Tony was having a regular day until it happened.
Him and Steve had made up a while back from civil war and all the avengers were staying at the new, barely used, avengers compound. Other than Thor who was still busy out in Asgard, Bucky who was out in town for the day, and Clint and Scott who were home with family.
They were all lounging in the living room, watching movies, eating snacks, and talking about everything from little to big when suddenly Friday spoke up.
"Boss... You have what they said was a gift waiting out front," she says, somehow sounding worried.
"Who's they?" Tony asks, bringing himself to his feet, the others glance between him and the ceiling, obviously worried. It could be a bomb for all they know.
"Running a facial scan... They appear to all be members of Hydra according to their badges. No facial recognition from the system."
"Scan the gift, Fri. Is it a bomb?"
There's a few seconds of tense silence.
"I've run a facial scan and-"
"Facial?" Tony exclaims, looking up.
"Yes. It's hard to be certain, but I believe it is Peter Parker. Age 17. Went missing when he was 12 years old. From Queens, New York. No living relatives," Friday informs.
"Shit," Tony exclaims, immediately racing for the doors, avengers on his heels.
It's a pretty horrifying sight.
Lying on the front porch is Peter Parker. Gagged, wrists and ankles in big shackles, thick ropes tying his arms to the rest of his body, a blindfold over his eyes, and a thick metal band around his neck. All the visible skin is torn, bleeding, bruised, or charred.
"Holy shit," Tony repeats, hands beginning to shake at his sides. He doesn't even know where to start.
"Is that vibranium?" Steve demands, standing up at Tony's side as his eyes dart over the boy's still figure.
"What do we do? Shit. Steve?" Tony says, eyes wide and scared.
"Let's wake him up, get him inside. We'll figure it out once we figure out what's happened," Steve instructs.
"Do we trust him? He's apart of Hydra?" Natasha says, unsure but obviously sympathetic.
"Look at him... he's tied up. He looks hurt. Badly. This isn't his fault. Even if he's brainwashed, this isn't on him. We have to take care of him," Steve says, obviously seeing Bucky in the poor kid.
Tony kneels beside the kid and carefully rests a hand on his shoulder.
"Peter?"
The kid's body tenses up impossibly beneath Tony's hand and he flinches away making some gurgling noise through the gag.
Tony's eyes widen further, tugging the gag and blindfold off the kid as quickly as he can, knowing all the other restraints will be much harder to deal with.
"Kid? Peter? I'm Tony. Tony Stark. We're going to take care of you, Okay?" Tony says, feeling something deep inside him shatter at the kid's big, innocent brown eyes behind the blindfold.
"Yes, sir," is all Peter chokes out, struggling to keep his emotions in check.
Steve looks angry as he helps Peter to his shaky feet easily. Peter's terribly thin, much much too thin. There's a deep raging fire behind Steve's eyes, unable to stop himself from imagining the hell this kid's probably been through. Natasha and the others, besides Steve and Tony, hurry off to tell Fury of the situation and see what th best steps to take are. To see if the kid really has nowhere to go.
No words are spoken as Peter's led through the compound to the hospital where Bruce is waiting with some things.
Peter murmurs something quietly, that nobody manages to catch.
"What was that, Peter? Are you okay?" Steve asks, keeping his voice soft like he's talking to a toddler.
"No needles... Please," Peter says, almost begging.
"No needles," Bruce promises, lifting his hands, palms up, with a gentle smile.
Peter nods a little bit, absentmindedly. "Thank you."
Peter's eyes fall to the floor and he goes entirely still again like he's suddenly decided to take a nap standing up.
"Do you want to lie down, Peter?" Steve asks, eyes checking the kid over at every chance he gets to make sure he's not injured anymore than what's visible.
Peter wordlessly nods, sitting on the edge of the bed and staring at his motionless fingers.
Finally, he looks up, and something looks irreplaceably Broken in his eyes.
"'M sorry... Who's Peter?" Peter instantly flinches and he ducks his head down again, shoulders bracing like he's expecting to get hit.
"Kid..." Tony sighs, kneeling down on the floor in front of the teenager. "You are Peter. Peter Parker. That's you."
Peter refuses to meet the hero's eyes, keeping his gaze downcast. He swallows loudly, flinching again.
Tony lifts himself off the floor after giving the kid one last sad look and then turns back to Bruce and Steve.
"We need to get those chains off him. ASAP," Tony instructs.
"Your repulsors might be strong enough to break through? Maybe my shield if that doesn't work?" Cap suggests.
The glove instantly forms around Tony's glove and he turns back to the kid, who's watching him with wide eyes.
"Let's get those cuffs off, huh?" Tony says gently, nodding at Peter's hands.
Peter shakes his head quickly, pulling his wrists into his chest with wide, scared eyes.
"We're not going to hurt you," Steve reassures, hunching down beside Tony to make himself seem less intimidating.
"Have I been bad?" he squeaks, voice barely above the softest of whisper. "I'm sorry. Please. I'll do better."
"No, no, no. You haven't done anything wrong. We just want to get your handcuffs off. It'll feel better and Bruce will be able to dress your wounds, okay?" Tony murmurs, taking another small step towards the small boy.
He flinches at the movement, but doesn't move to get away at all.
It takes a while of coaxing to convince Peter to hold his skinny arms away from his chest, and then it takes a while for the laser to cut through the strong metal, but when it's finally done, and wrapped in white gauze, Peter looks a lot easier to handle.
The rest of the restraints are easier to deal with besides the thick metal collar around Peter's neck.
"I'm too worried about hurting him more with the repulsors," Tony says, letting the gauntlet disappear back into his watch.
"Yeah. Peter? Do you know anyway to get this off?" Bruce asks, green ringing around his hands when Peter flinches away from him.
It takes Peter a few moments before he slowly nods, fear shining in his big eyes.
"How? The sooner we get this off, the sooner you can sleep. How does that sound?" Steve coaxes. "We're not going to hurt you. I promise."
Peter carefully pulls a small remote from the pocket in his overly large jeans. There's bloodstains and rips all over the jeans and they hang off his slim waist.
He holds it close to him, a small pout on his lips and tears forming in his bambi eyes.
"Please don't hurt me. Please. I promise I'll do better. I'll do anything. Please," Peter begs, voice shaking and cracking off into nothingness by the end.
"What does this do?" Steve asks, chin jutting out a little bit as he takes in the raw skin peeking out from underneath the collar and the remote in Peter's hand. "Did they electrocute you?"
Peter freezes up and he pushes himself away from us a little more, eyes wide and darting, whining softly in pain at the movement.
"We're not going to hurt you, Peter. It's okay. We're going to try to get the collar off. Do you know what button it could be?" Tony says, palms up in surrender despite wanting to still the kid's movements to make him stop hurting himself more.
Peter regards the remote for a few moments, eyes wary as he continuously glances up at us.
"This one?" Peter guesses, frowning deeply as his finger hovers over one of the buttons. "They never used this one."
Tony doesn't want Peter to just go for it to see if it works in case it's something worse than whatever they'd been doing already, it could be an even higher dose of electricity for adults instead of kids for all they know.
But Peter goes for it, tapping the button and holding himself tight, tensing his body as though waiting for the shock.
There's a small click that echoes through the quiet room, everybody holding their breaths, and then the collar falls off of Peter neck.
It's not a pretty sight. Charred skin, cuts still bleeding from lack of tending to, all the surrounding skin is an angry red fading into a light pink.
"It's probably going to scar," Bruce mutters, hands flexing over and over again as the green starts to spread a little bit more than safe.
"He's safe now, Bruce. He's never going to have to go through it again," Steve mumbles in response, touching Bruce's shoulder for a second before handing him more of the white gauze.
Bruce nods quickly, flexing his hands once more before beginning his work on wrapping Peter's neck.
Once it's finally finished, Peter sits and watches us with big eyes.
"What do you want to do?" Steve asks.
"Me?" Peter asks, eyes somehow getting bigger.
"Yeah. Do you want to eat? Or go outside? Or watch Tv? Or sleep? Or something else?" Steve continues, just as gentle and patient as ever.
Peter glances back and forth, fingers beginning to fidget. "Outside? TV? What are... What-"
"Come on. I'll show you. We can go visit the garden," Tony suggests, reaching out a hand for Peter.
Peter's pupils dilate and he grabs Tony's hand excitedly, getting up to his shaky legs.
Tony leads Peter out of the tower, towards where the big garden is out back.
Peter's practically vibrating with excitement, big eyes taking in the world.
"When was the last time you went outside, Peter?" Tony asks, despite not wanting to know the answer.
Peter shakes his head, small hand squeezing onto Tony's. "They never let me out. Ever. Not even a window."
"At all? 5 years?" Tony gasps, eyes watering. He didn't meant to care for this kid, didn't mean to get emotionally invested this early.
Peter shakes his head again. A small squeaky noise leaving his mouth as he sees a cute daisy growing outside the garden borders.
He smiles shyly down at the little flower then looks back up at me, smile dropping.
"Never," he repeats. "Was it really 5 years?"
"Yeah... you're 17 now, in case you were wondering. And you'll be staying here with us unless the others can figure out if you've got any relatives," Tony explains.
Peter nods slowly.
"I don't.... I don't remember anything from before. Not really," Peter says, desperately wracking his brain for anything from before the 5 years in his prison.
"I don't want to have to bring up bad memories... but I need to know some things. Do you know where the hydra base is?"
"No. I was never allowed out. I was knocked out on the way in and knocked out and blindfolded before I was taken here. I don't know any information about them either. I know names and faces, but that's it. Nothing for you to find them," Peter explains.
"Was there any other people there with you? Or were you by yourself?"
Peter hesitates for a few moments, continuing the slow pace beside the hero. "There used to be a few others... 3 that I knew of, but after a while, they just disappeared. Probably dead or something. I think they were weeding out the strongest. Whoever's brain collapses first loses."
"What the fuck?"
Peter laughs, a humorless cold laugh. "Yeah. Whoever's the strongest, whoever survives the longest, wins or something. They talked about how I was going to be a super soldier. I was going to be the new Winter Soldier after they lost their first one, but apparently they didn't think that because I was the strongest, I was going to be the hardest to break."
"And did they?" Tony asks, stopping in his footsteps to let Peter sit down and rest. "Did they break you, I mean?"
"Yeah," Peter mumbles, staring down at the floor with glazed over eyes. "They we're trying a different tactic than what they used for the winter soldier. They didn't want me to forget, didn't want me to be mindless. They wanted a genius. They had the warriors. And the weapons. But they needed to have leverage. Someone to use as bait. Someone to come up with the plans. That's harder to do than to create the perfect soldier."
"Did you become what they wanted?"
"Yeah," Peter admits. "I was never strong enough... wasn't strong enough to do anything to stop them. They decided last week that I wasn't good enough... that's why they left me here."
Tony sighs and sits down beside Peter. "It's not your fault."
Peter doesn't say anything, keeps his lips drawn shut.
"What did they tell you in there?" Tony asks, coming across the issue. Peter will answer everything honestly, only if he's first asked a question.
"Don't look people in the eyes. Don't talk back. Remember that you're below everyone around you," Peter recites, eyes glazed over.
"You don't have to follow their rules anymore. You're going to be safe here now, Okay? We're going to keep you safe here. I swear on my life."
Peter's eyes fill with tears, this time with relief more than anything.
*
It takes a long time to break out the kid that was left behind in that building, the kid that was pushed so far down that Peter was just a robot for them. It took forever, but they managed to bring out the happiness, the smiles, the jokes, the pure laughs, the beauty of the kid.
And Tony swore he'd never let that disappear.
____
Oops fuck sorry this wasn't how I planned for this to go but I didn't know how to make it any better sorry
I'll try to make the next one better
Lyss