The Backup

2014

Their temporary housing in New York was bigger than what Peter knew from being a child. And, because the building was not as old as the bases in Russia, Germany, or anywhere else in America, there was hot water. That was something he had never experienced before.

Peter twisted the knife between his fingers before grasping the handle in his palm, bringing his fist close to his face and aiming the point of the blade at his papa.

"Don't aim the blade too high," Papa corrected him with a rough, tired chastise. "You know this."

Peter shifted his fist slightly so the blade was pointed straight in front of him. He threw his arm out, straightening his elbow, slashing the air in front of him. He shifted his weight onto his left foot, turned his foot to follow the direction of the knife. He braced his arms against his chest, raising his right foot to kick his papa in the gut. He immediately placed both feet on the floor, advancing with the knife. He slashed the air in front of him, careful not to lean too far forward.

His papa leaned back, avoiding the blade before catching the next slash. His hand wrapped around Peter's arm, and he twisted his wrist so he would lose the strength in his hand. He caught the knife as it fell and twisted it to stab at the Backup's face.

Peter leaned to the side, turning and pulling his wrist out of the tight hold, just the way he had been taught by Yelena Belova when he was a little boy. He raised his arm and blocked the next swipe, battered at his torso, before dropping to the floor to roll away. He pushed himself back to his feet, one hand on the ground in front of him. He quickly balanced as his papa advanced on him, leaning back slightly as he shot a strand of webbing at him from each wrist. The webs wrapped around his wrists, encasing the knife, and he pulled the heavier man to him as he pushed himself forward. He met the exhausted soldier in the middle, releasing the webs as he kicked him in the chest, jumping off into a backflip. His feet broke his fall, and he steadied himself on one knee.

His papa stumbled back a few steps. Shaking his head, he said, "That was fine."

When Peter picked up the disappointed tone, he exclaimed, defeatedly, "We've been doing this almost every day for years, Papa. Only this." He pushed himself to his feet, standing up and reaching out for him.

Papa looked back at him and sighed. "I know, bub. I'm not disappointed in you, I'm disappointed in our situation. You're doing great. I know you're tired and restless, but we need to keep going. It's what keeps us together."

"I don't like hurting you."

The Soldier smiled endearingly, reaching forward to clasp the side of Peter's neck. He pulled their faces close and pressed his forehead to the young boy's. "You're not hurting me. I promise. You could never hurt me, remember?"

"Because you're invincible?"

The smile turned sad. "Exactly. I'm keeping you from the storm. I have to be invincible."

The door was pummeled from the outside and a whistle was blown. It was thrown open, revealing agents decked from head to toe in bulletproof gear. Three stepped into the room, guns at the ready, and Peter knew what for. His papa was a threat. He himself was a threat. He was used to being contained, being urged to thrive but only to a certain point. They both were.

Two of the agents grabbed Peter's wrists. They kicked the backs of his knees, and he played along as they forced him to the floor. His wrists and ankles were locked into a shackle, and the muzzle was forced over the bottom half of his face, the strap connecting in the back of his head.

He knew what was happening. This always happened, especially when they were away from base. They did this anywhere, no matter the destruction that was bound to happen.

His papa looked at the officer. He started to shake his head, but thought better of it. He set himself to stone, a determined stiffness to his jaw. "Not in front of him."

"You don't get to decide, dog. Zhelaniye, rzhavyy." The first two words came quickly, and all Peter could do was watch his papa stumble back as his humanity was being torn from him. "Semnadtsat'. Rassvet. Pech'."

Peter flinched when he screamed. But he had to watch. He knew, from experience, what would happen if he didn't. The sound was one of a wild animal; ferocious, uncontrolled, completely raw and rid of mercy. He watched the guards line up as the Winter Soldier surged toward the officer.

"Devyat, dobrokachestvennyy, vozvrashcheniye domoy, odin, gruzovoy vagon."

The Winter Soldier froze and corrected himself mid-lunge. He straightened his back, squared his shoulders, dropped his chin as he stared at nothing; he became someone that Peter no longer recognized as his father.

"Soldier?"

"Ready to comply."

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Natasha Romanoff did not know what she was doing, or why she was doing it - especially in the spacious training room, where the walls were glass and anyone could see her. The ribbons tied around her calves felt like chains holding her in place. She felt the need to raise herself up on the boxes of her pointe shoes, because that's what the shoes wanted her to do. They wanted her to spin and twirl, balance and navigate, force and control.

She set her tennis shoes on the floor beside the wall. She pushed herself to her feet, walked around a little to make sure the shoes were put on right, and then froze.

Why was she doing this? This was reenacting a nightmare. She might as well put handcuffs on. She knew exactly where they were, so it wouldn't be hard to get them.

She placed her right foot in front of her left, crossing her wrists at the small of her back. She hesitantly pointed her right foot, placing the box on the floor, her knee bent. She inhaled deeply, and pushed up onto the boxes of both shoes as she exhaled.

She was back in the Red Room Academy, wearing a leotard made from the skin of victims and shoes of blood, leaving red footprints in her wake; listening to music made of screams, whimpers, and the metal clangs that rang throughout the night; she was being wrapped in a safe embrace after being starved of human touch, kissed by the gentle side of death, appraised and worshipped and handled with unneeded care. She was supposedly made of marble, and he knew it, but also knew what she truly was. She was a scared girl who knew how to kill, made neither from marble or glass, and he treated her like she was human amidst all the nightmarish things that surrounded them.

"Nat?"

Natasha didn't realize she had been dancing, though halfheartedly. She fell from the points of her shoes, her knees gave out from the sudden change, and she dropped down to the floor, her palms breaking her fall.

That fall went against all of her training.

The person who had startled her out of her daydream seemed to realize that, and ran forward to kneel down beside her. She looked up at him as she sat up, her gaze locking with Steve's as he placed his hands on her shoulders. "What are you doing in those?"

"I don't know," she whispered, putting her hand over one of his wrists. "I think I felt like I needed to do it."

Steve looked a little lost, brow furrowed and mouth slightly pursed in question. She understood. He knew nothing about her life before S.H.I.E.L.D. She watched him push aside his confusion to say, "I wanted to tell you that I'm about to go on my run. Pick me up later?"

She nodded, happy to change topics. "Yeah. Of course. The Reflecting Pool?"

"Yeah." He slid his hands down her arms, clasped her hands, and pulled her up to her feet. Looking down at her with warm, concerned eyes, he asked, "Are you okay?"

She faked a smile, nodding her head. "I'm fine, Rogers."

She would always be fine.

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He always had to observe, always had to analyze. In those moments, Peter always remembered that the Winter Soldier was a terror to society. A nightmare, a haunting ghost that would hide.

He watched as the Winter Soldier pulled himself out of the moving vehicle. Once the back door closed, he looked up, hearing the heavy boots walking over the roof. Then the Soldier was gone, dashing down the lane. He launched himself on top of a car, pushing his metal arm through one of the windows. He threw the man - Jasper Sitwell, from what Peter had been able to gather - into the opposing lane, to get crushed by a truck. The driver of the tiny car slammed the breaks, throwing the Winter Soldier off their roof.

Peter jumped when the Jeep he was in rammed into the car, pushing it forward. He almost fell, but he caught himself on the wall. He'd gone on missions before, but he had never been a part of one as public as this. He tried to control his erratic breathing, wanting to watch the fight to know what was going on, but not wanting to see his papa following orders. He had control over himself when he heard the Soldier jump onto the hood of the Jeep, as they hit the car again, clearly attempting to run them off the highway. Through the windshield, past his papa, he saw the car swerve, flip, and the passenger door come off, the three people holding on for dear life as they skidded across the pavement.

The Jeep jerked to a stop. The agents opened the back end, filing out, holding their weapons at the ready. Peter didn't move, instead waiting for orders. He barely flinched when he heard a bomb - his eyes widened when he saw the man with the shield fly off the side of the highway - and the following gunshots echoed in his ears, bullets attempting to live up to their damaging destinies.

Another bomb was fired, aimed at the woman with red hair. She had caught Peter's eye, and he continued to watch her. She jumped over the cement divider, using it to block the worst part of the bomb. Glass showered over her, she rolled out of the way of a speeding car, and she jumped over another to avoid gunfire. His papa sent another bomb her way, and Peter silently watched the woman with the fiery red hair disappear over the side of the highway.

He soon heard a smaller gun fire, and his papa reared back from the edge of the highway. He left Peter's view, disappearing between cars. He immediately jumped back up, firing rapidly straight down at the ground, slowly raising the gun as his target moved. Then, he jumped down, in pursuit of the person he couldn't hit.

Peter pressed his back to the wall again, closing his eyes so he could no longer see the scene. The roads below them were in chaos, the screams and gunshots were hard to listen to, and he wanted to go home. He wanted his papa to remember again.

Minutes later, the remaining agent on the highway caught his attention; "Backup."

Peter turned his head toward the agent, scraping as much emotion as he could out of his expression.

"Are you ready?"

He nodded his head once. He jumped out of the open backend, accepted the dual pistols from the agent, and paused for orders.

"Do not use your webs unless it is absolutely necessary. No one can know your resources until your official mission is ready. Do you understand?"

He nodded again.

"There are three targets. It doesn't matter who you go after. Just don't get in the Asset's way."

He didn't reply. He didn't find the need. He jumped off the side of the bridge his father had, landed on top of a crushed car, and went on his search for the woman with red hair.

He was warm underneath the sealed leather top, that was almost exactly like his papa's. His had no holster strapped to his back, instead he had a belt latched around his stomach, a holster above each of his hips, and had both sleeves attached. Beyond those and minor details, they were the same. He felt sweat underneath all the leather covering his upper body and feet, the heavy material of the pants, and the muzzle that matched his father's.

He came to the street where his papa and the man with the shield were fighting like their lives depended on it. Peter had never seen his papa fight like that. Their other missions were short and simple - they were usually his papa hiding in the shadows with a gun, where Peter was his spotter and distraction. Sometimes they infiltrated bases, but the people they were against always went down easy, and other times they went undercover, posed as a normal father and son in the middle of the crowd. No matter their previous missions, or whatever they were training for, Peter had never seen his papa at his very worst.

He found the woman behind a car. She was in pain, out of breath, and holding her shoulder. Peter could smell the heavy bronze cloud of blood that covered her hand and soaked her jacket. She heard him come closer and spun around, pressing her shoulder to the car and aiming a pistol at him. Despite the tough act, he could still see the pain in her eyes and could tell that not all of it was physical.

Throughout training, his papa often lectured him on the difference between right and wrong. He always told Peter, "We are good people. We are just in a bad situation. We no longer have the chance to be good." Peter knew that HYDRA was evil, and what they were forcing the two of them to do was wrong. But, like his papa always said, they had no choice. It was taken from them. It was kill, be killed, or forget everything that made them who they are, that reminded them they were still human.

He knew that these three targets did nothing wrong. That was why he didn't take his eyes off the woman as he pushed his pistols into their holsters, turning off the safety. He nodded his head to her, and through the pain her face tightened in confusion. With his order replaying in his mind, he pressed down on his cuffs and launched webbing into his opposite palm. He was thankful for the gloves he was wearing as he pressed it into a wad and held it out to the woman. With his other hand, he loosened the mask to speak. "This should hold the bleeding, until you get help."

"Why are you helping me?" she demanded.

"HYDRA is flawed. You and your friends have to win." He had heard of what's been happening, that HYDRA finally showed their face within S.H.I.E.L.D.. "Save me and my papa."

"Who is your father?"

He didn't say his name. He didn't like calling his papa the names HYDRA called him. "The one with the metal arm."

Her face completely changed. She lowered the gun and reached out to accept the webbing. She pulled her jacket away from the wound, hissed in pain, and pressed the webbing to the bullet hole.

A few cars over, Peter heard, "Bucky?"

His papa replied, "Who the hell is Bucky?"

As the woman haphazardly pushed herself up, he told her, "That will dissolve in a few hours. You can easily cut it off. Please help us. I can't do this my whole life." He ran away, toward where he heard the voices, jumping over cars. He launched himself onto the shoulders of the shocked blond man, twisting to pull him to the ground. With a kick to the man's chest, he propelled himself off, flipping and jumping over to where his papa stood, gun aimed, eyes wide in a way the Winter Soldier's never would be.

A grenade was launched at them. The last thing he saw before the smoke blocked his view was the woman staring at them with heartbreak in her eyes.

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Peter was forced to stand and watch as the metal arm was fixed. He didn't take his eyes off his papa's face, off the tortured shadow in his eyes.

Peter jumped when his papa turned his head, gasping, his eyes wide with horror and memory. He grunted, in pain. In the blink of an eye, he pulled his arm in front of him and used the momentum to hit the technician that was trying to fix it in the chest. As the other man was launched across the room, every agent but the two holding the Backup's arms all pointed their guns at the Soldier.

He was breathing heavily, as if he were angry, but the look on his face hadn't changed. He was a blank canvas, all but for his glassy, lost gaze.

Peter had never seen his papa like this. He tried to catch his eyes, worried, but he didn't succeed before the Superior walked in, a couple of guards following a few steps behind.

"Mission report," he said. When he did not get a reply, he repeated, demandingly, "Mission report, now." Peter prayed for his papa to reply, but no such thing happened. The Superior began to turn away, but he struck out and backhanded him across the face. Peter bit down on his lip to keep himself from making a sound.

His papa slowly turned his head, but not completely back. Looking off into space, as his tortured brain tried to connect the threads. He began to speak, his voice soft and confused; "The man on the bridge...Who was he?"

"You met him earlier this week on another assignment," the Superior replied, easily.

His voice had become broken, as the glassy look of his eyes shattered. "I knew him."

Peter's whole body tensed. How could he confess that? They made him forget when he remembers anything beyond what HYDRA wanted him to know. But beside that fearful dread, a slight bubble of happiness rose in Peter's chest. He was remembering someone from his life before he was the Winter Soldier!

The Superior pulled the previously-occupied stool closer to himself and sat down. He leaned in close to the Soldier as he said, "Your work has been a gift to mankind. You shaped the century, and I need you to do it one more time. Society's at a tipping point between order and chaos, and tomorrow morning we're going to give it a push. But, if you don't do your part, I can't do mine, and HYDRA can't give the world the freedom it deserves."

He looked as if he hadn't heard. Peter could suddenly see the age weighing at his face, the dread and exhaustion clouding him. He repeated, devastatingly matter of fact, "But I knew him."

The Superior took a deep breath and stood up. "Prep him."

"He's been out of cyro freeze too long," the technician protested.

"Then wipe him and start over," he ordered.

The two bow-tied technicians walked toward him, each setting a hand on his shoulders to push him back into the chair. He didn't fight it, even opened his mouth and accepted the mouth guard. There was an angry determination in his papa's eyes, as if he was telling himself that he wouldn't forget what he was finally able to grasp.

Peter's eyes widened in horror. No. No, no, no, no. They couldn't do this. They couldn't make him watch this violation. As the metal restraints wrapped and locked around both of his papa's arms, Peter screamed like a child. "No! No, stop! Papa!" He thrashed in between the two guards. He managed to wrench one arm out of its hold, elbowed the agent under their chin so hard that their neck gave a sickening crack, and jumped up as he turned to punch the other. His fist and knee hit the other, causing him to let Peter go and crumble to the floor.

The Soldier's scream blended into his own, both made from pain and torture. At hearing his father, Peter felt like he couldn't breathe. He had known about this for years, but he couldn't quite wrap his head around it. It was horrifying, the way they treated this human being. They stripped him of his name, his rights, his own emotions. To the point where he didn't know what love was, what it could be.

The Superior turned away from both, beginning to leave the room. "Put the Backup where he belongs. He's gotten too close. Get a mission report from him before you do too much."

He tried to fight, but the guns aimed at him and the sound of his papa's screams made his heart pound so hard that he could feel the beats in the soles of his feet. He turned, letting out a silent gasp when he found the barrel of a gun aimed at his forehead.

The guard had the visor of their helmet down over their face, but that didn't make it any more or less intimidating. "I suggest you calm down, Backup."

The sound of electricity popping filled his ears. He bared his teeth, narrowed his eyes to a glare, and pushed his forehead into the barrel so the metal was completely flush to his skin. "You can't kill me. He'd lose it. He'd kill all of you and wouldn't blink. I'm the Backup. I'm essential for when something goes wrong."

"You can be replaced."

"I was trained as a Wolf Spider and a Black Widow, by the Winter Soldier himself. I have HYDRA's super soldier serum running through me, along with the effects of the radioactive spider experiment. I'm not that replaceable, and you all know it."

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He may be irreplaceable, but he definitely wasn't invincible.

He screamed as the guard pressed the stun baton to his stomach, his muscles temporarily paralyzed from the zap. His right arm was stuck in full extension, his fingers numbed, the right side of his stomach seizing as if he had a stitch in his side, all from the electricity flowing through him. He gasped in relief when the baton was torn away from him. His body remained limp on the ground as they spit on him before leaving and locking the cell.

He had been manhandled, stripped of his leather and kevlar gear. The electricity crackled across his skin, making the kicks they threw between shocking jabs sting even more than they should have. Laying there, staring up at the plaster ceiling, he could feel his ribs repairing their cracks, his skin knitting back together over bloody, welted splits.

He sighed, closing his eyes. It had been too long since they were last separated. It felt foreign to him, above all temporary, like the whole event of them being in New York.

The only place he felt at home was with his papa, and he knew that was his greatest weakness; family. His safe space sometimes wasn't even safe - at times, that was what held the gun to his head, and Peter couldn't believe how much it took out of him every time to not break down into smithereens.

Since his papa told him what HYDRA did to him, Peter struggled. When he watched his papa get hit, he wanted to launch himself at every bad guy close to him. When he was threatened to be put back on ice, Peter wanted to do anything in his power to save him. When his memories were taken away, Peter was threatened with the same deal.

They could take him away from his papa, but Peter wouldn't be able to rest if it went the other way around. He knew he had code words, just like the soldier, but he had no idea what they were; and when it came to the point they would be needed, he knew it was his end. He couldn't be saved after that. His papa's words during training were escaping him little by little, day by day, and he knew that they would soon be gone. He would be a bad guy, a killer, and the red would forever stain his skin. He wouldn't have a choice, but he would still do it, and that's the flaw that Peter found in his papa's mantra.

He was born to two of the best killers of the Soviet Union - he knew that he couldn't help it. Killing was in his blood. He couldn't escape it.