“Anybody have anything?” Steve could hear the underlying tone of distress coming from Tony at the question and wished he could do something about it or at least properly console the man.
“Nothing yet from my end. We’ll find him Tony, he’s tough.”
“Yeah, well he’s also a child.” The words ‘who shouldn’t be in this mess’ went unsaid and Steve felt a sigh building up. It was clear that Tony felt wholly responsible for Peter’s kidnapping, even though the man had done everything in his power to ensure the boys safety, but this operation was planned far in advance.
Movement to his right cut through Steve’s thoughts and he instinctively raised his shield, at seeing it was just Clint he lowered it once more.
“What’d you find?” Despite the fact that Clint had remained silent when Tony asked for an update, Steve could tell from his face he had something.
“Pretty sure I found where they were keeping him; it was a caged off section of the room equip with a blanket and chains.”
Steve pursed his lips and nodded, “any idea where they took him?”
Clint’s face hardened at the question, “I found a pretty decent sized splash of blood, it goes all over the place before it leads to a hallway.”
Steve felt his stomach drop and nodded, “then that's where we go.”
Before the pair could head off a clang sounded from above them causing both to ready their weapons, another small thump revealed that whatever was causing the noise was coming from the air ventilation system above them. Silence formed between the pair as they waited for whatever it was to burst down, however neither were expecting a meek but familiar voice to call out.
“Mr. Captain America?”
Steve moved under the cover and called up, “Peter?”
He was instantly awarded with more desperate thumps until Steve could just make out Peter staring at them through the slots. Pressing his communicator Steve couldn’t help but smile, “Tony, we found him.”
There was a pause before Tony’s voice filtered through with barely masked relief, “on the way.”
Turning his attention back to the boy he called back up, “your dad is on the way. Now let’s get you down from there.”
Clint wasted little time removing the air vent and Steve held up his arms, “drop down Peter, I promise I’ll catch you.”
Shortly after he said this Peter all but flung himself down towards the man, clinging tightly to the shirt fabric the moment he could grasp it. Steve was highly considering just continuing to hold the boy until Tony came but when he saw how Clint was eyeing the boys face with a promise of slow murder for whoever was responsible for what he was looking at, he knew that making sure he was physically alright should come first.
Gently setting Peter down he leaned back to get a clear view of the boy and felt rage seep into his bones. Peter’s face was coated in dry blood with some still fresh blood oozing from his nose, the entire left side of his face was bruised and so heavily swollen that the left eye could barely be opened, when Peter moved to rub his wrists Steve saw the scattering of bruises that came from being tied up.
After the silence stretched on to long for his comfort the boy tried to get a better look at the blob of color standing next to the wall. When Clint noticed how hard he was squinting he couldn’t help but chuckle in move in closer, “you can barely see, I can barely hear, we should stick together from now on to even that out.”
Peter’s face lit up at the voice, “Mr. Clint!”
Clint made a noise of protest, “don’t call me Mr. Clint, it makes me feel like an old man that doesn’t know how to play golf and keeps talking about the olden days. No offense Cap.”
Peter let out a laugh before clapping a hand over his mouth and looking at Steve, “sorry.”
Steve smiled, “he’s not completely wrong, I still don’t know how to play golf.”
Peters giggles were cut off at the sound of thrusters drawing closer and he suddenly began to fidget, Tony didn’t spare a glance to Clint or Steve as he stepped out of the suit and crouched in front of Peter. Gently he raised the boys chin to get a better look at the injuries, “shit kid, they really did a number on you.”
This seemed to open the floodgates and Peter surged forward to cling to his father, when the sobs began Tony snapped out of his daze and awkwardly rubbed the boys back in what he hoped was a comforting manner.
“I’m sorry I-I tried so hard to be brave and strong. But I was so scared.”
The boys words were broken up by breath hitches and when he finished he tried to hide his face.
“Peter, you really need to listen to me when I tell you this. You don’t have a single thing to be sorry for and another thing, you don’t have to try to be brave and strong because you already have both of those traits in spades. Ok?”
It took a moment for Peter to nod, “ok.”
Tony nodded, “good, now lets go meet up with Nat and Brucie to fix you up.”
Peter silently grabbed his fathers hand as the man confidently walked through the halls, halfway there Peter seemed to realize something and when they reached the jet he couldn’t keep the question contained any longer.
“You all came rescue me?”
“Of course we did, no leaving a man behind and all that.”
Peter jumped at Natasha’s sudden appearance and the women made a silent vow to make it up to him later by smuggling him another R rated movie from that franchise he loved. After Peter calmed down he was being led to a chair by Bruce who was quick to start poking and prodding him.
“Sorry Peter, I know it hurts but we need to make sure it’s not broken. Tony could you take maybe two steps back because you breathing on my neck is not going to make me go any faster.”
With minimal protest Tony stepped away and crossed his arms, but throughout the examination he didn’t look away once. When Bruce was finally done he gave the boy a glorified ice pack to hold over the worse of the swelling and walked over to the group.
“Well nothing’s broken so that’s a plus, when the swelling goes down we’ll be able to get a better idea of any potential damage that may have been hidden before. That said I’m a little worried about the amount of blood, face wounds tend to bleed more but it doesn’t make sense why there's so much blood when the wound shouldn't have caused it.”
He had been speaking in low tones with the rest of the team but underestimated how good Peter’s hearing really was, “oh, a lot of the bloods not mine.”
In unison they all turned to stare at him and he suddenly realised that they could be mad because he was eavesdropping and stayed silent.
“Petey-pop, you can't drop a bombshell like that and not continue. We're all ears over here.”
Peter shifted in his seat before taking a deep breath, “I’m sorry Ms. Natasha and Clint. When I got caught I tried really hard to remember all of those cool moves you guys tried so hard to teach me! But then when the big guy finally untied me and was dragging me away I just blanked on it. I got so scared I couldn’t remember anything and it was really hard to move. The only thing I could do was lean over and bite him as hard as I could, even when he was yelling and the taste made me want to puke I tried to hold on. Then he hit me really hard and I let go.”
Three mouths silently gaped open and Clint thought back to the pools of blood. “Peter that was a lot of blood, you did that all by biting him?”
Peter nodded slowly mistaking the tone for disapointment, “I’m sorry I couldn’t remember the things you guys taught me, was I not supposed to do that?”
Natasha was smiling at this point and shook her head, “you did good Peter.”
Clint pointed up and continued, “so you got away and hid in the ventilation?”
Peter nodded slowly, “yeah, I knew I needed to hide but couldn’t really think of a good place. Then I remembered that really cool movie and hid up there.”
Tony had the lower half of his face buried in his hand at this point, “you’re talking about the movie Alien.”
It wasn’t a question but Peter nodded anyway, “yeah!”
Tony gave a hard look of accusation to Natasha from the corner of his eye which she promptly ignored.
“There’s a movie called Alien?”
Peter nodded at Steve with enthusiasm, “yeah it’s this really old movie that has this kick butt main character lady and she fights this really awesome alien that uses the air vents of the spaceship to move around. Also the alien was born by bursting out of someone’s chest.”
Steve nodded slowly, “I’ll add it to the list.”
Peter beamed at that simple statement and Clint held a hand over his heart.
“I am honestly so proud of you, Peter.”