AN: Thank you, lovely people, whoever is still reading. Your comments have been so heart warming and motivating.

Fair warning - things get a little darker before they get better. But they do get better, I promise!


"Get me Cho on the phone!"

"You'd better have a good explanation for this, Stark."

"Oh I do, Everett, dear. Barton is delivering Zemo to you now."

"And you?"

"Flying to a better medical suite than this godforsaken jet."


("Peter! Can you hear me—Peter!"

Down…down…

I can't reach! Peter goes rag doll just like Clint taught him.

Would Clint be proud of him?

"No, Peter! Take my hand!")


"Peter! Keep breathing, come on! Peter!"


Steve has seen a lot of horrifying things in his life. Human rights crimes that would make UN officials swoon.

But this is personal, and he'll never forget the sight of Bruce lathered in sweat, kneeling over Peter's body on the gurney while Tony pushes it from behind at a dead run. Natasha parks the quinjet on the roof while the three men run inside the Ukrainian hospital.

Nor the sight of Bruce jabbing an empty ballpoint pen into Peter's side, just below his armpit.

"Bruce?" Tony gasps. "What are you doing?"

"Natasha broke one of Peter's ribs. It punctured his lung. His-his chest cavity is filling with air, Tony."

He only looks up once, to catch Tony's eye, terrified.

Tony nods his encouragement. "You got this, Bruce. Helen is on her way but I trust you."

There's a low pitched hissing and a bizarre smell as Peter's torso empties of air.

They manage to get inside the ER, nurses waiting and ready, and after that the world is comprised of yelling and machines beeping red, too fast, and there are too many people in too small a medical suite.

Tony vetoes every single doctor trying to get into the room.

Natasha joins the fray, entering at a dead run, and not even Tony's suit can hold her back. She jumps right over his extended arm. Tony is so shocked he lets her go. She rushes to Peter's side. They've got the boy stabilized, lung and rib already healing themselves. His knuckles won't require any surgery, sealing over. The head gash isn't even a concussion.

It's the lack of oxygen everyone is freaking out about.

"Bruce?" she pants.

"He's stabilized…for now."

Bruce calls updates on all these things as they do a top-down check of Peter. At some point they've torn away his clothes, leaving him in only boxers and a gown under the thin sheet. A breathing tube snakes down his throat, helping him get enough warm air.

Peter's ribs are mottled with bruises. He's too thin on the bed. It hasn't been very long since this whole circus began, but it's long enough that Peter has lost weight he can't afford.

He remains unconscious for all of this, even when Bruce opens his eye lids to check for pupil response. Too slow.

"Steve? Punk, you in there?"

Punk. No one calls me punk anymore—

"Steve. Easy, big fella."

At some point Steve has fallen into a chair beside Bucky's own bed—Bucky? When did he get here?—and the yelling picks up again when Steve coughs.

"Head injury—"

"Shouldn't be moving around with that concussion!"

"Ten ccs of morphine!"

"It won't work—"

"—Metabolism."

Steve tunes it all out to hold Bucky's hand in his left and Peter's in his right. He sits between the two beds and finally breathes.

Hours pass and he refuses to move, even when one stubborn faced nurse tries to pull Steve up from the chair and into a hospital bed.

"I'm not leaving them!" Steve snaps, and that is the end of that.

Bucky speaks to Steve in a tender, low voice, talking on and on until Steve can see straight. Bucky doesn't even stop when Bruce neutralizes the nerve endings in his busted shoulder, fitting a sleeve around the exposed joint.

Steve 'wakes' sometime in the night, when everything quiets.

Bucky's been given that special cocktail of painkillers, the one in all three of their bodies right now. Steve has an IV snaking out his arm that he doesn't even remember Bruce administering.

"So he's your son."

Steve turns his aching neck at the sound of Bucky's voice. They lock eyes for a minute. "Yeah. I love Peter more than you can imagine."

"I can see that." Bucky's half lidded gaze softens. "You're finally with us. Stevie and Buck, back at it again."

"What, taking down German psychopaths?"

"I meant hanging out in hospitals, but sure."

The joke is a valiant effort that doesn't quite get off the ground. Steve fights another wave of tears. Bucky does the last thing Steve ever expects—

He holds his arm out for a hug.

"Get in here, you brat," he mutters with a grin.

They've been in contact numerous times since the ice, but this feels like the first time Steve has truly, both in their right minds, seen his friend in almost a century.

"Buck."

"Steve."

Steve stands and bends to embrace his friend, arms all the way around Bucky's back.

Bucky smells different than he did in 1945. His hair is longer. He's got a scruff of beard that itches Steve's cheek and one less arm yanking him close. There's more gunpowder than soap in the threads of his clothes.

Still, this is home.

Steve doesn't cry, like he's been waiting for. No cathartic breakdown.

But Steve does allow himself to be who he feels inside, his age, his true wants rather than his needs or what other expect of him:

He climbs up on the bed and sits shoulder-to-shoulder with Bucky. Their heartbeats swirl together in syncopated rhythms, a song the world hasn't heard since WWII.

Steve has rehearsed what he would say. He said some of it on the helicarrier that awful day. He's thought of profound analogies for the loss and reunion of their friendship, how he'd clear the air if they were ever face to face like this.

"I missed you," is all Steve whispers. Somehow, it is more than enough.

"I missed you too." Bucky twines his fingers around Steve's. "I'm sorry I seem to be in the business of taking peoples' family away."

Steve scowls. "Zemo hurt Peter, not you. Tony found that chip…thing. It's apparently called a remote PLD. It activated your fingers."

Bucky opens his mouth to argue but just then Clint barges into the room, door bouncing off the wall where he throws it open. He's wind ruffled from transporting Zemo.

"Where is he?" His eyes widen. "Peter!"

He picks the teen up, back against his chest, and lays in the boy's bed. Cradles his son close to his heart. Clint curls so tightly over Peter, a human shell, that Steve can barely see his face.

Steve wants to make a comment about the machines and back injuries, that it's not protocol. Then he sees Bucky's mournful face while he watches the archer and shuts his mouth.

Clint's the one who ends up in tears, crying silently all over Peter's unruly hair. He breathes out a sob.

The world could disappear outside this hospital room and it wouldn't feel any different. Steve's entire universe is here.

The three men say nothing, but each has an ear tuned to the higher pitched, artificial breathing of the child that somehow wormed his way into their psyches. It's irreversible, the bond with this little being, and none of them would have it any other way.

"Peter," Clint says, broken. "Pete…don't abandon us like this."

Only the hiss of the ventilator answers.

"So many of us big tough heroes." Clint's voice wavers all over the place. His eyes are pinched, narrow, in anguish. "And none of us could protect our own child. Ahhh, Peter…"

Steve listens for Peter's heart.

It's off kilter, slower than normal, and yet somehow it still fits perfectly. It springs in the space between Bucky's and his own.

It strikes Steve suddenly and savagely that this motley group of people might never be whole again.

Clint grieves through the night.


"Hey, whoa, you okay?"

That's a good question. Am I?

Bruce turns from the medbay window. From his endless stare at Peter breathing on his own in the bed. Tony really does look concerned, hand out.

"Peter needs me," says Bruce, hoarse. He taps on the glass.

"That's an understatement." Tony sneaks closer. He does it slowly, as if Bruce is a skittish animal. "But when was the last time you slept, big guy?"

"…When we flew him here. On the jet ride from Kyiv to the compound."

Tony grabs at Bruce's arm then. He breathes hard. He looks scared. "Bruce, that—that was three days ago. We rescued Peter four nights ago, remember?"

"Oh." Bruce blinks fast. "Tony?"

"Bruce?"

"I think I'm going to sit down now."

'Sit down' turns out to be more 'sags to the floor' but Bruce takes what he can get. Tony guides him gently down, arm circling his waist.

"I can feel each of your bony ribs, Bruce." His waspish tone echoes in the hallway. "Let me guess—haven't been eating either?"

Bruce doesn't answer. He cradles his head of curls in his hands, elbows braced on his knees. "He won't wake up, Tony."

"I know."

"All his injuries are healed perfectly, even the punctured lung, without fever or complication but he won't wake up."

Softer, voice cracking, Tony whispers, "I know, Bruce."

"Helen says it has something to do with his brain being without oxygen for so long." Bruce swallows. Tears wet Tony's face but Bruce doubts he even notices. "Peter's body is in peak physical condition. It doesn't make sense."

Tony forgoes the manly distance and shuffles closer on his knees. "It's okay, Bruce—"

"No! It's not! What are we doing wrong?" Bruce pounds a fist against his knee. "We've done every test in the book! He…H-he won't wake up."

There's a quick whimper from Tony and then the engineer has Bruce's face cupped in his hands. "You're doing everything you can. It's not your fault. Nobody thinks less of you for this."

Bruce doesn't even register the fact he's crying too until he can't see anymore, vision blurred. His chest bucks. In and out, so much faster than Peter's.

"He's got a paper due next week." Bruce tries to shake off Tony's hands but his friend is stubborn. "And-and a science fair and…and…"

"I know," says Tony again.

He closes his eyes and buries them in Bruce's hair. The chaste kiss shatters the last of Bruce's defenses. He wails. He hasn't felt this cut open since Ross's operating table.

Tony joins him with a choked moan. "I know."


After that, Bruce's eyes sport a hollowed out look.

So do everyone else's, for that matter. The compound becomes the Avengers' version of topsy-turvy land. Nothing makes sense the way it's supposed to.

When they all get home, Natasha disappears and no one sees her for days. Steve sets up camp on the medbay guest cot and doesn't even leave.

Clint spends his days either on the phone with his wife or helping Bruce with tests.

And Tony…Tony lays on his side next to Peter at night, when even Bucky is asleep in the next bed over, and sings him songs. Steve has gotten used to falling asleep with Tony's smooth tenor and Johnny Cash filling the room.

Bucky, for his part, though mostly healed, doesn't want to leave until Peter wakes up. Steve watches him closely when they ask about this.

It's his choice whether to stay here. Tony's too.

Steve realizes what's happening to them on the fifth day, when they all retrieve their takeout boxes of food that no one really eats—

"We're going back to the way we were before." Steve catches Tony's eye. "We're falling apart."

Tony is quiet for a long minute, leaning both hands on the counter top. "Steve…I don't think we can ever be the way were before, even for the worse. That boy has changed us too much."

Steve is too stunned to argue.

Natasha makes her first appearance without fanfare or warning. Steve has no idea how she's been monitoring Peter from whatever hidey hole she's chosen, but she's the first to notice when something changes.

She sprints into the kitchen. Bruce and Clint visibly startle.

Tony holds out a carton of lo mein. "Red, finally. Want some—"

None of the men have seen Natasha this undone, with the exception of Clint and even he looks worried. Her hair is everywhere, unwashed, and she's in the same clothes from the hospital.

Her hand flies in an out-of-character, demonstrative motion. "Peter's awake!"

They drop their supper on the spot. All five of them bolt down the stairs and Bruce checks vitals on his phone.

"She's right," he pants, one hand in Tony's jacket. "His heart rate is elevated!"

They fly down the hallway in record time. Clint jumps the last flight of stairs three at a time.

Bucky is already half out of his own bed when they burst in. He talks soothingly to Peter, trying to pacify the boy's darting eyes. They take in the room at a helter-skelter pace. Peter's breathing is normal but he looks confused.

"Don't crowd him." Bruce goes from slouched to authoritative doctor in a millisecond flat. "You can all stay here but no talking at once. He's overwhelmed."

Steve totally ignores this advice—throwing an apologetic look at Bruce—and runs a palm over Peter's forehead.

Bucky holds out a warning hand. "I tried that. He's not great with touch yet."

Steve snaps his hand back, seeing the evidence of Bucky's words in the way Peter gasps at Steve's caress.

"Hey," says Bruce, a tender syllable. "Can you look at me for a second, Peter?"

Peter's glazed eyes do another circuit of the room. Bruce hits a pen on the metal bed rail and Peter finds his face. Bruce studies his pupils, his reaction time when he snaps his fingers.

Steve picks up on Bruce's frown. "What's wrong? He's okay, right?"

It's over. Our boy woke up! Peter's finally conscious and the world is right, as it should always be.

But Bruce inhales a sharp breath and Steve's gut turns to ice.

Bucky senses something too. He hums under his breath. "Oh, malysh."

Peter's eyes snap to Bucky at the affectionate word. His face is neutral, though his eyes trail over Bucky with fascination.

"Bruce?" asks Tony.

Bucky sighs. "No. No, no, no…"

Bruce looks at him with commiseration. "Can you guys step outside for a second?"

A beat.

Natasha's voice comes out with a hard kind of venom. "No."

"Please?"

Clint scoffs. "Double no. Whatever's going on, just tell us."

Bucky and Bruce share a strong look. It's an entirely wordless conversation that's quite frankly remarkable. Steve distantly wonders when they got close without him noticing.

Bucky clears his throat, wary of everyone's reaction, and speaks in a clear, firm voice. "Peter, can you tell me how old you are?"

Everyone freezes. Peter blinks at Bucky, at Tony, at the ceiling.

He doesn't say anything at all.

"Peter?" Steve tries again. "Do you know who we are?"

Peter just stares at Steve. His face doesn't change an inch, not even the remotest sign of recognition.

"It's safe to speak," says Natasha, using that velvety tone reserved for when Peter needs to be reminded he's not in danger of a man's wrath, that she's a woman. "There's just us. You can admit any pain, okay?"

The teen's eyes follow Natasha's lips but he's completely silent. Completely neutral. This isn't amnesia, not mutism.

"Is he deaf?" Clint whispers.

Tony shakes his head and taps the wood of a nearby chair to prove his point. Peter's eyes whip to the sound. But still he doesn't say anything.

Steve tries to censor the horror in his voice. He doesn't succeed. "Does he understand anything?"

Bruce takes off his glasses and with that signature gesture, Steve's world shuts down.

"No. No, he doesn't."


(He chokes on water as his head crests the wave. Success! Peter wants to cheer but he's too busy coughing.

"Peter! I'm swimming to get you. Just stay where you are!"

Peter tries to find the source of the voice. He can't see anything but open ocean for miles. No yacht. No other people around.

"Clint? Where are you?" Peter writhes when a wave crashes over his head again. He splutters. "I don't know if I can…keep on…treading."

No answer.

"Clint? Help! Clint, anybody, please!")