Chapter Text
At the risk of sounding cliché, the building was quiet. Too quiet, Natasha thought.
This place was supposed to be crawling with Hydra’s goons, yet she barely heard a sound.
The team had gotten wind an hour earlier about yet another surviving Hydra base to be taken care of. The majority of the team stayed in the tower more often than not these days, and fortunately this base was in the city, not an ocean away, so they’d suited up and set out as soon as they could.
It was an inconspicuous, gray, five-story building on the outskirts of Brooklyn, with the name of a made-up insurance firm displayed on the door and closed blinds in all the windows. The first floor had been a lobby and offices, all suspiciously empty.
The team made their way up the stairs to the second floor. It was just Natasha, Steve, Clint, and Tony today. The mission wasn’t big enough to bring Bruce, Bucky wasn’t quite in the superhero-ing mindset yet, and Thor was away doing whatever he does. This was supposed to be routine, just tying up loose ends.
They finally found people when they reached the third floor.
Unconscious people, that is.
The floor was mostly large workspaces and labs, and every room had someone limp or groaning on the floor.
“What the hell happened here?” Tony asked aloud, completely disregarding using the comms, his face plate already up. He poked at someone with his toe, with no response. Stealth no longer seemed like a necessary measure.
“More like who the hell happened here” Natasha corrected him, noting the bruises and broken looking limbs of the men and women around them.
They continued back up the stairs to the next floor hoping for some answers, only to be greeted by a groan from one of many men scattered about, in the same state as their colleagues from the floor below.
The team just moved on.
Believe it or not (as if the four of them weren’t already having a hard time believing what they were seeing), on the fifth floor it got weirder. In addition to the now expected unresponsive bodies, there were webs.
A lot of webs. Spider-Man style webs.
“Well I guess that answers that question” Clint retorted, poking at a few webs.
“But why do the webs start at the top floor? Someone had to have taken out the men on the lower floors, but Spider-Man almost exclusively fights with webs, not punches” Steve added.
“Maybe the guy ju-” Tony tried to start a guess, but was interrupted by the sudden sound of a gunshot from somewhere above their heads. They instantly snapped back into defense mode and Natasha began leading them up the stairs to the roof, weapon already drawn. Steve gave a silent count just before they burst out of the roof access door, prepared for a fight.
They did not get a fight. Quite the opposite, actually.
As per expected by now, two Hydra agents, though these two a little more important looking than the rest, were lying on the gravel roof, beaten to a pulp.
“Okay, what the fuck is going on?”
Clint’s outburst broke them out of stunned silence and they all relaxed out of attack mode, though Natasha was in no hurry to holster her gun.
“Is that a hand?” Steve gestured to the edge, where what appeared to be a white-knuckled hand was clinging to the lip of the roof.
“Oh god, it’s alive” Tony retorted as another hand slapped onto the ledge next to it.
A red-gloved hand.
A pained groan came from just below the edge of the roof and a red-clad body slowly hoisted itself up. The small horns appeared over the edge first. Once his upper half had cleared the ledge, he swung his legs over one at a time and flopped onto the gravel roof.
A bloody, exhausted, and most likely concussed Daredevil was lying at the Avengers’ feet.
But he did not allow himself to stay there. Instead of resting, as one would after using all of their remaining strength to prevent themselves from falling onto concrete five stories below, Daredevil immediately started moving again. What appeared to be a rope of webbing was firmly attached to his left arm and connected to something still dangling over the edge, which held a reasonable amount of weight judging by how taught the rope was. He braced his feet against the lip of the roof and began to pull up on the rope, but struggled. Steve immediately leaped into action and stood just over Daredevil’s shoulder, gently taking the webbing out of his hands and hoisting it up at a significantly faster pace, until a small pile of the rope was at his feet and the other end appeared, grasped onto by-
Another hand.
Also red. Surprise, surprise.
Spider-Man slowly (and painfully, it looked to Natasha) half lifted himself and half was dragged over the ledge. Once safely over, he flopped down next to Daredevil, giving Natasha time to see just how beat up they were. Daredevil’s nose was gushing blood and he coughed up quite a bit as well, which probably had to do with his painful, shallow breaths. The arm that had the web wrapped around it and had been supporting Spider-Man appeared to be dislocated or broken or both. Spider-Man somehow looked even worse, his suit covered in tears, each one displaying a different bleeding wound. He couldn’t even sit up.
“You alive, Spidey?” Daredevil asked weakly from where he lay.
“I think so,” Spider-Man replied faintly.
Daredevil slowly pushed himself off the ground and got himself facing the Avengers and standing, but just barely. He was cradling his left arm close to his chest and appeared to not be able to take a full breath.
“A little help?” he asked, and the team sprang into action. Tony was able to surprisingly gently get Spider-Man into his arms bridal style, and flew off to the tower without a word to anyone else, only muttering what sounded like words of encouragement to the unconscious body in his arms. Steve meanwhile supported Daredevil to stand and they made their way down the stairs, painfully slowly. Daredevil was obviously not happy with having to be supported to stand, and nearly decided to run for it when they got outside on ground level before realizing that was stupid plan and he wouldn’t make it a block before collapsing. Clint and Natasha joined them and they loaded into the black SUV they’d taken there, Daredevil’s head cradled in Steve’s lap and Natasha weaving through the traffic at a speed that would be considered unsafe if it was anyone driving besides her.
Daredevil lost consciousness before they reached the tower.
*****
Spider-Man is faintly aware of what’s happening around him. Or more appropriately, to him. He feels the sting of his wounds being wiped with antiseptic and the snugness of new bandages being wrapped. He thinks he can even feel new stitches somewhere on his arm. Then suddenly someone is pulling up his eyelids and shining a penlight in his eyes and he’s almost totally awake.
Wait.
There’s no mask.
He’s completely conscious and on the ceiling in an instant, the sets of hands startled away and he shoots a web out to where he sees a glimpse of his mask on the other side of the room. It’s on before a second has passed since he jumped up out of the bed.
“Whoa, hey there. Calm down. I’m sorry we had to take your mask off, but no one in this room would ever expose you. You were pretty banged up, so we had to make sure you were alright.” One of the owners of the set of hands had been talking to Spidey, with his face to the ceiling and his hands up in a placating gesture.
“Holy guacamole, you’re Bruce Banner! Big fan dude, I gotta get a picture with you later. But back to the topic at hand,” Spider-Man takes on the tone of a cheesy old movie villain “You may have seen my face, but you’ll never know who I really am!”
“Actually, I really do apologize but we had to have Jarvis run facial recognition so we could know if you had any relevant allergies or serious medical history, so we also have your name. But more importantly, your age. You aren’t even eighteen!”
“I know I’m not eighteen, hence the mask. Duh.”
“Will you please get off the ceiling?”
Spider-Man glared, if you can glare through the ridiculous eyes of his mask.
“Fine, you can keep the mask on. We now know you don’t have a concussion anyway. But you’re bleeding onto the floor.”
Sure enough, Spider-Man looked down to see he was dripping blood from where he was upside-down on the ceiling. He slowly lowered himself on a web and set himself back down onto the bed.
Bruce’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out to check it.
“Well, we have another guest who needs me down the hall, so please, be good.”
“Bye! Love yo- oh ow. Oh no,” Spider-Man thrust his heavily bandaged arm into the air and wiggled his fingers goodbye for a second before wincing in pain. Bruce rolled his eyes and left.