Unravel

Part 2

"The Recluse and his team have struck again, this time taking out a homeless shelter and leaving a horde of bodies in his wake-"

The TV silently shut off, a heavy aura hanging around the room. I sighed and rewound the footage of the new super villain that targeted seemingly harmless people.

He wore dark clothes and a plastic mask that covered most of his face, nothing but a single deadly brown eye peering out.

The Recluse was true to his name: thin, agile, lethal... He was able to avoid all kinds of law enforcement, appearing and disappearing in seconds with nothing but chaos as his calling card.

It wouldn't be long before the government called us in to take care of it. I could just imagine the urgency and demand in Secretary Ross' voice as he ordered me to kill this person. I almost felt bad that I wouldn't listen to him - again.

If it had been any other person, I wouldn't have hesitated to round up the others and take this scum bag out. I mean, who attacks the homeless for no reason? The Recluse, even if he would have been the only one attacking them, out powered the shelter so much he was off the charts.

But this wasn't just anyone... This wasn't someone I would be able to fight easily.

This was Peter. This was my Peter.

The others were skeptical at first when I brought them my theory of the new Evil Peter. But I knew that brown eye anywhere; no matter what emotion was in it, no matter how much hatred filled it, that was Peter's eye.

The night I brought him home something had changed in him, something snapped. The moment I found him wandering aimlessly through the streets I could tell that something was different, but after seeing that the kid was hurt I mistakenly wrote it off as recovering injuries.

That night, though... I saw the fear and darkness in his eyes as he launched himself out of bed and put me in a choke hold. I could feel a shift in his body as he held me that wasn't anything like Peter. Something dark was happening to the boy, and it was my job to fix it.

But why me? Why was I the one that had to fix it? I was in no way qualified to save this boy from whatever he was going through, I would probably only make things worse... I should get Steve or Bruce to help him. Steve's strength could match Peter's, and Bruce probably had some advice for a dark personality waking up inside of him! I should call them-

"Tony?"

My head snapped up to see Pepper standing at the door, my eyes softening as she came inside.

"Tony, you can't keep doing this to yourself. It's been a month already, when was the last time you got a proper night's sleep?"

"That's a trick question; you know I don't sleep even when I'm not dealing with a crisis."

She sighed and shook her head, one of her hands going to my shoulder. "You need to make up your mind; are you going to be the one to save him or will you send the others after him? Ever since you figured out that this was Peter, you've been torturing yourself about who will save him. I know you care for the boy, but the longer you mull this over, the longer he will suffer for it."

I closed my eyes, running a hand through my hair, "Damn it... Do you ever get tired of being right all the time?"

A small chuckle left her as she patted my shoulder, "No, it's too much fun sometimes."

It was silent for a while, just the two of us leaning against each other, lost in our own thoughts. She was right though, I couldn't sit here for much longer while Peter is out there. 

While I couldn't relate to what the boy was going through, and didn't even know where to start at getting him back, I was the one that had to save him. He is my responsibility and I can't turn my back on him when he needs me... God, how was I going to be able to reach him though? How was I going to bring him back when I don't even know how he turned? Had the men who kidnapped him experimented on him? Did they put something inside him to turn him evil? Or did they brainwash him, like what happened with Bucky? It might be a good idea to wake up Eyeliner for this then? Or maybe just get King T'challa to help out instead...

"Tony?" Pepper moved away slightly to look at my face, studying to see what emotions I had written there.

"I'm going to bring him back," I finally said, looking up to meet her gaze. "I will save the kid."

A smile slowly spread across her face as she nodded, "Good."

A/N: Yooo! This story isn't dead! And neither am I apparently (or am I??)! This is a short chapter since I'm trying to get back in the spirit of writing again... A lot of stuff has been going on lately and I just feel so drained, but I really love this story and have been wanting to fix the horrible cliffhanger I left everyone on.

I have a few more stories that I have been playing around with as well, all Iron Dad/Spider Son(of course) and I'm almost ready to publish some of them, so please keep your eyes open for when I do!

Updates may be a bit slow since it's summer, it's the season of vacations and I definitely have a lot planned for the next few months. I just got back from my first vacation of the year to Dallas to watch my best friend graduate, and next week I'm going to an anime convention to do some cosplay and meet up with some fans (apparently I have fans of my cosplays, I don't know why though haha). But I'm definitely trying to update a lot of my stories! So please be patient!

And remember: nice reviews = faster updates!