Clint landed a solid kick to a Hydra agents face, reveling in the crack sounding as the person went down. Not far from him, Natasha joined the fray, making her way towards him. Clint quickly got her in talking distance, punching someone in the face to get there.
"So, how gnarly was it?" Clint asked, grinning. The meeting about the mission had been brief, since they didn't have a lot of time or knowledge about the project.
Project 001... something. Clint just remembered Hunting Spider and shuddered. Apparently the thing Natasha was extracting was a new bio weapon, untested in the field, but performing marvelously in the lab. Hydra had been meddling with spider DNA and human, no doubt crafting some gun or elixir to turn regular people into mindless monsters.
The files Shield gave them said something along those lines; human and spider DNA, new abilities, difficult to harness and control. Other than that, all they knew was Hydra set the field testing date: only two days from then. That was why urgency was paramount, and why Shield sent the Avengers in at all.
Natasha made a weird face at his question, round-house-kicking someone into next Tuesday. "There wasn't an... it."
"There was nothing there? Then what-"
"No, there was something," Natasha paused, using her darts to send the next few attackers convulsing on the floor, "well, someone."
"Oh heck, you've got to be kidding me." Another Bucky situation? Great, the compound's walls might never recover from that kind of chaos. "How big were they?" A bio weapon of extreme danger? Clint was expecting a huge lunk, maybe even someone as big as Bucky. Not to mention this was a spider-based experiment, did they have extra arms or something?
"Not big at all," Natasha answered, the expression never leaving her face, she didn't even smile when she jump-kicked someone in the face! "The bio-weapon is a child."
Before Clint's jaw could hit the floor, the whirring of a plane sounded overhead. Natasha and Clint quickly made their way to the middle of the room, meeting up with Steve, Wanda, Rhodes, Vision, and Sam. Bruce was on the plane already, Thor off-world, and Bucky was back at the compound for obvious reasons.
"Natasha," Steve greeted, keeping some agents at bay while the other grabbed their ropes and were hauled into the ship, "did you find it?"
"In a way," Natasha explained, reaching for her rope. Steve raised an eyebrow. "I found a kid. The bio weapon is a child." She finished, watching the horror cross Steve's face as he grabbed his own rope.
Sam kept the Hydra firing squad from hitting any of them before also flying into the ship.
Bruce wasn't waiting for them, like he should've been while Tony got them the hell out of dodge. Everyone started talking at once.
"Did everything go smoothly?" Vision asked, as Wanda called, "is everyone ok?"
Sam and Rhodey immediately started asking Natasha about the bio weapon, while Steve and Clint both stuttered in shock. Tony had to put the plane on auto-pilot so he could debrief them all. Natasha made a beeline for the medbay.
The kid was sitting on a gurney, trying to make himself as small as possible while Bruce gave him as much space as he could in such a small room. They both looked relieved when Natasha walked in. Bruce actually smiled.
"Natasha, I believe you've met Peter?" Bruce gestured to the boy swinging his legs in the corner. "Is he alright?" Natasha asked quietly, eyes on the kid. Bruce shrugged, raking a hand through his hair. "He's... physically he's... I guess the short answer is no. He's going to need a lot of meds and food to get his body functioning normally. But his bruises are disappearing at alarming rates, and none of the tranquilizers I tried worked. They made him calm and a little sleepy, but his metabolism burns through them too fast to actually knock him out."
Bruce's whole demeanor screamed exasperated, telling Natasha there was something else. She raised an eyebrow - it was usually all she needed to do to get Bruce to spill.
"I'm more worried about his mental state," and there it was. "Obviously he's been through a lot, but he isn't like Bucky... was. Maybe because they didn't start field testing him, or because they didn't need to erase as many of his memories, he's not devoid of personality. He's not a shell of a human." Natasha nodded, waiting for the reason why all that was a bad thing, "but I can't figure out his triggers. Obviously he doesn't like touch, but he seems to think all of this is fake, and he'll start crying and hyperventilating at the drop of a hat. It's like he's waiting to wake up, and I don't know how to calm him down."
Natasha had her fair share of panic attacks, especially when she first got out of the red room. She knew the feeling of always looking over her shoulder, of trying not to get attached to anyone or get too comfortable.
"There's something else," Bruce's voice went even quieter, "he's very smart. Like, abnormally smart. As in, knew everything that I was giving him and could tell me how to weaponize it smart. I'm not sure how much schooling they gave him in Hydra, but he must be bordering on genius."
Natasha gave the scared boy another once over before nodding. Her deduction skills led her to a solid conclusion; she knew exactly who could help. "Thanks, Bruce." she smiled at him, "I think I might be able to help."
Natasha approached the table slowly, noticing Peter focusing on her steps. His eyes kept darting to Bruce, and he would shiver. Her suit coat was in a heap next to him.
"Hi, Peter," Natasha greeted, stopping in front of him. He looked up at her slowly, head lolling to the side. His eyes were alert, but the rest of him was slow, sleepy. Exactly how many sedatives did Bruce give this kid?
"Hi..."
"My name is Natasha."
"Hi Natasha, how are you?" She was taken aback by the sudden display of niceties. Bruce was right, the kid seemed more whole than Bucky had. They must've let him keep his memories, maybe exposed him to people. Hydra had obviously changed their tactics. Did this make Peter less dangerous than the Winter Soldier, or more?
"I'm fine, how are you?" Natasha's side was starting to ache, and she really wanted to sit down, but didn't want to crowd Peter's space.
He looked at her blankly, as surprised by her manners as she was his. "I'm... I don't know." He leaned forward conspiratorially, "I can't decide if this is real or not, but I can't figure out why Fjerda would dress up as someone else dressed up as her, you know? And Dr. Fischer doesn't look anything like Bruce, despite the... lab coat." He shuddered involuntarily at the word. Natasha would have to tell Bruce to ditch the lab coat next time.
"Why would this be fake, Peter?" As Bruce had described, suddenly Peter's eyes filled with tears. His hands started to shake, clenching and unclenching in his lap. His breathing faltered, coming in short bursts, a faint sob in his throat.
"Peter? Hey, it's ok, calm down." He curled in on himself, hands buried in his hair. Natasha looked back to Bruce, him looking as helpless as she felt.
"It's ok now, Peter." Natasha turned back to him with a soothing voice, kneeling to try to see his face. "We're going to help you. This is real, they can't hurt you anymore." He squeezed his eyes shut, a watery sob hiccuping past his lips. Natasha didn't know how he felt about touch, but wasn't about to try it with some super-powered kid. For now, all they could do was give him space.
Natasha walked back to where Bruce was standing - panicking - and put a hand on his shoulder. "There isn't much we can do now, we have to wait until we get home." Bruce nodded, eyes glued to the boy. Natasha left the medbay with a heavy heart.
"Nat, how is he?" Steve greeted as soon as the medbay doors closed behind her.
"Who is he?" Sam and Clint were right behind him.
"What is he?" Wanda, Vision and Tony were behind them, making Natasha feel far too crowded.
"Is he ok?" Rhodey was in the back.
Natasha sighed, gesturing for her team to back the hell up. "His name is Peter, and he's not doing great." Steve flinched, remembering Bucky's recovery. "Has Bruce had to restrain him yet?"
Shaking her head, Natasha did her best to describe his condition. The panic attacks, the apparent lack of brainwashing, the manners and endearing personality. She looked pointedly at Tony when explaining how smart he was.
"What happened to him?" Wanda asked softly, no doubt recalling her own time in Hydra. Peter's situation was far similar to her own than Bucky's. Natasha didn't miss Wanda's response to hearing his name was Peter.
"We don't really know; every time I think he's going to tell me something relevant, he starts crying."
"What can he do?" Tony asked gravely. His suit bore the hand-print dents proving this kid was not normal. Again, Natasha shook her head.
"There's no way of knowing until we get him to the compound." Natasha hoped that having that safe space would help Peter tell them exactly what happened to him.