Chapter Text
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The take off was loud, so for once all of the Avengers stayed quiet. Tony was sitting near the window, observing the team in this unusual state. Nat was in the pilot seat, carefully watching the sky in front of the Quinjet. Steve was next to her, buried in the mission files. Bruce, Thor and Clint were looking at the windows. Peter was staring into the wall. Tony didn’t like the dark look on the kid’s face — it was neither scared nor anxious. Rather just dark, determined. What was going on in the kid’s head? Did hearing about human experimentation impact him so much? Peter knew awful stuff like this existed, but maybe after seeing actual documentation of it the reality hit him.
Tony got up and moved to sit next to Peter. The kid leaned into him without even looking.
They stayed like that until the Quinjet straightened and the engines went quiet.
“What’s the plan when we reach the base?” Peter suddenly asked, addressing the room.
Steve looked up from the files. “We go inside and gather as much information as we can, go for the computers and papers. We shouldn’t spend much time inside, no more than twenty minutes. Based on the satellite data the base is empty but we might trigger their security protocols when we break in. So in and out — don’t lose time.”
“It can’t be empty.” Peter looked worried. “HYDRA wouldn’t leave a base unsupervised.”
“It looks abandoned.”
“It can’t be.”
“Can’t be?”
“HYDRA wouldn’t just abandon a base, they would destroy it. If it’s still standing it’s not abandoned.” The kid was clearly paranoid about HYDRA, but his words had some logic.
“We checked the satellite images from the few past month and there was no movement anywhere near the base, you don’t need to worry.” Steve said in a soft tone. “But you are right, it’s better to be overcautious when it comes to HYDRA. We will enter the base stealthily.” He looked at Bruce and Thor. “Better if you'll stay here to fight from the outside if something goes wrong.” Bruce nodded.
“So we start stealthily.” Steve continued the briefing. “And I would prefer to finish unnoticed too.”
“You want to just leave the base there?” Peter cut him.
“What’s your idea, kid?” Tony questioned. God, Peter was acting weird today.
“Burn it to the ground.”
The team just stared at him. No one expected their sunshine youngest member to suggest something so brutal and radical. Maybe Peter was right, it was a terrorist base after all. But the fact that is was the kid who said it didn’t sit right with Tony.
“Peter is right!” Thor broke the silence with his thunderous voice. “There is no need to pity something so harmful!” Yeah, he wasn’t happy about being left out of the fight.
“Let’s break in and get the information first.” Nat suggested. “We don’t even know if there is anyone left to fight in there.” Everyone silently agreed. Peter went back to staring into the wall, fingers unconsciously tracing old scars on his arm.
Tony never asked where exactly all those scars are from, he just assumed Peter had them from his early Spider-man days. They all had a lot of scars, it was normal with their occupation. Peter’s advanced healing dealt with most injuries, which saved Tony a lot of nerves. But as scars, technically, were already healed wounds, Peter’s healing didn’t help with them.
Tony opened his copy of the files, he needed a distraction.
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Record date: 20/07/2017
Subject: ████████
Result: Positive.
Description: The reaction time to any external stimulation proved to be heightened, which suggests highly increased senses and processing speed. Subject shows increased strength and agility.
Side effects: The subject had shown an ability ████████████████████████████████ any surfaces.
Conclusion: Combining the earlier failed serum with ████████████████ was proven to be effective.
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
Варїяція мутатиї можє статі небеспечна. Післе втрати субʼєкта рекмєнданіє нєґайна заверщить досліт.
Підпис: ܔܛܔ
Tony looked through the file. A line in Sokovian, translated by Jarvis, suggested that HYDRA had lost this ’subject’. So it was either dead or on the run. They should be prepared for the latter. Whoever this ’subject’ was, it was dangerous enough that even HYDRA decided not to try to recreate it. He remembered their first encounter with the Maximoff siblings — if this ‘subject’ was even stronger, they were in trouble.
“Was it an attempt to recreate the Winter Soldier or a similar case to the Maximoffs?” Clint addressed the rest of the team. Apparently, he was reading the same file.
“Both.” Peter said confidently.
“You think it’s connected to the Winter Soldier program?” Steve asked.
“Yeah.” Was all Peter said in response.
“How? It doesn’t mention anything about brainwashing or assets.”
“They used a version of supersoldier serum, combined with some kind of venom, probably they gave up on recreating the normal formula.” Peter paused. “It’s in the file.” He added, as in self-justification.
Peter has been extremely observant lately. Tony would be very proud if he wasn’t so worried.
The Quinjet slowed down and Tony noticed that the map on the panel said ‘Sokovia’. They were landing.
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It took them some time to find the base. The coordinates HYDRA had in the file were not exact. They walked past panel buildings, trying to hide from the gazes of passing civilians. The surrounding city looked dark but beautiful. A few old churches were shining brightly with gold, opposing the grey streets. Tony hoped that the base was far from the city itself, somewhere with no people around. The moment he thought they were fully lost, Peter took the map from him and pointed North.
“That way. There are mountains there, it would make sense for the base to be located in the mountains.” Tony hoped he was right.
He was. Not even fifteen minutes later they noticed an oddly shaped mountain — just as if there was something inside it.
“Bingo.” Tony said and sent their exact location to Thor and Bruce, so they can move the Quinjet closer.
They sat down to finalise the plan as now they didn’t only have the base’s inside plan but could also see the outside structure.
“Here,” Steve pointed at the building’s plan, “are three open ventilation entrances. Nat, you go through the upper one, Clint through this one. Peter — this one. Tony and I will go through the back door. It must be locked from the inside and appears to be operated from the distance with this panel. So Peter, as you will be the closest one, you will need to open it. After that join Nat and Clint immediately. You all go to the operating room here, Tony and I will go to here. This way we will reach both operating rooms at the same time. Then we copy the information and leave the same ways. If the base is not empty, notify the rest as soon as possible. In that case Thor and Hulk will attack the base from the outside and give us enough time to get out.”
“Copy that.” Clint said, mockingly serious.
“Let’s go.” Peter looked impatient.
“Gosh Pete, what with that murderous look, kiddo? You act like that base had personally offended you.” Tony joked, unable to keep pretending like the kid wasn’t acting strange. Peter paled and Tony immediately regretted the joke. “Nah, Pete, that’s good. Serious stuff, terrorists, gotta keep a realistic secret agent look.” The kid had zoned out. Tony tried again. “Don’t worry, we will be right here, Pete. Next to you, okay?”
“Okay.” Peter said quietly. His eyes still looked like he was actually planning to burn that base to the ground.
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