Chapter 5
“So what? We just let him travel around all on his own doing god knows what!? What kind of plan is that Romanoff?” Tony demands while he paces the common floor.
“It’s what he wants Stark!” Natasha snaps back at him. She understands his frustration, but she also knows Peter, he won’t stop until he does whatever it is that he needs to do.
Despite her reminding Tony of this he continued to pace back and forth, scrolling through anything Friday could find but somehow the kid had practically gone invisible.
“Why did you have to teach him to disappear! Both you and Barnes over there, why on earth would you teach him how to avoid being tracked?”
Before even attempting to respond Natasha felt James’ hand grip her shoulder, a command he taught her long ago and she knew to let him speak.
“We didn’t teach him to disappear thinking he would hide from us, we taught him to be safe. I think you’re forgetting it was in fact you who told us to train him to learn what we knew, that also means teaching him to avoid being seen and you knew that. I get you’re freaking out but do not blame us.” Bucky reminded him softly, he might hate being accused of letting the kid run but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get where Stark is coming for. Getting angry will only make this worse.
“So, he wants us to leave him alone. He said he’ll be in touch at some point, we need to trust him on that,” Steve spoke up, “But has anyone got any information, other than the two letters Natasha got, that could give us some idea of where he is or what’s going on just in case this turns into something worse?”
The group all looked at each other, and saw Clint and Thor looking at one another, clearly avoiding looking at anyone but each other.
“Boys what do you know?” Pepper demanded from them, while she stood in Tony’s arms trying to offer him some kind of comfort.
“Go ahead Storm Break, you found out you can share.” Clint passed the focus to Thor. Clearly too uncomfortable to offer the information they found himself.
“Well as Natasha shared from the letter, we found out that May had abandoned him. But from his friends we learned some more information, but there’s also information that clearly, they don’t know of, so it seems Peter didn’t want anyone to know where he was going.” Thor shared while looking at Natasha, almost looking as if he was asking for her permission to continue, to which she kept her face stoic but nodded her head.
“MJ told us that her and Ned had noticed that something was occurring between Peter and May for a few weeks now at least, but he didn’t tell them any information as to what was happening to break what they all thought was an unbreakable bond. He just told them it was getting tense at home with May, and Ned told us that he hadn’t been in their apartment for a few months now, that whenever they met up it was never at their home.”
Sitting there, Natasha begins to realise for a while now that Peter had been staying at the tower a lot more for a few months now at least but she couldn’t figure out when it actually started. When did the tower become his main home? Was it before things began to fall apart with May or after?
“She then told us how the day before he left his explained to them he had to do something, but that he couldn’t share with them what exactly he had to do but that if we were to contact them to tell them he showed up for school. She said she’d give him 24 hours at the most to show up or explain and because he didn’t, she would willingly tell us everything they know. Ned just nodded along. Wasn’t there something to do with a phone Clint?”
At that Natasha’s eyes shot over to Bucky, about one second earlier before his eyes shot to her. Phone?
“Yeah, Ned told us that the entire day before he kept getting notifications on his phone, and that each one would make him more agitated or twitchy but when they asked him, he just shrugged them off. But whatever was on his phone clearly had his attention.”
“Do they know what was on his phone?” Steve questioned watching as Natasha stood up abruptly and stormed towards the elevator.
“Not what Stevie, but who?” Bucky corrected him before following Natasha.
His phone! Natasha screamed at herself. Peter left everything behind to ensure that he wouldn’t be tracked.
“Ring it.” She yelled back at Bucky, knowing without looking that he was following her.
If there was anyone on this team who cared for Peter the same way she did, other than Wanda, then it’s James. A friendship that she knew surprised most on the team, everyone, but her and Steve, didn’t expect Bucky to be one of the ones to be so protective of Peter.
What did they expect with his trusting innocence and his little Bambi eyes, Bucky never stood a chance.
When she reached her table where he left his work is when the ringtone becomes clear, coming from his bag that he’d shoved under the table. She grabs the bag and pulls out the phone yelling out to Bucky that she’s got it.
“Friday, are you able to unlock it for me?”
“Of course, Miss Romanoff.”
The phone lights up and Natasha goes to his messages, underneath the groups numbers there’s a contact she doesn’t recognise, Peter had simply labelled them ‘Unknown’. Which makes her think that he must have changed the name before he left, knowing that the team would use their name to find them, obviously.
Going through the messages it was clear that some of them had been deleted. Peter knew they would find this. There was enough though to know that someone was influencing him, or at least were a factor in influencing him. Scrolling through there was one message which stood out.
Unknown – Remember what happened the last time you didn’t listen.
Unknown – Remember Ben?
Unknown – He won’t be the only one to fall if you continue to disobey.
“James. Come look at this.”
While Bucky looked at the messages Natasha decided to go through Peter’s bag. Everything was in there, everything seemed the way it normally did but she was missing something, she knew it.
“Someone was threatening him. His aunt kicked him out. What else are we missing James? What else didn’t we see?” Despite the way she usually acted the broken whisper revealed more than Bucky had seen her show in a long time.
Natasha was scared. No, she was terrified.
“We need to take this to Tony Nat. Maybe he can find something from this? We need to go back at least; they need to know someone is threatening him.” He watched as she continued to hold Peter’s bag, a look on her face he hasn’t ever seen. But he watched as her mask fell and she nodded before walking back to the elevator.
“I’m going to send a message to that number he gave me, maybe if he knows that we’re aware of what’s going on he might trust us.” She whispers then looks at him. “I’m not sure what to say though.”
For a moment the elevator was bathed in silence, Bucky looking ahead while Natasha stared at him. Silence until he turned towards her, “Just simply tell him we saw the messages. Tell him that we know some of it, just tell him if he’s in trouble we’ll go to him the moment he calls.”
“Okay, yeah okay I’ll tell him that.”
As the elevator opened they simultaneously took a deep breathe before walking out, knowing that the teams reactions to this were not going to be good.