twenty-two.
When Tony woke up, he had this awful feeling in his chest that something was wrong. Steve felt it too. Together they walked down to Peter's room only to find him missing. His bed looked like it hadn't been slept in for days.
Loud boots were coming down the hallway, and they didn't even have to look to know that it was Bucky. He was angry, but what was new?
"The prisoner's gone." His chest was rising and falling quickly. Had he ran to them?
Tony looked towards the ceiling as if there were someone there. "FRIDAY, status report, where did the prisoner go?"
There was a long pause. "I don't know, sir."
Baffled, Tony threw his arms up. "How can you not know, FRIDAY? You see everything that happens in this building? What does the security footage say?"
Steve and Bucky share a look, seemingly having a thousand word conversation between them in just seconds. They knew what the other was thinking, and they could already figure what happened. Peter and Wade magically vanishing at the same time wasn't any kind of coincidence... The only thing they couldn't figure is who broke who out.
"My system suffered a malfunction at 01:30:21 on Friday morning. My system did not reboot totally until 01:44:15, sir."
Tony glances over his shoulder at the two of them. "If the system shut down that means that the security and cameras were off for the whole building until FRIDAY rebooted... Is everything else accounted for?"
Bucky can't answer. "I didn't look anywhere else but the main cells."
Tony turns back to the ceiling, now somewhat furious. "FRIDAY, alert all personnel to a facility-wide search and put out covert ABP's on Peter and the mercenary Deadpool as well." He kept talking as he walked down the hall, Bucky and Steve following behind him. "Deadpool is armed and dangerous and he's meant to be brought back here in as many pieces as possible. Peter is to be brought back unharmed but should still be considered dangerous."
Steve thought it was an outrage. "He's just a kid, Tony."
"A kid who can stop a bus with his bare hands and hack into a multimillion-dollar security system that grown adults from the government couldn't even pass the firewall on." He passes through the group room and collects Natasha as the facility-wide alarm blares. He swipes a clipboard from a frantic looking S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and curses a little.
"While Peter was doing God knows what, the systems were shut off, which meant any door in the building could be opened and closed and there'd be no record of it at all. The highest security doors could have been opened by a kindergartener."
Natasha walked along the group, popping bubble-gum as if everything wasn't falling to shit around them. "VX9103 has escaped, and so has CX4376... Hopefully, they'll finally kill each other and save the rest of us a lot of trouble."
"We have to operate under the assumption that they're returning to the host bodies, which is a whole lot of trouble for the rest of us. I don't know if we've got the juice to get rid of them, especially at the same time."
Bucky rolled his eyes, "Yeah, hi, apparently we're not all privy to the same information so if you could stop speakin' confidential martian and start speakin' English like the rest of us, that'd be nice."
Tony stopped walking entirely and Bucky almost collided with his back. Luckily his reflexes were fast enough he was able to jump back before Tony turned around. "VX9013 and CX4376 are two highly dangerous symbiotic organisms from another planet. They on adrenaline and grant almost spider-like powers to their hosts. They've been trapped in our high-security vaults for years, and NOW, your brat has endangered EVERYONE."
Steve's shoulder's squared. "Right, because you've never done anything like that before."
Natasha shook her head. "It's not right of you to suddenly decide you've not taken any responsibility for him once he's done something wrong, Tony. If anything, I think you're the most to blame here by keeping him and everyone else in the dark about what's really going on here."
"Well then maybe you should tell them, Nat, since you're so good at opening your mouth."
"Says the man that don't know how to shut his." Bucky snapped. "Don't talk to her like that. Surely your mother taught you how to respect a woman."
Bucky knew the parent card was an extremely low blow, especially after everything they'd been through. Natasha and Steve both shared a look while Tony stared up into Bucky's eyes. The conversations passing through the air were quickly brushed away when Steve asked what they should be doing. Tony just shook his head. "The only thing we can do now is doing our damndest to find Peter."
In all reality, Wade thought as he looked around the little cabin, if someone wanted to find them bad enough they could. He looked to where Peter was laying, curled up on the couch and fast asleep... He couldn't keep Peter here any longer, but he couldn't go back with him anymore. Not like he wanted to. He needed to finish his mission, but he didn't have it in him to kill Peter. Not now... So he settled for doing what he could.
He pulled the small needle from his bag, along with the blood bag and IV tube. He didn't want to do this anymore, but he knew that he had to. Cable might kill him for this because he knew what came out of this, he just didn't know what it'd do to the world around him... But if Cable wasn't here to stop him, he figured it was a pretty good clue to go ahead and do it.
While poor Peter, passed out from the drugs Wade slipped into his food, slept soundly, Wade hooked the needle to the tube and stuck it into Peter's vein. He had a big enough bag to take two pints of blood, and sure it would leave him weak, but that's what Wade needed. Wade needed Peter to be too weak to come looking for him. The weaker he was, for the time being, the less danger he'd be in.
Wade sucked on the tube until the blood started to flow, then he hooked it to the bag and sat back to watch the magic. There were no noises in the cabin but the drip, drip, dripping of Peter's blood. It's a good thing he wasn't returning with Peter, really. He'd hate to be there when they found the Symbiotes were missing... He knew they'd blame it on Peter, but he couldn't just show up and rightfully take the blame like he should.
God, if Peter ever found out about this, he'd kill Wade for sure... 'That's why he's not ever going to find out, idiot.' One of the voices said. The other just laughed, well, at least he thought it was laughter. 'He's never going to find out. He trusts you, Wade, and that was his mistake. I can't believe he didn't think you'd betray him, after all, you are the bad guy here.'
"No, no you're wrong, I'm doing this to protect him, I'm the good guy."
'You're wrong again, Wade. You've never been the good guy. You kill people for money, and now this? You've taken HYDRA's instructions as the gospel and now this poor little boy is going to pay for it... You know what could happen to him... You know what this could DO to him... Yet you still proceed? Do you not care?'
"Of course I care!" He exclaimed. He wasn't worried about waking Peter. He had enough drugs in his body to keep him out for days.
He looked to the table where the cryotube sat. Etched into the side was a code... CX4376. "Of course I do..."