Chapter 6: The Raft

6.7K 262 350
                                    


They didn't find Peter that day. Or the next. Or the day after that.

Or in the four that followed.

"What do you mean you can't find it!?" Tony roared at his monitor as he flipped through satellite images fast enough to make his already aching brain burn with the exertion. "It's a giant, fucking tin can in the middle of the Atlantic! How do you loose that!?"

"The Raft fell out of satellite view at approximately 4:21am on the day in question and has not resurfaced according to data taken from satellites monitoring the region." F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice echoed through the lab.

"It must have." Tony thundered slamming both hands down onto the metal desk in front of him hard enough to wake Sam from the soft-doze he'd been in for almost an hour now. The man shot upright awkwardly on the couch he'd been sprawled across shooting a glance at Steve – who stood completely rigid in the centre of the lab, as he had for the last day or so as their leads disappeared and Tony became more and more desperate – and Steve gave him a short shake of his head.

No.

No they hadn't found him yet.

Tony was ready to break something – several some-things. Preferably the bones in Ross's face. And then neck.

"They had to get him on-board somehow," Tony continued to roar at his servers as he shoved away from his desk and towards another desktop he had running to get him access to a Chinese, un-manned, space station that swore up and down it had no surveillance technology on board.

Tony was about to dis-prove that claim, and then abuse that technology as much as he pleased.

"It's the only place they could hold him – cells build for the enhanced, and Ross's own men in charge, meaning no one with a moral compass who might have a problem with shooting up a school and illegally abducting a fifteen-year-old-"

"Have we heard back from the school?" Rhodey's voice cut across the tense lab from his place leaning against Tony's main working station, only a few feet in front of Steve, with his chin hung down and resting against his chest. Like Steve he'd been perched in the same place for almost two days now. Had it been anyone else Tony would have kicked them off the instant their but-cheek hit the gleaming stainless-steal, but having Rhodey over his shoulder was more comforting than he was willing to admit. He always had been. All the way from college to that night on the bank of the lake, with Peter –

No. No. He wasn't going there. He couldn't afford to panic.

Peter couldn't afford for him to panic.

The assassins hadn't been back to the Compound since the day Peter had been taken. Both had slipped under the radar as soon as they'd established that Peter was long gone from the school, searching for him where Tony and the others couldn't go. Steve had even gotten in touch with Scott, who had set out on his own to dig up something within hours of the school attack. With nothing else to go on, the rest of them had retreated to the half-built Compound to continue searching, but now, days later, even Tony had to admit that they were no closer.

Their shared frustration had sent Bruce upstairs to meditate hours ago. He hadn't been back down since – the green guy brimming a little too close to the surface.

Steve nodded at Rhodey shortly. "No casualties. Minimal injuries." He said, his voice deep but empty. Mechanical almost. Just like his every movement in the last few days. Where the others seemed on the edge of slipping into a coma from exhaustion, Steve seemed to be shutting down internally. As if he were saving energy – or trying to bury something so deep down in his chest that it could never find its way to the surface, no matter how much it tried.

Give him back to me, or so help me godWhere stories live. Discover now