Becoming Spider-Man // Son of Stark 1

Chapter 21

As a pair, Iron Man and Captain America were the epitome of stealth and organisation. They infiltrated the base with next to no trouble, and were soon creeping through the halls and listening out for any noise. The noise came in the form of Steve dropping his shield on the metal floor.

It rolled in a circle like a metal lid dropped on the ground, making a booming noise on impact and grating noisily for several seconds before Steve put his foot on it.

"Be quiet!" Tony hissed, jabbing Steve in the gut with his elbow. "Or I'll be the one fighting you instead of a Hydra agent!"

"What are you going to do, elbow me in the chest?" Steve asked with a chuckle in his voice, not particularly trying to get a rise out of the other man but trying to hide the nervousness that was slowly setting into his gut: his Bucky was gone, gone into the Winter Soldier, and had taken Peter. Peter, his and Tony's son - it was too terrifying to dwell on for too long.

"Say goodbye to your kneecaps, motherfucker," he replied with a deadly serious face.

Steve snorted with laughter. "I had a sudden image of you trying to take down Loki by kicking him in the knees."

"Well he did try to stab me in the chest but he missed. I'm better than him."

"Your arc reactor was in the way!"

"Technicalities, technicalities," Tony dismissed. "I'll do you one better: now I'm picturing you trying to take down Loki by hitting him in the face with your shield."

* * *

"They hurt you. Real bad," Peter informed the boy, their eyes locked together. The boy was panicking: he had only known this reality for a small amount of time but it was slowly being torn apart... and he didn't like that. It may have been made up of lies but it was a comfort of knowledge - false knowledge, but knowledge all the same.

"They didn't," the boy insisted, closing his eyes in pain. Why didn't this Parker boy understand that Hydra had been good to him? He still didn't understand how he'd even entered the room. Yet he was here.

"Trust me... they did."

The door slid open, and the man - who had been talking to the boy before, walked in. "Stand up, актив/asset," the older man barked, coming closer towards the bed. As the boy's eyes trailed from the doorway back to where Peter had previously been standing, he noticed the teen had vanished. Disappeared. As quickly as he had arrived, he had gone.

The boy, now unsure of what to think, hesitated before getting up. His knees almost buckling under the sudden movement. "Who was he?"

Glancing at the boy in confusion, the man uttered, "Who was who? There was nobody else in here." His accent was heavy, and he spat as he spoke the words to the teen. He raised his hand and threw it down on the boy's shoulder - causing him to yelp in pain. "Do not talk out of turn. You are a weapon, a very valuable one... One that we do not want giving away important intel to Shield. Understand?"

The boy nodded.

"Good."

The sound of siren blaring suddenly flooded the room. Something bad was happening. Something awful. The boy wasn't too sure what it was - but alarms were bad. Fire alarms, school alarms, all alarms... none of them led to good.

The man gently pushed the boy towards the bed, "Stay in here, актив/asset, you'll be safe." Then he headed out of the room - locking the door behind him.

"You'll be safe because that's your folks coming to rescue you," Peter whispered, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder.

The boy knew it was there, but he couldn't physically feel it. It was an abstract feeling, One you couldn't quite describe if you tried. "I don't know what you're talking about. Everything you've said to me has been a lie. You're trying to turn me against them. It won't work, though. It won't."

Peter shook his head. "They've turned you against yourself. Not the other way round. I swear it. They're the bad guys."

"I don't... I don't believe you," he stuttered, staring at the white wall in front of him. His tears were starting to water; he couldn't let Peter know he had gotten to him. "But, I recognise you."

"You'll remember eventually."

Peter pulled his hand away from the boy, and when the boy looked back at the teen... he was gone. The words stuck, though. What would he remember? When?

* * *

"Oh shit!" Tony piped, when the alarm began to tone. "And this is why you don't ask for a shield. Who thought it would be a good idea for you to have a shield?"

"Howard..."

"Should've known. He was the mastermind of bad ideas. One of them being-"

Steve stopped him, interjecting, "Shut up, Tony. We need to find Peter - if he's here, before they move him."

So the pair headed down the the hallway, running straight into Zemo himself. "Mr Stark, Mr Rogers... How wonderful it is to find you down in the hallways of my home. We've been expecting you. Obviously, you took a little longer than we might have hoped. We had to resort to some... creative uses for your son."

"What in Satan's name have you done to him? If you hurt my kid-" started Tony, who began to walk over to Zemo, only to be held back by his ex-husband.

"Where is he?"

Zemo pointed to a screen, and then to the door, before answering Steve's question. "He's in there. But I wouldn't go in there right now."

"Why not?" Tony asked through gritted teeth. This Hydra guy really was infuriating.

As in response to his question, Peter - and the many other things were swiftly flung to the ceiling. The gravity in the room. Gone. "It's remarkable what a reliable source of mining labour will get you, when you lend it out to a billionaire."

"Gravitonium..." whispered Tony, now understanding everything that was happening. "You helped Ian Quinn?"

"You didn't think the fool could have done it all himself, did you?" Zemo queried, his tone being way too light for the situation. "We prided ourselves with being close with many strong organisations such as the Rising Tide. It was a small price to pay for weapons such as that."

"You're going to pay for this, y'know. He's an innocent kid, why'd you even think about laying a finger on him?"

"They're Hydra..." Tony cut in, "It's what they do."

Zemo responded with a sly grin. "He's not exactly innocent though, is he? The powers for one, they increase his healing metabolism."

"What powers? You didn't repeat the Winter Soldier experiment. Did you?"

"He had these powers before he came here. Did he not tell you this?"

Tony  g u l p e d.

"You knew. Didn't you, Stark?"

"Yep."

"And I'm afraid as this very happy moment carries out, I'm going to be leaving you." An explosion rattled through the room, smoke clouding the two Avengers' Vision. When it had cleared, Zemo was gone.

"Damn it."

"He's gone."

"Yeah, I know."