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Tony opened the box as soon as it arrived. He’d scrambled to the door when FRIDAY informed him a box had been dropped off at the door, and had flung the door open to see if he could catch the person who dropped it off—to no avail. They’d scattered out of the way as soon as possible, leaving Tony to stare at the wooden container on his doorstep. He picked it up and opened it in the hallway, not bothering to return to the workshop in safety.
And then he stopped breathing as he saw its contents.
Hair. There was hair in the box, just a lock of brown hair that would have been creepy on its own, except for the fact that Tony knew who those curls belonged to, and tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.
Rhodey reached forward to shut the door when Tony found himself unable to. His best friend remained silent as he, too, peered into the contents of the box and saw the hair.
“Is that—?” Rhodey queried, but Tony didn’t let him finish the sentence.
“Those sick fucks,” Tony growled.
It was Peter’s hair. They’d taken him—right off the street, when he was walking back from school, all because they’d assumed he was Tony Stark’s secret illegitimate child. Some assholes had taken him, and had sent Tony a text saying they had “his kid”, and Tony hadn’t clocked that they meant Peter. So he’d sent them a sarcastic reply telling them he needed proof of life, because he didn’t have kids so they were obviously lying, some scammer.
Except then Peter’s aunt had called asking where Peter was, and so Tony had launched a nationwide search for Peter, recruiting all of the superheroes he knew. He, in turn, had been sat waiting by the phone, hoping they’d call him and let him speak to Peter—thereby giving him the proof of life.
He hadn’t meant for them to send a fucking lock of his hair.
Tony hadn’t intentionally asked for proof of life at all, but he wanted to be sick even so. He wanted to be sick, and also throw something, and kill the son of a bitch behind this whole scheme, and get Peter back as soon as possible. He stared into the box—there was a small piece of white paper in the bottom of it with a series of numbers on it. Tony thrust the box at Rhodey, who took it instinctively, grabbed his phone, punching in the phone number on the scrawled piece of paper, and then pressed the call button. It rang for a torturously long time, during which Rhodey decided to speak up.
“Don’t you think you should consider not calling the kidnappers?” Rhodey suggested, the supposed voice of reason who was clearly out of his mind. As if he was just going to ignore the tantalising phone number that could connect him to speaking with the people who had Peter (who were going to be dead by the end of the day, once Tony was done with them). “That might be what they want from you.”
May had suggested that Tony had someone with him whilst he waited for the phone to ring—she and Happy were scouting New York with the assistance of FRIDAY, looking for potential warehouses he could be kept in. Looking over Peter’s last steps. Rhodey had naturally volunteered for the job of watching over Tony.
It was ridiculous. He didn’t need a fucking babysitter. He was fine.
“No,” Tony snarled at his best friend as the phone continued to ring. “FRIDAY, track them when this call picks up. I’ll keep the bastard on the other end of the line long enough for us to figure out where he’s based.”
FRIDAY made a noise of affirmation, and Tony set his jaw as there was the telltale noise of the phone connecting to the call.
“You sick fuck.” He was too enraged to think of an original insult, so that was what he answered the phone with.
A cruel laugh came back as they clearly recognised his voice—despite how flat it was in comparison to Tony’s usual performing voice on stage.
“You asked for proof of life, Stark,” the kidnapper told him, and it made the hairs on Tony’s arm rise instantly.
Tony spat back, “I wanted a phone call, dipshit, not his hair in a box.”
“Well, we did give you what you asked for,” The kidnapper replied. “He’s very…well, he’s not what I expected from a kid of Tony Stark. I thought he’d be a little brat, dramatic and rude. But he’s kind. Keeps complimenting my associates. I’m presuming you didn’t raise him.”
Tony had to stop himself from making a pained noise—of course Peter was complimenting the kidnappers, he was Peter. All he knew was being kind, it was in his nature to do that.
“Where is he?” Tony demanded, and Rhodey shot him one of the are you insane? glances he saved just for situations where Tony was being reckless. “Let me talk to him.”
“I’ve got him here in this very room.” He teased. “He’s listening to everything I’m saying.”
He wanted to say that Peter wasn’t his kid, but then there’d be no reason for them to keep him alive. There was no point saying it. They’d think he was lying, in any case. He just had to go along with it.
“Let him go, you asshole, he’s just a kid,” Tony hissed into the phone. “You have no idea what you’re getting into, I can wreck you with a single blast—”
“Careful, Stark. I’d be careful. We’ve got your boy, after all.”
“How dare y—” Tony was about to go off into a rant about you better count your days and hope you enjoy breathing whilst you still can and I’m going to kill you in ways you don’t even know could end someone’s life but Rhodey snatched the phone from him and put it on speaker, glaring at Tony.
His best friend spoke into the phone, calm. “This is Colonel Rhodes from the US Air Force speaking, also known as War Machine.”
The kidnapper paused for a second, but didn’t seem too phased by the change in voice or the fact that the person he was speaking to was one of the most feared men in America. “I thought you went by Iron Patriot these days.”
Tony was practically fuming with rage, his brain spilling about a thousand different insults and comments to try and get Peter back, but Rhodey was unemotional in his response. “That’s besides the point. What do you want?”
It was a flat demand. Rhodey didn’t care about anything else, didn’t care about speaking to Peter or making sure he was alright—he did, but he wasn’t as obvious in showing it as Tony was.
“Three million. In cash.”
“Where?” Rhodey responded instantly.
Three million. Tony could pay that, easy. He would pay triple that just to be able to see Peter, but he wasn’t exactly going to go yelling about it.
“That’s not it,” The kidnapper continued. “Boy’s a precious commodity to your Anthony, isn’t he? I can tell that, so I think we can get away with asking for more. So. I’d like one of his suits. I know he’s got spares, and they run on nanotechnology nowadays, so it’ll fit me no matter my measurements. Don’t play games.”
He wants one of the suits? Let’s give him one. Hell, let’s give him two, one with Tony inside and the other encasing Rhodey. All they needed was the location of wherever the bastard was keeping Peter, and then they were free to go and commit some illegal actions.
“Where are you?” Rhodey asked, carefully not agreeing to any of the demands. “Where do you want us to exchange goods?”
“Hmmm,” The kidnapper toyed, dragging out the syllable. “I think I’ll need a couple of hours to think about it and call you back. Gotta see if that’s all the boy is worth to you.”
Tony was about to make a vile comment that the kidnapper would have heard, so Rhodey hung up the phone quickly, obviously sensing that they weren’t going to get any more information out of the man and that he was just playing.
“FRIDAY, please tell me you got their location?” Rhodey asked.
“I have it,” she confirmed, and displayed it on the screen, showing some abandoned warehouse in upstate New York. (Of course it was, it always had to be those abandoned warehouses).
Rhodey slunk back in relief. “Thank god.”
But Tony was rounding on Rhodey, demanding answers. “Why’d you pull the phone off me?”
“Tony,” Rhodey just stared at him. “You were two seconds away from hanging up the phone, and then we’d have lost him—and Peter—forever. We had to stay on that call for longer—it takes up to a minute for FRIDAY to trace a call, you know that, and you almost blew it, so I took over. You gotta get a handle on yourself, man.”
Deep down, somewhere, Tony knew he was right. Tony’s emotions had clouded his judgement—he’d heard the man’s mocking tone of voice and had lashed out at not only him, but also at Rhodey, who deserved an apology. But there was no logic left in him whatsoever, only rage, so the apology would have to be scheduled for some time after they’d dealt with this.
Someone—this bastard—had taken Peter, and he was going to pay for it. As soon as possible.
“Let’s go and kill this son of a bitch,” Tony growled, his eyes scanning back over the holographic map, and Rhodey’s faceplate flipped down. He’d been donning the suit ever since he arrived at the Tower.
“FRIDAY, be a dear and set us both a flight path for that fuck-knows-where warehouse, would you?” Tony asked, suit covering his body as he tapped the arc reactor.
“Already done, boss,” FRIDAY’s voice filtered through the suit and he took a deep breath.
“Let’s do this.”
They did. It took a good ten minutes to fly at full speed from the Tower to the warehouse’s location, and then maybe twenty minutes of coordinating the others who were nearby and incapacitating everyone who was guarding the place before they could infiltrate inside and stalk their way to the room where Peter was being kept.
It was like a beautiful twist of fate that the only person guarding Peter in the room was the kidnapper he’d spoken to on the phone—a bald man Tony had literally never seen before in his entire life. He knew it was the same guy as on the phone because he’d been talking to Peter in a low voice, proclaiming something about how Stark didn’t care enough to come and rescue you when Tony slammed open the door.
He didn’t hesitate to rush forward and get the guy in a headlock almost instantly. Bald dude was unarmed, and unable to speak with the weight of the metal restraints that were Tony’s arms. Tony twisted the man’s neck harshly, and he let out a cry of pain.
But then Tony’s eyes fell on Peter, who was tied to a chair with his hands behind his back, staring at Tony. His eyes were wide as he watched the situation in front of him.
“Don’t,” Peter said breathily—panting, really. He had bruises all over his face and there was blood trickling down his forehead, but he repeated his words despite the pain he must have been going through.“Don’t kill him.”
Tony’s brain was out of it—he wasn’t computing, only knew rage and that this was revenge and he needed to hurt and punish. So he clung onto the man, still, his eyes focused on Peter.
“Please,” Peter breathed. “Don’t.”
And Tony let him out of the headlock, giving him one second to take a singular breath and then punched him in the head hard enough to knock him out for several hours. Not enough to do lasting damage, though.
Peter stared at the kidnapper, not saying anything. As he turned his head, Tony saw the patch on his head where the lock of curls was missing, and it made his heart twang. Peter’s hair had been cut off for this sick game, this sick psychological experiment to see how much Tony cared about him.
Tony glanced at the bald man on the floor too, a little sheepish, and felt the need to clarify that it wasn’t going to kill him, that punch. The burning rage he’d felt tear through him was gone, replaced with some kind of emotion he couldn’t name. He could hear his heart thumping in his chest. “I didn’t—he’s just unconscious.”
“I know,” Peter swallowed. There was a moment’s silence.
“God, kid,” Tony choked, and then he was rushing forward and going to undo Peter’s handcuffs and touching his shoulder and his face and making sure he was okay—he wasn’t okay, he couldn’t be, but he was alive and that was what mattered really, wasn’t it? “God.”
“You came to get me,” Peter mumbled, a small smile on his face. He gestured to the bald man. “He said you wouldn’t.”
Tony swallowed. “Of course I did.”
Peter had no idea just how much he cared, did he?
Well. That would be something he’d be correcting in the future. For now, though, he had more pressing matters to attend to—like giving the kid the biggest hug of his life.
Rhodey had been dealing with a couple of stragglers from the other rooms whilst Tony had focused on getting to Peter as soon as possible, so it was several minutes before he appeared in the room, and when he did, he found Peter in Tony’s arms. They were clutched tight to each other, Peter’s head on Tony’s shoulder. Tony had his kid back, and he was no longer looking like a cross-between a terrified parent and someone about to go into an MMA fight. Rhodey let out a breath of relief. Thank god. They were both safe. Safe and alive.