Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time they saw him, they were raiding an underground Hydra base in east Pennsylvania, somewhere above Scranton.

It was a rather small base, snuggly hidden under the guise of thousands of thick pine and oak trees, underground and old. They could tell, because as soon as Steve had forced open the steel trapdoor covered by years’ worth of moss and dirt, a wall of stale air hit their noses.

Clint’s face had scrunched up in disgust. “Stupid Hydra bastards, that’s what windows are for.”

Tony snickered the same time Natasha gave Clint a shove and levelled him with a glare before she held up a finger in front of her lips. Oh right, this was supposed to be a surprise attack.

It was only the four of them, because Bruce had stayed back at the tower to finish one of his projects and Thor was busy in Asgard. They were moving closer to the entrance of the bunker, cowering down next to it as they listened, only their own breaths audible in the frigid night air.

Nothing.

Tony teared his gaze away from the looming, pitch black hole in the ground before him and looked at Steve. The super soldier’s face was only illuminated by the soft, blue glow of the ark reactor, highlighting his features shaped into a sharp mask of intense concentration as he was intently staring down into the endless darkness before them. 

Tony watched, counting his own heartbeats, anticipation growing with each second, the longer he had to sit still.

Suddenly, Steve’s eyes snapped up. He looked intently at each of them, as if to remind them of their mission plan, and then nodded.

Tony’s faceplate closed with a hiss. Show time.

=======

The mission was going rather smoothly. There were even less hydra agents around than they previously had anticipated, so their plan was unfolding without a hitch.

That was, until Tony met him for the first time.

He was cracking his usual extremely hilarious (yes, they are hilarious, thank you very much) jokes with Clint over the comms at the expanse of the annoyed sighs of their captain, when suddenly, his right arm was stuck to the wall.

He whipped his head around, staring down both ways of the barely illuminated hallway he had been passing through to get to the others.

Where the fuck had that come from? Tony yanked on his arm. It didn’t budge.

Huh?

He yanked harder this time, and again and-

“Boss? May I warn you another tug could heavily impair the integrity of the suit.”

Tony puffed out a frustrated huff of air at the warning of his AI. Amazing. Why was it always him that got into the most annoying situations ever?

He cleared his throat. “Friday, scan whatever this… white gunk stuff is made off and- “

He didn’t get to finish his sentence as he felt how his left foot was covered in that white substance too, keeping it firmly and unmovable on the ground.

Ah shit. The situation was getting out of hand faster than Tony preferred. Oh well. Usually, it would take more than the suit being compromised for him to call for back up but seeing that this substance must’ve come from someone he didn’t want to risk stepping out of the suit with no one else around. Because to be honest, the mechanic wasn’t really keen on seeing where that stuff originated from.

So, for once, he did the sensible thing and alerted his team of his current predicament.

He heard Clints mocking laugh crackle through his helmet, “Did you shit your pants, Ironstick, or what?”

Tony rolled his eyes hard, annoyance spiking up in his chest. “Uh, no birdbrain, maybe it was you and now you’re just- What the fu- Guys!”

Again, he was interrupted (and he hated getting interrupted, what was up with that today?! First during breakfast, twice on their flight here-) as suddenly a… a person wearing a black suit was dangling upside down from the ceiling right in front of his face. He was speechless for the better part of a minute, which honestly, was rare to see the Tony Stark actually not knowing what to say and not having a quick one-liner on the backburner of his tongue.

So, all he managed was a staring contest with those weird looking diving goggles plastered on the persons head because apparently, he missed the memo of the circus coming to town this week. Ugh, stupid villains and their stupidly uncreative and stupid costumes. Was it too much to put at least a bit more thought into that to keep it at least somewhat interesting? Hydra goons especially, yuck.

“Tony? Tony! What happened? Are you alright?”

At the worried question of Steve Tony found his voice again, not without the hint of irritation seeping into his words.

“I need you guys here asap, dealing with an enhanced, unknown capabilities.”

Tony, aware of the figure’s presence, kept his voice barely above a murmur, rapidly giving his team the gist of his situation without wasting any time, because yes, dealing with unfamiliar enhanced individuals always posed a great hackle for them. They never knew against what they were fighting exactly and, on most occasions, were therefore woefully unequipped to deal with whatever ability was thrown their way. This was no different.

Then, he capped the comm channel (the team would find him, everyone had their positions tracked and available to review, in case of exigence) and turned his full attention to the person still dangling in front of him. Seriously, wasn’t their head going to combust from all the blood flowing there?!

Tony wasn’t called a genius for nothing so of course, hadn’t taken off his eyes off the individual in front of him, not giving this strange goggled-up-jumping-jack any chance of catching Tony off guard.  

But… they weren’t doing anything. Just looking at Tony, not moving a single muscle. Which by the way, was remarkable, since the figure was hanging on a single white string from the ceiling. 

It was unnerving.

Tony had to quash his urge to shudder. It would not be wise to allow himself to be affected by the bizarre appearance of his adversary, let alone be distracted by it. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he was kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.   

He couldn’t use his heavy artillery due to the simple fact of architectural stability and his obvious disinterest of being buried alive in this stinky hydra bunker. So, no rockets or lasers. Also, the reuplsor on his left hand was not really up for the task either because the beam probably would miss his target and damage the wall behind it, leaving again, the possibility of being a concrete-human sandwich.

That left him no choice than to hope that the others would arrive soon and cut him free from this extra sticky dental floss string thing (yes, he is a master of description) and until that happened, he had to stall. That’s actually something he is very good at.

“Great weather we have today, right?”

His mute company seemed to ponder his words for two full seconds before he didn’t say anything at all. Classy.

The older genius tried again, letting his voice sound much chippier than he was really feeling. (He just wanted to go back to the tower and have that promised bubble bath with Pepper damn it)

“I mean, I guess you didn’t really get to see the weather today huh, uhm seeing as you are basically a mole, living here without windows, so you can’t really tell. Oh wait- do you have windows here? Because a teammate and I were actually wondering about that, but we haven’t found one yet and- “

He was interrupted again (does this ever end) when finally, the person decided to open their mouth for the first time.

“Do you always talk so much?”

And Tony froze because God no, these fucking hydra bastards did not-

“That was never mentioned in your file.”

His blood suddenly felt ice cold in his veins, threat completely and absolutely forgotten because this was not a thread, couldn’t be, should never be, because it was a fucking child. A child. As a Hydra soldier.

For the second time today, Tony couldn’t say a single word. But this time, it wasn’t for surprise and or confusion, no. It was because of anger. Sizzling hot, it clawed his way through his entire body and nestled inside of his chest, fuelling the hatred he already had felt towards this god-forsaken organisation.

Because torture, murder, kidnapping and he could go on for years listing off their atrocities committed against humanity, wasn’t fucking enough for them, they had to go and add using children as their soldiers to that list. As the mental images of the hundreds upon hundreds of pages of what their usual ‘training programme’ consisted of, flashed before his eyes all the mechanic could see, was this boy in front of him, conditioned and brainwashed, fucking tortured to become their soldier.

And he more probably than not, had to have been the subject of human experimenting too, because he was an enhanced. As if the other things hadn’t already been enough abuse they had put this poor child through.

Jesus Christ. They were going to have a very long meeting with Fury, once this shit show is over, that’s for sure.

Said child was still dangling in front of him, head crooked in a somewhat expecting manner, probably waiting for an answer to his earlier question.

Well, Tony was going to try and get as much information out of him as possible until the others arrived.

Oh, about that- They probably should be informed about this turn of events.

With a quick but complicated movement with his eyes, the man non-verbally gave Friday a sign. His AI disabled the suit speakers.

“Friday? Please give the others a rundown of how this situation has changed, will you? I will try to keep him engaged as long as possible in the meantime. Suit, unmute.”

He didn’t wait to hear Friday dutifully say her ‘On it, Boss’, before he addressed the boy again.

“Ah, the yo-yo can talk I see. Gee, I already wondered if they cut out your tongue or something.”

Tony winced at his piss-poor job at keeping the conversation going, but to be fair, realizing this was a child in front of him did throw his composure out the window quite a bit.

“Yo-yo?”

Oh. Of course, the kid wouldn’t know what a yo-yo is. The anger resurfaced with a vengeance that would’ve made him stumble if he wasn’t stuck to the wall like a poster. But he had to keep his cool, at least for now. (Later, he would burn this place to the ground)

“Oh, you know that toy? Where it’s like a cylindrical thing attached to a string and you do”, Tony flailed his non-sticked up arm around, in a way that should (but didn’t) look like he was playing with a yo-yo, “this?”

Even though he couldn’t see it, he was pretty sure the kid was watching him unimpressed through his swim goggles.

With a defeated sigh, he let his arm fall to his side again.

“Well, you’re quite the harsh judge, aren’t you? What's this white gunky stuff anyways?”

Tony tried the casual route now, in the hopes of the conversation flowing so easily that the kid wouldn’t even realize he was being investigated.

But the kid was smart, that much he could tell, because he looked right through Tony’s attempt at gaining any information about him.

The boy defensively folded his arms before his chest and how in the fuck did he not fall down on his head? Because now, only his feet seemed to be attached to that sticky string.

“For being called a genius, I sure expected more than this.”

Dumbfounded, Tony stared at that little squirt in front of him and decided-

A teenager. He had to be a teenager.

Clearing his throat, the mechanic lifted his left hand, one finger raised and pointing at the little menace as he started: “Listen, kid- “

The mere second it took him to blink, was all it took, and he was gone. Just disappeared into thin air.

What the fuck?

And soon enough, the reason behind his disappearance became audible, when he heard the hurrying footsteps of his teammates approach him.

Steve was the first to come out of the dark shadows of the scarcely lit hallway, helmet slightly askew and droplets of sweat visible on his forehead.

“Where is he?”, is all he asked, out of breath and oh, Tony could see the same anger that had consumed him moments prior upon learning the true age of the enhanced, simmering just barely hidden under the surface of his eyes. 

Tony just shook his head.

Chapter Text

Tony was pacing.

He mused, with the amount of pacing he must’ve done in the last half hour, he surely had to have been in China by now, but here he was, uselessly cramped up in their briefing room since two fucking hours getting exactly nowhere with this stupid discussion they were having.

The atmosphere in the room had already been tense when Tony had stepped inside (more exactly dragged into it by a very unamused looking Cap) but now, it felt like seconds before lightning strikes.

At least to him. He didn’t know about the others, but Tony was done and over with this whole ordeal.

All he really wanted, was to go back to his lab, forget everything else existed and just focus on the main task at hand: finding that missing Hydra kid and bring him to the tower (if possible, in one piece).

Okay, listen, he knew it was kind of crazy how invested he already was in that kid, seeing that he only met him once for like five minutes, but he was physically incapable of letting this go. He just couldn’t. And honestly, he also didn’t really want to.

It was all he had been thinking about for the last four days since that fateful mission. He could not get the images out of his mind (even though he never really witnessed it at all), this child being tortured, brainwashed, moulded into a perfect little Hydra soldier. He could not stop his mind from going further, tantalizing himself with visions of more children, abused and broken, taken from their homes or wherever Hydra would rip them out of their normal life, only to be rewired to puppets, blindly following orders without a hint of humanity because they didn’t know better.

So, the cocktail of blinding anger at this gang of absolute trash, the overwhelming guilt of not having known sooner and not having been able to get that boy to safety the first time around, the absolute agony of knowing the fates of possible hundreds of anonymous, innocent children, was one hell of a drug which had kept him up for the past four days (it might’ve also been excess amounts of coffee).

So no, he would not stop until Hydra was nothing more than a smoking tray of ash and dust under his feet.

But back to the meeting room and the reason why they were even here.

It all had started right after that mission.

=====

They hadn’t even properly stepped foot out of the quinjet when Steve ordered them to assemble in their meeting room. Normally, debriefings were held quite some time later because normally, everyone was too tired, exhausted or sometimes even too injured to attend them right after a mission.

But not this time.

Their leader had not wasted any second in barking out a command at Friday on how she should get Bruce from down the labs, marching straight into their meeting room.

Once the five of them had all gathered and seated themselves around the table in the spacious debriefing room, nobody really said anything right away, the weight of their new discovery laying heavy on their minds. It was Clint, who had spoken up first, eyes glinting dark and dangerously.

“When are we going to exterminate these scum assholes?”

The look on everyone’s face screamed ‘not soon enough’, except for Bruce, who was completely out of the loop on what was going on.

He had asked them that much, prompting Steve to retell exactly what they had encountered during that mission.

“So, you mean to tell me, Hydra uses children as soldiers now?”

Bruce’s voice was filled with indignation, tips of his ears taking on a certain greenish hue.

The heavy silence of them all following his question was answer enough.

=====

That had been the meeting in which they had agreed on searching for the kid and their current mission with highest priority (if there’s no other city-levelling threat of course) being to look for more children in the grasp of Hydra and rescuing them. If they simultaneously manage to eradicate all of Hydra, well, they would do it with a smile on their faces.

But certainly, that wasn’t the reason for their disagreement now.

Once the Hydra kid was apprehended, what would they do with him? Where would he go? What would happen to him? Those were the question that came up, once the dust settled and their anger had withdrawn itself at least so much so, that there was room for a more logical and elaborate plan of action.

And that’s the part where their opinion’s split in half.

Steve and Natasha agreed that as soon as they got the kid, they should hand him over to the authorities to take care of him because the Avengers were not parttime babysitters. And don’t get him wrong, he thought that this was a great idea and gave his assent on their second sentiment, but… it wasn’t exactly applicable to their case.

As you see, they were dealing with an enhanced, brainwashed, and tortured child. Not exactly ‘normal’ in any way and seeing that this is the first case of something like this happening being brought out into the world… Tony thought that the ‘normal’ authorities just weren’t enough, especially considering the enhanced portion of their situation.

He also couldn’t stand the idea at just shirking off the child to the next best inestimable organisation the second they managed to find him and then clapping themselves on the back for another job well done.

They were going to rescue him from a life of pain and void of any positive emotion, only to throw him overboard into a sea of anonymity and lack of meaningful connections? Not to speak of all the horrors he has heard of the foster care system running in their country.

It irked him immensely and didn’t sit right with him (it also brought up repressed memories of his time after Afghanistan and how without Pepper or Rhodes by his side, he surely would not have survived).

What that boy needed, was a place to stay indefinitely, until they had found his true family (if they were still out there somewhere) and people who he would be able to put his trust into, more than anything. And who would be more capable than them, likewise not exactly ‘normal’ people, to take that boy in and help him be reintegrated into society?

Clint, being a father before anything else (like he always disgustingly endearingly says), was on the same page as Tony.  He understood Tony’s reasoning and said that they had to choose what was the best for the child and not what was most comfortable for them, because as soon as they learned of his existence, their wants had become secondary. It all should be decided with only the best for the kid in mind.

That left out Bruce.

In general, the scientist had been very closed off since he learned of what had gone down in that bunker, so he hasn’t really expressed his opinion about it yet. But Tony hoped (and maybe prayed a little), that he would side with the archer and him on this one.

“Tony, please just… come sit down so that we can talk properly, okay?”

The mechanics gaze snapped up mid step and met the tired and nearly pleading one of their team leader, blue eyes lacking their usual liveliness, big, dark-blue circles under them reinforcing how they all felt.

Just so fucking exhausted.

The four day long built up of Tony’s frustration at finding exactly zero on the kid seemed to reach its peak today, because he couldn’t keep his voice from trembling slightly in aggravation.

“Why? What good did it do in the last two hours?”

He had come to a stop in front of their meeting table, arms thrown out in front of him. All his pent-up irritation and hopelessness made him desperate. It just shouldn’t have been possible to find absolutely zero hint or trace, absolutely nothing on that boy. Just impossible!

Cap let out a deep, resignated sigh, letting his face come down to rest in his hands. Nobody was saying anything for the next moments, Clint half asleep in his chair next to Natasha, who was sitting on Steve’s left. Bruce was slumped back in his seat to the right of the blonde, eyes locked on his right thumb rubbing absentmindedly up and down his left hand.

The next who spoke up, was Natasha.

“Tony, you know that we’ve been doing everything in our power to trace him, but even back in that base we found not one single mention of him on their computers… Maybe, we should just let it go.”

If she were anyone other than the Black Widow, Tony’s withering glare would’ve made her tremble in her seat, but Nat merely raised her eyebrow at him in a ‘seriously?’ motion.

“If this is just you getting all worked up over something the oh so great Tony Stark failed to do, we can all go back to play ring-a-ring-a-horses together and forget this happened.”

The red head had been leaning back in her chair the whole time during their meeting, but now she was leaning forward, arms crossed in front of her chest and challenging Tony with her stare.

The warning she was sending was clear: This better not only be this important to him because of his inability to locate the kid and the subsequential blow to his pride, because apparently this was only a game to him.

If Tony would’ve had enough sleep in the last days or wasn’t so worked up from everything already, he would’ve answered differently.

But, as of now, Tony saw red.

“What?! Do you really- Is that really what you think of me? That- that this is a game for me? Some kind of sick and twisted game of hide and seek? I have been doing everything in my power to find the tiniest clue on the whereabouts of the kid, pouring in hours and hours and fucking hours into reading through those disgusting Hydra files and that’s what you all think of me?”

During his outburst, he had slammed his hands on the table, waking a dozed off Clint in the process and making the water glasses standing on the table quiver.

Natasha didn’t as much as flinch, while she had listened to Tony’s outburst.

“Well, we all know your tendency to be a sore loser.”

Her voice was perfectly neutral, and it perfectly grated on Tony’s nerves.

His left eye twitched imperceptibly, frozen in place, upper body bent over the table supporting itself with his hands.

He was so close to calling Romanoff something very, very creative, when Steve let out another one of those patented tired-team-leader-sighs™.

“I think Tony’s right”, Steve said, letting his hands plump down on the table.

The look of pure shock on Tony’s face was comical.

“You what now?”

Cap balled his hands into fists, torso falling back against the back of the chair, disheartened expression on his face before saying: “We should stop arguing about this, it’s all we’ve been doing the past four days and I hate it when we argue this much. So, I’ve been thinking about a compromise to this situation and am pretty sure I found one.”

Everyone was looking at him now expectedly.

“When we find the boy, we will keep him here at the tower for a month. If we find that it is working out and he is getting better, we say he can stay. If not… well, we’ll figure that out when it’s time.”

The silence stretched, spoken words settling in their minds.

“I- I can live with that”, said Bruce to their right.

Natasha shrugged her shoulders. “I guess so.”

Tony shared a look with Clint. The spy didn’t look particularly happy about the captain’s compromise, but he nodded curtly at Tony before giving his agreement to the proposal.

Now it was on him. A month? That was nothing! How should the kid be able to heal under a time limit? That’s not how that works at all!

But insofar, it was the first offer of Steve to let the kid stay at all and Tony wasn’t taking any chances anymore.

“Alright, fine. I’m in. But don’t you dare insinuate one more time that I do this just for my ego or I will personally sell all your belongings on eBay!”, the engineer said while pointing angrily at Romanoff, before storming out of the room, because he was done.

=================

Three hours later, Tony was alone in his lab, standing at one of the workbenches and tinkering (trying at least) with some spare parts. Bruce had gone off an hour earlier, after hesitantly joining him after his outburst in the meeting room to make sure he was alright, talking about doing some yoga or something. Tony hadn’t really been listening, to be honest. It wasn’t that he didn’t try but…

“Boss?”

Startled out of his languid thoughts, he glanced at one of Fridays camera.

“What’s up, Fri?”

“Ms. Romanoff is requesting entry to the lab.”

Tony let out a breath, rubbing a hand over his face.

“Let her in.”

As always, Tony did not hear the spy enter or even walk up to him, so when he turned around and was face to face with a certain redhead, he yelped.

Unimpressed, she kept her eyes locked on him, as he was holding his right fist over his now too fast pounding heart.

God he was going to die of a heart attack because of them someday.

“What do you want, Natashalie?”

His question was still tinged with annoyance, a remnant of the meeting earlier.

Instead of answering him, she motioned with her head to the wiring and metal in front of him, leaning her back against his table and hands coming to rest next to her.

“What are you building?”

Her voice lacked the animosity it was dripping with in the meeting room, instead, some form of tentativeness now softening the edges of the question she had asked him.

He scoffed, turning his body away from her.

“No idea. Couldn’t concentrate on anything and… My mind. Y’know how it is- Can’t stop thinking about that kid.”

While talking he had grabbed some piece of a thin metal plate, trying to bend it (into what he didn’t really know) but it didn’t budge. Riled up, he threw that stupid thing back on the pile and tried to not let himself interpret that as a metaphor for his life.

“Tony.”

After taking a deep breath to calm him down somewhat (which it obviously didn’t), he turned his body to fully face her again, and after some seconds of consideration of what he should do with himself, he mimicked her position against the table.

He felt drained. He knew it was stupid to let this affect him so much, but he couldn’t help himself.

He had spent the last days dissecting every word, hell every letter, every bit of code that they had gathered from that bunker. He didn’t find anything though (only that Pepper could get even more persuasive and mean when he’s working on nothing else but coffee and steam and she’s trying to get him out of the lab).

He even revisited the bunker together with Clint (“You owe me, dude”), but even after they seemingly had turned the place upside down, looked under each rock and into every crevice, they still did not come up with anything useful.

So, in summary, they had a whole bunch of nothing and even more nothing with a side of nothing and a nice, generous topping of who would’ve guessed it nothing.

And after all that, he couldn’t help but feel like… It was his fault. If only he had alerted the team faster when he was having that conversation with the boy, then maybe they would’ve been able to catch him or even follow him or whatever.

Or he could’ve put a tracker on him (never mind that he didn’t have one at him at the time), knocked him out or just really anything.

But he didn’t and now the poor kid had to go back to those monsters and God knows what horrible things they did to him.

A gentle touch on his left hand made him look up, meeting the penitent expression on Natasha’s face.

She put her hand over his, before she spoke up quietly.

“I didn’t really mean the things I said, back then. It just… hits a bit too close to home. “

Tony took a deep breath. Let it out again.

“I understand, it’s okay. It’s been hard couple of days for us all.”

He let his head fall sideways on her shoulder and moments later, he felt Natasha lean hers against his.

And he really did understand her.

Their friendship… didn’t exactly start out as such. At all. Actually, quite the opposite.

After what had happened with her infiltrating his company all the while he had been dying and then later just casually stabbing a syringe into his neck (which could’ve killed him honestly) and that whole ‘Iron Man: recommended, Tony Stark: not’, Tony had felt a strong dislike towards her. Even going so far and threatening her and the entirety of SHIELD with a lawsuit on the ground of corporate espionage and assault. Well, that was more Pepper’s wrath than his and to this day, he didn’t know how he managed to convince his fiery fiancée to not pursue her quest on burning down SHIELD.

Anyways, they started out on the wrong foot. Only after the world nearly had been taken over Loki and his chitauri army, did they sit down and have a serious conversation with each other. Because being on the same team meant having each other’s back and being able to trust each other, which at that point, they certainly didn’t. Tony didn’t want to build up a team whose foundation consisted of dislike and mistrust, because that definitely would bite them in the ass later.

So, Tony explained to her that she couldn’t really just go and syringe people out of the blue or lie to them about her real intentions anymore.

He had expected everything from her, denial, anger, accusations on his persona, but-

What he got was Natasha, confiding in him about how she wanted to do better and how she didn’t know how she was able to do that without the Avengers.

The following talk between them helped them to understand the people they both were.

Because in the end, they both just were two individuals, haunted by the demons of their past and trying to do better.

They weren’t so different after all.

The engineer could see, how hard Natasha tried to not let her compare herself to the kid, to not get too invested. But, he guessed, it was a bit too late for that just as it was for him.

“Fury wants to talk to us.”

Tony let out a dramatic groan, before peeling himself out of their position leaning against each other and moving in front of the scrap metal pile again.

“I’ve been really great at ignoring that pirate for the last four days and you just had to remind me of him, didn’t you?”

Nat rolled her eyes at his antics but couldn’t keep the corners of her mouth from twitching amusedly.

“I think you know that keeping him waiting isn’t exactly the best course of action.”

Of course, he knew, how couldn’t he? But he just… really didn’t want to talk to him. He was still not the best of friends with the SHIELD director after the stunt he pulled while… well everything since he had met him. Tony didn’t like and trust him, it was that simple.

“Then tell him, he can go suck my ass.”

Chapter Text

In the end, Natasha didn’t end up telling Fury that he can ‘go suck his ass’.

Quite the opposite, Tony’s afraid, because at exactly 8:00 pm sharp the next day the super spy and he were standing in the middle of the director’s office. Tony hadn’t been in there before (he tries to avoid crossing paths with this shady organisation as much as possible) and he didn’t know what he had expected to see in there, but honestly, it wasn’t that.

The office looked like any common, boring office in any TV show ever.

The walls were painted a bland grey, which made the whole room feel… well grey. The furniture, which consisted of a tall, dark wooden bookshelf placed adjacent to the door, a black, pristine desk in the middle of the room and a dark dresser against the wall to their left, didn’t really help at all with making this place appear appealing enough to warrant the desire of spending a full workday in there.

Fury arguably doesn’t really have a flair for interior design, huh? Probably too busy being sketchy as hell and scheming sketchy plans and feeding his -probably also sketchy- pet parrot.

The mechanic was busy mentally rearranging the room (-and some cool looking, colourfully exotic plant right next to the mini fridge would look amazing! Why didn’t he become an interior designer again?) when with one loud bang, the door to the office was slammed open.

(And no, Tony did not flinch, absolutely not!)

A second later, a very gruff looking Nick Fury marched into the room, grunting a short greeting their way without sparing them a glance and after rounding the desk, he let himself fall into his office chair.

There was now a tense silence hanging in the air, in which neither of the three said a single word.

Tony’s eyes flickered briefly in Natasha’s direction. The red head’s face was void of any emotion, composure lacking any stiffness that would give away any telltale signs of nervousness or discomfort.

He admired her ability to remain nonchalant in the face of their impending discussion with Fury, because he felt himself become keyed up more and more the longer the silence lingered on, fingers twitching against his trousers and jaw clenching, but he was nothing if not raised to never show fear and he certainly wouldn’t let himself get intimidated by that cranky pirate now.

“Romanoff, Stark. I’ve heard you’re searching for something.”

Fury’s voice was exactly how Tony remembered it, cold and calculating.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Nicky.”

The billionaire schooled his face into a mask of feigned, innocent cluelessness (which he had practiced to perfection during his time at MIT) while he stared Fury straight into his piercing, black eye.

The frown of the director’s face deepened as he answered, “I didn’t order you here to be a pain in the ass, Stark.”

“Funny”, Tony grinned back, “that’s not what you said to me last night.”

Nat next to him visibly rolled her eyes the same time a flicker of annoyance crossed Fury’s features.

Tony took that as a win in his book.

The redhead then decided to step in, possibly to spare everyone the brewing argument sizzling between the director and mechanic. Oh well, not that he was complaining.

“Ignore him, he hit his head pretty hard on the last mission.”

Not minding the dirty look Tony sent her way at all, Natasha took a step closer to Fury’s desk, not so subtly telling Tony that way that he should shut up and let her do the talking from now on.

Honestly, he didn’t even know why he needed to be here! Like, couldn’t Nat just have done this talk with Captain Deacon alone and left him in his lab to-

“About what did you want to speak with us, Fury?”

Nat, as always, didn’t beat around the bush and went straight to the point.

The thick leather jacket wrapped around Fury’s body made that typical, gnashing-creaky leather sound as the director shifted in his seat. He rested his arms on the table, upper body bent forwards and hands clasping each other in a tight grip.

“I heard about what you found on your last mission. Any new development there?”

Tony already opened his mouth to give Fury a sarcastic retort again, because this was none of his business, but Natasha beat him to it.

“No, not yet. We have been searching continuously, but Hydra did a good job with destroying any breadcrumbs which would lead us to his hiding place.”

“Alright. Keep on looking out for him. Once he is apprehended, bring him to me. I will handle that.”

Tony’s blood ran cold.

Oh no, he would not let Fury lay a finger on that boy! Who knew what he was going to do with him?

“What are your plans with him then?”

Oh, bless you Nat-

“We are going to keep him here, at first. He will be evaluated and if deemed resourceful, he will be trained as a SHIELD agent.”

Pardon? Did he hear that correctly? He was going to train that child as a SHIELD agent? He will be evaluated? Resourceful?!

Tony couldn’t keep his shock silent.

“With no due respect, Sir, are you fucking serious?”

The deadpan stare Fury viewed him with was answer enough.

“You cannot seriously think-“, Tony waved his arms angrily in front of him, “He is a child!”

“A teenager that is enhanced and can be of great value for us all, Stark. Stop playing the good Samaritan and act as if you care about that one teenager because he has a tragic background. There are thousands of them out there worse off, deal with it. And on top of that, his displayed… talents will not be a waste here.”

Appalled, Tony instinctively turned his head in Nat’s direction. Did she just hear that?!

The spy didn’t look at him though, still staring straightforward at Fury, giving away no hint that she was as aghast as him.

Oh well, I can handle that myself.

He opened his mouth, ready to slam that bastard against the wall with his words, when in that moment his phone chimed. Both the spies’ heads turned to look at him, Nat’s face for the first time showing some emotion since the meeting had started, in the form of restraint alertness. Whereas Fury looked even grimmer if possible.

He paused. It wasn‘t his usual message sound. It was the one he assigned to FRIDAY, in case she has any news for him, progress on a test she was running or just generally something important. And during the last five days, that something important could only mean one thing.

So, without sparing Fury another glance, he pulled out his phone.

And sure enough, there was a message from his Al.

Analysis of foreign substance completed.

He heard how Fury asked him a question, but he didn’t really catch onto the words he spoke.

Tony looked up.

„I gotta go “, he said, giving Nat a meaningful look, please I’m counting on you, and then stormed out of the room without looking back.

==========

That weird substance, of course.

How could he have forgotten about it?

He remembers how stubborn that gunk stuff was the teenager had… sprayed on him, both Natasha and Clint had had a very hard time cutting through that extremely sticky gooey thing, with Clint coursing loudly during the whole ordeal of course.

Once Tony had been free though, he immediately had collected as many samples of it as he could (and yes, he did carry an alarmingly big amount of empty test tubes in his suit, because he is as paranoidly overprepared as that) and later, when he had taken off the suit, promptly sent them to his lab to be analysed by FRIDAY.

Unfortunately, deconstructing the fluid into its basic components was found to be more difficult than anticipated, partly because the composition would dissipate after approximately one hour when it came into direct contact with oxygen and for that reason, it required to be stored in a full vacuum. This led to a very strenuous process as a whole and FRIDAY told him the chances to find anything useful during the time span of that hour were pretty low. Therefore, Tony had already given up on that path to find something helpful.

But his AI really liked to surprise him time and time again (she clearly takes after him in that regard) as right now, he was staring at the chemical compounds she found, displayed on the holograph in front of him. FRIDAY didn’t manage to determine all the chemicals needed for the fluid, but the ones she did were actually… helpful.

Tony finally felt something akin to hope blossom in his chest.

He would find that boy, damn it!

To cut to the chase, FRIDAY (she definitely deserves an upgrade after this) found exactly three chemicals in the substance: methanol, toluene and carbon tetrachloride. The first two were too common and widely spread to be any use for further investigation but the third compound, now that seemed to be very promising.

Carbon tetrachloride came with many names, originally it’s use was mainly in fire extinguishers and as a cleaning agent, but around the 90’s, a study revealed that it was, in fact, a very strong hepatotoxin, a toxin that specifically targets the liver, and prolonged exposure could even lead to cancer or death. Since then, the use of that organic compound has been banned internationally, only exception being controlled experiments in certain laboratories.

Thus, Hydra clearly should not be in the possession of said chemical.

That left Tony a small back door into the chicanery of that merry band of terrorists, because if he manages- no scratch that- when he manages to figure out who their secret vendor of that compound was, he could track the delivery route and it should lead him directly to one of Hydra’s main labs.

And there had to be at least a mention of their slippery teenager.

“Boss, my research of the foreign substance has discovered another matter worth mentioning.”

FRIDAY’s calm voice sounded through the lab, making Tony tear away his eyes from the hologram in front of him for the first time since he had entered the lab an hour ago.

“What have you found, FRIDAY?”

“It seems, the chemical composition of the fluid resembles the make up of silk, more specifically, the silk of a spider.”

A spider?

The picture of that kid, hanging headfirst in front of him, that white string the only thing keeping him from cracking his head open on the ground like an egg, suddenly appeared in front of his eyes and oh my god-

Of course. What else was new. Tony dealing with a weird, spider-teenager was completely normal, nothing to see here, haha, just your normal teenager who happens to hang around like a spider! What? Your kid doesn’t do that? Well, maybe he needs to see a doctor, because every kid hangs around like that!

So, that was his life now, searching for a spider-child.

Ugh, he thought as a shiver wracked though his body, spiders still give him the heebies.

=========

It had taken him 47 hours, perceivably twice as many coffees and a good chunk of his sanity, but holy fucking macaroni, he did it!

He really did it!

Of course, there never had been even a moment of doubt that he wouldn’t be able to do this (nope, none at all right?), because he was he and he was amazing. So please, autographs will be given out this afternoon at exactly 44 in-

His weight shifted just the tiniest bit to the right and-

Tony fell from his chair.

He grunted.

Oh well, spinning around triumphantly on his unsteady seat clearly was not the way to celebrate his victory, he thought, while dizzily laying on the floor and funny little stars dancing across his vision.

He didn’t even try to stop himself when a wave of unchecked laughter bubbled up in his throat.

That was the first time all week where he really, absolutely, felt freed from that weight which had been pinning him down harder than gravity since he had met the spiderling (and yes, that was the nickname he had come up with for the boy after his 20^th coffee, deal with it).

Now, the only thing stopping him from standing up and pursuing his quest in paying that base a visit, was the dizziness still keeping him involuntarily laying on the ground.

And the face, which suddenly popped up in his vision.

He reacted like, two seconds in delay, but react he did, nonetheless.

“Ahh-hiii! Rhodes! Didn’t see you there! How’s my favourite egg-laying mammal doing?”

His initial shriek of surprise had morphed into a greeting of his friend, whom he hadn’t seen in two weeks because he was busy with his usual, boring, military stuff-things.

But apparently, not anymore as he was directly staring into the unimpressed face of his best friend. Hmm, that expression reminded him of a certain redhead, or even two?

“Tony! The hell you’re doing on the ground?”

Tony grinned.

“Oh well, y’know, seeing the world from a different angle or whatevs is great for creativity or that’s what I heard, at least.”

Rhodey rolled his eyes so hard Tony feared that they would fall out of their sockets, but luckily, that didn’t happen.

But what did happen, was the colonel bending down, gripping the sleep deprived mechanic by his shoulders, and jacking him up on his feet.

Don’t get him wrong, Tony was totally glad to be standing up again, finally he could go search the spider-kid, but his head had a different opinion on that as he immediately keeled over again, dizziness still making him feel like he just rode a merry-go-round at speed three thousand.

Luckily, Rhodey was still there and so used to his ridiculous antics by now, that he had no problem catching Tony again as he was diving straight for his nose, but not without the second eye roll of the day.

Or was it night? Tony lost his sense of time at coffee thirty, so really, it could be anytime now.

“Wow wow, slow down, Tones! How long have you stayed up this time?”

Tony didn’t miss the slight disapproving tone of his friend, so logically, he poked his tongue out at him, as you do as a tax-paying, responsible adult (which he clearly is, he does not commit tax-fraud, Pepper would be mad).

Rhodey groaned in annoyance but turned his attention to his AI.

“FRIDAY?”

“Boss hasn’t slept in the last two days. May I add, distributed over the last six days, Boss rested for approximately 10 hours altogether and has consumed a borderline lethal amount of caffeine.”

The look of horror on his friend’s face would’ve made for a perfect picture as his phone background, but alas, Tony was busy pouting and mumbling ‘traitor’ at his beloved AI (and trying to fight the dark spots now partially covering his vision).

Rhodey sighed deeply, eyes closed as if to ask whoever was listening to please give him strength, when he helped Tony stand properly, but not without slinging an arm around the billionaire’s torso to keep him steady.

“Alright. Here’s what we’re gonna do now, Tones -”

Oh-oh. Rhodey was using his military voice on him, which always meant there was no room for any objections whatsoever if he didn’t want to get decked in the face.

“I’m gonna bring you to your room, you sleep for the next 10 hours and no more coffee for the next week. Alright? Alright, let’s go.”

The ‘but’ was already out of Tony’s mouth before he could stop himself, but the look on Rhodey’s face made him snap his mouth shut faster than he could’ve said honey bear.

If he thought about it…sleep actually sounded kind of nice now.

=====

The next day, Tony felt like himself again.

A nice, long, warm shower, followed by a proper meal and a night’s full rest truly did wonders to one’s body.

And he really needed the energy because today was going to be a long day.

There was some stuff he had on his mental to do list, but first and foremost he had to go look for Natasha and ask her how the meeting with Fury had played out. He hoped immensely that she was able to put that pirate back in his place (on a pirate ship, where he belonged).

Just because Fury had the initial idea of founding a group called the Avengers, didn’t mean he had full agency over them. Especially not now, after they had struck up a deal wherein the name and everything to do with the Avengers Initiative belonged to Tony, as long as the director had full knowledge about what they were up to and Tony paid for all of their expenses, including a yearly fee to SHIELD to be able to keep the Initiative. The billionaire wasn’t particularly happy about the first and last clause, but as long as he didn’t have to dance after Fury’s pipe all the time, he was satisfied with their stipulation.

That’s why it really didn’t sit right with him, with how interested Fury suddenly was in the spider-kid. He never really showed great care for everything else they did, but now that?

And Tony obviously still was not over the intention of Fury to basically deploy the kid as a soldier, as soon as they found him, just like they did with Steve. He really hoped Natasha was able to act as a broker and find a middle ground, because Fury would not get his crummy pirate hands on him.

He found Natasha in their gym, balancing on her hands and body knotted into a very complicated looking yoga position.

He tried to approach her as silently as possible, as to not disturb her ‘flow’ or whatever, but of course, one did not simply sneak up on Natasha Romanoff.

“What do you want, shellhead? I’m kind of in the middle of something”, the redhead said without opening her eyes, body so still you could think she was a statue.

Tony cleared his throat, clutching at the StarkPad he had brought with him in case he needed to write down something.

“How did it go with Fury in the end? And also, I’m sorry on just bailing on you, but I finally got a lead on the boy.”

She hummed slightly, brows furrowing in concentration. Her left arm twitched.

“I figured out that much, it’s fine. It went well, since I agreed with everything he said. He shouldn’t bother us anymore.”

Tony nearly dropped the device in his hands. She did what?!

“You did what?!”

But Natasha didn’t seem bothered in any way, her chest expanding as she took a deep breath, held it for exactly eight seconds (yes, he counted), before releasing it through her mouth again.

Then she started to untangle her limbs from each other, coming to rest cross-legged on the blue yoga mat she was using.

“Just like I said. I agreed to what he wanted from us.”

Indignant, Tony couldn’t keep his voice from spiking.

“But, why?! Why would you do that?!”

She finally opened her eyes, looking up at him with a ho-hum expression on her face.

“I did it because if we hadn’t agreed on what he wanted from us, then we would’ve had to deal with him constantly looking over our shoulders. I don’t want him to get the boy as much as you do, but we can’t let ourselves get too distracted and make mistakes because we are too busy keeping things secret from Fury.”

With that, she got up with a grace Tony couldn’t help but compare to the one of a cat, eyes not leaving his.

“That way, we can still do whatever we want. And also”, she leaned closer to him, “who said we immediately have to inform him once we find him?”

Tony deflated. Of course, he hadn’t thought about it that way. Fury wouldn’t leave them alone once they would’ve apprehended the teen if they wouldn’t have come to an agreement beforehand. So, he guessed, it was for the better.

“Well okay, fine. You’re right, that’s the better option in keeping Fury in check, even though I don’t like it one bit”, he heaved a heavy sigh.

Natasha looked at him sympathetically. 

“Me neither, but it’s the best we can do for now. You said you found a lead?”

Tony was glad about the change of topics. He told her a summary of what he had found in the lab the other day and how he now wanted to get the team together to plan their next course of action.

She nodded once he had finished talking, putting her hand on his right arm, and gently tugging him along.

“Alright, then, what are you waiting for? Let’s go get the others.”

Chapter Text

An explosion shook the building.

Tony felt the vibrations from his knees kneeling on the ground, felt them ripple through his sternum straight up to the crown of his head.

That was their signal.

He turned his head to the left and met the fiercely green eyes of his teammate. She nodded.

They stood from their hiding place behind a pillar, a small niche in the wall located in a corridor that according to Tony’s monitoring of the place, was scarcely visited.

But now, they heard the trampling of at least a dozen agents approaching their location.

Before even registering the meaning behind the gradually louder steps of their enemies, Tony felt a firm hand grab his wrist and yank him backwards against the wall.

In the process, the back of his head hit the rigid concrete very ungently.

“Ouch!”

He complained, regretting it shortly after though, as the crazy redhead next to him delivered a particularly punctuated punch to his right arm.

Perplexed (and in pain before their mission even started, awesome), he sent her a questioning glare.

Natasha only answered with her chin pointing in the direction of the hallway before them, where they saw the group of Hydra soldiers waltz past them quite in a hurry. Then, following just seconds after, five men wearing whitish lab-coats hurried after the armed agents, looking a lot more worried and frantic than their precursors.

The two avengers waited, listened to the steps tapering off.

More seconds passed by, the upcoming adrenaline pumping through Tony’s veins made him forget his thumping head for the moment, his focus zeroing in on any other noises alerting them of more Hydra goons.

However, the hallways remained eerily silent.

Nat let go of his hand.

“Let’s go”, she whispered.

==========

Tony was not having a good time.

The mission was still going according to plan (at least something’s working out). The other Avengers, consisting of Cap, Clint and Rhodey, where wreaking havoc at the other side of the base, causing as much ruckus and noise as possible to distract most of the Hydra agents present in the building. While that was happening, Nat and he had sneaked through the corridors in search of the lab, in which that web fluid must’ve found its origins as determined by his research on delivery routes of carbon tetrachloride.

And would you look at that, they had actually found an alarmingly big and very well-equipped laboratory on floor 3 of the building.

There were fume hoods lined up in two columns along the right side of the room, tall closets to the left plastered full of warning labels and names of chemicals (pff, you don’t store the acids next to the bases, idiots), and some extremely… shady looking instruments strewn over the remaining free space of the room.

There had been no scientists here, when they had barged into the lab, light turned off mostly throughout the room except for the ones in the far back.

Those men wearing the lab coats they saw earlier must’ve been the occupants of this laboratory, Tony thought. He couldn’t really argue with that logic, getting their most invaluable members of Hydra to safety first things first, considering nearly all their most dangerous foes had come from human experimenting and that wouldn’t have been possible without some bright minds among their midst.

The two of them then had started to wander around the room, the spy with a gun at the ready tightly grasped in her hands and Tony with his own covered in armour gloves. The tiny arc reactors shimmering blue in the middle of his palms turned the yellowed white colour of the floor and wall tiles an eerie colour, combined with the sparsely lit room and the menacing tools littered around, it created an atmosphere straight out of a horror movie. And boy did he not enjoy that genre of movies, let me tell you.

While they had walked past the closed fume hoods (thank god they were closed, Tony really didn’t want to leave this shithole with new giraffe powers or whatever), they had taken a closer look at some of the experiments in progress behind the glass panels of some of the hoods. 

Oddly, they mainly came across some distillations or volumetric analyses up and running (huh, didn’t think life as a hydra scientist was this boring), until they had reached the very last hood in the far back.

The inside of that particular hood was completely covered in that white spider-silk substance, barely visible a shattered glass beaker sitting in the middle of the workspace.

The two heroes had shared a look together.

They were definitely at the right place.

After that discovery, they had had checked the rest of the lab for any other signs of them being not alone.

Nobody else was in the lab though, the ongoing small explosions on the other side of the bunker thankfully keeping all the agents busy.

Tony had been going through documents about some weird experiments he had found lying around, when Natasha had called him to her. She had found two ancient looking computers hidden in a closet and after they had easily gained access to them, were going through folder and folder in the search for some information about that missing spider-kid.

But Tony’s patience was running low with that shitty, stone-age technology vibe they had going on there. Seriously, he wouldn’t be surprised if they found some engraved stone slabs in the next closet!

“I swear these Hydra idiots have no idea how to use technology! It’s like digging through the brain of a caveman! Do I look like a fucking archaeologist?”

Leaning over the computer next to his, Natasha crooked her head to the side slightly as she sneaked a glance at him. Her face suddenly looked oddly smug.

“If you wear one of those beige hats and a vest with a plaid shirt, I could totally see you calling the shots of an excavation.”

For a second, Tony lost the rhythm of his rapidly typing fingers. He sent the complacently smirking redhead a glare, eyes narrowed, and mouth pressed together.

“Excuse me? First off, that was a rhetoric question and secondly, do you know how awfully boring that work is?”, his nose wrinkled, “There was one time, where I was invited to an excavation site as a guest of honour back before the whole Iron man shebang, and let me tell you, watching ten people sweep at the ground with those tiny brushes is not what I understand as a ‘fun and interesting’ activity. Ugh, at least the drinks were not bad.”

“Tony Stark at an excavation site? Not really your field.”

“Hah, yeah still don’t get that one. It was probably good for publicity and potential sponsors- hey wait a sec, I think I found something!”

The clicking next to him stopped, as Natasha appeared at his side.

With the cursor, Tony highlighted the passage he stumbled across.

‘…subject showed increase of strength after day three following the initiation process. In contrast, older test subjects did not recover once injected with the venom of Latrodectus V3.4, thus utilizing subjects of a younger age group appears to increase the chances of success. This in turn, has yet to be proven as true and not just a random occurrence, as the subject tested was the first in its age range. More subjects of varying ages are being collected…’

The disgust and anger hit Tony square in the chest.

How could they do this!? The way they were describing the kid as ‘subject’ and ‘it’… god damn it he would blow each and every scientist working here to shreds and feed their remains to-

“Tony.”

-the rats living in the sewers under New York City. Fuck, the unfathomable rage was tearing through his body, pulsing in his ears, his lungs, it screams at him to-

“Tony!”

He inhaled and with that intake of air, the worst of his anger cleared from his head. He still couldn’t catch the gnarl rumbling out of his throat, though.

“What, Romanoff?”

A beat silence, then-

“We have a visitor.”

He whirled around and-

Looked directly into the circus goggles of their missing spider child.

Then, everything happened in a blur.

The second Tony had seen the kid, pure relief flooded his system and before he could process that absurd amount of relief he was experiencing (seriously, why was he so relieved), it transformed into horrification at the sight before him.

The kid was holding an inches long blade against Nat’s throat, pressing against her skin so strongly it cut into her flesh, a small rivulet of blood trailing along the side of her neck.

The redhead was handling the situation in complete Black Widow fashion. No sign of fear or pain evident on her face, as she calmly opened her mouth and greeted their surprise guest, since Tony’s still frozen in place, mind not yet caught up to what was happening at all.

“Hi, little spider. Nice to meet you.”

The kid didn’t react.

Moments passed, in which neither of them moved.

Tony’s head was a mess at this point. Feelings clashed against feelings, he needs to protect Nat, kill their enemy, but it was no enemy, it was the kid, but Nat was bleeding, she needs help but the kid-

“Tony? Won’t you say hi to our guest?”

That brought his racing thoughts to a halt, his eyes met the calm ones of Nat, and he felt a rush of gratitude and ease coming over him because she noticed his distress, how she always does because she knew. And just that thought alone, calmed the mechanic down to a degree he could function properly again.

He overrode the tremble in his voice with an ability one only has after decades of practise, when he addressed the kid finally.

“Hey yo-yo, long time no see!”

That seems to elicit a reaction out of the teen, as he tightens the grip he has on Nat’s bicep, before speaking.

“It’s you.”

Tony let a smirk play around his lips, despite of the nervousness and fear shivering in his bones at the prospect of his friend being in danger.

“Yep, it’s me, the one and only. Now, why don’t you let go of that knife so that we- “

But that was the wrong thing to say, as within the span of a second, another knife was sticking out of the wooden backwall of the closet, mere millimetres away from Tony’s head.

Holy shit, he didn’t even see him move.

“Don’t tell me what to do! Last time I checked, I’m the one holding a knife to your teammate’s throat, not the other way around.”

Well, that was true. Shit. What do I do what do I do-

Stall. He has to stall until he has a plan.

“Okay okay, you got me there, bud. No need to escalate things”, he chuckled, while banning the nervousness from seeping into his voice.

The mechanic tries to appear as non-threatening to the kid as possible, showing off his empty palms (thank Thor he retracted the armour gloves earlier, they were probably his only ticket out of here right now) in a manner that should calm the kid down somewhat.

Truth to be told, Tony was absolutely not prepared to see the kid here. All he had hoped for, when they had arrived at this base, was for more information about the whereabouts and or personal information of the kid, and not actually meeting him again. So, standing here with virtually no plan to deal with an enhanced teenager threatening to kill one of his teammates, the situation wasn’t looking too pretty.

Tony only heard the next explosion with one ear, not really paying any mind to it, the noise already had blended into the background of his surroundings.

He didn’t miss the slight, simultaneous flinch in the spiderling’s composure though.

Eyes flickering to Nat’s it seemed, she didn’t miss it either.

“Why are you here?”, the kid asked, suddenly, breaking the tense silence around them, his voice sounding a lot less sure than before.

A plan was forming in Tony’s head the same time a wave of sympathy overcame him. He recognized it now, viewing the body language of the teen more closely. The rigid way his shoulders were tensed up, the nearly invisible tremble of the hand holding the knife, his uneven breathing.

The kid was scared. And apparently, really bothered by the explosions. Hmm, he wonders if…

“Oh, you know, just paying our good ol’ Hydra buddies a visit. Speaking of which, how you’ve been, spiderling? Webbin’ up some fly guys?”, Tony asked him, casually, while he shifted his weight on his feet, back leaning against the open closet door now because bewildering other people to throw them off their composure was one of his greatest joys in life (next to Pepper of course) and maybe, just the way to gamble for more time right now.

 The kid seemed too stunned to speak for a moment. (Ha, he was just too good.)

“Spider- Spiderling??”, if the situation wasn’t so serious, Tony would’ve laughed out loud at the teens obvious voice crack and confusion lacing his bafflement, but as the sparse light of the old, dim light bulbs hit the knife still pressed against Nat’s throat, the mechanic is reminded that maybe laughing at a mentally unstable teenager wasn’t the best course of action right now. 

Another explosion rumbled through the walls and the floors of the building, bigger than the one earlier, dust and dirt falling from the ceiling, yuck, and the kid nearly dropped the knife.

Another quick, but intensely meaningful glance in Natasha’s direction. They locked eyes, less than a fraction of a second, but long enough to understand.

Only moments following that detonation, the epicentre of the next explosion was closer to them than any before it, making Tony stumble forward as the ground shook, his ears ringing at the sudden, thundering noise, but he was ready.

His hands were encapsulated by the armour gloves just when he heard an ‘umph’ ahead of him, his eyes snapped up and he witnessed Nat’s knee buried in the kid’s stomach, knife scattering across the floor, the teen was reaching behind his back to draw another knife-

But Tony was faster.

 “Nat!”

The spy let herself drop to the floor like a sack of potatoes. The kid, confused and seemingly completely out of it, whipped his head in Tony’s direction, stumbling forward from his own sudden movement-

The mechanic’s arm hovered in the air, gauntlet ready, pointing at the disoriented teen-

Alright, here goes nothing. Please work please work please work!

The soundwave blasted out of the glove, too low to be able to be perceived by human ears, but still strong enough to fling his arm back, it travelled through the dingy air and apparently hit its target when-

A scream followed by a thud, then a moan and-

Silence.

Tony’s heart was practically beating out of his chest, it was in his ears, his head, drumming and pounding so hard at first it was the only thing he heard.

The sonic blast had whirled up the dust and dirt in the lab further, he coughed and coughed as he was gasping for air, his body catching up with the fact he had held his breath during the whole ordeal, too focused on succeeding and not failing.

Once the dust settled and his lungs satisfied with the amount of oxygen they were provided, he finally took in the scene in front of him.

The kid was laying with his back against the closet opposite of the one containing the computers, hands clutching his head and body in fetal position. Except for the normal rising of his chest, he was not moving. Knocked out cold.

Tony’s eyes wandered to the right where he spotted Natasha, also on the ground. Fuck.

He floundered forward immediately, despite his own vertigo making the world spin and knelt between the two unconscious figures.

His left hand – his right arm got more affected by the repercussion of the blast more than he thought – reached for her face, arm trembling and heartbeat pumping hard against his chest, but as soon as he felt the warm breath of her exhales on his pointer finger, he slacked back against the closet and breathed.

The blood on her throat had already dried around the wound on her neck, now that he was closer to her, he realized the cut wasn’t as deep as he first had feared it was.

She was fine.

His attention now was on the teen laying to his other side. He couldn’t keep his lips from twisting into an amused and exasperated half-smile.

Oh kid, what kind of trouble have we gotten ourselves into with you?

=====

“Again!”

Peter had to squash the urge to flinch for what felt like the hundredth time today as the unwavering voice of their trainer echoed through the dark training room, which was full of other agents completing their mandatory, daily routine together with him.

Peter couldn’t hold back a small sigh.

Ugh, today just really sucked.

The moment he had opened his eyes this morning, that familiar, extremely sucky pressure was sitting in his skull, hammering away at his forehead like a desperate woodpecker searching for worms in a rotten tree trunk. And he very much was not a tree, so if that loony bird would just- leave, he would never complain about night watch ever again.

But of course, no such thing happened, rather the opposite he’s afraid: his bad luck just kept piling on with each passing hour of today.

Five minutes into his breakfast this fateful, trashy morning, consisting of the usual glass of water, two bread slices and his necessary vitamin pills, his senses had started going haywire. His eyes hurt and burned every time he just as much glimpsed in the direction of one of the white ceiling LED lights, eardrums shooting painful spikes into his brain whenever someone lifted their voice just the slightest.

The smell of his soap bar bordered on unbearable during his daily shower in the lavs, and man even the bread tasted way too salty like how was that possible. 

Unfortunately, he wasn’t new to these ‘sucky days’. He has experienced them nearly monthly since his enhancement, so really, he should be used to them by now. But each time he woke up feeling like the physical embodiment of a doormat, proved that notion wrong, so, so wrong.

He once experienced a particularly nasty episode of that pain. It had become so bad he had to go to the infirmary section because he kept blacking out during training and that made his trainer furious. The doctor there usually just told him the usual phrase he repeats at the end of every single check-up, after checking his eyes and listening to his heartbeat with a stethoscope, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, you can go back to training’ so Peter does just that because he was a professional, so he should know that there’s nothing wrong right?

So, he just grinds his teeth and sucks it up and pushes through these days until he can completely black out in his bunk once the evening arrives and he had had his usual dinner consisting of hard-boiled potatoes, a piece of meat and some green veggies he still doesn’t like. The next days he was always fine, his worrying from the day before seeming unnecessary and quite frankly, embarrassing.

But today, oh Hydra, today turns out to be one of the worst, if not even the worst day he’s had in quite a while. Even his skin hurt, his usual tolerable suit was now feeling like sandpaper against his agitated skin, so much so he had to restrain himself from ripping the fabric off to check if he even had any skin left.

And don’t even get him started about his underwear because his –

“You! Ten thirty-four!”

Oh-oh. That was him.

(And ouch, my ears.)

He stopped in his, hmm he had lost count maybe sixty-ish? push up, to lift his head and squint in the direction of today’s trainer. The man was familiar to him, short black hair and bent nose, he probably had already once conducted their training session here, but to be honest, Peter couldn’t be bothered to remember. His head was too full of stuff he had to learn for his education anyway.

The man was staring at him, brows furrowed, and mouth contorted into an ugly grimace of dissatisfaction and something else he couldn’t quite place (he wasn’t really good at reading other people), as he was marching towards him. Oh no.

I’m just gonna act like I didn’t hear him, maybe he will let it go-

“Ahh-nngh!”

Apparently, the man didn’t just let it go.

A hand grabbed his hair at the back of his head roughly and would it have been any other day Peter wouldn’t have minded because even if it still would’ve hurt, he knew the pain, it was familiar and nothing new, so normally, wouldn’t have elicited any sort of reaction from him whatsoever, but now.

It felt like his skin was getting peeled off his skull, shit shit shit it hurt so much, just-

He didn’t catch his exclamation of pain fast enough from leaving his lip, so all he could do to spare himself more punishment for showing weakness was biting down on his tongue so hard he drew blood. The sensation forced his eyes to water, the metallic taste spreading in his mouth not really helping.

“What do you think you’re doing? Did I say you can slow down?”, the man shouted at him, and the pain it hurt my head my head-

Peter hesitated just two seconds too long to answer, the pain making him feel light-headed and the dark spots that had been accompanying him the entirety of the day grew in size until he was sure he was going to black out-

“Answer me you brat!”

That kicked him back into reality, as he finally managed to press out: “No sir, you didn’t, sir. I apologize, sir!”

The man didn’t relent. He gripped his hair impossibly tighter, shaking him like a rabid fox shakes his prey.

“Then why did you think you can slow down? You think you’re something special ‘cause your enhancements and can disobey direct orders?!”

“No sir, no that was not my intention, I-“

“Shut up, freak! You are so weak and fragile, like a little girl! Next time they should give you a dress, pussy. I will forward this to your superior. And now, a hundred more push ups for you, you fucking brat.”

With that, the hand clasping his hair vanished, leaving behind a heavy, stinging and throbbing sensation at the back of his head. He could hear some snickering from somewhere in the room coming from his fellow trainees before the trainer barked at them to shut up and some other threats Peter didn’t care to listen to anymore.

He was too busy trying to stay conscious and concentrate on the constant movement of his arms and chest, more than anything else while his entire existence right now could be summed up in the word pain.

Later, he probably was going to have to answer for his behaviour today, but right now, all that mattered was counting to one hundred and staying conscious.

===========

When Peter finally returned to his shared cell, he couldn’t even enjoy the sight of his bed. The guilt of failing, the guilt of not holding up to his expectations and disappointing Jakob, had been eating away at him and at some point, his heart rate had started to quicken at the thought of his punishment. Was he going to put him into Iso?

That thought sent shivers down his spine.

Today really had been hell so far. He didn’t remember the last time his body had been in so much pain he literally blacked out thrice in his lunch break while gulping down whatever this day’s lunch menu was. His scalp and tongue luckily were already healed again though, so it wasn’t that bad really. Just a normal day that was a bit more challenging than usual. It was okay.

Just as he was about to change into his clean shirt, he heard the door of their cell opening.

“Thirty-four?”

Immediately, he stood at attention, arms clasped neatly behind his back, body stark and stiff as he faced one of his superiors, Henderson.

“Ready to receive order, ma’am!”

He flinched inwardly at his too loud exclamation. My body’s still hating me, great…

Henderson was looking him up and down, before saying: “Jakob has ordered you to his office, now.”

His heart sank. Oh well, time to deal with my fuck-up…

After he gave her an affirmation, she nodded and turned curtly on her heels, marching down the hallways to the office rooms.

Peter had watched her leave, with each passing second feeling his hands getting clammier and clammier the longer he kept staring after her.

Better just get it over with.

At this time in the afternoon, not many other people were around, everyone busy with their daily schedule, so Peter didn’t have to deal with any more unwanted loud noises than necessary to his luck (for once) while he made his way to the office.

A million and one thoughts raced through his head. The one that stood out the most though, was the usual question of how he would regain the mercy of Jakob after the fiasco of his shortcomings during that training session.

All too soon, he had reached the door to the office. Peter strained his ears to maybe hear that he wasn’t there, but of course, his walls were completely soundproof and his luck still non-existent.

Peter gripped the door handle, ice cold metal shooting spikes up his arms and sending a shiver over his body (he hated the cold), it felt ten times worse than usually because of his state. Furtively, he glanced both ways and when he was sure nobody would see him, he took a deep breath to calm his nerves and beating heart and then pushed down the handle to open the door.

The room was just how he remembered it. Expensive, dark red carpet laid in front of a big and old, dark wooden desk, sleek, black computer on top. There was a big window on the backwall, the view was mostly obstructed by thick branches of oak trees though. Along the other walls stood tall bookshelves, they were filled to the brim with unlabelled folders and notebooks.

And right in the middle of the room, right behind the desk was the black leather office chair.

It always reminded Peter of a throne, especially with how Jakob positioned himself in it just right now.

“Peter! What a delight to see you! Come in, come in!”

The warm smile on the brunet’s face melted some of the icy worry freezing up Peter’s inside.

Of course he wouldn’t be mad, it was Jakob.

“Do you know why you’re here today?”, asked Jakob the way he always did when Peter screwed up, as soon as he had entered the office and closed the door behind him.

“Yes, sir”, Peter tried to make his voice sound as strong as possible, not giving away his nerves.

“Well, what a good boy you are. Go on, tell me your sight of the story then”, with a hand gesture, Jakob motioned the teen to sit on the carpet. This was what he always did since he could remember.

But instead of the usual comfortableness the plush rug brought him, it was like sitting on a board of nails and he had to fight with all his might from keeping his face from twisting into a mask of pain.

Peter cleared his throat, more to distract himself from the constant ache than anything else, before answering.

“Today during my daily training, I disobeyed the trainer’s direct order.”

“Why?”

“Because I was lost in thoughts.”

“Why were you lost in thoughts?”

Jakob’s voice was so soft and understanding, Peter couldn’t not tell him what was bothering him, even if it meant risking causing him even more disappointment.

“I am… in pain today. Everything is hurting, my eyes, my ears, my head… Everything is too much, I-“, a shuddering breath escaped his lips, fighting hard to keep that stupid stinging sensation behind his eyes as just that and nothing more, “…I apologize for my behaviour, it was wrong and selfish, and I endangered all of our lives with my weakness today.”

Once the teen had ended, he let his head bow in shame. He knew the second Jakob was speaking, his disappointment in him was immeasurable.

“Peter, Peter, Peter… We talked about this. Letting your miniscule problems get in the way of the mission, our mission… It is not acceptable. Could you imagine if that had happened during a real situation, hmm?”

The silence hung in the air.

Jakob’s voice was quiet, when he asked again, weird edge to his voice: “Could you imagine, what would’ve happened during a real mission?”

Peter lifted his head and looked into the icy blue ones of Jakob. They were full of disappointment, so much so it reached out and closed itself around Peter’s throat, making it hard for him to speak and panic rise in his chest.

“I- I would’ve- could’ve been killed-“

“Not just you, Peter. Everyone. Even me. Do you want to kill me? Do you not love me?”

The panic at this thought made his heart lurch out of his chest. Of course not!

“No! Of course not! I would never do that! I love you, please don’t-“

Jakob’s eyes narrowed.

“Please don’t what?”

Fuck.

His mind ran a mile a minute, but the headache made it hard to come up with an excuse he, he he-

“Please don’t what, Peter?”

He couldn’t disobey him further. He had to answer him, now.

“Don’t leave me… I said please don’t leave me”, Peter finally said in a small voice, not having come up with an excuse fast enough.

The heavy sigh from Jakob made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and suddenly, his headache got a lot, lot worse.

“I can’t believe this, Peter. We talked about this. So. Many. Times. And you still can’t get that into your thick skull?”

“Yes, yes I can-“

“Don’t interrupt me boy, you’ve done enough today.”

With that, Jakob stood out of the chair. With slow steps, he rounded his desk and came to a halt in front of Peter. The teen had to bend his neck awkwardly now, to be able to look at his mentor.

“You are endangering everyone here, with your emotional”, Jakob twisted his face in disgust,” attachment. It has to stop, or you know what the consequences will be.”

The fear was crippling, right in that moment, it hit him like an electric shock. Peter didn’t think, (couldn’t stop thinking please please don’t leave me-), just pleaded: “No please, I would do anything-“

“See? This is why your birth family weren’t interested in you anymore and gave you to us. You are weak. But don’t worry, my boy, we will fix that, okay?”

Peter’s tears were flowing freely over his cheeks now. He sniffed, looking to the side and all he managed to do was nod.

Jakob was right. He is weak. No wonder nobody wanted him.

“My, my… look at me child.”

Peter felt a soft hand gripping his chin, forcing him to face Jakob again. He could see the love in his eyes and Peter knew, he would never do him wrong. He just wanted the best for him, like he has done for Peter’s whole life.

The man started to stroke his cheeks, wiping away his tears and Peter leaned into the touch desperately.

“You know that you are our special gift? There is a reason why you are here with us. Nothing happens out of coincidence.”

Peter scrunched his eyes shut, and shakily moved his head up and down.

But all too soon, the gentle moment was over. The man withdrew his hand.

“Stand up.”

Peter immediately did as he was told, he had embarrassed himself enough already with his despicable behaviour today. Now, he couldn’t believe his own audacity.

“You will spend the rest of the week in Isolation, to make up for the damage you’ve caused. There, you won’t harm anyone with your foolish behaviour, understood?”

Peter nodded. “Yes, sir, understood sir.”

“Good. You will go right now. You know the way.”

“Yes, sir”, the teen answered meekly.

Jakob gave him one last glance, before he turned away from him.

Peter stood up mechanically and turned to the door.

Again, when he gripped the handle it shot a painful spike up his hand, but the teen ignored it with clenched teeth. Stop being so weak.

He shut the door behind him as he stepped out of the office.

Like in trance, he had been walking to the Isolation chambers, when suddenly just before he rounded the corner-

-there was an explosion.

Chapter Text

It’s two hours later, barely minutes after they had arrived back at the tower, and Tony finds himself hovering just centimetres behind Bruce, completely ignoring the doctor’s personal space and practically breathing down his neck in anticipation, whilst he was finishing up his overall check-up of the teen laying on the bed in front of them.

More minutes pass like this, Tony feeling his nervousness buzzing in his veins and heart hammering, when Bruce suddenly heaves a sigh, slightly inclining his head backwards and giving the mechanic a tired side eye.

“Tony, as much as I appreciate your support right now, I’d appreciate it even more if you stop breathing down my neck like a hungry hyena. How about you go get me a needle and some empty test tubes so I can draw some blood to check his levels.”

Startled, Tony takes two quick steps backwards. A tense chuckle rises in his throat, right hand grabbing his left arm unconsciously, fingers fidgeting with his shirt sleeve, as he gives his friend a curt nod and turns around to go look for the requested items.

While he’s rummaging through Bruce’s borderline obsessively organized medical supplies, (nope he’s definitely not thinking of his own mess of a lab and he’s definitely not jealous of his tidy space here pff), he can’t control the antsy tremor in his hands. This nervous energy had encompassed him the second they had the kid lying on the gurney in the quinjet, and he absolutely doesn’t understand why he is so fucking skittish.

It’s definitely not like him, to be this restless and anxious after a successful mission. But then again, this wasn’t over yet, was it? This was only the beginning of- of something and Tony doesn’t like confessing this, even to himself, because it was stupid, but really, he can’t deny his shallow breathing and scurrying heartbeat and –

Ah, there they are. He finds the needle and tubes in a small drawer on Bruce’s desk, he takes them (stop shaking damn it) and brings them to the doctor.

Bruce takes the supplies out of his hand without looking, busy with lightly tapping the kid’s underarm in search of a vein. When he finds one that seemed satisfying enough, Tony watches the doctor’s practised hands fasten the torniquet around the kid’s biceps, disinfect the inside of the elbow with a small wipe and then push the needle through his skin with one, steady motion. Bruce then clips on one of the test tubes and immediately, after he loosens the torniquet again, it starts filling with blood.

He fills two more tubes, before he withdraws the needle out of the kid’s skin, motioning to Tony to press a small, square tissue paper against the puncture while he sets the samples aside and searches for a band aid.

But once Tony takes the paper away and Bruce wants to put the band aid on the little wound, perfectly healthy skin greets their eyes.  The mechanic snaps his head in his friend’s direction because what the hell, but Bruce was staring intently, with furrowed brows, at the place where the puncture had been moments before.

“Fascinating”, the doctor murmurs, fingers gently inspecting the area that seems to have healed magically. Oh.

“So, superhealing?”

Lost in thoughts, Bruce only hums in affirmation.

“I think we found ourselves with quite a grab bag full of surprises here, Tony.”

The mechanic can’t suppress a snort, “Yup, pretty much. So, what now?”

“We take off the mask.”

Tony glances at the kid, face still hidden under that black ski mask and those ridiculous circus goggles and suddenly, a burning curiousness burns through his body, the likes he gets when testing out a new prototype of his armour.

Bruce moves to stand right next to the teen’s head, while Tony lingers at the foot of the bed, barely able to withhold his fidgety expectation. The doctor fumbles around the edge of the mask and eventually, they gain hold of it and he slowly, gingerly, pulls it up, centimetre by centimetre.

Tony doesn’t notice how he’s holding his breath, heart hammering against his ribs, too focused, captivated. The mask is halfway off now, and he takes in the kid’s round chin, his somewhat puffy cheeks, then his nose, which has just the tiniest knob right where the bridge meets with the rest of his face between his eyes, which were still closed so he really could only guess their colour.

The last thing to uncover is his hair and the second Bruce has taken off the mask completely, an unruly, wild mop of brown curls springs free, sticking up in all directions from the static of the mask’s fabric.

The mechanic is too focused, drinking in every detail of the kid’s face, that he completely misses the weird and frankly, unnerved look Bruce discreetly shoots his way after he had taken off the mask.

He looks young. So fucking young. These Hydra bastards are going to pay for this.

“So, where did you say would we bring him?”, Bruce’s question interrupts his dark thoughts of blood and revenge.

Tony hums distractedly, then clears his throat to get rid of the anger lacing his thoughts before opening his mouth to answer.

“Right, exactly. Let’s put him on the gurney again and I’ll lead you to his room.”

======

Peter wakes with a start.

He’s breathing heavily, each breath leaving his lips in chocked pants. He- what-

His mind is fragment pieces of scattered thoughts, they’re all over the place but he can’t quite grasp on to one single coherent one-

What- What happened?!

The hammering behind his ribs makes it difficult for him to focus, even his surroundings remain elusive as he does not understand-

But then- then suddenly he remembers, is able to catch and hold on to one thought, he remembers and oh no.

Shit.

Images flit in front of his inner eye, there was an explosion and then there were people everywhere, running around and running and Peter thinks he was running too but he’s missing the full scenario, like it had been cut into short clips of everything that actually happened and some of them got lost in the chaos that is currently his mind.

The most recent thing he does remember is holding a knife to someone’s throat and then- nothing. Also, that he was in immense pain.

As if that memory was the only thing keeping his mind and body from finally synchronizing again, a spike of pain throbs deep in his skull and he cannot hold back a hiss.

Fuck. His head was still messed up.

Which, is odd, because his episodes never lasted more than a day-

Wait. How much time has passed since their base got attacked?!

And that thought makes him shoot right up into a sitting position, hands behind him supporting the weight of his upper body.

It was- It was evening when he was talking to Jakob, that much he remembers, and also how he was being sent to Iso-

Something warm tickling his nose makes his head snap to the side and his eyes widen when they take in the huge window practically taking up nearly the entire wall to his right. Warm, golden sunshine is pouring all over the room, clothing everything it touches in an orangish, yellowish hue creating a serene and calm atmosphere. But Peter feels anything but calm.

Because, because, this is definitely, certainly, absolutely not his room!

He frantically kicks his legs back and forth in an attempt of getting rid of the huge and heavy comforter that’s bunching around his lap (somebody had to have tucked him in?!) as fast as possible and once he successfully shoves that thing off his body, he jumps out of the bed as if stung by a bee.

Now, he finds himself standing in the middle of- of a room, a fucking huge room, he may add, bigger than Jakob’s Office and for sure, bigger than anything he has ever shared with others back home. That seems to be the theme here, of this whole aesthetic the room has going on. Everything in here was huge. Huge window, huge bed, huge desk and shelf in a crook at the left side.

He’s so occupied with analysing his surroundings that when he goes to take a step forward and suddenly, a feminine voice starts speaking above his head, he actually flinches (which would’ve gotten him at least three strikes to the face if any of his superior were there to see).

“Good morning, it is currently 7:06 am. It is most pleasant to see you are awake.”

He whirls around, which – to be honest was really dumb since the voice came from above him- but when normally someone talks to him, they were standing right next to him or just- didn’t come from the ceiling and so it’s just pure instinct that makes him scout out the room for any person standing in his vicinity.

But of course, he comes up empty handed because the woman spoke to him through speakers in the ceiling. Now that he’s actually paying closer attention to that fact, he examines a faint, steady electrical humming coming from the roof above him. His forehead scrunches together in confusion, because he doesn’t recall the speakers in the cafeteria ever being so loud and audible all the times he had eaten there, so this must be different kinds. All in all, they are not the ones he is used to hear in the hallways of their base.

So. Peter thinks it’s time to ask himself the most important question, which he managed to skilfully avoid up until now (because it may scare him to think about it too much). Where the hell is he?

This base is absolutely unfamiliar to him, just like the female voice who had just spoken to him. And, letting his gaze swift over all the furniture once again, it is- it looks so distinctively different than any furniture he has ever seen- and-

Okay, this may sound really dumb and stupid and kind of absurd but the room, it gives him such a sudden and strong urge of- of something, he doesn’t know or understand exactly of what, and for a second, his eyes glaze over.

There’s a shard stabbing his temple again, like before but harder, pressing into his skull, but then- then he sees?

Blue walls, long brown hair- he wants to see more but-

He blinks, just when his ears catch the beginning of soft laughter that covers his skin in goosebumps and he’s back in the same room with the titanium white walls and soft brown carpet.

He’s standing there, noticing how he’s kind of struggling to breath right when just two seconds before he was fine, and there’s a mantra repeating in his head, something along the lines of:

 What the hell was that what the hell was that what the-

“- you alright? I sense a sudden spike in your heartrate.”

The female voice again. He has to pull himself together if he doesn’t want to get punished again.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, get a grip on yourself!

He goes to start a sentence, but his voice only comes out in a husky whisper. He clears his throat and for good measure, hits his fist gently against his chest twice before opening his mouth again to speak. But still, he cannot control the slight tremble in his voice, still shaken by – by… he didn’t even know what to call what just happened.

“I’m good, Miss…?”, he purposefully left his sentence like a question, because even after rattling his brain for a second time, he just doesn’t recognize the voice talking to him.

Let’s just hope that superior is in a good mood today or he might not be able to escape punishment after all… Also, only if that woman truly is a superior to him, but normally, when somebody is allowed to talk over the speakers to all the agents that person has to be of higher rank than him.

“My name is Friday. May I ask yours?”

Okay, wait a second, this is super weird. Something’s not right.

First, what kind of name is that even? Friday.

And second, this is not how you are supposed to introduce yourself to others. You first start with your name, your number (only for agents), your rank and who your immediate supervisor is. So, Peter finally realizes, with eyes wide open as saucers and body rigid like ice, that he is not at home anymore. Or anywhere he should be for that matter.

Fuck, okay. Okay. (actually, this is not okay.)

After the embarrassment of only realizing that tiny detail just now had washed over him, he views the room with a fully renewed goal: Escape.

Every single thing he was told during his trainings, every step of every escape plan he was ever taught back home circles his mind and for a moment, Peter fears he might make the wrong move and get himself in even more trouble and displease Jakob further than he already, probably had by getting himself caught in the first place.

Oh shit. What is his mentor thinking about him right now?! Shit, he will be so so mad, and worse, so disappointed…  A wave of panic seizes his throat because what if this time, Jakob’s had enough of Peter always disappointing him? What if he thinks Peter’s more troubles than he’s worth? What if-

It’s then that he suddenly hears the lock on the door being turned and Peter has to act, now.

His back twists as he lets his frantic eyes scan the room once again for anything he could use as a weapon, anything, but his kidnappers weren’t stupid, that’s for sure, when locking him up here, as there’s absolutely nothing that could grant him an advantage against his capturers.

When he sees the door handle being pressed downwards from the outside, he just lets his instinct take over, screw any plan. And that instinct tells him to jump, so that’s what he does. He thinks, this might be even a decent idea since he very much doubts that these people know of his sticking abilities.

So, he’s pressed against the ceiling, breath caught in his lungs as he watches the door open.

“Let’s see how our- ”, he hears the beginning of that sentence, but Peter is already moving.

With as much force as he can muster, he pushes his body, feet first, away from the ceiling and he knows he hit his target when a muffled ‘umph’ reaches his ears.

He’s straddling that person’s chest now, staring down into their slightly round but still angular face with blonde, short hair and ice blue eyes-

Recognition washes over him like a bucket of stone-cold water, then, as he realizes-

Captain America. It’s Captain America he just tackled.

Peter’s thoughts lose themselves, become tangled wires as his mind’s trying to process- what-

And then, like a snap of a twig, he understands.

He was kidnapped by the Avengers. Of all people-!

“...Remember, Peter, the Avengers are the worst of the evil lurking out there, you have been taught well, you know of their crimes against us, our people, against humanity. Hydra’s mission has always been to protect the ones that fail to do it themselves, but these- these terrorists only care about themselves. You have seen the legacy these people are leaving behind… And we do everything in our might to stop them….”

The teen only realizes that he punched Captain America in the face when there’s suddenly something cold and metal grabbing his throat, yanking him backwards on the hard floor.

And Peter’s laying on the ground now, back of the head pounding bluntly after being thrown off his opponent on the ground on his back, lingering, steely cold from the metal that gripped his throat still indented on his skin and he wants to jump back up again, unleash his anger onto these monsters but-

“Kid! Stop it, we don’t want to hurt you!”  

Two brown eyes (Tony Stark he thinks) suddenly appear in his line of vision, weird, strange look encompassing them which Peter absolutely cannot place but that’s enough to confuse the teen into a two second pause and Peter feels two strong hands grab his ankles- 

Instinctively, he kicks up his right leg, breaks free from the surprisingly strong grip, hears a curse and somewhere above him he hears a “Friday!”. He’s on his feet before he really registers it, doesn’t even take the time to scan his surroundings, mind a screaming loop of ‘go go go go!’  as he sets out into a sprint down the hallway.  

His heart is beating wildly in his chest, he isn’t sure he’s even breathing properly but that doesn’t matter. He keeps on sprinting and when he reaches a corner, he skids to a halt, smacks his hand against the wall to use his stickiness to overcome his momentum and turn to the right- 

And promptly crashes into what feels like a brick wall.  

The force of the collision completely squeezes all air out of his lungs and for just a split second, Peter feels like his entire soul just exited his body and kept sprinting further without its physical form but then- 

He forces his eyes open and realizes that he is sprawled across the floor again but this time, electric blue eyes look down on him with quite the strange twinkle in their eyes.   (why does everyone keep looking at him so weirdly?!)

While the boy is trying to catch his breath, he takes in the appearance of the man towering in front of him. The face these sparkling eyes belong to is square, there’s a beard adorning the man’s chin and long, blonde hair framing his face. With a shock (pun not intended, Peter is having a crisis) he realizes that this must be Thor. 

Oh Hydra, what did he get himself into…

The god keeps staring at him, face contorted into a concentrated mask of wariness which sends an involuntary shudder through the teen’s body. He knows of all of the Avenger’s weak points, most of their personal lives, their powers and so on- but he was also taught which one of these so-called superheroes he cannot take alone in a fight.

And like fate so delightfully decided, Thor is one of them.   

Since he’s also missing his webfluid, his chances stand even lower.

Shit shit shit fuck okay, what do I do uhm-

But this decision is taken from him, when the god stretches out a big, meaty hand in front of him, downwards to Peter.

The boy’s mind blanks, because what?

When he tears his gaze away from the outstretched arm of the blonde, Peter looks into his face again and there’s a smile now in place of the stoic look Thor sported just moments ago.

Does he expect him to take his hand?

Now it’s Peter’s turn to stare dumbly at the god, absolutely at a loss of what to do.

But then he hears hurried footsteps coming closer from the direction where he had left Captain America and Stark behind, and he needs to do something, anything, but what?

His training ironically never broached the issue of getting kidnapped by the literal Avengers, only on how to disengage them during a fight on an open battlefield.

And this situation is anything but.  

Peter feels a headache coming on again. This is absolutely not his day.

Chapter Text

As it turns out, it hadn’t been Tony’s day either. Or more like his week, at that point.  

As soon as the kid had nearly knocked himself out again running into the literal steam roller that is the thunder god's unholy sturdy chest (believe him if he says nothing gets a dent into that thing), Steve and Tony had an unbelievably hard time getting the kid under control because what the fuck- 

The spiderling was strong as hell. Like, seriously, no joke. It was crazy. So crazy that Tony sported a nice black eye and Cap, the poor bloke, a broken jaw after their first interaction with the kid. Luckily, the boy seemed oddly scared of Thor, so he got it handled. He was promptly ordered to stay as a guard in front of the kid’s door, just so that the remaining, present Avengers were able to hold an emergency meeting asap. 

He still wasn’t over the howling laughter of his supposed friend Rhodey, when he had spotted the black eye on him once they were gathered in their usual meeting room. 

(‘ You say a literal child did this?!’, he had laughed, holding his stomach and wiping at his eyes.  

‘A child with superstrength, okay?! I would’ve liked to see you go and try against him, you complete fu-’)  

They had quarreled with each other about the next course of action, because there was no way they would be able to normally converse with the kid under the abiding fear of getting sucker punched by a literal twelve-year-old ( they didn’t really know his actual age yet because hydra scientists apparently graduated at the university of absolute buffoonery and complete stupidity as they had not written down his age anywhere, just that he was younger than their previous victims).  

In the end, they had come to a mutual decision together, which Tony didn’t really like, well none of them did , but it posed as the only real solution they had at hand at that time.  

Once upon a time, just shortly after the first real threat that they had vanquished together as an established team, which many may remember as the chitauri invasion on New York City many moons ago, they had their first real villain at hand.  

Well, villain was calling that stupid idiot too close to a compliment, when in reality, it was just some random ass dude that somehow managed to get himself infested with some space virus ( nice leftover present from the chitauri) and subsequently gained some weird powers.  

And not like any normal person would’ve done, as in, search for immediate medical help, that guy decided he would pay the next mall a visit and start shooting around with his brand-new laser eyes and god Tony already forgot what else this dumb deadshit was capable of, you know what he doesn’t really care anyway-  

Well, the police understandably were not equipped to deal with a threat that literally vaporizes anything that comes near it, so tata-la-da! The Avengers were called in as their knights and dame ( that is the literal word for female knight, Tony didn’t believe it first either) in shining armor and saved the day. 

But suddenly, they had a completely new and not ever-needed-before problem at hand: What do you do with criminals that have superpowers? Of course, just throwing them into normal prisons was quite out of the question. That would lead to the downfall of humanity even faster than climate change would. 

So, the good ol’ government of the United States came knocking on Tony’s thousand-dollar door and asked him and Bruce to please invent a device that blocks superhuman powers. Not permanently ( that’ll come eventually) but just while the criminal would be wearing it, since not all enhanced criminals were going to stay in prison for life and eventually, would be released again and allowed to use their powers.  

And that’s what the two geniuses did. And that’s what they were, necessarily but not with pleasure, going to use for the spider kid too.  

Tony had been the first to tap the tip of his nose and call ‘Not it!’, when the question arose who would put the power inhibiting bracelets on the kid, followed by Nat, Rhodey and Bruce. That left Clint and a still crushed up Steve as the last two.  

Clint did the mistake of meeting their team leader's puppy eyes at that moment, which had faltered his determination and left him gaping as Steve smugly (and carefully) tapped his nose and called the same phrase.  

The archer had declared foul, but they all just shrugged their shoulders and Clint mumbled something along the lines of ‘ I’m gonna use you suckers as my next practice target.’  

Of course, Thor would be his life guard during that endeavor, that seemed to calm the archer down a bit.  

(‘ Wh-What? The kid’s scared of Thor?’, Clint had asked like he had not heard right.  

‘Yeah, well, we don’t know’, was the answer.)  

=========== 

Peter is getting a bit antsy.  

It has been a week, a full week, since the Avengers had kidnapped him.  

He would’ve laughed at the absurdity of it, if it wasn’t his life right now. 

Oh Hydra, what is Jakob think-  

Peter angrily shakes his head, frown deeply etched into his features.  

This does not help him at all, he tells himself, to keep pondering about what his mentor was thinking about him already missing for a week. What Jakob probably expects and wants him to do, is plan his escape and return as quickly as possible to his base and not waste his useful resources on anxiously whining like a baby. 

So. Peter just has to get his act together and start to work on a plan.  

In hindsight, getting kidnapped by their arch nemesis did have its perks. Maybe the teen manages to take at least one Avenger down during his escape or steal some important codes or whatever. Maybe he manages to corrupt Stark’s stupid AI that keeps her cameras on him all day long.  

He has to do something at least to show Jakob that not everything Peter did while being kidnapped was sit around and wait until there was a chance to escape.  

But kidnapping Peter apparently hadn’t been enough for these terrorists.  

After his first, deplorable attempt of escape went so horribly wrong, the Avengers had locked him up in his cell again. And yes, no matter how nicely furnitured and how warm the water in the shower got, Peter was not fooled by their deceitful and disingenuous kindness towards him.  

Hydra had taught him well on all the different manipulation tactics that could be used on him, and it came as no surprise to him that the Avengers tried to keep up their ‘holier than thou’ charade even now. So no, this room was nothing more than cheap manipulation to him and he would not fall for it. 

But the thing that makes him detest these people with a passion that could fuel a hundred nuclear warheads, is their audacity to take his powers away. To take the thing away from him, that made Peter, well Peter. His enhancements were such a vital part of him that it felt like they were cutting of every one of his limbs, one after another, while he felt these fucking bracelets suck out the only thing that would give him a ticket out of here.  

Their following, quite frankly, pathetic attempts in getting anything out of him went as good as one might expect. Peter didn’t utter a single word, didn’t give them anything else than a burning stare that he hoped got his point across. 

He hates them.  

He hates all of them, the Captain with his arrogant, self-righteous ways of parading himself all over the place, the archer with his boastful and smug smirk that makes Peter go blind with rage when he directs it at him, the redheaded spy’s look of ‘know it all’, as if she has any idea what he’s thinking.  

He hates the doctors calmness when he had checked on him two days after he had gotten here, as if he wasn’t keeping a minor hostage. Hates the small inklings of fears he feels when the god of thunder accompanies one of his teammates to go interrogate him.  

But the one that makes him feel the most anger and hatred is Stark. He thinks he is so great when all he ever did was build a fancy suit for him to play around with, while being a billionaire and ignoring everyone else in the world who is starving to death or has no roof above their head while this asshole gets to live so excessively, all the while calling himself a superhero.  

He absolutely hates the way he looks at him, that false pity and something else that Peter doesn’t care enough to try to decipher always present in his brown eyes.  

He really has to come up with a plan to escape. If he has to spend any more time than absolutely necessary here, he truly will go insane. 

============= 

“And?”, Tony asks the archer, eyebrows lifted hopefully and with the mental image of his crossed fingers. 

But just the expression on Clint’s face alone, pursed lips and wrinkled nose as if he had smelled something particularly nasty, doesn’t really give the mechanic any more reason to believe that this time, it went any different than all the others so far. 

“Still nothing, except that angry stare. Like, is that all Hydra teaches their agents nowadays? No wonder they are going to the dogs.”  

Tony lets out a defeated sigh, hands rubbing along his jaw. This can’t be real right? Already a week of this has passed, with absolutely no sign of the kid warming up to them just the tiniest amount. The pressure on his shoulders and chest was getting worse and worse as each hour passed, Cap’s ultimatum looming over him like a version of Damocles' sword. If they aren’t going to get anything out of the kid soon...  

“Well, what did you do this time? Read him those useless lists of names again?” 

Tony’s slight panic makes him do stupid things, like right now, challenging the archer in front of him for no reason.  

Clint’s face immediately turns even sourer than before, eyeing Tony in a particularly calculating way ( and that always means that the next thing out of his mouth is going to sting).  

“Well, Mr. I-am-a-genius-so-I-know-better-than-you, go right fucking ahead and do it better than me. I am dying to know what someone like you will come up with that I, father of three kids, hasn’t come up with yet. Go right a-fucking-head, asshole.”  

With that, the archer turns on his heels and stomps in the direction of the elevators, leaving a stupefied Tony back like a gaping fish. Leave it to Clint, to always speak his mind without any filters. 

Oh well. Okay. I guess it’s Tony’s turn now. ( It’s also his turn to make sure Clint gets a set of wonderful, brand-new electrifying arrows for his bow as apology.)  

=================  

The boy watches him as Tony enters the room.  

They stare at each other for good five seconds, only the ticks of the clock proof that they’re indeed not frozen in time, before Tony clears his throat twice and sets down the blue Ikea bag to his right, breaking their eye contact.  

So, just act natural and as if you talk to brainwashed, spider hydra children who think that you’re their kidnapper, every day. No problem, right? God . What is he doing here? Why did he have to be so stupid and challenge Clint the way he did ?  

“ Soo...!”, he trails of, clapping his hands together, “how is our spidery guest doing today?” 

Tick, tick, tick.   

“ Alright”, Tony’s eyes meet the doe brown ones of the kid and tries to ignore the raging anger in them ( jeez Clint was not exaggerating).  

The mechanic fiddles with his fingers for a second, shifting his weight to his right foot. There’s a rustling noise and Tony jumps slightly. Ah, right! 

He grabs the handles of the bright blue bag, pulling it along the floor so that it was in between Tony and the kid sitting on the made bed. While moving the bag, the billionaire had sneaked a glance at the kid, searching for any movement on his face but once again, nothing else than that burning fire of hatred. Off to a great start then!  

“Do you wanna know what’s in here?”  

After his little dispute with Clint, Tony had thought hard about what the archer hadn’t tried before and what more Tony could try to get the kid to do anything more than just eat, sleep and repeat.  

He had positioned himself at the kitchen table, StarkPad in his hand and many holograms hovering in front of his face. But after brainstorming for dinky five minutes, he had discarded his hands into the air, nearly hitting Cap who had walked past him exactly that moment. That had earned him a slightly worried, but mostly disapproving look of their team leader and Tony had to flee to his lab. He couldn’t think in such an environment of scrutiny, so he had no choice.  

Then, once in the safety of his own four walls, he forced himself to sit down again and focus on the task at hand. And that went splendidly... unwell.  

Surprisingly, it was Friday who acted as his saving grace. ( When doesn’t she?)  

After her cameras and microphones were probably bleeding from all the complaining and moping he had been doing, she finally suggested he should just google it.  

“‘Just google it’ are you serious right now?”  

“Yes. All my processors are currently occupied deleting the hours long footage of you sulking around, Boss, therefore I have no more computing power available.”  

He had gaped at the audacity. That sassy little shit. Clint was clearly a bad influence on her.  

But, after ten more minutes of miserably spinning in his chair and nearly throwing up from all the spinning, he relented with a huffed ‘alright fine!’ and went to town on his computer.   

And that’s the story of how he went completely overboard and ordered Lego sets ( if he read somewhere on the internet – definitely not on a forum for step fathers bonding with their adoptive son, no, nope no, nada no no no - that doing activities like building together a Lego set helps in getting kids to open up, who is he to disagree?) worth at least an average middle class persons monthly pay cheque. Well, whoops. It’s not really his fault that the Lego Technique sets were all just freaking cool, alright?  

Tony keeps watching the kid’s facial expressions. Not being able to read anything else in his reactions on his face makes it frustratingly difficult to gauge whatever’s going on in that tousled head of his’. Not even his body language is betraying anything, he is just sitting there, cross legged, hands folded in his laps.  

Hmpf. This definitely doesn’t seem normal for a kid his age. Maybe he should invest in some form of step-by-step guide on what children are thinking when they look at you with burning hatred.  

“ I take your complacent silence as a yes. So, lo and behold!” 

He bends down, grips the large, rattling box in his hands and fishes it out the bag in one, swift motion and is now presenting it to the kid in an exaggerated manner.  

He waits, and ha! There’s a small arch in his left brow that wasn’t there before. Gotcha.   

“ Do you know what this is?” Tony asks, observing the kid. Even if he were to respond to his question, Tony doesn’t give him the chance to. 

“It’s a Lego set! And I guess, assessing from your previous lack of knowledge on what a yo-yo is, you definitely haven’t heard of Lego before.” 

He watches as something akin to a curious glimmer spawns in the kid’s eyes (still miniscule compared to his perpetual anger, oh boy, Tony has to go and google more definitions for anger at this point it’s getting kind of old)  and Tony has to clench his lips together hard from smiling victoriously.  

“So, ‘what is Lego?’, one might wonder. Well, these little, naively simple plastic bricks are the gateway to your imagination. You can build whatever you want with them. There’s no limits, well except money I guess because as ordinary as these may seem, the more money they cost. Seriously, they will suck you dry”, he deadpans, making a face and interrupting his probably rather boring monologue.  

The kid still hadn’t moved from his position, but Tony could clearly discern the burning curiosity now twinkling out of them. It gives Tony the drive to continue. 

“So, what I have here is what’s called a Lego technic set. See the truck that’s on there? We’re gonna be building that for the next few days. But that’s not even the best part of it, check this out.” Tony cumbersomely wrangles the bulky box around in his grip so that the back side of the box is visible to the kid.  

“See this?”, he motions to a little icon on the bottom left corner of the set, “This means, that we even get to hook it to real technology meaning that we, once we’ve finished building it, can operate it over my phone.”  

Tony is once again, regarding the spiderling sitting on the bed and he could swear he was leaning towards the box full of Legos now. This time, Tony doesn’t try to hold back his grin.  

“So, what are you waiting for? Let’s get this party started!” 

He sets the heavy and unwieldy box on the ground, Lego bricks rattling noisily.  

Then he seats himself right next to it (his knees popping and damn he’s getting old), searching for the easy open tab of the carton box and once he found it, he hooks his fingers into it and just yanks.  

Immediately, he’s hit with a nostalgia he didn’t even know he had. Jesus, when was the last time he had played with Lego? The things he does for this kid.  

Said kid is still seated stubbornly on the bed. Oh well, Tony’s not going to force him to join him. Even if he has to build each set he has bought on his own, he hopes, and fucking prays that the kid will thaw somewhen soon.  

He starts with just shoving his hands into the box, pulling out plastic bag after plastic bag full of green, gray and black colored bricks. The last thing he gets out is the thick instruction booklet that looks like a small forest had to die for it. Oh welp. 

And then he sets to work. Opens bag after bag with the necessary pieces, turns page after page, clicks bricks together. At some point, he muses, that this was like tinkering with his armor, just a lot more...nay, a lot less free than that. Not free in a sense where you had to follow instructions. Tony has never been really strict in following rules, that and many other things Howard had to learn very early on.  

The stronger he had urged for Tony to do something, the more violently he rebelled against it. Tony can’t tell if that had always just been in his nature, imprinted on him the moment he had seen the light of the day for the very first time or if it just was a simple, direct causation of being blessed with having Howard Stark as a father.  

Out of his peripheral vision, he catches the blurry motion of something moving in front of him.  

Momentarily confused about this (how could he forget that he was in the same room as a freaking hydra spider child) he lifts his head and meets the brown eyes of the kid. He actually had to do a double take because, could this be?  

Is he really seeing this or has he finally reached the point where his genius turns into madness?  

Is the kid really looking at him with a neutral expression, instead of the inferno he had gotten so used to seeing in those bambi eyes? 

Tony carefully considers him with his gaze, scared out of his mind that one wrong movement from his side would set off the unpredictable teen in any way. But the kid turns his eyes down now, taking in Tony’s messy working space ( he is a messy worker, okay? Sue him).  

The mechanic watches, breath caught in his chest and completely fixated on the way the kid reaches out, over, towards him and grabs the instruction booklet. He takes two full seconds before seemingly, having no problem picking right up from where Tony had been too stunned to continue with his building.  

And then, then, the first piece of the iceberg melts when- 

“My name is Peter.” 

=================== 

As soon as Stark is sitting on the ground in front of him, Peter has an epiphany. 

Of course. How hasn’t he thought of this before?  

His ticket to freedom was sitting right in front of him.  

He doesn’t know nor does he really want to understand Stark’s persistence in wanting to- do whatever he’s doing here with him, but it doesn’t matter.  

Because Peter just thought of the perfect plan to escape. And it starts with this: 

“My name is Peter.” 

Chapter Text

Peter. Peter. Peter. Peter.

Tony’s mind can’t stop repeating the kid’s – Peter’s – name in his head.

He actually did it. He doesn’t know really, what prompted the kid to suddenly trust him with his name just like that. I mean, don’t get him wrong, he’s so happy (he really is and oh, he isn’t going to waste any thoughts about what this means right now) that the kid took the first step into trusting them, but he doesn’t think it was just the power of Lego alone (if it was he was going to personally thank the inventor of Lego himself and buy at least a year’s worth of new Lego sets at once).

He sighs, leaning back in his chair. The chair realigns itself with his shifting, leaving him in a lying position. His hand finds itself completely on its own accord in its usual spot, drumming lightly against the arc reactor in his chest when he’s sunken deep in his thoughts.

His eyes are staring a hole into the high ceiling of his workshop while his mind is replaying the conversation (was it really a conversation? More like a short interaction) between him and the ki- Peter. He’s really not used to being able to call the kid anything else than- well kid.

“My name is Peter.”

Tony thinks he just hallucinated. He’s staring dumbstruck at the kid, mouth hanging slightly open in disbelief and frozen in his motion to grab the next plastic bag full of the parts they needed.

He watches and waits for the kid (Peter?) to say anything else or just for any sign really, that ensured him that he just didn’t conjure this up with his wishful thinking. But nothing.

He has to make sure, he has to ask-

“Peter?”

The kid stops and lifts his head  from the part of the truck he’s assembling. He is regarding him with an expectant expression, nothing more. No anger seething in his eyes.

Huh. Would you look at that.

Tony’s face involuntarily scrunches up into a smile, so genuine it would’ve scared him if he had noticed it, but alas, he was busy saying, “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Peter.”

And that had been it. They didn’t talk anymore after that small exchange.

Tony had wanted to ask Peter so many questions (how old are you, where are you from, what do you remember, what did they do to you-), but he also didn’t want to overdo it. Slow and steady wins the race, wasn’t it.

“Boss, Captain Häagen-Dazs is asking me to remind you that dinner is ready.”

A snort erupts from his chest.

“Captain Häagen-Dazs? Seriously, Friday?”

The AI sounds far too amused at this, when she answers, “Dr. Banner instructed me very thoroughly that Captain Häagen-Dazs was to be called as such in any and all circumstances following the event of the captain having eaten the Doctors last pint of his beloved rum raisin flavour just this afternoon.”

Tony chuckles again. Friday has way too much fun fuelling the occasional, small drama between them all. It is fucking hilarious every time an Avenger comes running to him, complaining about his AI because this and that, and then he loves every second of seeing their faces fall when he tells them that Friday can do whatever she pleases and that he’s not responsible at all for her shenanigans.

“Well, then tell Captain Häagen-Dazs that I’ll be there in some minutes”, Tony says, groaning lightly when he stems himself up from his reclined position.

So, it’s time to face the music and tell his friends that he was just the absolute best and managed to get the kid to speak. He hasn’t told them yet, even though it’s already been some hours after Tony’s breakthrough with Peter. The reason for his delayed announcement is one that the mechanic is skillfully ignoring in its full capacity and significance at this current moment.

(Because no one has to know the way his chest feels all warm and fuzzy when he thinks too long about the fact that the kid had chosen him as the first one to trust and reveal his name to. Nobody has to know that selfish little part in the billionaire that wants to keep that- that thing he has going on with the kid just to himself and protect it at all costs.)

But he has to tell them eventually and what better time than during their usual dinner together?

=============

“Oh, I forgot to mention: Peter. The kid’s name is Peter”, he says, halfway through dinner, just in exactly the right moment where everyone is too busy shovelling down the pasta Steve had cooked for them to have any conversation going on.

Their reaction is immediate: as if someone had pressed the pause button on a remote, everyone stops in their tracks and whip their heads around to stare at him.

Meanwhile, Tony has to hold back a satisfied smirk at their unified response to the bomb he just dropped.

“Tony… was that supposed to be a joke?”, it's Steve, who first breaks the silence, slight frown on his face and careful disapproval lacing his voice.

The mechanic lets the smirk now play around his lips (which probably looks exactly like he really is just joking around) before shaking his head.

“Nope, not at all. The kid just decided that I’m the most trustworthy out of all you bunch.”

There are a few more beats of silence. Then-

“What?! How did you-? Did you annoy him into talking to you?”, Clint’s incredulity is so clear in the archer’s voice that you probably could hear it all the way to Kazakhstan.

Tony is openly grinning now, taking a bite of his pasta and taking his sweet, sweet time chewing and swallowing before answering.

“Well, let’s just say I have my ways into children’s hearts-”

“He bribed him with Legos.”

It’s the mechanic’s turn to stop in his tracks, arm lifted in the air with a fork full of more pasta and his mouth hanging wide open like his disbelieving eyes.

The fork clatters back down in his plate, splattering some arrabbiata sauce around as he looks quite frankly, very offended at the red headed spy-

“Nat! I didn’t bribe him with Legos, I just-“

“You cheated! Which kid doesn’t love Legos?”, Clint exclaims, glaring at him so intensely Tony is considering calling one of his suits, interrupting his justification and hey.

Tony may not be a sore loser (maybe sometimes just a little bit), but he definitely does not like it when people accuse him of cheating.

“Hey! It wasn’t even my idea, okay? I was looking for more activities to do to bond with your children on the internet, it isn’t my fault that the consensus of most of the articles there says that Lego is perfect for that!”

He harrumphs, crosses his arms over his chest and avoids everyone’s gaze on him (and if they say he was pouting, well he wasn’t!).

The silence that follows his statement lingers. And lingers. And lingers and why isn’t anyone saying anything-

Then everyone starts snickering.

He snaps his head up. All eyes are on him, scrunched together in mirth and amusement as they keep giggling like little schoolgirls. Tony frowns at their lunacy because what the fuck.

There’s suddenly a clap to his right shoulder and startled, Tony turns to look at the archer next to him, hand still connected to his back and the other one holding his belly as he shakes with lousily hidden laughter.

“Oh, tin can, why didn’t you tell us you felt this way? I would’ve gladly stepped aside and let you take the reins because let’s be honest, three is absolutely enough-“

Tony is utterly at a loss with what’s happening here, but he sure as hell is not dense enough to not understand that everyone is making fun of him about something-

He irritatingly shakes off the archer’s hand, then looks around him. It’s just Steve, Nat, Bruce, Clint and him here today, with Thor having gone off to meet with his Lady Jane and Rhodey busy on a military mission. Well, he probably would’ve gotten even more shit from the latter about whatever he did wrong, so he’s even kind of glad that his best friend isn’t present right now.

“What the fuck are you on about, Katniss?”, Tony demands, giving the archer a look with furrowed brows and scrunched forehead, before addressing all the others, “And what’s so fucking funny that got you all so giggly like a schoolgirl with a crush on a guy named Jayden? Care to enlighten-?”

“‘Your’ child?”

It’s Nat’s seemingly innocent question that makes him pause, irritation momentarily forgotten as he combs through the things he had said in the last minutes and oh no he did not say that-

Wow. Way to fucking go, Stark.

His cranky expression sobers up in record speed, and no no, there is no blood spreading to his cheeks no yuck back no he is not blushing-

It’s all getting a bit too much when the volume of laughter around him increases. So, he does the only thing that a mature, right-minded adult does in such a situation: he grabs his plate of pasta (he’s still hungry even after embarrassing himself catastrophically okay?) and makes a beeline for his lab.

It’s okay, he’s just going to spend the rest of his days down there from now on.

================

Peter is lying diagonally across the much too soft bed in his cell, staring a hole into the ceiling.

He vaguely registers how his arms are busy throwing a balled-up pair of socks into the air, catching it easily and doing it all over again while his mind is caught up elsewhere.

He wonders what his cell mates are doing right now, back home.

He guesses, taking the current time into account (somewhere around three in the afternoon last time he checked), they are currently completing their afternoon training session.

Oh, what wouldn’t he give to be there too.

There’s this empty feeling inside of him, like an open wound, getting worse and worse the more days pass on and the longer he is being held captive here.

He misses his home.

He misses the company of his cell mates during the evenings, their usual friendly banter and teasing back and forth. Misses the calming sounds of their breathing in the middle of the night when Peter wakes up from a bad dream, the reassurance of it that he wasn’t alone which he doesn’t get here, in this too big cell. He misses his trainings, misses pushing his body to the limit. He even misses their usual grumpy training supervisors; misses the way they always make sure that he is giving his best and not slacking off.

He misses using his powers so, so much. It feels so wrong, being stripped of such a vital part of himself that had been there since he could remember.

He misses Jakob, his mentor, the one who always knows that to do, is there for him and cares for Peter like a father does for his son. He misses him so much and Peter can’t deal with the guilt of knowing if his home were to be under attack, he couldn’t be there and protect him and everyone else. Because he was stuck here in this stupid shit hole with those stupid, manipulating pieces of-!

His sock ball is suddenly flying cross the room, the sudden surge of anger the teen feels translating to his automatic movement of absentmindedly playing with the ball. He hears a slight, rattling noise from where it hits the floor.

Peter lifts his head. The socks had landed right in the corner where he and Stark had piled up the nearly finished Lego truck.

As much as the teen hates it to admit, he finds that building with Lego… is not half as bad. Nice even, if he dares to use that word. It sure as hell is a good distraction from his current state of imprisonment, but he muses, that he would not mind it one bit if he had some back home too. It is kind of… calming somehow, to just follow easy instructions and listening to the satisfying click of Lego bricks getting put together.

He still doesn’t know what Stark wants from him and what the Avengers in general have in store for him, but he is not above the idea of using the billionaire and his generosity (Peter nearly gags) to get at least something small, be it building with those stupid plastic bricks, out of this fiasco.

Peter still hasn’t figured out what it is in the older man’s expression that’s there each time he looks at him. It nearly drives him insane, because he just can’t read him properly. He can’t read anything out of those dark brown eyes, doesn’t get the intent behind them. It has gotten worse since he told the man his name.

After Peter had told the man his name, Stark didn’t seem to leave him alone anymore. At least once every day since he had revealed him his name, which is exactly three days ago now, he has visited him, always with that stupid smile on his face. It’s always just him and nobody else anymore. He guesses the Avengers think that Stark somehow had gotten through to Peter and maybe even dare to think that Peter is getting friendly with the man, but that is clear bullshit.

Peter is starting to doubt the claim in his files that he is a genius, because for a genius he clearly is dumb enough to get fooled so easily by Peter’s plan. It’s too easy letting the man believe that he is actually caring enough about the man as to bond with him or whatever. Well, soon enough he will realize what a complete idiot he is, once Peter sets his plan into motion. But still, he wishes he didn’t have to spend so much time with him to escape. He just couldn’t stand the man.

He scrunches up his nose at the last time they had interacted, which was this morning.

“What’s your favourite colour?” Stark asks him, gaze focused on his hands building together a new piece of the truck.

As much as he tries to hide the stare Peter sends the man (a stare that would let Stark easily see his true intentions) he can’t conceal his incredulity. Because his favourite colour? What sort of idiotic question was that? Out of all the questions Peter had expected, this was far from any of those.

“That’s a stupid question”, he answers truthfully.

That coaxes a laugh out of the man.

“Is it? Why?”

And Peter has no answer to that.

The man realizes that too the second Peter thinks it, because he continues to speak without giving him the chance to say something.

“Is it because you think so or because someone told you that?”, Stark had put down the pieces he had been working with, eyeing the teen with that strange look in his eyes again.

Peter wants to smack that look off the man’s face, but that would only end with his plan ultimately failing and him having to spend even more time with Stark, so. No punching.

That leaves him with the question Stark asked him just seconds ago. Why was it a stupid question?

Peter remembers a very faint memory of him, he thinks he was around seven at that time, where he had asked Jakob if he could have a blue suit.

Why, the man had asked him, and Peter said it was his favourite colour. Jakob had looked at him with so much disappointment that the kid immediately felt shame for even asking. He had apologised but Jakob had already started to take off his belt. Stupid questions deserved punishment; Peter remembers.

From then on, his clothes had consisted of gray and black and Peter never lost a second thought to colours again.

Peter isn’t aware of how the memory must have changed something in his expression, because the one on Stark’s face suddenly became even more unbearable to the teen. He smiles at him, differently than Jakob, but for the life of him he doesn’t understand the emotion swimming in those brown eyes.

“Hey, it’s okay, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to. But just as a reminder, there are no stupid questions”, the man’s eyes were twinkling in a weird way while saying that, giving him a wink before returning to their silent work.

Peter hates the way he is trying to manipulate him. But not as much as he hates the way how what he said actually makes something stir inside of him. Because, as much as the teen tries to think back, Jakob never gave him a reason why. Why was it a stupid question? And why was it even stupid? It’s just a colour. Just a different way of atoms reflecting light. Why was that stupid? Why?

(Why was he stupid for liking the way it looked?)

Thinking about all this made his head hurt. Like the way it did when he had woken up here.

Blue.

Blue walls.

He has nearly forgotten that weird hallucination he had experienced back then. Hadn’t he seen blue walls?

He throws his right arm over his eyes.

What does this all mean?

A knock on his door startles him. That is another thing that is just so weird to Peter. Why would you knock at the door of your prisoner instead of just entering the room? Everything that keeps on happening here is confusing the hell out of him (and irritating him beyond belief).

“Can I come in?”, he hears the faint question spoken behind the door.

Why are they even asking him that?! It’s not like he has a choice, do they really need to rub his nose in that fact?

There’s a surge of anger in the teen so sudden that he doesn’t hold back what he does next, completely ignoring the possible consequences for his actions.

(“Child, I won’t say it again, step. back. or there will be consequences.”

“No”, Peter doesn’t step back, he doesn’t fucking care for consequences they can go suck his –

The impact lets stars explode in his vision, white red angry hot they throw off his composure and he ends up tasting dirt and blood between his teeth while the stars don’t stop they don’t -  )

“No”, he simply calls back.

Eery silence follows his vocalization.

Only then does it dawn on him that he just openly refused one of their orders.

He tries hard to swallow the upcoming panic seizing his throat, but only succeeds in keeping his hands from starting to tremble. Oh no, they’re going to be so mad-

He waits another second, the hairs on the back of his neck rising when he hears the voice again-

“Okay kid, I’ll come back later to bring you dinner. Just ask Friday in case you need anything.”

And just like that, they left him alone. Just because he told them no.

…

Are these people completely incompetent?! Can they not even treat their prisoners like they should? It shouldn’t matter what Peter says (it never does anyway), all that should matter for them is to get what they want at all costs! That’s what he has been learning his whole life, how to treat your prisoners to get them to tell you the important information. But apparently, these so-called heroes can’t even do that right (but wait, why do they even learn how to treat prisoners like the bad guys do it?).

Peter feels like ripping out his hair. He needs answers, he can’t go on like this, he needs to know that they fucking want from him and what their fucking deal is with not acting the way they should.

Else he will truly go mad.

==============

Three hours later there’s the knock again.

“Hey kid, can I come in?”

“Yes”, he answers this time.

The door handle moves down, the door opens and in comes- Stark. Of course, who else.  Peter would be surprised at this point if it were anyone else.

Stark steps into the room. The man’s brown eyes take him in, all crinkly in the corners because of the big smile he has on his face.

Peter notices almost instantly that Stark isn’t carrying his usual tray of food for Peter with him.

The teens eyes narrow. Of course, how could he have been so naïve to think he would come off completely scot-free after his refusal to let him inside the cell earlier today?

(He’s shivering, shivering, so hard, teeth clattering together like breaking porcelain-

He doesn’t know what day it is, he only knows cold cold cold and so much pain in his stomach he can’t put the pain into words it’s the worst thing he’s ever felt-

The tears streaming down his cheeks have been endless since days now, the salty taste on his lips only making it worse because it reminds him of his last meal and it makes him choke on his sobs and the ache in his tummy worse.

Why why why why-

He just needs to eat something, anything please please give him anything-)

“I hope you’re hungry, kid, because Cap has cooked waaay too much lasagna for us all. So, let’s go, I’m starv-“

But Peter doesn’t let him finish speaking.

“Why did you just leave earlier?”, the teen asks, not managing to hide the biting tone in his voice because that question had been driving him insane the last couple of hours already and he just needs an answer now.

Stark clearly wasn’t expecting to get interrupted. He takes two full seconds to recover, the smile wiped off his face and in it’s place a deep frown.

“What do you mean?”, he asks, confusion apparent in his voice.

Peter hates having to explain himself, it makes him feel dumb and as if the other person is making fun of him (he also feels completely out in the open and vulnerability to such an extent it would make him tremble if Jakob hadn’t made sure he had the ability to fight down those pathetic and unnecessary emotions).

The spark of detest Peter feels upon looking into the fake expression on Stark’s face doesn’t make him feel anymore calm, when he answers, voice dark and look in his eyes probably even more so.

“Why did you go away? Just because I said no? “

Stark stares at him three more seconds, not moving a single muscle, before Peter spots the understanding dawning on the man.

He merely lifts an eyebrow at him, putting his right hand on his hip, looking at Peter as if he’s eight again and stupid. “Uhm, yes?”

Peter can’t keep his face from twisting in annoyance. He’s just so irritating-

“But that’s not-“

“Not how I’m supposed to treat you?”

Peter is taken aback. How did he-?

Stark lets out a dry, humourless chuckle at that.

“Kid. I know it’s probably hard for you to believe that we are the good guys, but we are. Of course, if you’re gonna tell me no, then it means no. Ignoring your consent like that would just be plain abuse.”

Plain abuse.

“No no no please NO no no-“

“Shut up, you whiny brat. You can scream ‘no’ as often as you want but this is for your own good.”

With that, another wave of electricity ripples through Peter’s body and he feels the handle between his hand splinter, cutting into his skin and it hurts it hurts please no-

But that wasn’t abuse, was it? It was just Jakob preparing him for the real world, all of it, he did it for his own good (because he was a pathetic excuse of -) because Jakob loves him and wants the best for him. Right? He would never do something like that.

Right? (Do you abuse the people you love?)

There is suddenly a presence next to him, radiating off warmth in soft waves and it makes Peter relax (because it's always cold) before he realizes-

Stark is standing closer to him now, too close for his taste, but before Peter can shove him away, the man raises his hand and fuck he should’ve seen it coming, he’s so fucking stupid-

(Peter’s silently crying under his bed, trying so hard to quieten his small sobs but it’s too late as the cover’s lifted and he sees right into the familiar face of Jakob-

“There there, child. Are we still so pathetic and weak? Do we still cry because of such miniscule and unimportant things?”

Jakob is stretching his arm towards Peter, and he automatically closes his eyes and waits for the comforting hand on his cheeks he knows so well but then-

His cheek is stinging why is it stinging what happened why does it hurt it hurts why why-)

But Stark doesn’t hit him. He does something…weird.

He ruffles his hand through his hair.

It leaves Peter completely, absolutely speechless, the gesture so foreign to him-

“Come on kid, else there’ll be no lasagna left for us.”

He can’t just- Stark can’t- just -

It’s probably Peter’s indignation about the man’s action that leaves him following him like a lost duckling in the end.

Chapter Text

Peter is pretty sure that Stark is messing with him. That the man gets some kind of sick pleasure out of ensuring that he’s too fazed and distracted by his own thoughts, to catch on to what Stark is trying to do. But Peter is far beyond such pesky manipulation tactics. They will not work on him, they haven’t in a long time already. At least, looking at the evidence of his numerous, successful training sessions in that regard.

He’s following Stark through a maze of hallways, there was even a staircase involved at one point, while the teen is vehemently trying to rid himself of the lingering ghost of Stark’s fingers tangling themselves in his hair. He had to squash both his hands into the front pockets of the trousers he had been provided so generously by his enemies, lest he had to go running around naked, only because the urge to thread his own fingers through his locks was too overwhelming at times.

He does not want the man marching in front of him to even think that his tactics have any effect on him. Giving Stark that satisfaction is not something Peter is willing to sacrifice his dignity for.

That leaves him no choice than to follow Stark compliantly, giving his best to act good, while on the inside he’s feeling anything but. His skin is itching, there’s still burn marks from Stark’s oil-stained fingers sizzling across his scalp and Peter wonders if the man on purpose dunked his fingers in any kind of chemical beforehand, just to be able to torture him unknowingly.

There’s also his stomach rumbling quietly, asking him for food he knows he won’t get tonight for his earlier failure of behaving. He muses, if he were to request for anything to eat, they probably would provide him with something. But, then again, Peter was not that pathetic as to beg for anything from these criminals.

That’s why he, once again, is mildly (sure, just mildly) puzzled over their destination. Which turns out to be a kitchen. A kitchen full of Avengers, minus Thor and the knock off Iron Man sidekick of Stark. He’s very much indifferent over the latter’s absence, which makes the pure relief of not seeing the god of thunder flooding his system even more prevalent and embarrassing for the teen.

To distract himself from that can of worms he currently is trying his best not to spill all over the place, he takes in the room they’re now standing in the entry way of.

In contrast to his cell and the hallways Stark led him through just seconds ago, the ceiling of the kitchen hangs rather low. Gone are the neutral, day light emulating LED’s he’s seen everywhere up until that point, and in their wake are soft, yellowish lamps adorning the wood panelled walls, complimenting the old wood of the kitchen units and cupboards.

If his enhanced senses weren’t inhibited just like his super strength and stickiness are, the hearty smell of cooked food would have taunted his nostrils and empty stomach from a mile away already. It’s the same smell that fills his cell every time there’s food being brought to him but ramped up to one hundred. It’s not something he has ever smelled to such an extent back home, but truthfully, there are world’s differences between the food here and at home, as he had come to realize the day this whole shit show had started.

“So kid, here ya go. If you need anything more, just scream into the room and Friday’ll know what you want. Bon appetite!”

Peter’s hands are trembling under the sheer want to break every bone in the archer’s face, just like he broke the Captain Asshole’s jaw this morning. He’s still completely overwhelmed with everything that happened in the last hours and damn him if this isn’t the worst day of his life.

First, he wakes up with a headache that could split mountains, then he has that weird fucking fit over the furniture of this room, then he realizes that none other than their arch nemesis had kidnapped him and would do god knows what to him. Then there’s the god of thunder and Peter hadn’t been able to control the fear gluing him in place upon seeing that damned hammer in his meaty hand and the automatic response of his body to surrender under the knowledge of what lightning bursting open his veins and muscles feels like.

But the worst thing is when they had come back and strapped these fucking manacles on his wrists and then how it felt to lose everything that makes him himself. He has never felt so violated in his life before, so- so bereft it made him want to claw at those things until he’s fingers would bleed and bleed and bleed until there’s nothing left-

And then those criminals had the gall to think that Peter would be thankful, appreciative even, that they ‘rescued’ him. They have no idea.

The door falls into its lock, Barton left without saying much more to him. And Peter is fucking glad about that, if he’s learned anything today it’s that the archer’s voice is on his top ten list of things that want to make him douse himself in acid. Right after that look Stark has in his eyes, every time he had eyed him today. Ugh, Peter wants to smash his head in too.

He isn’t usually this violent. It’s just this whole fucking shit show he found himself trapped in that brings out the worst in him. He guesses though, that Jakob would be proud of his anger. He calls it the only emotion that has any real benefit for them, as it makes you strong and resilient.

And damn Peter if he’s going to be anything but while locked up here by his arch nemesis.

The rumbling of his stomach impels him to the desk at his right, where Barton left a tray of food behind, which smell slowly spreads its soft tendrils out into the room. Before he lets himself sit down at the table, he examines the food warily. It’s spaghetti, that much he gathers from the long, cylindrical pasta. He’s only had it once or twice before.

His stomach lets out another rumble, and this time the teen sits.

He grabs the fork and knife lying on the tray. There’s a small part in him, where alarm bells are shrieking and blaring ‘What if it is poisoned?’. But he reasons, why would the Avengers go to such lengths and kidnap him just to kill him immediately after? They want something from him, which they won’t get if he’s dead, so. (Also, his empty stomach is very capable too, in its ability to persuade him to eat.)

He loads his fork with the awkwardly shaped noodles, half of them slipping of the prongs which leaves him cursing who ever thought this shape of pasta was a good idea, before managing to cram some spaghetti into his mouth.

Bu he promptly spits them out again. What the hell is this?

There is something wrong with the sauce, or the pasta, or just everything. His tongue- it, the pasta, it tastes too much. His taste buds are absolutely overwhelmed and at a loss with what to do with so much – taste.

It’s like nothing he’s ever eaten before. Is the food poisoned after all? The meals back home have never tasted like this.

Just to be sure, he takes another half full fork of spaghetti. This time, he forces himself to chew the food and try to recognize any bitter taste in it, which would indicate any toxic substances mixed into his meal. But he thinks, even if there were, all the other taste of saltiness and tomato would completely overshadow any unpleasant tastes.

Peter concludes with a shrug of his shoulders that there aren’t any harming substances in his food, so he eats because he’s still freaking hungry.

He’s almost finished all the spaghetti when he stops in his tracks.

The thought still fresh in his mind turns the bite of food in his mouth foul. Now that he is focusing on it, it is even more prevalent than before.

It tastes actually good. (Better than at home)

Peter shakes himself out of his memory. The guilt and panic which had seized him following that thought back then had accompanied his every meal from then on. Why, he still isn’t sure. It’s just food. He really doesn’t get what the fuck is wrong with him sometimes.

At least those feelings are losing their intensity. It makes bundling them up and setting them aside in a dark corner of his mind a lot easier and manageable. Another neat trick he had learned from Jakob.

“Eyo, Spider-Pete! Long time no see!”

It’s the archer’s voice that jerks him out of his thoughts (still annoying as fu-), right arm waving far too excitedly in the air.

“Come sit down, before Captain Häagen-Dazs eats all the lasagna!”

The grin on Barton’s face is showing off all his teeth, as his eyes flit to the captain, sitting right to Barton’s left. Peter’s gaze is drawn to Rogers as well, when he lets out a loud, long groan, hands coming up and burying his face, muffling what he says next.

“Could you please stop calling me that? I already apologized to Bruce five times!”

“And that’s still not enough”, the reply comes from the Doctor sitting across the duo, voice tinged with disdain, as he jabs his fork rather forcefully into a piece of his lasagna.

Peter startles as Stark next to him lets out a bellowing laugh. For the first time, Peter realizes how absolutely strange that is. Hearing laughter. He is only familiar with a chuckle, here and there, a snicker once a month. But that full on laughter?

He decides he does not like it.

“Come on, kid, take a seat and I’ll get you a plate”, Stark says calmly next to him, contrasting the quibbling voices at the dining table gaining in volume the longer their debate seemed to last.

And it’s then that Peter realizes what in Hydra’s name he’s doing in the Avengers kitchen. He is going to eat dinner here, with them. Banging his forehead against a marble countertop of one of the kitchen elements until he’s unconscious sounds like a lot more fun to him right now.

Peter flinches when there’s suddenly a hand grabbing his shoulder. All his instincts scream at him, danger enemy danger, he twists his torso, left hand balling itself into a fist but-

Stark. It’s only Stark. The man’s expression stutters, smile falling off his lips, before letting go of Peter’s shoulder immediately. Then, as if nothing happened, the man clears his throat, smile twisting his mouth again, before silently motioning for the teen to take a seat.

Stark then turns and goes for the kitchen.

Stunned, Peter doesn’t entirely manage to mask the glare he sends after the man. Because, what the fuck was that? Can’t Stark just leave him the fuck alone with those unwanted touches and stupidly annoying questions?

His shoulder is tingling unpleasantly where the man’s hand had been and he wants to- fuck he doesn’t know what he wants just-

He bites the inside of his cheek until he draws blood, to stop himself from spiralling more. It helps.

(Somewhat.)

He lets his eyes wander over the seating arrangement of the table, trying his best to keep it together.

There’s only a seat available either next to Rogers or in between the doctor and another free seat. He guesses, with a quick glance back to the kitchen where Stark is opening a cabinet, that Stark will for sure sit into one of those two free ones.

Peter walks to sit down next to Rogers.

He almost turns on his heels though, when the captain gives him a smile upon realizing the teen is approaching the empty seat next to him.

Only the memory of the satisfying crunch when Peter’s fist had connected to his jaw makes him swallow down the scornful stare and biting words he wants so desperately to let out. But if he wants his plan to succeed, he has to play along and be nice. Ugh.

He can’t wait for the day he can punch them all in the face.

Just as he had seated himself, Stark turns around with a set of cutleries for Peter in hand. His smile falters once he sees him sitting next to Rogers.

The satisfaction Peter feels at that almost makes up for having to sit next to Captain Asshole while eating. Almost.

But then, Stark hands him his plate with fork and knife, smile big as ever again and Peter asks himself why good things never last for him.

As soon as he sets down the plate onto the dark wood table, Rogers plops a huge spoon full of lasagna onto his plate. He’s pretty sure he won’t be able to finish that. He had noticed that his appetite hadn’t been the same since those power inhibiting bracelets got strapped onto his wrists, which, scientifically speaking, made sense. There aren’t any overexerting abilities his body has to fuel anymore, so why should he need extra calories?

“Just help yourself, there’s plenty for everyone”, the blonde adds.

Peter nods stiffly. He sits there, for two, three seconds, wondering what they would do if he were to just dump his food on the ground, before he hears the ‘we do not waste food Peter’ in Jakob’s voice echoing in his head and the subsequent sounds of his pleas to ‘stop please I’m sorry, I won’t do it again, sorry sorry-‘.

It would be nothing short of betrayal if he didn’t follow Jakob’s instructions, even if his mentor can’t really see him right now. (And it hurts, because Peter just wants to go home-)

So, he holds back a sigh and grabs his knife and fork. He lets his gaze travel around the table, considers the archer and Stark laughing with each other with a stare, before he, for the first time today, looks right into the piercing green eyes of Romanoff sitting across him.

Her stare makes him freeze, the hairs at the back of his neck standing at alarm instantly (a remainder of his stolen danger sense). Moments pass, and pass and pass and Peter feels his heartbeat picking up, distressed, does she suspect something…?

But her stare stays weirdly blank. Not a single thing is there in her eyes for him to dissect and analyse. Nothing there telling him that she knows.

Peter stares back just as blankly.

Their staring contest goes on, he is not scared of her, before the teen decides to dedicate his attention to his food now.

He is quietly eating his food (and Peter hates to admit it but the food still tastes far superior to the food at home), eyes trained on his plate to make this whole thing somewhat more bearable to him by not having to stare into the faces of his bantering arch nemesis. (Also to stop himself from comparing the companiable atmosphere settled around them to the one he and his cellmates foster because it hurts-)

Some minutes pass, in which Peter hopes the others forget that he’s even here, when –

“So, tell me squirt, did Stark really bribe you with Lego to get you to talk?”

Peter feels everyone’s attention shift to him. He has to bite his tongue before he threatens Barton to call him squirt one more time and he’ll be the one squirting blood all over the table.

But he’s spared from answering when Stark next to him shoves the lounging archer with a ‘I didn’t fucking bribe him, birdbrain!’. Barton’s casual grin turns into a mask of fright as he loses balance and skitters from his chair, all the while the Captain next to him glares at Stark (‘Language! Jeez, Tony, there’s a kid here!’), the Doctor sighs loudly and Romanoff rolls her eyes.

Peter is speechless.

He cannot believe that these people are supposed to be earth’s mightiest heroes. He wants to punch himself in the face for getting caught by that bunch of unprofessional, childish idiots.

=====

After everyone was done with dinner, Peter wants to sigh in relief. Finally, he can go back to his roo- cell and get back to ignoring the fact that his life is a living nightmare.

But apparently, the universe just loves making Peter miserable, because instead of going back to the cell, Peter finds himself squished between Stark and the doctor on one of the couches in their so-called ‘living room’ (what a stupid name) ten minutes later, ready to watch a movie together. And it takes all of his strength to not shove the billionaire sitting to his left off the sofa because the way the older man’s arm keeps brushing against Peter’s shoulder makes it burn and itch.

Additional to that predicament, Peter wonders to himself why these people are so fucking weird and want to watch a movie together now.

“So, what do you wanna watch, kid?”, Stark asks him, twisting to look at him with a bright smile and he’s just too fucking close-

Peter wants to take all these stupid questions and strangle him with it. Or himself. Both are valid options for him right now.

“I don’t know”, Peter answers because he really doesn’t. All he wants is to be in his cell right now-

He’s getting tired and fed up with all that thinking about weird questions and looks and things they do and do not and honestly, just fucking everything -

“Hmm, well then, let’s just watch a Disney movie. Have you ever seen one?”

The urge to bash his head against a wall is so strong suddenly, that Peter has to grip the leather of the couch beneath him to keep himself seated.

“You sure that’s the right thing for him, Stark? Cooper’s just ‘bout his age and looooves the transformers movies-“, the archer chimes in.

“No, I’m definitely not letting him watch those cheap knock-offs of me and my suits-“

“Hey, what about Lord of the Rings? That’s always a good one-“

“No, Steve, we don’t have ten thousand hours of spare time-“

“But-!”

Peter wants to set himself on fire.

=====

He thinks it’s a ‘Disney’ movie they ended up watching and it’s nothing what Peter expected it to be. He has never felt so confused in his entire life. What kind of movie was that?

The movies that he is used to watching are nothing like that, at all. He remembers all the boring and dull and repetitive videos and films about how to use your weapons correctly, how to read tracks in the ground, how to survive outside during winter and so on-

But this. It didn’t teach them anything at all. It was all colourful, bubbly, there was music (something so rare for him to hear it left him gaping at the screen at times), the characters even sang and what the hell. It wasn’t even real people, it was all someone’s drawings, if he could trust what Stark had told him.

He’s lying in his bed again after Stark had brought him back to his cell once the movie had been over, still so baffled over what he just saw.

It was about lions (lions that talked! What the hell!), and mostly about Simba. How he is forced to run away from his home because of the murderer of his father and then has to grow up somewhere else.

Peter presses the palms of his hands against his eyes when he feels that weird sensation inside of him again, the one that suddenly had come out of nowhere during the movie, nearly strangling his throat in its intensity and strangeness. He doesn’t know what it is, what it means, has never felt anything like that before, but he hates it, hates it, like the way his shoulder is still tingling and itching from Stark’s upper arm pressed against him during the film. He lets that hate grow and grow, feeds into it, until it’s big enough that he decides-

He hated the movie, he hated it he hated it, he hopes he never has to watch one of those horrible ‘Disney’ movies again!

He just wants to go home. He wants to go home, home home-

His palms are suddenly wet. Surprised, Peter takes his hands away from his face.

Shit. He’s crying.

Fuck. He scrambles to get the duvet cover up, up, pressing it against his face to dry those stupid fucking tears because he has absolutely no reason to cry (other than being pathetic and a failure).

He holds his breath, counts and counts in his head, goes through the chemical compounds in his web fluid, physics and math formulas everything to distract him-

After what felt like an eternity, Peter manages to stop the tears. He lets himself fall back against the mattress, so completely exhausted from just everything that keeps happening and confusing him and everything.

He closes his eyes and hopes he wakes up at home (or not at all).

=====

=====

Natasha prides herself in her ability to read people.

It is perhaps one of her most valued skills she was taught there, and perhaps the only one she isn’t ashamed to have been trained in, as a stark contrast to all the other things she was burdened with during her supposed childhood.

As much as it proved itself to be a great asset to have during missions, even sometimes combat, it is a skill that is as tenacious as a red wine stain in its own habit of sneaking into her daily life. Meaning that she truly can’t help the way her eyes follow every little movement the boy does upon entering their kitchen.

It’s in her second nature really, to analyse how he glares at Tony walking into the open kitchen, once he had awkwardly retracted his hand from the teen’s shoulder as if he had been burned.

Hmm, that definitely doesn’t seem right.

Only a blind person would miss the way fondness sparkles in the mechanic’s dark brown eyes the moment when they’re all sitting together, eating a meal or whatever else leads to one of their gatherings, and someone asks him how’s it going with the spider-kid.

The way he talks about the kid, so completely enamoured with him even though he doesn’t know anything about him really. She would call him an idiot, if she didn’t find it absolutely endearing (do not tell him that, she has a reputation to keep up after all).

But. But. This doesn’t add up to what he has been telling them. That the boy apparently had taken a liking to him, that he wouldn’t stare at him anymore as if he’s the one personally responsible for all the molten ice cream in the world (Tonys words, not hers).

She’s not sure… can’t really tell yet. There are some quiet, small inklings of suspicion forming in her head. It’s better to be safe than sorry, and she would not allow it for anyone to hurt her family, not even the kid. Although, she is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, she’s not that rash (only a little).

So, she keeps her eyes trained on the next movements of the boy. She keeps watching him even after he has settled down and is sitting opposite of hers now and she thinks that her original hunch has been right. There has to be more to his ‘niceness’ to Tony than what he leads on.

It was only a matter of time, with her staring at him continuously, before their eyes finally met. In fact, she has been waiting for that since he had entered the kitchen.

It’s actually the first time she really notices his eyes and, it leaves her startled for a millisecond, there’s something weird in her head that does absolutely, completely not make any sense whatsoever but maybe is not as ridiculous to believe as it should be-

Focus Natasha! The kid’s eyes bore themselves into hers. And it’s then she gets the verification she needs. The overwhelming tension and fear the kid can’t conceal because children are not designed to hide their emotions are proof enough.

The kid isn’t as innocent as he seems. But she will handle it.

Nobody messes with her family.

Chapter Text

Tony can’t sleep.

And of course, he can’t, when has his mind ever shut up enough about a thing that’s bothering him to find rest during the night? Never. Because that’s a privilege only reserved for normal people, and he muses, with his occupation as superhero and multiple achievements of saving the world and he could go the fuck on about this for years definitely does not give him the qualification as a ‘normal person’.

Well, the description of normal never fit him. And it never will. Especially now with a tortured, enhanced child on his hands whose mental state is more precarious than Tony thought to begin with. He cannot get it out of his head, it replays on loop in his mind since he had brought Peter back to his room this evening. It circles and circles and drives him crazy.

Just for the jokes of it, here it goes again:

Out of pure instinct (which Tony does not second guess its origin right now), he lets his hand rest on Peter’s shoulder. What should be a normal, encouraging touch, turns out to set off the kid in an unnatural way. Tony feels the flinch curse through Peter’s whole body and he himself stops dead in his tracks. Then, the kid whirls around to him, Tony noticing the way his hands clench into fists, and he already sees himself with another black eye but then- the kid stops once he realized it’s him.

(Which wants to make him smile for some unknown reasons).

When their eyes meet Tony is stunned for a second, the amount of different emotions swimming in those brown bambi eyes makes him dizzy for a moment. The anger flaming inside of them had nearly become strange for him to see again, but it was nothing new. What was new was the vulnerability shining through the anger and Tony lets go of Peter as if he had been stung.

And fuck his heart aches for the kid, for whatever he had to go through to have acquired such intense reactions to a simple touch. A wonder he didn’t react like that when he had ruffled his hair earlier.

He does some awkward shuffling around before he just turns and goes for the kitchen, a little overwhelmed himself with all the emotions flittering through his head. But the one that’s screaming at him the loudest was the guilt.

And the guilt had kept his mind in its icy claws until now. And it’s that guilt, which is keeping him awake, devouring him alive because he feels like he fucked everything up with the kid. There he goes, speaking about consent and how if they wouldn’t ask for it, they wouldn’t be better than Hydra. And there he goes, just ignoring Peter’s consent about touch like a total fucking idiot.

He lets out a sigh, right hand pushing against his forehead, moving up through his black curls.

He should’ve done more research on this, before talking with a traumatized child. Especially a child with those tremendous amounts of pain and torture and brainwashing he has been through. How could he have been such an idiot?

He lets his gaze fall to his right, taking in the time blinking red into the darkness of the room. 4:29 am. Of course. Pepper’s sleeping peacefully next to him, thank god she didn’t notice his distressed state or else she would’ve stayed up with him, be there for him and talk him through the worst of his thoughts. Not that he doesn’t absolutely adore that and love his fiancé for that so much, but he just couldn’t deal with even more guilt of keeping his girlfriend awake piled on top of the guilt for his failure of being a-

Yeah, a failure of being what? He takes some seconds to come up with an adequate description for what he is for Peter, whilst pointedly ignoring the almost most obvious one. He does not possess the emotional or mental capacity to label himself anything close to something like that. Yet.

And just that thought makes him feel even more like a moron. He should’ve prepared himself better for all this.

He lies there for another five minutes, staring up at the ceiling. He should sleep. He can start researching first things in the morning.

…

Ah, who the fuck is he trying to fool here.

As quietly as possible, he throws back the blanket covering his lower body, before swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He glances back at Pepper, whose sleeping frame is turned towards him, and he faintly makes out her soft expression, even caught in sleep she looks like the most beautiful person he has ever seen and the warmth flooding his chest propels him to pull up the blanket and properly tug her in. As soon as he’s satisfied with her state of cosiness, he stands.

He tiptoes to the door of their shared bedroom, presses down the door handle as quietly as possible and slips out of the darkened room.

Immediately, Friday turns on the lights in the hallway, dimmed down to the max as to not overwhelm Tony’s tired eyes. The mechanic sends her an appreciative smile. He’s so proud of her.

His legs carry him on autopilot, the walk down to his lab internalized to such a degree he would find it blindfolded. It’s silent, the tower at this time of day (well rather night huh) and Tony appreciates the silence surrounding him, his mind is loud enough already, and he doesn’t need any more noise right now.  

He reaches his lab, waits a second for the facial recognition to do its thing and then the glass doors slide open with an almost inaudible hiss. The smell of oil and metal hits his nose and it’s a Pavlovian response at this point, how his shoulders release some of their tension sitting on his spine.

What if the lab is one of his safe spaces? Sue him.

He lets out a drawn-out groan once he lets his body settle on one of his office chairs. He leans forward, taking a hold of his custom keyboard and presses a button. At least five holograms spring to live surrounding him, all displaying parts of his progress of his latest suit. He waves them away.

“Fri, you up?”, he asks into the silence.

“Of course, Boss. What is on today’s list of things keeping you from attaining the recommended amount of sleep?”, his AI retorts.

And he sighs, before answering, ”It’s the kid, what else?”

And it’s true. Peter has practically taken up all his available mental and emotional capacity since they brought him here. Fuck, he really owes Pepper a nice weekend getaway, just the two of them.

But first, Tony has work to do.

=====

“Because you know what? Consent extends beyond just sex and kissing — it’s for hugging and holding hands, too. If you don’t want someone to touch you, you should be able to say so without the other person taking ridiculous offense… “

“…you have total autonomy over your body.  The bottom line in any situation regarding touch is — if it makes you uneasy, you can say no and it must not be done to you…”

“…to have healthy relationships, you need to have good boundaries. To have clear boundaries, you need to have an understanding about what behaviour is safe and what is not safe, appropriate, and respectful – both emotionally and physically, to ensure positive consent…”

Tony’s head is hurting. His temples are throbbing, and his eyes are watering from staring at screens all night. Because that’s what he’s been doing since three am. Staring at his screens and reading and reading and reading. About different trauma responses, PTSD in children, abuse… And most importantly, over consent. He can’t get these passages he has read out of his head anymore. Fuck he should’ve known that from the beginning.

He also should’ve involved a professional the moment they had Peter on the quinjet. He knows, Peter probably would’ve bridled at the prospect of talking to one more stranger, but just the thought of having someone in his corner who knows what they’re doing would’ve spared Tony many headaches.

He’s sitting on the same office chair he has all night, elbows propped on his knees and face buried in his hands. The guilt of it all makes his insides clench and twist. He’s really not better than Hydra. God, why did he ever think he was good enough to try and help Peter? The kid deserves so much more than the fuck up that he is. It’s so obvious now. Of course, Peter would not tell him if his touches were making him uncomfortable. Peter probably doesn’t even know he has the right to tell someone no. He really has to go talk with him like- right now.

“Friday?”, he asks, “How late is it?”

Because in complete Tony Stark fashion, he of course doesn’t know what time it is and how long exactly he’s been locked up in his lab so far.

“It is exactly half past eight in the morning, Boss”, the AI’s voice sounds through the space of his lab.

Before he even gets the chance to breathe out his next question, Friday is already speaking again.

“May I add, Peter is awake and finishing the last steps of the Lego truck.”

He pauses. Is he so obvious with his care for the kid that even his AI is catching up to that? God. What is his life.

He grumbles about something he isn’t even sure himself what, as he’s making his way out of the lab.

The kid’s room is located just one floor above the common floor and one below his and Pepper’s penthouse appartement. All the other Avengers that had taken up his offer to live at the tower (momentarily consisting of Bruce and Natasha, since Clint lives mostly at his farm with his family, Steve has his own appartement in Brooklyn and Thor lives in Asgard), have their own floor underneath the common floor. And then, ten floors beneath, is his lab. So, he has at least the time it takes the elevator to bring him up around 15 floors, to think about how to approach all of this.

How do you explain what bodily autonomy is to a child whose life probably consisted only of violations of such mentioned right? This is so not his field of expertise.

He leans himself against the glass wall of the elevator, a slight thump sound echoing in the cabin as his head hits the glass a bit harder than intended. He screws his eyes shut, for one to relieve some of the burning strain and also just to try to calm his spiking heartbeat. This is not the time to spiral into an anxiety attack, he warns himself. He has to do this for the kid first.

He counts his breaths and tries to channel his inner Pepper, all soft voice reminding him to stay calm, everything will work out just fine. He tries to believe those words, he really does, but then the elevator comes to a stop with a ding and god what the hell is he doing-

As he steps out of the elevator, he takes one last deep breath, squares his shoulders as if getting ready for battle which, in a way, he kind of is. Oh well.

He sets out for the kid’s room.

=====

Just as Peter was clicking one of the last Lego pieces of the truck into place, there’s a knock on the door to his cell. He huffs out a breath, supressing the need to roll his eyes. Can’t they just leave him alone?

But still, he calls out a questioning ‘Yes?’ to whoever was standing outside his door, even though it’s still strange for him to have this kind of authority.

There’s a second hesitation, Peter wondering if the person was somehow able to read his thoughts and just leave again, but then the door opens and reveals a pretty rough looking Stark.

Confusion knits itself into Peter’s brows as he takes in the man’s dishevelled state. What the hell happened to him? His otherwise always styled jet black hair was sticking up in all directions, as if he’d run his hair through it an absurd amount of time. His eyes were bloodshot, the circles underneath his dark brown eyes even more pronounced than usual. The teen takes in Stark’s attire, the washed-out brown of his wrinkly shirt and the grey of his worn out sweatpants. He’s never seen the man in such a state of informality, he’s used to the man always looking put together and clothes coordinated perfectly with each other – but this?

The curiosity about this makes Peter forget the usual anger and hate spiking up inside of him at the sight of the billionaire.

Said billionaire is seemingly struggling to say something, as he just keeps standing in the door and looking at Peter in that usual, weird way of his. That’s also something Peter hasn’t witnessed yet, especially from the most talkative member of the Avengers, aside from Barton. What the hell? There’s a big question mark inside of Peter’s brain and it’s making him uncomfortable, not being able to get a concrete read on their situation and-

“Peter? I- uhm- I just wanted to, uhm well… Oh! You finished the truck?”, Stark finally decided to ask him, eyeing the practically finished vehicle in front of Peter’s crossed legs.

Peter looks at the man now smiling, but something’s off about that smile. If he tries to compare it to the ones he remembers, it doesn’t look as- as big as the others, there are no crinkles around the corners of Stark’s eyes and- and Hydra why is this so difficult, it just doesn’t feel the same way the others do. Not that the others somehow affect him, of course they don’t what the hell, but still.

Something’s off about Stark today.

And it kind of lets alarm bells ring inside of his head and an uneasy feeling spread in his stomach. He brushes of the latter as a sign of his body getting ready in case Stark is here, to at long last show him the true colours of the Avengers. Yes, that’s probably why the smile seems so off. Because finally, Stark isn’t pretending to be anything other than a criminal and murderer anymore. They probably got bored with him. Good. Maybe they’ll finally let him go.

Stark moves into the room, carefully pulling the door shut behind him. Peter’s breath hitches at that, heartbeat suddenly springing into overdrive. Stark has never closed the door when he was here to build Lego’s with him before. This is not good.

(The door falls shut with a click so loud it rang inside of Peter’s head although Jakob didn’t forcefully slam it into its hinges. He was alone with his mentor inside of his shared room, only the ticking of the clock on the wall present in the space between the two.

“Who the fuck do you think you are? Going against personal orders like that? Just because you feel like you’re better than anyone else?”

Oh no, Jakob’s mad he’s mad he’s mad mad mad mad-

The usual softness in his mentor’s face was different, rougher, cold metal shards stabbing themselves into Peter’s heart and letting fear pour out of the incisions, muscles clenching and breath stopping-

“I have no use for such a waste of resources you are, if you cannot accept your role in this, boy, do you understand me?”

Jakob was standing so close to Peter now his icy blue eyes were all the teen could see.

He was trembling, shame and fear twisting and knotting his stomach together. He couldn’t speak.

“Do you fucking understand me?”, Jakob shouted, and Peter flinched so hard his teeth clicked together painfully.

Before he even got the chance to speak, hands grabbed his throat, slamming him against the wall and then there’s a knee in his stomach and all he can do is clench his eyes shut, blossoms of pain exploding behind his eyes, praying no tears manage to leak down his cheeks revealing how weak he truly is-)

The teen feels his body going rigid. Okay, okay, he still knows how to fight, even though the bracelets supress his powers. Peter knows, according to Hydra’s files about the billionaire, he does possess some form of knowledge in martial arts, but the teen doubts it will be enough to handle Peter, years and years of training in every fighting style imaginable should give him an advantage in case the man is going to attack him. Stark may have the benefits of being taller than Peter, but he won’t know what will hit him. So, Peter braces himself, feels the adrenaline make his muscles tight, ready to jump at any moment.

But all Stark does, is shuffle closer to him, sitting himself down next to Peter, at least one metre of distance between them. The teen watches him warily, notices the tension in the man’s shoulders, watches his jaw clench and unclench, gaze still locked on the truck in front of the both of them now.

The silence stretches, nothing happens.

Peter sees Starks chest heave, before he lets out a deep sigh, face lifting up to the ceiling, before eventually turning to Peter. His heart jumps, he holds his breath and prepares for the worst but Stark just starts to talk.

 “Kid- Peter. I- I have to apologise to you. Because of yesterday, when y’know… when I, before dinner in the kitchen just- when I-“, the man cuts himself off, curses under his breath and fiddles his hand through his hair, looking anywhere other than Peter now ,”When I touched your shoulder. You flinched back and I, I just assumed it was okay but I… know now that it wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done that. Touch you I mean. I’m sorry”, Stark finished, and Peter doesn’t understand the world anymore.

Before he can bring any sense into the man’s apology (has anyone ever apologized for something they did to him?), Stark continues, eyes trained on him again.

“Peter, I want you to listen to what I’m telling you very carefully now, okay? It’s- It’s important for you to understand, okay?”

Peter is so entirely lost with what’s happening, his head is moving up and down before he could’ve thought about it.

Stark stares at him two seconds longer, eyes searching his face for something Peter doesn’t know, before he, apparently satisfied, nods shortly to himself.

“Do you remember yesterday, before dinner, when I didn’t come into your room because you told me not to?”

 Peter’s forehead scrunches together when he furrows his brows, the tension in his body abating and adrenaline slowly losing its drive because where the fuck is Stark going with this-

“Do you know why I didn’t come in then?”, Stark asks him, brown eyes staring into Peter’s with such an intensity that he has to blink and avert his gaze to his hands clenched together in his lap.

The man stays quiet, not saying anything and Peter realizes he probably wants an answer from him.

“Yes, I know”, he says, because he’s not stupid, of course he knows why. But… he doesn’t… understand why. He remembers Stark saying something about consent and abuse, but… as much as he hates to admit it, it still doesn’t make sense to him.

The silence lingers again, it impels Peter to lift his gaze and look at Stark. He’s still staring at him, but his face has lost some of the tension he had held in its jaw. Peter shifts in his position, pressing his nails into the palms of his hands. Just- somehow the way Stark is looking at him, damn it-

“I know why you left me alone yesterday, it’s because I said ‘no’, but I just… don’t understand why”, Peter ends up saying unprompted, which was something for him to dwell over later because what the fuck why would he confess that to Stark-

Something changes in Stark’s expression then, there’s a familiarity there now which Peter cannot for the life of him place its origin to but nonetheless makes him feel less threatened by all of this, makes the last of his clenched muscles relax and any trace of adrenaline vanish from his system.

It isn’t until his mind comes up with images of Stark looking at him during the last two weeks, where he sees the similarity between these looks. Because they’re the same. Before the teen can even begin comprehending what that means, Stark is speaking again.

“That’s okay, Peter, I… It’s honestly my fault. I should’ve tried to explain it to you better and.. well... That’s the reason I want you to listen to every word I’m about to say, can you do that for me?”

Peter really, really doesn’t want to give in to what Stark wants of him even more than he already has, but he also really, really wants to understand at least something in this place. He doesn’t want to be so confused about everything anymore, and if Stark’s offering him to clear some of that confusion? Well, Peter can swallow down his pride for a moment. (But he still doesn’t like it one bit.)

So, the teen nods demurely, shifting his gaze to the truck in front of him, fidgeting with his fingers and waits for the man to continue.

Stark doesn’t say anything for a while. Peter listens to the man’s breath, a habit that had creeped itself into Peter’s mannerisms a long time ago when the silence would become too much for him to bear alone, the breathing and heartbeats of his cell mates acting as an anchor when he felt lost at sea.  

And then, finally, Stark starts to talk.

“Peter”, he heaves a heavy sigh, “do you know how I built my first suit?”

Peter cocks his head to the side, stealing a glance at the billionaire. He searches for any sign that would tell him that Stark is messing with him, but the man’s expression is dead serious. Maybe the most serious he’s ever seen it.

“Yes”, Peter answers, because he does. Hydra’s files are thorough.  “You built it in captivity in Afghanistan.”

Stark’s mouth twitches. With his next exhale, his gaze shifts to the ceiling again.

“I did”, he says, “but I doubt that Hydra really knows all the details about my stay there.”

That lets a flare of anger well up in Peter and his brows furrow almost impalpably. Arrogant asshole.

But as fast as it had come, as fast the anger subsides again, when Stark turns his face back to him. He looks… he looks sad. Not at all boastful or derisive over his last statement. What does it mean?

Stark lifting his right hand makes him jump slightly in his seat before he immediately scoffs at himself for his jumpy behaviour. With that hand, Stark raps his knuckles against something metallic in his chest.

“You probably know of this too then, right?”, the man leaves no space for Peter to answer, “Well, ‘t wasn’t exactly something I had a say in. Sure, I use it for my suits and all that… But else? It’s just… painful.”

There’s a grimace flitting over Stark’s face. Peter simultaneously feels a twisted sort of pleasure, hearing the man admitting to be subjected to pain almost all the time, and another feeling he can’t help but compare to the one he usually has when one of his friends gets punished for misconduct.

But it’s exactly that feeling which always gets him disciplined as well, so the notion of squashing it down and stomping it to pieces is perfectly second nature to him, leaving absolutely no room to investigate it further. The thing in Stark’s chest deems much more interesting anyways.

 “And… and when he… put the reactor in my chest- It was the worst- the most painful thing I’ve ever felt.”

In the heavy silence that follows, Stark’s shaky inhale echoes like a gunshot in Peter’s ears. It makes him forget his inquiry about the he the man mentioned.

“The torture that followed from then on really was just peanuts compared to it.”

There are a hundred and one things flying through Peter’s mind, but the thing that caught his attention the most is the thought that maybe, Stark really was right when he said that Hydra doesn’t know every detail about him. (What else don’t they know? What else doesn’t he know?)

Nowhere in the files was listed the torture Stark apparently went through.

In hindsight, it shouldn’t have surprised Peter as much as it did. Of course. How else is someone going go get what they want if the other party involved refuses? And somehow…

When Peter looks at Stark now, it isn’t the same anymore.

It’s difficult to remain the same when his gaze is fractured by glimpses of himself, electricity coursing through his body water in his lungs blood dripping cut skin stomach empty-

He absolutely can’t and doesn’t want to believe that he knows Stark’s pain so very intimately, that they are similar in that regard, that he has something in common with the man. With a killer, terrorist, mur-

“Peter. That was not okay. It never is.”

And yes, of course Peter knows it’s not okay, does Stark think he is stupid? Torture is bad. Painful. He knows that. He’s not a child.

Stark’s eyes are flickering over Peter’s face, before he frowns.

“Do you understand why it’s not okay Peter?”

And that lets Peter sink his gaze to his hands again, thumb pressing into his palm, tight knit expression distorting his face. This whole thing is still just as confusing as in the beginning and instead of the usual anger, there’s something else creeping up his spine. It makes him want to punch the man and simultaneously, curl up into a ball and sob his heart out.

And it puzzles him even more, because he’s never felt such contradicting emotions before, and he doesn’t know-

“Hey kiddo, can you look at me?”

There’s something in Stark’s voice that sends a tremor through Peter’s very bones, that sets a ten ton weight on his chest and bites its teeth into his heart. He feels the minute quakes in his hands, feels the way his throat aches and eyes burn but he’d rather jump off a building than cry in front of his enemy so he forces himself to take two deep breaths through the fire burning him alive.

Once he’s sure the tears will not fall, he lifts his head and looks Stark directly into his eyes.

And Hydra, the way those brown eyes look at him, Peter doesn’t understand what it is but it makes him want to burrow into himself and scratch at his bones until that feeling dies- he just does not fucking understand-

“What I wanted to tell you with this Peter… the reason why it’s never okay to torture, to hurt, hell even to touch another person is something called consent. It’s- it means that you, and only you have the right to your - your body and that no one, not even your closest family, have the right to ignore that when you don’t want something done to you. When you tell someone ‘no’, it means ‘no’, and everyone who doesn’t respect that …”

Peter stares at him not comprehending.

All the times Jakob or his trainers hurt him on purpose, were only with his best interest in mind. To prepare him for the worst and make sure he’d survive in the cruel world they all live in. Every slice of skin, every drop of blood, every tear spilled, was for a reason. Right?

But there’s a voice inside of Peter’s head now, it had always been there but choked and wretched, pathetic (because you made me so), that demands his every attention, because there is no one there to whip it to shreds and splinters anymore. It sounds like the screams of his past and scrapes and rasps like metal against concrete when it asks,

Did you ever want any of it? Did you ask for any of it? Did you want to get tortured and (-that’s just plain abuse-) abused? Did you want any of that pain?

It’s already too late when the teen feels a tear roll down his cheek. His eyes had drifted away from Stark, staring down the glowing colours of the truck, mind empty apart from that voice and its cutting questions and memories-

He feels something shift next to him. Suddenly, there’s a strange warmth settling over him and that makes him look up to see Stark had shuffled closer to him, still with at least an arm’s length of space between them.

Even if the warmth feels nice, the mere presence of another person is just too much for Peter right now. Too much too much-

“Can I be alone? Please?”, he asks, voice scratchy and barely above a whisper because he can’t manage more.

“Of course, bambino”, Stark says, “just call for me if you need anything, okay?”

With that, the warmth next to him disappears, part of him glad and part of him mourning the- the comfort (that’s the word) of it.

When he looks at Mr. Stark leaving, the warm smile on his lips as he looks at Peter one last time before closing the door behind him again, lets a flicker of another smile that he doesn’t know dart across his mind.

Chapter Text

As soon as the door behind Tony falls shut with a soft, metallic click, he pauses. It might be his mind constructing sounds to feed into the relenting worry he’s feeling, or the doubt that’s been nagging him down to the bones since he entered the kid’s room now projecting every fear of doing something wrong from his head into the real world. Either way, he is almost certain- no, he is certain that he had heard even more sniffling from Peter just before he closed the door on him. Closed the door on a child in clear emotional distress. But who had explicitly told him he wanted to be alone.

God, what the fuck is he even doing?

There’s not enough straining his ears he could do to catch anymore sniffling through the door, he himself had designed these doors and walls to be absolutely soundproof, if not necessary otherwise. Maybe it’s for the better. He isn’t sure if he could’ve held himself back from going back into Peter’s room and comfort him if he’d heard more. The kid… he’s just been through so much. And it makes his chest ache because it’s just not fair. Tony isn’t sure what exactly of their talk or of what he said made him cry, only that he should, fuck, wanted to take the kid into his arms and just- make it better. Fix it. Whatever it is. And he knows, god, he knows what this sounds like and it’s not good. Not really. He should know better than form an attachment to the kid, should know that the moment they would find his real parents, he’d be gone, out of their lives.

Just the thought of that makes him physically wince, heart squeezing in protest. Barely a month ago, Tony never in a million years even dared to think of having children. Was successful (sure) of not only convincing the public and everyone else, but himself of the fact that he’d rather jump into a volcano than ever become a father. He made a big show out of laughing out loud at every interviewer inquiring him about his plans of starting a family, how many children are you going to have, Mr. Stark, isn’t Stark Industries going to need an heir, what about an accidental love child-

And now he’s here, actively feeling the- his concern for the kid and how easy it would be to just let it grow and become unstoppable despite the big red warning signs telling him clearly how unwise it would be. Because … because deep, deep down he knows, truly knows, that that was all fake. Just another act he put on, another wall he raised from rubble, a mixture of fear and memories the mortar keeping the mismatched, broken pieces together. Because he is scared. And just- he’s a fucking mess. How could someone like him ever be a father? How? How could he ever- how could- how could he ever be what Peter needs of him when he didn’t even prepare himself properly and-- fuck. Just having the kid here now, it unravels him, takes down these walls brick by brick and forces him to realize once again that-

“Tony?”

He blinks hard.

“I was looking all over the lab for you before Friday- hey, are you okay, honey?”

It’s Pepper’s soft voice, followed by the soft touch of her hand on his shoulder guiding him out of his anxiety riddled thoughts back to where they are- still in front of the kid’s room.

“Oh, good morning, Pep. Yeah, I was just…”, he trails off, still caught up in the currents of his inner turmoil, being the rope that is pulled in his emotional tug of war, which Pepper so clearly picked up on because she just knows him like that.

Her expression softens as she takes in his hunched over form, one hand still clutching the handle of the door and the other balled into a fist. She takes that hand first and he lets her unravel his scarred fingers and lace her perfect ones with his. Her free hand comes to encase the back of his entangled hand, before she lifts the mosaic of their hands to her lips and presses the lightest kiss to his knuckles.

“Hmmm”, she hums, Tony feels the vibration on his fingers still pressed against her soft lips, “what about we go make breakfast together because I know Peter is getting hungry, just like me honestly and probably you too, and during that you can tell me what’s wrong? How does that sound, darling?”

Tony’s insides turn to mush, tension leaving his body at once with her words and her gentleness with him. He really, absolutely doesn’t know what he did to deserve her, to deserve the way she takes care of him and understands him and knows him and still, somehow loves him and just—

Soon, he thinks while he gives her an almost shy nod and a timid smile, soon he is going to ask her to marry him. But first, breakfast.

Once they enter the kitchen, they find it empty. Tony frowns and throws a short glance to the clock hanging above the stove and ah. It’s already a quarter to ten, meaning that the others are probably down in the training room and, huh well, training. That usually includes him too, but he guesses the others didn’t want to disturb him while he was talking to Peter.

“What do you think Peter wants to eat?”, Pepper asks him as she’s rifling through the innards of the fridge, her upper body almost swallowed whole by the appliance due to its sheer size.

And isn’t that a loaded question? Because honestly, Tony doesn’t know. How could he, when he hasn’t asked the kid yet what his favourite food is? Has anyone ever asked him that? Has anyone ever bothered to get to know this kid before they tore into him like wild animals? The sudden dash of fury scorches his airways and chest, by now it is familiar but not any less scary. He has to take a deep, measuring breath to curb the flames (but never completely extinguishing them, because there will be a time and a place for them).

Note to himself: Ask Peter more about himself, asap… Side note: Kill every Hydra asshole with his bare hands.

“How about we ask him that?”, he asks her back because why not start now?

Pepper finds her way out of the fridge and gives him a delighted smile. “Oh, of course! That’s a great idea! Friday?”

“On it, Boss Lady.”

Pepper’s smile widens for a second before she lifts herself up onto the countertop, swaying her legs back and forth slightly while humming one of the newest Taylor Swift songs (he thinks it’s Midnight Rain but, he of course isn’t sure about that because he only listens to AC/DC and Metallica and definitely not to Taylor Swift, pfff never). Tony has lost the ability and honestly his will to fight his own smiles that always sneak their way onto his face when he’s able to see his girlfriend act so carefree and relaxed, especially on her rare free days which today happened to be one of them. He moves around the kitchen isle in the middle of the room and stands himself between her dangling legs.

Pepper seems to contemplate him, one two seconds, a curious look in her eyes that turns softer the longer she considers him. If it were anyone else than her, Tony would’ve fled the room ten minutes ago. He doesn’t like it when people look at him too closely, when they see him – broken pieces welded together all in the wrong order, like puzzle pieces forced to fit into each other by hands desperate to construct a picture, complete and impossible and not right, but plenty of close to appear cohesive from far away and that had to be enough. There have been too many a stranger’s hands wrenching the pieces apart again, uncaring if they mangled them even further.

But Pepper – her hands have never been anything but careful. She sees all the ill-fitting pieces like even he himself can’t, she sees them and oh so gently pries them apart from each other, one by one, patiently and without ripping them apart. Without ripping him apart. 

It feels like this too now. The gentle prying of warm fingertips, the tentative probing around his edges for any small nook that gives, to be deconstructed with trust. And Tony sighs, deeply, before letting the words spill that have been on his mind the second they had Peter safe on that gurney in the quinjet, almost three weeks and a hundred years ago.

Pepper listens, like she always does, and it doesn’t even matter that a quarter into his feelings-words-mush-vomit Friday interrupts them, informing them of Peter’s wish for chocolate pancakes. Tony’s initial unspoken hunch about the kid having a secret sweet tooth doesn’t seem to be just a hunch anymore, he realizes with a crooked smile. While Tony is hacking away at two chocolate bars – Pepper insists on this tasting better than just adding ready-made chocolate drops and who is he to know better in this really, because all he knows to cook is an omelette and half a frozen pizza (don’t ask) – Pepper is whisking together ingredients into a batter. All the while Tony is still monologuing about everything and nothing. About all the research he did for Peter about consent and the search for a fitting therapist he’s planning on starting right after breakfast (“Oh Tony.”), about the fact he left Peter alone in his room while probably, most likely, crying (“You did the right thing, it’s what Peter needed in that moment.”), about how he shouldn’t get too attached but have you looked at him? (“I’m so ready to meet him now, he sounds adorable.”), about how he’s just a fucking mess (“Come here.”).

It feels like no time has passed, when two full plates of steaming and deliciously smelling pancakes are waiting, stacked neatly on the kitchen table and Pepper is hugging him so tight that it feels like maybe he’s not as bad as Hydra after all at caring for a traumatized kid.

Said kid is scuffling cautiously into the kitchen after Tony requested Friday to fetch him for them. Peter’s shoulders are slightly inclined forward, face contorted by a light frown and his eyes puffy but not as red as Tony feared. Something inside of the mechanic settles at the sight, like a rock finally reaching the bottom of a deep lake.

“Hey kid”, Tony tries in a gentle tone and Peter nods at him and Tony thinks that it’s better than nothing after their talk. The kid inspects the room further, eyes scanning and frown loosening until they dart back to Pepper standing a foot behind Tony.

There’s a sudden tension drawn tight in the air, or maybe it’s just him holding his breath. He hasn’t thought about how he should go about introducing his fiancée to Peter. He curses himself for his lack of foresight and scrambles to formulate a reasonable course of action, but of course, Pepper beats him to it.

“Hi, it’s so nice to finally meet you. My name is Pepper Potts, you can call me Pepper”, his girlfriend starts, moving to stand right next to him, a pleasant, warm smile radiating off her face, “I’m really looking forward to getting to know you and spend time with you. Tony, my boyfriend right here, has told me a lot about you already.”

Pepper shoots him a short, amused glance while stretching the vowel of the word ‘lot’ deliberately. Tony rolls his eyes at her, the gesture just as much to show his un-amusedness as to distract himself from the embarrassing way he feels the blood flushing towards his face and. No. He’s not. Blushing that is. Nope.

Peter looks exceptionally confused, as if someone introducing oneself to him is as novel as having his own room. Which, it probably is. Oh kid.

“Th-Thanks- uh- thank you, mam…?”, Peter then stammers at last, arms coming to rest crossed over around his middle, and Tony hears Pepper’s voice echoing in his ears he sounds adorable and his mind latches onto these four damn syllables like the hyperfixating workaholic he is onto a new project and now it’s all it provides him while staring at Peter.

Pepper laughs, a balmy, clear sound and Peter hunches into himself further and Tony feels the words already at the tip of his tongue before he even knows what he would say, only that seeing Peter like this was unacceptable, when-

“Oh honey, sweetheart, you’re too adorable. Just call me Pepper, no need for any ‘mam’ or ‘sir’ here at all”, Pepper smiles at Peter again, whose shoulders seem to relax. Not all the way, but at least he doesn’t look like he wants to sink into the ground anymore. The confusion striking his face seems to have doubled down though in its intensity.

It’s then that Tony finds his voice again (not fucking around anymore in his mind and spewing things like ‘adorable adorable ador-‘), “Okay, kid, so now that that’s out of the way – care for some pancakes?”

No more convincing words are needed to get them all sitting at the table, digging into their pancakes. Pepper was right (seriously, when isn’t she?), Tony is hungry and to the looks of it, so is Peter. Breakfast stays a rather silent affair, with Peter staring down his plate like it’s the only thing anchoring him to himself and Pepper glancing at him and Peter, alternating between lifting an eyebrow inquiringly and eyes soft with concern. Tony can only shrug, helpless, because he’s been doing this all wrong. He thought giving space was what Peter needed. And it probably still is, don’t get him wrong but… There’s just so much more he could do. Lego and the occasional, honest talk wouldn’t fix the kid, he thinks with the same guilt snaring around his stomach and pulling and pulling until eating another bite of pancakes makes it churn with nausea.  

Maybe that’s why, no longer focused on eating but studying Peter across from him, he notices it for the first time. The kid doesn’t realize he’s even doing it, it seems, an unconscious gesture that wouldn’t mean much if you didn’t know. But Tony knows.

He watches Peter fumble with the damned bracelets around his wrists and he comes to a decision.

_____

“So, Peter”, Stark says after he and… Pepper have put away the dirty dishes from their breakfast, “I need to go and discuss something urgent with the team. It shouldn’t take too long, but either way, Pepper would for sure keep you company if you’d like?”

It’s as much a question for him as for Pepper, now busy wiping down the table but still managing a blinding smile that twinges on something in his chest when he looks at her for too long.

Peter stares. And stares. And he wants to feel angry again, but all his anger is thinned out, a mere drop in the ocean of confusion and other emotions he can’t name roaring in his head. It’s all Stark’s fault, he thinks, but it’s like a whisper in a room full of screaming, static hissing. He’s pretty sure his skull is going to explode. He hopes it does.

Before Peter can say or do anything at all to answer, Pepper speaks up.

“Of course, I’d love to do that. Have you ever baked cookies before, Peter?”

The way Pepper’s voice curls around the last syllable of his name dislodges something in his brain, for a blink, the room shivers, ceiling sliding against the floor, and when he blinks again, he’s in a completely different room. At once, he recognizes it. Blue walls. But then there must be…

And there is. It’s the brown-haired woman, kneeling before him, hovering forward slightly and smiling at him. His chest twinges again. Only then does he notice that his perspective is off. When moments prior he was almost on par with Stark’s height, now he’s staring up at the woman as if he’s lying on the floor. But no- he’s not lying, he’s sitting, upright, but that makes no sense at all because, because – that would mean –

“Peter”, the woman whispers with the same curl and the twinge is not only in his chest anymore, it’s- it’s everywhere, it hurts, like being split open from the inside and- he’s terrified- he’s going to -

There’s a soft pressure on his shoulder and he seizes it, without question, uses it to anchor himself. His eyes tear open – when did he close his eyes? – and brown is the first thing he sees. He wheezes, almost keels over from it. The fear is still liquid ice and fire simultaneously in his veins, his heart all over the place.

“Peter, kiddo, you need to- you need to breathe, here-“, something takes a hold of his right hand and presses it against something warm and solid and real, “Just like me, just like- that, yes, kiddo, exactly, just keep, in and out, breathing like me.”

Surprisingly, Peter does. He breathes and breathes and only now does he register the familiar burn in his lungs for oxygen. He breathes until his tunnel vision dissipates, and he sees Stark looking at him with that unbearable expression on his face and Peter jumps back from the man.

“Wha-..”, he gasps, still out of breath and so confused it might kill him, eyes jumping from Stark to Pepper. The woman’s blue eyes are wide, one hand clasped over her mouth. And Stark- that look- Peter feels himself crumbling away under the man’s gaze and before anyone says anything else, Peter runs.

The door to his room slams shut behind him. He presses himself against the white wood, chest heaving, eyes wild and wide staring at nothing and everything.

His mind is a garbled mess, even more so than before and he fears he is going mad. Insane. Crazy. Just – something, damn it, because this isn’t normal. It can’t be. Can it? That- that vision- whatever it was. Was it going to kill him? Was it, real? It felt so, so – visceral. And so internal. It makes no sense. It doesn’t. Make Sense. He doesn’t dare think about it again. Doesn’t dare think about those blue walls and that smiling, somehow painfully familiar woman there-

He realizes he’s trembling, knees shaking, and he needs to sit down. Sit down and just. Sit. Sit. Don’t think, just.

So much has happened today (and it’s not even noon what the-) and Peter just needs time to digest it all. To detangle every thought and clashing emotion inside of him. He feels like a ball of string being pulled apart in every direction, stretched thin and thinner but still not any closer to being disentangled. Just closer to ripping.

He starts from the beginning.

Stark’s words were still circling his mind after the billionaire had left his room that morning. They were still circling when half an hour later, the AI had startled him with her inquiry about what he wanted to eat for breakfast (which was, odd, but he wouldn’t pass a chance to get to eat those fluffy, chocolate thingies again-), and still they were circling when he was sitting next to Stark and Pepper Potts while eating.

He tried to block them out, to forget them or hell just shrug them off as another manipulation tactic the man used on him. To continue as if nothing happened at all, like he did with all his other encounters with this group of terrorists. But- but- as much as he grits his teeth and loathes to admit it to himself; it’s practically impossible. At least it feels like that.

Every time his thoughts trail back to his home now, every time he thinks of how Jakob and others have trained - tortured - him and forced him to do things he didn’t want admittedly, there’s not his mentor’s reassuring voice accompanying those memories anymore. There’s no more ‘Remember Peter, this is for your own good’ or ‘This will make you strong and capable’ or even ‘It is for the greater good Peter, for all of us, our mission’ that reminded Peter of why he had to endure so much pain.

Now, he only hears Mr. Stark’s voice in that soft but firm tone saying things like ‘That was not okay, it never is’ and ‘No one has the right to hurt you’ and ‘If you tell someone no and they ignore that, they are an abuser’.

And, ugh, he can’t even be mad. That’s the worst of it. As if Stark reached into Peter and took another thing that made him him. Took the thing Jakob always, always professes is the strongest emotion in his assembly, the only one worth feeling. And now – it’s not there. So elusive, where just yesterday it felt so tangible he could grab it with his hands.

And then, and then, Pepper Potts is right there in front of him, one of Stark’s ultimate weaknesses and he should – do something to her but then she calls him things like honey and sweetheart and she’s smiling, smiling, smiling and Peter. Can’t. Stammers words he doesn’t remember instead because- because-

These words had cut something so very deep inside of Peter he didn’t know it was even there, just like the, what was it again - the, ah yes, bambino Stark had called him. He knows some Italian and knows it’s just ‘boy’ translated to English, he understands what honey and sweetheart means but then again. He doesn’t understand why they said that. Doesn’t understand why they called him that. Doesn’t understand why his breath hitches in his throat when he thinks about it again. Doesn’t have the fucking vocabulary to describe the emotions he’s feeling through all of that.

Come to think of it, more than half of the emotions in his head he just doesn’t know what they are. He’s never felt them before, so never had the need to give them names. He feels so full of them he might burst at the seams. And it’s a terrible feeling, being plagued by things he can’t even name.

Not quite as terrible as the bone-splitting pain he’d felt during that thing. He seriously thought he was going to die. And it scares him. So much. What if it happens again? What if next time it won’t stop and he’s just going to suffocate because he can’t breathe? What if no one’s there next time?

No- no! He would be lucky if no one is there during his next… incident, it’s already more than unacceptable now that Stark of all people was there to see him almost break down and so, so embarrassingly weak. If Jakob knew – he sucks in a breath – if he knew how weak and pathetic and, and dangerous he behaved… Stark could’ve easily taken him out just then. A quick slice with one of their kitchen knives. Repulsor to the heart.

But… he didn’t. He didn’t.

He… helped him. Put his hand against his chest next to the thing keeping him alive. Just like that. As if it was no big deal that Peter is being trained to kill them all one day. Not that Stark knows that but still. He’s Hydra. They’re the Avengers. It’s logical, natural. How things are.

Peter always prided himself in his ability in logical thinking and his natural talents all things regarding science and maths. But… this? He can’t make any sense of this. Just as he can’t make any sense of the fact that they’ve yet to hurt Peter in anyway. Stark even apologized for merely touching him this morning and he still doesn’t. Know what to do with that. The only incriminating thing they’ve done to him is kidnapping him in the first place and of course, these stupid bracelets. It just makes no sense at all like-  

Why would Stark help him? Their prisoner? Why? What did he gain from this, from helping Peter? What –

And then, like a bucket of ice-cold water being tipped over his head, it dawns on him. Stark is trying to get Peter to trust him. To get Peter to let down his defences and then do whatever it is they have been planning on doing all along to him. It’s the same tactic Peter is using to get out of here. Shit.

Shit.

And the worst part? Peter thinks, dread stringing around his throat. It’s working.

_____

“Tony, no. And that’s my final decision on this”, Steve’s stern voice cuts through the otherwise silent training room. All the others are gathered around them, watching with varying degrees of interest the first bubbles of simmering water rise to the surface.

“Steve, please”, Tony almost pleads (because Tony Stark doesn’t beg for anything), “Just – Imagine yourself in his shoes. How would you feel if you get basically kidnapped from your home by your arch nemesis, kept in a room with fucking bracelets on to suppress your powers and then expected to be grateful for it? Hell, if it was me and someone made my hands useless on top of keeping me against my will from my home – I’d go fucking ballistic too! I don’t know how the kid’s been doing it the last few weeks and-“

“No! Tony, I said it’s just too dangerous! We don’t even know how strong he really is – “

“How fucking could we if we keep him practically sedated!”, Tony interrupts, seething, but Steve’s eyes just narrow and he continues as if he didn’t hear Tony.

“- and I cannot and will not put anyone of our team in that sort of danger. Do you not remember how easily he broke my jaw? I’m sorry Tony, I know this must be terrible for the kid but I think we have to keep the safety of our team above his temporary discomfort-“

“Temporary discomfort?”, Tony hisses, adrenaline lashes through his core and he feels jittery with it, he balls his hands into fists to hide it. His cardiologist will definitely tear him a new one for working himself up like this, but. But. Seeing the kid having a panic attack right in their kitchen just flicked a switch in his head. It was fucking terrifying. He’d never felt so wretchedly helpless before, standing there and watching Peter gasp for air, seeing those brown bambi eyes blurry around the edges with panic and fear. It reminded him so much of himself, not any less due to the fact it’s practically impossible to not see himself in the kids scarily familiar eyes. It’s just – Tony knows so intimately how these attacks feel and seeing a kid go through that. It wasn’t fair. He should be- he should be safe and sound here but they’re making it a thousand times worse.

“Temporary discomfort?”, Tony repeats, feeling the boiling bubbles of hot air bursting at the back of his throat, “Don’t you think we owe it to Peter to at least try and make this whole thing more bearable to him? After all he’s been through? Doesn’t he deserve as much comfort as we are able to give him?”

He doesn’t care that his voice has taken on a slightly distraught tone. He doesn’t care that the others are probably watching him as if he lost his mind over this. All he really cares about is fixing those horrified eyes staring at him with so much pain it makes the anger boil over and burn him from the inside out.

And there’s pain in Steve’s eyes too now. But instead of appeasing Tony, it almost makes him punch the blonde in his stupid face and rebreak his jaw. How can he stand here, clearly disliking this as much as he does, and still not agree with him? He lets his withering gaze sweep across the others. He hopes for more support, for someone to just like the kid enough to not want him to suffer any second longer than he already had to. They all pointedly try to not meet his eyes. Clint even adverts his gaze again when Tony does meet his eyes. Fine.

“Some heroes you are”, he spits with venom because the anger wants it to hurt and then he storms off.

… and promptly lands in front of the kid’s room, knocking. He’s just – not going to deal with what this means right now. Or preferably ever. He should’ve gone to Pepper first, damn his impulsive behaviour when he’s angry.

Going back now isn’t really an option though. He hears the kid call out a “Yes?” and Tony forces himself to take a deep breath, maybe even three, and then opens the door.

Peter is lying on his bed, arms and legs spread out to the sides and just – staring at the ceiling. How often did he do that in lack of something else to do these last weeks? God, he wants to slam his head against the wall.

Tony stays silent. And doesn’t whack himself all the way back to his past-he to whack him over the head. Okay. Okay. He got this it’s fine.

He shuffles closer to the bed. “Hey kid”, he says and “Is it okay if I sit?”

Peter probs himself up on his elbows and watches him with a neutral expression on his face. “Okay”, he mumbles and there’s still an echo of something so vulnerable in his voice Tony needs to clench his teeth from saying something that would scare the kid away more.

“Thanks”, he says instead and lets himself sit down on the comforter.

They remain silent for a while. It’s well-established at this point that if Tony is not going to talk, Peter won’t say a thing either. There’s so much Tony wants to say, so much sitting at the back of his throat that just wants out but. God, he sighs deeply, and his head comes to rest in his hands, elbows propped up on his knees. Today has just been – a complete cluster fuck of things happening and happening. And it’s not even noon.

There’s the sound of shuffling of clothes and bedding next to him and he looks up. Peter has moved to sit, arms hugging his knees into his chest, staring at him. Their gazes lock for an instant.

“How are you feeling?”, he finally asks.

“Fine”, comes the answer, way too fast and practiced to such a degree it reminds Tony of himself. He physically cringes.

“Please Peter. You can’t expect me to believe that for one second”, he turns, one knee moving to rest on the bed so that he can watch Peter closely.

And the kid’s frowning at him. Confusion slowly staining his expression.

“Peter”, Tony says again, “you just experienced a panic attack. Of course, you’re not – you can’t just walk off an attack like that. Trust me, I know”, Tony is only able to openly admit to that after almost two years in therapy now. Thanks Pepper and Rhodey.

There’s a flicker of annoyance crossing Peter’s features, before he adverts his gaze and stares out of the window. “Panic attack?”, he mumbles, clear strain in his voice.

And god, Tony’s heart splits in fucking two. Just imagining what this must feel like for Peter, no wait, he doesn’t even have to imagine because he knows how it feels like. So very intimately too. He remembers so clearly how he felt like something was deeply wrong with him, after he experienced his first panic attack. That after everything he’s been through, his mind must’ve suffered some irreversible damage that just – broke him. Drove him mad. He cannot adequately express with words how grateful he was for Rhodey back then, making certain that Tony understood what was happening to him and that it was normal. He’s okay. It's going to be okay. He’s still him.

Now, staring at Peter with no doubt badly hidden incredulity, all he sees is himself. It is like staring into a mirror that shows him the past, that feeling not the slightest bit mitigated by the similarities they coincidentally share in some of their appearances. It’s like staring straight at his younger self and it kills him to know that Peter is suffering through all the shit he had endured too. It kills him to think- all this time, he must’ve felt so alone, so scared, because Tony would bet each one of his suits that this was far from the first attack Peter experienced. It’s just- absolute fucking bullshit.

“Has this happened to you before?”, Tony asks, slow and a careful neutral tone in his voice, trying to emulate the way Rhodey talked with a younger, more unstable version of him all those years ago.

Peter clenches his jaw, lets out an unsteady breath. “No?”, he tries to sound certain, but his answer comes out like a question instead, voice breaking and hoarse and Tony wants to- needs to piece it back together again. He lifts his leg still dangling from the bed and threads it underneath his other into a cross legged position, now facing Peter completely.

“Kiddo”, he starts, and Peter snaps his head back to him, “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to, I won’t pressure you. But just know that this is not something you have to deal with alone, okay? If you want or need to talk about it, I’m here to listen.”

And suddenly, Peter looks as if thirty years just pushed through him, washed away any trace of his boyish features and he looks exhausted in a way he’s definitely not supposed to look. Is never supposed to look. And Tony just needs to say something to lift some of that weight bearing him down or it might crush the both of them.

“It wasn’t actually my plan on springing another, super emotional talk on you today and for what it’s worth; I’m sorry, kid. Today’s been… intense so far. And hell, it’s not even noon yet!”

Some of that heaviness leaves the tensely strained ripples of the kids face, like a rumpled duvet cover being drawn even again. Tony almost sighs in relief. And then, leans conspirationally closer to Peter.

“How do you feel about stuffing our faces with more chocolate?”

Tony feels his insides bursting like fireworks when a tiny, almost invisible sparkle of mischief lights up the kid’s eyes and chases away any lingering darkness from before. “But, what about lunch?”, he asks, so painfully innocent and confused it’s adorable (this is Pepper’s fault damn it).

And Tony openly grins, “Well, perks of being Tony Stark: If I say we eat chocolate for lunch, we will eat chocolate for lunch. Come one, let’s go destroy our arteries!”

Chapter Text

Black

And Blue

And who knows which is which and who is who

The days following The Talks were kind of weird.

Or maybe he thinks so because Peter feels weird. Kind of off. Just - unlike himself.

He still looks the same, of course. When he stares at himself in the mirror while brushing his teeth, after he showered or whenever really, the usual chestnut brown strands of his unruly hair hang into his face, almost tickling his nose with how it has grown (he definitely needs a haircut, maybe Stark will lend him a pair of scissors, or a sharp blade works just as well). It’s still his eyes staring back at him when he’s examining himself in the mirror. His nose still sports the same little knob on the bridge ever since he broke it during a training session seven years prior. His eyebrows curve over his eyes in the same way they have his whole life, and his lips are still, well, his lips. He could list off every body part of his and still find that he’s the same he’s always been.

But the thing is. The thing. Is. 

He’s not the same. Not really. At least he feels like he isn’t.

Peter has never in his life spent so much time staring at his reflection. Maybe because he never had unlimited access to a mirror before, or maybe he’s never had nearly as much free time at hand as he does now, but. He doesn’t think it’s that.

Because there are things about him that are different. Small things. Unnoticeable, only there if you bother to look close enough. Only discernible when you compare his now-self to the one from almost a month ago (how has it already been a month?). 

The blotchy dark circles staining the skin under his eyes that never went away did just that – vanish. Okay, not completely. But almost. The colouring is so sheer you wouldn’t notice it if you didn’t know they had been there in the first place.  And his cheeks look rounder somehow. They’re not quite as fallen in as they used to be. In general, he… he gained weight. Although that makes sense. When he thinks back on how the volume of food he’s been consuming in comparison to back home has changed, even if the bracelets supress some of his appetite, he is actually kind of startled at how much more he’s been eating.

At home, the food they are supplied with during mealtimes is all they get. Sometimes (actually, all the time) the portions were too small for him. And sometimes the meal was just not edible. To the point where its taste was enough to stop Peter from finishing his portion and give it to someone else, even if he knew he really needed it. Even if he was practically starving by that time in the day. That’s something that’s completely different here. It feels weird to the point of physical discomfort for him to admit this, but the food here is so good. So good in fact, that it’s almost a daily occurrence for Peter to overeat. Because here, he’s allowed to eat as much as he wants. Nobody bats an eye if he reaches for a second helping of pasta or carrots. Nobody tells him to not waste resources and to think of all the others without food, how dare he ask for more, everyone gets exactly as much as they need, piss off brat. And he gets ‘snacks’ during the day, even when it’s not mealtime. He doesn’t know how he does it, but Stark has gotten scarily good at shoving snicker’s bars in his face when he’s feeling a little peckish, without Peter mentioning anything to the man.

But he’s not really complaining. The feeling of actually being full and not always on the brink of hungry feels good.

Filling even.

(And yeah okay, that was a bad joke.)

Another thing. He’s almost never cold anymore. Even when he watches summer fade into fall while peering out the window in his room, he’s not cold. At this time in the year, he usually starts perpetually feeling as if the cold burrows itself underneath his skin and takes up residence there. And if he is cold, Stark’s AI invited him to just ask it to regulate the temperature to his liking. Which was kind of cool, he must confess.

In general, he feels… okay. Weird, but fine.

Which absolutely, in no way whatsoever, makes any fucking sense to him.  He’s the Avenger’s prisoner. He’s a prisoner. He is currently being held captive because he got kidnapped from his home. He should feel like shit. He should feel despair and anger and hurt. He should be starving, and his body tortured beyond recognition. They should be delighting in abusing him. Because that’s what he’s learned the Avengers are. That’s what he’s been taught. They are terrorists, murderers.

Why does he feel okay?

He’s been mulling this over so much these last few days that he’s started losing sleep. Never has it been quite so difficult for Peter to shove down the confused thoughts drifting through his mind. And that’s not even the worst of it. It’s still unfathomably hard for him to conjure up his anger. That has never been a problem before either. He tried using every technique he has been taught to fuel that emotion and let it guide him, let it make him stronger like it always did. But ever since The Talks Peter can’t manage more than a slight spark. It’s just so frustrating and confusing! Peter should be burned by now with how much anger he possesses. Should possess. He is kidnapped, for fuck’s sake! He wants to go home, he misses his home and hates the Avengers and just-

This is all Stark’s fault with planting these strange ideas of consent and abuse in his head. It’s his fault for confusing him so much that even his emotions are confused. He hates him, hates him, hates-!

But as much as he tries to let these words be the brushwood to his sparks, the anger won’t enkindle like it did a week ago. He knows, all this time Stark being nice to him (Peter wants to gag) is just part of the billionaire’s plan. Of course, it is. It couldn’t be anything else. Why keep him around for so long if they aren’t waiting for the right moment to strike? If they don’t have some kind of use for him still? They’re lulling him into a false sense of security so that Peter lets his guard down and then. And then. It’s obvious what they would do. Stark probably made up all that crap about consent and stuff to make Peter believe they wouldn’t hurt him. If he lets himself believe that now, he’s stepping right into their trap. How could Peter ever have entertained the idea that Jakob would abuse him? It’s Jakob. He only ever wanted what’s best for Peter. It’s just Stark getting into his head.

And Peter needs to get him out of there as fast as possible.

----

Which was easier said than done.

Not even half an hour later after Peter’s mini crisis, the man is standing in his room, big, bulky plastic bags dangling from his hands.

“So”, Stark announces as he lets the bags fall onto the bed next to Peter, “it took a bit longer for the stuff to arrive than I thought, but voilà!”

Stark stems his hands against his hips, looking at him expectantly, one eyebrow raised. Peter stares back at him and raises his own eyebrow in question as well.

The man doesn’t move for five more seconds, before he sighs and lets himself plump down on the side of the bed, almost sitting on top of Peter’s leg. It doesn’t seem that Stark had noticed that though because he’s already stuck his head into one of the plastic bags and is pulling out its contents. Peter sends him an unseen glare.

Only when Stark is setting down book after book onto the remaining space on top of the comforter is Peter’s attention drawn to the things inside the bags. His eyes catch titles written on the colourful covers of the books, titles like ‘Percy Jackson and…’, or ‘The Hunger Games’. Stark doesn’t stop towering book upon book until there’s at least ten wobbling dangerously in their stacked form between them. Before Peter gets to ask him what the hell this all is about, Stark is reaching into another bag and this time he’s pulling out… CDs?

Yeah. CDs. So many of them.

He spots one with a black background and a prism refracting light into a rainbow, another one with a blonde woman and one with bold, big letters spelling ACDC, whatever that meant. Once there’s around fifteen CDs strewn about his bed Peter marvels at Stark’s ability to cram even more stuff onto his bed. Like apparently that huge fucking radio. And that’s still not everything, what the hell.

At last, Stark is emptying the bulkiest plastic bag of the bunch. He pulls out four different flat boxes and since there is literally no space left, he just shoves them into Peter’s hands. He’s met with a big image of a nebulae galaxy printed onto the box right next to the ominous words ‘1000 pieces’. On top of the image stands ‘Puzzle’ in all caps.

Peter’s eyebrows scrunch together when he looks up to meet Stark’s eyes. The man is watching him with those stupid twinkles in his eyes that still make his skin crawl, even after all these weeks. He looks down at the ‘puzzle’ again. “What…?”

But Stark doesn’t let him finish. “The stuff here is yours, kid. ‘Cause I felt like building Lego is probably getting old for you. So. Go crazy with it.”, Stark pauses for a second, his eyes flitting to the ceiling as if deep in thought, before meeting his gaze again with weirdly strained eyes, “But not too crazy.”

The man sniffs and then, as if stung by a bee, springs to his legs.

“I got a project in the pipeline, but if you want, I could join you for a puzzle session later. Sound good, spiderling?”

Peter, still sporting the usual confused expression when Stark is doing anything other than what he’s used to expect from the man, looks up at him, still holding the ‘puzzle’ boxes in his hands. Because what’s a day in his life when he’s not confused for at least three quarters of it.

There’s another strange pause, before the corners of Stark’s mouth twitch. “Okay. Good.”

Then Stark leaves just as sudden as he appeared.

What the…

The man came here to just… dump all this junk on him? What the hell is he supposed to do with all of this? Use it?

… Probably.

Well, can’t hurt to at least look at it. Stark wasn’t completely wrong with his presumption that he’s been bored. But it’s not like Peter wasn’t trained to be able to handle a little boredom. 

In any case, Peter rescans all the stuff piled on his bed. CDs and books are not something unfamiliar to him. He has read books during his education. Most of the training drills their daily training requires of them were recorded on CDs and then played for them. Nothing outlandishly strange for him yet. But his gaze then sticks to the boxes he is still holding in his hands. He wrinkles his nose at them.

Those are… weird. They almost look like a different form of Lego. Pieces having to be put together into a single whole. He stares at them in slight irritation for a few moments, before deciding to put them on the floor next to him. He is going to look at them later with Stark, he muses, no reason to confuse himself with weird stuff more than he needs to already. That leaves him with the books, the CDs and their designated player.

He’s not in the mood to be reading boring manuals right now, so, he decides to dedicate his attention to the multiple CDs taking up a quarter of his bed together with that huge radio. At least he knows how to properly operate one of those.

His gaze sweeps over the myriad of CDs and studies their covers more closely. The ones from back home are not exactly as… diverse and colourful like these are. Peter wonders what kind of drills they harbour and if Stark is going to order him to execute them. Peter wouldn’t mind really; he misses pushing his body to its limits and the following feeling of accomplishment that fills him each time afterwards.

Without thinking too much about it, he grabs the first CD Stark had placed on his bed. It’s the one that’s almost completely black, save for a white outline of a prism that refracts a beam of light into a rainbow. Only now does he notice the little black sticker in the top left corner. A small black circle, adorned with simple white lettering spelling ‘Pink Floyd The Dark Side Of The Moon’. Whatever that means. He turns the CD over after trying and failing to understand the words’ meaning, and then tries to decipher the content of the CD’s backside. Numbers and phrases whose meaning eludes him.

By now, he’s too curious to just put it back and revert to his usual ‘stasis mode’ to let the time pass. It just feels kind of weird to him, to accept these things from one of his arch enemies and… use them, or whatever. But now there’s some form of weird hope swelling inside of Peter’s chest. Because he remembers seeing a similar image in his Physics education, that lasted not nearly as long as Peter would’ve liked. And maybe… there’s something about physics on it? It's not like Stark could just fabricate lies and feed them to Peter about science. He does have some basic knowledge, complemented with the occasional discussions he was able to sneak into from their scientists. So, he would notice if something were to be off.

He remains seated, staring at the CD and he stares some more and suddenly, the radio is plugged into the outlet and Peter is feeding the CD into its tray and he is pressing play.

It’s silent for a moment. Each passing second lulls his upper body closer to the radio in anticipation. He strains his ears and then. Beats. One, two, three, more. He counts them, maybe they are important? Maybe he needs to-

His thoughts are halted short when the radio suddenly splutters garbled and twisted sounds that make him freeze in his seat.  There’s a split second where Peter panics, did he break the radio?! He definitely broke the radio, they are not supposed to sound like that at all -

But then. Then. The noise changes, transforms into something harmonious and rare and he realizes –

It’s music.

----

The last few days have proved to be a test of Tony’s perseverance.

It’s not easy juggling all the multiple parts his life has split into during the last month, even for someone as proficient in the art of having shit up to his ears without losing his damn mind as him (apparently, that last part is highly debatable if you ask Rhodey or Pepper or anyone who actually knows him, really). Especially now that some impatient and completely not important investors are making eyes at their promised part of his non-existing profits of a not-yet-finished project that had been due two weeks ago. It’s not his fault there’s been more important stuff he had to attend to.

… Mostly not his fault anyway.

As good as almost all his brain power has been focused on one thing and one thing only. And god, does Tony now have a newfound respect to any parent out there carrying on with their normal lives as if there isn’t a child on their mind 24/7. Not that he thinks of himself as a parent, god no. In no universe would he ever be eligible to be a father (oh Jesus, just thinking about that makes his heart miss a beat), because come on. One peep at him is enough to see that, right? As if he could ever give any child what they need when all he’s ever known are Howard’s stiff hands and his alcohol breath and Stane’s unforgiving cave walls and he definitely, immediately needs to stop these thoughts ten days ago, pronto. Hasn’t he had this exact crisis three days ago already? He desperately needs to get a grip on himself, Jesus Christ.

So what if he’s a little bit stressed out trying to handle his SI business, his affairs as Avenger, a relationship, get his team to release the shackles of the kid, get said kid to open up more, try to keep a certain pirate from finding out what’s been happening behind his pirate-back, try to find an adequate therapist for a traumatized super-spider-child, spend even more time with Peter and maybe also sleep and eat once in a while? It’s fine. He’s fine. Nothing he can’t handle. He’s been worse. No need to lose his marbles just yet, he’s fine.

“Boss?”

As if breaking the surface of a lake after being oxygen-starved for too long, Tony scrambles up on his feet. “Fri?”, he heaves out, funky little black dots spinning around in his field of vision because his body apparently hasn’t gotten the memo yet that he is standing up now.

“Peter has begun listening to ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’.”

“Oh- that’s-“, he sighs deeply, letting out some of his tension. Good. Great even. At least one thing on his multilayered, fucking five-dimensional to-do list is working out. Great.

He thinks- He needs to sit down again.

As soon as his ass hits the floor next to his too expensive couch (because who needs furniture when the floor is right there), the black stars are shrinking, and he can focus on getting his breathing right again. “Is he- Does he like it?”

Friday takes her time with her answer and that’s fine, Tony knows she still struggles with interpreting human facial expressions sometimes. It’s fine, he’s proud of her anyways. She’s come so far already.

“Peter seems to be staring blankly at the radio without any outwardly discernible emotional reaction, at least I analysed so, Boss. I apologize for any inaccuracies.”

“No, no, don’t be sorry, babygirl. You did great, thank you”, he reassures her and means it. She’s still so young and has so much to learn. It would take time for her to grow and become as autonomous as - as Jarvis was and still, fuck the mind stone for taking him away from him. But well, these are thoughts to have at four a.m. and not in the middle of a working afternoon so. Yep. Still fine.

Back to the kid. He relates to his reaction. He remembers when he listened to that album or ‘Back in Black’ the first time. His four-year-old self obsessing over Pink Floyd and later, the older ten-year-old Tony not getting enough of AC/DC. That’s probably also thanks to Jarvis, human Jarvis back then. Tony remembers them puzzling or building a tiny, functional car in the middle of the living room and listening to these albums non-stop. His father had scoffed, ‘that psychedelic shit nowadays is poisoning our children’ blah blah blah, the same thing all the time. Howard wasn’t a creative drunk.

But hooray! Step one in ‘Introducing Peter to modern pop culture because he didn’t even fucking know what a yoyo was proved how desperately he needs it’ is unfolding without a hitch. And yes, he’s still working on a better name for his plan. It’s not like he’s got any more free time at hand right now, cut him some slack and mind your own damn business, thank you very much.

The next time Tony thinks something even remotely coherent is when his ears pick up the sound of his lab doors hissing open and sliding shut again. He doesn’t even bother standing up. He’s very comfy here on the floor where he can blissfully ignore his responsibilities beating him to death for a little while longer.

“Tony?”

Ah, that must be Bruce. No one else bothers to be so polite when entering his lab. They always choose the less nice option of sneaking up on him and almost sending him into cardiac arrest.

“Over here, Brucie-bear”, he mutters and is actually floored (pun intended) to find that the scientist had heard him over the constant humming and beeping and general alive-ness of his lab. Because there he is! Popping into his field of vision and frowning down at him with that usual disapproving doctor frown.

“Are you okay?”, he asks, and Tony can’t hold back the small smile. He’s still so nice to him, even after Tony had been ignoring basically everyone in this tower (except Peter, of course) after their latest little dispute. Very mature of him, he knows (after Pepper had rolled her eyes at him and told him ‘That’s very mature of you, Tony’).

“Yep.”

Bruce doubtfully lifts his eyebrows. “Doesn’t look like that, though.”

“What? Are you dark-circles-under-your-eyes-shaming me? Expected better of you, Bruce, very disappointed.”

He hears his science-buddy sigh. “No Tony, I am not whatever-shaming you, but I am actually worried about you. Especially since you’re lying on the floor.”

Tony’s small smile spreads into a wide grin. “Awwww, didn’t know you cared so deeply about me, I’m touched.”

“Touched in the head, maybe”, Bruce mutters and before Tony is able to protest that, his friend leans down and grabs him by the shoulders. “Uh- wait-!”

And because his ignored responsibilities weren’t the only thing keeping Tony rooted to the floor, because ah yes, he thinks he hasn’t eaten anything today, he promptly blacks out once Bruce yanks him to his feet, ah well, tries to.

He comes to, not even five minutes later, to find himself leaned against the couch in an upright position, still dizzy as fuck, and to Bruce at least two shades greener in the face. “Tony, what the hell!”, demands the doctor and Tony grimaces. He knows what usually follows that statement. And it’s usually no fun. Especially if you are busy arguing with your body that staying lucid is much more beneficial than fainting again in front of his over-caring friend. He can do it later again, come on body!  

“Friday just told me you haven’t eaten since yesterday! And that had been only a bag of chips and a can of soda! You know we talked about this.”

Tony takes back everything good he has ever said about Friday. Press rewind. Zap it back into non-existence.

“To be fair, it was a pretty big bag of chips and-“

“Tony!”, Bruce cuts in sharply and glares at him, arms crossed over his chest and Tony stares back at him stubbornly with his jaw squared. But the longer their staring contest lasts, the lower his friend’s agitated, tense shoulders sink and the softer his stern expression turns. In the end, Bruce sighs again, lets his arms fall back to his sides and sits himself next to Tony on the floor. Bruce has never been one to hold grudges or stay mad at others for long.

They remain silent like this, both watching Dumm-e sort the pile of scraps Tony appointed him to - because he is quite good at that – at the other end of the lab, while the dizziness is slowly receding from Tony’s head.

“Is it because of Peter and the bracelets?”, Bruce then asks into the brimming air, eyes still trained on Tony’s oldest creation.

The mechanic groans and lets his head fall back to rest on the couch behind them, his hands coming up to obscure the pained expression on his face he isn’t quick enough to hold back. “No… Maybe”, he mumbles against his palms and hopes Bruce won’t hear him. No such luck though.

“I-“, Bruce starts, before he lets out a breath and Tony hears clothes and cloth rustle as his friend rotates his body toward him, “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything then.. It’s just- I can see both of your sides. Really, I can, don’t give me that look Tony. That’s actually why I wanted to talk to you, aside from making sure you are not actively self-sabotaging yourself, which, of course you were ‘cause you’re still you.”

Tony had slid his fingers apart to peek out at Bruce while the other was speaking, and he doesn’t like the vaguely guilty expression he sees there on his face. “It’s fine, Bruce. I was practically flipping my lid and Cap’s probably right anyway-“

“No, Tony. I agree with you. That’s what I wanted to tell you”, Bruce interrupts him and he- oh.

The hands fall from Tony’s face in an instant as he heaves himself upright and stares at his friend incredulously. “Wait- you agree with me?”

Bruce nods. “Yeah, I mean… I did work with patients suffering from various mental health issues back in Calcutta as well so… I know this isn’t exactly helping Peter and well, I haven’t sworn a Hippocratic oath like Strange but… I still don’t like seeing him suffer any more than necessary.”

There’s a relieved sound escaping from the back of Tony’s throat as he falls back against the couch. He toothily grins at his friend. “You don’t know how nice that is to hear, doc. So, are you gonna help me overturn the system, then?”

Bruce rolls his eyes and snorts. “If you want to call it that, fine. But there’s some terms and conditions you need to adhere to if you want my cooperation.”

It’s Tony’s turn to roll his eyes. He pushes himself away from the couch and sighs. “There’s always something… Hit me with your terms and conditions then, but just so you know, I promised my soul to someone else already.”

“First”, Bruce begins seriously, holding up one finger of his right hand, “You have to eat something. Right now, or well, no, after we finished this discussion. Okay?”

Tony rolls his eyes, “Okay, mother.”

His friend ignores his mocking tone and holds up another finger. “Second, Friday showed me your timetable after you blacked out and it- Tony it’s got multiple layers – how do you think you’re gonna attend a SI meeting, puzzle with Peter, and finish that project at the same time? Please, enlighten me.”

“It would’ve worked out! Just watch me, I’m still-“

“Human. And not capable of splitting yourself into multiple entities.”

“Not yet at least.”

Bruce shuts him up with a glare that’s slightly tinged green.

“Okay, fine! What do you want me to do then?”, Tony throws his hands in the air, before he crosses them over his chest and pointedly looks away from his friend.

“How about we get off the floor, get you something to eat and then I’ll help you with that project until you have that meeting and afterwards, you can go and puzzle with Peter?”

Tony feels the guilt trickle down his spine like water droplets from a leaky pipe and he bites his tongue. Bruce shouldn’t have to do that for him. He’s an adult for god’s sake, he should be more than capable of handling his own messes and affairs. See? Just another reason why he could never be a functioning parental figure. He doesn’t even have his own life under control. God, he’s a mess.

“Tony”, Bruce says, softer this time and he feels a hesitant hand coming to rest on his shoulder. Bruce isn’t exactly the most tactile person Tony knows, so this little gesture means a lot coming from his friend. That’s probably why the mechanic looks back at him immediately.

“I’ve known you long enough now- just. Let me help you okay? It’s fine. Everyone needs a little bit of help occasionally. And you always help others without hesitation, no matter what it costs you. Let me help you in return, I mean, we’re friends, right?”

“Of course, both you and Jolly Green.”

Bruce huffs out a laugh, “Hulk’s very pleased with that statement, just fyi. But yes, then, you don’t have any reason to let my help feed into one of your guilt death spirals, okay? There’re many things to feel guilty over, but this isn’t one of those things.”

Tony lets out a snort that is very shaky and maybe a tiny bit emotional. “Fine. You know, uhm, that I- uhm-“

“Yeah, I know. Of course.”

After they managed to get off the floor without any more blackout incidents, the two Science Bros^TM (Tony still wants to trademark the name and sell merch of him and Bruce, but the latter isn’t on board with the idea yet, maybe if he lets him know he’s planning on donating the profits to colleges) ordered themselves Chinese for a late lunch and while they waited for their food to arrive, started talking business about operation ‘Convince the Others and Free Peter of his Bracelets’. And yeah, Tony’s lost his spark when it comes to naming plans. Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation, dehydration, and lack of food. But only perhaps. It’s probably something completely different.

Time flies past once they get working and Tony almost misses Friday alerting him that his meeting will start in half an hour.

“Thanks, Fri”, Tony drops the mini screwdriver in his hand onto their workbench and takes in the progress the two of them made. Well, you could almost see now that they’re actually two geniuses and not just an ex-alcoholic dealing with PTSD and an anxious, multiple PhD graduate, would you look at that.

“Just leave the stuff like that, Bruce, and treat yourself to a nice bubble bath or something less soak-y, whatever you do to relax. I’ll clean it up later.” Or maybe in two months.

His friend yawns and stretches his arms above his head on the stool he’s been sitting in, hunched over tiny parts of the prototype they’ve been working on for the past two hours. Bruce tugs back the sleeve of his left arm, quickly glancing at his watch before up at Tony. “You know what, actually, I don’t mind working on this just a tiny bit longer and before ah, ah wait, before you say anything even remotely close to you taking advantage of me: I chose to work longer on this, so it’s fine. I could’ve left an hour ago, so. Calm down, Shellhead.”

Tony, who was indeed planning to interrupt his friend with something close to what he was just forbidden from saying, closes his mouth again and shakes his head. “But there’ll be no extra pay for overtime, you’ve been warned.”

Bruce rolls his eyes but there’s a smile on his lips. “Just go, Tony. Tell Peter hi from me afterwards, okay?”

“Sure thing, doc. Don’t ‘accidentally’ steal all my pens again, like last time, Friday’ll snitch on you”, Tony warns him, but Bruce has already focused his attention on the project again.

“Can’t guarantee anything”, he replies, nose almost touching the miniature parts in front of him and waves him away.

--

There’s only so much patience left in Tony after the almost fiftieth sigh he had to hold back during that meeting. Why does he still have to attend these anyways? This is exactly why he gave the company to Pepper (also because he was dying but that’s yesterday’s news). He could use that time so much more productively than just sitting around and listening to boring investors shit. Especially nowadays.

The second he politely as possible had stormed out of the meeting room, Friday had alerted him that Peter had been listening to the same album on repeat for three hours now. Tony doesn’t know if he should be worried or proud. He decides on a mix of both is probably the most adequate in this situation. He doesn’t really know if Peter has ever had access to music, but he assumes not. He hasn’t asked him yet. But this stops now, all this not-knowing and wondering.

He finds the kid sprawled across his bed, after Tony let himself into his room because he didn’t get an answer to his questioning knock, radio positioned no more than five centimetres away from his right ear as David Gilmour is singing the last verses of ‘Us and Them’ and Tony is already adding getting him some nice headphones to his to-do list.

“Enjoying yourself?”, he asks and Peter jumps, blinking hard as he hefts himself into an upright position. The kid stares at Tony as if he’s a ghost.

The corners of Tonys lips curl slightly upwards, amused, and endeared and since when has this word sneaked its way into his vocabulary? Can someone please enlighten him?

The mechanic isn’t really expecting an answer from Peter, he’s too used to his sparse and few in between vocalizations, so that he’s actually surprised when the kid’s eyebrows draw downwards and he averts his startled gaze as he mutters, “It’s… nice.”

His gaze stays fixated on a random point to his right, not meeting Tony’s eyes. Tony uses this opportunity to observe Peter’s taut features. The clear tension held around his mouth and his eyes pulls at his shoulders as well, pulls them up to his ears and curves his back into himself. It almost looks like…

Bracing. Peter is bracing himself.

The ache in his chest is there, sudden and sharpened by anger. Whatever shitface caused Peter to expect punishment when expressing himself, caused him to brace for physical harm after stating his opinion, just-

Breathe, calm down. Count to ten. This is the worst possible time to get angry.

Fury has never tasted so nauseating when he swallows it down. He plasters a smirk on his lips to hide the bitter aftertaste. “Right?”, he says, stepping closer to the anxious teen and daring to take a seat on his bed, like he did earlier in the day. “Used to be my favourite growing up. Nothing tops listening to existential crisis inducing music at the ripe age of four.”

Peter is still avoiding his gaze and Tony sighs inwardly. Maybe he needs to take the lead in this.

“Hey, Peter?”

The kid finally looks at him again and the apprehension he sees in those big puppy eyes lets the anger claw its way up his throat like bile. He looks so young. He needs to do some impressive mental gymnastics to avoid the next words leaving his mouth to consist of a string of vile curses.

“What song you like best?”

Peter furrows his brows and his eyes trail back to the empty CD case lying open next to all the other CDs. Tony watches him reluctantly reach for it and once he has it in his hands, Peter turns it over and stares at the backside. There’s something passing over the kid’s face before he lets out a small breath.

“So, these phrases… are the songs?”, he asks and meets Tony’s gaze, eyes slightly doubtful but still inquisitive.

And oh. Tony maybe should have explained these things a bit better than just shoving them into the kid’s arm and fuck off again. To his defence, he was slightly delirious this morning. Well, better later than never.

Tony hums in agreement, leaning closer to Peter and pointing to the numbers next to the song names. “And these are the time stamps. It’s when each song starts on the CD.”

Peter makes a small noise of acknowledgment at the back of his throat that has no business sounding as cute as it does (Tony is probably still kind of out of it, Jesus) as he ponders the songs a second time, tongue poking out between his lips the tiniest bit and god damn it. The urge to just grab the kid and hold him close and protect him from everything bad in this world hits him over the head as if Thor just bashed him with Mjölnir. And well. He’s just going to – ignore that. He should sleep more.

Definitely should sleep more.

“I think…”, Peter starts, face still scrunched up in doubt, “I think I liked this one the best…?”

His eyes meet Tony’s for a split second before he sinks into himself a little further, more tense than he’s been this whole interaction and the finger he has pointing to ‘Brain Damage’ shaking slightly.

Tony shifts his gaze back to Peter and it takes him less than a second to react to his statement, smile slowly spreading on his lips. “No way, kid. That’s my favourite as well. What a coincidence.”

It is not. A coincidence, that is. Tony doesn’t exactly have a song from that album that he likes more than the rest, rather opting to look at it as a ‘whole-package-deal’. But with the way his answer seems to relax the kid somewhat, he thinks that he probably would’ve agreed to whatever song he chose.

“So, was this your first time listening to music?”, Tony breaks the almost, dare he say, comfortable silence they fell into.

Peter seems to be warring with himself, eyes flitting around the room and not meeting his gaze on purpose, while his mouth twists itself into a frown the longer he thinks. Tony waits patiently for the kid to gather his thoughts, to think about how much he wants to reveal to him or whatever else is going on in his tousled, teenager brain. The mechanic once again surprises himself with how much patience he’s been proving to possess regarding Peter. It’s completely different to how Tony handles old, white businessmen or, admittedly, the Avengers sometimes. Interesting. It’s almost on the same level with his bots. And before anyone comes for him with pitchforks and torches – the times he threatens to donate Dumm-e to community colleges are just friendly banter, okay? No need to make a mountain out of a molehill.

“Not really”, Peter starts then, fingers fiddling around with the empty CD case and his expression still tensed, closed off, “I mean, we do have radios back home and stuff. Or when I was a child”, you still are one, Tony thinks heatedly, “I used to make up silly melodies that got me-“

Peter inhales a sharp breath that punctures Tony’s gut like a knife. Not even the devil’s mercy will save these bastards when Tony gets his hands on them. “Well, in summary, I have heard music before, but not… Not like this. That’s new.”

A foreign pang of nostalgia wearing a coat of wistfulness and afflicted empathy for Peter hits Tony then, and he feels his eyebrows droop just like his heart. Music has made up such a huge part of Tony’s – hell, most people’s – life that it’s hard to imagine how different life would be without it. It makes something clench inside of the mechanic, makes it yearn for something in Peter’s stead that was so atrociously taken from the kid. Because it’s not just the experience of getting to grow up with music that has been robbed from him. Movies, games, books, hell, even those horrible memes Clint keeps bombarding him with. The kid never has been given the chance to explore any of these things, has never been granted his right of becoming his own person and figuring out what he likes to do for fun. If he enjoys reading tacky romance books or likes to watch cringe worthy horror movies. If he’s into Star Wars or rather Stark Trek, if he likes to play Mario Kart or rather Monopoly. If he wants to play an instrument or basketball. His plan of introducing the kid to pop culture suddenly carries so much more weight than he ever imagined it would. Because it’s Tony’s job now to make sure the kid would get these things that he was denied of experiencing, in any capacity he could manage. He promises, no, swears to himself that he would give his best. For the kid.

At least he did something right for once, getting him all these different books and CDs, he thinks drily.

Tony forces a reassuring smile to his face and hopes that at least some of his silent promise gets across to Peter, before speaking up, “So, you wouldn’t be entirely turned off by the idea of listening to some more music while going to town on a puzzle?”

Half an hour later, after Peter’s answer of ‘No, that would be nice’ and his subsequent refusal of meeting his eyes again, they’re both sitting on the floor of Peter’s room, puzzle pieces spread in front of them, and Tony can’t help but compare it to the first time they build Lego together. So much time has passed since then and at the same time, it feels as if he met Peter for the first time in that Hydra bunker in Scranton mere days ago. He’d never guessed his life would amount to sitting with a traumatized superchild on the floor, puzzling together a picture of the andromeda galaxy and listening to Pink Floyd (because Peter insisted on listening to it one more time before changing to something new), but here they are.

They’ve been working in the same casual silence they have been fostering for their last sessions. Don’t get him wrong, Tony is more than happy to enjoy it like usually, but today, he has different, more urgent plans. Let’s see how willing the kid is in participating in a little game.

“Hey Peter?”

Peter lifts his face, breaking his focused gaze on studying puzzle pieces and looks at Tony with an eyebrow raised.

“You up for a little game?”

Peter frowns. “Okay…”, he says, trailing off and Tony can literally see the metaphorical hackles rising in the tension that immediately takes hold of his shoulders.

“It’s called two truths and a lie. You tell two truths and one lie about yourself, and the other person has to guess which one’s the lie.”

Tony watches Peter’s expression attentively and thus, recognizes the doubt in his eyes the moment it settles there. Tony can’t hold back a small, smug smirk because he’s got just the thing to bribe the kid a little bit.

“Winner gets an entire twenty pack of snickers, what d’you say?”

That worked splendidly well. The doubt promptly gets chased away by a glimmer in Peter’s eyes and Tony knows his answer before the ‘Okay, sure’ leaves his lips.

Tony can’t hold back the chuckle. “Let me go first, hmmm… How about… ah! I built my first circuit board at four. I have a sister. The other Avengers like to call me Shellhead.”

It doesn’t take Peter two seconds to answer. “You don’t have a sister.”

Tony claps his hands together and points toward Peter with his hands still palm to palm, “Bingo! Point to you. See? Pretty easy, right? But to be fair, I was going easy with your first round. Expect things to get exponentially more difficult from now on.”

Peter lifts his eyebrows at him in a very sassy, teenager ‘is that supposed to be a challenge’ kind of way that makes something warm settle in Tony’s chest.

“Your turn now, kid.”

Peter thoughtfully lifts his gaze to the ceiling. “Okay… Uhm. I can speak seven languages. I did my first successful mission at five. I have a brother.”

“Hmm…”, Tony hums, maybe a bit exaggeratedly, “Seven languages? Nah, don’t think so kid. Am I right?”

There’s a new sparkle of something in the kid’s eyes he’s never seen before. “Wrong.”

Tony gapes at him. “No freaking way you speak seven languages kid.”

“Doch. Ich bin mir ziemlich sicher, dass ich das kann”, the kid sprouts in fluent German and what the hell.

“Well, colour me impressed, then. Which one’s the lie?”

That causes a frown to distort the borderline smug expression on Peter’s face. “I don’t have a brother. At least, not that I’d know of…”

Tony lets out a small, pained breath. Oh kid.

They continue with their little game and Tony is delighted in how much he’s actually learning about Peter and how the kid does exhibit signs of being a normal, sass-filled teenager. He learns that Peter’s favourite subject in his ‘education’ (that was another point added to his to do list: give Peter a proper education that is neither propaganda nor cobbled together by complete lunatics) was sciences of any kind. That he likes running and climbing the most in his training. That he’s been with Hydra since he was four. That he shares his room with three other agents. That he’s the youngest agent they have. Nothing all too deep, but Tony’s glad about absorbing every tiny little detail about him anyways.

“I’m sixteen years old. I’ve never seen a penguin in real life. I cut my own hair.”

Tony is taken aback. He never would have thought that the kid would actually mention his age without any sort of probing from his side. Well, better not look a gifted horse in the mouth.

“Hmm, judging by the state of that mop on your head-“,

“Hey!”

“- I’d say that that can impossibly be the work of a professional, so you do cut your own hair.”

Tony has a hard time keeping his poker face with the way Peter is glowering at him. What a tiny, adorable, angry kitten.

“I’d also say that you do seem like a typical sixteen-year-old to me. Therefore, the penguin has to be the lie. Now, am I right or am I correct?”

Peter bites his bottom lip, studies Tony intensely for a second and then- shakes his head.

That small little gesture punches all air out of Tony’s lungs. He feels slightly lightheaded. Please, please, please-

“How old are you, Peter?”, Tony finally, finally asks him then, words barely pushing through and out of a pain-ensnared chest, and it’s ridiculous he hasn’t asked him before, really. It just never had felt right, had always felt like too much of an invasion in Peter’s privacy and he had been so scared that if he probed too deep, the kid would just- not talk to him in any way anymore. But maybe, surely, all this time he’s just been too scared of learning the truth, too scared of facing all the trauma Peter has been through. He’s really just been saving himself from hearing the horrors Peter must have been through, what a fucking, irresponsible coward he has been-

“Fourteen”, Peter answers and looks at him innocently with his big, brown eyes and puffy cheeks and unruly hair and by god he’s never looked so young before.

Fourteen. Fourteen. A child. No, scratch that. He’s a baby. A literal baby.

There’s a wave of hatred rising inside of him so high it would put Mount Everest to shame, it drowns out everything around him for a few, unbelievably long seconds in which Tony can’t think of anything else than all the ways he’s going to make these disgusting rats suffer and bleed for everything they did to Peter.

When he finally recovers what remains of his composure, there’s only one thing on his mind.

Nobody will ever lay a finger on Peter ever again.

Chapter Text

And I don’t know what’s got its teeth in me,

But I’m about to bite back in anger

Fourteen.

Peter is fourteen.

That revelation truly only settled into him after he had bid the kid ‘good night’ that same day. And God, had it settled, all the way to the very marrow of his bones.

At least a decade where all the kid’s ever known was abuse. No gentle touch imparting affection and warmth, no soothing words used as a balm against nightmares. Just-- pain. He’s not naïve enough to believe anything else because he knows how Hydra treats their own agents, even if Peter hasn’t broached the topic of how he’s been treated so far. It’s a fucking miracle that the kid’s still at least partially mentally sane.

God damnit.

How can he ever look in the mirror again and not immediately be cracked open by guilt? They should’ve known about him earlier, should’ve gotten him out of there the second Hydra had laid their wicked hands on him. They should have known that that organisation is so completely evil that they wouldn’t think twice about subjecting children to these things they dare to call scientific experiments. He refuses to call whatever they cook together in their shitty labs science. That is not science. It’s- It’s torture, vile and barbaric and disgusting.

Tony cannot comprehend how someone could ever look at Peter, his bambi eyes and boyish features and be so void of any human empathy, compassion, and be capable of all these, these, inhuman acts without thinking twice. He’d rather break every bone in his fucking body than even consider being so heartless and cruel. He’d rather let them carve a second hole into his chest than force Peter to do anything he doesn’t want to do, let alone hurt him. How could you do this to a child, a literal baby? Fourteen is nothing. Hell, most kids probably still would be playing with Legos by that age, and doesn’t that just sucker punch him right in the gut to know that he is probably the first person Peter ever played with? Fourteen. Tony doubts he will ever not feel nauseous again when he sees this number somewhere.

God, no one in Tony’s life has ever been quite this far down his shitlist like Hydra. No, no, you know what? You know what? They aren’t even on the list anymore, so far down hell would seem like a luxurious penthouse apartment to them. He is not a religious man, far from it, but God, not even an eternity in fire and agony would ever come close to being enough of a punishment for these fuckers.

The bright sound of splintering glass echoes in his half-illuminated lab and he gnashes his teeth.

“Boss?”, Friday inquires, her voice betraying concern and apprehension.

He ignores her. The broken glass crackles underneath the rubber soles of his shoes when he crosses the space to his workbench, reaching for something else, anything else. His fingers close around a sleek rectangle. With a bang, the thing – a prototype of a StarkPhone, he notes absently – collides with the middle glass pane of the wall to the stairs. There’s a crack in the glass now.

“Boss!”

“Mute, Friday.”

The next thing his hand grabs is a hammer. His knuckles strain white with the force he’s holding the tool with. From now on, every Hydra agent that dares to cross ways with him will die. No questions asked. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass if Fury’s going to throw a fit about lost intel.

Every-

Crash!

single-

Crash!

one-

Crash!

-will tremble at his feet, beg for mercy, and Tony will deny them with a smile on his face and their still hot blood staining his hands, the way they denied Peter his life, freedom, his family. He will watch them choke on their own blood with satisfaction and glee and laughter on his tongue. They will be witness to what it means to be on the actual bad side of Tony-fucking-Stark.

With a last, reverberating smash, the only remaining windowpane shatters. Glass shards hail down around him, on him. It assuages the fire in his veins only slightly.

Just as he turns, grim eyes set on the windows overlooking New York City, clutching the hammer in his hand harder, a voice behind him sighs his name.

He feels his shoulders slack, hammer slipping out of his grip. There’s a hollowness inside of him where moments ago, anger had filled every nook with cold fire.

“Hey, Pep.”

----

The next day, when Pepper has managed to curb Tony’s slightly unhinged window-smashing-tendencies but not the underlying, distraught ire still smouldering into his every thought, he calls the present Avengers to a conference. A long overdue conference.

Barton is the last to arrive, munching on what looks to be the remainders of a sandwich and Tony feels the absurd urge to slap it out of the archer’s hand and shake him to see the seriousness of this call.

Hmph. This is what having children does to one’s intrusive thoughts, Tony thinks before- hold the fuck on, what? What?

Luckily, he’s excused from having to dwell on that silly and definitely not true at all thought when Nat cocks her head to the side where she’s sitting next to Steve on Tony’s right, a sharp look to her eyes. “So?”

“Right”, Tony says curtly, putting both his palms flat against the table, “I’ll skip all the unnecessary preamble and get straight to the point. Peter told me his age yesterday.”

A perceptible stiffness hands itself around the others. Before any of them can respond, Tony continues.

“He’s fourteen and says that he’s been with Hydra since he was four.”

This time, their shock isn’t silent.

“Those fucking bastards”, Clint practically growls, clenching his fists and Tony is impressed that the filling of his sandwich hasn’t spilled everywhere. Steve’s reaction amounts to a clenched jaw, with sorrow-frowned eyebrows and a muttered ‘Oh God’. Nat looks away and Bruce buries his face in his hands.

“Yeah, yeah. Hydra is the bane of our existence, they all will die screaming at our hands, yadda, yadda, yadda. What we need to discuss right now is how we will continue- this”, Tony presses on, waving around his hands in a general manner, impatient and still, God, still so angry. 

“By this you mean-“, Steve tries, but Tony’s patience has been worn so thin over these last couple of days, weeks, he could use it as fucking dental floss. “Yes. I mean Peter. At this point, I think we can all agree that he is staying, right?”

Tony lets his stare wander around their little troop, silently daring one of them to protest against what he just declared. “Right”, he repeats, after none of them makes a move to disagree with him. And yeah, okay, he realizes that he probably is being too harsh with his friends. Tony is definitely not the only one who is- fond of the little spiderling. Even though Peter still hasn’t really warmed up to anyone else than him (and doesn’t that light up his insides like a warm lantern) it is virtually impossible to dislike the kid. Certain, let’s say interesting, interactions in the past weeks are evidence enough.

“Y’know”, Clint said through a mouthful of chips while he and Tony were watching – i.e. making fun of -  the finale of the archery world tournament that aired last week, “Spider-boy still looks at me as if I pissed on his favourite food right in front of his face-“, Clint stuffed more chips into his mouth, “But honestly, his puppy dog eyes and baby chipmunk cheeks have charmed me and I would absolutely kill you and then myself if something happened to him.”

Tony sighed, rolled his eyes and shoved Clint away from where he was getting crumbs all over his lap because he had used Tony’s shoulder as a pillow. He did that, just to hide how badly he was agreeing with him.

“Your child is a most formidable opponent, Anthony!”, Thor boomed through the room with a big grin on his bearded face, after he returned from his mission to keep the kid in his room until they had found a way to- not subdue him, but to keep him… contained.

Everyone had frozen and Tony- well, Tony spit out his coffee.

“Excuse me?”

“Your son, Anthony. Ay, he has almost bested me with his efforts, and I do see where he got his smarts from”, Thor said as if he was talking about the goddamn weather, “His stubbornness as well”, and- and he had the gall to wink at him.

Tony would’ve spit out his coffee again if he wasn’t gaping at Thor like an idiot.

“What the fuck, he’s definitely not my-“

“Ah, don’t be modest, friend. I am glad you were able to return him to yourself and I am dearly looking forward to becoming his- ehm, ‘cool aunt’? Is that the term?”

Tony felt his left eye twitch.

“Kid’s got a mean swing”, Steve said randomly on the Tuesday of the second week they had Peter here. Tony didn’t stop fiddling with the faulty Widow-Bites strewn around their kitchen table (and yeah okay, he knows Bruce disapproves of his lab ethics but, like he said, they were his ethics and not Bruce’s and he’s not here anyway to witness Tony misusing their kitchen table) but he did shoot a look at his friend.

“You needed two weeks to process that?”

“What? No, of course not! I just, well…“

“You well?”

“I didn’t want to randomly say this without context-“

“Which you tried to do by saying something… completely out of context?”

Steve sighed and when Tony looked up again, he couldn’t hold back the snicker because it will never get old seeing that look on his friend’s face.

“I’m just messing with you, Cap. Go on, what’s with Peter?”

Steve sighed again, but lighter this time. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m glad you held your ground, and we didn’t let Peter go into the foster system. He- He’s a good kid.”

Something tight loosened in Tony’s chest. “Me too, Steve, me too.”

Peter’s ability to sneak himself into their collective affection should be studied and then buried somewhere so deep archaeologists in the next one thousand years wouldn’t be able to dig it up again because the damage that could be done with that information – inconceivable. The Avengers would be toast. And not the good kind. Hell, the kid probably could overthrow their government with his puppy dog eyes, even if Peter’s unaware of his devastating ability.

“Why are we here, exactly? Because you apparently have made the decisions without us already”, Nat asks then, intelligent gaze challenging Tony to stop mucking around and come to the actual reason for this meeting. Because she of course has gathered that Peter’s age isn’t the only thing worth calling them all here.

Tony bites the inside of his cheek, lips twisted. “It’s about the bracelets.”

----

When Stark practically storms into his room- cell this evening, Peter immediately senses that something is wrong with the man. That suspicion gets proven right barely a second later when Stark doesn’t hesitate to slam shut the door he just entered and, without greeting him like he usually does, sets about erratically pacing around the room.

Ohhh. Peter, for once, is actually familiar with that particular emotion.

Stark is pissed.

(The slam echoes around Jakob’s office and somehow, Peter didn’t flinch. But shit. That’s never a good sign.

“So”, his mentor grunts, circling Peter where he is sitting ramrod straight on the carpet, “Care to explain why this is the third time this week you didn’t give a fuck about your orders?”

“It’s not- I do give a fu-“

There’s a crack and splitting hot pain shoots through Peter’s right side. Ow. That must’ve been a rib.

“Don’t you dare swear in front of me, brat. Now, try again and I might consider not sending you to Iso.”

Peter takes a second to think of anything to try and appease his mentor, but apparently, that was a second too long because he suddenly feels Jakob’s iron grip in his hair. Before he can process what’s happening, tears spring to his eyes when his mentor drags him backwards and he topples over and-)

“Give me your hands.”

Stark’s voice startles him out of his memories. The man is towering over Peter sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the puzzle he just finished, eyes glinting dark and dangerously and well. It was nice while it lasted. He doesn’t know what he did to anger the man, but he is pretty sure he’s got a good enough reason. There’s no point in trying to argue with him. No matter what he would say, the result would be the same. He really only can try to not show any fear and hope that-

Wait.

Hmm. This is weird, weird on so many levels that Peter is genuinely taken aback.

He’s still- calm. He feels calm. Stark is so obviously going to do something to him and he just- stays calm?! What the hell is wrong with him? More importantly, what the hell is wrong with Stark?

The man doesn’t ram his foot into his side, like he should, but instead, he examines Peter closely and something in the man changes in an instant. He releases his clenched jaw and furrowed brows, a deep sigh escaping him as he rubs his hands over his face. Then, he sits himself down across from him. When he meets Peter’s gaze a second time, all traces of anger have vanished from Stark’s eyes, and he is looking at him as usual. As if he wasn’t just filled with anger. As if he weren’t going to- to let Peter feel his anger.

“Sorry kid. That wasn’t-“, Stark clamps his mouth shut, looking pained, and then heaves another deep sigh, “Let me try again. Can I see your hands, please?”

Peter doesn’t move. He doesn’t know if someone has ever combined an order directed at him with please before. Their very first, disgustingly sappy talk about consent suddenly pops up in Peter’s mind and- he doesn’t quite know what to make of that. Peter is tempted to just say no and see if Stark actually would listen to him again. Peter feels kind of displaced when his mind tells him with appalling clarity that, yes, yes he would listen to him. He also doesn’t know what to make of that.

Stark’s eyes drop to his hands laying slack in his lap, back to his face. The- let’s call it softness Peter sees there in the man’s eyes- it kind of- almost-

Despite the phantom circles burning into his palms, despite the years-old echoing of bone-snapping cracks in his ears, he reaches out. It’s a weird feeling, paradox and wrong and new, that’s pushing Peter to follow Stark’s request. Thus, it’s even more surprising to Peter that he actually just did that. But Stark’s gaze is just so- disarming. So different from Jakob’s ice blue eyes that always make something inside of Peter clench and tense. It’s all so confusing, he-

A soft touch on his wrists captures his attention and Peter looks down. Stark’s hands are warm and dry, calloused where he can feel them on the skin of his arms. They hold his hands as if he’s going to break. There’s a sudden and unexpected surge of anger rising in Peter, that asshole doesn’t have to act as if he’s some delicate piece of porcelain, who does he think he is!

But then, to Peter’s absolute horror, he feels a familiar, loathful, burning forming at the back of his throat, behind his eyes and he bites the inside of his cheek hard. What is happening to him?

Stark moves his scarred – Peter hasn’t noticed all the small, time-whitened scars littering the man’s skin before now – fingers up, over the back of his hands and it, it burns. It’s acid corroding through his cells, ice freezing his nerves it’s- why, why, why does it hurt so much more than the familiar pain of broken bones, cut flesh, flayed skin? Why is this – a simple, gentle touch – the thing that makes Peter want to scream his head off for the first time he’s been here?

It lets a memory surface in the tempest of his mind because it’s the same- sensation he had felt all those days, weeks, ago when Stark ruffled his hair. Just more intense. More there.

But no matter the heightened intensity of that feeling, he still doesn’t understand it. Doesn’t understand the quaking it releases deep in his chest, the pull that manifests there and wants to reach out even further. It goes against everything Jakob has ever taught him and yet. It’s there, real, tangible in its intense – longing. He doesn’t get it, he doesn’t.

Just as he doesn’t understand what the fuck Stark is doing.

Apparently oblivious to Peter’s inner struggles, the man has started fumbling around with the- with the bracelets.

Peter whips his head up in an instant, eyes wide and uncomprehending. A strange mix of apprehension and confusion fills up the scattered spaces in his head that aren’t occupied by that mess of other emotions.

What is he doing?

Stark meets his gaze, fingers not stopping their constant movement around the bracelets, and it occasionally sends new little zaps up Peter’s arm when he accidentally brushes against his skin.

Stark’s eyes narrow the slightest bit, little wrinkles appearing in their corners when there’s a lopsided smirk tugging at his lips. “Just some maintenance, kid, don’t worry.”

Peter scowls in confusion, everything else plaguing his mind taking a backseat. Maintenance? These stupid things haven’t had a malfunction ever since he’d gotten captured and believe him, he tried. All the bruises that littered his wrists the first week here had been evidence enough.

So, why now? Why did Stark feel the need to toy with the bands all of a sudden? For what reason? Was he going to make them stronger? Were they able to render Peter completely immobile and bed-bound? Was Stark going to-

His spiralling thoughts screech to a halt when Stark lets out a triumphant ‘aha!’, followed by an almost imperceptible click and then, then-

It’s like a heavy blanket lifting itself from Peter’s shoulders, like hazy fog clearing out of his head. From one second to the other, everything blurs back into focus, and he feels rejuvenated.

The relief that crashes over him is so strong it tilts his entire world on its axis and he’s falling- until two strong hands grab at his own and steady him, keep him from completely crashing to his side.

Peter can’t help but float in the euphoria of finally, finally feeling his powers leak back into his muscles, his senses, his everything. It reminds him of the high he was on when their scientists had tested the effects of different drugs on him – hmm when was that ah yes – when he was around ten. He thinks it was cocaine or ecstasy, doesn’t really matter anyway.

It feels like hours have passed when the rush dissipates and a vaguely amused looking Stark, still with that annoying smirk on his face, registers in Peter’s mind again. Ugh, how embarrassing.

“You good? Bracelets working correctly again?”, Stark asks and Peter blinks.

What?

“What?”

“They should work perfectly fine now, spiderling”, Stark reiterates, giving him a very unsubtle wink.

… is he… messing with him?

Stark must see Peter’s disbelief and confusion on his face because he pulls at his hands – that are still clasped by Stark’s – so that Peter is even closer to Stark. Peter kind of forgets that he could easily overpower him now.

“Would really be a shame if they didn’t work and we wouldn’t know, right?”

Peter is still scowling up at Stark, feeling confusion-fuelled anger rising in his gut. Why can’t Stark just be straightforward? Why, oh why, does the man always have to speak in stupid riddle-speech that makes Peter feel like he’s stupid?  

“Y’know, the others and I have had a little chat, about some things”, Stark continues as if he was having casual small talk with Peter and the man’s sudden change in tone and behaviour throws Peter’s mind for a loop, “Mainly, about you though.”

And oh. Peter tries to ignore the sneaking panic rivalling the spike of anger somewhere at the bottom of his stomach. People talking about him and mentioning it to him like that has never been a good sign.

“Hmm?”, is all he gets out and he hates that he can’t control the miniscule raise in tone that is so clearly there in his voice.

“The bracelets. Bruce and I have come to the conclusion that these things are not really necessary anymore, don’t you agree? So, we had a little chat with the others, and they agreed as well.”

Stark grimaces.

“Well, partially. They want to keep the bracelets going when you’re alone.”

That’s actually a smart decision on their part. Peter would high tail it out of here the second he’d get a chance like that, and yet, something just…

“And you?”

“Me?”, Stark acts surprised, but the glint in his eyes is obvious to Peter by now. Peter nods, watching the man with steadfast attention. Listens to the man’s unfamiliar, unsteady heart for the first time because the return of his powers allows him to do so again.

“Well. I want these things gone. Completely. No matter if you’re alone or not, because I feel like you’ve been chained for too long already”, Stark sniffs nonchalantly, “But, when does someone in this tower ever fucking listen to me?”

Peter feels the absurd urge to smile. Stupid, stupid, stop falling for Stark’s manipulation tactics.

“Anyway. Wanna play Uno?”

Peter learns that day that Uno is a garbage game and that he wants to burn those stupid colourful cards.

They played for three hours straight and only stopped once it was time for dinner.

----

That evening, Peter rolled himself up in his blanket, scaled the walls of his ro-cell  and snuggled into one of the corners of the ceiling. It’s probably the spider in him, that gathers comfort from being up there but well. He’d missed this. Missed his powers. Being able to climb over every surface, his heightened senses and strength and danger sense. Even though the latter hasn’t once alerted him of any danger since Stark turned off the bracelets. Maybe it just needs more time to come back properly.

He’d been starving at dinner today. As if every time he should’ve been hungry over the past weeks had been accumulated and then unleashed on him all at once. The idiot archer even commented on him as he inhaled the curry they were eating as if Peter hadn’t eaten in days.

“Wow, wow, leave some for the rest of us, will ya?”

Ugh, he’s so dumb. Peter won’t miss him at all, when he leaves.

Which… well. Peter could leave now. Everything he needed to flee were his powers and he has them again. He could punch through the window, climb outside and be gone. It would be so very easy. But…there’s just this weird, dull feeling that takes hold of his insides when he thinks about getting the hell out of here. A feeling that gets stronger the more he thinks about leaving, the more he thinks about seeing Jakob again, about training and his roommates back home.

It's not like he doesn’t miss them! That he doesn’t miss his home. He does miss it, of course. So much so that he’s had to wrestle those thoughts down down until they didn’t threaten to burst to the surface at any minute anymore. It’s what Jakob expects of him. No silly distraction, especially no pathetic emotions of attachment that endanger their mission.

Peter has always had trouble with that. With not developing these emotions that make him dependent, weak. It’s gotten him into trouble each time one of his cell mates was relocated. He remembers, at the very beginning, how little-he would cry about it. Beg to keep his friend as his roommate. To not see them walk out the base and leave forever.

He also remembers spending far too many days in Iso because of these pathetic episodes of his. He would’ve preferred anything else over Iso. Cancel his dinners for an entire week. Strap him to that metal bed and electrocute him, snap his bones. These things never left Peter feeling so… hauntingly empty like being in Iso did. These things never made Peter confront all the dark and ugly stuff that swarms his core because there was nothing to distract him. Pain always distracts him well enough. It’s familiar and familiarity is always something Peter finds consolation in. Iso never became something he could take solace in. It always took solace in him. It’s always as if isolation buries its desperate claws into Peter’s skin and latches on and on, doesn’t let go even days after.  

That’s why he understands why Jakob does it in the first place. With every repeating visit to that tiny two by two metres room, Peter hopes that this time, it will finally eradicate all these annoying and stupid feelings. So that he wouldn’t have to go to Iso again.

So far, it hasn’t worked.

It’s Peter’s biggest flaw and he hates it. He should be- better than that. Should be- should be all that Jakob expects of him, all that Peter owes him. He’s just not good enough. Yet.

And he can’t ever get better if he stays here. He should just fucking go!

But no matter how many times he stares at the glass panel of the window overlooking New York City, no matter how many times today he did that. He can’t make himself leave.

Peter squeezes his eyes shut, curling into himself more.

He’s so- so-

He’s such a burden. Someone else in his place, someone better, would’ve left already, would’ve- would’ve killed Stark the second he disabled the bracelets. Someone actually capable and perfect the way Jakob wants them to be would have escaped weeks before. Peter just has to live with the knowledge that he is nothing special, that he’s a, a, failure through and through. Not good enough, never will be good enough-

The burning behind his eyelids makes frustration bubble up in his throat. He’s also such a fucking cry-baby. Always crying crying fucking crying!

No wonder Jakob hasn’t sent someone for him yet. He’s probably glad to be rid of him. Peter ignores the striking panic in his gut when he thinks that.

Hydra, he has to- has to stop these thoughts. Jakob is probably just waiting, giving Peter his chance to prove himself. He just needs more time. That’s it, yes. Jakob probably expects him to return with at least one Avenger killed. And Peter would manage that. He hasn’t killed anyone in his life so far because that’s something only older and more experienced agents do. But he will figure it out. Figure out a way to ignore the nausea nagging at his stomach at the thought of that as well. It’s only because it’s the first time, the others always tell him.

And then Jakob will be proud of him, for once.

Peter cranes his neck to the side, ignoring the discomfort it sends down the muscles of his neck. The moon is visible for once, reflecting the sun’s light in a cold mirror image that douses his room into hazy silvery light. The radio firmly placed next to the bed glints faintly.

…and if your head explodes with dark forebodings too, I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon-

Peter shakes his head, as if that ever works in getting rid of his unwanted, intrusive thoughts. But ever since Stark provided him with access to music (despite still not understanding why the man even bothered doing that), bits and pieces of different songs have been stuck inside of his head. Peter doesn’t remember the last time he wasn’t six or nine when that happened.

It’s been kind of… weird. Listening to music like that. Peter didn’t even know music like that existed. That it could exist. That there is music out there, not intended to educate you or to march to but purely to just- listen. When he first listened to that album, he actually didn’t know what to do with himself. After the initial realization that it wasn’t physics related, he felt restless. It felt like a waste of his time, to just sit there and listen.

But he did anyways.

And now he’s stuck with fragments of lyrics and soundbites that preoccupy his thoughts like nothing has ever done before.

And the worst thing?

He actually enjoys it more than he can put into words. Finds something in it that quiets his homesickness or any other feeling that almost suffocates him when they impact. It’s like when he got punished. But instead of cuts in his skin or fractures in his bones it’s just- music. It kind of hurts in a different way. He’s not sure which he prefers, yet.

But the thing that Peter doesn’t understand is why these thoughts, comparisons, this equalisation, chases waves of deep- despair? Sorrow? He’s actually not sure. But just, waves of something, through his chest in a way that makes him feel hollow right down to his core.

He sighs, ignores the shakiness of it.

That’s also- kind of not the only thing that-

Peter would rather scratch the skin off his bones than think about it again but, it’s so difficult not to. Hydra he feels as if he’s going to explode. How is it possible to feel so much at once? And not even know what it means?

But. His hands. Okay.

He can feel his nails digging into his palms painfully.

His hands. They feel- they tingle. Not really tingle, but- Fuck!

Anger, so familiar and relieving Peter could cry but so frustrating he almost does, bites into him and completely twists his features. His breath is suddenly only coming in short bursts, heart in his chest pumping so fast he’s almost deaf. But still. Still.

Still, there’s this winding and writhing thing that wants. Wants, wants and fucking wants. He doesn’t exactly know what but ever since Stark had disabled the bracelets and consequently touched him-

There’s a warm, wet feeling in his palms.

He can’t bear to make sense of it. He doesn’t dare figure it out. He doesn’t want to know, even if it feels like his wilful ignorance is strangling him slowly.

----

Some days later, Peter finds himself surrounded by almost all Avengers in what they called their ‘training room’. He thinks it should be classified more as a training ‘hall’, but Peter is not a room-name expert anyway, so who is he to judge.

He’s not entirely sure why Stark wanted him here, but he’s not complaining. Watching the other Avengers spar with each other does offer him the opportunity to study their fighting styles more in-depth, more personal. It certainly is miles better than the grainy footage Hydra uses in his education.

He is complaining a little though, when Stark motions for him to join Rogers on the mats. Because, well. It’s not that Peter is scared, of course not! The last time he fought with the super-soldier, Peter wasn’t the one with the broken jaw. But. It’s only been a few days since he got his powers back. It’s been kind of arduous, getting used to them again. He didn’t count the number of times Stark sent him a curious look after Peter accidentally broke something. Like the doorhandle to his bathroom after stumbling around in the half dark, half asleep. Or like the spoon that he snapped in half during lunch yesterday because the archer said something so stupid Peter felt like breaking something, which well.

Although, he muses, that Rogers of all of them could take his uninhibited punches.

So, Peter steps up the slightly elevated platform, mat-covered ground giving beneath his socked feet. He waits, looks at the sweat-drenched super soldier in front of him. He looks back just as analysing, before there’s a smirk breaking across the blonde’s face, an eyebrow raised in challenge. Peter feels adrenaline kick through his system.

Oh, it’s so on. 

----

Peter is panting, hard.

He’s lying spread-eagle on the sparring mats on which he moments before was trying to best the archer. Which should’ve been easy, as far as power levels go. Emphasis on should be. Because Peter now knows why an unenhanced squishy human is part of the Avengers. By now, Peter should know better than to underestimate his enemies. Barton proved to possess a certain intelligence that Peter would’ve never expected of him, considering the stupid things that leave the archer’s mouth at every possible opportunity.

But well. Peter won’t lie and say that there isn’t some new-found respect for the man inside of him.

He still thinks he’s super annoying, though.

“My turn, little spider.”

Peter lifts his head and immediately is teleported back to a couple weeks ago. His body remembers the fear before he does, remembers bitter tasting desperation and challenging defiance that felt stronger than it really was. It’s the first time since then that he’s meeting Romanoff’s eyes. Still, they betray nothing at all, and it unnerves him just like it did then.

But Peter is nothing if not trained to ignore any emotional conflict inside of him (even if his control has been slipping dangerously recently) so he gets to his feet.

Romanoff watches him, one eyebrow quirked. Peter lifts his own eyebrow in answer once he’s positioned in front of her, adrenaline once again infusing his muscles and senses.

In comparison to Barton, he knows that the Black Widow deserves the reputation that comes with her name. He knows to not underestimate her. Still, he wasn’t exactly prepared for the type of venom she went for.

They spar.

Romanoff is ruthless. She moves cold and calculating. Turns every mistake Peter does against himself; capitalizes on every opportunity she finds. It reminds him so much of the way he himself is trained; it’s kind of chilling to be on the receiving end of it.

But what Peter still lacks in technique and experience, his powers make up for.

So, they are even. Until Peter steps just the tiniest bit too close to her and suddenly, she’s on him.

Deft fingers jab into his side, right under his first rib and Peter feels himself twist away against his will. That was the only little mistake that she needed.

He tried to throw himself back, further away out of her range but-

She manages to grab and twist his arms, stabbing pain shoots along his nerves and fuck he needs to-

But before he could even finish that thought, she’s slung her arm around his neck and squeezes and then-

She’s speaking to him, voice so low only he can understand her, and it takes a second for the words to process but when they do, Peter fucking freezes.

“You know, they won’t care if you are still loyal to them. You’ve been gone for too long. You’re a threat now.”

Peter should move, should thresh around with his arms, kick his legs, anything to get out of her headlock but her words. She knows. She knows.

Her words shouldn’t feel so heavy, shouldn’t drag Peter’s mind down down down somewhere dark and blood-curdling like the swallowing bottomlessness of an ocean. But- shit shit shit shit-

“Hey, Nat, don’t kill him yet, he promised me a second round!”

It’s Barton. This is probably the first time Peter doesn’t want to punch him after opening his mouth.

Instead of releasing him, Romanoff tightens her arm just the tiniest bit, cutting off Peter’s airflow completely. Her voice a quiet, steady whisper that drives something cold through his veins when she says, “Careful, little spider. Remember what happens to those that threaten your people.”

Unsolicited images come up in Peter’s mind, images of people with their heads in black linen sacks being led into their underground interrogation cells. He remembers the screams only he heard because of his enhancements. Remembers that Jakob called them enemies to their cause. They want to hurt them. Peter had agreed that they deserved it for threatening the people he trusts most.

Now he is the one with a bag over his head.

Just before his vision starts to grow hazy and dark, Romanoff drops him. Peter is too slow to catch himself because he instinctively gasps for air and ends up hitting the mats.

From the floor, Peter watches with a weird, detached feeling as Romanoff leaves the mats without another word and approaches the others, with Stark hissing under his breath a disapproving “Nat! What the hell!” to which the woman just shrugs.

“I won”, she says simply and goes to the left until she is out of Peter’s field of vision completely.

Time feels a bit… weird after that. He thinks they took a break. He also thinks that he talked with Rogers, before returning to the training mats for a last round. He feels like his own spectator.

Everything is so… toned down. Like when he turns the dial on his radio to lower its volume. All that is demanding his attention currently, is-

Is Romanoff… right? Is Peter- Does Jakob think he-

No. Jakob would never think that Peter deserted them. That Peter could ever be a- a threat to them, to their cause. Jakob wouldn’t think that. He wouldn’t. Peter has dedicated his entire life to Hydra. It’s all he has ever known, will ever know. It’s his all, his home- his everything. Peter would be nothing without them, an empty husk drained of anything meaningful or sustaining. Of anything life-bringing. Peter would never betray them, would never do that to get accepted by his arch nemeses of all people. He couldn’t give less of a shit what they thought of him, so long they dance to his tune like the brainless idiots they are. Well. Most of them. 

How dare Romanoff accuse him of betraying his family like that? How dare she, traitor that she herself is. To insinuate that Peter would ever desert Hydra-

At the edge of his turning thoughts Peter registers himself moving back to the mats, Barton taking the position against him once again.

-after everything Hydra has done for him. He’d be dead without them, an orphan too cursed to really care for. Hydra has given Peter something that probably saved his life: purpose and belonging. Yes, they do employ some rather- harsh methods to make sure that Peter behaves, but he needs those punishments. It’s not- not abuse. Stark is just trying to rile Peter up against Hydra, trying to, to bring him to forsake the only home Peter ever had. Bullshit, Stark is full of bullshit. Just like fucking Romanoff. Like all the others. Hydra, why has Peter ever opened up so much to the billionaire as he has? Telling him his age? All the other things? Stupid, stupid. See? This is why Peter needs to get put in his place, needs to be shown what he can allow himself and what not because- because else he just fucking forgets everything he’s ever been taught because he’s fucking defect and stupid and and and-

Fuck!

It shouldn’t have shocked Peter as much as it did.

The pain is bright when it explodes between his eyes, behind his nose. Bright and familiar but it somehow still shocks Peter to his very core. It shocks him so much he can only stare at the archer in front of him, eyes wide and unblinking. Barton looks just as shocked as Peter feels. All Peter can think is why didn’t his danger sense work?

For a second, nothing really happens. The entire room is frozen, the silence brittle.

Then, everything happens all at once.

“What the fuck Clint”, Stark’s voice is the loudest thing in the room, closely followed by the archer’s loud ‘Oh my god I’m so fucking sorry’ and Roger’s ‘Oh Jeez’ and the doctor’s gasp.

Peter isn’t actually focusing on any of that. He’s way too occupied by the disgusting runny feeling in his nose that’s suddenly there and almost shadows the throbbing pain in his face. And just like that, Peter’s hands are covered in blood and oh okay- he’s bleeding. A lot. Okay okay okay-

Peter is used to blood. Very much so. It’s a daily occurrence to him- was a daily occurrence up until a month ago and well. He thought he is used to it. He did not think that seeing blood would turn his stomach over in nausea now. He supposes a month is enough time to lose his hard-earned immunity to seeing the red liquid staining his hands.

Or maybe everything that just happened in the span of mere minutes, Romanoff’s words and Peter trying to quell his panic slash anger and the archer probably breaking his nose just like that without Peter’s danger sense alerting him and now Stark marching towards him with a pissed off, determined expression on his face- maybe Peter is a bit overwhelmed, okay?

Peter only narrowly keeps himself from flinching when Stark next to him shoves Barton out of the way, who was already kind of fussing over Peter. The archer doesn’t even protest, and Peter turns his eyes up towards Stark’s furrowed face.

When the man meets his eyes, his features soften and Peter frowns. Which fucking hurts, great. He’s surprised with how much it hurts. With how much it- bothers him. That’s not how it was before.

“Can I?”

And Peter doesn’t know what Stark means, he only knows that they are all acting weird. Like the crazy lunatics they all are. It’s just his nose. It’ll be fine in thirty minutes, tops. When something like that happens back home, nobody bats an eye. If it’s nothing completely incapacitating, you continue. And even though the pain is more distracting than it usually is, Peter is fine.

When Peter nods anyways, probably still a bit dazed from the punch, Stark’s hand lifts his face carefully. Peter feels the absurd urge to duck away and hide. Get a grip.

The man examines his face, turning it slightly to the left, right. He hums, brows scrunching together again, brown eyes laser-focused on Peter’s nose. “That definitely doesn’t look good.”

No shit. The blood is still dripping from Peter’s nostrils in a steady stream. His face aches. It definitely doesn’t feel good, asshole.

Before Peter can snap at Stark to just leave him the hell alone, the man casually rips off one of the sleeves of his long-sleeved training shirt and just- starts wiping off the blood from Peter’s hands and then gingerly places the cloth beneath his nose.

Peter blinks up at the man, confused. Maybe also a bit uncomfortable. He’s never received this kind of- of care – he thinks is the fitting term – from someone that isn’t from one of the people working at his base’s infirmary. Even then, the people there were never this… gentle. Soft, when they tended to Peter’s more egregious wounds. This was just a broken nose but Stark kind of looks at him as if- as if-

Fuck, why is it so hard putting these things into words?

“There”, Stark says, and Peter gets distracted by how close the man is suddenly, with how Peter doesn’t really have a choice but to listen to his heartbeat and smell his wood-y cologne, sharpened by the tang of metal and motor oil underneath. All that through the copper of his blood that’s also on Stark’s hands now.  “Let’s go get that fixed, okay?”

But Peter is fine and doesn’t need to get anything ‘fixed’. It will heal by itself. He says as much to Stark, grimacing a little when each word sends a shock of pain through the muscles of his face.

“Ha! Funny. Didn’t know you had it in you, kid.”

Peter scowls at the man, despite the pain tugging at his nerves. Funny? What?

“I’m not being funny”, Peter says, crossing his arms in front of his chest and taking a small step back.

Stark lifts an unimpressed eyebrow. “No? Could’ve fooled me, kiddo.”

All the other times Stark called him that, he didn’t mind. What should he care what Stark decides to call him? It doesn’t matter either way. But. Now? The- nickname sends a wave of- of something through Peter. It’s confusing, a mix of that wriggly thing that wants out of his chest so bad he’s sure it wouldn’t stop at literally splitting him apart, there’s something akin to sadness too, and there. At the core of it, an emotion so known by Peter it’s almost like coming home. He’d gotten a glimpse of it some days ago again, but oh, it’s there now. Fully.

He's apparently started following Stark unconsciously, but whatever. He’s too preoccupied with letting the anger burn back into his system, along old, charred highways that’ve been empty for too long. What the fuck ever. Stark can do what he wants, Peter doesn’t fucking care. Not when he could literally kill him with a twist of his hands. Now. But he doesn’t, because-

… because.

Because of his plan, right.

----

They broke him.

That’s what they did. Probably their intention from the beginning. Because.

There’s paranoia stalking every corner of his mind, anger and fear taking turns in clenching his teeth so hard that it feels like he is forcing them back into his jaw bones. The urge to scream is replaced by the urge to hide away from the world in the time it takes him to draw the breath he would’ve used to do the former.

He feels like a house built from twigs. Any branch-rustling breeze enough to wreck the fragile walls he’s bricked himself up in. Or perhaps the wind would simply burst in between the spaces and rip away everything kept inside. He doesn’t know which he’d prefer.

If he focuses on just one thought closely enough, he’ll lose it. He’s more than 100 percent convinced of that. Being with the Avengers is barely endurable. Fuck, being alive right now is insufferable.

He’s taken to pacing around his room- no, no no it’s his cell (cell cell cell cell-) his room is back home in his bunker, where his roommates are, where he knows every crack and blemish in the wall against which his bunk is positioned like he knows the back of his hands where Jakob is and where Peter trusts to be punished if he steps out of line which he so often does because he’s inept like that and he just needs to know when he fails can’t deal with these freaks here never telling him, how can Peter then make sure that he doesn’t fail and-

And and and and and and and ---

How do words even make sense to him anymore? How does everything make any sense anymore?

Peter is not a traitor. He’s NOT. No. No. No matter what Romanoff says. He ISN’T. It’s impossible. He’ll show them, once he leaves. He should leave. Leave leave leave but he doesn’t and he hates himself for it.

“Peter, do you want more pasta?”

No no no NO Peter doesn’t want more pasta, he’d rather starve to death he just wants to go home he wants to leave so badly and forget about everything that happened here and about every confusing and twisting thing that is pulling his insides apart, he just wants it to –

“Yes, sure.”

----

He’s started pacing ever since Stark fixed up his nose some days ago.

He’s needed, something anything, to suppress that winding phantom inside of him. Oh, it had been so strong, even buried under the lava-mounts of anger. So strong, so convincing that if Peter just, reached out a little. If he just. Leaned in a little. That he’d be fine. Everything would be fine.

But, by everything Peter stands for, it’s never fine. Never never never. He’d been too greedy too often. Jakob told him that’s why his birth parents gave him away. Peter had wanted and wanted and taken and taken until he’d sucked them clean of everything they had.

That want- it’s bad, so bad, because it’s his. His his his his and everything Peter is everything wrong with him.

----

“You okay, kid? You’ve been kinda out of it, the last few days.”

Peter wants to burn down the whole world. Eat it raw and spit it out rearranged so that everything is upside-down and downside-up.

“No, I’m fine.”

----

He’s having nightmares.

Visions of blue walls and bell-clear laughter haunted by blood-smeared claws and hands.

Jakob’s been there, in one of his dreams, smiling and smiling at Peter, something he so rarely does, but it does not fill Peter with warmth like usual. It’s suffocating dread that twists his stomach and makes him shake so hard his teeth clatter. Jakob keeps smiling and smiling and Peter doesn’t remember if real-Jakob’s smiles looked any different.

He’s dreamt of Stark, too. Dreams of him being led into their basement, in the base they abducted Peter from. His head in a black bag. Hands tied together at the back. In his dream, Peter always follows them down down, a dozen, no, a hundred flights of stairs. It’s endless, until it suddenly isn’t and then Peter has a gun in his hand.

He shoots him. Every time.

He wakes up, drenched in sweat and nausea raging in his gut, faint taste of copper on the back of his tongue. Hands that tremble sling around his torso and he turns to the side. He never sleeps again after these dreams.

----

Peter should leave, he should leave, he should leave, should leave, leave leave leave-

He thinks and thinks the same thought over and over again until it doesn’t make any sense anymore. Thinks it and thinks it and thinks, why doesn’t he?

He has his powers back.

He still doesn’t understand how Stark could be so stupid and just- trust him with them again. Peter could hurt them or kill them any time.

But well… he doesn’t now, does he?

Why doesn’t he? He could be home now. In his cell- no fuck- his room, again, could be with his mates again. Could train again. Could see Jakob again.

Yes. He is leaving. Now.

With two fast steps, Peter stands in front of the big window. The first thing he saw when he had woken up here for the first time. It is… kind of nice. Being able to look out. It’s always so dark in their bases.

Why is it always so dark in their bases? Why is it the Avengers, who have windows? Who aren’t hiding from the world? Why can’t Hydra have windows too? Why do they have to hide?

His bones are heavy, all of a sudden. So heavy and tired and Peter just needs to lay down for a bit.

He will leave. Later. He doesn’t need to rush. His home will be there still, even if Peter rests and gathers his powers for a little while longer.

All according to plan, of course. Jakob will be so proud.

----

Peter thinks that he might love music.

And isn't that a scary word. He doesn't remember the last time he used love to describe something he enjoys. It's way too dangerous. But. Well.

He’s listened to some records so many times by now, that he actually knows the words.

Peter has caught himself fucking humming along when he’s puzzling alone or just lounging away on the bed, for Hydra’s sake. So if that's not, loving something, then Peter doesn't know what that word actually means.

He will probably miss that the most, when he leaves. Which will happen soon enough, so might as well listen to that one album again, just so he remembers it right.

When he leaves.

(Why can’t they have any music?)

----

In the end, it’s a small thing, that pushes Peter over the edge.

They’re in his room, him and Stark. The man leaning against the desk, while Peter sits cross-legged on the bed across from him.

It’s been… days? Peter thinks. Since the nose incident happened. Since he was officially going mad, for real.

He’s jumpy. Nervous. Angry. All of it combined.

That makes it extremely difficult to interact with his mortal enemies. Extremely, extremely. Peter is a ticking time bomb. A nuclear reactor, moments from catastrophic failure. Two atoms, not quite there yet but so impossibly close to nuclear fusion. All it needs is a little more pressure. A small push.

Which well. Isn’t so difficult to happen for Peter these days.

“Hey kiddo, how is your nose doing?”, Stark asks him casually, while leafing through the instruction booklet of the new Lego set they just started.

There’s a crack splitting Peter in the middle. It’s been there since the beginning, a tiny fissure that with each day spent in this hellhole deepened, spread. Even more so since that twisting thing has taken residence inside of his chest.

Stark gaslighting him into thinking he is abused in his own home. By his mentor. The only person that ever cared enough about Peter to keep him around.

Stark telling him that the Avengers are the good guys.

Stark forcing him to listen to music and watch weird movies. To spend time with him, build with Lego and put together puzzles.

How he touches Peter as if it’s a completely normal thing, these casual touches. As if they don’t twist apart his insides.

The way he- cares about Peter? Care? Is it that? Does the man actually fucking care about Peter? If he did, he’d let him leave. If he really, somehow, derangedly, actually cares for Peter- what does that even fucking mean? Stark doesn’t care about him, not like Jakob does. No no no no no-

The way Stark keeps looking at him. Just like fucking now. Why does he fucking care about his nose?

Why why why why why why why why why –

Everything, all of what Stark does- it only served to exacerbate the crack splitting him open. Until, until-

It’s all just.

Too much.

Peter’s spent days in purgatory, waiting and waiting for them to make a move because Romanoff surely told the others what Peter-

But then Stark just asks him about his nose-

Like he-

Cares-

Peter explodes.

“This is all your fucking fault!”, he shouts, voice straining, and this is the first time Peter’s ever shouted at someone older than him and it feels good, fuck it feels fucking fantastic, gratifying and cleansing and euphoric in a way he didn’t know he needed in his life before all this.

Stark visibly flinched when Peter raised his voice, and the man staggers to the side as if he missed a step, surprised. His brown eyes are huge and startled, he opens his mouth as if to say something, but Peter is just absolutely done with everything. It’s just all too MUCH and god he’s so so fucking mad and tired and god fucking damnit-

“It’s all your fault!”, Peter shouts again, springing to his legs in a blink and taking two large steps closer to Stark only to revel in the way the man backs up further, away from Peter and a feeling of power washes through Peter’s veins unlike any other at seeing Stark of all the Avengers here now, almost cowering in fear before him. Like he always should have.

Still, Stark lifts his hands in a placating manner. “Okay, kiddo, I don’t know what you mean, could you just tell-“

“Don’t call me that!”, Peter hisses and he hates the way Stark is taller than him, hates that he has to look up and feel smaller than he really feels he just fucking hates hates hates the man and everything he’s done and said and does and just fucking is so much he cannot possibly keep it in anymore. Escape plan be fucking damned, he just can’t take it anymore. He can’t he can’t HE CAN,’T---

“I hate you! Don’t you get it? I hate you because you took me from my home, my family. How could you do this to me? How could you expect me to ever forgive you for that?”

Peter ignores the way his voice breaks apart over the last syllable, just the way he ignores the vicious burning behind his eyes and in his throat. Everything is fire, hot, consuming, claiming. He’s never felt anger like this before, like it’s gorging itself on Peter, as if he’s the oxygen it needs to survive.

All he can focus on is the clear shade of hurt in Stark’s eyes, the clenching of the man’s jaw and the rapid-fire pace of his heart beating against the man’s chest. Peter notices out of the corner of his eyes how Stark clenches his fist, Peter watches how the man takes a deep breath and then-

Something cold and terrible creeps up Peter’s spine, carves a cold gash through his fire, he knows this, he knows the signs, he- he knows how it looks when, he-

Jacob sighs, disappointment spelled crystal clear on his face, his mentor takes a deep breath and Peter notices one second too late the tension drawing tighter in his muscles and then his danger-sense explodes at the back of his neck a fraction of a second before the fist collides with his face and Peter feels his skin split and his blood run but it’s not what hurts the most he –

-flinches when Stark turns abruptly and without looking at him again, storms out of his room and slams the door shut. There’s a period of time that stretches and stretches and Peter is trying to understand what just happened and god no-

No no no no no no no fuck fuck fuck what has he done?!

It’s suddenly hard to breath. The air has turned to lead, impossible to force down his throat. Peter shivers in the sudden absence of the hot flaring anger in his throat.

But-but-

Maybe, he thinks through his panic-riddled mind, maybe it’s for the better. No more pretending. Finally. Finally Stark would drop his charade as well. Yes. Yes. This is – good. Great.

He keeps this thought on loop, a mantra. But it’s as useless as barehandedly shovelling water out of a sinking ship. As piling up dry sand into a hill. His composure is trickling out from between his fingers like either.

He should leave, leave, leave- but, why why, why can’t he? What- What is keeping him here? What is his fucking problem? Stark is probably going to kill him now, so why wait around for his fucking execution? What the fuck is wrong with Peter?

----

Tony slams the door to Peter’s room shut behind him and doesn’t even think, doesn’t say anything, he does nothing really, except trudge toward the elevator that’ll take him down to his lab. Out of the corner of his eyes he vaguely registers someone standing there to his right, but he just can’t.

“Hey Tone-“, Rhodey greets him as Tony stalks past him, somewhere in a corner of his mind that isn’t hurt or so angry he could scream he takes notice of his best friend’s return, but he doesn’t- just can’t deal with this right now.

“Fuck off”, Tony snaps and immediately regrets it, of course of course he regrets it because this kind of behaviour, this lashing out at others has been beneath him for quite some time now but god, he really really can’t deal with this now. He just needs to be alone and process- whatever the fuck just happened. Process just how badly he fucked everything up with Peter and just the thought of that lets his chest constrict in a way that is so familiar but also not, couldn’t be familiar because he’s never met someone like the kid.

And the thing is, the absolutely dreadful thing is that Tony doesn’t even know him that well. He knows that Peter is fourteen, knows that he likes to build with Lego and that he’s got a sweet tooth and that he’s suffered more than any of them combined but still. He doesn’t know any of his aspirations, doesn’t know doesn’t doesn’t- And all of these silly games he’s been playing, trying to get to know the kid it all- it all was stupid, fucking bullshit. Tony knows he’s bad at this, so bad, but really, nothing could’ve prepared him for reality. For reality literally screaming into his face how dreadful and loathsome he and his attempts to- to bond were. Nothing could’ve prepared him to know that he’s even worse than he thought.

And okay, he needs to stop. Shove these thoughts down down down until he was alone in his lab and deal with them- later. Preferably never.

His therapist would strangle him if he’d hear his thoughts, but oh well. He couldn’t give less of a shit at the moment.

He hears Rhodey let out a sarcastic “Wow, so nice to see you again, too” and Tony just- he fucking flees. Speeds up his steps and almost punches out the button to the elevator and once he’s inside of it, he orders Friday to lock his lab for anyone but him all the while trying to ignore the tremble in his voice.

Once he’s in the lab, he dims down the newly installed glass panels so that they cease to be transparent and he just. Goes into his lab and sits down in the middle of it, in the middle of his cars and scattered bits of his new suit.

He never hates his brain, his mind, more than in these moments. An eidetic memory is unshakeably a reason for his success as an engineer, inventor, fuck even as superhero. It’s simultaneously the best and worst thing that has ever happened to him, because it is a part of his brilliance undoubtedly, but also part of why his self-loathing feels unmatched in terms of dimensions. How couldn’t it be, how couldn’t it when it’s the record player of all of his fuck-ups? Of all the things people have thrown at him throughout the entirety of his life, even though he doesn’t give a shit most of the time but now- it was Peter. The kid. Tony does not feel ready to go there and use the L-word yet, he never is and always needs so much more time than well-adjusted, normal adults to get there and just, be open, vulnerable with himself, his emotions. But with Peter, god, he is so, so- fond of the kid that he feels he is going insane.

And it just, hurts so much more with this knowledge of his slightly deranged fondness for a teenager he barely knows when said child just shouted at his face that he’s never going to like him and how he ruined his life and took him from his family and it all just- It all just makes him immediately doubt that they are doing the right thing. The record player keeps spinning and spinning and Tony cannot get over the distraught and hopeless expression on Peter’s face.

Was it really their place to basically kidnap Peter from the only home, Tony almost gags, he has known? Was it really their decision to make? What if Peter was- was happy? In whatever twisted way someone could be happy while being brainwashed to become a soulless puppet? What if they actually treated him well?

That last thought feels so- so wrong he feels a physical twist in his chest. Hydra and well should never be used in the same sentence, never never never, what is he thinking?

He groans and buries his head in his hands. He is not thinking, that’s the entire problem. He lost count of the many times he’s sat there in that stupid chair, chagrined and on edge, while his therapist gently but unwaveringly drummed it into his head that yes, even if you supress the hell out of your emotions they always shine through our thoughts, especially when we experience high-strung emotions.

And he is, right now, experiencing the entire spectrum of such emotions and it’s just- too much to deal with all at once.

So, Tony does what an upset and not-thinking-straight-Tony does best: he compartmentalizes his feelings until they are easier to swallow down and ignore until he feels ready to face them. Like an adult that got his shit figured out, clearly.

----

Tony manages to work, and he uses that term generously, for what feels like hours but in reality, was only half an hour before he felt like he’s going to lose it if he doesn’t, do something. Anything.

He pinches the bridge of his nose as a deep sigh escapes him when he, again, broke off a finger of one of his new armour gloves. For fuck’s sake, repressing his emotions used to be so much easier.

“Friday, get Clint down here”, is all he presses out from between clenched teeth, before he sets his grim determination back to fixing that stupid glove.

It takes the archer approximately ten minutes to arrive in his lab, a golf bag full of cubs hanging off his shoulder and wearing a blindingly white golf-shirt, complete with a trademark purple stripe down his left side. Matching trousers and sneakers, of course. Tony doesn’t have to be a genius to know Clint was obviously busy, but still. He’s here and just that knowledge lets some of the steam in Tony’s head dissipate and be replaced by warm gratitude.

“Whassup, shellhead? I hope it’s important ‘cause I was just going to go play golf with an old chap from Shield and- oh. You look like shit.”

Tony supresses the need to roll his eyes, because yes, he feels like shit so it’s no miracle he looks the part. He settles on a glare that hopefully sends the message loud and clear that he’s not really in the mood for Clint’s stupidly obvious remarks right now.

Clint grimaces and holds up his hands in a placating manner. “Wow, okay, okay, no time for jokes, I get it.”

He moves closer to where Tony is basically massacring that bullshit glove and once he’s next to him, he slings his golf bag off his shoulder and leans it against the table Tony is working on. The golf cubs clutter against each other, the metallic clangs louder in their silence.

Clint settles on leaning against one of his other workbenches opposite of Tony, crossing his arms in front of his chest, not taking his eyes off of Tony. Being so plainly scrutinized by his friend snaps the final thread that was trying to hold Tony’s façade together. All air leaves his body at the same time, leaving himself feeling particularly empty, and he stops with his forlorn attempt to get at least something done.

“Okay, birdbrain, hit me with it. What’s the diagnosis?”

Clint hums contemplatively, “Did you have a fight with Peter?”

Tony isn’t even surprised. It’s not the first time the archer has shown off his skills at reading, well basically profiling, people. But still, each time he does it, it corroborates why Fury was so intent on keeping Clint still on the sidelines of Shield as a part time employee. Because shooting arrows at stuff clearly isn’t the only thing Clint’s good at.

Tony sighs deeply and wishes he could just- just- god, he doesn’t even know what he wants.

“Yep”, he says in the end and, “Kid basically shouted at me to fuck off and die.”

The second of silence stretches and then. Clint bursts into laughter, that asshole.

“Really? Really?”, Tony asks, glowering at his friend and mourning the fact that he hasn’t managed to integrate lasers into his own retinas yet, like a total freak.

Clint’s a cackling mess, wiping tears from his eyes and clutching his sides as if they’re going to burst open any second, and Tony is already telling Friday to get one of his suits to please escort the clearly lunatic archer from his premise for at least three days when Clint stops with his pterodactyl-screeching noises and holds up a finger.

“Wait, wait, hahaha fuuuuuck, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t ban me from your magical tower again, ‘punzel. Haha oh shit, that was good.”

Tony doesn’t know if he should laugh, cry or scream. He settles on throwing a screw at his ‘friend’ like a normal person, obviously.

Clint, that bastard, has the audacity to catch the stupid metal thing as if people throwing stuff at him is totally normal and not completely nuts and well. It probably is a pretty regular occurrence in the archer’s life.

Tony wants to die.

Clint is still slightly out of breath, a giggle here and there escaping him despite the attempt to calm down, and Tony rolls his eyes.

“Ha ha… Okay, okay, I’m fine”, Clint snorts, but then finally seems to have calmed down enough to look at Tony without losing his shit again. “Y’know that Peter is a teenager?”

Tony scowls, eyebrows scrunching low and making a what’s your point gesture with his hands. Like, can’t Clint just get to the fucking point?

Clint looks at him expectantly, eyebrow lifted comically as if Tony could just read his point from across his forehead. When Tony still hasn’t reacted in any way after multiple seconds have ticked by, Clint rolls his eyes and sighs deeply, exasperated, as if he’s been walking behind two slowpokes for more than twenty minutes without being able to pass them.

“That’s literally all you need to know, shellhead. It’s how teenagers are; one minute, they hate your guts and the next they almost cry if they go to summer camp because they’ll miss you that much. It’s honestly amazing Peter hasn’t blown up in your face earlier than this because I know I would’ve if I had you as-“

“Okay, okay, I get it! I get it. Shouldn’t have asked for your advice, good future reference. Now get out of my lab, you feathery freak. Don’t come back for the next ten business days, at least.”

Clint cackles. “Caw-caw, motherfucker. See you later at dinner.”

With that, Clint retrieves his golf bag and leaves Tony’s lab again, but not without flipping him the bird one last time without looking back.

Tony can’t supress another roll of his eyes. He should reconsider the people he calls his friends, Jesus Christ that was the fucking worst.

But if he now manages to work without that looming dread clasped around his throat, heart and chest feeling lighter, well, nobody has to know.

----

Tony’s been working for hours now, for real this time, so it’s kind of jarring when Friday alerts him that something’s wrong with Peter and it’s suddenly dark outside his big floor to ceiling windows of his lab.

“What do you mean, Friday? Is the kid okay?”

Friday’s pause lets a fist of ice grab at his heart.

“I am afraid not, boss. Peter appears to be in severe emotional distress. I suggest immediate personal supervision.”

Tony thinks he’s never ran faster in his entire life.

----

No amount of self-sought fury

Will bring back the glory of innocence

----

Peter wakes up and his lungs are burning.

For a long, frightening moment, he feels hands around his throat, feels fingers on the side of his neck carving little crescents into the vulnerable skin. He feels Jakob’s weight pressing him down and there is not enough capacity left in Peter’s mind to comprehend the heart-shattering fear that immediately grips his heart and forces his eyes open.

He’s- alone.

No one is- He’s alone.

A confusing mix of feelings shudders through his limbs, twists his chest like a wrought-out rag. His airways screw shut. Tight, tighter and the flames roar in his lungs.

He tries to draw in a breath, but his body just doesn’t- do that. He tries again. Again. He- he needs to breathe, he needs air-  

Out of panicked instinct, his hands fly up and grapple at his throat. Another attempt to gasp for air only succeeds in tearing a strangled noise from his throat. His heart is beating against his ribs as if it’s trying to break them. Bam bam bam bam bambambam-

His hands are clawing at his throat, over his chest. He’s going to die. He’s going to fucking die because there’s no air anymore, where is the air why is there no air he needs to breathe he doesn’t want to die-  

He almost doesn’t perceive the light that suddenly spills into the room and in a moment, someone’s hand is on his shoulder and fuck, Jakob will kill him if he sees him like this-

“Peter, kiddo, hey, hey –“

The voice. That’s not- it’s not Jakob, no no it’s someone so much worse he can’t afford his mortal enemy seeing him like this he- he- he shouldn’t see him like that and- and- see how pathetic and stupid and bad and weak he is-

“Peter, Peter”, Stark repeats his name, firmly, but not angrily nor disappointedly and it helps Peter focus on the man crouching in front of him. Peter’s vision is blurry and shaky, but he sees no belt, whip, knife, gun in Stark’s hand but it’s not enough. Peter knows (he knows knows knows!)  that it hurts so much more when there’s nothing between Jakob’s anger and its target.

Just then, Stark lifts his other hand and oh no no please not again-

The man immediately halts in his movement when Peter can’t help but flinch violently, press himself away away away back against the wall, he just can’t take any more, he knows he fucked up when he screamed at Stark and the man is only doing what is right but, please, he just needs-

“Kiddo, angioletto, it’s okay, it’s okay, can you- please look at me?”

Peter doesn’t understand how Stark does it, what kind of black magic he uses to make Peter follow his requests without thinking twice. No need to shatter the always present resistance when his mentor requires him to obey, because here, with Stark, there is none. Nothing that stops him from doing exactly as he was asked of, and he feels insane with it. All of it, all of it, Peter is insane insane, too much is happening inside of him, has been happening inside of his head, and he just-

Oh, Peter wishes he didn’t. It’s the worst thing he’s ever done. There’s no anger, none, only soft eyes that speak to Peter in a language he doesn’t know, hasn’t been taught along all the others. It’s nothing new, he’s seen this look so, so many, countless, times before on Stark’s face but it’s the first time where his desire to know- to understand overtakes the desire to snarl and bare his teeth in anger and sink them into everything that the man before him stands for. It’s- it’s- he needs to know what it means, needs to… needs to comprehend why it makes him crumble away into nothing, why it hurts him, more than anything he’s ever felt, why it makes the twisting creature in his chest wail and scratch away at his ribs and the confounding mess of emotions in Peter worse than it’s ever been.

Stark’s hand is still hovering between them. The man lifts his eyebrow in a silent question. Peter can’t believe he feels himself nod once. But. What more is there to lose?

He moves his hand in slow motion, it feels like an eternity and not one second has passed, when Stark gently, so gently Peter waits for the anger to drown out everything else again, but it doesn’t, fits his palm over his cheek. It’s warm and kind and nice and something spills over inside of Peter. Something cracks, it gives, it settles. The thing living in his chest coils into itself. His head is empty, silent, after all these days.

… But still.

Peter feels exposed in a way he’s never felt before. He is in no way, whatsoever, capable of protecting himself right now. He’s completely at Stark’s mercy, at someone else’s mercy and scrutiny. Peter has plucked his fate from a tree like an apple and handed it over to his enemy without thinking. Like. Here. Everything, that is me, that is inside of me. Every tiny little disgusting thing. It’s ugly and rotten and full of twisty worms but it’s all I have, please don’t-

He is suddenly vividly reminded of his reoccurring dream. It’s as if Stark is holding a gun to his head now, but it is still Peter’s finger that is braced on the trigger.

But instead of removing his digit from his death sentence, Peter pulls.

He pulls, because he is tired, tired from waiting for the bullet to hit, tired of waiting for who is going to make the first move and destroy the other. It’s so much easier to just give in and destroy himself.

He feels his body give in as well, in the way his shoulders slack, his lungs relax and he just- leans into Stark’s hand.

Leans into it, without thinking. For once, he just lets himself do what feels- good. No matter the consequences he will have to carry afterwards. No matter the hours of Iso he will have to sit, or the pain he’ll have to endure. Peter just forgets about all of that for once and just- lets himself.

It feels monumental. Like the tectonic plates shifting underneath the earth’s crust.

Irrevocably rearranged.

He only notices that his eyes had fallen shut when they involuntarily flicker open again, when Stark traces his cheekbone with his thumb in a featherlight touch that makes his heart ache and ache and ache.

The ache causes a thousand images and sensations to flit through his head, one stirring up more unwelcome and uncomfortable feelings than the other. All the times Jakob reached out and punched him, hit him, slapped him, crushed him-

All the times Stark smiled at him, that one time he ruffled his hair and all the times he never, ever did anything to hurt him. Of course, it was all part of the man’s plan, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?

But what plan requires you to be nice to your subject for so long? What plan requires you to look at them the way Stark is looking at him right now?

It’s all so confusing. His head screams when he tries to make sense of it all. His chest too heavy to breathe. There is a part in Peter, thrashing and trying to escape the cage Peter just banned it into. Hadn’t Jakob trained him to be better? Shouldn’t he be better than let himself get manipulated like this? Why did he never tell him that manipulation feels so right?

They won’t care if you are still loyal to them. You’ve been gone for too long. You’re a threat now.

Romanoff’s words echo in his head at the thought of Jakob and- she’s right. He remembers every single time Jakob told him that sacrifices were necessary. They happened. They had to, for their cause. It kept them clean. Proper. Void of parasites. Spies. Traitors, that showed just the tiniest sliver of empathy towards their enemies. That weren’t strong enough to fight the battles Hydra had to for the betterment of the world. There was no space for failure, for this. Peter knows his place, knows his mission, his stand, and his allies. His enemies. But-

But Peter stares and stares at Stark with wide eyes, his lifelong nemesis’ hand still cradling his cheek in a way that feels nicer than anything he’s ever felt, and Peter can’t- oh god, for the live of him, he can’t, can’t hate him not after everything, he-

Peter, he is… he is a traitor now.

The realization washes down his spine like a wave of ice, resentful and cold - so, so cold, leaving goosebumps in its wake and freezing the blood in his veins.

Jakob will never take him back. Hydra will never take him back.

He fucked up the only home he had.

He… He’s alone now. Nobody- nobody wants him- the only people that did – he fucked that up as well, just like with his birth family- He-

He fucked up fucked up fucked up all he can do is fuck up fuck up he’s pathetic worthless no wonder Jakob had always known -

“Peter, kid.”

-had always known known known he is bad bad bad and weak and alone alone alone alone alone –

“Peter!”

Peter’s eyes snap back into focus. Stark is watching him with a serious expression on his face and the amount of- of something Peter sees in his brown eyes wrangles a broken noise out of his throat. He immediately bites his lips to keep any more sounds from escaping. But impossible, impossible. He’s losing it.

The harder he drives his teeth into his bottom lip, the longer he forces the air to remain in his lungs and his body to crunch into himself, the more the vice grip on his control is slipping. The burning behind his eyes and in his throat- it’s unbearable, his vision so blurry Stark appears only as a warped shadow in front of him.

Stark moves his thumb along his cheek again. “Oh kiddo, it’s alright. It’s okay, I got you”, he whispers, soft and calm and warm and fuck-

A sob ruptures his throat, his eyes clench shut, squeezing out hot tears. His arms follow their habitual path around his torso, grabbing at himself and squeezing until it hurts, hurts more than what is happening inside of him. At least it should, but the thing inside of Peter is alive, parasitic, writhing and twisting and hurting, it hurts, hurts so much he has no words for it.

Stark’s hand remains on his cheek until- until it isn’t, no, he can’t just leave him, no-

There’s pressure on his shoulders now and Peter realizes Stark put both his hands there. Peter sobs again, a thready, scared thing because he doesn’t want to get hurt, he doesn’t want to get shaken so hard it feels like his neck will snap, he doesn’t want to hear what a fucking mistake he is because he knows it, he knows it he hates himself already he doesn’t need to hear it again and again-  but it’s not Jakob, here, it’s Stark. One of the people Peter has dedicated his entire life to kill and destroy. One of the people he hates- should hate the most in the entire world. One of the people Peter is planning to betray and hurt because that’s what he’s been taught.

…the only person whose touch isn’t intended to ruin Peter. The only person who has truly been- nice to him. Like now. Jakob would have been reducing Peter to a trembling pulp by now, that knowledge is so acute that he almost feels the pain. But it’s not there, because Stark does something completely different.

He gently motions for Peter’s body to get closer to him, closer and closer until Peter thought he couldn’t take him any closer, until he was leaning against Stark’s chest.

It’s weird- so so very weird. He hears every breath swirling in the man’s lungs, hears the blood rush through Stark’s veins, hears – no, feels the unsteady beating of the man’s fragile heart against Peter’s ears. He’s so close to what is keeping his enemy alive, there’s a voice somewhere at the back of his head, demanding, he should, has to do something, something but-

Peter startles, whimpers like a fucking child, when two strong arms slot themselves into place on his shaking frame; one around his back and the other over his shoulder blades. A hand buries itself into Peter’s messy hair and gently presses his head even closer to Stark’s chest.

It’s-

He’s-

He can feel Stark move against him, feels him turn his head and bury his nose in his hair.

“It’s okay, kiddo, I’m here, I’m here. Always”, he mumbles against his head, increasing the pressure of the- the hold he has on Peter just the tiniest bit and it’s all it takes to crush all the twig-walls and writhing worm-creatures in his chest, and he is unmade.