Chapter Text
“Okay Banner, what can you see?”
The comms crackled slightly as Bruce turns on his microphone. He was holed up in the quinjet, far from the action; the Hulk is only supposed to be mobilised in case of emergencies. “Theres a hidden hallway to your right…” Bruce’s voice sounded in Steve’s ear. “I can’t really see how you get in, exactly, but its, uh, definitely there. About three feet ahead of you.”
Steve, dressed head to toe in tac gear and with his shield securely on his arm, stopped immediately. He quietly moved quietly to the wall on his right, running his fingers up and down it, to try and find a weakness or an opening of some kind.
“It says something about the floor,” Bruce continued, sounding unsure. “I, uh—my Russian isn’t all that great, but—“
“There should be a tile on the floor that opens the door when you step on it,” Natasha’s voice cut over Bruce’s. “It should be square, flush against the wall.”
Steve scanned the tiled floor. Each tile was grey, and about twelve by twenty-four inches in size. Every second row, one of the tiles was squared, flush against the wall. He tried stepping on the one immediately next to him, but to no avail. He stepped forward a few paced, then tried again with another squared tile.
This time, it worked.
There was a soft clicking sound, before the wall slid open to reveal a short, sterile hallway with steel doors lining either side at regular intervals. It almost looked like a hospital, or even the medical wing at the Avengers Compound. Steve moved forward, trying to keep his footfalls light and quiet. Each door had a number printed on it in stark white, with smaller Russian script printed below.
Steve really wished that he had some of Tony’s fancy glasses right about now, so that he could somehow translate the foreign letters.
The short hallway ended in a left turn, revealing another, wider hallway. Six large, barred windows lined the walls, each paired with another steel door. Peering through the first window, Steve was unsurprised—though horrified, nonetheless—to recognise the small room behind the glass as a cell. It couldn’t have been larger than about seven feet squared, with a small, bare mattress on one wall and a metal toilet against the other.
Five of the six cells were completely empty aside from the meagre furnishings. Before Steve could turn to check the sixth, he heard a quiet, almost noiseless, whimper. He rushed to the last cell, staring through the glass, expecting to see an injured prisoner, or an enhanced person that was being experimented on, or—anything, really, except for what he did see.
In the cell was a child. A tiny thing, probably no older than three or four, with an unruly mop of brown curls atop his head and a blank expression on his face. His expression abruptly became terrified when he made accidental eye contact with Steve. The child shrank back into the corner of the cell, evidently trying to put as much space between him and the stranger as possible.
Steve frowned, a crease forming between his brows. He tried the door—locked—then tried again. It broke easily with his super-strength, the door swinging open with a soft creak.
He cleared his throat. “Hey, buddy,” he started, hands up in surrender. “I’m not going to hurt you, son. I’m going to get you out of here.”
The boy looked up at Steve, his brows tugging together, a frown forming on his face.
“I’m Steve Rogers,” Steve tried again. “Captain America? I’m here to help you.”
A flicker of recognition flickered across the child’s face, and his frown deepened. “Это—это не жорошо. Ты не—” He stopped suddenly. “Я—я ничего не сказал.”
Steve knew very, very little Russian. Peggy had tried to teach him some, during the War, but it hadn't really stuck. He knew how to say priv-yet and spa-si-ba and pa-ka and that was it. He sighed internally, the lifted his hand to the comm in his ear. "Nat, you there?"
"Always. Find something?"
"Yeah, I did. How would I tell someone that i'm not a threat in Russian?"
”Prisoner?”
“Civilian of some kind; young. Preschool age, if I had to guess.”
“The kid could still be an Agent, Steve," Natasha said softly. "Be careful."
Steve’s instincts had always served him well, and, looking down at the malnutritioned, terrified boy in front of him, he couldn’t see any threat. This was not an Agent. This was a victim.
“Do you understand English at all, son?” Steve tried again. The boy eyed him suspiciously, then slowly, nodded his head. Steve took that as a win. “Do you know who I am? Captain America?”
Once again, the boy nodded.
Steve sighed. He’d already made his decision about the boy, but he knew that Natasha wouldn’t like it. “I’m here to help you. If you come with me, you’ll be safe. Does that sound good?”
The boy didn’t nod this time. Instead, he opened his mouth as though to speak, and then closed it. And then tried again.
“No more s-periment’s?” The boy’s voice was weak and quiet, his words unsure and accented.
He confirmed Steve’s worst fears.
“No more experiments, no. No more,” Steve held his hand out, hoping that the child would take it. “Please, let me help you.”
The boy frowned, then slowly shuffled forward, taking Steve’s hand gingerly. “Спасибо—thank you.” He said, in his horribly terrified voice. His hand was tiny and cold in Steve’s own, and Steve couldn’t help but think that the kid was much too light as he hoisted him onto his hip, and started to walk back to the quinjet.
“I’m coming back with company,” He said on comms, hoping and praying that the team would understand. “We’re going to need someone to clear this section. I’m five out.”
<><><>
Tony Stark didn’t often miss out on Avengers missions—the quinjet was his, after all, and he felt that it was absurd for his teammates to take it out without him.
Unfortunately for him, his lovely, brilliant, amazing CEO, Pepper Potts, had forced him to actually attend a very important, very boring meeting with the Stark Industries board. Obligations like this—and the minute detail that he had been actively dying at the time—were why he had passed on the mantle of CEO; he was only head of Research and Development now, and it was utterly unfair that he had to sacrifice three days of his invaluable time just to pacify the board of directors.
He would much rather be messing around in his lab, or joining his super-hero teammates on this weeks HYDRA raid, or planning the Avengers next move with Captain Steve Rogers—the last of which had an added bonus, of course, because lordy was Cap a sight for sore eyes.
But Tony could never get his way, apparently, and thus was stuck spending his Wednesday in a stuffy New York office, arguing with Larry Davidson—who pitched the idea of Stark Industries re-entering the weapons industry at least twice a quarter—rather than joining his fellow Avengers on a raid of a relatively small HYDRA base, around thirty kilometres south of the Russian town of Tobolsk. Suffice to say, he would much rather be doing the latter.
The board was, of course, Tony’s least favourite part of his real job. Many of the old guard, the men who had been appointed by Obadiah Stane and were simply too close to retirement to justift termination, were stuck in their ways and ever-disapproving of the direction that Tony wanted to company to go. Many of them, the infernal Larry Davidson included, continued to scoff at his clean energy initiatives, always redirecting board meetings to ‘HammerTech’s military contract is coming up for renewal, we should provide an alternative,’ and ‘this company used to do real work, not this idiotic hippie-dippie bullshit’—both lovely inputs from Larry Davidson himself.
It was during one of these old-guard tirades that Tony’s phone began to ring in his pocket, and instrumental version of The Star Spangled Banner blasting from the device at full volume.
Steve Rogers was one of five people who’s calls would go through, even when Tony’s phone was silenced. He had been told—by Pepper, not Tony—that if Tony was doing company meetings, he should only be contacted in emergencies. And for the most part, Steve seemed to respect that, meaning that this call had to be important.
“Apologies, everyone,” Tony said smoothly, standing from his chair and fishing his phone from his pocket. “Captain America only rings in emergencies—shall we take five?”
Pepper glared at him from the chair to his left, as Tony hurried from the room, accepting the call as the second verse of the national anthem began.
“Go for Stark.”
“Tony,” A smooth voice, unmistakenly belonging to Steve, began. “We—we have a bit of a situation, out here. We’re on our way back to the Tower, ETA 1630, but we have… company.”
Tony glanced down at his watch, which read quarter to four. “Company?” He queried.
“I’ll debrief you properly once we arrive,” Steve continued.
I wish you would, Tony couldn’t help but think to himself.
“But I thought you ought to know about this in advance. The agents all took cyanide pills once we arrived, but we found a prisoner, Tony, a—little boy, maybe around four years old. He’s quiet; scared—but Natasha doesn’t seem to think he’s a threat. We’re bringing him home with us.”
“A kid,” Tony frowned, leaning against the wall of the pristine hallway he stood in. “And Natasha doesn’t think he’s an—agent? Of some kind? Some sort of tiny little junior-HYDRA type thing? Deutches Jungvolk, HYDRA-style?”
“We don’t think so. I found him in a concealed cell. He was terrified, Tony. Malnutrition, under-developed speech, the whole—“
“He spoke English?”
“A little, yeah,” Steve sighed on the other end of the line. “He told he that he was being experimented on. But he was mostly speaking Russian. Hasn’t said a word since I got him back to the quinjet, though, and he wont let Bruce anywhere near him to check for injuries.”
Tony hummed, thoughtful. “Okay. Okay. So, whats our play here? Are we making this Fury’s problem? Or do we want to try deal with this ourselves?” Do I have an excuse to escape this damn meeting, he thought, though didn’t verbalise.
“I think we should handle this ourselves, Tony. I’m not certain that I trust Fury with this one, honestly. This is a child, and—well, we all know what the Director is like.”
“That we do,” Tony agreed. “Alright. I’ll blow this popsicle stand, and I’ll see if I can get a room sorted out for our guest. Do you have any leads on an identity yet? A name, family, anything like that?”
“No, not yet.”
“Okay. Alright, I’ll see you soon, yeah?”
“See you soon, Tony,” Steve hung up and Tony sighed, turning back toward the large office.
The Stark Industries board members were all still in their leather chairs, all seventeen of them staring at Tony through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that separated the room from the hallway, sans Pepper—lovely, amazing Pepper—who was flicking through paperwork, lips pressed into a thin line, clearly unimpressed by Tony interrupting the discussion.
He returned to his seat, a coy smile on his lips. “Alrighty, I have important business to attend to in approximately,” He over-exaggerated looking down at his watch, “Thirty-five minutes, so lets keep this concise, shall we?”