HOPELESS ☾Peter Parker - 1

TWENTY EIGHT

"I can't believe it," Aspen mumbled under her breath as she stared at the computer screen before her, "It really is my dad."

When the two teens went to check on Tony's progress they were met with a very happy Iron Man exclaiming that he had found the exact person that sent them the location. What Aspen didn't expect, though, was for it all to actually work out in the end. 

"So now that we know it is your father, it's a bit safer to travel to Nashville. I still want to send a drone down to survey the area before we go, just to be safe." Tony told the excited teens.

"Yeah, yeah, of course! But could you do that, like, now so we can go down their sooner?" Aspen asked, practically bouncing up and down with excitement. 

The man rolled his eyes at the girl but nodded. "I guess I could do that." 

"Thank you so much, Tony!" She said, probably a little too loud. "Pound it."

Tony hesitantly fist bumped the girl, then walked away, wiping his hand on his shirt. "I hated that, we are never doing it again." 

"Hey guys," Peter spoke up, his gaze on the computer behind them, "in order to be fully prepared for this, don't you think that we should open the third file?" 

Tony and Aspen looked at each other for a few seconds. A silent conversation passed between the two before they both nodded. 

"We probably should," Aspen's voice was accidentally a lot weaker than she wanted it to be. 

"Alright, I'll pull it up." Tony spoke after looking at Aspen for a second.

As much as he hated to admit it, he cared about the girl. In his eyes, she was like the daughter he never had, but he would never tell her that. She reminded him of himself, and he honestly didn't know if that was a good thing or not. 

Tony didn't want either of the teens to get hurt. If anything happened to either one of them, it would be his responsibility, and as selfish as it sounded, he couldn't have that on his conscience--not after everything he's been through. 

Even though his heart told him that opening the final file was a bad idea, he did it anyway, because that's what Aspen needed in that moment. 

All three pairs of eyes watched anxiously as the file loaded on the holographic screen. Aspen's leg was bouncing up and down and her fingers were twisted around her necklace.

Finally, the file loaded and they were met with a black screen with a play button in the center.

"It's a video," Peter breathed out. 

Tony walked over and pressed the button, allowing the clip to begin.

The black screen turned to color as a light was turned on in the video. It was hard to make out what was happening at first due to the footage being blurry, but once Aspen realized what it was her eyes widened and her hand slapped around her mouth. 

Words were being shouted in a language that she recognized as Russian, but she had no idea what they meant. It didn't really matter though, for what she was watching was pretty self explanatory. 

The girl's eyes pooled with tears and they slipped down her cheeks rapidly as she attempted to hold in sobs. 

"Turn it off, Mr. Stark!" Peter yelled, but it was too late. 

The video ended and the trio sat there in a shocked silence. 

In the final file was the taped footage of the murder of a woman. She was tied up in a chair and gagged by a dirty rag. She was screaming out, but no one was listening. Her face had cuts and bruises littered across it, and her body was beaten and skinny. A tall, strong man stood in front of her and pulled out a gun before shooting her in the forehead.