The mission had been going fine, Peter knew exactly what his job was – web up any stray criminals and make sure the civilians were all safe and accounted for.
The mission was still going fine after forty-two minutes, and then Oscorp decided they wanted to get a slice of the heroes as they were very preoccupied and distracted.
Tony’s suit and comms went offline as soon as he was hit with the electrical waves, as too did everyone else’s electronic devices and comm lines. Without any means of communication, Steve couldn’t warn Bucky of the tranquiliser headed his way, and nor could he yell loud enough to stop a group of men in the Oscorp getup who had surrounded Peter with smoke bombs. The smoke turned out to one, not be smoke, and two, they forced the super teen out of commission as he fell to the ground in a coughing fit until he finally slumped against the asphalt.
The commotion resulted in Tony, Bucky, Peter and a concussed Steve being loaded into a van and driven to a small, private home which Norman must own for his own personal life.
Tony knew that mixing business with home life was always a questionable decision, but then again he’d never taken four Avengers hostage at once, so what did he know?
----
It took half an hour for Bucky, Steve and Peter to blearily wake from their various states of unconsciousness, and as soon as they saw the large, dusty room they were in, their memories caught up with a horrid, jolting realisation.
They had no comms, no trackers, nothing besides each other and the clothing on their backs.
Consequently, the moral of the group was rather… non-existent, to say the least.
“Well, isn’t this a pleasure?” Norman drawled, stepping forward out of the dimmest corner of the room to smile toothily in Tony’s direction. “My biggest competition, reduced to a hopeless mess.”
“Excuse you,” Tony said through gritted teeth, his sarcasm leaking through into his tone like venom. “I might be hopeless, but I’m a lot more structured than a mess.” Norman looked at him incredulously, he didn’t look impressed at all. “Okay, fine. We’ll compromise, I’m a hot mess.”
Peter snorted quietly from where he was kneeled beside Tony.
“I think you’re wasting your life, Tony.” Normal pointed out abruptly. “You used to be the best weapons tech designer in the industry, and now you run around with the big leagues, mentoring freaks as if they could ever protect our country from any kind of threat.”
Bucky and Steve looked up as Peter shifted uncomfortably. They could see Tony’s horrified expression which perfectly mirrored how they felt about Norman’s soapbox speech.
“You wanna say that again, Osborn? Because I’d suggest shutting up right about now.” The scientist only shrugged his shoulder to show he stood by his statement. “You want me to blow your head off? Because that’s what I’ll do,” Tony threatened lowly.
“You can do what you’d like, Stark. It won’t change a thing. You, the woman and the archer aren’t special, in fact the way I see it, you’re all the same as the next man. Mr. Rogers and the soldier over there,” he nods towards Steve and Bucky, “had the serum which only enhances the human body and mind. Other than that, this one here –” Peter grunts as Norman tugs his head up with a fist in his hair, “is the only real freak of the bunch.”
Norman dropped Peter’s head in disgust and leaned down to be inches away from Tony. “As a man of science yourself, I’d hope you would understand why it’s my duty to study an undocumented inhuman.” Tony’s eyes widened, he turned towards Peter, opening his mouth to argue. “Ah, ah, ah, Tony. I think you already understand that it’s necessary to do these things. What would you do if you had a potential award-winning mutant sitting before you? I know you’d study it too.”
“I would never study him,” Tony burst out angrily. “He’s been my intern for six months and I haven’t even so much as imagined studying him like a god damn animal! Why the hell are you threatening him? He’s a teenager.” He wrenched the cuffs keeping his hands behind his back, growling deep in his throat as Norman lazily watched the rest of his guards trailing into the room at the sound of conflict.
“Yes, he may be a teen, but the overriding fact of the matter is – he’s a mutant. He was always made to be taken apart and understood.” Steve glared fiercely as he felt two guards pinning his already cuffed arms to his back and hoisting him up onto his feet, similarly to how Tony and Bucky were being manhandled on either of his sides.
Tony seemed to be making the biggest fuss out of everyone. He was kicking out and struggling the hardest, trying to get back down to the floor, assumingly so he could offer some protection for Peter, who hadn’t been touched whatsoever. “Move them to the makeshift holding cell, I don’t want interruptions,” Norman ordered, watching as the two super soldiers and his biggest rival were marched out of the room and down the concrete steps leading down to the basement room.
It had previously been home to his old furniture, but ever since he watched the way the creature in red and blue spandex had swung his way around the city without any consequences, he had been clearing out his old holiday home in preparation for what would be occurring today.
He sighed, wiping a hand over his face before grinning once more, bending into a crouch before Peter and observing the lines of worry and anxiety in his face. “Not so confident now that your protector isn’t around, huh, freak?”
“I can handle myself, I have something called pain tolerance – or in this case, douchebag scientist tolerance.”
Norman scowled, his hand blurring as it hit Peter’s cheek, leaving a scarlet handprint in its wake.
From a floor below, Steve and Bucky turned their heads as they heard the unmistakeable echo of the smack. Tony noted their worry before hurriedly turning back to try and pick the complicated locks on the door to the basement they had all been dumped in.
“He hit the kid,” Bucky said in disbelief. “I’m going to tear his head off,” he deadpanned sourly, his face twisting into one of revenge.
“He hit Pete?” Tony asked, disgust painting his features as he continued shoving whatever he could into the lock to hopefully find some leverage. “What kind of twisted little shi –”
“Language,” Steve said half-heartedly. “The kid is strong, he’s going to be okay until we can get ourselves out of this place.” The blonde tilted his head, examining the low ceiling, the rough cement walls and the lack of any sort of window or second exit from the room.
“Oh, for god’s sake!” Tony hissed, flicking the snapped piece of metal across the room in frustration and slapping the lock before slumping against the nearest wall and dropping his head in his hands. “Why is it always the kid?” He asked rhetorically, his nervous energy translating to irritation. “I’m supposed to keep him safe, he’s got an aunt counting on me for crying out loud.”
Steve sat down next to Bucky, empathising silently with the worried mechanic.
“The rest of the team can probably manage to track us back here, wherever here is.” He tried his best to sound optimistic, knowing that the stifled shout of pain from upstairs only disproved his point.
----
“Over here,” Norman instructed, pushing Peter onto his backside with the heel of his shoe, watching as his guards pinned the teen against the floorboards. “You want to tell me the truth now, kid. What’s your metabolism like? How long does it take for you to heal? Do you scar? When did y -”
“I’m not telling you anything!” Peter cried, struggling against the five guards who had him pinned down, arching his back and jerking his hips upward, hoping to buck one of them off but failing miserably. “Get off me!”
Norman laid his hand out flat against Peter’s chest, murmuring to himself as he counted the heart beats.
“You’re scared,” he said evenly, looking pleased with himself. “Of me.” Peter choked out a short laugh.
“No, you’ve got that wrong. I’m not scared of you, I’m scared of how unstable and psychotic you are.” Peter smirked, wincing as his cuffed wrists were tugged above his head with a jolt. “You’re insane,” he said angrily. “Don’t you have a son? Would you be doing this if he were here?” Peter knew he had stuck a weak point because Norman’s eyes darkened, and his lips peeled into an ugly snarl.
“My son isn’t here, so that plays no part in this situation, mutant.” He took a breath, rolling his neck and listening to it crack quietly. “Now, tell me… do you scar?”
----
Tony had finally given up knocking against the wall, looking for a thin point which Steve or Bucky might have been able to punch through. He tapped his foot nervously, it had been too quiet for too long.
Bucky was rubbing dust off the underside of his metal arm, muttering curses and asking why Norman hadn’t bothered to clean down here.
Steve was watching the door impatiently, breaking the silent with pointless optimism every few minutes. He thought the others would have been here by now, although he didn’t know how many guards were outside the house, considering he had been unconscious for the drive in.
Suddenly, in the heat of the silence, it was broken.
Tony’s eyes grew wide and terrified, Bucky dropped his arm and stared up at the ceiling as Steve cursed quietly.
A guttural scream echoed throughout the house, Tony could feel it in his torso, rattling his bones and etching itself into his nightmares. He realised then, that he had never heard Peter scream.
He wished he could have lived his life without ever having heard that noise. He could never have imagined hearing anyone sound that hurt before.
Bucky recognised the sound of that kind of pain. It was the kind of pain that could break a person, and Peter was just a child, not even sixteen yet.
He knew screams like that because they were all he heard as HYDRA tore him apart and shoved him back together again.
“Peter!” Tony yelled, standing up and hitting the door with his fists. “Norman! You sick son of a bitch!” Steve stood and moved across the room to grab Tony’s wrist, preventing him from breaking his knuckles. “NO! Steve, help him! Break the door, do something… Th – they’re hurting him.”
“I know they are, but the team has to be on their way, we’re going to make sure he’s okay.” Tony tore his wrist out of the soldier’s grip and prodded him angrily in the chest, cueing Bucky to stand as well.
“Are they here now?! Does it sound like my – does it sound like the kid’s okay?” Tony glared at him, deep amber iris’ blown wide with fear and adrenaline. “No?! I didn’t think so! We have to try something, I – I can’t sit here an – and listen to this… fuck!” Tony kicked the door, it rattled aggressively, and he slammed an open palm against the wall. “I can’t do this, I can’t.”
He blocked his ears as the screaming started up again, the sound of Peter’s agony flooding the entire house.
----
Peter couldn’t even feel his bicep anymore; the pain was that numbing. All he could focus on where the stiff floorboards beneath his back and the full weight of the five, now nine men, who pinned him down and kept him in place.
“Scream like a boy, bleed like a freak,” Norman muttered. He dug the scalpel slightly deeper on the last letter, leaning back to admire his own handiwork. “At least now you’ll know your place.”
A door slammed behind Norman, and the scientist turned, frowning as someone slipped in through the front door.
“Dad? W – what the hell?”
There was a tall boy with dark hair and the same blue eyes as the man he just called his father. He was in school clothes, a bag over his shoulder and a terrified look on his face.
“Harry, go home. This is business, you need to get o –”
“You weren’t picking up your phone, you told me you were coming here but there’s an issue at Oscorp – what are you doing?” The teen dropped his bag, moving past the doorway and freezing as he saw the guards holding Peter down. “Dad… he’s bleeding, what the hell did you do?”
“Harry,” Norman snapped, his voice quiet but filled with an obvious threat, “go home, now.” The scientist moved his hand, subtly resting it over the wound drenched in Peter’s blood to cover the worst of it from his son’s eyeline.
Peter dropped his head against the wood with a thud, moaning in discomfort as he felt Norman’s fingers tightening in anger.
“I’m not just leaving, tell me what’s going on? Why are you hurting him!” The boy, Harry, shifted his foot forward, looking as if he might try to push away the guards still preventing Peter from moving.
“No, you’re interfering with business. If you don’t drive back home now, then I swear to god I’ll put a bullet in his skull right in front of you.” Norman squeezed his fist and Peter choked on another fractured shout of pain, making Harry’s face go slightly pale.
“Dad, what are you doing? He – he’s my age…” Norman let go of Peter’s arm and threw his hand out to point at the door.
“I don’t care – get out!” His tone was demanding, and Harry didn’t have a doubt that if he kept arguing and testing his father’s patience, the boy on the floor would end up paying the price for it. He shifted, moving back towards the door and only casting a single look back before he stepped outside and hurried to his car.
He turned on the engine and backed up at least half the driveway. He turned off the car and sat for a few minutes, waiting to see whether his father came out of the house, or if he hadn’t noticed the sound of the car stopping.
After Harry decided it was clear. He got out, closed the door as quietly as he could, and then ducked beneath the windows until he was at the back of the house. He pushed open his own window and climbed through, stepping off his bed and freezing as he heard voices.
They were muffled, but he recognised the anger and fear leaking through them. They were yelling about something he couldn’t understand, but a few broken fragments drifted through, enough that Harry could guess they definitely didn’t work for his father.
The door to his bedroom clicked shut slightly louder than he meant it to, but the pained cries from the first room had picked back up, and Harry couldn’t hear much over the sound of his father yelling.
The basement door had been locked twice from the outside, but Harry had the corresponding keys on in his pocket. It was his holiday home, even if he wouldn’t be using it again now that he knew what his father used it for.
He pushed the door open and was immediately assaulted with a flurry of hits which he dodged the best he could when acting on impulse.
“Tony, stop!” Someone else yelled, surging forward and getting between Harry and whoever had been trying to claw his throat out. “Look, it’s a kid! Just calm down, alright?” A tall, strong looking blonde was calming a shorter brunette who looked ready to tear someone’s limbs apart.
Once the situation had calmed slightly, Harry took a longer look at the three men in his basement, only taking a few moments to recognise them.
“T – Tony Stark, Captain Rogers… Mr. Barnes?” He asked, straightening up and mentally piecing together what had happened.
His father had locked three Avengers in his basement as well as a boy about the same age as himself. Maybe he was leverage?
“Move,” Tony said bluntly, pushing past Harry and jogging up the steps, his boots echoing off the concrete.
Harry could hear even more crashing from upstairs than before, as if everyone was fighting. The two soldiers followed Tony, all three of them running into the room at the same time.
A woman with dark red hair and a man simultaneously kicking guards and hitting people with arrows were rampaging through the first room, Norman was pale in the face and trying to skirt around the edges of a fight.
Tony ran straight for him as Steve and Bucky joined the fray. Harry noted the smears of blood against the wood and caught something moving behind a tipped couch.
Shit, the other boy. Harry realised with a jolt. He ducked when a guard was thrown through the plaster wall and into the kitchen in the room over. Harry slid around the side of the couch and dropped to his knees, going wide eyed as he saw the other teen.
The boy had curly, dark hair. He was ripping a strip of his shirt off with his teeth, one length was already wrapped tightly around his upper arm, where the blood seemed to be coming from. He grunted as he began trying to fasten the next makeshift bandage over the same wound.
“Here,” Harry offered without thinking, taking the bandage and wrapping it over the boy’s wound carefully. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t want to leave, but I thought if I –”
“S’ okay. I’m alright,” the teen said assuringly, looking over the edge of the couch to watch his family taking care of the rest of the men. He saw Tony pounding Norman into a bloodied mess. “Uh… sorry about your Dad’s face?”
“It’s fine,” Harry said, laughing slightly. “It was mediocre anyways. He’s an ass.” He looked up as the room went quiet for a moment, clearly the last of the men had been finished off. “I’m Harry,” he said.
“Peter,” the other teen replied. It was a fitting name.
“Pete!” Tony called, stumbling around the corner and wiping his bruised fists against his jacket. “Shit, kid,” he fussed aloud, helping Peter to his feet and supporting his weight. “Med Bay, right now. You two brought the jet, right?” Harry stood in time to see the two new people nodding a confirmation.
“We’ll hang back to clean up, you might wanna take the other kid home too.” Tony nodded, already rushing Peter out to the jet which had landed a few hundred meters away from Harry’s car.
“I’ll get the med kit, someone cut those bandages off him before he get’s infected.” Tony grabbed the offered pair of scissors from Bucky, letting Steve rifle around until he found the med kit. “I’ll fly,” he volunteered, taking Bucky with him and leaving Peter on the cot with Tony standing over him. Harry stood awkwardly to the side, wondering what he should be doing to help in the midst of the chaos.
“Mr. Stark, I’m okay, it’s not that bad, honestly.” Harry huffed a small laugh as his eyes met Peter’s. The teen was a horrible liar and all three of them knew it.
“Oh…” Tony said, his eyes scrunching in anguish as he wiped away the blood covering Peter’s wound.
“It’s okay, it’ll heal,” Peter said quietly.
Harry looked away after he caught a brief glimpse of the word his father had cut into Peter.
Inhuman.
“I never liked my Dad,” he said flatly. “He’s a shitty person.”
Tony swiped some fluid over the wound to keep it disinfected before wrapping it up in proper bandaging. He reached out to squeeze Peter’s hand when he hissed at the sting of the disinfectant, but other than that, luckily, he was unharmed.
“Right. Unless you have relatives who aren’t psychopaths, you’re crashing at the tower for now.” Tony said, looking at Harry, a subtle hint of gratitude in his gaze.
“Yeah… that’d be great, uh… thank you, and it’s nice to meet you by the way, Peter.” Harry smiled, his chest stuttering as Peter smiled back. His face was open and didn’t show a hint of contempt.
“Nice to meet you too, Har.”