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“You talk too much Tony Stark,” the heavily accented voice said harshly into his ear before his head was thrust straight back into the water. Tony barely had time to inhale a quick breath through his nose before he was submerged again. They were being particularly cruel with his water boarding today, leaving a cloth in his mouth and tied around his head as a crude gag. It didn’t allow him to breath in lungfuls of air through his mouth when they pulled his head up and he was left choking as if he was still in the water. Then again, their cruelty was, this time, prompted. They were laying in on Peter today and Tony wasn’t going to let that slide, let them put their hands on him while he just stood there and let it happen. So, he put a stop to it by doing what he did best. Run his mouth. Draw attention to himself. And it had worked. Tony had worried that they would turn their eyes and hands back to Peter, figuring out that the only real hurt and torture that Tony couldn’t endure was watching them hurt his kid. But they knew his reputation and didn’t think he would get attached to the kid. Hell, Tony hadn’t believed it himself at the beginning but here he was.
A reason why he could stand this torture, the difference between this torture and the others, other than the gag, was that it was on Tony’s terms. Not that the Ten Rings knew that, but Tony had voluntarily signed himself up for this one without a second thought to protect Peter. He knew this would happen and he wanted it to. If they were hurting him, they weren’t hurting Peter. The one thing he hadn’t expected was that they would wrap a wire around his throat and strangle him first.
He had, for a moment, thought that he was going to be killed with one of the things he was the master of and all he had cared about in that moment was that he didn’t want the kid to see him die. He knew with a heart like Peter had, he would blame himself and torture himself with it for the rest of his life and Tony didn’t want to cause Peter any pain at all if he could help it. Then they had used it to drag him out of the room (or section of cave really) and, even though the pressure on his neck was worse, he was relieved that at least Peter wouldn’t have to watch it. He was sure that, over the ringing in his ears, he could hear Peter screaming. It was muffled, and even though it broke Tony’s heart, he knew that it wasn’t because they were hurting him.
They had released the wire as soon as they had reached what Tony not so fondly called the torture chamber and he was able to regain his breath, coughing on his knees, getting his lungs to work again. Those were the last steady breaths he would be able to take in a while. Tony had lost all sense of time, but he felt that this session with the water trough was taking longer than the others had. That made sense, Tony thought faintly, he had really annoyed them this time.
Just go to your happy place, Tony thought to himself. If he had had the air, he might have huffed a laugh at the irony that his happy place, instead of being in his lab or in Malibu, was just a few stone walls away. Even though he deeply hated this place and all he was being put through, he was the happiest he had ever been when left alone in the cave with a certain eight year old. His happy place was the bright smiles he could coax out of Peter, could watch spread over his grimy face, the brightest thing in the cave. His happy place was in the laugh that filled the room, even if it was a tiny giggle muffled in a blanket as they huddled under it together. It was in eyes that lit up whenever Tony did anything that he himself considered not special or when he returned after having left for a little while. It was a person. His person. Peter.
They yanked his head out of the water again and this time used their grip on his hair to throw him to the stone ground. Tony continued choking, spasming on the ground as his body continued to fight to expel the water and inhale the air it desperately needed, his gag stopping both of those actions. His captors were saying something over him but Tony didn’t hear it. He could feel himself being grabbed again and dread and fear filled him until he felt himself being dragged out of the room by his arms, not to the water by his hair.
Time was still moving sluggishly, so much so that Tony was surprised when he was suddenly dropped to the ground, body convulsing again as what little air he had managed to inhale was knocked out of him. They kicked him once then left. It was only seconds later that Tony felt a hand in his hair and flinched back but the hands only eased his head onto something soft before nimble fingers began unpicking the knot that kept the gag tightly in place, stretching the edges of Tony’s lips. When it finally fell away, Tony turned instantly onto his side and started to throw up the water that had been trapped by the gag, breathing in harshly as glorious amazing air finally began entering his lungs again. When he was done and his breathing on its way to being normal again, he went limp. It was only then that he noticed the fingers running gently through his hair, soothing his smarting scalp, or the hand that was rubbing his back. Or the soft sobs that Tony could just about make out.
His eyes snapped open as he turned his sore body onto his back, belatedly realizing the soft surface his head was on was Peter’s lap. He looked up, straight into Peter’s puffy eyes that were overflowing with tears.
“Tony!” he gasped. Then his sobs increased. The hand that was rubbing his back had come up when he turned and now its fingers were tracing a line across his neck. Tony winced, he had a feeling there was a necklace of bruises along there. The hand immediately began to retreat and Tony put all his will power and energy into moving his arm to catch Peter’s hand. He squeezed.
“I’m so sorry,” Peter whined in between breaths. “Why did you do that? You shouldn’t have done that. They hurt you so bad, you can’t breathe, you can’t talk-”
“Talking is overrated,” Tony cut him off, voice raspy and hoarse. Well that wasn’t going to comfort him any. But he couldn’t let Peter continue and work himself up any more than he had undoubtedly done while Tony was away. He was already on the edge of hyperventilating. “I’m okay, Roo, I’m fine. I’m here. And none of this was your fault.”
“But-” Peter began.
“None of it,” Tony said firmly, squeezing Peter’s hand again. Tears began slipping down his cheeks again.
“I wish I could save you too. Like you always save me,” Peter cried, bending his head down over Tony’s chest.
“You do, Pete. Who do you think I think about to keep me sane in there. Hell, who do you think keeps me sane in here?” Tony wrapped his arm around him and used one hand to stroke through his hair. It used to be so knotted, now it doesn’t have a chance to get like that with how much Tony runs his hands through it. “You’re my happy place, Peter.”
Peter sniffed softly. “You’re my happy place too, dad.” Tony’s heart constricted then exploded, releasing a warmth that spread throughout his body, warming his icy limbs. His tightened his arms around his kid and pressed a kiss to his head. He looked down at Peter, his tattered clothes, dirty hands gripping onto Tony, his tear stained face. But despite all that, his eyes were closed and his expression was peaceful as he rested on Tony’s chest. There was a small smile on his face.
“Tell me again,” Peter whispered into the dark. Tony’s arm curled under his head as he was tucked into him under the blankets. “Tell me what it will be like.”
Tony opened his eyes and tried to focus on Peter. He could only make out his curls in the soft glow of his arc reactor. “We will live in my mansion. Wherever we want that to be. And it will be our mansion. We can fill it with whatever we want.
This routine happened almost every night. It was comforting for both of them. To imagine the future they have outside this cave. Contemplating a future in this cave would destroy them and if there was one thing Tony wanted to preserve from this hell, it was Peter.
“With a pool?”
Tony smiled. “We will have a huge pool. And we can swim in it whenever we want. We could swim together every morning or afternoon or evening or all three. We could spend all day in there if you wanted.” Peter suggested something new every night. Yesterday it was a bouncy castle. The day before it was a teddy bear. He had said it would have been a night light, but he already had Tony for that. “Whatever you need.”
“I just need you.” Peter snuffled sleepily, head tucked into Tony’s neck. Tony’s heart sped up.
“I just need you too, Roo,” Tony whispered into his hair, a lump in his throat.
“That rhymes!” Peter giggled softly, mostly asleep.
Tony smiled, “Yeah, it does.”
“Tell me more, please?” Peter said into his neck. And so Tony did. He told him about the life they will have until Peter’s breaths evened out and he fell asleep.
Looking down at his kid now, Tony felt an idea implant itself in his mind and begin growing. They wanted him to build? Fine. But it would be for Peter and the future they created in whispered, desperate, hopeful conversations in the dark. Tony was getting Peter out of here. And he had an idea as to how. It would involve Peter’s nightlight.