The other three heroes did a double take as Tony made the connection, their eyes all widening in shock. Natasha lowered her guard slightly and took a few steps back--she didn't want to fight Peter--but that was exactly what he had been waiting for.
He lunged at Natasha, and although she was fast enough to dodge the initial blow it was almost like Peter was predicting exactly how she would retaliate, and seconds later she was on the ground, her eyes closed, blood leaking from her nose.
"Pete, what are you doing?" Tony shouted. His eyes widened in fear as Peter turned towards him and dashed across the room, dodging the coffee table that Bucky threw at him. The billionaire didn't fight back as the teen attacked, just defended himself as best he could and kept trying to talk to his kid, his son.
"Peter, please!" Tony choked out as he hit the wall, Peter's hand tight against his throat. The nanotech surged to reinforce the area and better protect Tony, and he fell to the ground in a coughing fit as Steve tore the kid away. The mask had come down from Peter's face, leaving no doubt as to his identity. But as Tony caught his breath his heart sank into his stomach.
Peter had just tried to kill him.
But what scared Tony more was that when he was able to see the boy's eyes, it was as though he were staring at a corpse. There was no light behind them. They were blank, expressionless--nothing like the Peter Tony knew and loved.
"We don't want to hurt you, son," Steve tried, clumsily blocking the boy's blows and trying to hide how much they were taking out of him. Bucky jumped in as well, but Peter was holding his own just fine against the two super soldiers. None of them had ever seen him fight so viciously or hit so hard. In fact, if he weren't opposite people with strength that almost matched his own right now, Peter probably would've killed them with one blow.
Tony was about to jump in and help when he noticed the bird man flying back towards the Tower. He felt his adrenaline starting to amp up even further. With Peter being so aggressive and unresponsive, Tony wasn't sure that they'd be able to win this one if the bird man was coming in as reinforcements.
Still, Starks are stubborn. Pepper knew that better than anyone, and right now she and Morgan were in the other room depending on Tony to keep them safe. So he raised his repulsor to fire at the bird man.
He shot several times, but by then the man had landed with a thump in the room and lifted one of his wings to protect himself from the shots. Tony didn't let up, flying around the room to try and catch the bird man from another angle. Panic began to set in as Tony realized the man had moved towards Natasha and was now kneeling beside her. Tony upped his firepower, giving it all that he had when he was suddenly hit with something big.
Tony went tumbling to the ground and found himself once more staring into the scarily empty eyes of his kid. Peter raised a fist to throw what Tony knew could very well be a fatal blow to his face when out of the corner of his eye Tony saw the bird man raise one of Natasha's wristbands, the widow bites glowing blue and ready to fly. And he wasn't pointing it at Tony.
Tony lurched as far to the side as he could as Peter slammed his fist down with enough force to crack the floor, then wrapped his hands around Peter's wrist and twisted his body to throw the kid off balance. It didn't work very well, but it was the only opportunity Tony could give the man.
Peter's eyes widened as the bird man fired the device, clearly sensing the bites before they'd even left the wristband, but was only able to yank his hand from Tony's grasp before several of them made contact.
The boy seized up and fell backwards, hitting the ground hard and arching his back in pain as the blue electricity arced across his body. Tony's breath caught as Peter opened his mouth in a silent scream, his eyes clenched shut. The bird man fired more widow bites, and this time Peter made noise. The awful sound broke Tony's heart, and he threw himself at the bird man, wrenching the wristband from his grasp.
"What are you doing?" Tony yelled. "You already hit him!"
"If you don't use enough electricity, you're not going to be able to snap him out of it. The nanotech has to be overloaded if you want your son back!" the man said, the desperation in his voice still apparent despite it being crackly and distorted from the mask on his face. Tony paused, unsure of what to make of that information, which gave the man the chance to grab the widow bites back and fire more at Peter.
"No!" Tony cried, smacking the device out of the man's hands. It went skittering across the floor and Tony stepped in the way of the man as he moved to retrieve it, charging up a repulsor and aiming it at the man's chest. "Take another step, I dare you."
The man hesitated before slowly lifting his hands into the air. He carefully removed his mask and deactivated his wings, which dropped to the ground with a thud. "Look. I know you have no reason to, but you need to trust me on this. I promise I'm trying to help." Tony opened his mouth to argue when the man's eyes abruptly bugged out. He starting twitching and making strange noises before falling face-first to the ground. Nat was sitting up, her wrist in the air.
"Yeah, like I'm going to trust the guy who threw me out the window," she snorted, deactivating her remaining wristband before wiping some of the blood off her face and shakily getting to her feet.
Tony thanked her before dropping to his knees beside Peter. "Fri, get Bruce in here now!"
"He's on his way," she responded.
Tony's breathing hitched as he frantically felt for a pulse. How many times now had he been in this position, holding the kid and searching desperately for signs of life, not knowing what was wrong or whether it was something they could fix.
His fingers dug into Peter's neck until there, just under his jaw, was a pulse. Tony didn't try to hide his relief from Natasha, who was kneeling beside him. Steve and Bucky cautiously approached, both of them clearly hurt and exhausted. Much of the metal of Bucky's arm had been corroded away, and Steve was limping slightly.
"Has anyone heard from Sam? Or Rhodey?" Steve asked, trying and failing to hide how worried he was. Tony felt his all-too-familiar anxiety start to coil in his stomach as he shook his head. Steve frowned and turned towards the shattered windows, as though any second he expected his friends to come soaring into the room with big smiles on their faces.
The door to the stairs burst open and Bruce emerged, out of breath and a little green around the gills. "Where is he?" the scientist said, pushing past Bucky so that he could get a better look at Peter. He immediately began pulling the widow bites off the kid, and Tony and Nat quickly started helping. Peter was still unnervingly still other than his erratic breathing.
Once the last one had been taken off, Bruce turned to Steve and Bucky. "We need to get him to the med bay. Now." Steve nodded and lifted Peter over his shoulder before limping out of the room. Tony moved to follow, not wanting to let his kid out of his sight ever again, but Bruce stopped him. "I want you both in there as well, but not until I've finished with Peter. You are just going to be in the way if you're breathing over my shoulder."
Tony opened his mouth to argue, but Nat put a hand on his shoulder. "We need to find Rhodey and Sam, and we also need to figure out what to do with these imbeciles," Nat said, turning to look disdainfully at the villains scattered across the room.
"No need," a familiar voice suddenly said. Clint was awake and slowly pulling himself into a sitting position. "I just sent a distress signal to Fury. SHIELD's on the way now."
Natasha seemed somewhat relieved both to know her friend was okay and that someone else was going to handle the situation from here. She pulled Tony to his feet and then moved towards Clint, who gladly accepted the help and then allowed her to drape his arm over her shoulder. Bruce had disappeared from the room by now, and Tony had to take some deep breaths to try and distract himself from the growing knot of worry in his chest.
"Friday, tell Pep and Morgan that it's safe to come out," Natasha said.
Moments later Pepper came running into the room, engulfing Tony in a hug before taking a closer look at the disaster surrounding them. "What happened? Where is everyone?"
"We have Peter," was all Tony said. Pepper took a second to process what he'd just told her before her eyes welled with tears.
"What? Peter? Where?" she asked. "Is he okay?"
Tony hesitated. "We don't know," he admitted quietly. "Where's Morgan?"
Morgan peeked her head around the corner, nervously taking in the damage and paling when she saw familiar faces that Tony had hoped she'd never have to go anywhere near again. "Dad?" she said quietly, picking her way through the room towards him. He deactivated his suit and pulled her close, holding her tighter than was comfortable with his bruised ribs.
"Peter?" she asked, so quietly Tony almost didn't catch what she said. Her voice was trembling, as though she were afraid of the answer he was going to give.
"We got him," Tony told her, "but he's not in good shape, Maguna."
She sniffled into his shirt and nodded her understanding. Pepper wrapped her arms around the two of them from behind Morgan, and only then did Tony let himself cry.
Finally. They were all together in the same building again.
He didn't know what the future was going to look like, especially if what the bird man had said about nanobots was true. But Peter and Morgan were alive, and right now, that was all Tony needed to start feeling hopeful again.
~~~
Beck had anger issues.
He knew that, of course, embraced it in fact. Most people refrained from crossing him because it meant they would have to deal with his ugly outbursts.
The minute Beck had realized what Toomes was doing, he'd pulled out every trick in the book to try and stop the man before he ruined the plan. But of course, Vulture had destroyed his comms, so before long Beck had realized his threats were falling on empty ears and was forced to watch as Toomes helped take the Asset down.
"NO!" Beck screamed, throwing one of the screens in front of him across the van. The Asset was down, along with all the others. Hydra would not be pleased.
No, they would be furious. Which meant he needed to get far away from here.
Beck took a few ragged breaths before ripping the van door open and climbing out into the street. He shut it behind him and reached for the driver's side door when he suddenly heard a voice, and a light shone on the van.
Out of instinct, Beck briefly turned to see who was shouting, squinting as the light glared right in his face.
"Hey! You! Stop right there!" the voices demanded. Beck felt panic and adrenaline start to set in as the light dropped away long enough for him to see exactly who was confronting him.
The Falcon and War Machine were running down the street. They'd seen the Hydra symbol on his gear, no doubt. Beck yanked open the driver's side door and climbed in, slamming it shut behind him before jamming the keys into ignition and starting the vehicle. He locked the doors and reached to put the van into gear when the harsh sound of metal screeching startled him.
Beck jumped back as much as he could as the van door was torn right off its hinges, revealing a very angry duo of super heroes. Falcon had his pistols out and pointed right at Beck's forehead and chest, his aim never wavering as Colonel Rhodes pulled Beck roughly from the vehicle and dropped him on the pavement.
"I wouldn't run if I were you," Falcon said.
Beck glared and then spat at their feet. "You're not getting anything out of me!" he sneered.
War Machine raised an eyebrow before opening the back door of the van to reveal the complicated setup inside the vehicle. Beck felt bile rise in his throat as he realized that he hadn't even thought to shut anything down in his rush to get away. Everything the two Avengers needed to know was at their disposal.
"Looks like the computers will do all the talking for you," Falcon said smugly. "Get up. I have someone who wants to meet you."
(AN: There you have it! I will come back later to edit, but for now I hope you enjoy. The story is finally starting to wrap up, although I have a few ideas that I could probably spin off into a sequel. Let me know if you'd be interested in reading that!
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone :D
AlyssaTano)