This was not happening. No. Just no.

No.

Tony's brain hadn't gotten much further than that in the time it took him to flee the courthouse and sprint down to the street below. The reporters were on him in an instant, but he ploughed straight through them – knocking several to the ground as he went – and they quickly scattered. Scrambling out of the way before they were the next victim to Tony's shaking arms, which were just about ready to shove god out of his way and down the stone steps if it meant getting to his kid a second sooner.

The Royce was parked just off to the side of the courthouse with Happy leant up against it casually, a steaming coffee in one hand and the other pressing a phone to his ear.

"-look, I know what I said." He was murmuring into the phone as Tony thundered closer. "I know – but I told you, I just can't take time off right now – I know we told your parents we'd be there, but things are a bit of a shit-storm here right now so I can't just take off-"

Happy's eyes widened to twice their normal size when he finally caught sight of Tony, practically running now, coming towards him.

"Baby, I gotta go – I gotta go-"

He pulled the phone away from his ear, shoving it deep into his pocket, and hurled his coffee into a nearby trashcan just as Tony reached him.

"Boss, wha-" He started, eyes still wide and frantic as he took in the paparazzi on Tony's heels.

"Keys," Tony hissed, already pulling open the driver's door as he shoved his hand out.

"What-" Happy started again, his eyes darting painfully fast as they shifted between Tony's face, the paparazzi and the courthouse behind them all. "What the hell is-"

"Keys!" Tony roared. Even the reporters a few hundred feel behind them jumped. Happy pulled back instantly, his eyes finally settling on Tony. Or what was left of Tony – he was pretty sure he'd left majority of his major organs back in that courtroom. He was hollow and shaking.

This was not happening. He'd said this would never happen. He'd promised.

Tony wasn't sure what Happy found in his face, but it must have been enough because a moment later the Royce's keys were in his hand and Happy was shoving him into the car – fending off a few stray reporters who were brave enough to edge forward. A moment later they were all leaping away from the car – Happy included – as Tony pealed away from the courtroom and into mid-afternoon Manhattan traffic.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y," Tony called, settling his phone on the passenger seat as he wound in and out of traffic, at least twenty miles over the limit.

"Yes, Boss." Came her automatic response.

"Midtown Tech – find me everything-" Before he could finish the AI had already started speaking.

"At approximately 1:12 this afternoon reports of shots fired at Midtown School of Science and Technology were filed with nearby authorities. A police presence arrived at the school at 1:26pm. No attempts for infiltration were made until a S.W.A.T team arrived on scene at 1:39 and stormed the school at precisely 1:43pm. After an initial sweep of the school failed to produce any active shooters S.W.A.T began to evacuate students and staff alike as further sweeps were conducted-"

"Peter – where the hell is Peter?" Tony cut the AI off, his hands clenching so hard around the steering wheel that his knuckles began to ache.

"After the initial evacuation staff conducted a role call of all students – Mr. Parker was noted as missing. Two further role calls have been conducted. Mr. Parker has been noted as missing for both as well."

"Jesus," Tony panted, attempting to suck in a breath as he swerved dangerously fast onto the Queens Midtown Tunnel exit. The air just would come though. "Find him."

"Through which networks, Boss?" F.R.I.D.A.Y asked without hesitation. "You made it clear that, due to the trial, certain legal grey areas were to be avoided-"

"All of them!" Tony roared edging dangerously close to the walls of the tunnel as he speed past several lanes of backed-up cars to a symphony of honking. "Hack the god-damn Russian satellites if you need to. Find him!"

"Searching." Came the AI's automatic response, and then silence. Silence that stretched long enough for Tony to make it all the way through the tunnel and shoot back out at sea level midway through Hunters Point Park.

When the AI's voice cut through the car again a hope ignited in his chest before he could stop it. Her words, though, dashed that hope as soon as it had come.

"Less Hot Legolas is calling."

The little air that was left in Tony's lungs fled. "Answer."

"-Tony, Tony?!" Clint's voice echoed through the car.

"Where the hell is Peter?" Tony hissed in lieu of a greeting.

"Finally!" Clint breathed, "Jesus, I've been calling for ages-"

"Where the fuck is my kid!?"

"We don't know-" Clint started, and Tony let out a long hiss of frustration. Inching his foot a little lower on the accelerator. "We don't know, but he's definitely not here. We've swept the place near a dozen times now-"

Tony was gasping for air now. This was real. Peter was gone.

He was gone.

"-Tony. Tony? You need to calm down – breathe-"

Clint's words barely registered in the fog that had taken over. A spasm shot through Tony's rigid arms, shooting the Royce towards the side of a brownstone as he jerked around another corner. "Shit!" He yanked on the wheel, pulling the Royce off of the sidewalk just in time to miss totally colliding with the brick-wall. He did loose a side mirror though. And majority of the paint on the Royce's left side.

"TONY!"

That was not Clint's voice.

"Wha – Clint?" Tony voice was horse, and foreign to even his ears.

"Pull over and calm the hell down, Tony." It was Cap. "Pull over, Tony!"

"You tell me where my kid is Cap and I'll do whatever the hell you want, but until then-" Tony's foot edged even closer to the floor. The Royce shot between cars to a melody of honking horns.

"He's not here," Steve's voice thundered over the line. The force of it broke Tony out of his panic induced spiral – just for a minute. "He is not here, so getting yourself – or anyone else – killed trying to get here isn't going to help him."

Very slowly the words started to trickle into Tony's brain, and even more slowly his brain began to make sense of them – or tried to. No matter how many ways he flipped the words he couldn't make much sense beyond he's not here. Fear had taken over, and refused to let any kind of logic in. Logic mean actually swallowing the fact that he's not here. And Tony wasn't prepared to do that. He'd promised.

He'd promised.

"TONY!" Cap's voice was thundering through the phone again – reaching a whole new octave when Tony continued not to answer. "Tony! Answer me – please – just-"

Tony hit the breaks with enough force to send the Royce skidding loudly as he swerved into an empty side street and ground to a halt.

"Jesus – TONY!?" Steve's voice slowly began to filter back through the haze. "Tony!? Clint – you need to – you need to track his phone-"

Tony lost track of – well – everything. It all just slipped away. All torn from him and drowned beneath the realization of what he'd just done.

What he'd just lost.

"Ross has him."

The absolute certainty of the words cut Tony to a core that he didn't know he had. He'd thought that by now – after Afghanistan and Obie, and then New York and Killian and the absolute shit storm that was the Accords – he was beyond this feeling. This gutting sensation of having something so incredibly vital ripped from his chest. First in that cave when the weight of the car battery threatened to yank out what little of his chest he had left, then on his couch watching those familiar hands twist and tug.

And then all alone on the concrete floor, with a shield that he knew better than his own hands buried deep in chest.

"Ross has him." Tony said again, the words taking more and more from him every time he said them. But he needed to say them. They were true.

He'd let this happen.

"We don't know that-" Steve was saying over and over. "We don't know anything right now-"

"I do." Tony cut him off. He barely recognised his own voice now. The tension, and gut-clenching fear, that had bubbled in his throat since he saw Natasha's message was gone now. Replaced by the dull, dead, empty tone of acceptance. "You didn't see him." Tony went on. Steve didn't make a sound. "He knows." The gapping pit in Tony's chest, which had been threatening to consume everything last thing Tony had, finally won out. Between one minute and the next Tony's world collapsed in on itself, and he was left shivering, cold and empty. "Ross has him."

"Okay." Steve heaved through his teeth – sounding almost breathless. "Okay." He said the word again and again as he fought to swallow what Tony was telling him – and failed if his constant stream of muttering was anything to go by.

Tony began to slip away again. His mind – which was usually running so quickly that it left him a little nauseous and awake at all hours of the night – had ground to a stop. Completely. He felt weightless all of a sudden, but not the good kind of weightless. Not free. He felt...untethered. As if he might float away any second. Where? He didn't know – and nor did he want to. He wanted to stay here. He wanted to stay here – here with Pepper and Rhodey, and fuck it all Steve, and all the other miscreants he'd invited into his house. With Peter. He wanted to stay with Peter.

All he'd had to do was hold on – hold onto Peter – and somehow he'd still slipped through Tony's fingers. And now Tony was slipping away with him.

"-Tony! Tony!" Steve's voice was still roaring through the phone. He sounded far away though. "Tony you need to breathe! Take a breath–"

Wasn't he? Now that Steve mentioned it he really started to notice the burning in his chest. He could hear the whistling of his lungs as they fought, and failed, to bring in any air. But he couldn't fix it – there was no air to breathe. It was all gone. He was falling through the darkness – real darkness. The wormhole behind him was closing, the nuke shooting ahead of him, but Tony was falling. There was no air. There was no sound. There was no light.

There was nothing – and inch by inch it took him. Inch by inch until he was nothing as well.

Without warning something seized Tony by the lapels of his suit jacket and pulled. Pulled until he was tumbling out of the front seat of the Royce and onto the damp side road.

The shock of the movement, and the shot of pain that flashed across his knees as they hit the road, was enough to kick start his brain. Just a little.

There were hands still grasping the front of his jacket. They flexed and then grasped at the crinkled material, using it to shake Tony hard enough to rattle his teeth – and clear a little of the fog that had settled in his brain and refused to leave.

"TONY!" Steve was in front of him one hand still twisted in his jacket, and the other pressed up against his throat. Two fingers pushing down painfully hard where Tony's pulse was thundering. "Tony! Tony you need to breathe!" Steve panted, his own chest heaving as he untangled his hand from Tony's jacket and slid it up to rest on the back of Tony's neck. The other hand stayed where it was, pressed fast against Tony's neck. "I'm going to call an ambulance, but I need you to breathe, okay? Breathe – in for five, and out for five. Just like me. Okay? Breathe with me-"

Steve heaved in a couple of breaths as Tony watched. Probably a good thing – Steve looked like he needed them. Had he run all the way from the school?

Through the haze Tony heard his phone ring from somewhere inside the car, and Steve pulled away just far enough to scoop it from the front seat – his hand never leaving Tony's throat.

"Tony? Tony!" Pepper's voice flooded across the line.

"Thank god, Pepper–" Steve heaved out a shaky breath as Tony watched. "He's here – I – he – I don't-"

"-He's there?" Pepper cut Steve off with a sharp hiss that always meant Tony was in trouble. Or had caused trouble. "Tony? What the hell!? Why is there a kid screaming for you in the lobby?! What the hell is-"

Faster than Tony had every moved in his god-damn life he had snatched the phone out of Steve's hand and crushed it up against his ear.

The fog had evaporated – rushing out through his chest like a build up of pressure that he just couldn't hold anymore. It left him aching, shaking but awake. Aware.

And once it was gone everything else snapped back into place.

"PETER!?" Tony roared into the phone. "Is Peter there?!"

Steve's hand had fallen from Tony's throat to rest on his shoulder as he leant closer. Hanging off of Pepper's every word, as Tony was.

"No. No he's not." Pepper said hesitantly, all the bite vanishing from her voice as soon as she'd heard Tony. Her every word was soft now. Gentle. But reserved. She had always been too observant when it came to Tony. She knew something was very wrong. "It's another kid I haven't met, Ted, or Fred, or something, I-"

"Ned!" Tony breathed, eyes meeting Steve's as he watched on with rapt attention. "Peter's friend." He explained. "What – why – why is he there? Where is Peter?" He croaked into the phone. Panic was gripping at his chest again. If Ned was there...and screaming...where was Peter?

"He won't say," Pepper said. "He won't say anything – not until you get here. But something's wrong. He's bleeding – or he's come into contact with someone who was bleeding – cause his sleeve's almost soaked through-"

Despite Tony not believing it possible, that panic that had been settling in his chest actually grew. Grew to the point that Tony was a little concerned it might claw its way out of his chest alien style.

"I'm on my way." Tony said, scrambling to get to his feet – and mostly failing. "I'm on my way. Take him up to the executive offices and don't leave him alone. Get him – get him whatever he needs – whatever he wants – I'm – I'm-"

The phone was pulled from his hands as he struggled to make words and stumble to his feet, in that order. One of Steve's hands was wrapped in the lapels of his jacket again, and he used it to heave Tony upright onto shaky legs.

"We're on our way." Steve murmured into the phone before disconnecting the call and shoving the phone into Tony's jacket pocket.

Tony nodded, mainly to himself, as if the simple movement might set everything right again, and stumbled back towards the open car door. He had barely taken a step before an iron grip enclosed around the collar of his jacket and propelled him around the hood of the car. Before Tony could even process what the hell was happening Steve was already stepping around him and sliding into the driver's seat, slamming the door closed behind him. It took Tony a minute to get his brain, which was already far beyond its capacity for the day, to catch up. When it did he scrambled the rest of the way around the car and shoved himself into the passenger seat. The car was peeling out of the side alley before he'd even closed the door.

"-he'll be alright." Steve was saying over and over as they wound through traffic, speeding through the busy roads that would take them back to Manhattan. "He's a smart kid." The Royce clipped the barrier at the edge of the tunnel that would take them back to midtown, sliding into traffic about twenty miles over the limit. Not fast enough. Not fast enough. They had to get there now. Now. Peter was – Peter was – "He's a smart kid, he'll be okay. He'll probably get himself out of this before we even get the chance to. He'll be okay – Tony? Tony breathe-" Steve's eyes were darting over to Tony every couple of seconds, taking him in, before flicking back to the road.

Tony barely noticed him.

"I promised him this would never happen." He wasn't really speaking to Steve. Or himself. The words were just spilling from his lips because they had to. He had to say them. They were burning so hot in his chest that he couldn't hold them in anymore. "I promised him Ross would never find him." Steve's eyes flashed to Tony again. "Never touch him."

That nothingness was bubbling in chest again, threatening to drag him down.

Steve's voice rung out through the speeding car, his voice garbled as if he was speaking underwater, but the words eventually made their way through to Tony's brain. "Sometimes – no matter how we want to – need to – protect the people we love, we just can't." Steve murmured, his fingers clenching around the wheel so tightly that the wheel was in serious danger of disintegrating under his grip. "Sometimes they slip right through our fingers." There was something raw in his voice that had Tony's eyes flicking over to him. His eyes were back on Tony. The blue in them was burning. "But we're going to get him back – and he would know that." Steve ground out. "He would know we're coming for him." His voice was hard. "No matter what we have to go through."

They both fell quiet for a moment, letting the rush of the car and the trail of horns that followed their wild dash across midtown fill the silence.

After a couple of moments Stark Tower came into view above them.

"I'm going to kill him." Tony murmured as they sped across the last few blocks. Steve threw him a furrowed glanced. "Ross." Tony added, looking over to stare at Steve head on. There was a calm settling over him with every word. "I'm going to kill him for this."

Steve stared at him for a moment, his expression unreadable, and then turned back to the road. He said nothing.

"Tony!"

Tony shoved his way through the glass lobby doors, Steve on his heels, and spun immediately at Pepper's voice. She was pushing towards him from where she'd been waiting nervously by the elevator doors. Tony was halfway across the lobby before she'd taken more than two steps.

"Where is he?" Tony breathed as he reached her. She fell into step with him immediately.

"Executive conference room." She said slamming a hand down on the elevator call button and turning to take her first real look at Tony. He must have looked god-awful because as soon as her eyes landed on him, they couldn't pull away.

The elevator doors slid open and Tony forced himself between them, Pepper and Steve follow close behind, and then they were rising – Tony's leg tapping against the gleaming floor. He was the first out of the elevator, and, without waiting for the others, set off at a near sprint down the hall.

He burst through the conference room door at the end. Ned was across the room faster than Tony had thought a kid with legs that short could move. Within a couple of seconds, before Tony could really take a step into the room, he was just a foot away. And hyperventilating.

"I'm so sorry!" He heaved out in a breath that sounded disturbingly difficult to expel. He was shaking so hard that, despite wrapping his arms tightly around himself, he was still quivering from head-to-toe. New and old tear tracks twisted their way down his cheeks from his red stained eyes. "I'm so sorry, we were going to call you – I swear we were – we just, we just-" He shuddered as he fought to get the words out of lips that were just refusing to move, and lungs that were clearly refusing to take in anymore air. Tony took a small step forward as he felt the others catch up to him, and freeze in the doorway. He reached out, but didn't touch the kid. The scarlet stain that had spread across his left arm had quite painfully caught his attention. Tony stepped forward again, trying to get a better look at the cut underneath, because there definitely was one. He could see the torn skin through the ripped sleeve. Had he caught it on something? Had he been shot?

Ned plundered on despite Tony's advances, barely noticing as Tony seized a hold of his bleeding arm and began turning it slowly to get a better look at the graze – and it was definitely a bullet graze. The fury deep in Tony's gut re-ignited.

"We wanted to help – Peter wanted to help – we knew you were in trouble with Ross and everything else and we just – when Wanda found us – we wanted to make sure that what she was saying was true, and that it could actually help – and if it could, maybe we could help you with everything that was going on, and-" Ned's words faded as the fight to bring in air got harder and harder, but he didn't stop speaking. Tears were streaming down the tracks on his cheeks again, and each breath wheezing in and out of his lungs, but he didn't stop speaking. Didn't stop staring pleadingly at Tony. "Please, please, I'm sorry – we're sorry – but please, please find him – I – please –"

Tony, who was not at all pleased with the graze, but satisfied that it wasn't fatal, moved his hands up to grasp Ned's shoulders and push him gently back to a nearby chair at the empty conference table.

"Stop, stop-" Tony cut off Ned's ramblings, steering him into the chair and kneeling in front of him despite his aching knees. "Breathe." Tony ordered when Ned continued to heave in non-existent puffs of air. "And tell me what happened?" Steve moved to stand at Tony's shoulder, but hesitated a few steps back so as not to spook the kid.

Ned was no closer to a deep breath. If anything his breathing was getting worse as his word vomit became word begging – which cut Tony to his core in a whole new way that he hadn't imagined. "Please, please, you need to find him – I – we –"

"I'm going to find him," Tony cut the kid off again. "I'm going to find him – but you need to tell me what happened so I can do that."

As he spoke Steve had gravitated a little closer.

"Did you say Wanda?" Steve asked softly. When Ned's panicked eyes cut up to him Steve sank down onto his knees beside Tony. "As in Wanda Maximoff?" Steve added breathlessly. Tony knew that Steve had taken her disappearing act pretty hard. He and the others had been searching for her for months without a single lead. It kept Steve up at night. It kept Tony up too. He'd been running a background tracer on her since the others had turned up without her, but so far no luck – not that Steve knew that. Or needed to know. He didn't need to know that Tony had this sinking feeling sometimes, when he'd been awake too long and his mind tended to wander to the places he didn't want to dwell, that the reason she hadn't come back was him. They'd never gotten along per say. The 'he-kind-of-lead-to-the-death-of-her-parents-and-brother' was the unavoidable elephant in every room.

"She's here, in New York." Ned heaved in a heavy breath, his eyes finally starting to focus on Tony as his hysteria gave way to focus. "When you called, the other night, it was her." Ned's eyes fell as he sucked in another deep breath, and Tony and Steve shared a confused glance. Ned caught the end of it as his eyes rose back to Tony's. "She'd been shot – we were, Jesus I don't even know what we were trying to do, we were so far out of our league and then she climbed out of the window anyway and we couldn't find her – even though Peter stayed out all night –" Ned's words started to slur together as his anxiety started to rise again.

Tony inched forward, ignoring the screaming in his knees, and clasped his hands around Ned's shoulders. "Slow down."

Ned did. Just. "He didn't want to call you. You've been in so much trouble for everything that happened, and I think he felt bad. He didn't want to pile anything else on you. You've done all this stuff to protect him – he just wanted to help you-"

Tony cut him off again when the words reached hyper-speed. "Help me how, Ned?" Tony pressed. "What did he do?!"

Ned's brow crinkled as he stared over at Tony – as if his guilt was literally weighing on the space between his eyes. "He kind of walked in on one of Ross's goons buying Wanda from some creepy-ass dude in a cemetery – and then things kind of spiralled from there."

Something cold and hard collided with Peter's face, breaking him out of the fog that had settled over his entire body. He was up and on his feet before his brain had a chance to catch up. A tingling on the back of his neck had him lunging for the corning of the room and bracing his back against it even as his brain was still processing – still trying to clear the fog that that felt like it had made a home in every inch of him. When it finally started to clear, and the solid concrete room he was in stopped spinning, his brain began to process a long whistling sound coming from behind him. Peter's eyes snapped towards the thick, metal door and bars that stood at the other end of the cell. And it was a cell. Cool concrete walls, a short bench and bars on the solid, steal door.

Before Peter could dwell too much on that disturbing realization the sight of a man standing just on the other side of the metal bars came into focus.

The low whistle that Peter's foggy brain had picked up earlier was coming from the man as he watched Peter back himself further into the corner.

The last of the fog in Peter's brain fled as Secretary Ross stared lazily at him through the bars.

"They told me you were fast," Ross said, his eyes still rooming over Peter with a calculating coolness that left Peter's insides churning. Even as Tony and Bruce had run all the tests they could think of when he'd first fessed up the whole bitten-by-a-radioactive-spider-thing, he'd never felt as much like a science-experiment-gone-wrong as he did under Ross's gaze. "But I must admit it's hard to imagine until you see it for yourself." Ross's eyes finally dropped as he leant casually against the metal door, raising an apple to his mouth and taking a vicious bite. Peter's stomach twisted.

"Where am I?" Peter whispered, unable to help himself. The concrete walls were finally starting to get to him. He hadn't done well with enclosed spaces since his unfortunate close-encounter with a few thousand tonnes of warehouse. The hairs on the back of his neck felt as if they were ripping themselves from the skin.

Ross looked back up at him as he took another deep bite.

"Far from home." Ross's lips twisted upwards just slightly as those calculating eyes roomed over Peter once more. "Little spider."

Peter's insides twisted so painfully that he nearly threw up where he was standing.

"Get comfortable, Mr. Parker." Ross drawled, throwing what was left of the apple into Peter's cell – it rolled to a stop near the can of soda that had woken Peter so forcefully. "You'll be with us for a long while."

Without another word Ross turned on his heel and disappeared through a door at the far end of the room beyond Peter's cell.

Peter was curled up on himself and shaking before Ross had even slammed the door closed. When he did a sob tore its way from Peter's chest – and from that first sob came another, and then another, until Peter was fighting to breathe between the tears and the crushing weight that had settled on his chest, trying to suffocate him.

Some time later the lights in the cell shut off, and Peter was left alone, in the dark, with only his echoing sobs as proof that he still existed at all.