Let's Begin

Ch. 13

Pepper walked into the lab to find Tony listening to and analysing all his recent phone calls. On a nearby hologram, she could see FRIDAY scanning his emails. An old phone call with Rhodey was playing in over the speaker, but Tony didn't seem to be paying attention as he tugged at his hair and stared at the floor.

With a frown, she walked over and stood behind him for a moment before gently pulling his hands from his hair and directing his attention to her. When he looked up at her, Pepper's heart broke at the empty look in his eyes.

"I can't find it, Pepper," he whispered thickly.

Pepper held both his hands in one of hers and put her other hand on his cheek.

"Find what?" she asked, her thumb caressing his cheek softly.

"Peter, the clue, the answers, anything," he groaned, dropping his head. Pepper knelt down in front of him and he sniffled before glancing up at her. "They left me a clue three hours ago. I have an hour left to solve it or they'll take Peter for good."

"What do you mean?"

And that's when Tony explained everything. How he'd gotten a phone call that gave him the first clue, how he'd heard Peter crying over the phone, and then how he'd found the second clue but couldn't figure it out.

"It's not an equation or a question really," Tony said, "it's just trying to find out who said "call me". Do you know who says that? Everyone!"

Pepper sighed, knowing how often they both heard that phrase.

"It can't be too long ago," she concluded, "I'd say no more than a week ago. They can't have gotten a hold of old messages."

Tony nodded and the lab fell into a short silence. As they both tried to think of how to solve the second clue, Rhodey's message came to an end and both of them froze.

"Tony, just call me, okay?"

The line went dead and the next message popped up. Tony scrambled to stop it and bring up Rhodey's message again.

"It's Rhodey!" Pepper wasn't too sure, but Tony seemed absolutely positive. "Pep, I have to run over to Rhodey's house real quick. Stay here."

"Hang on, you don't get to just disappear!" Pepper said, but it was already too late. Tony was bounding up the stairs without second thoughts.

Trailing behind him, Pepper went down to the garage instead of suiting up and shooting off into the sky. After plugging in the location for Rhodey's work office, she headed off in an Audi to do her own search for a clue.

* * * * *

Rhodey wasn't a big fan of being woken up in the early hours of the morning. Even without prior military experience, he had grabbed a gun before going to investigate the strange sounds coming from outside his bedroom. The sight of Tony rummaging through his desk at one in the morning was something he hadn't seen before, so it took him a couple of minutes before he was able to form a sentence that wouldn't sound like gibberish.

Tony jumped at his voice, swinging around and raising his gauntlet at the intruder. He only relaxed when Rhodey raised an eyebrow at him.

"Sorry, thought you were someone else," Tony muttered before returning to his hasty search.

"Who else would have been at my house at one in the morning?" Rhodey asked drily, putting his gun down and watching Tony. Tony shrugged but didn't look up from where he was still searching Rhodey's desk.

"A known felon that kidnapped my son," Tony muttered.

At first, Rhodey thought he was kidding, but Tony didn't show any sign of joking and he began to worry.

"What?"

Tony growled in frustration, slamming Rhodey's desk shut and turning to open the filing cabinet.

"Yeah." Tony sighed, exasperated with his lack of results. "Remember James Richie? His goons kidnapped Peter from school about ten hours ago and keep leaving me clues, threatening to all but kill him if I don't solve them in a certain amount of time."

"That's insane!" Rhodey exclaimed. Tony nodded curtly. "What's the clue?"

"It was just about who said "call me", which happened to be you," Tony replied. Rhodey frowned and rushed to tell Tony he had no part in kidnapping Peter. Tony interrupted. "I know, Platypus. I never accused you of kidnapping him, you just happened to be caught in the middle of clues."

"How can I help?" he asked, setting down his gun and joining Tony at his desk.

Tony looked around the destroyed room then shrugged.

"Help me find the clue."