“You have to sleep sometime.” Pepper sighs. She had managed to get Tony into the cramped hotel room, but he had done nothing except draw up complicated-looking plans and search the internet for building plans.

“Honestly, Tony, I feel like you’re planning a bank heist.”

Tony looks in her direction, but says nothing before scribbling something else on his paper.

“Tony Edward Stark, I mean it.” Pepper raises her voice to a stern volume, trying desperately to catch Tony’s attention and snatch him from his work.

“Sleep is for non-failures.” Tony whispers so quietly that Pepper almost wonders if she imagined him talking.

“What do you mean?” She grabs a chair and pulls it up to sit next to him.

“I failed him. Peter.” Tony shakes his head slowly. “I failed him, when he needed me most. I let him go with her, and now look at how he is. He’s attached to her, like a leech. He has no idea what happened, or who she actually is, or, or…” Tony’s shoulders convulse and his voice cracks.

“I know it’s hard for you-” Pepper says soothingly.

“Hard? Hard!” Tony laughs angrily. “Getting out of the cave was hard. Becoming Iron Man was hard. Flying into that wormhole and almost dying was just hard. This? Oh, this is on a completely different level! This is downright excruciating!” In a fit of anger, Tony throws his pencil across the room. The silence in the room was met only by Tony’s haggard breathing and the sound of a pencil leaving an indent on the wall.

“I’m going out.” Tony says to a bewildered Pepper. He stands suddenly, and breaks across the room. Grabbing his pages of work, jacket, and wallet, he heads from the hotel room stiffly, leaving Pepper in a worried silence.

Every step that Tony takes through the illuminated city brings a new emotion to his brain. So far fear, guilt, and heart-wrenching worry are all battling for the top spot in his brain. He doesn’t mind it, but it clouds his vision with anger and pushes him to move forward.

He arrive at the therapist’s office, only a few hours after closing time. 11:00. Thank goodness it would be mid-day back in New York, and Tony’s internal clock is fighting any type of sleep. Plus, it gives him a good excuse if the cops were to show up.

He tries the front door first, jiggling the old, cheap brass handle. Nothing. The door is mostly made of glass, and Tony notes that as a possibility to getting inside. First, though, he needs to check the back. He heads around the side, watching carefully for any movement around him or video camera that could capture his escapade. Nothing.

Perfect.

He finds the back door, with a more expensive, nicer handle on it. It looks like there’s a padlock as well. It probably won’t work to get in through, unless he wanted to make a lot of noise. He finally goes around the other side, pausing as he sees something unusual.

Crudely covered with fake plants and shrubbery is a small hatch. Something that definitely wasn’t on the floor plan.

Tony quickly brushes away the coverings and stares at the door. Thick steel, painted green, with rusty hinges. It’’s been here for a while. He twists the circular handle on the top, surprised with how easily it squeaks open. He wrenches it upward, not caring about how loud he’s being.

“FRIDAY, illuminate it, would you?” He says. His glasses project forward a light, and he smiles down into the pitch black tunnel, able to only see a few feet down. There’s a ladder, and it goes straight down. Picking up a small rock, Tony drops it down. Seconds pass until the sound of stone hitting stone rings back up to him.

“That’s a big drop.” He whispers to himself. “But, that’s never stopped me before.” Swiftly, Tony moves into the hatch and starts to climb down the ladder.

It takes a few minutes of careful climbing, but he eventually gets to the bottom. Or at least, what feels like the bottom.

“This wasn’t on the floor plan at all.” He says. He amplifies the light, and a whole room looks back at him. He manages to find a small light switch and blink on pure white fluorescent lights. Blinking, he turns off the light coming from his glasses and surveys the room.

In the middle of the room sits a large leather chair. Fastened to the armrests are two thick straps, with large metal clamps to hold them down. There’s a foot rest coming from the bottom of the seat, also with restraints. Above the chair, suspended like a star in the sky, is a large helmet. Tony moves to it, inspecting the wiring and pieces. Inside are small suction cup-looking things.

He places his hand against it, and the machine quietly whirs to life, grasping his hand with an unbreakable force.

“What the-?!” Tony tears his hand off the machine, listening to the dull whirring as it falls back to sleep and the sound of tearing skin. His hand is covered in red blisters from the weird helmet, with several spots already starting to bleed. Okay, so escape from this thing is almost literally impossible.

Another object in the almost-empty room catches Tony’s eye. He moves from the machine to a small computer in the corner. He swipes the mouse across the desk, watching the old, dusty screen blink to life.

The sound of a body colliding roughly with stone causes Tony to turn around. Groaning brings him to the entrance of the room. A flashing thought appears at the front of his mind: he doesn’t have anything to protect him with.

“Who’s there?” Tony barks.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark.” Peter’s voice is laced with pain. Wait, Peter?!

“Peter?!” Tony sprints across the room and throws himself on the ground to kneel by Peter’s side. “What are you doing here, kid?”

“Following you.” Peter smiles meekly up at Tony.

“Why in God’s name are you doing that?”

“After I saw you earlier… I got these weird flashes of things. Memories, I think. Sir, I was thinking that you could help. I’ve been following you since you left my house, actually.”

“I… what kind of memories?” Tony helps Peter to sit against the wall. He’s dressed in a plain blue t-shirt and a pair of jeans that are way too big for him.

“God, what happened to you, kid?” Tony mutters under his breath.

“Memories like…” Peter searches his mind for a good one to use. “I was on this plane in a dark box. I got out and I was in another country. I was in a weird alleyway and this guy found me.”

“You remember that?”

“Sort of. It’s really weird, Mr. Stark. It’s like I don’t remember them, but they feel… they just feel…” Peter blows air through his mouth in frustration. “It’s like this: you know when you are putting together a puzzle and you find a piece that looks right, so you put it in. And once you put it in, it fits perfectly, but it looks a bit off. Of course, it’s definitely supposed to go there, but for whatever reason, it just seems… off?”

“That’s how it feels?”

“No.” A look crosses Peter’s face, and something behind his eyes click. “No. The memories that I remember, everything else. Everything with May, with Ben, that all feels like the puzzle piece. The memory that I just remembered feels right. Like it fits perfectly.”

**********

“I’m not about to lose my best test subject because you don’t know how to parent a kid!” The Doctor screams in May’s face. He’s so close that she can spell the sour anger in his breath and the poison laced through his voice.

“I assure you, I have my ways of tracking the kid.” She says stiffly, trying not to breath through her nose.

“Listen,” The Doctor takes a deep breath and pinches the bridge of his nose, “I know that getting this kid back is important to you, so we both need to work hard to achieve that. Right?”

“Yeah, of course.” May crosses her arms. She’s still not completely pleased with this guy’s attitude.

“So… do you have a way to track him?”

“Maybe.”

“Please,” The Doctor says in an exasperated voice, “I know you keep him under lock and key. The last thing I need right now is for you to be difficult.”

“Alright.” May pulls out a small device from her pocket. Fiddling around with the buttons, she pauses on the screen for a few minutes. It beeps, and a green line zips across the screen.

“You’ll find him at the end of that line.” She tosses the device to the Doctor. He fumbles with it, barely catching it before it hits the ground.

“Where is this?” He says, gesturing to the final destination at the end of the line.

“Looks like it’s your office.” She shrugs. The Doctor’s face darkens.

“Before I go,” The Doctor says to her, “how much attachment do you have to this kid?”

“He’s my family. My last blood.” She says, yawning as if it was unimportant. She snaps to attention and her eyes burn with fire as she continues. “The only thing that can make Tony Stark suffer. Don’t beat him up too bad. Just enough that he gets the hint.”

“That’s usually the case with these situations.” The Doctor nods.

“And your reason?” May says, turning a curious eye to him. “You looked for me, remember. Obviously you have something against him.”

“Him and Tony Stark.” The Doctor laughs. It’s the kind of laugh that brings a chill down your spine, as it conveys the exact opposite of the joy a laugh is supposed to supply.

“And, why is that?”

“They took everything from me. I tried to get information from them, and it ended poorly for me. Most of the people that worked for me got found by the police. Everything was stolen from me, and all I have left is the desire to get rid of them both.” As the emotion in his voice rises, an indistinguishable accent breaks through, thickening his words and casting an evil shadow across his face.

“Well, if it’s anything like what I’m going after, you’ll get it eventually.” May gives a half-hearted smile.

“You better be right. Because this is going to be nothing like Iran.”

/AN/ guys I actually found a way to write with a keyboard on my phone so hallelujah! I am SO happy. Anyways, I know this is a short chaoger, but I wanted to update. I'm going to cinque this story even though endgame destroyed my will to live... thank you all for being so amazing. I don't know what I'd do without you all. Lots of love. /AN/