Emerald

Thirteen.

Peter, dazed and bruised by the impact of the train, climbs on the train's side. He enters it and sits down in one of the seats before he falls unconscious. Meanwhile, Poet was being terrorised by Beck, locked in a cell like she was in prison.

"I'm not gonna help you." She hissed. "Maybe you should just kill me."

"You are gonna help me, Poet." He said confidently, strutting around in front of her. "I know what he did to you."

"What?" She laughed.

"He's lying to you." He sighed. "And you don't deserve to be treated like that. You deserve the truth. Believe me, I'm only looking out for your best interest. And the best interest of the world."

"The only liar around here is you." She snarled. "Peter will come for me. And he'll come for you. And when he does... you won't even see him coming."

"I had a hunch that you'd be so stubborn. Which is why I took the liberty of making this device, just for you." He opens the door, and two of his men enter to restrain her.

"What is that?" She asked suddenly panicked.

"This?" He chuckled, fixing a sort of helmet onto her head. "It works like this." He presses a button on his remote, and it's almost like her brain is melting from the inside out. She screamed in agony as the pain ran through her. Her heart-wrenching scream echoed around the building, and all Beck could do was smirk.

-----

Peter wakes up in a prison cell, an orange football shirt over his chest. He looks to his right to see a Dutch football hooligan.

"Hi."

"Where am I?" Peter asked confused. Another hooligan, sitting to Peter's left, answers.

"Municipal holding facility."

"They said they found you unconscious at the train yard. Very dangerous." The first added.

"We gave you the shirt because you seemed a bit cold." A third man chimed.

"Thanks. You guys are nice. You speak really good English." Peter said with with slight smile.

"Welcome to the Netherlands." They all said as one.

"I'm in the Netherlands right now?"

"Yup." Number one said. Peter stands up and runs to the cell door.

"Guard?" Peter yells.

"The guard's on a break. Probably talking to his wife."

"Yeah. She's pregnant." Number two smiled.

"Oh ja? Wat leuk!" Number three said in Dutch.

"Ja, vier weken al." Number two added, in Dutch. Peter breaks the lock with his hand, opens the door and leaves the cell. One of the hooligans stands up and walks to the open door. Peter looks to his left to see the guard wearing the Night Monkey mask. He is indeed talking over the phone to someone.

"Yeah. Yeah. Night Monkey. Yeah." He says. Peter leaves the building, the guard directs his attention to the, no longer locked up, hooligans. "You guys okay?" Peter, now outside on a rather stereotypical farmers market, puts the football shirt on. After stepping in something, he makes his way to a cheese farmer.

"Excuse me, sir? Can I borrow your phone?" He asked.

"Ja, zeker." The man answered, handing Peter his phone.

"Everyone's so nice here." He smiled, pressing the phone to his ear. "Okay... Pick up, pick up, pick up... Hey. Hey! Uh... I messed up. I need a... I need a ride. Where am I? Uh... where am I, sir?"

"Het is Broek op Langedijk." Peter looks at him blankly, holding up the phone.

"Hang on, could you say that into there?"

"Hi, it's Broek op Langedijk."

"Thank you." He puts the phone back to his ear. "Did you get that?"

-----

Peter staggers between rows of tulips, one pink and one yellow, as a the Quinjet appears before him. The door opens and Happy walks down the stairs.

"Peter? Are you okay?" He calls.

"Happy, is that you?" Peter asks.

"Is it me? Yeah, of course, it's me!"

"Stop!" Peter yells, haunting himself. "Tell me something only you would know!"

"Only I would know, uh... I know how much you care about Poet." He began. "I know you dream about her, and... one particular dream that you described, you were just holding her in your arms, and you told me how bad you wanted that to be real. Just to kiss her, just to have her. Just to love her." Peter staggers towards him, hugging him for dear life.

"It's so good to see you." He said.

"Peter, you're going to have to tell me what the hell is going on here."

-----

Happy is stitching up wounds in Peter's back, clearly causing pain.

"Okay... hold still. There we go." Happy hums, and Peter visibly flinches.

"Ouch." He breathed.

"I thought you had super strength."

"It still hurts." Peter flinches again, annoyed. "Happy, come on."

"All right, relax. Just a few more... there we go."

"Oh, my God, Happy!" Peter yelled, slamming his fist on the table.

"Relax!" Peter jumps up from his chair.

"Don't tell me to relax, Happy! how can I relax when I've messed up so bad? I trusted Beck. Right? I thought he was my friend so I gave him the only thing that Mr. Stark left behind for me and now he's going to kill my friends and half of Europe, so please do not tell me to relax." He sits down, silent for a few moments. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I shouldn't shout. I just really miss him."

"Yeah, I miss him too." Happy said with a small sigh.

"Everywhere I go, I see his face. And the whole world is asking who is going to be the next Iron Man and... I don't know if that's me, Happy. I'm not Iron Man."

"You're not Iron Man. You're never going to be Iron Man. Nobody can live up to Tony. Not even Tony. Tony was my best friend. And he was a mess. He second-guessed everything he did, he was all over the place. The one thing he did that he didn't second-guess was picking you. I don't think Tony would've done what he did... if he didn't know that you were going to be here after he was gone. Your friends are in trouble. You're all alone. The tech is missing. What are you gonna do about it?" Peter stands, determined.

"I'm gonna kick his ass."

"No, I mean right now. Specifically, what are we gonna do? Because we've been hovering over a tulip field for the last fifteen minutes."

"Right, um... I can't call my friends because he's tracking their phones... uh, give me your phone?" Peter says walking over to Happy.

"My, my cell phone?" He asked.

"Yeah."

"Okay. Here."

"What's your password?"

"Password." Happy answered.

"No, what is your password?" Peter asked again.

"Password. The word. Spell it out, password."

"You're the head of security and your password is 'password'?"

"Yeah, I don't feel good about it either." He sighed. Peter pulled up an app where Flash is vlogging.

"Ello, governor! Cup of tea for you? I'mma be in London soon." Flash said through the phone.

"They're in London."