Here's another chapter for you my awesome readers!

Enjoy!


The smashing sound led them to another room that was infinitely better lit than what they had seen so far. As they stepped inside, the smell of antiseptic and chemicals smacked into them, nearly overwhelming their senses.

Bucky shivered involuntarily when he saw the white walled room, the pristinely cleaned surgical tools, and reinforced restraints on the gurney were too similar to what he had seen before but almost immediately the creeping déjà vu melted into fury. His muscles tensed as he realized what they had done, "Where are they?" Bucky snarled, "There were heat signatures down here, where are they?"

"I don't know Buck." Steve answered in a measured tone as he methodically worked his way through the room, "Maybe there is another room, something that we're missing…" He trailed off as he ran his hands along the wall, searching for some kind of seam or evidence of a break in the wall.

Bucky took a slightly different approach. He knocked on the wall and at every point where he found a hollow portion, he put his fist through it.

Both of them were thorough but Bucky found the door first.

He tapped along a particularly open portion of the wall until the telltale muffled sound of a space beyond echoed back, so as he had been doing, he put his fist through the section. Only this time, instead of finding plaster and drywall, he heard someone scream. Opening his hand and laying his palm flat against the interior, he yanked hard, clearing a space for him to look into the hole he had created. Four sets of eyes stared, wide-eyed back at him. He could not help the terrible glee that worked its way into his voice, "Steve, I found them." And he proceeded to tear the door off the hinges. As soon as he did, he reached in and grabbed ahold of the first shirt he felt. He yanked so hard the fabric tore as the man was tossed, flailing, onto the floor behind him. He gave the same treatment to the other three.

As soon as they landed, Steve cuffed them, squeezing until he heard a whimper of pain from each of the lab coat clad individuals. Then both supersoldiers stood back and looked at their handiwork before Bucky started, "Which of you is the head of this little operation?"

The four bound individuals looked at each other before their eyes landed on the man Bucky had pulled out last. The older, balding man looked nothing like the sadistic Frankenstein either soldier had imagined. Then the man cleared his throat and his soft, falsetto voice was even more out of the imagined character, "Th-that would be me." There was a broken air of superiority in his tone, like he was trying to contain his fear and hid it behind shaky arrogance.

Steve looked at him with indifference, hiding the rage that was nonetheless causing his hands to shake, "You?" He asked. Then he waited for the man to slowly nod his head, "Good." The Captain lowered his voice, becoming infinitely more threatening, "then you can answer a few of our questions."

The man swallowed hard and nodded again, more fear creeping in as the arrogant expression continued to crack.

"How many people are down here?" Steve started, expecting some kind of pushback for his efforts.

"Its just the four of us in the lab." The balding man answered quickly, a bit of smug arrogance sticking to the tone as he answered the question as uselessly as possible.

Unfortunately, Steve's normal patience was gone, "Not what I asked." He took a threatening step forward, "How many people are down here?"

The large booted foot landed uncomfortably close to his head and caused the man to wince back in anticipation before he quickly obliged Steve's question, "About ten."

Steve nodded slowly, that was far fewer than had been on Tony's earlier schematic, "Who are they and where are they hiding?"

The balding man opened his mouth to respond but snapped it shut when one of the other bound individuals raised her voice. She was younger, her blonde hair pulled back into a tight bun that had been loosened at some point, allowing the hair to frame her beautiful face. She glared up at the two supersoldiers with as much contempt as she could managed as she started demanding her own answers, "What are you doing here?" She snapped, clearly even less cooperative than her boss.

This time, Bucky took the lead, he was not in the mood to deal with her inanity. Stepping in front of Steve, he stood over her, towering in comparison to her place on the floor. Attempting to intimidate her, he bit back, "Are you stupid? You honestly don't know why we're here?"

She clenched her teeth shut as she narrowed her eyes at the Avengers.

But Bucky was not done, "We're here because you're performing sick, sadistic experiments on people and you made the incredibly ill-advised mistake of taking one of our own." He smiled as she finally flinched but she did not break her gaze, so he continued, "Do you know why we're here now?"

She maintained her glare at the one-armed soldier, stoically keeping her mouth shut.

Bucky finally leaned down and stared her in the eye, snarling again, "I asked you a question, do you know why we're here now?"

Her defiance finally broke under his scrutiny and her blue eyes widened as she nodded.

Bucky stood again and gestured for Steve to continue.

Unfazed by Bucky's display, Steve turned back to the balding man, "I believe I asked you a few questions before we were interrupted," he shot a withering glance at the woman who actively cowered away. Steve's voice carried through the small room, "So tell me, who is left, where they are, and how did you know we were coming?"

The rest of the pathetic resistance faltered, as the man scrambled to answer the questions, "We've assumed you were coming since Stark was here earlier. We're the last few who are left in the building. Our job was to clean and break everything down that could lead anyone back to the facility before disappearing ourselves."

"So the few that are left here, what role did they have in what happened to Spider-Man?" Steve was so close to using the kid's real name but he was not quite sure exactly what they knew.

The doctor in charge winced but did not say anything.

Bucky leaned down again, more anger slipping passed his control, "Did you not learn anything from your assistant over there? Just tell us what we want to know." He brought his mechanical hand in front of the man and flexed the fingers. Bucky hated the way the mechanics of that motion sounded but it worked well as an intimidation tactic and at this point, he was angry enough to use it.

The man swallowed hard, staring at the metallic fist for a moment more before turning back to Steve, "The four of us were in charge of seeing what effects each of the treatments had on him."

"What treatments?" Steve asked, apprehensive of actually learning the answer.

When the man did not answer quickly enough, Bucky slammed his fist into the side of his head, "He asked you a question. Answer it or I'll kill you and find someone who will. I'm done with this prevaricated bullshit." Then he lowered his eyes to meet the man's gaze, "I'm guessing you know who I am."

The doctor nodded quickly but Bucky spoke slowly, clearly, "Good. Then you know I have no qualms about killing you slowly with some of those clean tools on that wall." He jerked his mechanical hand over his shoulder and emphasized the instruments, "You used them to cut up a kid so I can only imagine what I'll be able to do with them." As the balding man's eyes started to bulge out of his head, Bucky lowered his voice again, "Tell him what he wants to know."

When the balding doctor spoke again, his words were slightly slower and slurred, even while he tripped over his tongue to get the story out quick enough, "Hammer hired men to beat him, break his bones, force him to fight, and then knock him out so we could see how his body reacted to the damage. We had devised a sedative as well, specifically for people with abilities like his and actually using it on him allowed us to improve the formula…"

He was going to go on when Steve interrupted him, "And you saw nothing wrong with doing this to a kid?"

The man had the decency to look ashamed but continued anyway, "It was going to lead to advancements for the military, for civilians. It was maybe wrong to perform human experiments but look at yourselves. Without experimentation, neither one of you would exist."

Steve and Bucky exchanged dumbfounded looks before Bucky leaned down in front of the doctor again, "I've been on the other end of your experiments and I can promise you that nothing positive for humanity ever came from them. You are a deluded, stupid ass if you think anything more than money to line your boss's pockets was going to come from that kid's pain." Then he looked up at Steve, "Are we done here?"

The Captain just nodded and Bucky took that as his cue to slam his fist a few times into the doctor's face. Only stopping when one of the other assistances called out, "Stop! You're going to kill him." Bucky looked the young man in the eye, surprised when he realized he was only a few years older than Peter. Taking in his fear, Bucky slammed his fist once more into the doctor's face before letting go of his collar. When the man slumped boneless to the floor, Bucky stood and looked at the horrified expressions on the other's faces, before turning back to Steve, "Let's round everyone else up."


Steve caught Bucky's arm as they stepped back out into the hallway, forcing the man to face him, "Buck, are you alright? That was more violence than I've seen in a while." Steve said, searching his friend's eyes for an answer.

"No, I'm not. After all the terrible things...why is someone still doing this?" Bucky could not keep the exasperation out of his tone.

"I don't know, Buck."

"He's too young for them to have done that Steve, I should have just killed that guy." The supersoldier involuntarily flexed his hand as he tried to understand what had happened.

Steve shook his head in the negative, voice adamant when he responded, "No you shouldn't have, Buck and you know it. You would have been more torn up if you had killed him. You're better than them and they'll get what they deserve. One way or another." He slapped him on the shoulder before moving off to clear the rest of the basement.


It only took an hour or two to finish rounding up the rest of the basement. As the two soldiers set about dragging their prisoners back to the entryway, Sam and Natasha found them. As a group, they managed to get the personnel out of the hidden complex.

Steve looked up at Natasha as she helped load the captives onto the quinjet, "What were you able to get?"

Her voice was even, detached when she spoke, "Enough. They were trying to wipe the servers but there was enough left that I got a good idea of what they were trying to do. FRIDAY is going to work on it while we get these guys back to the Compound."

Steve bodily threw one of the brutes into the back of the jet, hearing the satisfying grunt as the man landed without being able to break his fall. Then he turned back to Natasha, "FRIDAY's going to be able to get in?"

She nodded quickly, "Tony built a remote hacker a long time ago and figured out how to upload her consciousness. FRIDAY can restore almost anything, especially if its HammerTech. We'll have full access to anything they were working on in this facility and anything else they decided to store here."

As the last man was loaded onto the quinjet, the four stalked back inside and Steve ordered FRIDAY to take them back to the Compound.


Pepper walked in a short time later, a smile stealing across her face when she saw her boys. They were all curled into each other in the bed while Tony served as the anchor for the two younger ones. She crept in, keeping her heals from tapping too loudly against the linoleum and while she was mostly successful, it was not enough to keep Tony from noticing. When she saw his bright smile, she could not help but return her own as she slipped up to the bed.

Leaning over, she stole a kiss before she pulled back and whispered, "Why don't you let me take Morgan? That is not going to be comfortable much longer." She gestured to the way he was curled at the waist, making room for Morgan to sleep against Peter while the younger man was tucked into his shoulder.

Tony just shook his head and answered, "It's alright, I can get up." However, the lag between his statement and his attempt at actual movement were enough to belie any indication he actually wanted to move.

Pepper saw it immediately, a smirk on her face, "Tony you know as well as I do that you don't want to do that and we both know that you shouldn't. Peter might handle situations like this better than other people, but comfort is never a bad thing. Especially not after what happened to him." As she said it, she reached over and pulled Morgan up and out from between the two of them, quickly wrapping her arms around the sleeping child as he nuzzled into her neck. Cooing softly, she sat down in the chair Tony had been in before, shuffling only a bit to get cozy.

Without waking, Peter snuggled closer, wincing slightly as he pulled his injuries. The slight instance of pain made Tony's stomach clench but as he wrapped his arm tighter around his son, his face smoothed back out into sleep.

"How's he doing?" Pepper asked softly, drawing Tony's attention back to her while asking him to quiet her own fears.

"Better. Much better." Tony could not help but breath a bit easier at that admission and Pepper's encouraging beam kept him talking, "He woke up for a bit not too long ago and asked about what happened." His smile slipped a little at and his voice softened, "I told him some of it and it scared him, Pep. I don't know if this one is going to be as easy for him to shake off."

She matched his solemn tone but she answered directly, "He's got plenty of people in his corner, Tony. Iron man most securely of all. If he's not okay, we'll make sure he gets whatever he needs." Tony could not help but nod along with her, knowing she was right, she always was. He could feel the look of adoration on his face, "How did I get so lucky?"

"That I didn't leave a long time ago?" She asked, mischievous grin back on her face.

"Yah," he answered.

"Guess I saw Iron Man before he was Iron Man." She smiled sweetly, sitting up and stealing another kiss. Cooing at Morgan again as he started to stir in her arms but this time he did not calm back down, "I'm going to take him to bed, I don't want him to get upset and wake Peter. We can bring him back down tomorrow when Peter's a bit more awake."

"Thanks Pep."

"Of course, don't forget to get some sleep yourself too." She replied before standing and taking the younger Stark up to his room.


Tony took her advice.

The discomfort he was going to feel in the morning after being curled awkwardly around his son all night, was far from his mind. The pain he was going to be in from resting on a mattress meant for a still healing patient, did not even enter into his calculations. The stiffness he was going to deal with from being a pillow to a beaten kid, was not a concern. None of the future aches mattered right now because he was protecting someone incredibly important. And he was asleep. Deeply asleep.

Until he was not.

Tony went from asleep to very much awake and laying on his increasingly painful back on the ground a few feet from the bed. The rude awakening left his mind spinning as it tried to catch up. Then he heard whimpering. Right.

Immediately jumping up, Tony stumbled over to the bed, to his kid. The kid who was currently half hanging off the mattress where Tony assumed he had collapsed after shoving him away. But the worst part was that he was sobbing. Bent at his waist, Peter was lying with his stomach on the bed and his hands curled into the sheets as he cried. The closer Tony got, those sobs started to morph into words. Pathetically painful yelps of "no" and "please, stop" cut through the hiccupping sobs.

Instead of righting him, Tony crouched next to the bed and put his hand back in Pete's hair. He knew if he tried to move him right now, he would get worse than tossed on his ass. He needed the kid to wake up first, "Pete…Pete I need you to wake up okay? You're dreaming, kid. It's time to wake up." As he talked, a frown started to form on the kid's face. "That's it Pete, keep fighting it, you're having a nightmare. Just open your eyes and it'll be okay." The frown deepened but the whimpering turned into anguished cries.

Peter could see the doctor standing over him, the scalpel held tightly in his hand. But this time, they had forgotten to tie his hands. He threw them up in front of him, his voice weak to his own ears as he tried to command the man to do what he wanted, "St-stay back." But the man kept advancing and then someone was touching him. There was a hand on his head, were they trying to hold him still? He couldn't tell. All he really knew was that he hurt so badly and he wanted them to go away. Then his mind reminded him that his hands were free. He grabbed at the hand on his head. Clutching the offending appendage he started to squeeze as hard as he could, maybe if he could hurt one of them, they would leave him alone.

Tony felt Peter grab ahold of his hand and he continued to talk, assuming that he was getting through to him. But then the pressure on his hand started to increase and he realized that if Peter continued to squeeze, he was going to break it. Tony tried to pull away, "Pete, I need you to wake up. You're dreaming, you're not there anymore." But when the pressure did not realize, he could not help the desperation in his voice, "Peter, you're gonna break my hand." Tony clenched his teeth and tugged hard as he felt the small bones at the edges of his hand start to crumble, in painful slowness. And then Peter squeezed in one painful burst of strength. Tony could not help but scream as he felt the bones in his hand crushed under the younger man's strength.

Peter heard the man, the one who was trying to hurt him yelling, telling him to stop or he would crush his hand but that was what Peter wanted to do. Still there was a small part in the back of his mind that told him to stop, that shrieked at him to stop. It kind of sounded like his dad but he knew he needed to do this in order to get out. In order to get home. So he squeezed harder. He felt the bones in the man's hand give way and almost as quickly, he heard an agonizing scream. It did not sound right though, the scream was wrong. It sounded too much like Tony, too much like his dad. None of the people who had hurt him had sounded like that. It was only then that he realized his eyes were closed. As he forced them open he came face to face with an agonizingly painful look on his dad's face. Peter snapped his eyes to the hand he was still crushing in his grip only to pull back like he had been burned.

Without meaning too, Tony grunted in pain as Peter released his now crushed hand. Slumping to the floor as the multiple breaks and fractures sent spasms of pain down what was already his bad arm. Tony closed his eyes tightly as he curled the broken hand to his chest. He heard Peter calling for him but his mind was screaming and he could not answer right away.

Peter watched Tony slump away from him, disappearing out of his vision and obscured by the edge of the bed. As he disappeared, Peter started talking, "Dad? Dad. Oh god, I'm sorry. Are you alright?" He pulled himself over the edge of the bed to look at the slumped figure but the older man did not move, just pulled his arm closer to his chest as his breath came in sharp gasps. Peter immediately realized what he had done. He pulled distractedly at the wires, his voice sharp with worry, "Dad, please say something. Please?" Then he pulled the cannula from under his nose before carefully sliding off the bed, putting all his weight on his unbroken leg and awkwardly crouching next to Tony.

But FRIDAY interrupted him, responding to his actions, "Peter, do you need assistance?"

"Yah, FRIDAY please get someone down here." Without waiting for a response, Peter turned his attention to the older man in front of him, "Dad," he laid his arm around his shoulders. The motion seemed to drag something out of him and his dad looked at him with tears in his eyes, "Hey, kid." He ground out.

Tony knew he needed to say something, knew Peter was going to get worried if he stayed quiet but damn if the pain of having nearly every bone in your hand crushed was not intense. He was in blinding pain until he felt Peter crouch down next to him. His son laid his casted arm around his shoulders and Tony forced himself to focus, he absolutely could not let Peter feel even a small amount of guilt for this. Trying to collect himself, he looked up into his son's eyes, "Hey kid." But he must not have done a good job hiding anything because Peter's face fell when he looked at him.

"Did I…did I break your hand?" The kid stuttered, shock written across his face.

"I think so, Pete." Tony ground out, trying to sound slightly more positive than he felt.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." The telltale sound of apology and agony coated his voice.

Tony felt the arm disappear from his back as Peter yanked it away. He tried to shift quick enough to catch his kid but he was too slow. He turned instead and watched as Peter fell backward, his hand on his chest. Tony instantly felt fear claw his throat, the gasping desperation of his son's failing breaths still clear in his mind. The fear overrode the pain and Tony lunged forward, grasping at him, "Peter, stop. Stop freaking out. You have to calm down. Right now. You have to calm down." Tony released his broken hand and put his working one on the side of his kid's face, looking Peter in the eye, "I need you to listen to me. You cannot panic right now." Then he tried to slow down his own panicked rambling, "Take a breath and slow down. I'm fine. Its just a broken bone, okay?"

Peter continued to gasp, even as the action caused considerable pain to build in his chest, shaking his head he squeaked out, "Its not okay. I didn't mean too – I didn't…I didn't want to hurt you. I – I thought…I thought they were back."

Tony felt the tears spring back to his eyes as he watched Peter freak out, knowing full well that he might have to watch his son gasp for breath again if he tore the stitching in his lung. "I know," he assured him quickly, crawling closer and tugging the kid into his chest, "I know what was going on Peter, please I need you to calm down. You have to relax."

Peter heard the desperation in his dad's tone as he was tugged into his chest. He tried to focus on his dad's heartbeat, tried to get his breathing under control but nothing was working. Tony's heartbeat was pounding just as hard as his and the ragged gasps of his dad were not helping. But then the older man started to run his hand up and down his back. It was slow and methodical and gave him something to focus on.

The door opened behind them and one of the doctors rushed in with a couple of nurses at her back. Tony was facing the door and immediately opened his eyes, taking his hand away from Peter's back for enough time to wave them off. They stopped in their tracks as Tony laid his head back into his son's neck, forcing his own breathing to slow down as he continued to rub his hand up and down the kid's spine. Finally, he felt Peter's gasping breaths even out, "There you go, Pete. Just relax. I'm alright, I promise." When Tony felt his son's pounding heartbeat slow, he pulled back slightly, "How about we get you back into bed, okay?"

Peter could not answer, just nod, defeated.

Tony refused to let go but gestured to the others still standing in the doorway. He directed his voice at his son though, "Pete, there are three other people here, okay? We're going to get you back into bed and then they're going to check you out while I get my hand looked at, alright?"

Peter did not trust himself to speak, instead nodding against his dad's shoulder. Then he felt another set of hands under his arms as he was lifted up and away. Almost immediately, he reached for his dad but Tony was at his side just as quickly, holding his hand as the doctor got him settled back into the bed. As soon as he was hooked back up to the machines, his dad appeared over him, squeezing his hand gently to get his attention, "Pete, I'm going to go get my hand looked at and then I'll be right back, okay? Until then, Dr. Fry is going to check you over and make sure you didn't hurt yourself."

Tony waited until the kid nodded without meeting his eyes. Sighing heavily, he pressed a kiss to his kid's forehead, "I'll be back, Pete." He said before following one of the nurses out of the room.


So what'd you guys think? I'm slowly working on wrapping the story up now so I'm thinking maybe three to four more chapters to finish it up.

Thank you so much to everyone who is still reading :)

I hope you all have a wonderful day/night and stay creative!

-Lily