Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Mommy, where are you and Daddy going?” the inquisitive four year old asked, as his mom packed her suitcase. Peter sat on the edge of his parents’ bed, swinging his little legs back and forth.

His mother winced, bracing herself for the difficult conversation as she paused in her packing, kneeling on the floor and turning to face her son. “Your Daddy, Uncle Happy, Uncle Obie and I are going on a business trip, and you are going to be staying with your Aunt May.”

Peter frowned. “I want to come with you!” He jumped off the bed, and threw his arms around his mom’s neck from the side. Pepper sighed, wrapping her arms around her son’s waist. “Please…” He dragged out, looking up at his mom and jutting out his bottom lip. Pepper’s resolve immediately began to weaken.

Tony leaned in the doorway of their bedroom, looking at his little family adoringly. He walked into the master bedroom, crouching on the ground next to his wife and son, and he ruffled Peter’s hair. “Trust me, buddy - this trip is going to be super boring.” He looked at his wife with puppy eyes. “Can I stay at home with Pete?”

“It’s your company!” Pepper exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air, and Peter giggled in his mom’s lap. “If you don’t go, we might as well all stay at home!”

Tony looked down at his son affectionately, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead as Pepper ran her warm hand through his soft curls. “We’ll be back before you know it, bud,” Tony promised, his face brightening as he added, “And then it will be time for your birthday party!”

“I’m going to be five!” Peter exclaimed, holding up all five fingers and waving his left hand in his dad’s face and then jumping out of his mom’s lap to turn around and wave his hand in her face too. 

“Yeah you are!” Pepper winked at her son, as Tony high-fived the boy. Peter danced around their bedroom as Tony and Pepper continued to pack. The couple exchanged amused glances: Pepper’s poor sister May and her brother-in-law Ben were going to have to deal with one hyper kid. 

Happy came upstairs to the master bedroom of their Malibu mansion to carry their suitcases down and the two billionaires held their son’s little hands in each of their own. May and Ben were waiting by their car in the Starks’ driveway when the small family finally arrived and Peter immediately rushed to hug them whilst his parents followed behind slowly after locking up the mansion. “Aunt May! Uncle Ben!”

“Peter!” his aunt and uncle laughed, receiving their nephew with open arms. Pepper hugged her sister and Tony shook Ben’s hand. Tony crouched down so that he was eye level with his son. 

“Be good for May and Ben. Or Happy will eat all your toys,” Tony told him, pretending to glance up at Happy fearfully. His friend and head of security rolled his eyes. 

“That’s not very nice, Uncle Happy.” Peter’s brows furrowed, as he also looked up at his uncle. The adults all chuckled. “You wouldn’t actually do that, would you?” He turned to his mother for confirmation. “Would he?”

“No he wouldn’t,” Pepper assured her son, pushing his curls back from his forehead. “Your Daddy’s just being silly. Happy’s our guardian angel.”

Happy didn’t seem happy with this title, scowling at Tony when his boss snorted. “I’ll be in the car. Hurry up.”

“But I want to drive,” Tony complained, although he was silenced when Pepper, May and Peter raised their brows at him in sync: the resemblance between the three Potts was quite distinct in that moment. “Fine,” Tony grumbled, before looking down at his son and kissing his cheek. “I love you tonnes. Way more than your Mommy does.”

“Tony,” Pepper admonished, although there was no real heat behind her words. May and Ben laughed at Tony’s snark, and Pepper also leaned down to kiss Peter’s forehead. “Don’t listen to your Daddy - I love you way more than he does.”

Peter giggled, pulling his parents into a hug. “I love you three thousand,” he whispered, his head sandwiched between his parents’ heads and his arms wrapped around their necks. 

Pepper and Tony exchanged fond glances over his head. “Wow. That much, huh?” Tony murmured, as they pulled back from the embrace and gently pushed Peter towards his aunt and uncle and their car. “Three thousand is a pretty big number. Astronomical, if you ask me.”

Pepper and Tony began to head to their own car, towards an impatient Happy, when Peter exclaimed abruptly. “Wait!” His parents exchanged anxious glances, preparing for a tantrum that they didn’t have the time for. “What about DUM-E and U and Butterfingers when we’re all gone? Maybe I should stay home alone and make sure they be good…” Peter looked at his parents hopefully, already planning all the mayhem he could get up to when unsupervised. 

“JARVIS will keep an eye on them,” Pepper raised her eyebrows, her motherly intuition already picking up on his mischievous intentions. Later, she would wish that she had listened to the nagging feeling in her stomach that was telling her to stay behind with her son, to forget all about the meetings in New York. 

“Our boy’s all grown up,” Tony told her as they both got into the backseat of the car, both parents impressed by the lack of a tantrum on Peter’s part. “Not a single tear this time. Next time we have to leave him, he’ll probably be doing his own laundry.”

“He’s four, Tony,” Pepper rolled her eyes at her husband, although a smile played on her lips. Their hands were intertwined on her lap. 

“Nearly five, and that’s beside the point, Pep - I was doing my own laundry when I was four!”

Happy scoffed from the front seat. “Please. You’ve never done laundry a single day in your life.”

“Happy, you’re fired.”

Tony told him he was fired every other day. 

The four year-old scrutinised the shelves of the grocery store with fascination: he never went grocery shopping with his parents because JARVIS ordered everything to their house. “Stay close, Pete,” Uncle Ben said nervously, hoping that no one recognised the famous billionaire’s child with him. “We just need to grab some stuff for dinner.” 

“What stuff?” Peter asked eagerly, holding Uncle Ben’s hand and swinging their joined hands back and forth. “I can help you find it! I can!” 

“Well, I’ve got the list here.” Ben rummaged through his pockets and handed his nephew a crumpled piece of paper. “Let me know when you see something that we need, alright?”

Peter had a blast going grocery shopping for the first time with his uncle and the two were in a giggly mood as they headed out of the grocery store, which is why they didn’t notice the strange men that had been following them since they exited the shop. 

A loud bang sounded in Peter’s ears and the boy flinched at the loud sound, his grip on his uncle’s hand tightening. Peter could only watch in horror as his uncle collapsed to the floor, his hand braced over his chest. “U-Uncle Ben…” Tears welled in the boy’s eyes as his uncle wouldn’t respond to him, the man’s mouth opening and closing wordlessly. “Uncle Ben!” He shook his uncle by his shoulders. 

A sharp sting shot through Peter’s neck and everything faded to black. 

Tapping his fingers on the cold, steel table of the boardroom, Tony stifled a yawn as he listened to his foreign investors drone on. On his right, Obie was nodding agreeably, although his eyes were glazed over, and Tony smiled at his false attentiveness. To his left, Pepper was confidently conversing with the investors and the man watched his wife instead, admiring her ocean-blue eyes and counting the freckles on her cheeks. She was so perfect. 

And then he got the phone call that changed everything. 

Usually, Tony tried to be responsible and professional during these meetings that he seldom attended, and only ever due to his wife or Obie’s wishes. But this time the call was from Pepper’s sister, May, who knew they were busy, considering she, Ben and Peter had already called them two hours ago. Tony excused himself from the room to take the call, on the assumption that his son had called him from his aunt’s phone. and muttered an apology when Pepper and Obie both glared at him. 

“Pete, you know we’re busy-”

“Tony!” May sobbed over the phone, and Tony’s stomach dropped. “B-Ben got shot- He’s gone, a-and Peter, he’s missing, Tony-”

No. 

No. 

No.

Peter awoke groggily in a cold, dark room, and the four year-old struggled as he realised his limbs were strapped to a table. Noticing some of the men and women wearing military uniforms, similar to the ones that his Uncle Rhodey wore, Peter decided to talk to them. If they looked like his uncle, they couldn’t be bad, could they? “Hello. I-I’m Peter. Can you please help me get off here?” He continued to struggle on the table, his limbs bound. “I’m stuck.”

One man clad in a suit and a white coat - like some of the people who worked at his dad’s company wore - laughed, and the sound was cold, piercing, so different from his Dad’s mellow chuckles. “Hello Peter. I’m Alexander Pierce. You may call me Mr Pierce.”

“Hello, Mr Pierce,” Peter said timidly, squirming at the many eyes upon him as he lay strapped to the table. “My Uncle Ben got hurt! There was lots and lots and lots of red! We need to help Uncle Ben!”

“Your Uncle Ben is gone, Peter,” said Mr Pierce, stepping towards him. “He is dead.”

“Where’s he gone?” A crease appeared between his brows, his childish innocence unable to comprehend the idea of death, especially since his parents had always shielded him from the harsh reality of life. “What does dead mean?”

“Dead means to be gone forever. You’ll never see him again,” Mr Pierce said simply. 

“No,” Peter shook his head stubbornly. “I see Uncle Ben all the time, on the weekends, in the holidays, at parties, at my Mommy’s dinner parties, when Mommy and Daddy and Uncle Happy have to go to work and I’m gonna see him at my birthday party next week!”

Mr Pierce laughed coldly again and looked down on him. Peter was a small kid, he knew that, but the man’s cold gaze made him want to curl up and hide under his blanket at home. “You'll never see any of your family again. They don’t want you. You’re going to join a greater purpose at Hydra as we better the world.”

“Hail Hydra,” the other people in the room spoke up, and the sudden increase of voices made Peter jump. 

The four year-old continued to struggle against his binds, as a doctor stepped closer to the table with a large needle attached to a syringe filled with liquid in his hands. “I want my Mommy and Daddy!”

“Subject 89X23 of the Child Winter Soldier Programme. Experiment 1. Minimal dosage-”

Pepper, Happy and Tony raced to the private airport in record time, due to Happy’s expert - borderline illegal - driving and were on a plane back to Malibu within twenty-five minutes of May’s phone call. Tony was beside himself with worry, pacing up and down the jet, whilst Pepper forced herself into a false calm state, as she called in the FBI to the scene, whilst also on the phone with the LA County Sheriff, who had immediately responded to the scene. Happy was talking on the phone with May, trying to calm her down, and considering he had the emotional range of a toddler, the task was proving rather difficult. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” Tony panicked, wringing his hands together whilst he paced. “He will have been missing for eight hours by the time we get there!”

“They’ll find him before that, Boss,” Happy assured him, although his voice held uncertainty. “Most missing kids are found within a couple hours.”

After an hour of barking orders over the phone, Pepper finally hung up the phone, letting the cops and investigators do their jobs. She slumped in her seat, immediately bursting into tears. “We’ve… We’ve left him so many times before with B-Ben and May…”

Tony paused in his pacing, sitting down next to his wife and pulling her flush against him. His arms were tight around her waist, as he mumbled into her sweet-smelling red hair, “We’re gonna find him, Pep. We’ll find him.”

Sobbing whilst strapped to the table, the five year old was in unbearable pain. It had been several months since he had seen his family. There were incisions from scalpels and stings from injections littered all over his body. His ribs poked out due to the malnutrition. The room full of doctors and scientists fell silent as Mr Pierce stepped into the room but Peter continued to cry. 

“Subject 89X23 is the only one who has shown any visible and beneficial enhancements, Sir,” a Russian scientist spoke up. He was the same scientist who had been tasked with teaching Peter about the superior organisation, Hydra, and to be fluent in both English and Russian. Peter’s Russian was still shaky at best. “During Experiment 72, dosage 24, the subject has shown increases in strength, a tendency to stick to things, and a rapid metabolism. He heals from injuries faster, his speed has increased, but he’s also losing weight rapidly, despite being fed an appropriate diet for his age. There is evidence that he may have increased strength too if he receives the required nutrition. His senses are also incredibly heightened.”

Peter Stark. My name is Peter. My name is Peter. My name is Peter. My mommy is called Pepper. My daddy’s name is Tony. I live at 10880 Malibu Point. 

“Fascinating,” Mr Pierce mused, and Peter tried to shrink from the man’s gaze, but his attempts were futile as he was strapped to a table. “The boy is the only one to survive out of the 200 child subjects that we experimented on. Perhaps… It is time we train the subject by someone with enhancements similar to him.”

“Sir,” the Russian scientist began tentatively (Peter didn’t know his name: he wasn’t allowed to know anyone’s names, apart from Mr Pierce, or where he was being kept). “Do you mean to introduce 89X23 to the Soldat?”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Mr Pierce smirked and the look on the man’s face was enough to make Peter hate the idea. He beckoned two men clad in black forward. “Prepare to bring the Soldat out of cryofreeze.”

The next morning, Peter was dragged out of his cell by his guards as usual, hosed down with cold water, brushed his teeth, grey T-shirt and shorts changed for another identical, clean pair of clothing, and then, instead of language lessons and experimentation, he was thrown into a room with many scientists, Mr Pierce and more guards that Peter had ever seen since the six months he had been locked in this Hydra facility. 

“Good morning, sir,” Peter stammered out respectfully, quickly picking himself up from the cold, hard floor, and holding back a sob at his scraped knee. His mommy used to always kiss away any small scratch that he got. The five year-old kept his head bowed before the man and remained silent: if he didn’t speak unnecessarily, he was less likely to get hit. 

“89X23!” Mr Pierce exclaimed, appearing uncharacteristically happy, and Peter gulped in fear. Mr Pierce’s happiness had never resulted in anything good for the boy. “Meet the Soldat. He is going to be training you.”

The man that Mr Pierce gestured to sat dazed in an uncomfortable-looking chair, his eyes staring at the ground. He had a metal arm and his hair was long, a bit like Peter’s had become. Peter’s daddy used to take him to the barber every two weeks but now his curls had grown quite long. 

“Good morning, sir,” Peter also said to him, because he had to respect his teachers or else he would get beaten. The man finally looked up at him, and his hollow expression turned into confusion. Peter trembled and instinctively shielded his head with his arms. What had he done wrong?

The room sounded with cacophonous laughter, and Peter winced, the sound grating on his heightened sense of hearing. “Oh 89X23, I do forget how naive you can be,” Mr Pierce shook his head in amusement. “The Soldat is an object, an asset of Hydra, just like you.”

The Soldat didn’t even react to any of the sounds around him, his gaze transfixed on the little boy standing a short distance before him. Peter’s shaking hadn’t stopped, anticipating that someone would slap him any moment now for his slight. 

Mr Pierce made Peter fight Soldat: Peter was unable to pick himself up from the floor, only one minute into the fight, and Mr Pierce only tutted in response as he snivelled pitifully on the floor, sobbing from the punches and kicks. Soldat stared down at the boy, his face devoid of emotion. Pierce landed a controlling hand on Soldat’s shoulder. “You have your work cut out for you.”

A fierce-looking man hoisted Peter up from the ground roughly by the scruff of his neck, and the five year-old whimpered, trying to hold back a wince at his injuries. Six military guards flanked Soldat, aiming heavy guns at him, in order to keep him subdued, in case of a rebellion. The man practically had to carry the injured child and unceremoniously dumped the boy onto the floor of a much larger cell than the one Peter had spent the last several months within.

Peter started to cry when he saw Soldat was also shoved into the gigantic cell with him, and the guards locked the door behind him. The Soldat just watched the kid cry blankly. After a few minutes, he stepped closer slowly, like he was approaching a skittish animal. “I-I’m sorry,” Peter sobbed, curling up in a ball on the cold floor. “Please don’t hurt me!”

The Soldat froze at the protest, but then he started forward again, picking the boy up with only his flesh arm, the touch exceedingly tender. Peter couldn’t help but feel disappointed when the soft touch left his body when Soldat laid him down on the bed to the left of the room. It had been so long since he had been hugged. Soldat retreated to the opposite corner of the room and sat on the other bed, facing away from the crying boy.

Chapter Text

It had been four months since their little boy had gone missing, and in January of 2007, Pepper and Tony were beginning to lose their sanity. His photograph had been printed and distributed on missing posters and news channels, all around the world. His fifth birthday had come and gone, they hadn’t decorated their house for Christmas, the annual Stark New Year’s Eve Party had been cancelled and their friends were beyond worried about them. 

Pepper wouldn’t allow anyone to enter Peter’s bedroom in their Malibu mansion, although she went in the room by herself every evening to clean it so that it would be ready for when her baby would hopefully return. Obie told her to leave the cleaning and other lowly jobs to their staff - considering that Pepper had a company to run - but she had shot him down with a glare so venomous that it surprised Happy that Obie didn’t drop dead on sight. 

When Pepper wasn’t tied up in company affairs, she was on the phone with the FBI, demanding to know where they had gotten with their search efforts, only to be disappointed every time. For the first several weeks, she had refused to return to work at all, having joined forces with the investigators and search parties, but after seeing the toll it was taking on her mental state, Rhodey had convinced her to return to work, much to Obie’s chagrin. He had enjoyed having free rein over the company.

Tony had forsaken any company responsibilities and was instead searching for Peter day and night with Rhodey, up and down the country. His sleep schedule - which had been unconventional even before he had lost his son - was in complete disarray and Rhodey was seriously concerned for his best friend. 

Every evening, Pepper would call her husband, her chest swelling with the slightest fraction of hope. “Tony… did you-”

“No, Pepper. I’m sorry.”

And then Pepper would cry all evening until she made herself sick, May would come upstairs to tuck her younger sister into bed and then Pepper would get up early to go to work the next morning, during which she’d constantly phone her FBI Agents, and then the whole cycle would repeat itself. 

After six months of searching, only to find nothing, Tony returned to his Malibu Mansion earlier than usual without telling Rhodey (he tended to visit Pepper every weekend between his searches, and Pepper’s widowed sister May was also staying at their place). It was late afternoon when he dropped onto their lavish couch in the living room with a bottle of his strongest vodka cradled to his chest. 

When Happy drove Pepper home that evening, and the two entered the living room to find Tony sitting there, a delicate hope rekindled in the grieving mother’s heart. She stepped forward shakily, not yet noticing the alcohol sitting on the coffee table before her husband. Happy noticed and pursed his lips, preparing himself for the fight that would inevitably occur between the couple due to Tony’s relapse at such a trying time.

“Tony., you’re home early,” Pepper breathed, her heart racing as she dared to hope. “Did you… You found him?” She looked around the large living room as if expecting her son to come running out from some hidden corner and straight into her arms. Tony stared down at his feet, unable to meet his wife’s eyes. 

“Pep, I-”

That’s when she noticed the empty bottle of vodka on the coffee table.

Her voice shook with unbridled fury. “Our son has been missing for six months, and instead of looking for him like you promised, you’re drinking?!” She ran her hand through her hair that was absent of its usual shiny quality due to the lack of care she had bestowed upon it since she had lost her son. She gripped her husband by the face and forced him to look at her. “Look at me!”

The tears streaming down his cheeks caused her to falter and her rage subsided, her touch turning soft. She caressed his cheek, sitting down on the couch right next to him. His voice also shook as he spoke, trying to hold back sobs, “We uncovered a child t-trafficking ring, here in Malibu… It was terrible what… what they did to those kids, Pep-” He couldn’t hold back the tears now, and Pepper pulled him into her arms, his head burying in her chest. 

Pepper felt like she couldn’t breathe, her chin rested atop of his dishevelled hair. She tried to comfort him, rubbing soothing circles on his back. “I-It wasn’t… Peter wasn’t…”

“We don’t know,” Tony’s voice was muffled. “It happens all over the country. All over the world. The FBI thinks that Peter’s been sold to one of those rings, because we haven’t gotten any ransom calls-” Tony pulled back, his wet eyes meeting her own. “It was horrible, Pep. It was so fucking horrible.” He shook his head, his chest rising and falling erratically. “Our baby… He could have been r-” Tony shuddered, continuing to shake his head as he cried, clinging to Pepper’s forearms. “I hope he’s dead, Pep. I don’t want my boy to be in pain… Anything’s better than… I couldn’t live with myself if-”

“No, no, no, no,” Pepper muttered, pulling away from her husband angrily. “No! He’s going to come home, you said he would! You said we’d bring him home!” She ran out of the room, rushing past Happy and May, who had just gotten into the house after her shift at the hospital. She ignored all of their requests to come back, wailing uncontrollably. 

After a particularly difficult second training session with Soldat, followed by rigorous medical procedures without anaesthesia in order to test his enhanced healing, he had been dumped back onto the floor of his cell. Soldat examined the boy as the five year-old tried to muffle his sobs by covering his mouth with his hand. 89X23 was the small, pitiful creature’s designation, if the Soldat remembered correctly from his primary Handler, Mr Pierce. He was very little compared to anyone the Soldat had ever witnessed. A child , a voice in the corner of his head supplied, a voice that Soldat was meant to ignore. 

89X23 kept looking up at Soldat in fear, clearly anticipating to be hit like he was this morning during their training session. He tried to crawl towards his bed on the opposite side of the large cell in an attempt to be as far as possible from Soldat. The Soldat’s voice was hoarse from disuse as he spoke up in a strange mix of Russian and English. “Soldat shall not hurt 89X23, unless ordered to by its Handlers.”

The child froze, looking back at the Soldat. No one ever spoke to him directly anymore, unless it was Mr Pierce or his language instructor, and neither of them had anything comforting to say. “Promise?” he asked quietly, mustering the courage to meet the man’s eyes. Soldat nodded wordlessly, his back straight as he sat on the bed facing the child for the second time in the two days that they had known one another. “Can I tell you a secret?” 

Soldat frowned, trying to remember what the unfamiliar word meant. “Secret?”

The five year-old nodded, trying to push himself into a sitting position. A cry slipped from his lips as he irritated one of his injuries. Soldat stood up in alarm, a foreign feeling in his chest. The child covered his mouth immediately, hoping that he wouldn’t be punished for expressing pain like his language instructor sometimes punished him for. Mr Pierce usually received joy from hearing Peter in pain. “Sorry!” 

Soldat sat down on the floor, cross-legged as he mirrored the boy, keeping some distance between them. Although the child appeared harmless, some of his Handlers also appeared to not be threatening, but they still had ways to punish Soldat. He wondered why 89X23 was apologising to Soldat (it was an asset of Hydra, its feelings or opinions did not matter). 

The boy surveyed him curiously when the Soldat made no move to hit him for his disobedience. 89X23 looked at the bars of their cell nervously, keeping his voice low as he saw the guards standing outside and he shuffled closer to the Soldat. “My name is Peter, not 89X23.”

Soldat frowned in contemplation. 89X23 - Peter - was a subject, an asset, a commodity,  like Soldat. How did Peter have a name, yet Soldat did not? “Peter,” he repeated the name.

Peter nodded, a little smile playing on his lips as he heard his own name for the first time in ages. He looked towards the direction of the guards outside again anxiously, before daring to inch a little closer to Soldat, who tried not to flinch in fear. He whispered, “What’s your name?”

“Soldat does not have a name,” he stated expressionlessly, although he was beginning to doubt the validity of that statement, if such a small subject of Hydra had a name. Why couldn’t Soldat remember anything about himself?

The little boy frowned, and Soldat watched in bewilderment as the boy’s injuries were already starting to heal, much faster than even Soldat’s cuts healed. “Everyone has a name. I have three names: Peter James Stark. And my Mommy and Daddy have loads of names too: Mommy’s name is Pepper Potts, but her real name is Vir-gin-ee-ya and my Daddy’s name is Ant-tony Edward Stark, but all his friends call him Tony.” A look of unbearable longing crossed the boy’s face at the mention of his parents.

Unbeknownst to the boy, the mention of the name “James” had triggered some sort of change within the Soldat. That name felt right, sort of, but not quite. It felt familiar. “My name is James,” Soldat tested the name on his lips, and it felt right, but also wrong. 

“James is a nice name, like me and my Uncle Rhodey!” Peter exclaimed, clapping his hands excitedly. The rise in volume caused the guard outside their cells to bang on the wall, and he bellowed at them to “Keep it down!” Peter yelped, scrambling closer to James for protection. Soldat - James - flinched at the boy coming closer, expecting pain. However, the boy wrapped his little arms around James’ waist and buried his face into James’ stomach. 

It was unfamiliar. The touch was soft, and an ache rose within Soldat’s chest, similar to the one he had experienced earlier when seeing the boy was hurt. His arms were stationary by his sides as the boy clinged to him, but slowly - as if by muscle memory - his arms rose to rest stiffly on the little boy’s back. 

Peter closed his eyes, burrowing himself deeper into James’ arms, and it felt so nice to be hugged after so long, after daily torture and no one to talk to. He missed his Mommy and Daddy so, so, so much. 

After that, the boy decided to cling to the Soldat, deeming the man as the only safe person within the confines of the facility. At mealtimes, the two would sit shoulder-to-shoulder and eat the disgusting, protein sludge that the guards served them. During training sessions, James had started going easier on him, helping him to correct his form whilst fighting, how to shoot all the different types of guns and firearms and general weapons that Hydra owned (there were no bullets - Pierce always worried that the Soldat would manage to escape). 

“This is very heavy,” Peter huffed, trying to balance the oversized gun on his shoulder. If he was being fed adequate amounts, his enhanced muscle power would easily allow him to carry the gun, unbeknownst to James and Peter

James’ lips twitched into a small smile, and Peter’s eyes widened since he had never seen anyone smile in this facility, especially not the feared Winter Soldier, as the scientists who cut into Peter and his language instructor called him. James kneeled down, helping him with the gun. “It’ll be easier when you get bigger.”

“I’m already big!” Peter insisted, as James taught him how to fire the empty gun in the large cell. “I think I’m five now because my Daddy said that my birthday was in a week when I saw him last time, and that was a million days ago!” 

Peter dropped the gun as he hunched into himself sadly and James hurriedly caught it, looking outside at the guards fearfully. “Peter!” James hissed, quietly placing the gun on the floor. “If that had been fired, you would have shot yourself!”

To James’ horror, the five year-old broke down into tears, hiding his face in his hands. “I-I’m sorry… I just miss Mommy and Daddy!” Peter threw himself at James, and with his expert reflexes, James easily caught him, cradling the boy in his left flesh arm and making sure not to touch him with his silver right arm. 

“It’s, uh, it’s alright,” James rubbed the boy’s back uncomfortably, whilst he sniffled into his shoulder. “I’m just teaching you gun safety, as ordered by the Handlers, so that neither of us get punished.”

“OK…” Peter sniffled, pulling away and looking into James’ eyes. “Your eyes are pretty and blue, like my Mommy’s eyes.” James didn’t know what to say to that, so he remained quiet. “Sometimes when I feel sad or scared… Mommy plays with my hair and Daddy kisses my head…”

Peter brought James’ metal hand into his own smaller, soft hand and rested it in his matted, brown curls. The five year old brought his forehead closer to the man’s lips. “I don’t know…” James was unsure what to do, his hand caressing the boy’s curls slowly. 

“Here, I’ll show you,” said the little boy, before placing his hands on the assassin’s shoulders and reaching up to kiss James’ forehead, the man subconsciously leaning into the tender touch. Peter pulled away after a moment and then tapped his own forehead. “Your turn!”

James kissed the boy’s forehead, and something broken in his heart slowly began to piece itself together, as the boy hugged him afterwards. 

The Soldat was malfunctioning.  

In the middle of the night, Peter awoke gasping from a bad dream of the doctors cutting into him again, and he was frozen whilst strapped to the table. He sat up on the bed, shaking from the cold temperature in the room as he pushed away the thin blanket. Looking across the room, Peter saw James sleeping in his own bed.

Slowly creeping out of his bed after making sure the night guards were engaged in conversation and not paying attention to him, Peter tiptoed towards James’ bed. He poked the man’s shoulder tentatively. “James?” he whispered “Jamie?”

The man grunted awake, shooting up out of bed quickly and looking around, relaxing when he saw Peter standing anxiously at the edge of his bed. “Peter.”

“I had a bad dream,” Peter mumbled, fiddling with his fingers and staring at his feet, occasionally looking up at Bucky. “Can I sleep in your bed?” James was uncertain how sleeping in his bed would ward off the nightmares, but he nodded easily and began to get out of the bed to offer it up to Peter. The five year-old grabbed his forearm. “Sleep with you, silly.”

The boy crawled up onto the bed, resting his head atop James’ chest, and closing his eyes. His hands gripped the front of the man’s T-shirt. “This is nice,” Peter murmured, sleep immediately overtaking the boy and his eyelids drooped shut. “You feel like Daddy.”

James rested his chin atop the boy’s head, his arms resting on the little boy’s back. “This is nice,” he echoed. 

Neither of them had nightmares that night.

But life was far from blissful as two subjects of Hydra. Whenever Peter was dragged away for experimentation, James had to spend fifteen minutes listening to the little boy’s screams. His fists would clench, his nails digging into his flesh palm and drawing blood. After those fifteen minutes, Soldat’s Handlers would arrive to escort him to some mission, which could vary in their duration; from several hours to several days, depending on how far the location was and how high profile the target was considered. 

When Soldat was away for missions, American military commanders, who were secretly part of Hydra, would take over Peter’s training. They were a lot harsher and Peter’s injuries would take over a day to heal (they were the type of injuries that would take a regular person weeks to recover from). 

Whenever Soldat returned from an assassination, Peter would embrace him tightly and a shadow of James would resurface ( not Bucky, never Bucky - Pierce had made sure of that ). The guards outside their cell watched their close, blossoming relationship with unease and apprehension, but they all feared Soldat so they remained silent in front of him. Reports of the Soldat’s emotions and sense of identity beginning to resurface were sent to Director Pierce, who ordered them not to act yet, as long as the Winter Soldier remained compliant.

Because they couldn’t target the Soldat, they hurt the child.

“Jamie?” Peter asked one evening, after a few months of knowing Bucky. It had been eight months since he had last seen his parents, yet Peter had no idea of that in this windowless cell, with no connection to the outside world. They both laid on the floor on their backs after a long training session, during which James had been incredibly proud of Peter’s progression. 

James hummed in acknowledgement and the five year-old flipped over onto his stomach so that he was looking over at the assassin lying on the floor next to him. Peter leaned his elbow on the ground and rested his palm on his chin, whilst James stared up at the ceiling. “Where do the mean people take you when you’re not here? Do you go to your home?”

A crease appeared between James’ brows as he stared up at the ceiling, his eyes fixated upon a mark. “Home? What is home?”

Peter frowned, tilting his head. “Um… Home with your mommy and daddy and your uncles and your aunt? People you love. you know?”

James racked his brain for any recollection of such a place or people. He came up short. “I don’t… I don’t have a home. I go on missions.” He didn’t clarify the details of the mission.

“Oh.” Peter paused, feeling sad for the man. He reached out to take the man’s hand in his own. “You can come and live with me and mommy and daddy when they come to get me! My house is super nice and warm and clean, not like here, and it’s by the beach and there’s loads of rooms, but I want you to sleep in my room! Or you can have your own room if you like…” Peter trailed off sheepishly, although he was still looking at the man hopefully.

James looked at the boy, and spoke monotonously. “The Soldat is not permitted to leave any Hydra facilities without its Handlers.”

“Why?”

James didn’t have an answer to that.

Chapter Text

The summer of 2006 - Pepper and Tony’s last summer with their little boy - would be one that they dwelled upon for years to come. The sweltering heat on that mid-July afternoon was almost unbearable to the two parents as they desperately sought out the shade of the sun-umbrella. However, their moment of rest was short-lived due to their son’s wishes, once he had grown tired of digging holes in the sand. “Mommy, Daddy. Can we build a sandcastle?” Peter asked, eagerly.

“Of course we can,” Pepper smiled indulgently. They hadn’t been spending much time with their son recently because of a big weapons deal that they had just closed the previous evening. Both parents felt exceedingly guilty and had decided to cater to Peter’s every whim (which, in Tony’s case, he did so all the time anyway).

Tony Stark took sandcastle-building extremely seriously, and he plucked a stray stick, beginning to draw out plans and blueprints for the final product into the sand. “We need a moat, of course,” Tony muttered, and Peter nodded agreeably, both father and son wearing identical expressions of concentration. 

“Of course,” Pepper echoed in amusement, content to just sit back and lounge, confident with the knowledge that this was her husband’s area of expertise. 

“And we need super big towers!” Peter exclaimed excitedly, circling his dad whilst the man continued to sketch out the design. “Bigger than me!”

“That won’t be too hard to achieve, baby,” teased Pepper, leaving the shade of the umbrella to join her little family and ruffling her four year old’s hair. The boy scowled up at his mom. “I’m not a baby!”

“Yeah, Pep, don’t be silly,” Tony feigned offence on Peter’s behalf and frowned at her, waving the stick in Pepper’s direction. “He’s a big boy.”

“Yeah!”

Exuding a heavy sigh, Pepper placed their family photo at the beach, taken in front of the magnificent sandcastle that Tony had constructed and Peter had only lightly assisted with, back onto the nightstand next to her bed. Her fingers traced the outline of her son, and her eyes lingered on his bright smile, that smile that felt brighter than the oppressive sun. It had been nearly a year since her son went missing, yet they hadn’t gotten any closer to finding Peter.

Pepper wouldn’t consider herself religious by any means but now she prayed to any deity or god or higher being that would hear her anguish and return her son to her. 

She rolled over to face her husband, her head propped up on her hand as her elbow sank into the pillow where Tony’s head laid. Her other hand ran over Tony’s forehead, trying to smooth out the crease between his brows. He appeared stressed even in his sleep. 

“Hi honey,” Tony murmured, his voice hoarse as he peeled his eyelids open. Sunlight spilled through the gap in their curtains - a visual manifestation that it was approaching a year since they had lost their son. Everyday the chance of finding him decreased by half.

“Morning Tony.” She leaned in to kiss him, feeling the roughness of his stubble beneath her hands and uncaring of his morning breath after so many years with him. Besides, she of all people knew that he liked it dirty. His hands reached out to pull her closer, arms wrapping tight around her waist and bringing her flush against him, as if he was afraid that she would disappear too. She rested her chin on his shoulder, forehead leaning against his temple. “Go to work for me today. I’m gonna go out with Agent Garcia to look for Peter - We’ve got a lead in New Mexico.”

Tony opened his mouth to protest, but Pepper captured his lips in another soft kiss. After a moment, she pulled away again. “You can’t do everything alone. You need a break too.” She slipped out of bed, fully dressed and ready since she had gotten showered and changed earlier whilst Tony was still asleep. She had only climbed back into bed again to say goodbye to the love of her life. “Happy’s coming to pick you up for work in an hour! Love you! Bye!”

Tony would never understand how someone as incredible as her had managed to stick around with him for so long. The smartest thing he ever did was putting a ring on that finger.

One of these days, Natasha Romanoff was going to end up killing Clint Barton. 

They had been stuck in traffic for the past hour, amidst a four hour drive back from a mission, which they needed to report back to SHIELD about before they could head on home. During the torturous drive - Natasha only liked being in the car if she was the one driving, as she needed to be the one in control - her best friend had the brilliant idea to blast music and sing along to it at the top of his lungs. 

“GIVE ME A SIGNNN - HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME- OW, NAT! What was that for?!” he demanded, turning the music down to glare at her for smacking him on the head.

“You asked for it,” Natasha shrugged, a wry smirk forming on her lips. She fiddled with the car’s sound system, switching it to something else, literally anything else, just to irk Clint.

“Today marks over one year since esteemed billionaires Tony Stark and Pepper Potts’ son - Peter Stark - went missing on August 2nd, 2006. The parents have never received any ransom call, or any valid clue as to where the boy - who turned six today if we remain hopeful that he’s still out there - might be. There are many theories as to what might have happened to little Peter: from human trafficking to the parents getting rid of him themselves-”

“That’s ridiculous-” spluttered Clint, shaking his head. He had two little ones of his own, a girl and a boy that Natasha loved like they were her own. “People don’t even know them - why would they make assumptions like that?!”

“People are idiots,” said Natasha, switching the radio off completely. 

“I would lose my shit if my kid went missing,” Clint shuddered at the mere thought of something so catastrophic like that occurring to his family. “His poor parents are always out looking for him. You ever seen those conferences they put on TV? They both always look devastated. It makes Laura cry whenever she sees them. I guess it just makes you wonder what if it was your family…”

“Nothing’s going to happen to Lila or Coop,” said Natasha, firmly. “I would tear the world apart to find them.”

Clint looked at her out of the corner of his eye as the traffic began to speed up, a teasing smile playing on his lips. He reached out to hold her hand in his, keeping one hand on the steering wheel. “Alright, Auntie Nat.”

“Shut up,” muttered Natasha, but there was a shadow of a smile on her face too when she squeezed his hand back. It was nice to have a best friend, it was nice to have a family.

Nat would never, could never kill Clint Barton. He was too deeply entangled in her heart. 

That same evening, they had a screaming match in the kitchen about who was going to do the dishes. In the end, Laura made them both do the dishes, whilst a five year-old Cooper pointed and laughed at them. Three year-old Lila - Nat’s sweet little angel - cuddled up to her on the couch afterwards and the family of five watched a Disney movie together, before the children had to be put to bed. 

Home was the Bartons, and the Bartons were her home.

Soldat had been escorted on another mission so Peter was alone once more in the gigantic cell. He felt sad and scared whenever he was away from James now. James was warmth and safety and comfort, whereas this cell was cold and wet and dark. Peter didn’t know it yet, but he was six years old now. He whimpered when he heard harsh voices down the corridor outside their cell, curling up under the blanket on James’ bed and trying to hide himself.

The cell door flew open and Peter got frightened and it made him jump and the next thing he realised was that he was stuck to the ceiling. He was stuck to the ceiling. 

“What the-” the Handlers who were escorting Soldat back from the mission looked up at him in astonishment, and even Soldat was looking up in confusion. “Did we know he could…” one handler muttered to the other, only to receive a negative response. “Interesting… Get down from there 89X23!” He reached up to the ceiling and began to beat the small boy with the butt of his large gun and Peter cried out as he fell. 

James rushed to catch him. “Jamie!” Peter cried, wrapping his arms around the man’s neck. “I missed you!”

“Shhh… I’m here,” James whispered, rubbing the boy’s back whilst holding him close. He observed his Handlers with apprehension, who were watching him with equal nervousness. 

The Soldat wasn’t supposed to be able to show emotions, it wasn’t supposed to comfort children, it wasn’t supposed to care, it wasn’t supposed to speak unless spoken to by its Handlers. It took twenty years to break Bucky Barnes and transform him into the Winter Soldier; they didn’t want to lose any of that progress due to a mere child, even if the child was the Winter Soldier’s future successor, according to Director Pierce’s plans. 

“He needs to be wiped and put back into the cryogenic chamber as soon as possible,” the handler muttered to the other as they left the cell. “89X23 is a bad influence on him. I’ll talk to Director Pierce.”

James stiffened as he overheard snippets of their conversation. They were planning to separate him from Peter. “ You think, pal?” a voice similar to his own, yet largely different, snarked in the back of his head. “ Take the kid and get the hell out of here.”    

“The Soldat can not leave Hydra,” Soldat affirmed aloud, and Peter pulled his face back from where he had buried it in the man’s neck to look at him.

“You’re not Soldat, silly,” said the boy, like it was obvious, tracing the star on Soldat’s metal arm. “You’re James, like me!”

“Exactly, pal, listen to the kid - he’s clearly smarter than you,” the man in his head sniped. James was conflicted: he was obligated to listen to his Handlers, obligated to stay within the confines of this Hydra facility if unaccompanied. How could he simply leave? “Easy. The next time the guards come to take our little man, we beat them up, steal their guns, grab the kid and kill anyone in our way, until we get out.”

James tried to ignore the voice, focusing on his kid. “Have you been working hard on training whilst I was gone?” he asked, pushing the boy’s curls that were growing longer everyday away from his face. The six year-old needed a haircut, but then again so did James. 

“Yeah…” Peter grinned, leaning into the touch. James raised an eyebrow, not believing the boy due to his higher tone. “Not really… The other teachers are all mean and hurt me, you’re the only nice person in the whole, entire world .” Peter leaned forward and kissed James’ cheek and a weird feeling ignited in the man’s chest. 

“That’s love, pal,” the voice in the back of his head was growing impossible to drown out now, growing louder and closer. “Congrats, we’re officially a dad, something we know nothing about, what with us being fucking fatherless, remember?” James didn’t remember, he didn’t remember anything. 

“I’m here now,” he said to the boy softly, grabbing the largest gun (which was filled with fake plastic bullets so that they could work on target practice) off the table and handing it to Peter. The boy struggled to hold it, and James kneeled behind the boy so that he could help him aim the gun at the target stuck to the wall, as well as assist him in holding it due to the gun being too heavy for the boy when he was so malnourished. “Now, focus.”

After a while of helping him support the gun, James slowly retracted his hands when Peter wasn’t looking, because he thought the six year-old believed in himself. When James stepped back, Peter looked back and accidentally dropped the gun. “What happened?” James asked, catching the gun easily. 

“I thought your hands would always be there.”

James paused for a moment, thinking. “My hands don’t have to be there for you to believe that I’m always with you.”

Peter nodded thoughtfully, trying to pick up the gun again. James helped him. 

It took James over three months to muster the courage to act upon the voice in his head: Director Pierce hadn’t yet deemed it necessary to separate the Soldat and 89X23, because he wanted the only successful Child Winter Soldier to learn more skills from his older counterpart. Every extra moment he waited to put the Soldat back into the cryogenic chamber, he was becoming more and more like the voice in his head, a tiny fraction of his old self, Bucky. 

Peter squealed, quickly ducking a light punch from James as they practised fighting skills in their huge cell. James always made sure to pull his punches, most of the time not letting them hit the target. The kid was a scared, frail, little thing and he didn’t want to be the cause of his fear. By December of 2007, the two had known each other for an entire year. The six year-old held up his hand for a pause, panting heavily. The physical stamina wouldn’t be an issue for Peter if the freaks at Hydra would just feed the boy the appropriate mount that he needed for his enhanced metabolism. “Wait, wait! I need a break!”

Tilting his head, James frowned, “Are you planning to ask your opponent in a real fight for a break as well?”

Peter also tilted his head, with an adorable smile that always tugged at Bucky’s heartstrings. “...Maybe?”

The man chuckled unwillingly, and the guards outside their cell shifted uneasily due to how human the Soldat was beginning to sound and act. It wouldn’t bode well for them, they knew it. He ruffled the boy’s hair affectionately. “You need to take this more seriously, pal,” he said, in a mock-serious tone.

“Sorry, “ Peter mumbled, looking down at his feet shame-facedly. He was used to criticism from all his instructors, apart from his Jamie. 

Bucky crouched down in front of the kid, tilting his chin up. “Hey, none of that.” He kissed Peter’s nose, making him giggle a little and push the man away playfully. “You’re still learning. You’re gonna be a great fighter someday, I’m sure of it, little man.”

“Not as good as you,” whined Peter, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Not as good as me,” Bucky winked, jokingly. Peter abruptly hugged him. The kid was quite openly affectionate, he had noticed. A trait that he had gotten from his mom. 

“I love you,” the six year-old mumbled into Bucky’s shoulder, and Bucky’s heart stopped beating for a moment ( no one had ever said that to him, from what he could remember in his current state ). “Mommy and daddy never come to get me but you always be nice to me. You’re the best, Jamie. Nicer than mommy and daddy.”

The two guards outside their cell opened the door nervously, aiming their guns at them for the usual precautions. “Soldat, step back and face the wall. 89X23, it’s time for your language lessons.”

“I don’t think so.” James didn’t plan any of this, but Bucky decided to take control, shoving his elbow into one guard’s neck and headbutting the other. Grabbing both of their guns, he turned to Peter, who was frozen and his eyes wide. Bucky beckoned the boy closer, and lifted the kid up in a piggyback ride. “Let’s go, Pete.”

“Are we going home to mommy and daddy?” asked Peter, whilst clinging to the man’s neck with his legs wrapped around Bucky’s waist, and the assassin nodded distractedly, trying to navigate his way through the hallways of the facility, a gun in each hand. Three guards appeared in their pathway and Bucky shot them instantaneously. 

The second his gun went off, an alarm immediately sounded throughout the entire facility, causing Bucky to swear loudly, “Shit!”

“Jamie! That’s mommy’s word!”

“Sorry, sorry,” muttered Bucky, slipping inside the stairwell and heading upstairs. He was fairly certain this specific Hydra facility was underground, like most were, so the way out was most likely upwards. Some men clad in military gear were headed towards them and Bucky ducked out of the way of the bullets they shot at them, countering with his own gunshots. Every bullet hit its target.

“Jamie, what happens to people when they get shot?” Peter wondered, his head rested on Bucky’s shoulder. His brain blocked out a lot of the traumatic things that he had witnessed, like his Uncle Ben being shot. 

“Uh…” Bucky was unsure how to answer that, as they slipped out of the stairwell door, only to see literally hundreds of guns pointed at them. He truly had underestimated Hydra’s security surrounding their greatest weapon - The Winter Soldier.

“Shit,” Peter clinged to Bucky tightly, looking around at the armed soldiers in fear.

“Shit indeed,” echoed Bucky. 

He tried to fight back. Bucky fought back so valiantly, but there were just too many of them, and every single one of them was shooting him with tranquiliser darts, the dose fifty times higher than that of an average human to counter their enhanced metabolisms. They had him cornered, he realised, as he slipped to the ground slowly, Peter still clinging to him from behind. 

He kept shooting, even when his eyelids were drooping, taking care not to crush Peter as he dropped onto his side. As the guns slipped from his hands, three soldiers stepped forward to peel Peter off his back. “No… Please, no…” his speech slurred and he tried to grasp onto Peter, who was snatched from him roughly. His kid screamed and sobbed and cried and fussed, yet no one cared.

Director Pierce crouched before him, as he drifted into unconsciousness. “I’m going to make sure you never see him again,” whispered Pierce, pulling Bucky’s hair roughly so that their eyes met. “Prepare to be wiped and put back in the freezer, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Go to… Hell!” Bucky spat, trying to grip the gun that lay forgotten by his side. He failed. 

“JAMIE!” cried Peter, trying to pathetically crawl towards Bucky whilst being forcefully dragged away by two soldiers.

I love you too, pal.

In February of 2008, Pepper and Tony had somewhat of a fixed schedule: Pepper would spend two weeks actively searching for Peter, whilst Tony would handle the company, and then the next two weeks Pepper would handle the company, and Tony would spend that time searching for Peter. The nagging anxiety about their son’s whereabouts and well-being had killed any other aspect of their relationship: whenever they saw each other, it was no longer about sex or each other or anything, it was only Peter. He encompassed every essence of their being. 

That’s not to say that they no longer loved each other: all of their friends and family had agreed since they started dating that they were made for each other, and that would never change. Pepper was all that Tony had, and vice versa.

However, Tony had never been the most dedicated to the company: he was more of an R&D, inventor, throw-money-at-everything kind of guy, rather than the guy who could run a multinational conglomerate and bargain with twenty-five investors at once, whilst simultaneously keeping different different departments from staging a battle, without breaking a sweat. Pepper was the second guy. 

As a result of his lack of dedication to their company, many arguments often ensued between the couple, both publicly and privately. 

“Why didn’t you go to the board meeting?!” demanded Pepper, storming into his office at the Stark Industries building in Malibu, California, the door slamming behind her. This week, she was following a lead at home in Malibu, which was why she was able to come in and scream at him in person, rather than lecture him over the phone. 

“Hello to you too, Pep,” Tony smiled wryly, spinning around on his grand desk chair nonchalantly, making Pepper’s blood boil. Obie sat opposite him, also looking thoroughly fed-up. “How was your day?”

“Terrible. Our kid’s missing, haven’t you heard?” said Pepper, sarcastically.

The smirk dropped from Tony’s face. “I forgot about the meeting. I’ll go to the next one.”

“You forgot about the meeting,” repeated Pepper, rage simmering inside of her. Although she knew how to keep her temper in check most of the time, Tony was unsure if she was going to scream at him or not. “And you won’t be going to the next one, because they happen once a fortnight, so I’ll be going to the next one.”

“Yeah, whatever, I’ll go to the next-next one,” shrugged Tony. “Any leads?” Nowadays, he didn’t say Peter’s name unless absolutely necessary: it hurt too much. It made him want to claw his heart out with his own bare hands. 

Pepper deflated, sitting down opposite Tony and next to Obie, who had been observing them silently. “No, but we’re following a lead somewhere out in Europe, the day after tomorrow. I’ll be gone for a week.”

Tony nodded appraisingly. “Rhodey and I are flying out to Afghanistan for a weapons demonstration tomorrow. Call me and keep me posted?”

Before Pepper could answer, Obie cut across her, “Honestly, you two need to get over the kid. We all loved Peter but it’s been over a year - if you haven’t found him by now, you probably never will. Pepper, the company’s suffering without you - no offence, Tony,” he added in Tony’s direction off-handedly before turning back to Pepper, barely noticing the icy expressions on the grieving parents’ faces. “Just try for another kid.”

Obie left Tony’s office sporting two black eyes and a split lip. 

The next day, Pepper got the call from Rhodey that Tony had been kidnapped during the weapons demonstration in Afghanistan, and that he was sending his most trusted men to guard her Malibu Mansion, since it appeared that the entire Stark family was being targeted. The phone fell from her hand and a scream of denial rang throughout her bedroom. 

Happy and May came running to her immediately.

On the other side of the planet, little Peter Stark had spent two months alone in the new Sokovian Hydra facility, without James, without his parents.  There was no one to hold him when he was sliced open, no one to hold him as he cried, no one to tell him that it would get better. 

Three months later, on the very same day that Tony Stark made his first Iron Man suit in a cave in Afghanistan from a box of scraps, Peter Stark met the Maximoff twins.

Chapter Text

Peter had been confined to his cell for five months, which were punctuated with medical torture and training to fight and language lessons. He liked the language and maths lessons, even when the instructors were harsh with him, even when they slapped him around. Peter liked to talk, he liked to learn new things. 

When he wasn’t in lessons, his thoughts were consumed by worries about James. How was he? Where was he? Would he ever see Jamie again? Gradually, he had stopped thinking about his parents, so much so that he couldn’t remember their last names. Peter couldn’t even remember his own last name, since everyone at the two different facilities he had been kept in had called him “89X23.” Only James had called him Peter, and not even James had known his surname. 

After five months of crippling loneliness, the six year-old was bewildered when the guards escorted him not back to his cell after he had been hosed down and changed that morning, but instead he was taken somewhere else. The guards shoved him inside a large room, filled to the brim with people, and the room fell to a hush when he landed on the hard floor on his knees with a cry. 

A man, dressed more professionally and lavishly than the rest, tutted at the guard disapprovingly. “Ivanov, there’s a new order now. I’ll have your head if you treat one of my test subjects like that again.” The guard inclined his head respectfully. 

A man - or perhaps a boy - kneeled down next to him, offering him a hand and saying something.  Peter remained silent, flinching away from the teenager’s hand. He didn’t understand the language (Sokovian) that the boy was speaking to him. As part of his training, Peter was only required to speak fluent English and Russian. “Are you alright?”

Peter scrambled to his feet, ignoring the boy’s hand, and kept some distance from the unknown boy. The older boy had silver hair, Peter realised, and it looked super cool! Despite his awe, Peter didn’t say anything: everyone in this place was terrifying and this silver-haired boy was bound to be the same as the rest of them. Peter wanted his Jamie back more than anything.

The silver-haired boy was bewildered at the child flinching away from him and even more shocked that there was such a young child being kept in this facility. Pietro could not quite decipher the kid’s age, since he was so malnourished and just generally short for his age. He and his sister had both volunteered to join this cause, when they turned sixteen in February, in order to avenge their deceased mother. They had never met their father, they had no clue about his identity.

Pietro sidled back up to his sister, who looked equally puzzled, both of them watching the child who kept staring at the ground, taking no notice of the world around him. 

“You are all here because you have special abilities, because you have been chosen to represent a noble cause,” the man - Baron von Strucker, a Hydra leader - said to the room at large. The twins and Peter were the youngest in the room, with most of the other subjects having years on them. Some of the subjects weren’t exactly lucid or sane either, and the numerous guards lining the edges of the room were watching them warily, with their guns clutched tightly in their hands.

Pietro did not care much for their intimidation, since it wasn’t aimed at him and besides, he could outrun any bullet they sent at him. It was this child that he was more worried about.

“Who’s the little one?” Wanda murmured to him in their native language, not paying much attention to Strucker’s drivel. They had heard it all when they had first been initiated into the cause; this repeat was for the new initiates. Strucker was attempting to round up all the talent available to him and create a team of enhanced individuals who would be trained to work together. That, however, was a long term goal. Wanda and Pietro were still unable to control their abilities that had only recently been unlocked. 

“Not sure,” Pietro whispered back. “He’s hurt, I think.”

“Has anyone ever told you how observant you are, brother mine?” Wanda said, dryly. The boy was quite definitely injured from the bruises littering his face that they could see. Despite her joking tone, the redhead’s frown deepened. 

There were hands prying into Tony’s chest cavity.

he couldn’t breathe he couldn’t breathe he couldn’t breathe-

Men were yelling unintelligible words that he could not decipher. His eyelids opened and shut at a sluggish pace, darkness engulfing him before the light blinded him, and his limbs felt like they all weighed a ton. He felt completely paralysed.

A small phantom hand brushed against his shoulder and it took unimaginable effort for Tony to tilt his head upwards a fraction, for his eyes to adjust to the blinding lights that were there. Dark spots swam in his vision before his eyes finally adjusted and then his heart stopped at the sight of the little boy standing above him. “Daddy?”

Tony’s heart stopped momentarily, his eyes immediately swimming with tears, before his heart soared. “Peter, buddy-” His words slurred. “Where have you- ? My poor- poor baby, my sweet boy- Your mom-”

“You let them take me, Daddy.” Peter’s eyes are cold, his expression calculating and accusing in a way that Tony was used to with his father, Howard Stark. “You left me and now I’m gone forever. Because of you.”

“Baby please-” Tony gasped out, wanting to claw at his own heart now, from the sheer sadness and desperation in there. “I’m sorry- Please come back! Please, Pete- I can’t breathe without you, I can’t live-”

Later, Tony realised that none of it was real. He woke up alone in that cave in Afghanistan and his son wasn’t there. Later, Tony realised that the hallucination he witnessed was Peter at four years old, back when Pepper and him had initially lost their son. If it were really Peter, he would be six now, turning seven in a few months. Tony would have noticed any physical changes. Maybe he wouldn’t even recognise his son anymore.

But that hallucination wasn’t Peter. Pepper and Tony’s son would never grow up. He would never attend his first day of school, Tony would never get to teach him how to make a robot, Pepper would never get to style Peter’s curls in the morning again. Peter would never fall in love someday, he would never develop a crush that Tony could tease him about, Tony would never get to tell Peter about all the silly, funny mistakes he made in college and then act surprised when Peter inevitably repeated them. 

Nearly three years since their son had gone missing and Tony had lost almost all hope.

Please let me die. Please let me die and bring our son back to Pep instead, Tony thought every night in that cave, praying to a God that he had never believed in. He even spoke to his mom in the quietness of the cave, when the only other person there was Yinsen working several feet away from him.

“ Mom ,” he whispered, desperately. He laid on his back on that dirty cot, covered in sweat and grease and dust and grime. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “If he’s dead, you have to be with him. You have to be with my boy, Mom. He’s always been scared of being alone, you can’t let him be alone-”

A choked noise left Tony's mouth, causing him to immediately cover his mouth with his hand. Yinsen still looked over at him, from where he was still working whilst Tony took a break. “You alright, Stark?”

“I’m fine.”

I don’t think I’ll ever be fine. I’m a parent without a child. Am I even a parent anymore? A husband without his wife is a widower, a child without parents is called an orphan but what do you call a parent who has lost their greatest blessing? What do you call a parent whose child is gone from them forever?

After that initial meeting with Strucker, Peter’s training started taking place with bigger classes. Most of the people in those classes were a lot bigger and older than him, and Peter more often than not ended up on his butt, but Peter was improving, a lot of it being due to him being able to wield his enhancements more effectively. All his trainers said he was doing better, albeit a little grudgingly. Strucker had ordered all the guards and trainers to be more gentle with all the test subjects. 

It was a remarkably effective technique in garnering mostly everyone’s loyalty: most of the enhanced individuals in this facility had faced incredibly harsh treatment, much like Peter, prior to arriving in the Sokovian branch. Being hit less here - and very rarely by guards, unless they stepped out of line - meant that they all preferred it here. 

Even though Peter had a constant bellyache due to missing James, he liked it here a lot more, especially because they encouraged his curiosity and participation in classes. He no longer got hit for speaking to his teachers - unless he was disrespectful, of course. Peter was still too scared to talk to his peers - his fellow test subjects. He was even given more to eat - which did not satisfy his higher than average metabolic demand - but it was definitely a start.

The silver-haired boy (who Peter had taken to calling “Silvie” in his head) would cheer in a tongue that Peter could not comprehend whenever Peter landed a particularly good hit on a trainer or any other opponent. Silvie also refused to fight Peter whenever the guards ordered and faced no consequences as a result of it. It confused Peter: if he didn’t follow orders, he would definitely be getting a beating. But Peter liked that, for once, somebody didn’t want to hurt him.

Peter also liked when Silvie made silly comments during their lessons that had their harsh trainers grumbling, unable to make him face any consequences for his insolence for some reason. Peter always had to duck his head to hide a smile whenever Silvie opened his mouth to say something.

The rules were different for Silvie - not quite a boy, yet not quite a man - Peter had realised. He and a girl with red hair - that Silvie spent most of his time following around - were granted many liberties that the rest of them were not. They also had a lot of secretive meetings with the head of the research facility, although Peter was not aware of that. He was just trying to keep his head down and not attract unwanted attention. 

That all changed when - a week after the meeting enforcing his new regime - Strucker wanted to put an emphasis into developing social bonds amongst his test subjects ( pets ). Everyone at the research facility - and their numbers were already dwindling - was required to eat all their meals together in a large, cold room with circular tables. They also were granted the privilege of an hour outside every day in the enclosed yard - depending on if they were on their best behaviour.

Peter cried hysterically when he felt the cool air hit his face after nearly three years. Outside in the yard, he finally got to see the exterior of where he was being kept, as he had been unconscious and drugged when he was first moved here: the Sokovian Hydra research facility was a grand building - the size of a castle, but with the external appearance of a plain, multi-storey warehouse. It was constructed in the mountains and at quite a high altitude. The clouds felt closer, Peter thought, so much so that if he jumped, he might be able to touch them.

This did not work, but he did not let himself be disheartened by it. He had always been more of a glass half-full, rather than a half-empty kind of guy - another trait he received from his mother. A mother whose name he was starting to forget. A mother whose face was starting to blur in the picture of his mind.

“Are you alright?” A tentative feminine voice called out from behind him as he stood crying at the entrance to the enclosed yard. There were guards at the top of the surrounding walls, holding guns and glaring down at all of them, and the other older test subjects shoved past the sobbing child, who was overcome with emotion at being allowed outside again. Only Wanda stopped to check on the boy, her twin being nowhere in sight for once: Pietro had been the first to race outside. 

Peter stared at the girl blankly. He did not understand the language she was speaking, and she repeated her words again, this time slower. The girl had red hair, just like his mother, and a pang of unbearable longing struck Peter. He could barely remember her now, but he could remember the warmth that hugging her had brought. The girl was still watching him expectantly with her piercing green eyes, so he stammered out, “I-I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Oh!” The girl exclaimed, her green eyes widening. “English!” Her next words were careful and measured, much like Peter’s had been (and still were, to some extent) when he had first started learning Russian. “I was saying… Are you alright?”

“Oh!” It was Peter’s turn to be surprised. No one had asked him that in a very long time. “Um… I’m just happy to be outside.”

“So you… cry?” the older girl inquired, like she was genuinely curious. “I smile when I am happy.”

“I think I’ve forgotten how to be happy properly.” A crease appeared between the little boy’s brows. 

“I felt like that for a long time too when my ma died,” the girl said softly. They were slowly walking around the edge of the yard now. She was watching him with an odd expression, sort of like she cared. But that couldn’t be right. Nobody cared about Peter. Not since James. 

“Dead means gone forever, doesn’t it? I think my mommy and daddy must be dead too, because they never, ever come back, even when I wish really, really hard every night that they do,” Peter said, in a matter-of-fact tone, like he was merely stating the weather. He looked up at the girl. “If your mommy is dead too, maybe our mommies and daddy are together somewhere.”

“Maybe.” The girl’s expression softened and she wrapped her arms around the tiny boy. At first, he flinched, expecting to be hit, but then he felt the warm arms around him, shielding him from the cold at this altitude in the mountains. It was nice, and with her long red hair tickling his cheeks, he could almost pretend that it was his mother hugging him.

“Oh. This feels nice.”

The girl did not let go first, seeming to know that the child desperately needed this hug. Eventually, Peter let go of her, because he did not want the kind girl to be annoyed with him for hugging her too long. His cheeks were still wet so he wiped at them with the back of his hand. “Sorry.”

The girl frowned. “What for, little one? You did nothing wrong.”

“Oh.” Peter always did something wrong, according to his trainers. He stared down at his shoes, embarrassed by his behaviour now. “I’m Peter, by the way.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Peter.” She smiled and Peter thought that she was very pretty. “I’m Wanda. And the boy running around over there-” she pointed at the silver-haired boy who was pestering the other test subjects, who were at least a decade and a half his senior- “is my twin brother, Pietro.”

Peter knew of both of them from his lessons and in general, from around the facility, but he had been unaware of their respective names. Pietro -  Silvie, as Peter had dubbed him - tended to cause a lot of trouble in lessons and his strengths clearly did not lie in pursuing knowledge. He was more of a brawn over brains guy. “Your brother seems nice but I think he might not be very smart.”

Peter immediately regretted his admission, expecting a beating for accidentally insulting the sixteen year-old’s brother, but Wanda only laughed, the sound low but hearty and a tad surprised that little Peter had a backbone to him. “You’re right about that.”

As if he could sense his name being spoken, Pietro zoomed over to them in a blink - practically at the speed of light - and Peter jumped, taken aback. He inched slightly closer to Wanda, feeling safer around the older girl because he knew her better now. Wanda smoothed a comforting hand over Peter’s unkempt curls, and he instinctively leaned into the gesture. “Pietro, meet Peter. Peter, meet Pietro.”

“Oh, you’re the baby !” Pietro exclaimed, leaning forward to pinch Peter’s cheeks patronisingly, but was dissuaded by a stern look from his twin sister. His English speaking was a little more clumsy than his sister’s. He did not think much before speaking and it showed.

“I’m not a baby!” Peter pouted and Wanda had to hide her own adoring smile so the small child didn’t think they were teasing him. She could tell that he already had enough confidence issues.

“Of course you’re not,” Wanda humoured him, rubbing his back and was pleased when she was rewarded with a big smile from the six year-old. 

“Well, we can’t both be Peter.” Pietro had only been teasing, whilst wearing his huge, bright grin that he always sported, but poor, darling Peter could not comprehend his sarcasm. “One of us is going to have to change.”

Peter nodded thoughtfully at that. “You’re right. We can call you Silvie.”

“Why do I have to change my name?” Pietro whined in jest. “Why can’t you?”

“Because.”

“Just because?”

“Yep.”

Pietro laughed, the sound boisterous and unrestrained, both similar and different to his sister’s. “I think I’ll call you baby.”

Peter pouted again and both twins could not contain their laughs. Peter felt lighter than he had in months. 

Life always finds a way to replace what is missing.

“Got any family, Stark?”

“I used to.” 

“So you are a man who has everything and nothing.” There was no pity in Yinsen’s eyes. Just understanding.

I once came very close to getting everything I ever wanted, Tony thought, but did not say.

Chapter Text

Waiting at the end of the airstrip, for the first time in the three months, Pepper had something to feel hopeful for again. Rhodey had found Tony in Afghanistan, and he was bringing him back. 

This entire ordeal had also rejuvenated her hope that they would someday be able to bring Peter home too, because Rhodey had found Tony in the middle of an isolated desert - surely, surely they could find Peter too - somehow?

He’s dead, an invasive voice spoke in her head, and even the mere idea made Pepper flinch, because wasn’t she supposed to instinctively know if her child is dead? Would she not feel it? She had been attending a support group for childless parents ever since a couple months after Peter had been abducted, and all the mothers (most of whose children had actually passed away) always spoke about feeling that their child was gone, before they even found out that it had happened.

Pepper always carried around a terribly foreboding feeling since the day Peter had gone missing, but she always believed wholeheartedly inside that he wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be. Pepper refused to even entertain the idea.

Until they found a body - and Pepper prayed to any God that might exist that the day never came - Pepper would continue to believe. She would find her baby, no matter what it took. 

The door to the airplane opened and Tony appeared in the door-frame, Rhodey holding onto him, and it honestly seemed like Rhodey needed the support more than Tony did. A broken sob escaped Pepper as he approached her, and she wanted to run towards her husband, but her legs were shaking merely from the effort of staying upright. Her sister, May, had Pepper’s hand clasped tightly in hers and Happy was standing close to Pepper’s side. Pepper could practically feel Happy vibrating with relief next to her at having his boss, his friend, back home safely. 

Tony only had eyes for her as he approached them. His face was looking gaunt and thin, his eyes were sunken from exhaustion, and his hand felt more calloused than usual as he cupped her cheek tenderly. There had been no one to nag at Tony to moisturise every night for the past three months - and it was that more than anything that finally made her believe that he was back. This was not just some twisted dream. A broken sob escaped her and he smiled, tilting his head to the side, his hand never leaving her face. “What’s this? Tears for your long lost husband?”

“Tears of relief.” Pepper wrapped her arms around his neck, and he let go of her cheek to snake the arm that wasn’t broken around her waist to draw her close, flush against him. “I wasn’t in the mood to find a new husband.”

Tony hummed. “That would be annoying.” His eyes flickered down to her lips and back up to her blue eyes questioningly, and she smiled invitingly. He pressed his lips to hers, and they felt chapped and dry from dehydration, but she did not care. She needed him to exist, needed him to breathe, needed him to crawl into her skin and never leave again. 

“We’ll just be over there,” Pepper could hear the grin in Rhodey’s voice as he led May and Happy to the car. Tony laughed slightly as he pulled his lips away from her, resting his forehead against hers and breathing heavily. 

“I love you,” Pepper sniffled as her sobs subsided, her soft palms pressed against the stubble on his cheeks. “I don’t wanna fight anymore, I’m sorry–”

“You have nothing to be sorry about, honey.” His tone was even as he twirled his fingers through a strand of her long strawberry blonde hair. “I was an idiot too–”

“Was?” Pepper pulled away, raising a playful eyebrow. “And who said I was an idiot? Are you calling me dumb right now?”

“Definitely not, Tony instantaneously withdrew his earlier words. “I’m planning to go to bed with my wife tonight, not sleep on the couch.”

“Hmm.” Pepper nodded her head with a huge smile. She took his hand in hers and kissed his fingertips. “Come on. We need to get you to a hospital.”

“No.”

Pepper frowned. “What do you mean no, Tony? Your arm is clearly fractured, you’re scraped up everywhere, you’re malnourished, and Rhodey said your chest cavity has been open for months now– How is that even possible?!”

“I can’t, Pep.” Tony was stubborn about this, and Pepper just could not believe him. After everything he had been through, he was fighting her on this? “If Pete…” Pepper stopped breathing because this was the first time in forever that Tony had been able to speak their son’s name. “-is still out there, if he’s faced even a fraction of what I have… I just can’t. I can’t go to a hospital and have them fuss over my wounds and take care of them when there’s nobody to take care of my baby boy.”

Pepper was openly crying again, and she immediately felt frustrated with herself, because all she ever did was cry these days. Everyday, she cried for Peter’s continued absence, for Tony’s disappearance. From tomorrow, she was going to have one less reason to cry about. “I want him back, Tony–”

“I know, I know, honey.” He kissed her tears away. “I’m going to find him. I know I’d given up, and I’m so sorry, Pep, but now I realise how selfish I was being. I was trying to spare my own feelings about the whole situation. Pete deserves a Dad who is never going to stop looking for him, just like his incredible mom.” He kissed her breathless again, his hand trailing down to her hip, and Pepper sighed into his mouth.

Find a man who smudges your lipstick and mascara.

“Let’s go home.” Pepper started to lead him towards the car. 

“I have one stop to make before that.” Despite his broken arm and everything that Tony had endured, he still remembered to open the door to the sleek black car for Pepper to get inside first. 

Happy, May and Rhodey had been waiting for them inside. Rhodey sat with his legs spread out in the back and Pepper nudged his thigh closed as she sat between the two best friends. May and Happy were in the front. Rhodey winked at Pepper and Tony as they settled in the car. “Had a good makeout sesh?”

“You are way too nosy.” Still, Pepper placed a chaste kiss to his cheek, “Thank you. For bringing him home.”

He smiled at her softly. “One more Stark left to acquire.”

Pepper released a shaky breath. She loved her family, she truly did. She knew that Rhodey probably had lost hope of ever finding Peter, yet he never explicitly told her so, never told her to give up and stop looking. Although his hope might have died, he always encouraged her to keep hers aflame. 

“Happy, hey. Missed your old boss?” Tony greeted, leaning forward to pinch Happy’s shoulder.

“Not at all.” Happy’s lips were curled up slightly - the closest to a smile that he had ever given Tony. He always smiled at Pepper, Rhodey and May. Maybe Tony was just the problem. 

“Hi May.” Tony gave her a strained smile, and Pepper felt a headache coming in - because Tony had never been able to forgive May for Peter going missing on her watch, even though he had never explicitly said so. May had lost her husband too that day. “How have you been?”

“Hey Tony,” May grinned back, giving no indication that she sensed the animosity between them, and Pepper expelled a short breath. “I’m doing alright. It’s great to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back.” Tony nodded firmly. He placed a hand on Pepper’s thigh, over her black pencil skirt and she placed her hand over his. Her head dropped to his shoulder, feeling absolutely exhausted. She had not had a single night’s worth of peaceful sleep ever since Tony had been gone - she could not imagine how it must have been for him in that dreadful cave. She, at least, had laid awake on a super king bed in their LA Mansion. “Happy, I need a cheeseburger. And then I’m calling a press conference. Honeybear, can you organise that for me?”

“Are you sure about this, Tony?” Rhodey asked, carefully. 

Pepper looked between the two of them and the meaningful glance they exchanged. “Sure about what?”

“I have come to realise that I have more to offer this world than just making things that blow up. I realise that I want to contribute in making this world safer for my son - you all know my son, of course - my Pete, such a sweet kid.” Tony stared at the mic before him for a moment, his eyes unseeing, and Pepper’s heart clenched. “And that is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark Industries.”

The room erupted into chaos. Pepper turned to Rhodey in surprise, but he just shrugged, in a ‘what-can-you-do’ motion.

Oh Tony.

Pepper Potts was not yet aware of the ripples her husband would cause across the entire universe. All in the name of their son.

It was extremely difficult for Peter to let himself grow attached to the Maximoff twins. He knew very well from his experience with James and his parents - whose faces were only blurs now and their names distant memories - that people he loved never stayed with him for very long. It was the sad truth of his life. 

But it was also difficult to not grow closer to them, mainly because of how friendly Pietro was when trying to initiate Peter into every activity that he and his sister did outside of training. Pietro was perhaps the kindest, most funniest person that Peter had ever met (as far as he could remember) but that could just be because HYDRA set the bar extremely low. James had been pleasant, but he had lacked the defining personality traits that Pietro possessed in great measure. 

When they trained in big groups, all the test subjects were crammed into one giant gymnasium and made to fight each other whilst the rest watched, so that they could learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Wanda and Pietro were easily the greatest fighters in the room. Even though Peter was enhanced, so was everyone else present, and he was the weakest runt of the litter. He was underfed, and he still did not understand the full potential of his abilities, like everyone else here obviously did from how effortlessly they wielded him. 

Wanda was similar to Peter in that regard. Although she could use her powers, she had difficulty controlling them, and many times her opponents left the ring a lot worse for wear than how they had entered. It always made Wanda incredibly upset and distressed.

In group training that day, Pietro sat next to Peter on the cold ground with his legs stretched out in front of him whilst they watched Wanda fight a man twice her size. Peter sat cross-legged and traced shapes on the cool floor. “Silvie?”

“Yes, Baby?” Pietro glanced down at Peter, whilst still keeping an eye on the fight that his sister was engaged in. They were both fiercely protective of one another, Peter had learned. Once, one of the guards had said something to Wanda, and Pietro had punched him in a flash until the man had passed out. Pietro faced no consequences for that transgression, other than a night spent in solitary confinement. That guard had been transferred to another facility. The rules were different in this facility for the twins, for some reason. They had power, whereas Peter was barely afforded basic dignity. 

Peter scrunched up his nose at the nickname that had somehow stuck with both of the twins, because he was tiny for his age and they were big, nearly adults. Silvie chuckled at his reaction, tapping Peter on the nose. Peter glanced apprehensively at the guards lining the walls of the gymnasium before quietly posing his question. He switched to English, as most of his communication with the twins was done in Sokovian, which he had been learning in his lessons with his instructors and the twins had been helping him too. In return - because he always felt that he must offer something if he wanted them to keep being nice to him, despite them expecting no such thing - he was helping them with their English.

Sokovian was more or less similar to Russian, so the twins could half-understand it and it took them less effort to learn the language than it had taken Peter. Although, the instructors always said that Peter’s Russian speaking was the best in the facility, whereas Wanda was the best at writing the script. And Silvie was the best at… running?

“Do you like it here?” Peter swivelled around on his bottom so that he was fully facing Silvie. 

A crease appeared between Pietro’s brows at the question. Peter stiffened because he was certain that he had asked the wrong question, and speaking out of turn in HYDRA only ever brought pain.

But Silvie did not hit him. He never hit him. Yet, a cynical voice spoke to Peter in his mind. Silvie seemed lost in thought. “I think so,” he finally decided. “I’ve lived in worse places.” He nudged his fist against Peter’s forearm. “What about you? Do you like it here?”

Peter thought of the three months he had spent alone in this facility in a cold, dark cell, he thought of his time at Hydra in other facilities before James, when he had also been alone. He thought of his months with James, which, despite being less isolated, had been filled with rigorous hours of training. Moreover, James would be gone for many hours to days to weeks at a time on missions, and Peter would spend the time worrying himself sick about his whereabouts, and if he would return. He would be forced to suffer through harsh lessons with military commanders in James’ absence.

On the other hand, in this Sokovian facility, the guards and instructors and handlers doled out less harsh punishments as a result of Strucker’s rulings. It was not as if the handlers could even go against his orders many of the times, because Baron von Strucker liked to be present when training took place, so that he could evaluate his test subjects’ progress. 

He thought of all the time that he spent with Wanda and Pietro here. From their very first meeting, the twins had taken Peter under their wing, and although Wanda could be more guarded compared to how carefree Silvie was, Peter knew that she truly cared. At mealtimes, she nagged at him to finish his vegetables, and Silvie shared a commiserating look with him as if to convey ‘that’s Wanda for you.’ 

His chest always hurt whenever she told him to eat his vegetables, because it reminded him of another woman, whose hair gleamed golden in the sun, yet appeared close to red in the dark. Peter thought that woman might be his mother, but he could no longer remember very well, now that he had turned seven, just this past August. 

“This is the nicest place I’ve ever lived, I think,” Peter told Silvie honestly. He was unaware if he had ever lived in a place better than this. For all he knew, that woman he was imagining might have been a remarkably caring, beautiful handler, which was an oxymoron in itself, or merely a figment of his imagination. 

Silvie smiled, and the expression was almost sad. “Give me a hug, Baby.” He opened up his arms, and Peter, greedy and starved for affection that he was, immediately scrambled towards him, half-climbing into his lap. Silvie ran his fingers over the waves of Peter’s hair softly. “Someday, we’re going to live in a much better place than this, alright? You, me and Wanda, far away from here.”

“Really? Like a family?” Peter knew that he should not be hopeful, knew deep down that he was only setting himself up for disappointment, but he could not help but cling to Pietro’s warmth and the promise of a home. “You promise?”

Silvie smiled again, holding out his pinkie and Peter linked it with his. “I promise.” Like the optimistic child he was, Peter let himself believe him.

Looking around to see if the guards or any of the other subjects were listening once more, Peter asked quietly, “Why can’t we leave now?”

“There’s something I need to achieve before we can leave, something that HYDRA is helping me do,” Pietro answered softly, and Peter frowned, causing him to elaborate. “My mother’s death was caused by someone. Strucker has sworn to help us bring her memory justice.”

“Oh.” Peter processed that silently, and Pietro could practically hear the screws turning around inside his little head. “I’ll help you!” he offered immediately, excitedly. Because the sooner they brought the perpetrator to justice, the sooner they could leave this place, right?

Silvie ruffled his hair affectionately, and Peter squinted his eyes up at him. “That’s very sweet of you, Baby, but the only thing I want you to focus on is getting super strong and kicking everyone’s ass here.”

Peter gawked up at him, covering his mouth with his hands. “You said a bad word!”

Silvie immediately looked skittish. “Oh shi– I mean, sorry!”

“It’s OK, I won’t tell.”

“Thanks, buddy.” Silvie kept his arm around Peter’s shoulders, and Peter snuggled into his side. Wanda won her fight, bringing the ginormous man before her onto his knees. “Yes, Wanda!” Silvie cheered, whistling with his fingers in his mouth.

Peter looked at him in astonishment, clapping along with him for Wanda, who just rolled her eyes with a smile. “How’d you do that?”

“Oh, it’s easy you just–” Silvie demonstrated again, and Peter tried fruitlessly. “It’s OK, we’ll practise.”

“The next fight will be between Isaac and 89X23,” Strucker read from his list of subject names, and Peter startled, his head snapping towards the man who had addressed him. “Who is 89X23? Why hasn’t he been assigned a name like I said?”

The handlers in the room shifted uneasily, but Silvie spoke for them, keeping a firm hand on Peter’s shoulder. “He does have a name, Mr Strucker. It’s Peter.”

An odd expression passed over Strucker’s face at the mention of the name, something that Peter could not quite comprehend, something like recognition. “Ah, of course. Peter, our new celebrity…”

Peter was slightly puzzled about what that word meant in Russian. He glanced up at Silvie, and his brows were knitted together; he clearly had no idea what Strucker meant either. 

“Come on up, young Peter. You too, Isaac.” Strucker beckoned them both into the ring. Adam turned out to be a middle-aged man with thorns coming out of his skin, and they seemed to be causing him immense pain. The guards had to kick him into the ring, and he whined and sobbed and rolled over on the floor pitifully. The guards approached Peter too, but Silvie shut them down with a withering glare. Peter stepped forwards on his own accord, because refusing to fight meant terrible consequences for anyone who was not Pietro or Wanda. 

Wanda smiled at him encouragingly as she ducked out of the ring whilst he was stepping in. “Good luck, Baby.” She ruffled his hair; Peter gave her a weak smile in return.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Isaac shuddered on the floor of the ring. “I can’t– I can’t–” He managed to snatch the gun off of a guard and all the armed guards in the room pointed their guns towards him. A streak of silver darted towards Peter and lifted him off the ground, getting him out of harm’s way in the blink of an eye. 

“You’re OK, you’re alright,” Silvie kept Peter balanced on his hip like he was younger than his seven years of age, and it was a pretty easy endeavour because Peter was just so painfully small. They were not feeding him anywhere near enough the required threshold for his enhanced metabolism. 

Strucker stepped closer to Isaac, his hands out placatingly. Isaac had the gun pointed at his own forehead. “Come on, Isaac. Give me the gun. You don’t want to do this.”

“I can’t live like this!” Isaac screeched. “You did this to me! God will never forgive you! And God will never forgive me for this either...”

The release of the bullet piercing through his skull echoed throughout the room, Isaac’s brain matter splattering all over the floor and painting the guards surrounding him in crimson, and Pietro was not quick enough to turn Peter’s face away, because he himself was stunned. He was still just a teen at the end of the day, unused to seeing this extreme level of violence. They were both only children. 

“What happened to him?” Peter stared at the man dead on the floor, the blood and brain matter oozing from his head. “Is he gone forever?”

Silvie did not deign to respond. Wanda had approached them, and Pietro immediately gripped her wrist, keeping both of them close to him and leaving the room.

During the hour that they were allowed outside everyday, Silvie gave him piggyback rides at his superspeed, and although it left Peter’s head spinning and his stomach queasy, it was still extremely fun. 

Peter was used to making himself forget traumatising stuff, so the suicide had fallen to the back of his mind, but Pietro did not have the same talent as him. His hands were still shaking, and the extreme running was for his own benefit as well as Peter’s enjoyment. Pietro always had to run around when he got increasingly agitated. 

Wanda always watched them with amusement shining in her green eyes, whilst pretending to look bored. When compared with Pietro, she was more adept at hiding how she truly felt. As a result, when Wanda finally let the suppressed emotions free, the end result was always more destructive. “It is a bit like a roller-coaster, isn’t it?” 

Peter stared at her blankly. “What’s a roller-coaster?”

Wanda chuckled, “Oh, you sweet summer child…”