No More Lonely

Ch. 5

The next morning, Pepper met with four men that had responded to her PSA. Before she left, Tony had voiced his concern about Peter's mother's, so she asked the men for spit samples to run some DNA tests. Of course, in order for them to give her the DNA, she had to explain that a young boy with the last name Parker had been found and they were searching for his father. Two of the men insisted it couldn't be them as they were faithful to their wives, but Pepper asked for their DNA anyway.

The collected DNA samples were sent up to Tony while Pepper promised the men that she would send them the results. They refused to leave, though, so during the hours it took to run the results, they waited in the lobby. When all the results came in negative, she sent the man home and returned to her office to start a new search.

"Pep, can you watch Peter?" Tony asked, walking into her office moments later.

She looked up from her computer with a frown. In Tony's arms, Peter looked around her office curiously, clearly unaware of what she and Tony were in the middle of looking for.

"I have to run somewhere real quick and he doesn't want to be alone."

Pepper knew where he was going but said nothing. If Tony wanted to hunt down someone he thought could have killed Peter's mother, Pepper wasn't going to stop him.

"Sure," she said, locking her computer and getting up from her desk. "I can go work upstairs."

Together they got in the lift and went back up to the penthouse. Peter was deposited in the living room to play with his Legos while Pepper set to work on her tablet from the couch. Without saying a word to Peter and nodding at Pepper, Tony suited up and flew towards the New York prison that held one James Ritchie.

When Tony arrived, the man was already waiting for him in an empty meeting room. With Iron Man asking, it hadn't taken much to convince the officers to give them a few minutes alone.

"James Richie," Iron Man said, lifting the faceplate of his suit. "You remember why you're here, right?"

"Course I do," James replied. He leaned back in his chair and revealed that one of his hands was cuffed to the chair. "Who forgets the reason they're locked up?"

"Why did you kill Miss Parker?" Tony asked. To Tony's surprise, James's grin widened.

"For fun," he answered.

At first, Tony thought he has kidding, but James didn't laugh and or take back his answer.

Leaning towards Tony with a malicious grin, he murmured, "Every stab sends this thrill through me that I can't describe. It's a thrill unlike any other and it only gets better when she starts begging me to save her and her son."

Tony's gut twisted at his words and he narrowed his eyes at James.

"You murdered a mother for fun," he reminded James, "You let her son watch and then let him live on the streets alone."

James shook his head slightly and not for the first time since the conversation began, Tony was confused.

"I tried to kill him too," James said. When Tony tensed, James grinned. "The younger they are, the more thrilling it is."

Breathing deeply, Tony refrained from putting a metal fist in James's fist. This man was sick. No sane man would stand in front of him and say such a thing.

"Don't think I don't know you have him, Stark. I want that boy. I would have left him alone once he ran, but he ran to the wrong people."

"He ran to the people that could keep him safe," Tony argued sharply.