The Backup

2016

Tony,

I'm glad you're back at the compound. I don't like the idea of you rattling around a mansion by yourself. We all need family. The Avengers are yours - maybe more so than mine.

I've been on my own since I was eighteen. I never really fit in anywhere, even in the army. My faith's in people, I guess. Individuals. And, I'm happy to say that for the most part, they haven't let me down. Which is why I can't let them down, either. Locks can be replaced. But maybe they shouldn't.

I know I hurt you, Tony. I guess I thought by not telling you about your parents I was sparing you, but I can see now that I was really sparing myself. And I'm sorry. Hopefully one day you can understand.

I wish we agreed on the Accords, I really do. I know you're going to do what you believe in, and that's all any of us can do. It's all any of us should.

What I believe in doing is impossible for me to do. Natasha and I are outlaws, Bucky's going under intensive care - no one is there for Peter. He is back at square one. If you believe in doing the right thing, watch out for him. He isn't just Bucky's. He's also Natasha's. If you won't do it because of him, do it for her, and the fact that he is just a child who never had a childhood. Help him, Tony. You are all he has left. He can change everything, possibly even the world.

No matter what, if you need us - if you need me, I'll be there.

Steve Rogers

Tony sighed, grinning slightly. He left the Secretary on hold, much to the official's chagrin, standing up and walking from the office. He pulled the little touch screen from his pocket as he called, "Rhodey?" on his way to where his friend was working on his rehabilitation.

"Yeah?" he called, the word clipped at the edges from exhaustion and pain.

Tony rounded into the room, grey light filtering in through the floor to ceiling glass wall. "Will you help me be rational?"

Once again walking between the metal bars, his arms shaking from effort, Colonel Rhodes gave Tony a defeated look. "What do you need to be rational about?"

"The kid at the airport. Spiderman."

He scoffed, shaking his head as he rolled his eyes. "Man, leave the kid alone. He doesn't need to be pulled into all of this. More."

Tony set the screen aside and held out his hands, so he could help catch Rhodey if he lost his balance, as he left the two twin bars and tried to walk on his own. He helped him to a seat, where he took a standing position beside him. "He already has. F.R.I.D.A.Y, can you search Peter Benjamin Parker?"

A hologram popped up from the screen he had set down on the table, the size of a nice, modern flat screen TV. It showed a school picture of Peter and his legal information. "Peter B. Parker was born in Queens, New York, on August tenth of 2001. His parents both died when he was young, and he went into the custody of his aunt and uncle, May and Benjamin Parker."

"That's a lie," Tony muttered, tapping his nimble fingers along the heel of his opposite hand.

"What?" Rhodey minutely exclaimed, voice laced with exasperation. "FRI just told you -"

"He's Barnes's and Romanoff's kid. They had a big secret romance in the late 90s, maybe even earlier."

Rhodey was silent, speechless from the shock. Multiple touches too late, he struggled to find his wording. "...B-but...How -?"

"F.R.I.D.A.Y, can you pull up HYDRA's Backup Plan?"

After a few seconds, the hologram changed. Multiple pictures came up, and Russian letters filled the screen. Tony was shocked at the pictures of Peter, taking a half a step back. One when he was little, laying in a bloody heap in the corner of a cell, intelligent eyes able to see that he was way too thin even in the darkness; another of him and Barnes walking down a dark hallway side by side, guns hanging from their hands; a photo in a mug-shot style, his lip split and sporting a black eye; him sitting on Barnes's chest, knife to his throat and gun to his forehead; strapped in a large metal chair, a guard in his mouth, electricity crackling around the metal pieces over his face.

He tried to push away the images, but they were already seared into his mind. "Can you exchange the Russian for English, and give your audience a rundown?"

"On it, boss." The letters rewrote themselves. "The Backup Plan was born on an unknown date in 2001. Romance in Department X's Red Room was forbidden. When the Backup had been conceived, the Winter Soldier and Black Widow attempted to flee. They got caught just outside of Moscow, and they were both punished severely for their crimes. The Soldier's memory was wiped completely, the Black Widow was forced to train during pregnancy, and the Winter Soldier's period of loan ended. Once she gave birth, she was told that the baby was stillborn. Instead, the baby was given a way to serve HYDRA. The Backup began training upon being able to walk, barely taught any sort of language, and experienced tortured. He was given his powers - beyond the enhancements passed down from his parents - by a radioactive spider, as an experiment for a possible reboot of the Wolf Spider Ops Program. He was the only test subject. When he was ten years old, he was given to the Soldier for deeper training, and was used as a motivational tool for the Soldier to comply."

"FRI, what exactly is the Backup Plan?" Rhodey asked, his voice flat.

"It was to make sure that if the Soldier was ever compromised, HYDRA would have a way inside S.H.I.E.L.D.. After the Winter Soldier went off the grid following the public fall of S.H.I.E.L.D and HYDRA, HYDRA wiped the Backup's memory and released him into the world as Peter Benjamin Parker. May and Ben Parker had already been conditioned to believe their nephew was coming to live with them, and he was integrated into school for the first time. His mission was to win over the people as Spiderman. HYDRA wanted someone inside the Avengers, that would always be in their power."

"Barnes said they both have trigger words. Do you have access to them?"

"Yes. Would you like to see them?"

"Send them to the printer, as well as this entire file. Also send The Winter Soldier's, and anything about the Black Widow that pertains to these two. I'd like to read deeper into this later on."

"No problem, boss." The hologram shut down, but all Tony could do was stare at where it had been.

"Tony, we can't have him back here -"

Tony couldn't help but whirl around on Rhodes, horror in the front of his mind, alongside the words of Steve's letter. "If I don't, I'm going to have two assassins after me -!"

"HYDRA is in his mind!"

"HYDRA's gone!" Tony shouted. He stepped back, taking a deep breath. "HYDRA's gone, and he probably doesn't know it. He's not a threat."

"He was raised there, Tony - he was barely even raised, he was conditioned! We don't know how the real him thinks. Whether he is truly a threat or not."

"You didn't see him in Siberia." He sat on top of the table, one leg bent and the other keeping him steady in the floor. "He was terrified. He was grabbing on to Barnes like he was the only thing keeping him from falling. He was begging him to not let them do something to him. Begging. Rhodey, he looked broken, and Barnes was even worse after seeing him like that."

"They're both victims. I know. Barnes was a POW, and Peter had no life before HYDRA. But they're unstable weapons; they're bombs."

"What do you think the rest of us are? We're the exact same as them, just in a different form. I always hear about parental instincts, and how that love doesn't compare to anything else in the world. When Peter first spoke, Barnes spun around like he knew it was him before he said that first syllable. They have a weird dynamic, what HYDRA forced them to have, but you can tell that they're each other's world." His hand trembled, fingertips still against the tabletop. "I can't-I can't leave Peter on his own again, especially if there's some lasting HYDRA agent that seeks him out...We can't let them use him anymore. Not when he doesn't have anyone. He needs someone on his side."

||||||||||

Peter was walking. Just walking.

Hands in the pockets of his jacket, his new suit shoved into his backpack underneath his books and binders. His sneakers were falling apart, the bottom of the shoe beginning to part from the inner sole, the paces running thin where they constantly rubbed against the eyelets. He stared down at them, thinking about how he had to somehow mend these, because asking for new laces was cheaper than asking for entirely new shoes.

A vibration ran down his spine, and as if ruled by a remote, Peter spun around. Gruff hands gripped his shoulders before he could do, his arms trapped between them. He thrashed, but another man came up and firmly restrained him, a sweaty-smelling hand pushing dirty fabric into his mouth. Still, Peter screamed into it, through it, on the off chance that it was loud enough for someone hear. Through it, he begged, "No, no - this is not the droid you're looking for -" Not to him. Not to Aunt May. She couldn't handle this, she didn't deserve this, what the fuck was going to happen to him -

A sack was tugged down over his head, the fibers outlined by the streetlights filtering around the opening of the alley. His feet swept out from under him as he was shoved into a vehicle, the doors immediately slamming behind him, so hard that the whole thing shook.

His heart hammered in his chest, in a way that made it impossible for Peter to breathe, the taste and smell of the rag and the sack overloading his senses. He trembled violently, and backed himself into a corner of the back of whatever vehicle he was in, inhaling and exhaling shuddering breaths as he tried to get himself to focus.

He could open his pack. Get his webshooters and save himself.

The barrel of a gun came to rest against his temple, and Peter, curse him, flinched overly noticably. "Don't even think about it."

"Wh-wha-what's happeni-ing?" he somehow managed to ask, summoning the courage - or fear - inside him.

"Spider. Mission report."

The Backup's spine yanked soldier straight, the fear vanishing and replaced with emptiness. The shaking ceased, but the rag in his mouth still bothered him. Able to tell, the sack was pulled off his head and the rag tugged out from between his teeth. As soon as he was efficiently able to report, he did so. "The Avengers split over the Accords. My cover was blown. I hit my head. The Winter Soldier reset my system."

In the darkness of the van, and in his peripheral vision, The Backup was able to see his handler's eyes narrow. He didn't get a response, so he stared at the closed double doors, hands in his lap and backpack strangely bunched up behind him.

When Peter Parker woke up the next morning, he couldn't remember how he got home. What was there instead was a hot, stinging migraine.