Archive of Our Own

They were out at Peter’s favorite ice cream place after a decathlon meet when it happened. Tony had insisted on celebrating, and even though May could only stay for a couple minutes, she had elected to go with them if only so she could brag about Peter some more to an indulgent Tony.

“Peter’s the smartest one on that decathlon team,” May said for what must have been the fourth time that day, beaming, “his little friend Michelle was telling me that the past year, he’s been responsible for the winning answer in every single one of their meets and scrimmages!” Peter blushed furiously as May tucked him into her side and Tony watched with a fond look from across the table. He batted his aunt’s hands away and straightened his nice shirt.

“MJ’s exaggerating. And I bet she didn’t tell you about that time in DC when she scored the winning point.” Peter turned to face Tony eagerly, that look that only appeared when he talked about Michelle appearing on his face. Ah, young love, Tony mused. He needed to get a picture of the kid one day when he talked about her so he’d stop denying his feelings in front of Tony.

Outwardly, Tony raised an eyebrow. “This wouldn’t happen to be the same DC trip where you took out your tracker and tried to hunt down Toomes only to get stuck in a Department of Damage Control Warehouse would it?” Peter grinned sheepishly as May continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted.

“Mr. Harrison also said to me privately that you were the smartest kid he’d met in a long time, and that’s saying something considering that fancy school you go to is filled with geniuses.” She tugged Peter back into her side and Peter squawked in surprise as he was pulled away from his ice cream yet again. Tony ducked his head in amusement to hide the wide grin that he couldn’t seem to hide for the life of him, reputation be damned, and caught the rim of his hat in his ice cream. May started on another loud statement of her admiration of Peter when Peter interrupted her yet again, snorting in amusement at the sight of Tony’s hat.

“Mr. Stark, stop—stop doing that, your hat is covered in ice cream. People are gonna see us.” One of his hands dug into his side as he tried to suppress his laughter, leaning into Aunt May’s shoulder. Tony was wearing his usual disguise: an expensive pair of sunglasses and a cheap rose shearling bucket hat, the rim of which was coated green from his mint chip ice cream cone. “Why don’t you just wear a baseball hat?”

Tony looked affronted. “Kid, I have some style. I’m not like Capsicle with his all-american baseball-loving look. I don’t even like baseball.” He would never admit it to Peter, not even under pain of death, but the only reason he wore such a ridiculous get up when he and kid went out somewhere in public was because it never failed to make the kid laugh.

“You don’t have to like baseball to wear a baseball hat what—” Peter devolved into another round of muffled laughter as Tony stuck his tongue out at him.

May watched the two of them in quiet amusement before finally putting in her two cents. “I’m with Tony on this one. I never wear baseball hats.” May nodded her head sagely as she spoke, ignoring Peter’s look of incredulity.

“You literally wore a baseball hat yesterday.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about young man.” May maintained an air of concern. “Do we need to get your eyes checked?” She reached for Peter’s face and managed to put a glob of ice cream on his forehead before he could swat her hand away. As Peter wiped off the mess, she got up from the little booth they had gotten in the corner of the room.

“As fun as this has been, I have to get back to the hospital. My shift starts at 3.” She kissed Peter on the top of his head. “I’ll see you tonight okay? But don’t stay up waiting for me if you decide to actually get a good night’s sleep.”

“Who, me? Get a good night’s sleep?” Peter put on a look of utter surprise. “Wherever would you get the idea of that?” May snorted in amusement before ruffling Peter’s hair, ignoring his squawk of protest.

“I’ll see you tonight Peter,” she said fondly as she turned to go.

“Bye May, love you!” Peter shouted at her retreating figure. She turned, gave him a smile and a wave and then was gone, the bell above the door still ringing after she exited.

It was barely 10 minutes later that it all went to shit. They were just getting up to leave, which left them in full view of the door, when Peter’s spidey-sense suddenly went haywire. He winced at the abrupt pain in the back of his neck.

“Mr. Stark I think—” He was cut off by an explosion. For a moment, it was like Peter’s senses had gone completely offline—like there was a buffer in real life. Everything went red and then dark and there were loud noises, so loud that he couldn’t understand any of them with the way they overlapped one another. His body felt paralyzed with the onslaught of sensory input. Then there was a hand on his shoulder and everything cut back into sharp focus. Tony was kneeled over him, covered in soot, one hand clutching his leg, which Peter could now see had white peeking out around the ankle.

“Mr. Sta-rk.” he gasped out. He pushed himself to his knees and then to his feet, trying to get his mentor into a semi-standing position so he could help him walk. Peter could see beyond the soot covering Tony’s face, that his skin was white in pain. “Tony.” he said again, as they hobbled towards the door, Peter surveying their surroundings.

The ice cream store, a Ben and Jerry’s on the corner of 7th Ave and W 44th St, had been reduced to a smoking heap of rubble. The roof had partially caved in so large chunks of concrete littered the now dirty floor. There were bodies too, people screaming in the vicinity. Peter had to look away, focus on helping his mentor walk, to avoid the feeling of nausea rising in his throat at the potent stench of blood.

There were almost out, almost in view of the busy street when Peter felt the sting in the back of his neck: more danger. He tightened his grip on Mr. Stark, who was slumped in his arms, before he was hit backwards with an absurd amount of force. His head cracked against a broken booth. He heard a sound of alarm from Mr. Stark, managed to get enough maneuverability to press the panic button on his watch against the floor, and hope that Stark tech could withstand an explosion. He blinked, and everything stayed dark against the back of his eyelids.

————

Peter felt like he was far away. Awareness came to him in blips of consciousness: he heard the bark of angry, authoritative voices, felt the ground shifting under him. He vaguely remembered the blast at the Ben and Jerry’s and realized something was very wrong. He tried to force his body into action. Instead, a low groan escaped him, loud enough to alert whoever was near him to his consciousness. The shouting stopped. He heard things that his brain didn’t know how to process, sluggish and useless as it was.

“Get him the—already. He—waking up when—.”

“—ow about the old—”

“—n’t work. Just—”

“Stop! Ge—hands—Peter!”

“Br—him—op!”

“Peter!”

Peter latched onto the one familiar voice out of the bunch, the one that reminded him of lazy movie nights and intense, late night lab sessions. He struggled harder to move himself and was rewarded by his eyelids opening at last. Everything was blurry, but he could make out dark, violently moving shapes. He heard Mr. Stark’s voice again as it was roughly cut off.

“Pe—!” He had regained motion of his arm and his vision cleared enough for him to be able to prop himself up on his elbow and see the shapes more distinctly.

It looked like he was in the back of a large truck. Peter was near where the driver would be, and in the corner closest to the latched doors were several men wrangling a distraught Mr. Stark.

“He—y!” Peter tried to shout, but it came out more like a croak, barely audible. Someone must have heard it though because the next second, someone was shoving him onto his back again, manipulating his body like it was made of play-doh. Peter tried to get out of the harsh grip, twisting this way and that against the rough hands. He heard more incomprehensible yelling from Mr. Stark and a yelp of pain which only served to motivate him more. He shoved the man on top of him and was too incoherent to control his strength, so the man went flying up into the ceiling of the van, where he hit with a sickening crack and landed in a crumpled heap on the floor. Peter recognized distantly that he should probably have felt bad about that, but all he was concerned about was getting to Mr. Stark.

He managed to struggle his way to his knees despite the way the pounding in his head made everything spin. There was another grunt of pain from Mr. Stark, and then there were hands on him, more than before. He tried to throw them off, but then there was a sharp pain in the crook of his elbow, and then the feeling of burning burning burning in his body, and then everything went hazy again.

Peter didn’t know how much time passed like that, stuck in a state halfway between conscious and not. He was hardly able to feel his body; his head felt so heavy, like maybe it had been turned to granite? But that wasn’t right, he could lift granite easily, hell, he’d held up an entire collapsed warehouse before. He wouldn’t be having so much trouble if his head was only granite. Maybe they had invented a new atom that was super dense and could be used to immobilize super strong good guys so they couldn’t move their head anymore.

He was just latching onto the logic of that train of thought when there was another sharp pain in the crook of his arm, this one different from the one before. Then another. And another; each one soothed the burning in his body. After the third poke, he slipped back into the easiness of unconsciousness.

————

Tony liked to think he made an imposing figure in captivity. There was his mind, his past experience, Iron Man, and of course, the weight of the Avengers behind any and all of his threats. As a result, Tony didn’t generally feel the need to resort to blustering or deflection tactics—he’d been kidnapped more times than he could count, and the whole thing was getting old. He always knew how to strike fear into the heart of his captors, how to manipulate the odds in his favor. Even when he was a child being kidnapped for leverage against Howard, he was capable of handling himself by his third go at it. Now that he was an adult, and a superhero to boot? Tony was usually busy staging his breakout by the time the Avengers arrived to rescue him.

But in the cold of the small cell, Peter still unconscious and tucked against his side, Tony wasn’t so sure he could get them out of this. So far, they hadn’t been visited with any demands: no gloating or threatening, nothing. That alone threw Tony off. Usually his kidnappers would enjoy their time spent telling him how they were planning on getting something from him, how they would be the first to break Iron Man. Every one of them was so sure of themselves, so convinced that they were somehow different from all the other villains he’d faced. And they were always wrong. Now though… Tony didn’t know what to expect. All he knew was that getting Peter home safe was his top priority.

It didn’t matter that his leg was pretty much useless, that they had given him a mild sedative and called it a day when he really needed surgery or something to at least combat the infection unless he wanted to eventually lose the leg (he hoped they wouldn’t be wherever they were long enough for that to be a problem). It didn’t matter that the one time he felt uncertain in a kidnapping situation also happened to be the one time he had to protect Peter from whatever horrors awaited them. Surviving a kidnapping when the only thing they can threaten is yourself is easy. Caring about someone else? A huge disadvantage. Tony still remembered Yinsen, how easily they could call his bluff by threatening even superficial harm on the man. And if Tony would do anything to protect Yinsen, he didn’t even want to know what’d he do to protect Peter.

Speak of the devil…

“Ngh.” Peter said as he started to wake. His hands came up to rub at his eyes, but he was confronted with domed metal cuffs. His hands had a couple inches separation from each other by a steel cord, but the cuffs formed domes over his entire hand in such a way that he would be unable to get any leverage to break them open without breaking all the bones in his hand at the same time. “What…?”

“Hey bud.” Tony said, and Peter’s sleep-blurry eyes turned on him. “We’re in a rough spot, but I bet Cap is probably already on his way to deliver his safety lecture.” Peter snorted in amusement, still groggy from whatever drug they had pumped him full of on the van.

“Why’re my hands metal?” He slurred, letting himself slump back against Tony’s side.

“The assholes who took us are afraid of you I think.” Tony smiled at him, and brought his hand up to run it through Peter’s hair, playing with his curls the way he knew Peter liked. They hadn’t bothered to cuff Tony beyond a superficial chain that connected to his manacles. It gave him roughly two feet of space between his hands.

Peter nodded absently for a moment before realizing the implications of Tony’s statement. He shot up and turned his wide eyes back to Tony’s hands and then his own. “They know about…”

Tony sighed. “Sorry kiddo.” Peter’s chin fell forward and Tony genty brought the kid’s head to his chest in a more comfortable position.

“Don’t worry. Your Aunt is safe, and once we get out of here, we’re gonna make sure they don’t tell anyone.”

“How can you be sure?” Peter asked, voice trembling just the slightest bit.

“Kiddo, you know that we’re not letting these guys get away with this, and even then-”

“No, I meant… about Aunt May. How do you know they haven’t-” Peter’s breath hitched.

“Hey, bud, shh, don’t worry okay? If they had Aunt May, you really think they wouldn’t be lording it over the both of us right now? Hell, she’d probably be in this cell here with us.” Tony resumed his stroking of Peter’s hair. “I’m sure Happy or Rhodey brought her to a safe place as soon as they knew we were missing.”

Peter didn’t respond, but by the way his body relaxed against Tony’s, he thought he’d done a good enough job reassuring the kid. Problem was, he still had no idea why they had been kidnapped, or how they knew that Peter was Spider-man. Tony wished whoever it was that had kidnapped them would show up and gloat so that he could get an idea of what they were up against. It would at least help settle the uneasiness in his gut.

Peter shot up suddenly and turned to look at his leg. “Your leg!” he said, “I forgot, oh shit! What’re we gonna do Mr. Stark?” Tony rested his hands on Peter’s shoulders.

“I’m actually gonna need your help with this one bud. I have to reset the bone,” Peter’s eyes widened, “but I can’t move my leg while I’m doing it.” Tony heaved in a breath, loathe to ask this of his protege. “I’m gonna need you to keep my leg still, alright? I’m probably gonna try to move it, but you can’t let me, even if I ask you too, not until it's over.” Peter nodded hesitantly at him, eyes still wide as saucers.

“Are you sure we can’t just wait till they come back and ask them to fix it?” Peter asked innocently. Tony chuckled.

“Trust me kid, they’re probably thrilled I’m in this shape. We’re gonna have to deal with it ourselves.” Peter nodded again and moved his cuffed hands so that they were pressed on top of Tony’s broken leg. Tony hissed in pain and Peter flinched.

“I’m gonna need you to press harder kiddo,” he said through gritted teeth. Peter looked up, alarmed.

“But my hands are covered in this stupid metal, I can only press down.” Peter spoke like he expected it to change Tony’s mind, like he hoped it would. When Tony only nodded and said:

“Press down as hard as you can,” Peter shouted,

“I’m gonna hurt you!”

Tony tried to reassure him. “Whatever pain you put me through is temporary. A little pain now is gonna save me a lot of pain later. You gotta trust me kid, I can take it.”

Peter took a deep breath and pressed down harder, obeying Tony every time he shouted in pain and told him to keep pressing. Tony took a few quick breaths through his gritted teeth to prepare himself and then reached down to his leg to reset it. When he did so, the pain was agonizing. But at least Peter kept to his word and prevented him from moving his leg, even after Tony collapsed back against the wall, panting in pain. After another minute had passed, Peter lifted his cuffed hands.

“Mr. Stark?” he asked hesitantly, “are you okay?”

Tony lifted his head no more than an inch and gave him a thumbs up. “I will be, kid.” He adjusted himself, careful about moving his leg, and gestured for Peter to come back to his side. Peter curled up cautiously, afraid of making any move that would put Tony in further pain, no doubt. Tony carefully didn’t mention that they still had to worry about infection, and that there would be no way for them to fix that from their current situation. Peter had enough to worry about already.

Peter was quiet for a long while, so long that Tony thought he’d fallen asleep, when he said suddenly, “I pressed the button.”

“Hmm? What button, kiddo?”

“The one on my watch. The panic button.” Peter tilted his chin so that he could see Tony’s face better. “That means that they should be here really soon right?” Tony could see the way Peter’s chin trembled as he spoke, entirely involuntary, and he choked down a harsh breath. He sometimes forgot, for how strong and brave Peter was, for how much he pretended he wasn’t, that he was still a kid, and he’d never been kidnapped before.

“Yeah.” Tony flattened his palm on Peter’s head and Peter practically purred at the comforting pressure. “Yeah,” he repeated, “they’ll be here before the hour’s up.”

When their captors finally made an appearance, Tony regretted his wish. He had almost managed to fall asleep, he and Peter leaning on each other like they did during movie nights, when a sound like a siren burst the muffled silence of the cell. Peter cried out immediately, trying to bring his hands up to cover his ears and being stopped short by the cuffs. Tony pressed Peter’s head into his chest and used his own hands to cover the kid’s ears, gritting his teeth at the noise. He couldn’t imagine how much pain Peter was in with his enhanced senses.

Then, the door burst open. The lights went blindingly bright as the noise continued its awful screech. Peter sobbed into Tony’s chest and made himself as small as possible. Tony couldn’t do more than hold tightly to him.

It stopped just as quickly as it had started.

When Tony was able to blink the dizzying lights from his eyes enough to see, he saw 5 men in front of them. One of them was obviously the leader. He stood a little ahead of the other four, and was dressed in nicer clothing. The other four men wore the same outfit, all dark, with masks over their heads similar to police riot gear. Tony pulled Peter closer into his side.

“Well, if it isn’t the famous Tony Stark.” The leader said in a booming voice. Peter whimpered into Tony’s chest at the noise, ears obviously still sensitive from the blaring siren. The small noise unfortunately brought their captor’s attention to Peter, which made Tony tense.

“And I can’t forget about Spider-man.” The man practically spat the name. Tony carded his fingers through Peter’s hair as he glared at the man, trying to soothe his no doubt over heightened senses.

“Listen, I don’t know if you follow the news, but you should know that kidnapping me doesn’t really work out.” Tony said in a drawling voice, trying to get the man’s eyes off of where Peter’s head was buried into his chest. The man looked at Tony distastefully.

“Yes, well, we’re not the Ten Rings Mr. Stark. You’ll find that we have a significant advantage over them in terms of persuasion.” Again the man’s eyes locked on Peter. Tony held him closer. He hated where this was going. “Mr. Parker here should do the trick.”

Maybe the man had rehearsed some kind of signal with the four guards beforehand because immediately after he said Peter’s name, the men stepped towards them.

“No!” Tony shouted, maneuvering his body between the men and Peter. He practically growled at the leader, who hadn’t moved and was still smiling at Tony condescendingly. “If you touch him, I won’t do anything for you. That’s a promise. You want something? You get it from me.”

“Oh Mr. Stark, don’t worry. We don’t need anything from you.” And then two of the guards were on him, dragging him away from Peter so the other two had access. All the while, Tony let out a stream of heavy abuse as he fought their grip.

“You bastards, you fucking monsters, I’m gonna kill you, let me go, I’ll-” Peter let out a cry as he scrambled back from the men who were rapidly approaching. He brought his fists up, ready to fight, but they were still bound too close together to provide any leverage. Peter took a swing at the first guard, and caught a glancing blow to the man’s chin, but the maneuver left him open and off balance. The other guard simply kicked him in the side with what Tony saw now was a steel-toed boot, and Peter went sprawling on the floor.

Tony thought he had been struggling before, but that was nothing compared to the desperate writhing he was doing now. He had to get to Peter before these bastards hurt him any more than they already had.

But without his suit, his leg still mangled, and with whatever drugs they had given him still working their way through his body, he couldn’t get free of their hold. He could only curse at them and try to kick at their shins with his one good leg. Across the room, Peter was being dragged out by the guards. They weren’t even letting him get to his feet; they were just moving him by his shoulders at what must’ve been an uncomfortable angle so that he was off balance and couldn’t quite walk. Peter threw his head back to catch Tony’s eye as he was led out of the cell.

“Tony!” Peter cried out, still struggling, and was promptly hit on the head for speaking. The last Tony saw of him was his head hanging after the blow. The leader turned from where he had been watching the guards take Peter and grinned at Tony.

“Well, I’ll leave you alone now. We have more interesting matters to attend to.” he said.

Tony could hardly verbalize his rage. The guards eventually left him, pushed him back against the wall and made their exit behind their leader, leaving Tony to curse at nothing as he waited for Peter to come back.

————

Peter hadn’t really been sure what he was expecting when he was dragged out of the cell. He wasn’t oblivious, he knew that he was about to be tortured. That’s how it worked when you were kidnapped. But the most he could think of was being tied to a chair and asked questions that garnered a hit to the face or stomach for every unsatisfactory answer. What he got was much worse.

By the time he had finally managed to get to his feet, the guards were shoving him again, this time into a room with a slanted metal table that had reinforced belts of varying sizes on it. He managed to partially break his fall with his cuffs, and sprang back up the instant he was able.

C’mon Spiderman, c’mon. You don’t need your hands, you can do this. Peter lifted up his all but useless hands in a mimicry of old-fashioned fisticuffs. He eyed the guards warily and backed up to put the metal table between them. Before the standoff had a chance to end, the man from before came waltzing in, followed by two more guards and a meek woman in a doctor’s coat. Peter tried for his signature Spiderman grin, but it probably came out as more of a grimace. The man only laughed.

“Well, spider, you have some fight in you don’t you?” He asked. Peter tensed, ready at any moment for an attack. He needed the upper hand, but how was he going to get it? The ceilings weren’t tall enough for him to be able to escape the guards’ batons. And even if they were, Peter could see the imprint of a gun in the leader guy’s jacket. His best option was to get the hell out of this room as soon as possible, find some way to get the stupid domed cuffs off, and get he and Tony as far away from this place as he could.

“Don’t know why it was ever in question. I’m assuming you know my MO.” If the man were at all perturbed by Peter’s casual response, he didn’t show it. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it.

“I’ll enjoy watching you break Parker.” Peter tried not to stiffen at his name—if they knew his name, they knew about Aunt May and oh god—and instead decided to launch his attack.

He threw himself over the table so he could land a kick to the closest guard’s stomach while swinging his arms together to knock another guard on the temple. The man who he’d hit on the head crumpled with the force of the blow, but that was about all the damage Peter was capable of doing before the leader was there with a taser gun.

Suddenly, Peter was on the floor, a burning pain consuming him as his body twitched and jerked against his will. He tasted blood in his mouth, and he couldn’t stop the low drawn out groan of pain that escaped him at the onslaught. Wherever the metal cuffs came in contact with his skin, the pain only increased; his hands were no longer hands, but a bundle of nerves conducting pain. If he thought his senses were going haywire before in the cell, it was nothing compared to the assault that they were under now. Everything was too much, too much, too much. And it wasn’t stopping.

Then, just like that, the pain was gone. In its absence, his muscles spasmed in little aftershocks, and he gagged at the potent scent of blood in his mouth. He tried pushing himself up on his shaking limbs, but two guards heaved him up onto the metal table. There wasn't much he could do as they uncuffed his hands and then cuffed them to the sides of the table. They repeated the process with his legs, stomach, neck, and forehead. He tugged at the restraints but either he was too weak from the electrocution or they were designed to be able to hold him because he could hardly move at all.
Peter tensed as the leader laid a gentle hand on his exposed stomach. The touch was too soft, too gentle, yet still so painful. His skin burned at any point of contact. He felt so exposed, laid out on this table. Peter watched as the women set up several trays of equipment that were above his eye level and an IV stand.

“I see you’re starting to get it, aren’t you spider?” the man said when he saw the direction of Peter’s stare. He whipped his head back around to glare at the man.

“It’s gonna take a lot more than some medical instruments to scare me,” he said, trying to sound defiant.

The man grinned. “I’m counting on it.”

————

“Ya know I’m not really into this kinda thing. The pain and stuff. You guys should find some more willing partners.” The leader cocked an eyebrow as the woman finished her final cut on Peter’s torso and then wiped off the serrated blade with a cloth. Peter flashed the man a grin. This was easy, this was familiar. He got stabbed and cut all the time as Spiderman. Sure it was never this intimate of a setting, and he usually had a chance to defend himself, but if he blocked that out and focused only on the knife’s blade, it wasn’t so bad. Even the drugs they were giving him in a steady stream through the IV weren’t too bad. They kept him from being able to escape, but they didn’t hurt. In fact, they somewhat numbed the cut of the knife.

“You’re right, this is getting pretty boring isn’t it? Maybe you’ll find the next experiment a little more to your liking. Let’s see how long spiders can hold their breath.” Peter stiffened.

“Wait, now that I think of it, I don’t mind this so much. I’m fine up here.” As the guards unlatched the restraints and heaved him onto his knees on the floor, Peter kept up a steady stream of comments. “Really, you’ve been such good hosts already, I wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome. And I don’t know how the showers here work, I bet you have those high tech ones with a million buttons, like in Cars 2, huh? You know that scene where Mater’s in the bathroom in Japan and he—” Peter was cut off by a baton to the stomach. He doubled over to get his breath back and groaned.

He managed to keep himself sitting up right, which gave him a clear view of the metal basin more guards were bringing into the room. The man crouched down to his level, grabbed his face by his cheeks and squeezed.

“Spider, you’re going to hold your head under water until I say so. Understood?” Peter moaned, clutching at his stomach before he was able to sputter something out.

“Swimming lessons for four years olds, got it.” Admittedly weak, but hey, he was being tortured. That probably earned him a bit of slack. He was roughly dragged over to the basin and dropped again. He twisted his head to the leader. “You’re really not even gonna make me? Like I’ll keep my head under but I’m coming up when I want to.” The man simply shrugged.

“If you’d like. Under.” Peter dunked his head under water and let the coolness of it refresh him. Like this, everything was calm, muted. It was actually a relief. Once his chest began to feel tight from lack of air, he lifted his head. Surprisingly, he wasn’t met with any resistance. The doctor was holding a stopwatch, which she showed the leader. He nodded and then faced Peter.

“I didn’t say you could come up yet,” he said simply, “you’ll have to be punished for that.” Peter shrugged.

“Get me back up on the table then so crazy lady can have another go.”

The man shook his head. “Not this time, I should think. You seemed to enjoy the little jolt I gave you earlier. How about a shock collar?” Peter knew it wasn’t a question.

“Whatever you’re gonna do, just get it over with.”

————
“You guys should really take a break, state-mandated, you can’t be making more than minimum wage right?” Peter babbled until the hit came, desperate to stop it from landing but not yet desperate enough to give the man what he wanted.

“Let’s try this again.” The sound of a baton hitting metal. “Kneel.” Peter stayed resolutely standing. The man sighed in impatience. “Get the muzzle again,” he instructed one of the guards, and then, smiling at Peter “and the shock collar remote.”

Peter dropped to his knees. “No… no, wait, no please! Look, look! No, please no, no—hhhnnng!”

————

Clang!

“Good.” The man walked around Peter in a slow circle.

Click

“Back straight... Hold it… I told you not to look me in the eye, how hard is that to understand!” He raised the remote in front of his face, finger hovering over the button. Peter’s eyes dropped to the floor, then squeezed closed for good measure.

“Wait, no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, I’ll do better, wait, no, please.”

————

It had been 13 hours since they had taken Peter. Tony had counted every second. There was nothing else he could do, and he was afraid that if he stopped, his mind would wander to far darker places. For most of the time Peter had been gone, Tony paced, worried his lip, picked at his cuticles. He tried his best to keep himself physically busy with his fidgeting and mentally busy with his counting so he didn’t have a breakdown the second he thought about where they were and how Peter had been taken and it had been 13 hours already and oh god-.

The door slammed open. This time, they hadn’t bothered with the noise and the lights and for that Tony was grateful because it meant he could focus his sole attention on Peter who was about to come through the door. But whatever momentary gratitude he had felt disappeared when he saw Peter.

He was in a kennel. Two guards were carrying him inside by the handles of the large metal kennel, obviously reinforced by the look of it. Tony cried out and launched himself at one of them, but was immediately hit with a baton to the side. He fell to the floor wheezing for breath and gripping at his ribs which were bruised at the very least. Those guys were strong. His leg, which had knocked against the floor when he’d been hit, was radiating with pain, disorienting him even further. When he caught his breath, he watched through watery eyes as they opened the kennel and Peter scrambled out as fast as he could, breathing heavily through a muzzle. A fucking muzzle. Tony growled low in his throat when he saw it. Peter’s eyes were wide with fear as they looked at where Tony was hunched over on the concrete floor. He was obviously trying to say something but it didn’t come out as anything intelligible. One of the guards banged on the kennel behind Peter with the baton, which resulted in a loud echoing clanging noise that made Peter flinch forward onto his knees.

The leader stepped into the cell and made a noise of disdain when his eyes landed on Peter. Then he addressed Tony.

“We took the liberty of training him for you. Of course it’s not done, but the results so far have been quite impressive.” The man clicked his tongue and Peter went rigid, body shooting upwards so his spine was straight and he rested on his heels. The guards moved in front of him to take off the muzzle, which left red marks behind on his face from where Peter had obviously struggled against it.

Tony, breathing heavily, could hardly wait until all the men were gone. As soon as the last one slipped out the door, Tony sagged forward. He tried to catch Peter’s eyes, which were trained on the ground—had been since the leader’s signal.

“Pete.” Tony said, voice as soft as he could make it. He tried to channel all the love he could into his voice and his posture and his expression. “Kiddo.” He scooted closer to Peter, careful of his injured leg, and reached out a hand across the floor.

Peter’s eyes slowly followed the fingers in his line of vision up Tony’s arm until he was staring at him. He keened, low in his throat, and lunged into Tony’s arms, already curled up protectively. Tony wrapped his arms around him immediately, more on instinct than anything. He rubbed slow circles on Peter’s back and dragged his fingers through his hair, doing whatever he could to make Peter feel safe and loved after whatever hell he had just experienced for the last day.

“Oh, Peter. What did they do to you.” Tony said, more a statement than a question. He didn’t want to pressure him into answering if he wasn’t ready.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter sobbed, “Mr. Stark, Mr. Stark, Mr. Stark, Mr. Stark,” and he tried to curl up further in his arms. Tony held him as tightly as he could.

“I love you, you’re so brave, you’ve done such a good job, you’re incredible Pete, really, you are. I’m so proud of you buddy, so proud—“ Tony whispered softly to Peter as many encouragements as he could until, minutes later, the boy’s cries came to a stop, to be replaced with small sniffles. Peter pulled back slightly so his head wasn’t flat against Tony’s chest.

“Mr. Stark,” he said.

“Yeah kid?”

“Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark I—” he paused for a long while, and Tony barely breathed. “When are the avengers gonna get here?” he asked, sounding smaller than Tony had ever heard him.

“Soon buddy. I promise.”

————

The next time they brought Peter back from whatever torture he’d been forced to endure, the large metal cuffs had finally been taken off him, but they left the muzzle on. At first, Tony thought it was a mistake.

“Hey, asshole. You forgot something.” Tony said as he cradled Peter in his lap and gestured to the thing blocking half his face. The leader just smiled that obnoxious smile that Tony really hated.

“No. We didn’t.” And then they were gone. Peter whimpered behind the muzzle, looked up at Tony with desperate eyes. Tony tried to comfort him, but Peter started to panic at the thing that was stuck to his face still. He started clawing at his face with his newly freed hands, tearing his own skin in his urgency.

“Shh, shh, Peter, it’s okay, I’ll get it off you, just calm down for me bud.” Tony tried reassuring Peter, but he was panicking himself, and it was difficult to calm his own breathing down enough to convince Peter to do the same.

“Mmhphpmmh!”

“I know, I know, kid.” Tony’s heart broke when the kid, his kid, stilled, eyes locking with Tony’s. He looked at him with absolute trust in his ability to save them. Tony hoped the day when he had to betray that trust never came (even if it already felt like it had). “It’s okay, I got you.” Tony said, using one hand to comb through his curls, and the other to get the damn muzzle off his head. It took longer using only one hand, but Peter didn’t complain, leaned into the touch like he was starved of it. He was starved of it. Tony knew that Peter probably didn’t receive a single kind touch when the guards took him away for hours at a time, and he’d be damned if he didn’t rectify that as soon as he possibly could.

Tony had just gotten the muzzle off and was pulling Peter back into a hug when the door slammed open. It was the man, and just one guard this time. Tony growled at him.

“What do you want? Thought you were done for the day.” His grip tightened on Peter, who shrunk back against him.

“You’ve interrupted our project,” the man said simply, “and I’ve come here to show you what will happen if you try to do it again.” The guard didn’t move the way Tony expected him to. Instead, he just waited by the door, and the man stepped forward in his place. Tony scooted back, pushing Peter behind him until they were against the cold wall.

“Step aside Tony,” the man said, suddenly harsh, all pretenses of the welcoming host gone.

Tony snorted. “Yeah right. Who’s gonna make me.” He tightened his grip on Peter, who he could hear making little noises of fear. Tony’s insides burned with fury. How dare this man come in here and threaten his kid like this, make him hurt. Tony was going to kill him.

The man turned his gaze to Peter, and Tony felt him shrink and grip tighter to the back of his shirt.

“Come here,” the man said. Tony jolted when he felt Peter move from behind him.

“Peter, what—” It was like Peter was fighting himself, torn between staying where he was and moving towards the man. He whined low in the back of his throat, a soft “Tony” escaping his mouth. After Peter said his name he twitched, expression pained, and must have managed to convince himself to move towards the man.

Tony heard the use of his first name, something Peter only did when he was especially scared, and tried to reach out to Peter. Peter flinched from his grasp and Tony pulled his hand back. The man watched expectantly as Peter moved to kneel in front of him in the same position as when the guard had snapped last time. “Peter,” Tony said. It hurt to watch this. It was worse than being stabbed. Tony had thought that the fear in Peter’s eyes when he got back to the cell the first time was the worst thing he’d ever seen. He was wrong—it was this, the empty, glazed look in his eyes as he knelt in front of a man who meant to hurt him.

Tony made another move to protect Peter and the guard at the door took a step forward, pulled out a baton. Tony scoffed—did they really think they could intimidate him with one guard holding a piece of wood? But the man chuckled at Tony’s reaction, and didn't stop him from moving to Peter. That made him hesitate.

“What?” Tony asked, still defiant, still sure he could take on one unenhanced man with a stick.

“I told you that we were in the middle of an experiment. You interrupted it. Now, we have to punish you.”

“You think I care about being roughed up a bit by grumpy over there?” Tony was almost at Peter’s side. He was going slowly so as not to force the man’s hand and to avoid jostling his leg but he was about three seconds away from just lunging towards Peter.

“I’m sure you don’t. However, you might not like your punishment.” The man walked to the guard, who handed him the baton, then stood to be in front of Tony again so that he was between him and Peter.

“What’s my punishment?” Tony asked mockingly. He was too slow to stop the first blow.

Peter cried out in pain as the baton came down hard on his lower back. It looked like he was trying not to move, but his back still arched a little, body unable to remain completely still. Tony roared in fury.

“Get the fuck away from him!” The man stepped to the side, nonchalant.

“As I was saying Tony, it’s the mutant here who will receive all punishments.”

“His name is Peter.” Tony said.

“Is it?” the man asked. Then he turned to Peter and asked mockingly. “What’s your name?” Peter was silent, head down. The man snarled and brought the baton down on his shoulders. “What’s your name?” Peter glanced at Tony, the glazed look in his eyes somewhat disappeared after the first blow, but he still didn’t answer.

“What’s your name?” The man roared and swung the baton down on Peter’s shoulders several times, each time eliciting some sound of pain from him. On the last blow, something cracked in Peter’s shoulder, and he cried out, panting harshly. He dropped onto his good arm’s elbow, and remained hunched over.

Tony was desperately trying to talk to Peter, “It’s okay kid, it’s okay just give him what he wants,” he whispered, and then louder “maybe he’d answer if you gave him a second to breathe goddammit!”

Peter drew in a shaky breath. His hands shook where they were resting on the ground. He glanced at Tony, face flush with shame and defeat. “I don’t have one,” he whispered.

The man gave a casual whack of the baton to the back of Peter’s head. “Sir,” he said

“Sir,” Peter amended. Tony watched the exchange in horror, couldn’t do anything that he wanted to do to stop it. Whatever he did on his kid’s behalf would only hurt him more.

“Now,” the man looked at Tony, “the muzzle stays on.” Tony seethed where he sat, grinding his teeth. “Say it,” the man said, an edge to his voice that wasn’t there before.

Tony hesitated. Everything in him screamed at him not to say it. But then he looked at Peter, clenched his jaw, and, taking his own advice, replied quietly, “The muzzle stays on.”

————

Peter clung desperately to what he knew. He kept a list, repeated it to himself over and over and over whenever he was away from Tony, tried to make it longer when he was curled up with Tony, the man’s hands soothing and gentle against his skin.

He practiced speaking through the muzzle with Tony on the fourth day, not yet ready to give up on that avenue of communication just yet. When that ended up failing though (halfway through their practice the man and his muscle barged in and beat him to a pulp in front of Tony), he resigned himself to using more discrete modes of communication. He and Tony invented a sign language of sorts—nothing recognizable as anything besides body movement. It was something at least, but it was still so little.

He kept thinking about space. It became the easiest thing to think about whenever he was away from Tony. That and his list. He was lonely. Space was so vast and filled with life, he could lose himself in it, the possibilities of it all. It helped him feel less alone when he was in the awful room with the awful metal table and the awful doctor.

He had Tony, sometimes, when they let him see him. Often, they would keep Peter awake for invasive surgeries long into the night as punishment for disobeying, and he’d only get to see Tony for a moment before his body forcibly shut down. Then, he’d wake up to the guards dragging him out of the cell—more often, they just ordered him to move and he sprung to obey. On those days, he felt so disconnected from his body and from Tony that it was hard to stay sane.

It would be so easy to forget, to let the men do what they wanted, to stop fighting. Every day it got easier and easier to move on a sort of fucked-up autopilot. Tony and his list were the only things keeping him going, the only things that reminded him of what he was fighting for.

My name is Peter Parker. I am loved. Tony is here with me. I live with my Aunt May. My best friend is Ned Leeds. I am Spider-man. I help people. My name is Peter Parker. I am loved. Tony is here with me. I live with my Aunt May. My best friend is Ned Leeds. I am Spider-man. I help people. My name is Peter Parker. I am loved. Tony is here with me. I live with my Aunt May. My best friend is Ned Leeds. I am Spider-man. I help people. My name is Peter Parker.

————

Tony didn’t know how long he was there in that cell—his only measurement of time was the schedule by which they took Peter from him. And even that wasn’t entirely reliable as they often kept him almost overnight. Each time they tossed him back into the cell, he looked more lost, his eyes more blank. Tony always tried his best to bring him back: curling his hands in the nape of his neck and singing to him in Italian, rambling a litany of praises with Peter flush to his chest.

Peter stopped trying to talk after what Tony thought was day seven—the last time they attempted any form of two-way verbal communication. They kept the muzzle on for three more days to be sure, but they didn’t need it. Peter hadn’t said a word since he had whispered Tony’s name over and over again after one of the aforementioned long times away from the cell.

Tony could hardly even imagine what they did to him. It seemed that every time Peter returned to the cell he had a different injury. He’d find gaping incisions in the kid’s back and arms and legs, healing bruises that made his skin horribly discolored, dripping wet hair that Tony remembered all too well from his stint in Afghanistan. But the worst is when Peter would come back and he didn’t appear to be physically injured at all. On those days, he wasn’t capable of making any sort of eye contact. Sometimes, he couldn’t even handle Tony’s touch. He’d just move straight to the corner of the room and curl up in a tight ball on the floor. Those times happened most often after they kept him well into what Tony thinks is the night.

And while their captors seemed to ignore Tony for the most part, the deteriorating state of his leg had made it harder and harder to be strong for Peter. An infection had set in what Tony thought was three days ago, and he’d been half delirious the last time Peter had come back.

Tony could only hope that the Avengers found them soon.

————

My name is Peter Parker. I am loved. Tony is here with me. I live with my Aunt May. My best friend is Ned Leeds. I am Spider-man. I help people. My name is Peter Parker. I am loved. Tony is here with me. I live with my Aunt May. My best friend is Ned Leeds. I am Spider-man. I help people. My name is Peter Parker, I am loved, Tony is here with me, I live with my Aunt, my best friend in Ned I am Spider-man, my name is Peter Parker, I am loved, Tony is here with me, I live… Ned… Spider-man… I help… my name is Peter Parker I am loved Tony is here with me my name is Peter Parker I am… loved Tony is… Spider-man my name is Peter Parker I am loved… Tony is…—

————

Tony thought it was sometime in the beginning of the second month—though he couldn't be sure—when the leader came in with the guards for the first time in weeks. The sight of him made a hatred unlike any Tony’s ever felt surge in his chest. On instinct, he almost lunged for him, but then he remembered the way the man had brought that baton down on Peter’s back and instead he tightened his grip around Peter.

“What do you want?” he grit out. Peter was tense beneath his hands, a keening sound stuck in the back of his throat that Tony only recognized from awful familiarity.

The man extended a hand towards Tony, acting the part of a gracious host. “I thought you might enjoy a demonstration of all our hard work,” he says. He barked an order in a language Tony didn't recognize and two guards came in carrying a metal basin between them. They struggled under the weight, and that’s when Tony realized that it was filled with water.

All of his anger was replaced with dread. He knew this scene, he’d lived it, and he’d do anything to keep Peter from having to experience it too. But he couldn’t do anything. If he did, they’d just as likely drown Peter in their effort to intimidate Tony. He hated that it worked.

“All right, now Tony, if you’d just scoot back there a bit for me. The mutant has to do this part by himself.” Tony hesitated for only a second, but that’s all the excuse the man needed to hurt Peter.

“Come here,” the man barked out, and Peter scrambled forwards to obey the direct order. The man took Peter by the back of his shirt once he was close enough to grab and dragged him towards the basin. Peter, unable to get his feet under him, thrashed when he saw the water. His eyes went wide with panic and he threw his head back to look at Tony.

“Let him go,” Tony shouted in a panic, all pride forgotten weeks ago. “He’s scared, just, you’ve done enough, I get it, I get it! No more hesitating! Message received!” The man ignored him. “I’ll do whatever you want! I’ll build something! I will! Is that what you want?!” Still no response. Peter was thrown to his knees in front of the basin. His hands gripped the sides of it, knuckles stark white against the dark gray of the metal.

Tony was confused. Where were the guards at his side, pushing him under, holding him there? He had learned not to be grateful for any seeming kindness at this point. His skepticism was proven right moments later.

“Under,” the man said calmly, and Peter’s head went into the water immediately. Tony watched as Peter ran out of air, as he thrashed desperately, as he ignored all his survival instincts and his head stayed under. The man explained to Tony, “he hasn’t received the order to come up for air, so he won’t.”

The guards had to hold Tony back when he attacked the man. He was seeing red, could barely hold a coherent thought past he’s hurting Peter, I’m going to kill him. On the other side of the cell, Peter went boneless, and the man pulled him out by his hair. It took a second before Peter started coughing up water, choking for breath. The man looked at Tony, and his glare hardened.

“Again,” he said.

————

My name is Peter Parker. I am loved. My name is Peter Parker. I am loved. My name is Peter Parker. I am… Peter… My name is Parker… My name is Peter my name is Peter my name is Peter my name is—

————

Tony was there, in the room with him. Peter had his wires all crossed up. This didn’t usually happen. There were so many bodies in the room. The man was in front of him, giving him something: a knife. He needed to cut open his arm, test his regeneration again. The noise around him was so distracting.

“Stop! Just sto—!”

“—ake sure you’re hold— “

“—eter!”

He held the knife against the inside of his arm, close to his elbow. He would need space for the successive cuts.

“Depth One,” the man said, and he made a shallow cut. Tony was writhing against the guards, and Peter had to stop himself from focusing on the look on Tony’s face, the emotion that threatened to surge through him just from thinking of the older man. He needed to follow instructions.

“Depth Two,” the man said. Another cut, and more thrashing from the other side of the room.

“Depth Three,” the man said, and Peter drifted away. It was like watching something on tv. He knew it was him down there, his blood and his hand and his knife, but he wasn’t part of it. He was… detached, loose. Up here, he was Peter, and it didn’t hurt to think of himself as such. It didn’t hurt to think of Tony. It didn’t hurt to think of anything at all.

He was brought brutally back down when the knife was snatched from his hands, and the deepest cut yet was made across his wrist and up onto his palm. A small keening sound escaped him as he tucked his arm against his stomach in an effort to staunch the bleeding. He felt a gentle touch on his shoulder, but then that too was ripped from him. The man said something and then he was being dragged out of the room, away from Tony. He didn’t even have the energy to meet Tony’s eyes in a silent goodbye before the door was being slammed shut in front of him.

————

Tony almost didn’t believe it when War Machine slammed the door open, Captain America a couple steps behind him. He looked up from where he’d trained his gaze on Peter in his lap and went still.

“Are you—?” he asked in a croaky voice, afraid he had finally lost it or that the infection was finally going to kill him and he was hallucinating a rescue attempt.

The faceplate went up and Rhodey’s face was there, and it was so much like the first time that Tony started crying, sobbing into Peter’s sleeping form—the weeks of sleeplessness and the fever of the infection in his leg finally catching up to him so that he couldn’t help the hysterical tears that escaped his eyes. He couldn’t take his hands off Peter, too afraid to let go, but he took in Rhodey and Steve with his eyes, relished in seeing a familiar face. He was so relieved. It was over. It was all over.

Of course, then Peter woke up and went rigid. Tony heard his breath shorten.

“Steve’s got the kid, Tony. Can you stand? Where are you hurt?”

“M’not.” Tony lied, and he couldn’t let go of Peter. Not now, especially not when he was panicking in Tony’s arms.

“Tony, you gotta let go of Peter. Steve needs to take him up to the med team. They’re on the quinjet. Tony—“ and Rhodey tried to remove Tony’s hands from Peter and he freaked. Tony pulled back violently and Peter whined, curled into himself.

“Don’t—“ Tony warned. “I can carry him.” Rhodey backed off, gave Steve a look, and let Tony struggle to his feet with Peter in his arms.

“Tony—” Steve tried, but Tony silenced him with a glare. He’d be damned if he let anybody near Peter right now, friend or not.

As soon as Tony put pressure on his leg, he felt like heaving up stomach acid. He almost caved, turned to Rhodey and admitted that he couldn’t do it, but a quick glance at Peter, and Tony steeled himself. He was a Stark, and Stark men were made of iron.

After about a half a minute of walking down a long gray corridor, during which they’d gotten all of two feet because of Tony’s slow pace, Tony stumbled and almost dropped Peter. He shouldn’t have been walking on his leg, was barely conscious through the pain of it, but he couldn’t bear to have Peter panic in Steve or Rhodey’s arms. Steve reached out a hand instinctively to steady Tony as he tripped, and Peter jerked back, throwing Tony even more off balance. Steve, not realizing the cause of Peter’s freak out, kept trying to help Tony but it only served to panic Peter more and more until eventually Rhodey said frustratedly, “Tones! Get him to sit still!” and Peter froze. He disentangled himself from Tony’s hold and immediately dropped to his knees, hands on his legs, head down. All three of the men could hear Peter’s fast breathing, see the tension in his body. He was like a coiled spring.

Steve and Rhodey’s frustrated expressions quickly dropped. Rhodey’s in horror and Steve’s in guilt. Steve knew this kind of behavior, had seen it back during the war when he and the Howling Commandos would rescue a captured group of soldiers. They’d called it shell shock—a catch-all for the trauma the soldiers experienced. But Steve had never seen anything as intense as this before, for all the horrors he’d seen HYDRA produce, none of them measured up to seeing Peter, probably the kindest person he’d ever met, conditioned from absolute fear to respond the way he just had to Rhodey’s words.

Tony was quick to console Peter. He dropped to the ground next to him, forehead beaded in sweat from the exertion of walking on his injured leg, and spoke to him quietly, “It’s okay to get up bud, don’t worry, we’re being rescued, they can’t do anything now.” He rubbed his hands over the kid’s shoulders, up and down his back, tangled his fingers in the hair at the nape of the kid’s neck, and made a joke about how long his hair was getting now. Peter whimpered in Tony’s hold, gripping the back of his shirt so tightly it began to rip.

Rhodey and Steve could only watch with sad eyes as Peter tried to overcome instinct and trust the kind voice beside him. It took several long minutes, but eventually, Tony managed to get Peter up and walking. They make it another couple of feet: Peter taking slow, hesitant steps with occasional encouragement from Tony that yes he’s allowed to walk, and no Tony would never punish him—that hit Steve like a punch to the gut. He hadn’t been allowed to walk?—when Tony collapsed.

His leg gave out under him and he groaned in pain. Rhodey and Steve were beside him immediately. Rhodey swore under his breath when he pulled up the leg of Tony’s pants to reveal the nasty wound he had received.

“Why were you walking on this Tones…” Rhodey said softly, more to himself than anybody else. Then, in an aside to Steve he said, “It’s definitely infected. Who knows how long he’s had it—he needs medical attention fast.” Peter didn’t crouch down beside Tony but he started whining low in his throat, like he wanted to be near Tony but hadn’t been given permission to sit down. Steve cottoned on quickly enough.

“Peter, help him.” Steve commanded in an authoritative voice, and Peter immediately dropped to the ground and scooted to be next to Tony. Rhodey turned to face Steve sharply, but Steve looked away. It wasn’t like he wanted to do that to the kid, but he knew it was the only way that Peter would listen to him. Plus, if the lack of whining from Peter was any indication, it was what he had wanted to do in the first place. They didn’t have time to waste, now that they knew about Tony’s condition.

Steve scooped Tony up in his arms, careful to move as non-threateningly as he could when he crouched opposite Peter. Peter still scrambled away from him as soon as they were on the same level. Steve sighed and lifted Tony.

“Peter, walk.” He forced his voice just authoritative enough that Peter would obey it, but it still hurt watching the boy blankly follow his directions.

By the time they had finally gotten above ground, Tony had regained some measure of consciousness, and convinced himself that he might just believe in god. The sun was out and there was a gentle wind—two things he hadn't been sure he would ever see or feel again. Out of the corner of his eye, Tony noticed Peter stop to observe his surroundings, though Tony wasn’t sure if it was out of wonder or fear. He hoped it wasn't the latter. After gentle prompting from Tony, Peter followed Rhodey and Steve onto the quinjet where the waiting medics immediately swarmed them. It took several tries before Tony was able to convince them to let him hold Peter’s hand as they examined his leg.

Steve and Rhodey sat down next to the other avengers, all of them quiet. All of them noticed how Tony interpreted every minute detail of Peter’s movements, how Peter hadn’t spoken a word since they got there, and wondered what the hell happened in that cell.

————

Peter was malnourished because of his metabolism, and they were monitoring his breathing for signs of pneumonia, but other than that, they gave him a clean bill of health. There were some still healing scars on his arms and back, but they were nothing more than that: scars. Helen Cho had to speak to Tony personally about how well the kid was doing considering what he’d been through because he wouldn’t believe the other doctors.

“What if they’re wrong?” Tony had asked Steve after the first diagnosis. “What if they missed something important? They’re not looking close enough, those guys roughed him up, I know it, I had to wait for him to come back every day, Steve, I—” and on and on it had gone until Steve had called Helen to come up to talk some sense into Tony.

Tony hadn’t left Peter’s room in the medbay except to use the bathroom the full two days he’d been there. He hadn’t slept either. When Peter was resting, he just held the kid’s hand tightly and watched the slow, even, rise and fall of his chest. He thought that maybe it was creepy to watch the kid in his sleep, but Tony was just too relieved to care. Here his kid was, alive, and within reach. That was more than could be said about all those times in captivity when their captors had taken Peter and left Tony alone to assume the worst for hours at a time.

May stopped in as much as she could given her work schedule and sat on the side of the bed opposite Tony, holding Peter’s other hand and talking to him in a low, soothing voice. Tony enjoyed her company, but he couldn’t help but feel guilty that she didn’t blame him for what happened.

When they’d gotten back, May had been the first one to greet them at the tower. Happy had picked her up from her apartment in Queens as soon as Nat had gotten a clue as to where they were being held. They’d had a lot of false trails, and so May had been ready for another disappointment. When Steve had called back that they’d found them, and they were both alive, May had cried into Happy’s shoulder out of pure relief.

Tony had fully expected May to hit him as soon as he put Peter down on the stretcher they had waiting for him. Instead, May had hugged him and thanked him breathlessly, over and over again for keeping Peter safe. When Tony tried protesting, May only squeezed him harder. Then, she pulled away, keeping her hands firmly on his shoulders. Her eyes were watery and red but she had never seemed more sure of herself when she said, “You saved him.”

But most of the time, Tony was kept busy with thoughts of Peter. Even his guilt complex—famously larger than the continental United States—wasn’t loud enough to interrupt the near constant stream of thoughts of what he could do to help Peter as soon as he woke up. He already had a mental plan of three different inventions that he would start on as soon as Peter was up to walking around and going down to the workshop.

The kid had suffered from frequent sensory overloads from their captors. The one thing they hadn’t been able to train out of him, Tony thinks bitterly, was his reaction to light and sound. Peter had been able to drown himself, but when they blared the noises, which were excruciating even to Tony, he screamed and sobbed into Tony’s shoulder, every muscle tensed against the onslaught, until he went limp in Tony’s arms and was granted a couple hours of respite. Tony wished he wasn’t grateful for Peter’s reaction. As hard as it was to watch, it was proof that they couldn’t do whatever they wanted with him, that a part of Peter still knew how wrong everything they were doing was, no matter how obediently he reacted to all their other torture.

It was proof that the kid was still fighting.

Tony jolted when he felt movement against his hand: the slightest brush of soft skin on his palm. He leaned over Peter, whispering encouragement.

“Come on Peter, come on kid, wake up, I know you can do it bud, c’mon kid.” After a couple more minutes of Peter shifting in bigger and bigger movements, he opened his eyes. Tony had almost been expecting some kind of violent reaction (god knows he had lashed out at Rhodey in fear when he’d been woken up the first morning after Afghanistan by the man), but Peter’s body went still when he woke up. His eyes flickered over to Tony’s face, then down to their joined hands. His eyes looked so scared, and he still hadn’t spoken.

“Hey bud.” Tony said. Peter blinked at him slowly: once, twice, three times.

“You’re in the med bay at the tower. May should be here in half an hour, her shift just ended. Um, we got out, kid. Picked up by Captain America himself. You don’t gotta do anything right now kiddo, just rest.”

Peter’s eyes trailed down to the crook of his arm where the IV they had put in two days ago was sitting, feeding Peter water and nutrients. He whined low in his throat, a noise of discomfort, of anxiety, Tony recognized. Peter brought his other hand over to try to pull it out, but Tony caught his hand before he could.

“Hey buddy, you gotta leave that in for now, okay? It’s helping you get better. I won’t let them do anything else you don’t like though, okay Peter? That sound like a deal?” Tony asked, only slightly lying, trying to get Peter to look back at his face. He wouldn’t be able to prevent the doctors from sticking Peter full of a hundred more needles if it was necessary for his health, but he promised himself to do his best to advocate for Peter to Helen.

Peter took a long moment, like he was preparing himself. Tony was about to ask what was wrong when Peter opened his mouth and croaked, “Sa-afe?” barely loud enough to be considered a sound. Tony was quick to reassure him.

“Yeah, Pete, god, yeah, we made it home. May’s on her way, so you’ll see her soon, and everybody’s missed you kiddo, you wouldn’t believe. Bucky doesn’t know you’re awake or he’d be barging in here in a second.” Peter nodded and closed his eyes for a moment before staring down at their hands again. He made a small jerking motion in the direction of his chest with their joined hands, so miniscule Tony almost didn’t catch it. But he did, and he recognized the meaning immediately.

When Peter had stopped talking, they had had to come up with their own communication system consisting solely of physical movements. It was crude (sometimes Peter came back and he was shaking so hard he could barely keep himself in Tony’s lap) but they hadn’t needed to know more than basic commands. There was more than one way to interpret the motions as well, but it usually boiled down to the same thing in essence. Come here Peter was saying. I need you near to me Peter was saying. Be familiar Peter was saying.

Tony obliged it all and, moving slowly so as not to startle Peter, got onto the hospital bed. He maneuvered Peter until he was pressed against Tony’s body, and waited for the small tap on the back of his hand that meant Peter was comfy. He tried every trick in the book to lull Peter back to sleep, so his body could get the rest it needed, but he was unsuccessful. Tony couldn’t tell if Peter just wasn’t tired or if he was forcing himself not to fall asleep, but if he had to guess, he would pick the latter. Nevertheless, he didn’t call Peter out on it. He just enjoyed the peace of the quiet room while they waited for May.

Of course, things didn’t go exactly how Tony had envisioned them. When May came back, Peter had a panic attack. She stepped in the room, saw Peter awake and rushed to his side, shouting “Peter!” She must’ve moved too fast, Tony thought, or was speaking too loudly or too abruptly, or just was unexpected, because the next moment, Peter shrunk back, shaking. His breathing sped up, became more harsh, and when Tony tried to soothe him, Peter flinched again. Tony exchanged a sad glance with May as he stroked Peter’s hair. It’s okay he mouthed at her, not wanting to startle the shaking boy in his arms with more noise. May brought a hand to her mouth as her eyes watered, and sat down in the chair next to the bed, her other hand placed hesitantly on the blanket for Peter to grab should he want to. Her eyes found Tony’s. What can I do they said.

Those ensuing days after Peter was released from the medbay were… a lot, to put it lightly. Tony rarely left Peter’s side. He told everyone that he couldn’t leave Peter alone to freak out, but it was more than that. He was protecting himself as much as Peter. The months they had been away, Tony’s sole goal was minimizing Peter’s pain, and most of the time he’d been useless to do even that. He was terrified that if he let Peter out of his sight something would happen that he could’ve prevented. Tony had also tried to make the transition as easy as possible so, until further notice, everyone was doing their best to avoid being in the same room as Tony and Peter. May and Helen Cho were currently the only exceptions to that rule, for obvious reasons, but even May made sure to start slow, and in the first couple days, she only spent about an hour with them, before giving Peter space. Tony knew it must be killing her, but she had always been stronger than him, and even after Tony had said that she was probably who Peter wanted to be around most, she had just shaken her head with a sad smile.

"You keep him safe, Tony. Keep our kid safe. Once he feels a little better, I’ll stay longer I just… He needs you right now."
————
Peter had a hard time believing that he was really back sometimes. He knew that he was, and had the warmth of Tony and May’s hands in his to prove it, but it was difficult to separate what he knew and what he felt. Dr. Cho dropped by the penthouse several times over the next couple of days, and every time, despite knowing she was only there to help him, Peter flinched—couldn’t help the ingrained reaction. He saw Tony’s worried eyes on him, felt the squeeze of May’s hand, and tried not to worry them. He didn’t want them to realize that they should be punishing him for his bad behavior. He ate whatever they put in front of him, he did the physical therapy, he talked to Sam (or more accurately, he sat with Sam and nodded or shook his head in answer to his questions—he still could hardly open his mouth in front of anybody who wasn’t Tony without feeling like he was going to have a panic attack).

But in the pit of his stomach, the void of his lungs, Peter didn’t feel like he had ever left that cell. It was like his hands were still shackled together. Like he was back on that operating table, alone except for the man and the doctor and the scalpels and the blood and the cold and the—. He tried not to think about it. Tony told him it wasn’t healthy, but he still let Peter curl into the warmth of his body every night, despite how many times Sam had tried to tell Tony that Peter was too codependent, that by then he should have at least been trying to sleep in his own room. But every night Tony and May tucked him into bed (reminding him so much of being six and Ben and May tucking him into bed in the weeks after his parents had died) and every night, he waited as long as he could (his record was a full two minutes) before getting out of bed and finding Tony in the common room, waiting for Peter to seek him out. Every time he did, a small voice in the back of his head told him to knock it off. He’s getting sick of you, it whispered, you’re annoying, disobedient.

My name is Peter Parker he repeated to himself when he couldn’t sleep, even tucked in between Tony’s chest and the warm pile of blankets. My name is Peter Parker, my name is Peter Parker my name is Peter Parker my name is Peter Parker. I am loved.

He wished things could go back to how they were, when he wasn’t scared that every move he made would be met with some kind of punishment. He wished he could look May in the eye and get one of her bone crushing hugs, but he wasn’t sure that he deserved it. If he did, she would’ve already given him one by now, she could usually hardly restrain herself. The same was true for the rest of the Avengers. He remembered Rhodey and Steve there when he and Tony were rescued, and he got a quick glance at the rest of the Avengers on the quinjet, but apart from that, he hadn’t seen any of them besides Bruce and Sam except in passing. Anytime he walked in a room, Tony’s arm around his shoulders, whoever was already in there vacated the premises. He’d thought before he’d been captured that they had been somewhat close, that maybe they’d even enjoyed having him around. But who was he kidding? He was just some kid from Queens with a delusion of playing hero. And now that he had revealed himself to be more trouble than he was worth, they’d made the decision they should have made a long time ago to stop pretending that they liked him.

Maybe, he thought, they’ll like me better now, once they see how much I’ve improved. That’s what they always told him after they’d done whatever “training” they had planned for the day. Remember little spider, this is all only to make you better. Now come here.

Peter had a hard time understanding what was expected of him. They never told him directly, only in whispers to each other whenever he wasn’t in the room. It seemed like they were testing his hearing again, or they were waiting for him to slip up so they could punish him. Peter wasn’t sure which it was though, so he made sure to listen as much as he could so he could do exactly what they wanted. He heard Cap telling Tony about how it was worrying that he didn’t smile anymore, so he started smiling all the time around them. But they didn’t seem to like that either. He heard Tony admitting to Bruce that he thought he wasn’t eating enough, so for the next few days, he ate everything that was put in front of him, even if he had to vomit it all back up as soon as he could get to the bathroom without drawing suspicion.

————

It all came to a head about two weeks after Peter was released from the medbay. Tony and May were anxiously talking in the kitchen. Peter was in the bathroom after Tony gently reminded him that he didn’t have to wait for permission, when he noticed her uncomfortable shifting.

“I honestly don’t know what we should do Tony. I know we have to be patient. I don’t expect him to get better right away, but it seems like he hasn’t had any progress. If anything, he’s gotten worse!”

“His panic attacks have been decreasing in severity.” Tony pointed out.

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing Tony.” May said gently.

“What do you mean? How could it be good for him to have worse panic attacks?!” Tony hissed. May was quiet for a moment, and Tony dragged a palm down his face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“I know Tony. It’s been… hard on all of us, but especially you.” May gave him a small smile. “You don’t have to apologize for being human.”

Tony often wondered how Peter was so innately good, but talking to May always reminded him of the teacher he’d had.

“Tony…” May started, hesitating, “I know it seems counter intuitive… but you have to get worse before you get better.” Her brow furrowed even further than it had been. “At the hospital there was this girl who’d been kidnapped. You remember that story, years ago, of that seventeen year old who’d been missing for 5 years? And she suddenly just reappeared?”

Tony nodded his head, not liking where the conversation was going.

“Well, at first, we were all… confused by her behavior. I guess that’s a good way to put it.” May’s face turned distressed, pleading almost, “We didn’t realize Tony. She acted fine. Like she hadn’t just been through five years of trauma. And we kept trying to get her to talk to the on-staff psychiatrist, all but forced her to. Eventually she did, and the next day I came in to bring her breakfast and change her bandages, and she was just sitting there…tears streaming down her face. She saw me come in, and she started just… violently sobbing.” May sniffed. “It was awful Tony. I’d never seen someone so young so sad in my life.” Tony hesitantly put his hand on May’s shoulder.

“May, what does this have to do with Peter?” he asked quietly, almost afraid of the answer. She took a shuddering breath in and then continued.

“After that she… she was better Tony. Really better. Not just pretending to be better so she could move on with her life, or repressing all her memories so she didn’t have to think about them.”

“You think that’s what has to happen to Peter.” Tony said, not really even a question. His stomach sunk to his toes, like a block of solid marble had been dropped there. May nodded, eyes watery and red.

“Yes, I—I think he—it’s not healthy Tony! He shouldn’t be sitting there all day, barely responding to anything. I know we agreed that the rest of the Avengers should stay away for a while because they might overwhelm him, but I think he needs the stimulation. He needs to at least see them Tony. Be reminded that he has more people in his corner. And if they trigger some memory… maybe that’s the start of his recovery.”

Tony nodded. His whole body felt like lead, like he was moving through a vat of viscous liquid. “He needs to be jump-started into processing everything.” he said dully. May nodded sadly, tears finally escaping, along with a quiet sniff. She wiped the back of her hand across her face.

“I’m not hurting enough,” came a small voice at the other end of the kitchen.

Both adults whipped around at the sound. Standing at the opening of the corridor that led into the kitchen was Peter. Tony flinched; he’d forgotten about Peter’s super hearing.

“What was that buddy?” Tony asked. He must have misheard what Peter had said, must have misheard Peter period. He hadn’t spoken in front of anyone besides Tony since he’d gotten back.

“I’m not hurting enough,” was the response, no questioning inclination in his voice.

May looked frantically at Tony. “What do you mean sweetie?”

“I’m not hurting enough.” Before either of them could think of another response, Peter inclined his head slightly. He approached one of the kitchen drawers and rummaged through it, obviously looking for something. As he did, Tony watched him press his lips together tightly to stop their trembling, and saw something so incredibly sad in his eyes.

“Kid—” May cut Tony off with a gasp when Peter hefted Cap’s heavy, reinforced meat tenderizer, and presented it to Tony, his empty hand extended towards him palm down. When Tony didn’t immediately pick up the thing, Peter turned to May and tried to hand it to her. May shook her head.

“Peter, I—what—” Peter bit down impossibly harder on his lip. He looked between Tony and May quickly, panic and hurt in his eyes, before he brought the meat tenderizer down brutally on the back of his hand. Tony and May quickly lunged towards him, shouting “Peter!” almost simultaneously. The reaction was immediate. Peter dropped the meat tenderizer and dropped to his knees, head down. Tony grabbed the offending piece of metal and pushed it across the smooth floor to the other side of the kitchen. Then, he and May were at Peter’s side, trying to coach him off his knees, trying to get him to look at them. Peter was whispering something to himself, something that Tony couldn’t hear. Tony grimaced, and then:

“Peter, look at me kid.” Peter flinched, but raised his head obediently until he could see Tony’s face. He still wouldn’t meet Tony’s eyes, but it was a start.

“Why’d you do that honey.” May whispered. Her hands moved rapidly up and down Peter’s shaking arms, trying her best to soothe him when she was so shaken herself.

Peter shook his head, then kept shaking it, then curled his chin down against his chest and keened low in his throat. His breathing picked up, and then he was whispering again, but loud enough now that Tony could just barely hear.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—"

“Pete, buddy none of that.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—"

“Honey, you don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—"

“Buddy, c’mon, please, we just want to help you.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—"

May’s face twisted, and then she said, “We’re not going to hurt you Peter,” and the whispering stopped.

“I know.” he said. His voice cracked even on that small sentence—a testament to its disuse. “Please hurt me. Please make me better. Please, please, please—”

“Peter,” Tony interrupted, voice as firm as he could make it. “Why would you want us to do that buddy?”

“I don’t want to,” Peter whispered.

May frowned. “We won’t buddy, we said we won’t.” Peter shook his head vigorously.

“I don’t want to,” he repeated. He was staring at Tony now, his eyes filled with an intense fear, something that stirred a specific memory from him.

“Oh,” he breathed out, “oh, oh, buddy.” He surged forward so Peter was stuck across his chest like he had been in that cell after a particularly harsh session. “We won’t make you do it either bud.” he said, locking eyes with May, who brought her hands up to her mouth. Peter trembled against him in relief. “We would never do that bud. When we say we won’t hurt you, that means we’re not gonna make you hurt yourself either. We promise we would never do that.”

Peter curled into Tony’s arms, shaking. He was bad he was bad he was bad he was sorry he was bad.

“We won’t make you do it either bud,” came Tony’s soothing voice, and Peter choked on his breath. He felt like his lungs were spasming, the air barely making it in and out of his body. He had to sit there for a long time, Tony’s voice in his ear, the soft glow of the arc reactor his only line of sight, May’s warm hand on the nape of his neck, before he was able to get his breathing back under control. It was even longer until he felt confident enough to lift his head to look at them. He knew that Tony wouldn’t lie to him, he had only ever wanted him safe, but it was still so hard to convince himself of that.
When he finally met Tony’s eyes, his breath hitched again, but this time it was in relief. He was safe.

“We got you honey.” May said next to him. She ran a hand through his hair, caught her fingers on the tangles in his curls and gently pulled them loose. Peter lolled his head back against Tony’s chest. He was so tired. He just wanted everything to be over. He wanted to be normal again. But there was something else nagging at him. Despite what Tony had said, that they would never make him do that…
“Why—” Peter clamped his mouth shut, waiting for a reprimand, more instinct than anything else. When none came, he tried again. “Why is everyone avoiding me,” he said, muffling the sound in Tony’s tear soaked shirt. And now that he had broken his self imposed silence around everyone who wasn’t Tony, the words were spilling out of him faster than he could stop, like everything that had been stuck just swirling around in his mind since the muzzle was pouring out all at once.

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” he cried. “Everybody’s avoiding me ‘cause I’m not good enough and I keep trying to do what they want. Cap wanted me to smile more so I did but he still ran out of the room every time I was there and I don’t know why they hate me.” Peter gripped the front of Tony’s shirt so hard that a piece of it tore off into his hands, so he moved them to wrap around his own body in a mimicry of comfort. “I’m trying so hard to keep up the rules and I—I don’t like the rules, I don’t, I don’t, but nothing else is working and I just want to see them and I want to not be so fucked in the head. I’m so stupid I can’t even do what you guys want right, and you don’t even want that much, it’s so simple, and I should be able to do it, but I can’t.”

Peter was grabbing at his hair now, pulling it, tugging on it so harshly that little strands were coming off in his hands. Tony and May quickly moved to grab his hands and pull them away from his scalp. He resisted momentarily, but he was tired. He was just so tired. He didn’t have it in him to keep it up anymore.

Maybe they had been right when they’d said he was weak-willed. Two weeks away from his training program and he’d already cracked.

“Hey,” Tony said softly, tipping Peter’s chin up so he had to look at him, “I can hear you thinking, and I can promise that whatever it is you’re worried about? It’s not true.” Peter shook his head.
It had to be true. If it wasn’t true then why had they done it? Why would they have done that? It had to be—But here Tony was sitting with him, not getting mad despite Peter doing everything wrong. And May was here too. May who hadn’t been with him in that cell but who would never do what they had done to him. That only left—

“I want to see the Avengers,” Peter croaked, “I—I don’t know why they’re avoiding me but I need, I—I need…”

Tony and May exchanged a look, and then May said “We can do that for you baby. We can call them in right now if you want.” Peter nodded. He needed to know if they hated him or not. He knew they didn’t. Logically, he did. But he couldn’t be sure, and logic had been failing him ever since he’d been in that cell with Tony.

Tony tilted his head towards the ceiling, a habit he had picked up from Steve, and said, “JARVIS? Tell Steve to bring the team to the kitchen. Peter wants to see them.”

————

Steve honestly didn’t know what he expected when Tony called him and the rest of the team, had no idea what had brought this on. He hoped that it was because Peter had gotten better enough to see them, but Tony hadn’t been all that optimistic about Peter’s progress even the other day. All that left Steve with was to see for himself what was going on.

In the elevator ride up, Natasha tried to get some information out of him.

“What’d Tony call us up for?”

“He said Peter wants to see us.”

Despite Natasha hiding it, Steve could tell she was surprised. “I thought Tony would have told us if he was getting better enough to see us soon.”

“So did I,” Steve responded. “I talked to him last night and he said nothing had really changed, so I’m not sure what to expect.” Natasha seemed to process the information quickly. Bucky, however, frowned.

“Stark would’ve told us if Peter was getting better,” he said.

Sam nodded agreement. “I hate to agree with Barnes here, but I don’t know if we’re gonna like what we see. Peter still doesn’t talk to me at sessions. The most trust he’s ever given me was when he let Tony stay in the same room as me without him there.”

Clint tried to assuage their worrying. “Tony wouldn’t do anything that Peter wasn’t ready for. He’s as much a dad as I am, and that’s saying something.” Steve gave a brisk nod, trying to shake off his nerves. It wouldn’t do any good to be scared to even interact with Peter. They might as well try to be as normal as possible. And they would only be able to do that if they didn’t think they were going to set Peter off with every word they said. He trusted Tony, and he trusted that Tony had Peter’s best interests at heart.

The elevator doors opened before them and the team stepped out quickly. Bruce, who had been quiet the whole elevator ride up, took point beside Sam. They were the only two who had interacted with Peter in the last couple of weeks, and would be less likely to frighten him. Clint, Steve, Bucky, and Natasha were close behind them. As they rounded the corner, Steve’s heart leapt into his throat at the sight before him.

Peter was curled against Tony and May, all of them splayed on the floor of the kitchen. There was nothing around them that indicated what the cause of all of this could be.

“Peter,” Sam said as he quickly dropped down to be at his level. “What happened here, hm? Tony told us that you wanted to see everybody.” Sam arranged his legs in a non threatening criss cross on the floor and indicated for everybody else to do the same a couple steps back from Peter so as not to crowd him and make him feel trapped. He set his hands loosely on his thighs, an example that Steve followed. He didn’t want to intimidate Peter in any way, and his size was not helping.

Peter peeked his head out from where it was resting on Tony’s chest and slowly detangled himself so he was sitting by himself, one hand still attached to Tony’s shirt where there were visible holes. Steve’s palms began sweating as they waited for Peter to speak, afraid that he was going to say something awful like he never wanted to see them again or that he wouldn’t speak at all, would simply glare at them or flinch back from them or—

“Do you wish I was better?” came a small voice. Steve recoiled, shocked. He vaguely noticed Bucky and Clint having similar reactions. Immediately, Steve began speaking, his voice overlapping with Clint’s loud one.

“Kid, how could you think that! We’d never—

“Of course not! You’re perfect as you are, we—

“expect anything but—”

“—love you!”

“—what you’re capable of!”

Peter jumped at the influx of noise and leaned back slightly. Steve clamped his mouth shut and Natasha hit Clint on the shoulder with the back of her hand to shut him up as well. Peter flinched again. Sam turned around to glare at them before turning his attention back to Peter.

“What makes you say that? Did anything bring this up?”

Again, Peter took a while to gather his thoughts, but then: “You guys are avoiding me. Is it ‘cause you’d like me better with the training?”

Sam started, “kid—” but was cut off by Peter barreling over him.

“And now that you know how good I can be, you can’t stand to be around me when I’m like this, when I’m disobedient and bad, bad, bad, bad—” Tony tried to pull Peter back to his chest to comfort him but Peter ripped from his grasp. He scrambled to his feet, his body trembling. He wrapped his arms around himself and looked at the ground as he spoke.

“I don’t want my training, I don’t like it, I don’t, please don’t make me do it,” he gasped out. Steve made an instinctual move towards the crying boy, but Bucky was faster. In a flash, he was in front of Peter, hands on his shoulders. Peter flinched slightly but looked up to meet Bucky’s eyes, sniffling. He pulled his bottom lip into his mouth and very quietly said, “please”, so quiet that Steve only heard it because of his super hearing.

Bucky gently pulled Peter’s head forward until it rested against Bucky’s chest. He wrapped his arms around the kid, careful to keep the metal one off his skin and held him. He whispered something to Peter that even Steve couldn’t make out, and Peter started crying harder. Tony jumped up and Sam moved forwards to intervene, but when Bucky pulled back, and Steve could see Peter’s face, he saw that Peter was smiling. Tony and Sam both stopped when they saw that.

“Kid?” Tony asked cautiously. “Talk to me buddy. What’s going through that big brain of yours.” Peter heaved in a breath shaky from his crying as he wiped his eyes with the heel of his palm. He leaned his forehead on Bucky’s chest and said, loud enough for everyone to hear despite how it was muffled against Bucky’s shirt, “It’s really gonna be okay, isn’t it?”

————

Things didn’t get better immediately. Even though Peter now felt truly safe, there were still days when he woke up and was scared of everyone but Tony, where anybody within ten feet of him was a potential threat, even May. Where the world was loud and bright and no no no no please no—

But unlike before, there were also good days. Days when he’d be in the common room, surrounded by the whole team, watching a movie that Steve and Bucky had missed while they’d been in the ice and with Hydra respectively. On those days, when the horrors he’d gone through felt more like a pestering itch than an overwhelming, undefeatable tide, he felt comfortable enough to lay his head on Steve’s lap and fall asleep not curled next to Tony, to watch Nat spar with Bucky and Clint and even go a round of his own (albeit with her severely pulling her punches), to talk in front of any of them without the fear of reprimand or punishment. In fact, whenever he did initiate conversation or ask for seconds without being asked if he was still hungry, or anything that required him to decide to speak without what he considered a necessity (but what the team was still trying to get him to understand was a necessity), they would give him a huge smile (in Steve, Clint, Bruce, and Sam’s case) or a crushing hug (May and Tony) or a small upward quirk of the lips followed by a whispered praise (Bucky and Nat).

Therapy with Sam was still the hardest part of his day. He knew it was good for him, but he wouldn’t be going unless Tony insisted he did. Between that and the way May would get this crease in her forehead everytime he refused to go, he eventually stopped fighting it (Tony would never admit it, but everytime Peter felt safe enough around him and May to actually tell them no, his chest would swell with pride).

Sam was always patient with him. He didn’t even make him speak if he didn’t want to, always made sure that Peter knew he could say no to anything that made him too uncomfortable, or was too painful to talk about. Still, Peter sometimes had a hard time with the consent thing. Sam would ask “do you remember anything new about your time there that you feel the need to talk about?” and despite the phrasing of the question, and how much Peter didn’t want to answer, he’d talk for fifteen or so minutes until Sam noticed he was dissociating and stopped him. After something like that they always had a long talk about how he was capable of saying no, that Sam wouldn’t make him answer. Peter tried internalizing it, but it was even difficult to say no to Tony and May. Sam assured him that they were making good progress, that he had been doing so well, and so Peter tried to think about that every time he reacted instinctively to anything that sounded vaguely like a command from the team, whether it was directed at him or not.

(Once, while he was helping Steve and Clint who were in the kitchen cooking dinner, Clint playfully joked that Steve needed to “hurry the hell up and chop the vegetables already before he died of old age”. Peter rushed to do what Clint said and managed to end up in the med bay with Bruce having to stitch up his hand from where he cut it. He didn’t remember the in between part, but he knew it was bad from the way Tony stood at his side the whole time and refused to be more than five feet away from him the rest of the day. That night, he slept in Tony’s bed again, curled up the same way he would’ve been in the cell.)

Sam also told him that since he was recovering, it was likely that he would start to remember some of the things his mind purposefully blocked from his consciousness. He told him that it was important that he tell either Tony, May, or himself whenever this happened so they could help him through it. Peter fully intended to listen to Sam until it actually happened for the first time, a month after the incident in the kitchen.

Peter was on his way to the living room when the Avengers alarm sounded, louder than the fire alarms at school had been so that Tony would be able to hear it even over his blasting metal music in the workshop. And suddenly, Peter was no longer safe in the Tower, protected by his Aunt May and no less than seven Avengers, but back in that room that he’d tried so hard to forget—the one they took him to whenever he didn’t get to go back to Tony after his daily torture routine.

It was cold and there were bright flashing lights and loud piercing sirens and Peter could hardly breathe through the pain. He was curled up as tight as his body would allow, trying to block out at least some of the input. He could feel the vibrations in his throat as he cried out, and the small addition of his sobs to the sound in the room. Even that hurt him. On top of everything else it was too much, just too much, he couldn’t do it. Peter didn’t even know what he was saying as he babbled it desperately: Please, stop, please, please, I’ll be good, please, please stop, please, I’ll be good, I’ll be good, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Somehow, over all the agonizing noise, he could hear a laugh that made his spine tingle in fear. But there was nothing he could do in reaction to that instinctual panic. Like this, he was useless, his enhancements being used against them as they were. All he could do was whimper against the onslaught.

It seemed to go on forever. He was so tired but there was no way he would ever be able to fall asleep like this. The best he could hope for was for his body to shut down. His ears spiked with pain, like someone was taking a power drill to his head and he started hearing a new noise that seemed to overpower the other one: a high pitched ringing. His hands felt wet where they were positioned over his ears, smushing them against his head as much as he could. Maybe it’s blood, he thought with relief, maybe I’ll go deaf. Then, the noise in the background faded to nothing and he was left with only the ringing, until that faded too. He breathed a sigh of relief that he felt in his chest but couldn’t hear. The light was still there—he could tell by the rapid, painful movement against his eyelids—and it was still so cold he was shivering, but at least the noise was gone. He moved his hands from his ears and rubbed them against his arms, trying to bring at least some warmth back into his body. He knew that if the temperature didn’t rise soon, he would get hypothermia. He could die. The thought didn’t scare him like it used to.

Time passed like molasses, and Peter was cut from any sense of its passing. It could’ve been hours or minutes since the onslaught began, when all of a sudden it stopped. The room was suddenly forty degrees warmer even though he was still shivering, and the lights went out. Peter cautiously opened his eyes. It felt like he was floating, but in a bad way. Every part of him was so sensitive that if he moved even a little his skin felt like it was being burned off him. So he sat there and waited to go back to Tony.

Peter blinked and he was in the Avengers Tower, the lights so bright that he could just barely make out the distinctive feel of the floor against his bare feet. He had squished himself into a corner and all of his muscles ached with strain, like he’d been tensing them for a long time. He could hear the washing machine in the room across the hall and the whirring of DUM-E in Tony’s workshop and the car that backfired three streets away. He could smell everybody in the building, what they were eating. He pulled his hands away from his head and saw that they were actually coated in blood. He put a hand back to his head and winced at the stinging pain. He must’ve dug his fingers into his skin. He was jittery all over and it took a couple minutes to be able to stand up at all, let alone walk. Each movement brought the agony of his shirt and pants being dragged over his skin. When he was finally in an upright position, instead of going to Bruce’s lab or to see Tony or to talk to Sam, he fled back to his room. Peter buried himself in his weighted blankets and curled up in a tight ball, still shaking. He wanted to be as far away from his body as possible. He wanted to escape the sounds and smells and touch. But he couldn’t. He tried to keep his sobs as quiet as possible and wished he had Tony there to comfort him.

When the Avengers alarm went off, Tony cursed, and got suited up. They, miraculously, hadn’t had an alert since he and Peter got back. He was just glad that Peter was doing better now, and so, with minimal guilt, he opened his comm and got to work. Not long after he had left the tower and was just beginning to assess the threat that encompassed three square blocks of the Bronx, JARVIS gave him an alert.

“Sir, it appears that Master Peter is experiencing elevated vitals. Shall I contact him for you?”

"Yea, just give me a second JARVIS, lemme take out some of these guys first,” Tony said distractedly. He was worried, but not too worried. He knew that Bruce was available on standby to fly the Quinjet back to the tower if it was bad as they weren’t expecting a code green. And Peter’s vitals had been almost constantly elevated since they’d been back, so it might not be a problem at all. After dispatching a couple of doom bots, Tony indicated for JARVIS to switch to a private comm and said, “Alright, call him J.”

Peter didn’t pick up. Tony frowned and glanced at the corner of his HUD where the words Call Ended were displayed in red.

“Does he have his watch on JARVIS?” It had taken a while for Peter to be able to wear his watch again. The first week, it had felt too much like cuffs for him to even put it on without a panic attack. They’d worked their way up in comfort, Peter insisting that he still wanted the watch and refusing every offer that Tony gave him to make him something else like a ring, but Peter still didn’t like wearing it for long periods of time.

“He does indeed, sir.” JARVIS replied evenly.

“Display his vitals for me in the corner.” Tony’s frown deepened and he actually stopped flying, hovering in midair for a moment as he read over the vitals. They weren’t just elevated, they were all over the place—dangerously so.

“JARVIS, tell Cap that I’m gonna have to—” he was cut off by a ringing alert and a sudden impact in the back that sent him careening into the side of a building.

“Shit!” he exclaimed. There were red beeping messages all over his HUD from damage reports. Another impact hit the bottom of his boot, sending a shock up his entire leg. “Jesus—augh—JARVIS! Re-open comms! I need some help over here guys!” he shouted as he maneuvered away from where seven doom bots had surrounded him and opened fire. “And someone needs to check on Peter!” His right boot was busted from the impact and kept shorting out as he tried to join Cap and Nat two blocks away, sending him plummeting down at random intervals.

“Tony, report!” came Cap’s clipped response.

“Peter’s vitals indicate that he’s having a severe panic attack, Captain Rogers,” JARVIS supplied, sensing that Tony was busy just trying to navigate his way through the brawl. “And sir’s suit is damaged. The right boot thruster is compromised and the integrity of the back is failing.”

Bruce came over the comms, “Tony you need to get out of there. They can handle this on their own. Just get back to Peter.”

“Mind giving me a lift, big guy?”

When Bruce and Tony got back to the tower, JARVIS informed them that Peter was currently in his room. His vitals had gone down somewhat from their extremely elevated state earlier, but they were still above where they should be.

“I’ll head down to the med bay just in case. Call me if you need anything and I can bring it up in a minute.” Bruce said and headed towards the elevator. Tony nodded in appreciation and then moved quickly for Peter’s room. As soon as he was outside the door, he slowed his movements down and entered the room.

He didn’t know what he was expecting to see, but a quiet, seemingly empty room was not it.

“Peter?” He saw movement from the lump on the bed reacting to the sound of his voice and what he thought was just a pile of blankets turned out to be Peter. He raised his head and Tony saw the redness around his eyes and the blood dripping down his temples.

“Oh, Peter.” Tony murmured as he approached the boy. He sat down on the edge of the bed and waited for Peter to crawl over to him. When he did, he wrapped him up in his arms and kissed the top of his head. “What happened, buddy?”

Peter sniffled, and burrowed his head into the crook of Tony’s neck as if hiding, something he hadn’t needed to do in a week. “I remembered something,” he mumbled. Tony stroked a hand up and down Peter’s back, waiting for him to continue. Peter hesitated, but kept talking.

“You know when they wouldn’t bring me back till morning?” Peter asked and Tony hummed in acknowledgement even though he was seething in rage. How could he forget? “Well, sometimes they would put me in this room. It must’ve been soundproof because they would play that noise and those lights like they did the first time they came to get me in our cell? But they wouldn’t stop. It would just go on and on and on. And it would be so cold, and I would think I was gonna die, it was so painful. And I remembered this one time when my eardrums ruptured and I couldn’t hear anything anymore and I was so relieved.” Peter choked on a sob as he buried his head closer to Tony. “It was so painful,” he said again. He heaved in a shuddering breath. “And when the Avengers alarm went off, it just… it was so loud, I just couldn’t—” Peter sniffled and looked up at Tony. “How am I ever gonna be normal again if I can’t even handle loud noises. How am I gonna go to school?” His voice broke and he swallowed.

Tony stopped him before he could get caught up in the what ifs. “You are so strong, Peter. I need you to know that okay? So strong. We’re gonna work on this, all of this. It may not be okay right now, but it will be, I promise. I’m gonna be there every step of the way kiddo. It’s not gonna be easy, not gonna lie” he brushed some of Peter’s hair out of his eyes, “and it won’t ever be the same as it was,” he kissed the top of Peter’s head again, “but we’re all here for you kiddo, and we all love you, and we’re gonna find your new normal soon enough kid. Just you wait.”

Peter pulled back to look at Tony, his eyes watering again. “Yeah?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah, kid.” Tony ruffled Peter’s hair, careful to avoid the part that was matted with blood. “Now let’s get that scrape looked at okay?” Peter nodded and stood on slightly shaky legs.

As they walked to the medbay, Peter felt some of the confidence and energy that had left him when he’d had his flashback come back to him. Tony had said it himself: things weren’t ever going to be perfect, but he shouldn’t expect them to be. And he had every reason to believe that Tony was telling the truth—he’d never let him down before.

So as he sat on the medbay bed and let Bruce examine him with gentle fingers, Tony holding his hand the whole time, he let the fear that had been clouding him for months dissipate a little: just enough for him to breathe easy in a way he only could when he was pressed between May and Tony on the couch. All he had to worry about was doing the best he could to get better; he had a whole team of people willing to help him out with everything else that would come his way.

————

“Tony, I’m going out!” Peter called as casually as he could as he moved around the kitchen, slipping a toasted bagel off the corner and holding it between his teeth.

“Curfew is midnight, kid!” came Tony’s voice from the living room. Peter moved into the room, and the rest of the Avengers turned away from the movie that was playing and all gave their own farwells, all of them jumbled up into a chorus of sound. Then, from Tony again, the man’s grin wider than he ever remembered seeing it before, “Spidey better kick some ass out there.” Peter grinned back and tried saying his thanks around the bagel in his mouth. He rushed back to his room, eating his bagel as quickly as possible on the way there, before struggling out of his clothes and pulling on his spidey suit. He slipped the mask on and breathed a sigh of relief. It felt like coming home.

“Hello Peter. It’s been a while, I’ve missed you. Would you like me to scan for any crimes taking place?” Karen chirped, and if she wasn’t an AI, Peter could’ve sworn that she was nearly as happy as he was.

“Aww Karen, I’ve missed you too! And yes please!” Peter let go a huff of air and crawled his way onto the side of Stark Tower. He sat there for a moment, taking in the sight of the city at night—something he’d never grow tired of. The sun was just about to disappear behind the horizon, and all the lights of the city were slowly coming on as it did. As soon as Karen chimed in with the location of a B&E in progress a couple blocks away, he took off, whooping and hollering as the wind rushed past him. He loved this moment, the adrenaline of almost-but-not-quite flying, the way his stomach seemed to reach the bottom of his throat with anticipation.

Peter could hardly believe he was back in the suit. Weeks and weeks of begging and Tony and May had finally relented when Sam had firmly told them that if he wanted to go out as Spiderman, he should go out as Spider-man, that they couldn’t just keep him locked in the tower for the rest of his life. And this? This was exactly what he needed, what his body and mind had been craving without even realizing what it wanted. And now that he had it, he was overwhelmed with an emotion he almost couldn’t name. Something he and Sam had been working towards for weeks. Something he almost didn’t believe he’d ever find again.

Peace.