Chapter Text
The hours after the mutant- died? The word seemed too tame for what had occurred; old people died, as did the seasons, there was an implicit grace to death, a naturalness. But what had happened to Luke White, Peter later found out he was called, was the complete antithesis to anything natural. It had been a massacre, an execution.
Regardless, looking back, the hours following that, were a blur to Peter. It had taken several minutes to prise his eyes away from the blood stained glass, and then a further half an hour to leave the site.
The cops had made a quick arrival; one of the first on the scene had been a young officer, still green. He’d taken one look at the body and vomited on Scott’s shoes, prompting Peter to snap out of his funk- not to laugh, but at least to rejoin the land of the living.
Peter had then heaved the former jam jar upwards, the thing seeming silly and obtrusive now, and placed it to the side. Then he gently stooped down besides the body, trying to assess what the hell had happened. The boy’s eyes, or what were left of them, still bore into his, but this time, Peter felt the weight of their accusation keenly.
And then he saw it.
Next to a piece of the boy’s (Peter loathed to register it) brain, lay a tiny wire. It was a brick red colour, distinct from the surrounding scarlet, and had frills of shiny copper protruding from it.
A white suited member of the forensic team appeared next to him to delicately snatch it up and hold it speculatively into the air.
“Is that part of an explosive?” The woman questioned, seemingly to nobody, but Peter responded anyway.
“I think it was in him.” Peter tried to speak levelly but found he was having trouble.
Scott chose that moment to interject, looking pale and disturbed. “You mean the scar? You think someone put a bomb in his head? But that’s sick, he was just a kid, who would do something like that?” Ant-Man’s words were a rambling jumble as he tried to cobble together the pieces of what he’d just witnessed.
Peter opened his mouth, he supposed to reply, but he couldn’t be certain as he was swiftly intercepted by the brief blare of his phone- loud enough that he knew instantly it was Tony pushing the message through.
Peter sighed, their happy ending hadn’t lasted long after all, he could feel it.
Tony: Saw the news. Get to the tower, kiddo, emergency Avenger’s meet- and bring Lang.
Rather than explain to Scott, Peter simply held up his phone to the man, who looked momentarily excited by the invitaion, before seeming to remember the circumstances that had led them to it.
“Meet you there?” Peter asked, to which Scott briefly nodded before collapsing in on himself, becoming pea sized.
Peter tried to cheer himself up by imagining the man propelling himself across New York by bouncing from atom to atom, only to arrive sweaty and out of breath to an Avenger’s meeting full of skeletons- but his heart wasn’t in it.
He squared away with the NYPD, who were calling in the bomb squad, and assured them he’d be around for any further questions. Then, with one final look at the young boy who had pleaded so desperately for escape, he webbed away.
………
Sam stood at the head of the table, the man having assumed Steve’s various captaining duties while the man was away. He looked thoroughly out of his depth, though that wasn’t a comment on his ability to lead the team, but more on the absurdity of the situation they’d found themselves in.
“So,” the falcon began, “Luke White, a 19 year old mutant, breaks into Thresham labs- the fifth break in of its kind in as many months, but the first we’ve managed to prevent.”
“Prevent?” Tony jumped in, looking around the table incredulously. “Pete here is still picking guts out of his hair, and Lang reeks like he hasn’t showered since ants were invented, nothing good happened here today.”
“Don’t nit-pick, Stark, you know what he meant,” Wanda muttered, looking somber and thoughtful from where she sat besides Peter, who was only half-listening,
His brain had been lagging slightly behind the proceedings since he’d arrived. He’d sunk heavily into one of the swivel chairs, feeling belatedly thankful it hadn’t fallen apart on him, and then spent the subsequent next minutes vaguely staring at Clint’s hearing aid.
Peter thought about what it must feel like to be deaf, and, for Hawkeye, to have the ability to switch his hearing on and off at his fancy. As Sam and Tony squabbled, he felt briefly envious.
Clint, as though sensing Peter’s thoughts, made a tapping motion at his ear, and then reclined way back in his seat, offering the boy a conspiratorial grin. The interaction summoned some dregs of life back into Peter, and he basked in the feeling, before his critical thinking skills rejoined him also.
“Hang on,” he interrupted, speaking an octave above the arguing, which now included Scott and Clint for some reason, with only Nat, Bruce, and Bucky sitting quietly (and professionally, some would say).
Everyone went silent, looking towards him expectantly, and Peter tried to temper himself, not jump to conclusions. “You said this was the fifth break in.” He directed his statement at Sam, but spoke more to Tony, who suddenly appeared sheepish.
“I’ll field this one,” Tony put his hands up, and Sam nodded, standing down. “We may have agreed, and yes it was a team decision, to bench Spidey from this one. But it’s all out in the open now, so I might as well give it to you straight.” Tony took a steeling breath. “Someone’s been abducting mutants.”
Peter stared blankly, waiting for further information, before realising what had happened. He looked over at Natasha, who subtly made the lip-zipping signal at him.
“Right,” Peter started, knowing he was a horrible liar, especially to Tony, who could typically see through him at a moment’s notice. “Right! What? That’s terrible, awful, and you were keeping this from me all this time? Just because I’m younger doesn’t mean I’m useless you know, in fact, young people-”
Tony groaned, as did the rest of the room’s occupants. “Hold on there, Peter Pan, before you start rallying the lost boys, I’m now getting the impression that you were keeping this from us too? Am I getting that right?”
“Fine, yes, but-”
Bucky suddenly banged his fist against the table. “This is why I said we should've told him, he’s not a kid anymore, he’s right about that.”
Bruce, to everyone’s surprise, piped up, speaking methodically and concisely.
“As remiss as I feel to defend Tony,” the man in question indignantly opened his mouth, but Bruce pushed on, “but the way I see it, Peter, and I apologise, but you did say you didn’t want to join the team. Can you blame us, really? Lines had to be drawn somewhere.”
Peter breathed, taking in the words, feeling out whether he agreed or not. He decided he didn’t.
Once again, he kept himself calm, projecting a confidence he wasn’t particularly convinced he felt. “Look, I get it, I do. But this should have been mentioned at the very least- I was out there operating on pieced together intel, and maybe, I’m not saying for sure, but maybe if I’d had all the info, I could have handled today better. If it concerns New York, then it concerns me, alright? Androids, aliens, and wizards can be left in your ballpark, I swear,” he finished, quoting Sam and Bucky’s big three hierarchy of villainy.
There was a brief echoing silence at his words, and Peter took a moment to orient himself. The group sat in one of the tower’s smaller meeting rooms, a glass table taking up most of its width, with a floor to ceiling window on the farthest wall showcasing New York in a twinkling, nighttime panoramic.
His eyes strayed to the spot MJ’s apartment resided in (his girlfriend had excitedly pointed it out to him one evening) and wondered whether she and Ned were having their Star Wars marathon without him- the thought made him feel unexpectedly hollow. The emotion was compounded by the smudge marks Bucky’s hand had made against the table, illuminated by the room’s harsh fluorescent lighting.
“Okay.” Tony spoke shortly, sounding not quite happy, but clearly having folded. “You’re right, I guess I jumped the gun with this, but it’s mutants, it’s a can of worms that’s springing open faster than we can put them back in. It’s Ross, and the raft, and bombs in brains. And the fact that you’re pretty mutant adjacent freaked me out, I’ll admit it- walks like a duck, talks like a duck, gets drowned, and all that. I just, well you know me, I’m a worrier, if I could wrap you in bubble wrap I would.”
Clint whistled, low and resounding. “You’re gonna make me cry, Tony.”
Nat threw a balled up tissue at him. “You should be taking notes, Clint, not mocking. Who knew Tony Stark, Vegas' Bachelor of the Millennium, would also beat you out for father of the year.”
"I'm touched you know that," Tony said, "and slightly disturbed."
And with that, the tension that had permeated the group fizzled out into nothing. Peter gave Tony an appreciative smile, Wanda gave his arm a tentative squeeze, and for the first time in months, the team gave him the unadulterated truth.
“So,” Sam began again, as though he’d planned for the prior derailing, and knowing him, he likely had. “For Peter’s benefit, back in July, we had our first lab break in. We don’t know what was stolen, the thief was in and out, and the company wouldn't tell us squat- too much red tape. But they did share their security footage with us.”
Without preamble, FRIDAY projected the video onto the wall behind Sam, who shuffled to the side to accommodate it. At first, all Peter could see was water, but then a steely metal wall came into view.
“The lab was in a submarine? Sick,” he muttered appreciatively, as the video rolled on.
There was about ten more seconds of nothing, and then it happened. A girl swam into the screen, back facing the camera, her dark hair bouncing in sleek waves that splayed about her head. She looked like a mermaid, Peter noted.
Then, she produced a toolkit, immediately taking away from the effect, and made quick work of the screws that crowned the window, screws that generally required industrial tools to separate- whoever this was, was no novice. Peter was almost impressed. She swam through the gap, twisting her body elegantly, and disappeared.
The next few minutes comprised of bedlam, of flashing red lights, and water rushing into the previously airtight vessel. The girl re-appeared with a full bag identical to Luke’s, and this time, was facing the camera in full view.
Her pale face was marred with deep, ugly gills, shedding light not only her ability to breathe underwater, but also Tony’s clamped up reaction a month and half ago to the idea of a fish mutant. Peter offered his mentor a quick glance of ‘really?’, not wanting to miss the video, and received a half-hearted shrug in return.
As it was, the footage ended there, and Sam coughed to regain their attention. “So, little miss Shark Tales over there, as you probably guessed, was a mutant.”
"Shark Tale," Scott corrected under his breath.
“Was?” Peter cut in, taking in the girls paused face, she'd been killed too?
The next series of images that appeared answered his question, they were time stamped a week later, and depicted the various angles of a body lying in a morgue. Despite the revelation, and still visible gills, it took Peter a moment to place the girl, as dismembered as she was.
Her dark hair was gone, and her scalp had been stripped bare roughly and without care, just like Luke’s. And similarly, she had a long incision that travelled even further than the one Peter had seen, starting from her left eyebrow, all the way to the top of her spine.
Peter repressed a shudder, feeling like the cold of the morgue had infected him. Sam went on to explain that similar robberies had popped up over the last few months, each committed by missing mutants. But, in more encouraging news, there had been no further deaths- until today.
There had been a thirty-year-old man who’d posed as a cleaner, using his ‘art of persuasion’ to charm his way into the top-security vault of yet another high clearance lab. There’d been an innocuous seventy-year-old woman, allegedly a beloved grandma of eight who could barely stand to be away from her knitting chair, let alone stage a coup. And yet she’d done so, coming away from Stark Industries’ locked down chemical depot by causing a block wide power cut that had managed to also shut down the arc reactor technology.
“Besides from my bruised ego, this was good” Tony explained, “because now we know what they were stealing.”
“And?” Peter said excitedly, pouncing on the lead.
“Every chemical under the sun,” Clint scoffed.
“But,” Tony pressed on, ignoring the archer, “from those chemicals, Bruce and I were able to extrapolate a theory.”
“Seriously just tell me, we’re not watching Dora the Explorer with Morgan,” Peter broke, he couldn’t take the exposition any longer, but managed to silence himself at Wanda’s amused eyebrow raise. “Sorry.”
Natasha took over. “We think, at best, whoever this is, that they’re trying to reverse engineer the super-soldier serum.”
“And at worst?” Peter prodded.
“That they’re formulating some sort of vaccine, one that wipes out the X-gene,” Natasha’s voice was low, almost threatening.
“But,” Peter said slowly, “DNA doesn’t work like that, you can’t just pick and choose, it’d be a death sentence.”
Bucky spoke up at that point, he nodded slowly, in agreement with Peter’s assessment. His eyes were shadowed and haunted, like he was recalling a nightmare, one as old as time itself, looking in every sense a man out of time. And then he uttered the words that would change the trajectory of Peter’s life, not that the boy knew it yet.
“We think they’re brainwashing mutants to commit their own genocide.”
…….
An hour later, Tony and Peter had made their way up to the floor of the tower that exclusively housed themselves, Pepper, and Morgan. The Avengers still came and went, but they generally occupied the floor below, barring Nat and Clint, who had their other commitments.
They’d left the group, and the air of foreboding that hung around them, one that had only been lifted by Wanda’s innocent, yet world weary, asking of how Morgan’s pre-school interview had gone- to which Tony had somehow managed to look more cowed about than the entire, miserable conversation they’d just had.
“Tony, for God’s sake.”
“World’s best dad, my ass.”
“This is just the start, that kid is gonna need so much therapy, just you wait.”
Apparently, Tony, Pepper, and Morgan had arrived at ‘The Sanctuary- preschool for the gifted and talented’ in high spirits, Happy had driven them with a remarkable level of patience uncharacteristic of the typically dour man, and deposited them by the school’s steps. Up they’d gone, stood by the grand, old-fashioned doors, and then Tony had promptly turned them around again, and hustled them back into the car.
“Jesus Christ, why?” Clint begged, “what could possibly have gone wrong this time?”
Bucky didn’t look any better, his fist having made impact with the table once more at the inventor’s antics.
“The knocker was a lion’s head!” Tony splayed his hands out, like that was an explanation enough, but at everyone’s uncomprehending stares, he continued passionately, “the sanctuary, a lion’s head? Are these people educating children or raising cubs? Absolutely not, no way. Not for Morgan.”
And at that, the meeting had ended, and everyone had gone their separate ways, ruminating over the day's events.
Peter and Tony sat silently on the couch, an episode of Scrubs playing before them. It was late now, late enough that MJ would now be sleeping. Peter tried to shake the feeling of failure from his bones, but found the effort wasn’t adequate.
“You want a hot chocolate?” Tony asked. “It’s officially fall season. I’d know, Costa just put out their Mark V-ienna lattes.”
The display of normalcy jolted the remnants of Luke’s pleading face from him, so he played along. “Please don’t put peppermint in it again.”
Tony patted his shoulder. “Why would I put Pepper’s mints in your hot chocolate, kid? You must be more out of it than we thought.”
And then Tony left Peter alone, wondering if he was about to be poisoned. It wasn’t that he was deathly allergic to peppermint, but it did cause a bizarre reaction, one Tony loved to experiment with (read: exploit). According to a quick consultation with Cho after the first incident, peppermint blocked a spider’s smell and taste receptors, a phenomenon that had left Peter stumbling around the common room, slamming into furniture, while the world's mightiest heroes merrily played pin the tail on the Peter.
Before Peter could sink back into any undesirable thoughts, Tony re-entered the room, bearing two steaming mugs.
“You staying the night? I can drop you to campus bright and early, we can even stop by Joe’s on the way. They’ve rolled out these pancakes I’ve been dying to try, they cook ‘em, add bacon, chocolate, and maple syrup, then submerge the whole thing in hot oil. We can put bets on which of us will keel over with a heart attack first.”
“You, Tony, definitely you,” Peter retorted. “And actually, I, uh, I haven’t got any classes tomorrow.”
Tony blew at his drink. “Really? MIT is way less gruelling than I remember. Oh well, more fool them, I’ll have you all to myself.”
Peter winced. “I’ve kind of got plans already.”
“With MJ? Kiddo, I hate to break it to you, but you’re old enough now that you two don’t need to be sneaking around. I’m cool dad.” Tony gestured to the paint and macaroni covered coffee table as proof.
“It’s not MJ.”
“Spit it out then, we’ll be here all night.”
He’d resolved not to outright lie to Tony about his internship if the man asked, he’d wanted to avoid the inevitable hissy fit for as long as he possibly could, so a lie of omission had been his chosen solution. But it seemed like his time was up. And, after the revelations of the last couple of hours, what he was about to say paled in comparison. He ripped the band aid off.
“I have a new internship,” he quickly mumbled, but Tony heard. All too clearly.
“You’re cheating on me?” The man gasped.
“It’s not like that! My career advisor hooked me up, it’s a mentorship program to ease the transition once I graduate. I would’ve mentioned you but ‘personal intern to Tony Stark’ looks a bit crazy, you know I’m trying to keep Peter Parker under the radar. And besides, it’s not like we ever do any actual…internly activities really.”
“Internly activities?” Tony raised an eyebrow at the mumbo jumbo word. “Well, it’s all coming out now, isn’t it Parker. Didn’t we just one week ago design a cutting-edge Black Widow recon suit, tranquilizers embedded in the nano-fibre? That not internly enough for you?”
“What do you think an intern does, Tony?”
The kid had got him there, but Tony refused to back down.
“Give me a name, at least. Throw your old man a bone before you throw the rest of me into my early grave.”
Peter finished the last of his drink with a slurp. “Nope. Confidential. You’ll just stalk her or something, I know you.”
“Her?” The inventor said hopefully.
“I’m going to bed, Tony.” Peter said, rising from the couch, blanket still wrapped around his shoulders. “Night.”
“Night, kiddo. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Despite the farewell, Tony spoke up again. “And you know I am sorry, right? For keeping you in the dark? I know we agreed to cut that shit out.”
Peter stopped in his tracks. “I know. And I guess I’m not innocent, I was technically lying to you too, I just only got away with it for the grand total of a day.”
“I wouldn’t have you any other way, kiddo.” And then Tony crossed the room in a few strides, and took Peter into his arms, a motion Peter was well used to, but no less appreciative of.
“This is nice.”
......