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Tony groaned when he became aware, the crick in his neck painful and his arms feeling like they were being stretched thin and prickling from falling asleep. He must have slept on his arms or something, and God his head hurt and--
Where the fuck was he?
The billionaire blinked, squinting to try and see better in the dark room that he found himself in, but colors fizzled and danced across his vision, making him unable to actually take anything in, but it was easy enough to tell what was going on. He sighed in annoyance. Being kidnapped was awful enough by itself, but he had a date with Pepper tonight! He'd barely seen her all week and now this. It was really quite rude.
Finally becoming more aware of his surroundings, he took in his situation. He was chained to a wall by his wrists, his feet unable to touch the ground that was barely half a foot under him. The room was pitch black, so he couldn't make out anything inside it--and whether he was actually alone or not--that is until he heard a soft moan.
His head whipped to where he thought he'd heard it, his neck cracking painfully as he did so, but it didn't matter, because he recognized that voice. And that was bad. Really bad. But he kept silent, closing his eyes and hoping beyond hope that it wasn't Penny Parker who had been kidnapped with him. Because it couldn't be. It couldn't be that sweet kid he'd sent home without a suit barely two weeks ago. It couldn't be the well meaning but danger prone teenager that had looked at him with such anger and hurt and guilt that his arm had shook so hard he'd had to clutch it. It couldn't be.
But it was.
She groaned a second time, the pained sound escaping her lips he was sure unwillingly, and he heard the clink of chains and shuffling as the girl moved around. He opened his mouth to say something, but she spoke first, her voice timid and confused. He almost flinched.
"Mr...Mr. Stark?" she said, her voice breaking through the blanketed darkness.
"Yep," he affirmed, "You okay, kid?"
"Um, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Are you?"
"Right as rain." A moment of awkward silence passed as he still tried to break through the darkness, but still nothing. So, instead he asked, "What do you remember about getting here?"
"Umm..." Penny hummed as she thought, and he racked his brain for his own answer as well. He didn't remember much other than driving on the long road to the compound to approve something. He think he remembered a flash of purple, but it was hard to tell, "I was going to homecoming, and--and, I don't know. A flash of purple?"
Okay, so the purple had actually happened then, but the kid was definitely not telling him something. He doubted he could drag it out of her at the moment, so he hummed instead. The flash of purple was a little more concerning. Probably some kind of alien tech, but why take the kid? What was the point? Or had she already made that many enemies? God, and he'd taken away the suit and now nobody knew where they were and if anything happened to the kid--
He had to stop. He had to stop and do his breathing exercises and keep a clear head and keep Penny safe. She was priority number one, and he couldn't forget that.
"Our stories line up then. Same thing happened to me, but less school."
"Oh."
"Can you break out of those cuffs?" he asked, tugging at his own experimentally, though he already knew it was no use.
"Um, uh, maybe," she mumbled. A grunt followed the clink! and thump! as the girl tugged at her cuffs. At the first attempt being proven unsuccessful, the girl continued to tug at the chains cuffing her to the wall. He listened intently as the metal began to crunch and the wall splinter, and he wished he hadn't been listening as closely as he had.
Penny had been working on her cuffs for barely a minute when she screamed. It was loud and scared and in so much pain. It hurt his own heart, as though whatever pain Penny was feeling, he was feeling it too.
"Kid!? Hey, Penny! What's happening!? Kid?" he choked out as the girl screamed, but he doubted she even heard him, as the scream turned to sobs.
He didn't know how long--probably not more than a few minutes--until whatever had just happened stopped. Penny's sobs quieted down, replaced by sniffles as she tried to choke down her cries. This was a nightmare. This was his nightmare. To see and hear this kid in pain, in pain because she was kidnapped and he couldn't do a thing to help her.
"Sorry, sorry," Penny gasped, her voice tremulous.
"You're good," he assured, wincing at the apologies, "That was the cuffs, right?"
"Yeah, they like--I don't know, they--"
She cut herself off, her sentence ending suddenly, and he tensed, preparing himself for her to start screaming again, but that didn't happen. Instead, light finally flooded the room--making him flinch and close his eyes--and a door to his left was thrown open. Tony blinked his eyes open, squinting harshly against the light as a man walked in the room.
"Painful, aren't they?" the man asked in a sing song voice. He stepped further into the room, stopping in between the two of them, and giving them a smile. It was crooked and his skin practically gray, a scar running from his eye down his bald head. It was pink and obviously still fresh, the eye on that side blind and lazy, but more alarming was the metal contraption running up and down his right arm.
It protruded in a painful looking way, eerily purple and obviously complicated. He couldn't tell if it was some underground medical experiment or some kind of enhancer, but he didn't like the look of it, and he liked the amused expression sent Penny's way even less.
"Your face looks painful," Penny spat before he could say anything, and he cringed.
The man's face went furious for a fleeting second, his features twisted and wrinkled in rage, before smoothing out into a cruel smile and walking closer to Penny.
Now finally able to see the kid he could tell that, well, she was a mess. Tear tracks stained her face, her hair--obviously straightened and then curled back into ringlets earlier that night--was frizzing out. She wore a deep blue suit with a flamingo-print bow. She looked impossibly young, but her face was set and determined as she stared at the man in front of her, her eyes guarded.
"It is painful," the man replied, "It hurts all the time. Do you know why that is?"
"You hurt yourself? Walked into a wall, maybe?" Tony quipped, doing his best to keep attention off of the kid. It didn't really work.
Pointing an accusing finger at Penny, the man said, "She hurt me. And you arrested me."
"Yeah, I don't remember doing that," the billionaire responded, and the man scowled. The look of confusion on Penny's face shifted to realization, and she looked at the man, mouth agape.
"You were the buyer," she said aloud, and he watched as pain filled her eyes as she looked at the scars and the machine on the man, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, I was just trying to keep those weapons--"
"Shut up!" the man barked, darting at Penny almost inhumanly fast, grabbing her face and pushing her farther up into the wall. Tony yelled in protest, pulling at his chains.
"Hey! She's just a kid!"
"Yeah, just a kid who fucked up my career. You got the Feds after me now, huh?" the man responded.
It clicked. Tony pulled against his chains harder, letting his face twist into a terrifying scowl as he glared at the man, "That was me. I alerted the FBI." The man looked at him uncertainly, still clutching Penny's face, who was watching him with wide eyes, "MacDonald Gargan, 37 years old, wanted for multiple felonies, including three known accounts of first-degree murder."
Gargan didn't let go of Penny's face, continuing to snarl at him, "You reported me."
"Yeah, and you better not hurt her. If you think an Iron Man suit isn't making its way down here right now, you are dead wrong. Literally."
"I would think twice about that, Stark. It's moving day, isn't it?" Tony's resolve waivered for a fleeting moment, but it was long enough for Gargan to notice, and he smiled, "I think everyone's a bit busy, and I'm sure they'll be even busier finding out where all your tech is."
"Excuse me?" he challenged.
"Oh, you know, take Iron Man's tech when he's out and it's all unprotected. I kill you two tonight, and I get a cut of that."
What? But his plane, it was invisible and untraceable, at least, it was supposed to be. And if someone got that tech, sold it on the black market to terrorist groups or--
"Please," Penny sassed, rolling his eyes, and they both looked at her in confusion, "I'm not an idiot, you think I didn't tell anybody that I was going after a guy who was stealing Mr. Stark's tech? I told my friend, he called Happy Hogan, people already know something's up."
Gargan scowled and Tony sighed in relief. Okay, so Penny had definitely lied about homecoming, but at least she'd told Happy. Well, had her friend tell Happy, and he hoped the man had picked up despite his habit not to, and stopped the plane from taking off. His relief lasted barely a second.
"Well, maybe I won't get paid, but I still get the pleasure of killing you," Gargan growled, and Tony's eyes narrowed, "But how to do it? I've been thinking about it all night, and I just can't think of the right one. Drown you, stab you, choke you? I could also get some fun in before the night is over." He looked Penny up and down hungrily, and for the first time Penny wavered, shrinking away from him as best she could.
"You touch her, you're dead," Tony growled.
"I've got the alien tech here," Gargan responded, waving his arm with the purple protrudences. Tony opened his mouth to say something, but then he was gone and there was a loud CRASH!!
Tony flinched back in surprise, but barely paid a glance to the man now crumpled up on the floor on the opposite wall. Instead, he looked at Penny, who had stuck her feet to the wall and was now staring at him, her eyes wide and her face pale.
"Guess he should've cuffed your legs too," he joked, nodding towards the man who had been kicked so hard the wall had splintered. Penny smiled weakly.
"Yeah, I guess. Ah, are you okay?"
"I'm fine, kid, he didn't even touch me. What about you? How are you doing?"
"Fine, fine," Penny muttered, once again beginning to break her cuffs. Except this time she swung her legs and did some weird flip that he hadn't known was even possible, kicking the concrete wall enough to break her cuffs from the wall and free her. From there she managed to actually take them off and scramble over to him. Her hands shook as she crumpled the metal encasing his wrists, but she refused to look at him.
"You did good, kid. You did really good," he praised once she'd freed him, but Penny just shook her head.
"I got kidnapped."
"Happens to the best of us."
"How'd he get out of jail?"
"He must have some buddies, don't worry, I'll take care of it," he assured, beginning to lead her away from the man crumpled on the floor. Clearly a little out of it, she followed, allowing him to find their way out of the building that turned out to be some warehouse in Brooklyn filled with plenty of incriminating evidence against the guys Penny had been chasing.
"What's with the suit, kid?" he asked, the conversation awkward but better than the silence.
"It's homecoming," she answered simply.
"Ah, and beating up bad guys it better than high school dances? I actually agree with you on that one."
"I had a date," Penny muttered, and he winced.
"I'm sorry, kid. I'm sure you can reschedule."
"I mean, her dad tried to kill me, so maybe not."
"What?"
"Her dad's the flying vulture guy."
He shook his head, "Only you, kid."