tony was on a plane, but when Happy told her he wasn’t, she shushed the chaotic noise behind her and told Happy to do what he could to look into it. She promised to head back to the east coast as soon as she could disentangle herself from her commitments in LA.
He was glad she was taking this seriously, but part of him was hoping she’d laugh at his overbearing nature and tell him to drop it, that Tony was just fine, just being Tony. It was the same part of him that missed the days where Tony dropping off the face of the planet just meant he was being irresponsible with some chick somewhere. But between having Pepper and having this kid, Tony just didn’t do that anymore.
He sat back in his chair after he ended the call with Pepper, and took a deep breath. Because he didn’t want to call Rhodey. If Rhodes didn’t have any other information, he’d have to assume Tony was missing, again, with no way for Happy to find him, again. When Afghanistan happened he’d only been Tony’s driver, which was bad enough. But now he was head of security, and the thought of trying to find Tony with Friday offline, and no earthly idea of who might have taken him, was making his heart race.
“Jesus, get it together, Hogan,” he muttered, and taking off his jacket, he tugged on his shirt a few times at the armpits. If it was going to be a long day, he didn’t want to start it by stress-sweating through his shirt. There was nothing to it.
But Rhodey didn’t answer, and when Happy made his way to check on the suits, he saw why. Rhodes was just climbing out of his own War Machine armor, adjusting the limbs and locking the suit with an eye-scan. Happy supposed he’d just returned from DC, and he meant to ask him, but Rhodey spoke first.
“Happy,” Rhodes asked, “have you spoken to Tony?”
Happy opened and closed his fist, trying to calm himself. This didn’t sound good. “Uh, no. I was about to ask you the same thing. I think he’s… Missing.”
“Did he call you, too?”
“Who?” Happy asked, and if he couldn’t keep his eyes from narrowing, that was fine. He didn’t think Rhodey knew about the kid, or that the kid knew Rhodes, for that matter.
“Sam.”
“Gonzales? From accounting?”
“I--? No, not Sam Gonzales from accounting. What does he have to do with Cap? Wilson, Sam Wilson.”
Happy shook his head and looked around the room, like the answer to what the hell was going on was hiding in one of the corners.
“What? Cap? Who’s talking about Cap? Who called you, and who’s missing?”
“Sam Wilson called me.” Rhodey spoke slowly and emphatically. He bent down to massage his legs in their braces after the flight in the suit. “He said that Cap was AWOL. He missed a check-in, and that hasn’t happened ever. He wanted to know if we’ve picked up on any buzz or chatter or anything. I tried calling Tony, but he must not have service in Sudan.”
Happy looked up at Rhodey, glad he was here. They were going to need all hands on-deck.
“Yeah. Tony’s not in Sudan. He’s missing, too.”
~*~
It had been a frustrating afternoon. Happy and Rhodey began to look for leads, but not only had they not found anything, it seemed they were operating somehow with negative information.
They didn’t know when or where Tony was taken, or how, or by whom, and had even less information about Rogers. And what was worse—at the back of their minds was the sneaking suspicion that maybe they were wrong. Maybe this was a coincidence? Maybe Tony had fallen off the radar in order to meet Cap? It wouldn’t be the first time. But Happy and Rhodes knew what happened in Siberia, and they didn’t think Tony would risk meeting Cap again without a suit.
Unless he had taken some new prototype suit he’d been secretly working on? That wouldn’t be a first, either.
There were just too many variables to work with, and too little information.
Rhodes had even tried to get traffic cam footage from the area Tony was headed, but the NYPD was being obstinately unhelpful. The red tape was staggering, and it all had to be above board without Friday to push things along, technologically speaking.
It was already several hours past dark, and all they had was the helpless knowledge that something was wrong.
Pepper, at least, had some better luck with Friday. She arrived at the Compound just as the sun was setting, trailed by two algorithmists who were supposed to be the best SI had to offer. They had been with her for hours, testing Friday and running checks and retesting for bugs and changes to her code.
They’d found that she wasn’t malfunctioning, but that she’d been deliberately locked by Tony around noon the day before. They still didn’t know how to unlock her, but at least they had a solid confirmation that something had happened. Tony would never lock Happy and Pepper out of Friday unless he feared she could be used as a weapon, or leverage.
Rhodey swore colorfully. “And fuck them,” he finished vehemently, and slammed his laptop onto the table, and then lowered himself carefully into a chair. “We don’t have probable cause for a warrant to see the traffic cams, and the only judge who’s still working right now won’t budge.”
Rhodes pressed his mouth into a thin line, and looked to Happy. He shook his head. “Any other ideas? Anyone else who can help us with this? Sam is coming, he should be here in a couple of hours, but… We need more people on this.” He exhaled sharply and shook his head at the table, again. “Not to mention more muscles. If someone is keeping both Tony and Rogers captive, it’s gonna take more than me and you to get them out. You got anyone? You know how to contact that Spider-Man guy?”
“Shit,” Happy realized, and plunged both hands into his pockets. He pulled out a crumpled note. Call pp. “I was supposed to call him back.” He looked up at Rhodes, belatedly processing what he’d said.
“You think we should bring him in on this?”
“If he’s willing to help, yeah,” Rhodes said, like it was obvious. “I don’t think we really have a choice.”
Happy looked down at the note in his hands. Tony would kill him, he would outright blast him to hell if he revealed the kid’s identity… But Tony had to be alive to do that, and Happy had to admit, with Tony missing and with Friday locked down, the kid had the next best resources. And as for willing… He’d be dying to help, he knew.
“I need to go talk to Pepper,” Happy said, and shoved the note back in his pocket.
The walk down to Pepper’s make-shift Compound office was short. He paused for a moment outside and texted Parker, then he courtesy-knocked and poked his head into Pepper’s office. She was still with the engineers, supervising as they did their best to find any more clues to Friday’s lockdown.
“Hi, Happy,” she said kindly with a tired smile, and then added, “No, still nothing.” to the two guys working beside her.
“Uh, we need to talk.” He moved only his eyes to pointedly indicate the engineers. “Privately.”
Pepper sighed.
“Okay, guys, why don’t you take twenty minutes, get some coffee or something,” she said. The two guys rose, shooting Happy slightly annoyed looks that their work was being interrupted.
“Sorry, fellas. Important security things. Highest clearance.” He tapped on his tag to illustrate that he had the clearance to back up his claim. It said it, right there.
Once the door was closed, Happy turned fully to Pepper.
“Rhodey and I want to bring Spider-Man in.”
“Uh, great?” Pepper shook her head in confusion, glancing up from her laptop. The super-hero stuff wasn’t really her thing. She liked to focus on the tangible things she could do, like authorize jets and keep the Relief Fund people up-to-date.
“Great,” Happy agreed. “So I’m gonna drive down to the City to get him, I should be back in a couple of hours.”
At this her head snapped up, her full attention on Happy. “What?” She leaned forward over her desk, then shook her head as though she’d misheard him. “Happy, you can’t leave for two hours! Sam is going to be here, and I don’t want him here unsupervised! Why can’t Spider-Man drive up?”
“Well, he doesn’t drive,” Happy said. He kinda hoped to put this off till he got back with the kid, at least to split the responsibility with him.
“I’m sorry?” Pepper asked, and now she stood up. “His Highness Spider-Man doesn’t drive? Where does he get off demanding a car service!” It wasn’t a question. “Have him rent a car, we need you here, Happy.”
“No, Pepper, it’s not that he doesn’t like to drive, it’s that he can’t drive.”
She crossed her arm, head shaking in disbelief. “What the hell kind of superhero doesn’t drive?”
Happy looked over her shoulder, his mouth open as he tried to figure out how to respond to that. Pepper noticed his hesitancy immediately. Of-course she did.
“Happy, why are you making that face? What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing! Pepper, it’s nothing, really. I—,” he stuttered for a moment, “I mean, you’ll meet him, I’m sure you’ll love him.”
He paused, and cringed. This was a terrible time to bring this up. “One tiny thing, though, we’re taking him out of school, so you’re gonna need to invent some kind Internship Retreat, to appease the administration.”
Pepper crossed her arms, and shook her head slightly. Her long ponytail swayed behind her. “Isn’t it winter break? I mean, if Tony found him, I assume he’s in Polytech, and they’re on break.”
“Well, he’s in Queens, actually, and his semester is a little… different.”
She still looked like she knew she was getting only half the picture, but she relented. “Fine, whatever. If you think he can help us find Tony, I’ll write up some internship thing and email the Dean.”
“Uh, principal.”
Her eyes flicked up to his, but everything else was still. They very hustle of the Compound seemed to shy away from the intensity that suddenly brewed itself between them.
“No,” she said, slowly, like if she drew out the word its power would increase enough to negate what he’d just said.
Happy shrugged helplessly. “So, I’m gonna go,” he said, and turned quickly to leave her office. He could hear her following after him.
“Happy Hogan, don’t you walk away from me!” He tried to blink himself some courage. He turned around to face Pepper. They were alone in the hallway—thankfully—because she didn’t seem preoccupied with who might overhear them. He winced at how loud she was.
“What the hell did Tony do? You mean to tell me he recruited a high-school kid?”
“Pepper, first of all—” he gestured pushing down with his hands. She interrupted before he could get to his second.
“Don’t shush me!” She said, but she lowered her voice to a forceful whisper, as she looked around surreptitiously, searching for potential eavesdroppers. Reassured there were none, she raised her voice again, but not as loud as it had been before.
“How can we possibly let a high-schooler go searching for Tony? We can’t be in charge of that! What if something dangerous happens?” Her eyes were now scrunched closed, her hand worrying at the bridge of her nose, like she was already trying to solve the PR nightmare this had the potential to become. But then she looked back up, and Happy could see that she wasn’t thinking about the company. She was worried. Worried about what it meant to bring Spider-Man onboard, and what it meant not to.
“Happy, you’re supposed to keep Tony from doing these stupid things,” she said, and it bothered Happy more than it should have; she, of all people, should know better. He had never been the guy to pluck a drink out of Tony’s hand, he just taught him how to handle the hangovers. Help him do his stupid things without getting himself killed.
“Pepper—this kid isn’t a stupid thing Tony did. It’s, he’s…” Happy cast around for what he wanted to say. He hadn’t ever bothered to think this through, no more than Tony himself or the kid had, he was sure. Playing it by ear had been fine until now. “He’s smart. And he’s capable. And he cares about Tony, okay? Like, really cares. And we need someone like that to help us find him. Tony trusts him. He gave him an AI we can use to look for them. She’s no Friday, but… We need him.
“And besides, he lives with his aunt and she sanctions what he does. More-or-less. Enough for us. So can I go get him, so we can start looking for Tony?”
Pepper dropped her shoulders in defeat. “At least tell me he’s an idiot? He got left back a bunch of times and he’s like one of those 19 or 20-year-old seniors?”
Happy shook his head. “He’s not a senior.”
“Oh, God,” Pepper moaned, and buried her face in both her hands.