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THURSDAY, AUGUST 23 — 11:11 AM
Happy’s falling asleep in Avengers Tower when the alert comes through from JARVIS: OPERATION COMPLETE. He jerks awake and promptly spills his cappuccino all over his shirt—it’s cold, so it doesn’t burn. He and Pepper have been trading shifts checking on JARVIS’ updates, sitting in what used to be Tony’s lab.
“Mr. Hogan,” says JARVIS, in a very British tone, “I now have gained access to all electronic devices within the Stark Industries lab upstate. There are several months’ worth of unusual activity on Mr. Stark’s devices—particularly his main television.”
Television? “What kind of activity?”
“Covert activity, sir. As it goes, Mr. Stark has no control over the display on his television. It’s been displaying the same content since” —JARVIS pauses— “April of this year, sir. It appears to be a video. Would you like to see—”
“Yes,” Happy interrupts. “Put it up on the main screen.”
As it comes on, flickering to life in front of Happy, JARVIS announces, “My apologies, sir. It appears the content is not a video.”
“Then what is it?”
Finally, the signal seems to settle. A grainy picture comes into view: a wall spotted with old stains and a man with his head hung low. It’s too close to see anything other than the top of his oily scalp. “It’s a livestream, sir.”
Minutes and minutes—soon the man raises his head, mumbling to himself, until Happy can see him from the shoulders up. He backs away from the camera and walks, no, rolls off the screen in a wheelchair. When he backs up further, Happy can see his legs: they look crushed, but it seems as though someone has attempted to fix them; they’re braced with wooden planks and wound with stretch-tape.
JARVIS speaks again: “Individual identified as Scott Lang, convicted felon. Convicted of burglary of a commercial building in 2012. Incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison until July of 2015. Reported missing in April of 2018.”
April. That’s when Peter went missing. When Tony disappeared into his lab.
“Current suspect in the disappearance of his biological daughter—Cassandra Paxton-Lang.”
“JARVIS,” asks Happy, “when did his daughter go missing?”
A mechanical pause. “According to her public missing persons report, she was taken from her home on April 6th, 2018.”
The same day as the car crash that took Peter Parker and put his aunt in the hospital.
“So this guy’s the one that took Peter?” asks Happy. It makes sense: Scott Lang is a felon, and re-offending rates in the United States is almost fifty percent. But why would Scott Lang want to kidnap a teenager?
He calls in Pepper and that creepy Barnes guy into this room and gets them up to speed. Pepper looks uncomfortable; Bucky Barnes just frowns and folds his arms. “I remember him,” he says.
“Who?” asks Pepper. “The felon?”
He jerks his head up in a nod. “Don’t you remember him, Hogan? He was in Germany with the rest of us.”
Happy shakes his head. He remembers that whole incident—the first time he met Peter was on the way to Germany. They were there to capture Steve and Bucky Barnes, but Happy never left the hotel. It was never his job to fight supersoldiers. “I was never over there,” he said. “I was more…behind the scenes…”
Bucky rolls his eyes. “That’s Ant-Man. Remember? The California disaster? That whole thing with SHIELD and a fugitive from Brazil?”
Happy has no clue what Barnes is talking about. “Sure,” he says. “So…what are you saying? That Ant-Man went rogue, kidnapped his daughter and Peter, and became a supervillain?”
Bucky’s drinking something—coffee, maybe—in small, measured sips. “No,” he says, harsh. “Lang was on our side, and he was—he was a nice guy. Like, one of the most genuine guys I’ve ever met. Kept showing us pictures of his little girl at her soccer games. He was…a good guy. Really good guy.” He gestures his metal arm at the screen. “Besides, look at him. Lang’s definitely not in charge. This guy’s under someone’s thumb.” He puts down his cup next to the computer keyboard. “JARVIS,” he asks, “did Scott Lang have any reported injuries before April 2018 that would cause him to need a wheelchair?”
The AI responds quickly, “None, Mr. Barnes.”
Barnes shrugs his shoulders as if to say: See?
“So someone crippled him,” says Happy. “Why would someone…”
Barnes’ gaze is heavy. “Easy,” he says. “Someone didn’t want him to leave.”
THURSDAY, AUGUST 23 — 1:09 PM
Officer Julia Paz parks her squad car at a campground in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. They have to hike a long way to the bunker, Julia and Steve, so they make some small talk on the way up. “You’re easier to talk to than Barnes,” she commented, because it’s true.
Steve’s quiet. “Bucky’s not much of a talker anymore,” he says.
Right. Bucky is the guy’s name. Not James. Not Barnes. “Nice of you to come along for him,” says Julia.
He shrugs. “Just here to make sure you don’t get into too much trouble, Officer.”
They hike through the trees; the trek is long and a little chilly, but they’re both well-dressed for the weather. Steve’s got on a sweatshirt of Bucky’s and some camo pants. The trek isn’t difficult, but long, and they share a couple protein bars between them on their way up the mountain. “Mount Cabot,” says Steve. “Like the cheese.”
She looks at him oddly.
“They had it when I was a kid,” he says. “We called it something different, though.” He frowns. “Can’t remember what.”
Steve Rogers doesn’t tire or thirst; whenever she pauses to take a drink or catch her breath, he stops and waits politely for her to finish. She supposes it’s this remarkable stamina that made him such a ‘super’ soldier.
“Odds are,” he says, as they’re a few minutes away from the bunker entrance, “your brother is fine. Nobody’s touched these bunkers in a couple years. HYDRA’s long gone—so even if these tattoos are real…it doesn’t mean that HYDRA is back. Maybe someone found the symbol on the Dark Web or something.
She nods. Honestly, she’s surprised he even knows what the Dark Web is. “I know,” she says. “I just…worry, you know?”
He nods, too, kicking aside branches as they walk. “I know.”
They finally get to the spot where the bunker is supposed to be, and all they can find is a cave. Just open bedrock on the side of a mountain.
They search the entire cave for the entrance; it reeks of wet mold and rabbit shit. Just when Officer Paz is ready to call it a day, Steve glances down at his phone. “I’ve got signal,” he says, surprised. “We must be close.”
Honestly, she’s surprised he knows what that is. Didn’t he grow up in the time of, like, radio and records?
Steve taps his smartphone, the bluish screen lighting up his side of the cave. Pressing the phone to his ear, he says, “Hey, sorry to bother you, baby.”
She knows the gruff voice on the other line, but she can’t make out any particular words. That’s Bucky Barnes. Did he just call the Winter Soldier baby?
“Yeah,” continues the supersoldier, like he hasn’t just shocked her into silence, “just having some trouble finding the bunker. Do you remember…” More talking on the other line. “Yeah. Okay. At the…? Okay. Okay, great.”
More talking, gruff and low.
“Yes, I promise. I promise. Okay. Yeah, I will.” A light laugh. “Okay—you, too. Go eat something, baby.” There it is again. Baby. She thought she might’ve misheard it the first time. “Okay. Love you.”
A quick response from Barnes, and a spilling of more words.
“Yes, yes, I promise. I’ve got it, Buck. Don’t worry—I’ll be home by midnight, okay? Yeah. Okay, baby. Love you, too. Bye.” Then he hangs up quickly, tucking his phone away in his pocket.
Love you, too. The back and forth, the worry, the terms of endearment—that’s how someone talks to a lover, not a roommate. That’s how Julia talks to her husband on the phone. Are they…
She starts to mention it, but Steve’s already speaking: “Bucky says we gotta go all the way to the back—there should be some kind of sliding panel on the floor.” He turns to the back of the cave, sidestepping cracks in the stone floor.
Julia doesn’t follow him; she’s still blinking at him in disbelief.
The man pauses, sensing her sudden stiffness from behind him. “What?” he says, turning to look at her.
He seems to think something’s wrong. Julia manages, trying to clear the air: “You and Barnes?”
“Bucky,” Steve Rogers says curtly.
“Bucky,” she echoes. “You’re…”
“Together?” he finishes. “Yeah.”
“But you’re… You were born in, like, 1915.”
“1918,” he corrects. “And homosexuality existed before the twenty-first century, officer. We just had to be a little more careful about it.”
She gapes. “Um,” she tries. “Cool.”
The supersoldier gives her a strange look, hums lightly, and traces hand over the floor to find the entrance. “Ah,” he says. “Got it.” He hooks his fingers in its edge and pulls up—there is the bunker door, rusted and covered in grime. There are finger-marks all over the door’s handle. “
“But you never…" she continues, still a little hung up on the subject, "I mean, your Wikipedia page has got your whole love story on it—with, um, Peggy Carter? Was that all just…”
“Nobody wants to see Captain America waving a rainbow flag,” he says simply, ignoring her question. “And unless Bucky wants to go public, I'm fine with the public believing whatever the hell they want. Now—could you help me with this thing?”
She kneels down and helps him, propping up the ledge while he punches in the code. It looks different than the others: the door is in the floor, a round door like would be connected to an underground Cold War bunker. She supposes that’s what it is.
He opens the bunker’s lid, revealing a cylindrical hole with a ladder down one side. “Ladies first,” he jokes dryly.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 23 — 2:56 PM
Everyone is in the bunker when they hear it.
A couple people talking, and then a series of clanks—people coming down the ladder. Charlie’s tolerance has been going up lately, so he injects another syringe full of that good angel shit into a vein in his forearm and then staggers to the hallway, where everyone’s muttering and clutching their guns like a bunch of fucking cowards.
“Who is it?” Charlie snarls. Why are they all shuffling and muttering like a bunch of morons?
“Beck’s not here,” says that stupid girl. “Could be him.”
“Doesn’t sound like him,” says another.
“There’s two of them,” chimes in another. “Maybe he brought someone back.”
“SHUT UP!” he shouts. “YOU FUCKING IDIOTS! WHO IS IT?!”
They don’t have much more time to babble on about it, because then the door opens and a dark-haired woman comes strolling through with a figure behind her. She’s in uniform.
“POLICE!” cries one of the soldiers, and he unloads a spray of bullets into the newcomer. Both of them fall—one groans. He didn’t give them the order to shoot—he didn’t give them the order!
Little Riri runs to the bodies and gasps, “Oh my god—you shot Captain America! You shot Captain America.”
What the hell is she talking about? His head swimming, Charlie staggers over to the intruders: a woman and a man. One dressed in a police uniform, and the other, well, Captain America in civilian clothes.
“Charlie?” says the first. Her kevlar vest took the brunt of the bullets.”Oh my god—Charlie!”
It’s his sister.
He spins around, gun in hand, and faces the trigger-happy soldier. “YOU SHOT MY SISTER!” he snarls, and he fires at the man: once in crotch, once in the chest, and once in the head for good measure. He turns back to the woman on the ground—his sister!—and he smiles. Charlie feels suddenly happy—that familiar, childhood, ice cream truck happy—for the first time in a long time. “JULIA!” She’s wearing a vest, a thick kevlar one, so the bullets didn’t even hit her. “You’re okay!”
He reaches for his sister, and her face is quickly turning cold—she flinches away from him. “Charlie,” she says again, but his name sounds strange in her mouth. “You just—you just killed that man.”
“We’ll find another!” he assures her, happier than ever, and he helps her up. “Did he hurt you? DID HE HURT YOU?”
Julie, sweet Julia—his sister!—backs up against the wall, and she points shakily at Captain America, who’s groaning and bleeding on the ground, twisting his arms around his quick-darkening torso.
“Oh,” he says. He’d forgotten. “Right.” He snaps at the idiots in the hallway. “Take him downstairs. I SAID TAKE HIM DOWNSTAIRS! GET THE DOCTOR FOR HIM! GO! NOW!”
Then he grins again—his sister is here!—and hugs her tight.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 23 — 3:29 PM
Charlie won’t stop talking.
Julia keeps trying to get a word in, but there’s soldier-like people with guns guarding the doors, and Charlie keeps lunging around with that hammer, laughing every time someone flinch. He’s acting so strange. He keeps dragging her around the place on ‘tours,’ taking her from room to room to room.
This place looks like something out of a horror movie.
There’s the spare rooms: rooms full of used needles and empty baggies of crushed powder. There’s the operating room. The one they dragged Steve Rogers into. Those dim, flickering lights. The doctor who looks like he hasn’t seen the light of day in weeks. Then there’s that room with its bloodstained floors and its creepy metal chair. The rack of torture devices. The camera setup. The crazed man in the wheelchair.
And Charlie takes Julia from one room to the next, even as she protests, grabbing her by the sleeve and pulling her along like a kid displaying a proud tower of blocks. “Charlie,” she says, like she has a million times in the past few hours. “Oh, Charlie, what…”
Her brother hasn’t been in danger. He hasn’t been kidnapped or experimented on or killed. He hasn’t overdosed or drowned or choked on his own vomit.
He’s been… He’s been…
“Charlie,” she says again, and she feels like she’s going to cry. “Charlie, kiddo…” Her voice breaks. It’s what she used to call him when he was little, and it finally makes him turn and face her. “But you haven’t seen the best part,” he says, almost gleeful. “I’ve been waiting to show you—OH, IT’S GONNA BE GREAT! YOU WANT TO SEE?”
She ignores him. “What have you been taking?” she tries, now that she’s got his attention. “We can get you help, we can get you” —to a police station, right away, where you can confess to criminal trespassing, illegal use of a firearm, murder— “back into rehab, right? Don’t you want to be better?”
“Better?” he echoes, and he’s laughing again, that sick, drug-induced laugh. “I’ve never been better, Julie! I’M THE BEST I’VE EVER BEEN!” He laughs and laughs and slaps at his chest, and when he swings the hammer around she jerks away so that it doesn’t slam her in the head. Jesus, Charlie. “YOU GOTTA SEE IT, JULIE! YOU GOTTA SEE! I DID IT, I REALLY DID IT!”
She doesn’t know what Charlie’s talking about, and she’s sure she doesn’t want to know. “What did you do, Charlie?” she asks, quiet.
He grins, his toothy smile obscenely wide. “We got a failsafe, Julia. A failsafe. A FUCKING FAILSAFE! WE GOT THEM!”
Julia’s picturing that man Charlie shot—the soldier. The blood spreading over his pants. His shirt. His face—his head knocked back by the impact of the bullet. The spray of dark blood on the ceiling.
Charlie’s dragging her forth again, pulling her to a stop at a room on the first floor. The star has a giant red star on the front, a slot at the bottom of the door, and no window. It’s like a door in a zoo, the ones hidden in the back of monkey exhibits that zookeepers peek through. “We can’t just get these guys to do what we say,” he continues, talking way too fast. “We need a failsafe, something to keep ‘em in line in case they get any funny ideas—gotta keep these guys on a leash, Julie…”
“Guys? What guys?”
Charlie waves his hand as though to dismiss her, and then he digs through his pockets. “Stark, Lang, all of them! The whole fucking world, Julie! WE’RE GONNA RULE THE WORLD!”
Stark? Lang?
He finds a set of keys in his pockets, and Charlie fiddles with them before sliding them into a lock on the door. Click. He throws it open and then waves his hands in the air like he’s on a stage. “You see? You see, Julie? It’s all coming together, right? I’m a fucking genius! I’m a genius!”
Inside the room is a bed—alongside a toilet, a sink, and a bucket. And below the bed, huddled beneath it like a couple of feral cats in an old trash can, are two children, bloody and beaten and dirty and dressed in matching jumpsuits. “Charlie,” Julia says, with a sudden shock of sickening horror, “what have you done?” She thinks through a million options: trafficking, prostitution, drug mules… And she quickly shakes her head. Charlie wouldn’t. He couldn’t. “No, no, you didn’t do this,” she says, shaky. “Someone’s making you, right? Someone’s gotta be—“
Charlie’s grin is too wide. “Nah, Julie, this is all me! All me! I did it! I’m gonna be fucking famous! People—people are gonna write my name in history books! THEY’RE ALL GONNA KNOW MY NAME!”
“Charlie, no…” she says. “This isn’t you—you did this? You—you took these kids? From their homes? What the hell did you do to them?”
“I knew you’d find me!” he continues, like she didn’t even say a word. “I got them all to move the case to you ‘cause I—‘cause I—” He smiles and shakes his head, and his eyes shake like pinballs wobbling in their sockets. “‘Cause I knew if you found me, you could join! YOU COULD HELP ME!”
He’s scaring her; numb with disbelief, she manages, “Charlie… I'm not… I can't just stand by and watch you do this. This is… Oh my god…” She thinks suddenly of what he just said. “Case?” she echoes. “What case?”
Another sickening smile. He’s sweating now, liquid dripping down his face like he’s just run a marathon. He kneels down by the kids, and she stands with her arms folded, trying to figure out what’s going on. Both of them scamper away, but Charlie grabs the little one by the ankle and yanks so hard that the child screams; the big one jumps up to rescue her with a guttural shout, and one of the soldiers—when did he come in?—pins him to the wall with ease.
Charlie lifts her up in the air, letting her dangle by the ankle. “Recognise this little worm?”
The little thing is going pink in the face, coughing wildly and thrashing like a fish out of water.
It takes her a moment.
No.
Oh, no.
It couldn’t be.
But it is. It’s Cassie. Cassandra Marie Paxton-Lang. Daughter of Scott Lang and Maggie Paxton. Step-daughter of Jim Paxton, her co-worker. She’s been looking for this little girl everywhere; and after all this time, she’s been kidnapped by her brother. Her hair is cut ragged, shorn close to her scalp; she’s thin as a twig, covered in dirt, dressed in a torn-up jumpsuit, and sobbing incoherently. Her face is getting redder by the second.
“I did it!” says Charlie.
Julia feels the shock melt into her bones. “Charlie…”
“I knew if you found me—if—if—IF YOU FOUND ME, YOU’D NEVER TELL! AND NOW YOU’RE HERE! YOU’RE HERE!” Then he releases the kid’s ankle; Officer Paz dives for her, catching her sideways and clasping her arms tightly around the little girl’s waist. The child only starts crying harder; Julia can feel her little body tremble against her arms.
“Cassie,” she gasps, trying to calm the girl in vain, who is now clawing violently at Julia’s face. “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’ve got you—”
A little fingernail catches her eye—“Ow!”—and as pain burns through her cornea, Julia slaps a hand to her eye, falling to one knee and trying to set the girl down with her other hand.
A growl from Charlie, and suddenly the girl’s weight is gone from her. When Julia looks up, Charlie’s got the little girl by both arms and against the wall; he’s shaking her wildly, her shaved head bouncing back and forth over her bony shoulders. “YOU DON’T TOUCH MY SISTER! YOU DON’T TOUCH HER!”
“Charlie!” she cries, the pain in her eye forgotten, and she lunges at the pair. “Charlie, stop!” She winds her way between them, trying to push him away from the little girl.
Charlie looks at her suddenly, as though just remembering she’s there, this frighteningly intense look in his wild eyes. He’s high. He’s really high. At her command, he releases the girl, who immediately dives under the bed and crawls all the way to the back. He picks up his hammer from where he left it at the door, and Charlie’s form seems to swell: his chest widening with each massive breath, his face pink from exertion, more sweat coming down his forehead and neck.
He’s dangerous.
This isn’t the time. She takes a couple steps back; the back of her legs hit the toilet-rim. “Okay,” she says, trying to come up with a plan. “I’ll join you, okay?”
He drops the hammer; the resounding clank sends the older kid to a round of hyperventilation. She wonders whose child that kid is. Was that another case of hers?
“You will?” he says, glee flashing over his face. “Really?”
“Of course,” she lies, with a stray glance at the older kid. “You’re my brother. I don’t care about a couple of kids. Of course I’ll help you.”
THURSDAY, AUGUST 23 — 3:53 PM
Pepper stops watching the livestream, leaving that job to Bucky Barnes and Happy. Nothing has changed on the screen in the last few hours, anyway.
Instead, she visits May Parker, Peter Parker’s injured aunt, in the medbay. The woman is groggy and pale, but at least she’s alive. Pepper takes a seat next to her hospital bed and pats her hand gently so that the woman will wake. “We’re close,” she says, as May’s brown eyes land on hers. “We’re gonna find him.”
May nods vaguely; she’s still having trouble speaking. Dr. Cho says it’s a side effect of being comatose for so long.
“Do you remember anything?” asks Pepper. “Anything about Peter? Anything at all?”
May licks her chapped lips. Her mouth opens, and then closes, and then opens again. “I…wish…I…did…” she manages, her voice croaky and weak. She squeezes Pepper’s hand. “He… He…”
“I’ll find him,” she repeats, insistent. Who the hell is she convincing? “We will. We will.”
The kid’s aunt blinks hard, her brow narrowing. Dazed and clearly tired, she nods again, closing her eyes.
She squeezes Pepper's hand one more time, and she falls asleep.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 23 — 4:58 PM
Steve is thrown into the cell like a sack of meat.
They cuff one of his hands to a bed-railing, one that gets him close enough to the toilet; if he stretches, he can just barely make it. He’s able to sit, and he does, cross-legged against the side of the bed. The railing must be vibranium or vibranium-reinforced, because Steve can’t break himself free.
They stitched him up pretty well—a hollow-eyed doctor with a gray beard did most of the work, bandaged him up without a word as a soldier-clothed man held a gun to his back. It doesn’t hurt much; Steve’s used to being shot. He’ll heal.
The cell flickers with yellowed light—above him, there’s a wire cage around the light-bulbs, probably to keep the inhabitants from using the shattered glass as a weapon. There’s not much in this tiny cell: a bed with no mattress, a rusty sink, a toilet, and a bucket bolted to the floor.
He glances up to find two figures hanging by the bucket; he assumed he was alone at first because those two were so still. It’s a pair of kids—it’s difficult to tell their ages because they’re both so pale, skinny, and grimy. Steve wants to guess… Fourteen and six? The older one has a tangled nest of brown hair and the younger one has black hair cut short and ragged, almost to the scalp. Steve wonders why until he squints closer at the kid’s scalp, where there’s a ton of small white dots. Lice. They must’ve cut the kid’s hair in an attempt to purge the lice from their scalp. The older one seems like a boy, and the younger one might be a girl.
What the hell is HYDRA doing with a couple of kids?
“Hey,” he says. Steve leans towards them, hand outstretched, and the older kid jumps backwards against the wall and fucking bares his teeth like some kind of animal, eyes bugged wide. The little kid is pinned against the wall behind him. “Hey, so. Uh. HYDRA got you, too, huh?”
The kids say nothing.
The older kid looks fucking feral; he’s ragged and bloody and skinny as a pencil. There’s a small plastic tube in the back of his hand—is that an IV port? What the hell?
Steve tries again and again to try to approach the kids, to try to get them to talk, but they just flinch away any time he moves. They look so battered, like a couple of shattered records. They look like prisoners of war. So Steve just starts talking. He rambles, talking all about how he got here and how he’s gonna get them out. “I’ve got a watch, see?” he says, gesturing to his cuffed wrist. “They know where I am. They can track me, okay? You’ll be out of here soon.”
No response.
He tries a chuckle to cheer them up. “You know, I’m not even supposed to be here. Me and my boyfriend, you know, we were looking for this missing kid—Peter Parker, some teenager—when this police officer came up to him and asked him to help find her brother. And he did that for a while, but things went south, so we switched. And so now I’m here.” He chuckles again, but the kids stay where they are, frozen against the concrete wall. “God—if it weren’t for Peter Parker, I might not even be here. Bucky would’ve never let his guard down like that…”
At last, the boy speaks. His voice is withdrawn and quiet, so quiet that at first Steve thinks he imagined it. His gaze is dark beneath his shaggy, tangled mess of hair. “You were looking for me?” he whispers.
Steve’s chest goes cold.
He stares at the boy. All the blood seems to drain from his face; his belly twists and coils like a sickly snake.
He remembers the photos. He’s seen dozens upon dozens of photos of Peter Parker. Photos of him grinning at Comic-Con. Laughing at memes. Biting into a sandwich. Getting a science award. Competing at decathlon. Sleeping on a car ride. Doing normal kid things.
And this—this kid looks like some kind of warped, surrealist shell of those photos. Like someone had molded a clay sculpture of him, torn it up with their bare hands, and shove it back together. Parker can’t be more than ninety pounds soaking wet, and his hair looks like it’s never seen a hairbrush, tangled and matted and dark in spots. There’s such significant scarring on all his visible skin that he resembles an abstract splatter painting instead of a teenager. He’s pale as a ghost and rail-thin, and there’s so much bruising on him that he looks like he’s coated in a mottled layer of dirt.
He’s completely unrecognizable as the average high-school teenager in the photos.
This kid…
…is Peter Parker?
Oh, no. No, no, no, no… “Oh my god,” he manages, his voice tainted in horror. “Oh my god. Peter?”
Peter—if that is truly Peter—seems to regret the words as soon as he’s spoken them, flattening himself and the girl against the wall. Neither him nor the girl say a word.
He feels sick. How did they… What happened to him? What is he even doing here? How did he… The whole time, the police officer’s creep of a brother had taken him? But that meant… “Oh my god—what did they do to you?”
Peter and the girl remain eerily silent. They’re growing more wary of him by the second.
“Do you… You remember me? It's Steve. Steve Rogers. Remember?” Steve leans towards him, hand out, trying to offer him a gesture of peace; but clearly that was a mistake, because Peter Parker flinches so violently that he falls into the wall, sharp breaths coming out through his crooked nose, hand raised to protect his head, eyes wide open like a deer in headlights.
He quickly pulls his hand back. “Peter. Hey. It's Steve Rogers. Steve.” He pats his chest, trying to prove it: I’m here. I’m here to help. “From Brooklyn. You’re from Queens. You remember me?”
The kid’s watching him like he’s never seen another person before, taking in his every breath, tracking his every move with his wary, bloodshot eyes.
“I met you in Germany, you were fighting with Iron Man, you… You shot webs out of your hands?”
No recognition. Nothing. The kid’s eyes look hollowed out—his pupils large and unfocused.
The little kid pipes up, tugging at the kid’s pants leg, whispering, “Peter, look—it’s Captain America.”
Steve feels suddenly stupid; that’s the first thing he should’ve said. “That's me. Captain America. You remember me? I'm a friend of Tony Stark's.” That's probably the opposite of the truth, but he needs to get this kid to recognize he’s on his side.
At the man’s name, the boy—Peter—flinches, glancing suddenly to the door and back at him.
The kid’s got his other hand holding the little one back, his palm at her shoulder, her small hand curled around his larger one. “They shot him,” whispers the little girl, and it haunts him that she knows what gunshot wounds look like. “Is he a bad guy?”
Peter doesn’t answer. He doesn’t move his head to give her a sign. He just…stands there, rigid as ever. His chest is heaving—he’s hyperventilating.
“You remember me? It's Captain America. Remember? I know I'm not in uniform…”
Slowly, cautiously, Peter nods. Then, he leans down and he’s whispering to the little girl. They talk quietly. Like, really quietly. So quietly that Steve doubts his ability to hear at that range.
Jesus Christ. Steve tries, “How long have you been…here?” That’s a stupid question. He knows how long they’ve been gone. Pepper said the day they went missing was the night of April 6th. So that means Peter’s been missing for about four and a half months. He doesn’t know about the girl, though…
So much time has passed that he’s already forgotten he asked the question when he sees Peter give an imperceptible shrug.
He doesn’t know? He doesn’t know how long he’s been gone? “Peter,” he says, shocked to stupidity, “you don’t know?” Steve looks to the wall behind the kids—there’s dozens and dozens of tally marks in solid groups of five; then, on the other wall, tally marks made vertically in groups of five, that go and go until they eventually just stop.
Clearly, the kid’s not up for a conversation because he doesn’t even make a sign that he’s heard Steve speak. He just stares at Steve, and then up at the cuff binding Steve to the pipe, and then back at Steve again. “What about her? When did she—”
Peter’s eyes flash; he moves further in front of the little girl and fully blocking her from view.
Steve gives up on conversation. These kids are like a pair of scared rabbits, jumping at every interval. His attempts to talk are only making it worse.
They spend the next couple hours in eerie near-silence. The kids don’t talk to him at all, no matter what he says. It’s creepy. Sometimes, the little girl will tug on his hand and whisper into his ear, while Peter nods or shakes his head in response. If she’s too loud, Peter will hush her with a little sound between his teeth, and the little girl will go quiet.
They don’t smile.
Not even a little bit.
Everything they do—every word, every motion, every breath—it’s all muted as though through a dampener. They’re so quiet, so still. Like ghosts of children.
Eventually, their captors come by and slide a few tin cans through the slot. Peter barely moves; the little girl scrambles to the door, snatches them before Steve can get to them, and scrambles back to Peter. She pulls a can opener from the bucket and pries up each lid: a few cans of tomato sauce and a couple cans of sliced peaches. They chow down those cans in seconds, so fast that it makes Steve’s stomach turn. They’re barely even chewing, just swallowing in great, desperate gulps.
He doesn’t mind that they don’t offer him a scrap of food, not really. He knows they need it more, by the looks of them, so he’ll gladly give it up. When they’re done chewing, they move to the sink and fill the cans with water, and drink that, too. Again. And again. And again.
What the fuck. They’re getting every scrap of nutrients from their food by rinsing out those cups.
They fall into another uncomfortable silence; the kids watch him the whole time, staring at him like he’s a bug under a microscope. The kids don’t turn their backs on Steve. Not once.
He tries to come up with a plan. It was only a matter of time before Bucky realized he was gone—and he knew they were headed for the New Hampshire bunker, anyway.
Steve said he’d be back by midnight at the latest, so by midnight Bucky had to come looking.
But something told him they couldn’t wait that long.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 23 — 6:01 PM
These kids are shivering. They’re dressed identically, in rough black prisoner’s uniforms, and they’re shivering like a couple leaves in the wind. Steve doesn’t feel the cold—he runs a few degrees too warm because of the serum—so he takes off his hoodie, tearing it open on one side to get it off his cuffed arm. “Here,” he says, offering it to them. “I wish I had another one, but… Sorry.”
The little girl clearly wants it. Her brown eyes grow big with want, and she reaches out a little before shrinking, cowering behind Peter. The boy is still suspicious of Steve; he doesn’t shake his head or nod, but simply whispers something to the little kid as they both back into the wall.
“It’s cold in here,” says Steve. “Please take it. You guys are shivering.” It’s a little warmer than outside, so there must be some heating in here, but not much.
The girl’s whispering again, and Peter Parker shakes his bruised head slightly without lifting his gaze from Steve. No.
Why won’t they take it? “Seriously,” he says, “it’s okay. I run warm.”
Unmoving, the kids stare at him. Like two cracked statues in a museum or a pair of disjointed faces in a Picasso painting. They stare and they stare and they stare. Those two sets of brown eyes watch him for too long. Then the little girl is whispering again into Peter’s ear; finally, Peter tips his head against the wall, like he’s giving in, and he swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He blinks up at the ceiling, takes the sweatshirt with shaky hands, and passes it to the little girl. She immediately pulls it over her head and snuggles deeply into it, pulling the hood-strings taut and going quiet.
Peter whispers something to her, and she looks at him before scampering over Steve’s outstretched leg to hide under the bed.
Peter gazes at Steve then, the first bit of eye contact that feels remotely lucid; his eyes look something dull and cracked, like old concrete. “Listen,” he says, his voice worn and croaky, “you only get me; you don’t get her, okay?”
Steve feels that twist in his stomach again. This is the first actual sentence Peter’s said since Steve arrived, and it’s so vague. “What?” he says, but he’s not sure Peter hears.
“I’ll be good for you, I will, just—don’t go near her, okay?” He’s shaking. He's shaking. Peter slides over, using the wall as a guide, and grabs the bed-railing before sitting uncomfortably on the bed. He's fiddling with the buttons on his jumpsuit, but his hands are trembling too badly to get them open. “I won't fight.”
One button open. Then two. Three.
And then they just sit there. Staring at each other.
Get her? Good for you? What the hell is this kid on?—and he must be on something, because no one’s pupils look like that fucking naturally.
When Steve doesn’t move, Peter becomes almost hysterical—Steve still has no idea what’s going on. The kid’s full-on freaking out, gasping hard. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. Okay…okay.” He slides down to the floor and half-crawls over to Steve. What the fuck is going on? There’s something wrong with his leg, because the kid’s limping badly, favoring his left one. Soon Peter’s close enough that Steve can see each scar on the kid’s face. What happened to his ear? It looks melted, like—
The kid’s skinny hand is on his knee. By the back of his knuckles is an clear plastic IV port, one that must go directly to the dorsal vein—are they drugging him?
“Peter,” says Steve, but that stone in his belly keeps sinking, “what are you—”
The kid leans in to him (for a stupid split seocond, Steve thinks he’s going for a hug) and kisses Steve’s neck, open-mouthed, with a little tongue—
Steve shoves him backwards—it’s instinct, pure instinct—lightly, but Peter’s so thin that it bowls him right over. “Whoa, what the hell—“
Peter falls onto his side, and he has trouble getting back up—the kid holds his ribcage, trying to put pressure on his leg before collapsing again. Steve moves to help him up and Peter curls in on himself, cowering and choking out, “I'm sorry—sorry—I'm sorry—” He’s trembling so badly that he can barely get a couple words out.
So he draws his hand back again. “Peter—I’m not gonna hurt you. Or the little girl.”
Peter's bony chest is heaving. His eyes are trained on Steve like a dog to its master. He moves—Peter flinches. He talks—Peter flinches again. “Peter,” he says again. “why would you—” Then Steve glances towards Cassie, and Peter makes a choked sound.
“Don’t,” Peter says, like he didn’t even hear Steve speak, “touch her.”
“I'm not going to,” he says, and he feels like a kid pleading to his mother. He feels more nauseous by the second. “I'm not gonna touch anyone, okay? I’m gonna stay right here.” He raises his hands like he’s surrendering, and he backs as far as he can against the bed without melding into the wall itself. “Jesus Christ,” he whispers to himself. What the actual fuck.
He doesn't know how he could’ve been so delusional about this whole thing—how he could just assume that Peter was probably okay. He was far too used to superheroes going missing: detained on the Raft or escaped to Europe or gone into space. Not that those were any better, but they weren’t something out of a fucking snuff film. All of that—all of his experience with victims of every kind of horror and still he’d been delusional. All of that—and he’d assumed something had happened to him that was just the same. That Peter had just gone on the wrong space-flight to the wrong planet. Or gotten entangled with the wrong aliens. Or fallen in love with an AI and ran away to Edinburgh. Or gotten stuck on Asgard. These heroes—whenever they popped back up, they were always okay.
But Peter Parker’s been here. The whole time, he’s been here, four hundred miles from home, in fucking New Hampshire of all places. He’s been here, being beaten, starved, tortured, and—his mind blanks out over the word, but he has to think it—raped. There's no normal way to get scars like that. To get reactions like that. To make Peter Parker come on to him because he’s given him a fucking sweatshirt of all things.
Now, Peter’s treating him like a sex offender and the little girl’s looking at him like he’s the holy grail, all because of a stupid sweatshirt.
Steve's having trouble keeping down his breakfast.
The little girl is crying—silently, but Steve has excellent hearing. He knows what tears sound like. Peter’s still staring at him like Steve’s about to jump him. Does the kid even recognize him at all?
“Peter,” he says again, because he’s having trouble thinking straight and saying this kid’s name is helping this all feel a bit more real. “Peter, hey. I don’t want anything from you, okay? Or from the girl. I’m not—I’m not gonna…” He’s losing his ability to complete rational sentences. “I’m Steve Rogers. I’m Steve Rogers. I’m here to help you.”
Usually, his name alone is enough to calm someone down.
But Peter… Peter’s anything but calm.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 23 — 6:57 PM
It takes too long for those HYDRA-adjacent assholes come back.
They come in a horde—some dressed in HYDRA-soldier gear and some in sweatshirts and jeans. The bearded junkie—Charlie, the police officer’s brother—whistles, a sharp sound, like the call of a hawk, and Peter Parker lunges to the wall like a trained dog, knees wobbling as he presses his front to the wall. The kid puts his hands behind his back.
Steve notices now the marks on his arms—identical circles around each wrist made of peeling skin and exposed, bloody dermis—and feels sick. Bucky has those scars; they’re from fighting against restraints.
Steve tries to stand, but his vibranium cuffs only allow him into an awkward kneeling position. “Hey!” he shouts. “Hey, assholes! You gonna tell me what’s going on here? Hey! I’m talking to you! Hey!”
They completely ignore him, most of them crowding around Peter, some even poking at him so the boy flinches. “Peter, listen to me—I’m gonna get us out of this—”
They force a pair of thick metal cuffs around his wrists, and Peter lets out a sharp shriek, thrashing suddenly; someone punches him in the stomach to shut him up.
He yanks at his cuffs, harder and harder—but they won’t budge, still tight on his wrists. “Hey! Don’t touch him! What are you doing? HEY! DON’T TOUCH HIM! HEY! I’M WARNING YOU!” He’s screaming without purpose—yelling and yelling because he can see the panic-stricken Peter Parker cower under the touch of these people, fucking shivering in newfound terror.
Steve thought the kid was scared before; no, Peter Parker is scared now. Petrified. Unable to even get a word out and making strange, gasping noises through his mouth.
They re-twist cuff, each making a clicking sound as they tighten; one of the soldiers grabs Peter by the upper arm, and his meaty fist dwarfs the kid’s skinny arm. The kid’s sobbing into the wall, still half-keeled over from the blow to his stomach.
Slowly, sickeningly, Steve Rogers realizes what’s going to happen.
Pepper knew Peter Parker’s disappearance had something to do with Tony locking himself in his lab. She was right. Charlie—however he did it—must’ve known that Peter Parker was a soft spot for Tony Stark. Steve doesn’t know much about their relationship, but he knows enough. By kidnapping Peter, well, they could get Tony Stark to dance a jig on live television if they asked.
If they wanted something from Tony—technology, information, money, weaponry—all they had to do was use Peter.
And if Tony stepped out of line…
Steve looks back at the boy. The bruising darkening his face, the scarring on his skin, the fear trembling in his body.
…then Peter would suffer.
His stomach sinks into a pit, curdles into something hard and sour. “Wait,” he says, as they drag the now-cuffed Peter out the door. “Wait—no, wait—take me! Take me, instead! PLEASE, TAKE ME! TAKE ME INSTEAD!”
The soldier tosses Peter in the hallway like he’s tossing a garbage bag into a dumpster; Steve hears the thunk and the following groan as Peter’s head hits the hallway wall.
Steve throws his free fist at the concrete bedframe, and the whole surface splinters into a web of concrete cracks. “Hey! Hey! Peter! LET HIM GO! LET HIM GO!”
There’s sounds then: whimpering and sobbing and incoherent stammering. A smack, like flesh against flesh, and the kid goes quiet.
Steve keeps shouting at the door as though that fucker Charlie will listen. “Peter! PETER! PETER!”
He pulls hard at his hands at the cuffs, and he yanks again—and the metal scrapes against his wrist and pulls tight against the lower part of his hand. It won’t fit over his thumb; Steve can’t get it off.
He needs a plan. Heneeds a plan.
He has to get out of here. Now.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 23 — 7:02 PM
Steve’s not answering his phone.
Bucky’s this close to going ballistic. As Happy continues to track the livestream, speaking with JARVIS as they try to get a location from the damned thing, Bucky keeps dialing Steve. He’s got the number memorized—of course—but now he’s starting to doubt that he even knows the number at all. Is his phone broken? “Hogan,” he snaps, his voice more of a grunt. “Give me your phone.”
Hogan doesn’t even respond. Still wrapped up in that livestream of the ex-felon Lang’s face. It’s not like it’s changed all day; there’s no need to even monitor it at this point.
“Hogan,” Bucky says again, adamant. “Your phone—”
He turns, and Hogan’s standing with his hands against the chair, gripping it like it’s his salvation. Following the man’s eyeline to the computer screen, he sees it, too.
The livestream has changed.
The camera is moving; Lang has must be carrying it because it shakily moves, turning around to spot a small room: a grimy, mostly-cement room with floor-stains and a chair in the center. There’s a bearded man beside the chair, and he’s smiling.
Bucky goes weak in the knees; he’s suddenly dizzy, his pulse slowing his blood to a congealed stop. “That’s…” he tries, but he can’t find anything but the gun in his belt. He takes it, finds the familiar trigger, and tries to gather himself. He can feel each of his eyes in their sockets.
Pepper was on the phone in the corner; now, she comes over to them, one hand on her pregnant belly. She must’ve heard their discomfort. “What’s happened?” She stops in her tracks as soon as she sees the movement on the JARVIS’ screen.
On the screen, people fill into the room, some dressed in HYDRA-soldier gear and others dressed normally. Dragged in by a pair of soldiers is a person with his head ducked low. Shaggy, dirty hair hangs over his face, long and unruly. He doesn’t fight them.
A couple of the others flatten the chair into a long surface—like a table. They shove him on top of it, faceup, and the person starts to flail, lashing skinny limbs out before he is strapped down.
Nausea punches him in the stomach. Bucky knows this room. Those walls. This chair. Those cuffs. He pales; “That’s,” he tries again, but he can’t finish his sentence without wanting to regurgitate the entire contents of his stomach.
“What?” asks Pepper. “You know where that is? Who is that?”
Bucky can’t take his eyes off the screen.
The people on screen are talking, some shouting. JARVIS has no audio, so they can’t hear a word. One comes near the boy on the table and his mouth opens up—he’s screaming. Bucky can’t hear a thing, but he knows. That boy is screaming.
“It’s Peter,’ whispers Happy suddenly, breaking the silence to touch his hand to the glowing monitor. “That’s Peter.”
All three of them lean in to the screen.
The boy’s head keeps thrashing—so the grainy picture doesn’t get them a good glimpse of his face.
Then a man comes from behind the camera, a brown-haired guy with a beard and khaki pants, and he pins the kid’s head to the table with one hand, shoving his hair back to lean in and say something in the kid’s ear. The thrashing worsens, blood coming down the restraints on the table.
They can see his face now, stilled by the brown-haired man’s hand. Big brown eyes only made larger by his gaunt, sallow cheeks. A mass of tangled brown hair. Thin white limbs.
He’s starved, filthy, and beaten bloody, but that’s Peter Parker. There’s no doubt about it.
It’s Peter.