Haste Makes Waste
Eight hours of sleep was overrated.
Tony discovered that early on in his life. As long as he obtained enough REM cycles, he could easily go two or three days with a few naps here and there. Four, even, depending on how rampant his brain was running.
It was a destructive thing to learn, and something Rhodey gave him much slack for. But in times like these, it came in handy.
He slept between the processing sequences that rebuilt his Mark 37 armor. FRIDAY would inform him of the time span that the suit needed to re-sync itself, and he would utilize the break from working relentlessly to doze off.
His neck was greatly unappreciative to the awkward sleeping positions, but he kept going. Taking short naps that were interrupted by FRIDAY's voice telling him the next synchronization had been completed, and he'd wake up and return to restructuring the armor.
DUM-E eventually brought him a stiff pillow and laid it next to him. Tony didn't have much use for it.
The brief moments of rest, at least, provided him with inspiration. Somewhere between the suits final syncing procedure and his fifth nap did he start working on analog web-shooters.
It wasn’t a thought he wanted to consider, but the chances of Peter having any weaponry to defend himself was slim to none. From his own experiences under captivity, the kidnappers didn’t typically let him keep his Iron Man armor. It wouldn’t surprise him if the kid were bare of his spider tech — especially considering, no matter how many times he ran searches on the suits tracker, it never came back with any results.
Tony hated the idea of Peter out there, somewhere, without his suits defenses. It made him sick to his stomach. In all honesty, he hoped that the new web-shooters wouldn’t need to be used at all.
Still, he wanted to be prepared.
He was in the middle of testing them when Rhodey entered the workshop.
“Tony, FRIDAY said you were — whoa!”
Rhodey sidestepped just in time — a thick stream of webbing smacked straight against the automatic doors the moment he walked through. Following the strand with his eyes, he found it originated from Tony; his hand outstretched, with two fingers pressed firmly against the device strapped around his wrist.
Rhodey arched an eyebrow. “What’s this about?”
Tony lowered his arm, detaching the web-shooter in the process.
“Reinforced webbing fluid,” he answered, fiddling with the metal device as he spoke. “I tweaked Peter’s formula so that the tensile strength is enhanced from 1.3 gigapascal to about 1.8. It’s not much, I could only do so much with a couple hours to spare. I had to sacrifice the imbibed esters, but I figured if the kid’s going to be using these, we won’t want the stuff to dissolve anyway, right?”
The mania leaking into Tony's every word could be heard clear as day. As he fiddled with the sleek metal gadgets, Rhodey watched on with an empty expression; trying to process what he just heard, while simultaneously realizing Tony was sleep deprived from overworking his brain.
Looking around, Rhodey noticed that the workshop was a mess — per usual. And Tony hadn’t changed from the casual attire he wore last night. His Black Sabbath t-shirt was wrinkled and stained with white goo in more places than he could count.
Rhodey motioned to the devices that Tony unstrapped from his wrist. “And the bracelets?”
“Not bracelets.” Tony tossed them onto the nearest table. “Completely self-functioning web-shooters. The kid first designed them like this, I just slimmed them down a bit. If Penn and Teller want to make our tech obsolete, I’ll be ready with a backup plan."
Rhodey wasn’t surprised. Decades of being Tony’s friend stripped him of the means to feel that emotion. He didn’t know if he should comment on the clutter that surrounded them, or the new inventions his friend clearly spent the evening focused on.
In the background, he could see a new Iron Man suit being put together by multiple robotic arms.
Good lord, what didn't he do in the last few hours?
“Did you even sleep last night?” Rhodey settled on asking.
Tony hadn’t looked up from the floor, resolving instead to kick a pile of discarded webbing aside with his shoe. “Did you?”
DUM-E approached them both and attempted to sweep the webbing aside. Rhodey took a step back so the machine could clean the mess.
“A little,” Rhodey absentmindedly answered.
“Same here,” Tony muttered, looking at DUM-E when the machine began to make a whining noise. Hands on his hips, he motioned to the webbing that stuck to the broom’s bristles. “What did I tell you? Why would you even try to do that?”
Rhodey, sadly, expected the deflection. He shook his head and sighed deeply, knowing that the most honest answer he’d receive from Tony would be the dark bags settling underneath the man’s eyes. His appearance always spoke more than his words ever did.
“Strange and Natasha are back.” Rhodey pointed to the door behind them. “They’re waiting for us in the east wing lab.”
Tony’s neck shot up at record speed.
“Great.” He was already out of the room, webbing and web-shooters discarded in a hurry. “Let’s go.”
Rhodey stayed behind for a moment, watching DUM-E struggle at untangling the webbing from the broom. The goo stuck between his metal clamps, causing the robot more frustration with each attempt to get rid of it.
He rolled his eyes and walked away, deciding it was better to leave that mess for someone else to clean up.
Tony was already halfway down the hallway when he caught up to him.
“You have any Scotch?” Tony asked, taking a sharp corner. “I’m starving.”
Rhodey rolled his eyes. “How about coffee?”
The rest of the team were already waiting for them by the time they arrived. They sat in their respective chairs around the table, only Strange and Clint maintaining standing positions. The latter didn’t surprise Tony, considering how the archer always insisted on watching over the room like a hawk.
The coffee, of course, was of abundance given the circumstances.
Approaching the team, Tony noted that Natasha seemed oddly fresh for someone who had spent the night awake. Her abilities in espionage never ceased to surprise him.
Strange, standing off in the nearest corner, nodded his head at their presence. The bottom of his thick, red cape turned upwards in what Tony could only imagine was an inanimate objects version of a wave.
The greeting felt like he was being mocked, and he furrowed his brows, quickly deciding on steering clear of the magical outerwear.
“Well,” Tony started, pulling up a chair at the table. “Anything good?”
Natasha stood from her seat, leaning over and pressing down firmly on the table. As she brought her hand upwards, the holographic, 3D image of a building illuminated the room. Clint kicked away from the wall, moving forward to get a better look.
“When have I ever been one to disappoint?” Natasha asked.
Rhodey stood by Natasha’s side, bringing up his own screens that contained numerous, classified government reports. “Turns out you were right about something being fishy with OsCorp."
Tony sat up from his chair no sooner than he sat down.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, leaning forward and spinning the 3D image with a flick of his hand. “Where were the bastards even hiding this?”
The building wasn’t large, maybe a quarter size of the Raft, if that. But it was extensive. Numerous layers with schematics designed for some serious scientific practice. It didn’t seem like something that could be so easily hidden from the public's eyes.
Tony pinched the image with his fingers and zoomed in, the enlargement allowing him to better study the blueprints.
Strange never looked away from the hologram as he answered, “The Bermuda Triangle."
“The Bermuda...” Bruce stuttered, looking with rapid pace to the others. “The Bermuda Triangle?”
“It gets better,” Natasha dryly said. “This entire base is underwater. At least thirteen-hundred feet in the ocean, built on some sort of rock structure. Using the same technology as the Raft for life support, and only accessed only by divers and submarines.”
Rhodey scrolled through his data screens. “I did some research. Turns out this is the facility OsCorp was using for their enhanced experimentation's. Klum must have told Dmitri about it, and they decided to use it as a base of operations. Easy to get there when you can teleport in and out.”
Steve shook his head with a deepening furrow on his brow. “I thought you said the government shut them down."
“They did," Rhodey answered, concisely. "That doesn’t mean they had an obligation to destroy the facility. They were forced to abandon ship, but the ship was never sunk.”
Sam made a humming sound from his throat. “It’s down in the ocean. With the money OsCorp pulls, they probably just left it there to rust.”
And at thirteen-hundred feet down in the ocean, Tony had no doubt it would. The only thing that kept his eyes from growing any wider was the knitting of his eyebrows, so tight that lines appeared on his forehead in ways that looked painful.
“Why the hell didn’t we know about this?” Tony asked, directing his question towards Natasha.
She simply shrugged his way.
“The government handed it off to SHIELD, who quietly took care of it," her answer didn't seem to appease him. She didn't expect it to. "You know how they work. It's a need to know basis, and they didn’t think we needed to know.”
Tony let his next scoff contain the swear words he scarcely held back. With a flick of his hand returning the image to standard size, he sat back down in his chair. Barely keeping his mumbles where they couldn't be heard.
Of course SHIELD would hide this from them. It had been like that ever since the Accords were overturned. SHIELD loved nothing more than to bring in the team at the last minute, and catch them up on details as they went. If Tony were being honest with himself, it made him feel a bit vindictive about not briefing them on Peter's recuse.
Screw it, if they wanted to hide secrets — so could he.
“Here’s the kicker." Natasha changed holograms, switching from the underwater facility to what easily resembled a very large mechanical pumping system. "That fog Mysterio’s been using? The one that knocks out our tech? It was created by OsCorp so they could hide the base.”
Vision hummed, rubbing at the bottom of his chin as he did. “Of course. Build an underwater base of operations, in the Bermuda Triangle, where rumors of paranormal activity already exist.”
Rhodey nodded. “No one would blink an eye if an aircraft crashed there because of the fog.”
“Which," Tony pinched at the bridge of his nose, "if they’re using the nanite mist, it will."
“And they are using it,” Stephen spoke up. “Mysterio’s not only using it for his own personal gain, like the show he put on in Times Square. But they’ve been using it to keep the building surrounded after OsCorp abandoned the facilities. They’re completely off the radar.”
Sam scrubbed his face with both hands. “So I take it we won’t be getting the Quinjet over there anytime soon.”
Steve leaned forward, deep in thought. Right as Tony leaned back, his fingers still pressing tightly on the bridge of his nose. The stress filling the room was heavy enough to suffocate them; the air was already hard to breathe, and worsening with every bit of new information given their way.
So when Natasha gave a small, empty smile, the others were quick to pay attention.
“Luckily for us,” she started to say. "We have a new element on our side with this one.”
As if he had forgotten all about the magician— sorcerer — Tony’s head snapped up, and he spun his chair around to face Strange. He wasn’t even worried about hiding the desperation that, by now, was permanently ingrained in his features.
If the man noticed, he didn’t draw attention to it.
“I should be able to get you there with my sling-ring.” Stephen pointed to the golden metal object he retrieved from his cloth belt. “If you allow me to help you, I’ll able to open a portal directly into the facility. You’ll find the Parker kid, and I’ll banish Mysterio to a realm that Dormammu cannot enter from.”
Tony was already out of his chair before Stephen had finished his sentence.
“Okay? So what the hell are we waiting for?” Tony impatiently clapped his hands together. “Let’s go!”
“We all can’t go,” Steve spoke with such a sudden, solemn realization that had Tony floored.
“We all can’t — and why the hell not?” Tony paused, his brows releasing from a tightly knitted scowl to gut-wrenching realization. The same one Steve came to a second before him. “Oh. Shit.”
His first instinct was to look at Rhodey, and the bulky leg braces attached to his lower half. The man’s jaw was visibly firm, and his arms were folded over his chest; head low to the ground.
“With them using that fog to hide the base, some of us will be up shit creek without a paddle if we’re exposed to it,” Rhodey stated.
Tony briefly laid a hand over his face, rubbing at the tired muscles around his eyes. He didn’t have the strength to look at his friend when he spoke. “Rhodey —”
“It’s fine. Really,” Rhodey cut him off, hands up in a passive manner. “If I stay behind, I can keep SHIELD off our backs for a little while. It’ll buy you some time.”
The answer didn’t make Tony feel any better. His shoulders dropped under the growing pressure that made his back and neck ache.
“I’m going to have to stay with him,” Bruce announced.
Tony wasn’t the only one to express confusion over the statement. The others shared the sentiment, looking at Bruce as if he had grown three heads.
“What?” Natasha furrowed her brows. “Why?”
Bruce waved his hand in the air, sputtering on his words before finally finding his voice.
“I — I can’t go in there, Nat,” he needlessly said. “An underwater bunker? If...if the other guy comes out, everyone there will be screwed. We can’t risk that.”
Tony threw his head up to the ceiling. Right, of course. His mind had become such a frazzled mess that he wasn't even putting one plus one together.
And just like flies, he could see each member of his team dropping. Making an importune rescue mission all the more daunting with the lack of hands to get it done.
Luckily for him, Steve was already working through the roadblocks. The way his eyes danced around the room showed a hundred different scenarios crossing his mind. Before he finally landed on what made the most sense.
“Okay. Then we’ll split up — make teams," Steve seamlessly ordered. “One group will stay behind in the event of any unforeseen circumstances. Since we don’t know what these two are planning, we’ll need some of us here ready to defend at any moments notice.”
Wanda stood up from her chair, so quickly the legs squeaked across the ground. The others turned to look her way, her behavior similar to Vision — in a sense that she only really spoke when she found it necessary.
“With all due respect, I am not staying back,” she insisted, looking right at Steve as she spoke. “I am going.”
Clint twisted his mouth to the side, looking Wanda up and down before giving a hard nod.
“Same here," he said, so casually it were as if he spoke about Tuesday night dinner. “Good ‘ol fashion arrows are just as deadly as the ones that electrocute.”
"I'm going." Natasha's eyes didn't break away from the floor, locked so intently on her shoes that Tony had to do a double-take to make sure there wasn't something down there he was missing.
There hadn't been. But her tone told him that long before he figured it out for himself. The deep, threatening sound of her voice said it all, and her piercing glare — weighing heavy on her features — said the rest.
Tony didn't dare touch that with a ten foot pole. And neither did Steve, coming to the same conclusion at the same time —
Natasha wasn't to be argued with. She was going.
“Vision,” Steve started to say, spinning in his chair to face the android. “Can you stay back with Rhodey and Bruce? I think it’s best someone as powerful as yourself stay behind in case they plan an attack while we're gone. We don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket.”
Vision simply nodded. “I can do that, Captain.”
“Sam.” Steve spun in his chair one more time. “I need you to stay back as well.”
It took all of a millisecond for Sam's entire demeanor to change.
“What!?” he exclaimed, palms firm on the tables surface as if he were ready to jump up at any second.
Sam leveled him a look. "Your wings —”
“Screw my wings, Steve!” Sam rose from his seat, kicking his chair back in the process. It wheeled behind him as he threw his hand out in a wild gesture. “I was a para-rescue, damn it! You can’t possibly think it’s a good idea to bench me. What if the kids been hurt, what if he needs medical treatment?”
Tony threw Sam a look — something caught between surprised and amused. Sam was too busy staring Steve down to notice.
Clint did notice. And he didn't hide his smirk after the fact.
“Hopefully we can get him back here in time for that." Steve met Sam's hand with his own — open palmed in the air, placating as he could possibly get.
Sam's lips pressed thin. “You’re going to rely on ‘hopefully’? You’re seriously going to sideline the one guy who was trained for this?”
“Sam, Steve’s right.” Natasha intervened. “We need you back here in case something goes wrong.”
“That’s bullshit,” Sam sneered, finger pointing in her direction. “The only reason you get to go is that you want to be the one to put a bullet in Dmitri’s head.”
The heated glare from Natasha could've lit the entire room on fire. Both Steve and Tony bit back their own individual sounds of frustration — they both knew better than to touch that.
Sam, however, never did have much of a filter.
Steve shook his head. “Sam —”
“Do you realize what you’re asking me?” Sam faced Steve head-on. “This is going against everything I lived for! If that kid is hurt and I’m not there to help him...”
He didn’t want to finish the sentence.
No one urged him to, either.
It wasn't something they wanted to hear.
They all knew rescue missions went. They all knew that, almost always, it came with injuries. They didn't always have the luxury of bringing the captive back alive. It was an unfortunate reality to their job.
No one wanted to put Peter in that scenario. They may have known full well what the possibilities were, but hearing it out loud was a different story.
“I get it,” Steve insisted, his open-palm pressing into the air. “I get it, Sam, I do. And it’s good to know you care for him.”
Clint's smirk grew larger. “It’s actually kind of sweet.”
Sam whipped his head over to Clint. The teasing was met with a harsh, "Shut up."
“But I need you here, leading the team,” Steve continued on, ignoring both their remarks — if only for the sake of getting things done. “I’m counting on you to take up my role while I’m gone.”
Sam turned back to Steve, reluctantly, holding his stare for a minute. When he finally backed down, it was with a huff. So audible it may as well have been the thing that pushed his chair away.
He reached for it and rolled it back behind him, answering Steve only with a firm nod and a tight purse of his lips.
Any other day, and Tony would have said he was pouting. He may have even thrown out a joke, no different than Clint.
But the energy for jokes was energy he didn't have. And no amount of guzzling caffeine was going to fix that. Especially not after losing four vital team members on the impromptu to rescue mission that he still struggled to wrap his head around.
“Tony —”
The sound of his name cut through his thoughts like a bulldozer. Tony whirled around, his eyes springing wide open right as Steve open his mouth to speak.
“Hell no!” Tony practically yelled, viciously shaking his head at the very concept of Rogers benching him. “You don’t have a say in this one, Cap. I’m there. End of story." When Steve parted his lips to speak — a second attempt, at that — Tony trampled right over him. "I have a suit roaring to go, one that’ll kick them off their feet even with that damn nanite mist." Tony lowered his gaze with a fierceness reflecting back at Steve, unmistakable as it crossed into his every facial feature. "I’m getting my kid back.”
Whatever Steve had tried hard to say was suddenly lost on his tongue. He sat quiet, his lips sealing shut after many attempts at getting his words out. His expression got caught somewhere between stunned and mild awe.
It didn’t go unnoticed that Tony called Peter ‘his kid’ again. Yet not even Clint dared to tease him about that.
“I...wasn’t going to argue with you over that,” Steve needlessly said, finding himself unable to hide the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips. “I wanted to make sure you had a plan before we attacked.”
Tony's gaze let up, slightly, just enough that the tension he felt wasn't bulging every muscle on his body. Quick to notice the attention he had drawn on himself, he opted to roll his eyes was exaggeratedly as possible.
“You know me, Rogers," Tony drawled out, folding both arms firmly over his chest. "My plan is to attack."
Clint was the first one to shake his head.
"Not a smart idea," he said, casting a wary eye at the others. “We need to know what we’re getting into before we go. We’re useless if we go in blind. How fast can we get the blueprints for this base? A total layout, so we know where we're going when we get inside?”
Natasha was already redirecting her attention to the holograms, the light blue of each image lighting up her face.
“I’ll need to find a way into a few servers…” she mentioned, swiping and dragging the images in the air as she organized what she needed to get done. “Give me the afternoon, at best. I think I can have something by night.”
Tony threw his head back to the ceiling again.
“Seriously, people?" Without looking at anyone, he waved his hand in the air — annoyance showing in each floppy motion of his wrist. "We’re just going to piss away more time?”
“They’re right, Tony,” Steve insisted, firmly at that. “We can’t give Klum and Dmitri the upper hand by rushing in. We need to know the structure of the base and decide if we’ll split up into teams when we do get there. If we get lost in that bunker, we're no good to Peter."
Bruce wet his lips and rested both his elbows on the table. “While having Wanda and..." he turned to the sorcerer in the room. "Doctor Strange here is certainly for our benefit, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone else with magical abilities.” Bruce paused, lifting a single eyebrow high in the air. “Like...a God?”
Stephen was quick to catch on, resting his back against the wall and shaking his head.
“Thor left Sakkar, he's on another world right now," he stoically informed them. "He’s got some...family issues to deal with.”
Bruce made a face, as if suddenly remembering as much.
“What about Tic-Tac?" Sam asked, turning to Steve as he did. "Maybe he could help us out again."
Tony answered long before Steve did.
“Scott Lang and his shrinking tech?" Tony huffed with a hard shake of his head. "He’d be useless to us. No tech, no help."
Steve silently sided with him on that. Sam didn't have much argument to put up, either.
“There'll be six of us against two of them." Stephen stepped forward, approaching the team with such assurance that it could easily give Tony a run for his money. "In all actuality, the most they have on their side is the leftover tech from OsCorp...and Stark’s helmet.” Stephen's disgruntled tone didn't go unnoticed. “We take that away, we’ll win this battle.”
Tony's eyebrow almost hit the ceiling. “You’re pretty confident for someone who isn’t allowed to voodoo the outcome of this said battle.”
Stephen tilted his head to the side, all but shooting daggers in Tony's direction.
“We leave once your team can review the layout of the base," he stated, concise and to the point. "Be ready by then.”
Natasha had already begun work on infiltrating the servers to gain the facility’s blueprints. Her concentration seemed unbreakable, her fingers typing on the keyboards with a precise speed. Clint was by her side in a heartbeat, doing what he could to help — pulling up different holographic screens with a wave of his hand.
Tony decided he had dealt with enough. An aggravated and slightly exaggerated huff rattled his chest; he darted out of the room, muttering under his breath the entire way.
It took everything within him not to call on his Iron Man armor and leave immediately. He'd fly to the damn Bermuda Triangle himself — it wouldn't be any different than Gulmira.
If it were truly up to him, he’d have told everyone to screw off, he'd head down the East coast by himself, put an end to this problem. Playing as a team with others was only fine when it didn’t involve rescuing Parker, a kid, from multiple madmen in a fucking underwater bunker.
But they were right. Tony hated admitting it — really hated admitting it — but going in blind meant failure. It was one thing if he'd have FRIDAY once there. Knowing they'd be without any functioning technology...
They couldn’t afford failure right now.
Peter couldn’t afford failure.
Looking briefly down at his wristwatch, Tony noted the time. It was a little over two full days since the accident on the Brooklyn Bridge. That was about forty-eight hours too many for Tony to be comfortable with.
He wouldn’t say it out loud, hell he wouldn’t even linger on the thought — but there was still the excruciating, troubling possibility that he’d find Peter dead.
Forty-eight hours was a long time to be gone.
With painstaking stubbornness, Tony refused to allow himself to think about anything besides the eyes Strange showed him. He saw it — so vividly in his eyes — the soft, brown eyes that made his chest ache.
Peter was still alive. He had to be.
“Tony, hey!” The voice broke him from his thoughts. “Wait up, man!”
Tony came to a halt, spinning around on his heels not a second later. Shaking with frustration that he could no longer contain.
“Rhodey, please," he practically begged. And Tony never begged. "Not now. I can’t...” His hands balled into tight fists. “I know you’re pissed, okay? Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you’ve been lately. Don't think I haven't..."
The words flew out of his mouth before he could think of what he was saying. Everything was starting to pile up on his conscience, weakening the strength of the filter that normally kept him calm and composed.
A frazzled mess wasn’t even remotely close to how he was acting — and he knew it, Tony was fully aware of it.
But he was so damn far out from his element. Between Strange’s magic, all the way to the smaller things — like waiting on the team for a rescue mission that should have taken place forty-eight damn hours ago.
Why was he still standing here? Why weren’t they taking action?
Why weren't they doing more?
Tony suddenly realized Rhodey had been trying to get his attention.
“Tones, I’m not...I’m not mad,” Rhodey earnestly said, stepping into Tony's line of vision so he had nothing else to look at. “I’m frustrated, sure. But I’m not mad.”
“I’m trying." Tony threw his hands in the air, his expression all but defeated. "I really am, I’m trying.”
Rhodey, patient as ever, nodded. “I know you are.”
Tony — a hot mess since the day he was born — kept going. “Clearly I’m not doing a good job at it, I mean look at you, but I’m –”
“You’re doing fine, Tony," Rhodey stressed.
“I don’t want to keep you out of this," Tony continued as if he hadn’t heard the man, his voice gruff and ragged with each word. “I want you there, fighting with me.”
“I know, man. I want to be there, too.” Rhodey stepped closer, not that there was much lingering space between them. He laid a firm open palm against Tony's shoulder. "But I have a purpose here. Don’t be sorry about that.”
Rhodey meant it. If the heavy emphasis on his final words didn’t clear his point, Rhodey squeezed Tony's shoulder a little tighter for reassurance. It was his way of saying ‘you gotta keep it together, man.’
The strong riptide of emotion pouring off both of them didn't need words spoken to understand that. It was said in the years of friendship spent between them.
Tony worked his jaw loose, looking Rhodey dead in the eye along the way. “I gotta get him back.”
The pain in his voice was a kick to Rhodey's teeth. He released his grip on his shoulder, patting it briefly, noting that Tony’s bloodshot eyes glistened with moisture he refused to let escape.
“I know you do.” Rhodey evoked trust and faith that Tony was envious of. “And you will.”
A high-pitched ringtone interrupted their conversation.Tony bit back an exasperated sigh and Rhodey wordlessly nodded his head, turning back to the lab and leaving him to answer the call.
Not a moment later and Tony whipped his cell phone out from his pocket, checking the caller ID before deciding to answer.
“This better be good, Happy.”
God, he was too tired for this.
Tony could hear rustling on the other end, the uncertain silence only penetrated by the sound of a cars turn signal.
At the same time, FRIDAY immediately activated the censorship function to his phone, encrypting every word he said from the security cameras that he walked past. Ensuring not a word of his conversation could be picked up by SHIELD technology.
“Boss,” Happy’s greeting was tainted with disgruntlement. “Parker’s Aunt wants to know when the funeral arrangements will be made.”
Funeral arrangement's for — Tony hissed between tightly clenched teeth.
Between everything that had been going on, he almost forgot May thought the kid was still dead.
The back of his free hand rubbed harshly at his forehead, leaving the skin pink and irritated along the way.
“There’s not going to be a funeral.”
There was another pause as Tony took a corner in the hallway, this time accompanied by the sound of the car shutting off. He could almost see Happy turning the key to the engine, so fast he risked breaking the key inside the ignition.
“There’s not going to be a — what the hell do you mean, there’s not going to be a funeral?”
Tony finally let out that sigh.
“It’s a long story.” God, he felt like that was the fifteenth time he had said that in the past few hours. "And I don't have time for it right now."
Happy's scoff vibrated the speaker of his phone. “No. You know — absolutely not, I draw the line here. I let you get away with Rogers doing the dirty work for you. And it was one thing to do the casket shopping for you. I did that as a favor, as your friend —”
Tony groaned. “Listen to me, Happy.”
“You’re not my boss, and you know technically I don’t even work for you anymore. That was done out of the kindness of my heart.”
Tony stopped walking down the hallway. “Hap, you gotta —”
“But not fronting the kids funeral? I have a few choice words to say about that —”
Tony removed the phone from his ear, placing it directly in front of his mouth as he yelled, “Happy, shut up!”
There was a beat of silence that followed. The employees of the compound that wandered the hallways stopped and stared, not that Tony cared.
Trying to will what patience he had left, Tony took a deep breath in to calm himself before slowly placing the phone back to his ear.
“Screw you, Tony.” It was as if Happy knew exactly when to speak. Tony rolled his eyes hard enough to see the back of his skull.
“You’re so sweet,” his words dripped with sarcasm. “Hey, by the way, the kid is still alive.”
“What!?” Tony pulled the phone away from his ear again, but this time it was to keep his ear drums from bursting apart at the sound of Happy's shout. “What the hell, why didn’t you say so!?”
Tony made a face. Not that Happy could see it. But he still made it.
“I’m going to choose to ignore that,” he settled on saying, before resuming pace back down the hallway. He took the turns practically blind, knowing exactly where to go without needing to see. “Listen, I know I’ve asked a lot from you lately. You’re right, you don’t technically work for me, you don’t have to do this —”
“What do you need?”
Relief washed over Tony like a tidal wave. Right now, he’d take any positive thing that came his way — and Happy’s willingness to help was an example of the small things he refused to take for granted.
It seemed like when the entire world was out to get him, the small things were all he could rely on.
“I need you to stall May Parker,” Tony told him. “Just let her know it’s being taken care of, but don’t actually start anything yet. If things pan out in our favor, we won't be having a funeral at all.”
“I bought a casket yesterday,” Happy said, confusion lacing his every word. “It’s a nice casket.”
Tony let out hum. “Can you return those?”
Happy scoffed. “It’s probably not an item people typically return to the store, Tony.”
Tony squeezed between a group of SHIELD soldiers making their way down the same hallway, the bunch barely parting to let him through. He wasn't shy in throwing them a few daggers as he passed them by.
“Whatever,” Tony said, nearly hitting a wall as he took another corner. “It doesn’t matter. Just — whatever you do, Happy, do not let her know about this.”
“Don’t let her know that her nephew is still alive?”
Okay, it didn't sound great.
“Yeah, that," Tony forced out. "Exactly that. We have a plan. We’re going after him, but...”
Suddenly, Tony came to a stop. Someone knocked into him along the way — the corridors were always the busiest in the morning, and stopping in the middle of the hallway was like stopping in the middle of the highway.
Tony didn't care; he ignored the curses spoken to him as he rubbed forcefully at his eyes.
"If we find him and he’s not...if he’s...”
Suddenly, Tony felt his throat began to shrink. Constricting in all the worst ways, making his heart beat two paces too fast. The unspoken words were an anxiety attack waiting to happen, the image of Peter’s corpse still fresh behind his eyelids. Laying in the pile of the rest of the Avengers bodies, lifeless, haunting his mind even when he was awake.
Tony viciously shook his head.
“I can’t get her hopes up,” he wound up saying.
Luckily, Happy was content with the answer.
“Understood, boss.”
Tony was walking down the stairs to the bottom floor of the compound, right where his workshop was located, when a thought entered his mind.
“Oh, and don’t let word get around." Each jog down the steps made his knees ache in protest. Though Tony was almost positive Pepper had the media handled from obtaining the news, they couldn't play it too safe. "For the next twenty-four hours, keep it sealed tight. SHIELD won’t let us release any official statements until they clear the case anyway, but we don’t want to raise suspicion by retracting an obituary.”
The outside world only knew Spider-Man was missing after a building explosion, not Peter Parker. If Tony had any control of the situation, he'd make sure it stayed that way.
And where he didn't have control, he'd be damned sure to find it.
“You got it.” Happy paused, the engine to his car starting up in the background, “And Tony?”
Tony used his palm bio-metrics to get inside his workshop. “Hm?”
“I really...I really hope you find the kid.” Happy gave a soft chuckle, but not soft enough that it couldn't be heard over the cars engine. “Hell, I’ll babysit him whenever you need after this.”
Tony smiled as he stepped inside his workshop. “I’m holding you to that, pal.”
“Wait, then I — hold up —”
“Gotta go, Hap. Drive safe.”
He ended the call before either one of them could say another word.
Standing in the center of the workshop, Tony slowly stuffed the cell phone back in his pocket, looking up at the finished Mark 37 Iron Man suit in front of him.
Screw magic. He had science.
Peter had fallen asleep.
Well, crap.
Feebly rolling onto his back, he let out a low groan, his hand reaching up to his neck in an attempt to knead out the forming knot in his muscles. The drugs must've been heavier in his system than he thought. He couldn’t even remember closing his eyes.
Swiveling his head left to right, Peter couldn't even tell how long he'd been out for. With no clocks or windows around, he had no way to tell what time it was — or even what day it was.
Here, he just existed.
Rolling to his side, he saw his reflection looking back at him. The mirrors — right. He was stuck in Mysterio’s not-so-fun-house.
"Okay...wakey-wakey," Peter muttered, stumbling forward onto his knees. The good news was, his head throbbed a little less than it had before. The bad news, he was still nauseous as ever. "No...no bacon, though. No...no food."
With a hard swallow, Peter forced down the rising saliva in his mouth. He needed to get moving — quickly. If the drugs were still this heavy in his system, there was no way he'd have any chance at escaping if they used that hallucinogenic again.
And yet here he was.
Peter looked around, combing a hand through his hair as he caught his reflection staring back at him. Neither of the two psychos had come after him. It could've been hours since he broke free, and he was still here. Trapped in some funky house of mirrors.
‘They said they were after Mr. Stark’s money...’ Peter scrubbed into his scalp, causing more tangles in his greasy hair. He was in much need of a shower when he got home. ‘They must be out doing whatever...plan they have.’
That could work in his benefit. Not Mr. Stark's — definitely not Mr. Stark's. But it gave Peter time to move.
It gave him a chance at escaping.
Slowly, Peter stood to his feet. “Okay, you’re without your web-shooters...your spider-sense isn’t working with all this stupid fog...and you don’t know where you’re at. Things could be worse. Things could be so much worse.”
It couldn't be. Peter's attempt at self-assurance wasn't even something he bought. The sound of his own voice, though, provided him a sense of calm. Grounding him back to reality.
Even after sleeping the drug off, he still felt hazy. The hallucinations had felt so real — he struggled with shaking off the memory of Uncle Ben dying in his arms. And the chill from the building wasn't helping him forget that miserable winter night.
“Focus, Parker," Peter muttered to himself, spinning in a circle to examine his surroundings. "Step one, escape the funhouse from hell."
That could absolutely be a horror movie. Peter made a mental note to tell Ned about it later.
First — escape.
The glass cage was dark, and only his reflection looked back at him. Touching the walls, Peter swore they felt as real as they could get. Maybe if he ran through them, they’d break down. He'd risk a few cuts along the way, but it'd be worth the effort.
"No, no, it's not..." Peter shook his head. Illusions didn’t work that way. He had to disable the trick. Which meant —
“The walls are projected via the cards on the ground." Karen’s voice echoed in his memory."I believe if you eliminate those, your surroundings will reappear.”
“Oh, thank you, Karen!” Peter exclaimed, breaking out into a grin.
He bent down to the corner, brushing his hand against the rough cement in search of —
Found it. Card number one.
Peter ripped it in pieces and immediately did the same with the remaining three cards. Each one released a hissing sound that reminded Peter far too much of a snake — he even jolted back the first time it happened. It was as if gas canisters were being destroyed.
And then the illusion flickered and shattered away, falling around him like broken glass.
"Okay..." Peter drawled out, staring at the playing cards down on the ground. “If I weren’t in a life or death situation, I’d definitely want to know how that works.”
Something told Peter that wasn't an illusion.
Something told him that hissing sound had a lot to do with the same drugs they pumped into his system.
He didn't want to stick around and find out.
Peter looked behind him quickly, ensuring no one was at the other end of the hallway before taking off. His feet pounded heavily against the floor, smacking with purpose on each stride he took. He bumped into the walls as he took corners — four to be exact, the third one leaving him confused and very, very concerned.
There wasn’t an exit in sight.
There wasn’t even a window nearby.
Shit.
For a moment that felt like an eternity, Peter began to worry he was only running further into whatever building they'd trapped him in. Corners kept bruising his shoulders, and the hallways kept stretching on. It wasn't until he started running — fully running — that he finally reached somewhere with light.
Peter froze to a stop at the entrance. "Holy...cow."
It was a laboratory.
A huge laboratory.
There were large tanks against the walls, all empty and covered in dust. A few flickering light bulbs came from above, still the battery powered kind, but that was it. Sans the equipment that Peter couldn't take his eyes off of, the entire open space was abandoned.
It wasn't just this laboratory, either. Peter was starting to assume that wherever he was, the whole place had been abandoned.
KkkkrrrrreeeaaaKKK!
The sound made him jump and clutch his chest in shock. Peter held his breath, his eyes darting around frantically to find the source, waiting to see if someone had snuck up on him. His spider-sense was useless right now — nothing to his advantage that would warn him of anything.
There was no one to be found.
‘Or someone's hiding. Ready to pounce.’ Peter hesitatingly stepped down into the large open space. ‘I really hate being pounced on.’
He felt incredibly naked without his spider-sense. They had flooded the building with the fog, and it had made a significant difference on his awareness.
Trying to be the most mindful that he could, Peter noticed that the place was eerily quiet. It didn’t stop his heart from beating a thousand miles per second, and he began to worry that he’d drop dead from a self-induced heart attack. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears.
Only the walls made noises, creaking under pressure.
It reminded him of that really old movie Titanic. The part when the girl was walking through the flooded hallways, with an ax to save Leonardo Dicaprio’s character.
Peter suddenly stopped, his face scrunched up in horror.
Why would he think of that? That was the least comforting thought to have. He shook his head; the last thing he needed right now was more stress, and the concept of being in a sinking ship was definitely causing him unnecessary anxiety.
Walking out of the laboratory, he came into another hallway. This time with a much brighter light at the end.
‘Okay, good! You’re getting somewhere, Parker. Things are looking up!’ Peter quickly sprinted down the hall. ‘See, crazy thoughts like that won’t do you any good. As if you were on a ship. That’s nonsense. I’m sure there’s a very logical explanation for whatever sound...’
Peter stumbled to a stop at the end of the hallway.
His jaw dropped, and his blood ran cold. Sending cold shivers down his spine — not all at fault due to the sudden shock that rendered him motionless.
Peter finally found windows. Large windows, reaching from the ceiling to the bottom of the floor. The pale blue light from the ocean reflected across his face as a swarm of fish swam by. His eyes — wide and stunned — followed the creatures across the aquarium-like walls.
KkkkrrrrreeeaaaKKK!
Peter gulped.
Wherever he was, he was underwater.
The building was entirely underwater, deep in the ocean — like, way down in the sea. Peter literally pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating again.
He was wrong. Things got much worse.
“Gluppy mal'chik,” the Russian accent made him flinch, breaking him out of his dazed shock. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
Peter cringed.
Yeah, things just got so much worse.