Chapter Text
FRIDAY’s jarring voice cut through Tony’s mid-morning meeting.
“Boss, I have detected a possibly dangerous situation surrounding Peter Parker.”
Tony stood instantly, leaving a room of very important people without so much as a second glance. Pepper would handle it. “What is it, FRI?”
“Karen reported a stress signal shortly before Peter became offline.”
His heart skipped a beat. “Offline?”
“Neither Peter nor Karen are currently on our radar.”
“What do you mean, ‘not on our radar?’” Tony hoped beyond hope Peter had simply tampered with his suit. He’d scold the kid, pretend to ground him, and privately melt into a puddle of relief and dying adrenaline. “Did the kid hack his suit?”
“I doubt it, Boss. This seems to have been product of outside sources, given the distress signal and possible injury.”
His breath quickened, and he redoubled his pace. Tony needed… he didn’t know what he needed. His kid safe, for one thing. Maybe a couple shots. The avengers seemed a fair choice. “Describe the signal and injury.”
“Peter seemed to have sustained blunt force trauma to the back of the skull, resulting in unconscious, however his vitals remained steady. Karen lost connection four seconds after the blow.”
Tony began to run.
***
Peter woke with a groan, rubbing a violently sore spot on his head. What had happened?
“Look who’s finally awake!”
His eyes shot open. The man in front of him was fairly nondescript: brown hair and eyes, medium skin. He was neither tall nor short. But it was the slightly unstable glint in his eyes that set Peter on high alert. “Hello?” He responded cautiously, using the opportunity to scan his surroundings. Grey iron walls stared back at him, some sort of crude cell. His wrists and ankles were bound and already tingling from blood loss. He tugged at them surreptitiously, disappointment flooding him at the lack of give. A competent kidnapping, then. Just great.
The man smiled. “Peter Parker. You are a difficult man to track down.”
Peter shrugged as much as he could with bound arms. “What can I say, I’m pretty busy these days. Although, you do realize there were easier ways to reach me, right? I have a cellphone you know. We could have grabbed coffee.”
The man, who Peter had decided to call Jeff, laughed coolly. “You’ve got a mouth on you.”
“I’ve been told it’s my best quality.”
Jeff’s smile slid into something more menacing. “You’ll do well to tame that particular quality here boy, you hear me?”
Peter faked a wince, because he clearly did not know when to shut up. “Yeah, hate to say it, but I’m not very good at that. My teachers all say-“
His head jerked backwards as a fist collided with his nose. Peter just barely avoided toppling backwards. “Hey man, not cool!” Warm blood was leaking down his chin. “At least buy me dinner before you put your hands on me.”
CRACK!
This time, he really did fall, curling instinctively around the searing pain in his ribs. Somewhat dully, he registered the man slipping a pair of metal knuckles back into his pocket. Jeff kneeled down next to the panting teen with an almost manic expression painting his sallow face. “You’ll learn,” he murmured, brushing dirty hair away from Peter’s bloody forehead. “You’ll learn soon enough.”
He left before Peter had the breath to respond.