The avengers compound was located in upstate New York, a semi rural area with a surrounding forest, the building itself resting in a clearing with the finest superheroes chatting amongst themselves in the safe haven they called Home.

Steve and Tony were running along a forest trail when they came across the out of place figure, sprawled in the middle of the path with only shreds of clothing left on his barren body. A short gasp from Steve followed by a sharp "shit!" from Tony awoke the fragile child as he leapt to his feet only to fall backwards and cower in fear.

"Son, we won't hurt you, it's okay, just take some deep breaths and calm down, you're safe here" Steve asserted after seeing the panic in the boy's eyes.

"Yeah don't worry kid, spangles over here never lies, you're safe" Tony added in.

The boy seemed to recognize who was in front of him and with wide soft brown eyes, he snuck a glance at Steve as if to judge whether the man was being sincere. After careful eyes prodded over the two men before him, the boy slowly spoke.

"H-hi, I'm uh, I'm sorry for b-being on your pro-property , Mr. America s-sir"

"Not a problem at all son, and you can call me Steve"

"Kiddo, you've done nothing wrong, well technically your trespassing but I like rule breakers so don't sweat it, I'm Tony. Got a name?"

"Ye-Yes sir, I'm Pe-Peter"

"Nice to meet you Peter, do you want to come inside and rest for a bit, you look like you could use a little TLC." Steve asked while noticing just how shaky and malnourished the poor boy really was.

"Thank you Mr. Steve, but I sh-should probably be going"

"Alright kid, here's the deal, you look like crap and considering we have the nicest medical technology, not to mention hot showers, why don't you go ahead and appease us by letting us help you out for the day?" Tony said as he walked forward to give the kid a hand up off the ground.

The boy flinched slightly but nodded his head in agreement as Tony carefully helped him off the ground and allowed him to lean his weight as they made the slow trek back to the facility.

Steve had run ahead to alert the others and told Bruce to head down to medical and prepare for their guest. Although grime and dirt covered most of the boy, his injuries still stuck out to the trained eye.

Bruce immediately agreed to help him and began setting up a clean bed. Tony arrived not seconds later half carrying the small child who looked no older than eight.

"Hey Petey, this here is Bruce and he's gonna help you get cleaned up a bit and warm okay?" Tony asked as he gently lifted him onto the bed, still noticing how every touch received a flinch from the kid.

Peter nodded his head in affirmation as Bruce smiled and gave him a brief check up before instructing the child to take a shower in the adjacent bathroom. Once again the boy nodded and stood on shaky legs as he entered the lavish washroom.

Bruce, Tony, and Steve conversed outside of the closed door.

"Tones what do you think happened to him?" Steve asked.

"I've got no clue cap"

"Well his lungs sounded a bit ragged and it's obvious that he's malnourished but I'm assuming there's some severe injuries hiding underneath all that dirt, we'll be able to know more once he's cleaned up a bit, do you know how old he is, my best guess would be 8 or 9" Bruce commented.

"We'll ask once he's more comfortable" Steve responded.

As if on cue, Peter slowly walked out of the bathroom wearing a pair of Steve's old pjs that pooled around his feet and splayed off of his bruised and bleeding collarbone. Bruce gently held out his hand for the boy to grasp before leading him over to a scale and height chart.

"Hey peter,do you mind telling us how old you are?"

The child licked his lips nervously at Steve's question before softly saying "I'm 12 s-sir"

At 4 foot 5 and only 45 pounds, it was hard for the occupants of the room to hide their concern for the condition of the child.

"Peter, is it okay if I put in an IV, I promise it won't hurt and I noticed that you're very malnourished so I'd like for you to eat some solid food while we continue our check up okay?"

Peter looked at Bruce with fear but ultimately decided that the man hadn't hurt him yet so maybe as long as he did as he was told, he wouldn't get beat again.

Bruce once more gently helped the boy to bed and carefully went about inserting an IV while Tony came back with burgers and milk shakes that smelled glorious to Peter's heightened senses.

The boy stared at Tony before he casually replied "Go ahead munchkin, eat as much as you want" while popping his own French fry into his mouth.

Peter nodded and took small bites of the most delicious food he'd tasted since Thai with May.

As Bruce continued to run scans and bandage the horrible beating sites on the boy he paused when he came across vertical poorly stitched slits in the boys wrist. Suddenly turning very serious and even more concerned he turned to the boy.

"Petey can you be very honest with me, have you ever hurt yourself on purpose before?"

Peter quickly shook his head no only to be rewarded with a dizzy spell as Steve gripped his shoulders and helped him lean back once more.

"Those scars son, they look pretty straight, can you tell us where you got them from?" Steve gently prodded.

Peter looked as if he was about to burst into tears before slowly muttering "I'm weird so they said it was for science, I'm really sorry, you can get rid of me now that you know."

This time Tony spoke up " Kid, we're the avengers, weird is what we do, so what do you mean when you say that?"

Peter stuttered and blinked the tears out of his eyes as he slowly explained how he stuck to things and he used to be able to heal himself and how he had really strong senses.

The three men listened intently while Steve gently carded his fingers through the child's hair praying the he wouldn't flinch away.

At last Bruce spoke up, "Peter it's okay to be different and the people that did this to you were very wrong for treating you like that. I'm the hulk and Steve over there has weird abilities too but I promise you that nobody deserves to be treated the way you were and we are not going to let you get treated like that again okay?"

Peter nodded before a yawn escaped his mouth.

"Why don't you rest up son, it looks like you could use some sleep, I promise you that Bruce is right, nobody deserves to be beaten for being different and we aren't going to let that happen again to you."

"Sleep tight kiddo and if you need anything you can ask my AI Jarvis and he'll get one of us to come back down alright?"

Peter nodded again thinking over the words they had said and hoping that he didn't do anything to change their minds.