Chapter 40 - Divide and Conquer
His breathing was heavy, not calming down. What had she just said?
"I... I don't—"
"Tony, it's fine. We know. You don't have to—" She took a step towards him and he couldn't help but react. Couldn't help but retreat twice the amount of space. She frowned at him.
"What the hell... what the hell do you want from me?" He had to keep it together. His arm was starting to hurt from the position he held it in, gauntlet aiming at them. He had been prepared for this to be tough, but not that he'd have to deal with them as well.
"Want from you?" She shook her head, clear confusion on her face but Tony wasn't fazed. This was her specialty. "I intercepted most of Sallic's call. We've been surveilling him and his crew for weeks. He's been picking up all the loose ends Rumlow left behind after Lagos. He's the one we were looking for in Brooklyn these past couple of weeks and Steve recognized the boy from your lab. We're here to help."
Tony's jaw had physically dropped. This was... this wasn't just unexpected, this... no. There was no way he could allow them to interfere. If they found out about Peter—
"Is it him? Is it really your son?" Barton shook his head in confusion. "Was he with you all that time? Did you know all this time that—"
"No." He wanted to say it decisively but it came out more like an unsure whisper. "No!" He said again, a little louder. "He's... Peter's an intern."
Rogers stepped up closer at last. "The boy was in your lab."
Tony tried to push down his frustration. "Yeah, the boy was in my lab. That's where we usually keep our interns."
"He does..." Rogers' brow was furrowed. "He does look like you. He could be—"
"Well, he's not!" Tony tried to center himself. He had to stay in control of the situation.
Natasha hadn't moved, she was just watching him. "Why do they think he's your son?"
"How would I know? Sallic also said I experimented on the kid. They want to rile me up, that's it." It wasn't a lie of course. He had never experimented on Peter, but it was a convenient place for him to shut down that narrative, that Peter was anything other than a completely regular teenage boy. "He's... he's Peter Parker. Just..." Tony took a couple of deep breaths, careful not to look away from them now. Careful not to let the lie show. "Just a kid that works for me."
Natasha frowned then turned to Steve who nodded. "I mean, he was working, I guess. Met him only briefly in the lab. I told you he had a kid in there. Just... a little guy. Bit shy."
"Yeah, so... there you go. Nothing to see here. You can..." His arm was straining from being held in the same position, palm still pointedly on them, but he couldn't help his hand dropping more and more from the strain. "You can kindly fuck off now. I... I gotta... This is on me. My... my business. It has nothing to do with you."
The Widow took another step towards him and as panic spiked in him, Tony's arm shot up again, squarely pointed at her.
"Tony, we're here to help."
His veins were flushed with adrenaline, his pulse surging. He didn't have time for this. He didn't have time for any of this. Peter was in there and his safety was more important than anything else right now.
"Your help... I don't want your fucking help. Just... just get out of my way."
"Maybe your boy would appreciate it though?"
"Shut your face, Rogers." His voice was wavering but he didn't care. "You owe me. You owe me for Brooklyn."
Barton snorted. "For setting your spider on us?"
Tony's eyes only flickered shortly to him, then went back to Rogers. "I didn't set him on you. If anything I pulled him off you. If I hadn't shown up, Ross would have had you in a trap. You might have punched your way out of it but it would have come with a hell of a lot of uncomfortable videos on social media of you beating up the NYPD. You owe me."
Rogers didn't move, didn't even look at him.
"You owe me, Capsicle. Not just for that."
The look on Rogers' face was dark. At least Tony wouldn't have to spell it out. He had no interest in basking in the humiliation of the ridiculous level of blind trust he'd had in Rogers.
"Alright, we'll not do that." Natasha was still closest to him. "We'll not be balancing out any personal debts right now. Tony, I get that it irks you that Steve wants Barnes around and that might never go away no matter how many years go by, but we have a criminal network to concentrate on right now."
"You... you know?" Tony's arm dropped, he was going to be sick. Did they all know?
She frowned. "Of course I do."
"He told you?" Tony's teeth cut into his lip as he desperately tried to hold back the curses he wanted to fling at Rogers. Of course, he had been the only fool that was purposefully kept out of the loop.
Natasha silently studied him, then turned towards Rogers. "Care to explain?"
The Captain swallowed hard, not meeting her gaze. "It's... it's complicated."
"Fuck you, Rogers." Tony's temper was surging. Just the look on the guy's face, the pinnacle of morality. It made him want to vomit.
"Alright, just to be clear, we are talking about Barnes being sent to murder Howard and Maria Stark, yes?" Natasha had her eyes on Tony and he couldn't help but choke on his own tongue at her casual tone. She nodded to herself. "Alright. At least I haven't lost my edge."
"I'm sorry..." Barton had turned his attention to the Captain as well. "What's happening now?"
"You didn't tell him?" She inclined her head in Tony's direction, her face twitching. "Is this why Siberia escalated? You've waited for Siberia to tell him?"
Tony snorted at that. "Oh, please. He didn't tell me shit. Our dear friend Zemo had a nice video prepared though."
"Fuck's sake, Steve..." She didn't look at him, didn't look at Tony either.
Rogers stepped from one foot to the other. "HYDRA killed them. We were already fighting them." Tony wasn't quite sure what infuriated him more, the fact that Rogers was still trying to justify his bullshit or that he seemed to direct his excuses at Natasha more so than at him. "There was nothing to be gained from dragging up things that are in the past, that are—"
Tony wanted to strangle him. "You gotta be fucking kidding me, Rogers! You gotta be—"
"It doesn't matter." Natasha's tone was decisive. She took one deep breath, then looked up at Tony. "None of that matters right now. Tony, they want to trade the life of that boy for an arsenal that will kill a thousand more. They need to be stopped and you know that you can't do that on your own."
"The hell I can't..."
She didn't move, unfazed by the whispered discussion between Barton and Rogers going on right behind her. "I'd like to remind you of the last time you tried to beat me in hand to hand combat. Sure, they have nothing on me and you've certainly gotten better. Not good enough to punch your way through a whole group of criminals though."
He hated that she was right about that, but that wasn't what was going to happen. "Not planning on punching anyone."
"Wait," her eyes widened. "You were going to hand the weapons over to them?"
"You think I'm going to let them kill the kid?"
She did shake her head at that. "They'll likely kill him anyway, Tony. I don't have to explain to you how hostage situations work."
"They definitely will if I don't give them what they want. It's not like there is a choice here."
Natasha's eyes were only on him, unwavering like it would only be a matter of time till he agreed that he was wrong. "What about all the kids that will die once they have the weapons?"
"FRIDAY is on standby to blow them to Nirvana as soon as Peter is safe. You think I can't ignite my own weapons remotely?"
"You think they don't know that?" She tilted her head, eyes narrowed. "Or at least suspect it? You think they'll ever give the boy to you? They'll send him back to you in pieces until you crack and try everything to save him or at least put him out of his misery."
He had to turn away from her, sick to his stomach, his throat closing up. How could this be happening? How could he have let this happen? Had he learned nothing?
"Tony..." He pulled away as her hand came to rest on his shoulder, but she grabbed him by his arm and spun him around, making him face her. "We'll get him out, okay? It's the only way. You know that. They'll never let him go. But that doesn't matter because we're here to help and we'll get him out."
He rubbed the back of his hand across his face. Maybe she really wasn't wrong. They had already tortured the boy and he was just a boy. People who were willing to do that to a kid... He wasn't going to cry. He was not going to fucking cry.
"Alright." He swallowed hard. Natasha's hand still held him tightly and he couldn't deny that there was something anchoring about it, something that pulled him out of his inner panic as much as he wanted to balk against her standing this close. Something that made him feel less alone in this. "Alright. Let's... let's go then."
She nodded but didn't let go of his arm at last. "What's your plan?"
"I was... I was gonna make Sallic come out of his hole and see what I could negotiate. Was thinking he might at least bring Peter up and have him wait there while they raid my stuff."
"We can still start with that." She was quiet, lost in her thoughts for a moment. "You can draw him out, talk to him. He's a cocky asshole. He might be distracted enough to give us some time so we can sneak in and get the boy."
"No, that..." He had to take a couple of deep breaths. He didn't like this. This was not what he had planned. The point was for them to bring Peter out of that hole, not to go down there and join him. "We can't risk that. They'll hurt him, kill him as soon as they sense that they're ambushed."
She didn't turn, just dipped her head in Rogers' direction. "Steve?"
The Captain cleared his throat, voice heavy but calm. "If our intel is correct, then most of the rooms are underground. The layout really only has the main entrance and a couple of windows to get in. Sallic will probably come up, just to taunt Tony. Just to rub it in. But he won't come out on his own. It should be about 10 of them. He must have sent at least 3 men to Pennsylvania. All of them brawn. He's only got Lexington and Hull for the brainy stuff. They'll have stayed behind and they'll stay down there. He's never gonna bring the kid up here. Way too exposed. Too many ways he could get killed and have the kid pulled out from under him. He'll leave guards to watch the boy. At least two. That leaves two more, that either secure the perimeter or stay down there to guard their stuff or come up to guard him."
"I'll stay here with Tony then." Tony's eyes shot over to Barton. "You two go ahead. We follow when we cleaned up aisle 1."
"I don't need back up with Sallic." He held the man's gaze. "I need the kid to be safe."
Barton shook his head. "You have no suit. No way to protect yourself. If it's you against three of them and they take you out, we'll have them breathe down our necks in there. That can't happen."
"Clint's right." Natasha pulled Tony's attention back to her. "We divide and conquer."
He wanted to argue that he would be just fine without the suit, but they were running out of time. They needed to engage soon and when it came to pure body strength they were far superior to him, that much was true.
Rogers cleared his throat. "If we had an EMP we could kill communications between them. Would give us more time to hit them unawares. Get us in unnoticed. Makes it safer for the boy."
Natasha nodded. "Tony?"
He bit his lip. "It'll disable most of the functionality of my gauntlet and Barton's bow and would kill communication between us as well."
Barton just raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "I'll eyeball it."
She shot him a look, then her gaze was back on Tony. "We'd need radio silence on our side anyway or they might pick up what's happening faster than we want. How long till the EMP wears off?"
Tony shrugged. "About 20 minutes."
"Alright." She bit her lip. "Can that thing on your hand ensemble despite the EMP?"
"Nope."
"Then you'll stay up here."
He snorted. "I don't think so."
Natasha didn't even blink. "You have no way to defend yourself without the gauntlet."
"Well, neither do they! At least I have a vest."
"Yeah, but I don't care about them dying. And how did that vest work out for you in Afghanistan?"
He swallowed hard, eyes not straying from her face. "So, suddenly I'm oh so delicate? Are we expecting them to have a stash of missiles down there?"
She didn't back away from him. "Suddenly? I heard something about a coma. Do you still go to your physical therapy appointments?"
"Shut up." His breathing was intensifying again.
"We got the boy. Just take care of Sallic."
Oh, he was going to do that. He couldn't wait to get his hands on that bastard.
He handed the EMP over to Barton. They'd have to wait until the asshole had come up but at least it'd also secured Natasha and Rogers an alarm-free smooth entry into the hideout. He waited for 5 minutes like they had agreed. One deep breath, then he stepped out from the behind forest's undergrowth into the open. His fingers were numb even though his heart was racing. Technically that should give him more feeling in his limbs, a greater sense of combat readiness, but either his body or his brain was not cooperating. Maybe both.
The camera's on the building weren't hard to spot. He walked into the middle of the open yard, arms loosely hanging by his side, looked up right into the lense and just waited. They wouldn't outright shoot him. There would be no ransom in it for them if they'd simply kill him. They did let him wait though.
It was about half an hour after he had stepped out in the open, that the door to the building swung open. He hadn't moved at all and he wasn't planning to now. Sallic was flanked by two of his people. Tony had secretly hoped they'd be pulling Peter out with them, just because he might be stupid enough to taunt Tony, antagonize him by dangling the kid right in front of his nose. It would have made an easy target for Hawkeye but alas, Sallic wasn't that much of an idiot after all. He stopped just outside of the door.
"Tony."
"Asshole."
The man flashed a satisfied smile, waving his index finger at Tony. "Tut, tut, you rich people really are raised without proper manners."
"My manners are no concern of yours. Where is the boy?"
"Safely stored. You've taken quite the risk to show your face here. I told you what would happen if you try anything, right? The little dove is not going to like that."
Tony had expected threats against Peter. He tried to keep his breathing leveled and his tone unaffected. As if the prospects of these people putting their hands on his boy wasn't making bile rise in his throat. "You keep your hands off him if you want those weapons."
Sallic just laughed and waved him off as if this was harmless banter between two old friends.
"I assume you're here to negotiate. I'm all ears, Tony. What do you have to offer me?"
Get the boy up here. I want to see him. You hand him over and I'll open those gate of my bunker for you."
The asshole howled with laughter, slapped his thighs in a silly show of arrogance. "That is hilarious. Get him up here and hand him over. You crack me up."
Tony didn't move a single muscle, let the guy do his theatrics. He wouldn't be laughing for long. Sallic did a double-take pretending he just saw the look on Tony's face and gasped hyperbolically.
"Oh, my dear Tony. That wasn't supposed to be a serious suggestion, was it? Oh, no. You'll have to come up with something a little better than that."
With a quick motion, he went for his pocket. Sallic's gorillas reacted right away, pulled up their guns, fingers on the trigger.
Tony's eyebrows shot up as he pulled the flash drive out of his pocket. "Little nervous your boys, Sallic."
The asshole just flashed a smile at him. "Not as nervous as your boy."
He wasn't going to take that bait. He wasn't going to react, just held up the flash drive. "You asked for the arc. I'll give you this. You'll bring up the boy."
Sallic's mask started to crumble. The smile was still plastered on his face but the lines around his eyes, the tension in his body said something very different. "There's no bringing up the boy, Stark. I want my stuff."
"You want those weapons, you give me my boy."
"I can get him up here one piece at a time if that's what you want." The man's eyebrow twitched. Tony was getting to him. He'd get him to lose his cool, that's when they all started to make mistakes.
"No weapons for you if you harm the kid. That's non-negotiable."
"You sure you want to challenge me, Stark? I know you messed with the little guy but I doubt his limbs will regrow."
The guy might have thought himself a pro, but he was escalating this way too fast. Sallic's men were starting to notice the man nerves as well, were starting to shift from one foot to the other, eyes searching the area around them. Tony had a lot more practice with the mask on his own face. No matter how fast his heart was pulsing in his throat, he was focussed. He'd not let up. There was no way for him to check in with the others, no way to know if Barton had already set off the EMP. If Natasha and Rogers had already made their way into the building. He'd have to wait either for them to figure out their comms had gone off or for Hawkeye's first arrow to strike and he could only hope he'd not hit Sallic first.
He was Tony's to deal with.
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The room he was in seemed rather large, maybe because there wasn't much in there other than the chair he was bound to and two muscly fellows launching on a dirty old sofa and a mismatched table. It was way too bright though. It hurt his eyes but he couldn't really keep them open anyway and his senses were all over the place. They struck him in waves. Most of the time they were completely dull. His vision was awful. Their voices were more like distorted white noise in the back of his brain.
The walls around him were bare and cold. It made him painfully aware of how naked he was sitting there just in his pants. He tried not to look down at what they had done to him. It would have been hard to move anyway. The restraints were tight, a heavy chain around his shoulders, another around his middle. There had been a plus side to how much they needed to drug him in order to move him into that hole. He could feel the pressure of the bonds and the fatigue in his bones but at least he couldn't feel the pain of those deep gashes they had cut into his skin to make him talk.
His stomach turned at the thought. He couldn't dwell on that or he'd throw up. Again. With the gag they had pressed back into his mouth, he couldn't risk that. He couldn't dwell on that pain and hopelessness or how he just wanted all of this to stop. He couldn't dwell on the fact that nobody probably even knew where he was. Not that it would make a difference if they did. May had no money to offer for his freedom and there was nobody else. After what he had done, Mr. Stark might actually pay them to keep Peter though. Maybe he would deserve that, but... no. No, Mr. Stark had never been cruel to him. He was a better man than that.
Peter couldn't say how long he had been with these people, or even how long he had been in that room. There were no windows, no clocks. He was passing in and out of consciousness for most of the time. It was hard to even tell what the men were saying if he wasn't imagining them speaking after all. Nothing around him seemed real. Maybe he was tripping off whatever they had shot him up with. He definitely had been down there long enough for May to figure out that he had never come home though. Maybe she'd call Mr. Stark and find out how bad Peter had really screwed up. Maybe he'd tell her everything. Maybe he'd be kind enough not to and just let May keep the memory of that good boy he had been pretending to be for so long.
His eyes were still closed and he flinched as a series of painful shocks went through his body. He wanted to curl into himself and hide from the assault, bracing himself for laughter to hit that the men usually shared when they tormented him but nothing came. He took two deep breaths before he dared to open his eyes.
There was commotion around him. The men had gotten out of their seats but were too far off to have touched him. They fumbled with their mobile radios, trying to get answers from their fellow criminals. The tension in the room seemed quite high all of a sudden and just then another wave rolled through Peter, physically shaking him. His arms were pulled back so tightly he couldn't see it but could swear that he could feel the hair on his arms rise up.
As the door blew off its hinges he had to blink a few times. It had to be a fever dream. It had to be the drugs. It was completely impossible that Captain America had just pushed his way through the door, fighting two of the men at once. It had to be a fever dream-like when they had tortured him and he could have sworn that he had heard his dad's voice. It was like he was strangely detached from his body. Where he usually felt everything all at once when his emotions overran him, he just sat there now. Three of the criminals were in the room now but Peter just sat there, watched as the super-soldier fought his way further into the room, dodging shots aimed at him until he wrangled the gun out of one of their hands and straight up shot the guard in front of him.
Peter felt the air of a deep gasp rush through his nose into his lungs as the Captain turned to him. Panic shot paralyzed him even more than the restraints. Maybe the Rogues knew his secret? Maybe... maybe they knew and were her to take their revenge, after how Peter had challenged them in New York. He had taunted them, electrocuted them. Almost had kept them there long enough for the authorities to get them. The blood in his ears was rushing like a hurricane. He struggled in his bonds, tried to move, just get away when a firm hand clasped his neck.
Peter froze. That hand was very real. He could feel it, squeezing, hurting him. This wasn't a fever dream then.
"I'll kill him," the guy behind him said calmly, his hand sliding to the front where it tightened around Peter's throat. "I could let my buddy here shoot him point-blank, or I could have some fun and smash his head against the concrete floor just hard enough for it to explode like a watermelon in an amateur crash test."
The gun was still in Rogers' hand but his arm was hanging loosely by his side. Peter hadn't even noticed the other guard, gun in hand.
"You wanna kill us? You can try. Not gonna get the little one out here alive if you do."
The room was quiet. None of them were moving. The guy behind him still had his hand on Peter's throat. The other guard stood a few feet away between them and the Captain, his gun pointed at Peter's head. The only commotion came from the hallway outside. It was Natasha Romanoff who walked through the door first, but it was Mr. Stark coming in behind her, wearing nothing more than what looked like his workout clothes that had Peter's heart freeze. He was right there. He had come for him. Peter's breathing was getting out of control, the hand around his neck too tight. His vision was slowly blacking out around the edges.
"Alright, everyone." Mr. Stark's voice was hard, ringing loudly in Peter's ears. "If any of you geniuses want to actually walk out of here, you better take your grubby little hand's off the kid."
"I don't think we'll take our hands off of anything, Stark." The hand around Peter's throat only tightened. He might have whimpered because of the pressure, he couldn't quite tell. All he could think about was how he couldn't breathe. "All of you assholes will back up now and we'll walk out of here all nice and slow."
"You will take your hands off his throat and I'll start to consider even talking to you," Mr. Stark bit out.
Peter's eyes were still somewhat open but his vision was blurring. He was trying to move in his restraints, trying to get away from that hand around his throat but they were too tight.
"Did you hear what I said? Take your hands off my boy!"
The guy behind Peter just laughed, tightened his grip even more. "Try again from the hallway. Maybe I can hear you then."
Peter's lungs were burning, he wanted to cry and fight and duck away all at once but he couldn't do any of these things.
Suddenly, things happened very quickly. Mr. Stark leaped forward. The other guy with the gun turned away from Peter and fired a shot at Mr. Stark. Peter wanted to scream but couldn't with the gag in his mouth and his throat pressed shut. Then his feet left the ground. Chair and all, the man behind Peter slammed him backwards until his head crashed into the concrete. Peter's arms, bound behind the back of the chair, suffered the brunt force of the assault. Then the hand around his throat was gone and just as Peter was about to finally suck in oxygen again, the hand covered his face and slammed his head once again into the concrete. The drugs weren't enough to disguise the pain as his skull met the ground.
He must have blacked out for a moment when he felt the hand on his face once again. This was going to be it. He'd die in a hole somewhere at the hands of these lunatics. But that blow never came. Instead, he felt his lung fill with air. His eyelids were heavy but he forced them open. The gag was gone and Steve Rogers knelt next to him, took one of the chains wrapped around Peter's chest in both hands and tore it apart just like that. The man looked up at Peter's face, his lips moving but there was only static in Peter's ears. Even if he had heard anything, his throat was so raw there was no way he could have responded. Not that he had any strength left to move his lips in the first place. People never really appreciated how hard talking really was. Then Peter's eyes fell shut and he couldn't even find the strength to try and open them again as his mind spiraled into unconsciousness.
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(author's note: Guys, thank you so much for all the enthusiasm, the theories, and comments! It's incredibly lovely and kind and really makes telling this story even more fun!)
