Chapter 27
"Okay Spider-man, you got this." Thought Peter as he looked around him. His blood felt like it was sprinting through his veins, giving him his own little boost as he swung from building to building, helping the people inside of them get out of the area as quickly as they could. He hadn't had to deal with too many Hydra agents yet, and he was happy to admit to himself he thought he was doing well. He'd listened to what Steve had told him to do, and worked on clearing the area all the while managing to web up 6 Hydra goons in the process. He even managed to get a quick "good job kid," from Tony across the comms as the older man flew past him at just the right moment, to see Peter simultaneously swinging a civilian out of a building and webbing up a Hydra agent about to take a shot at Nat. He cringed slightly as he stuttered out a "Thanks Mr Stark" across the comms, remembering what he had learnt in Germany about not talking too much. He hoped he hadn't talked too much. In fact Peter was so preoccupied with the thought of not talking too much that it was only when he heard a grunt of pain from across the comms that sounded like Mr Stark's voice did he look up. He looked up so quickly in fact, that it was only his spidey-sense that stopped him from swinging head first into one of the apartment blocks in front of him. From experience Peter knew he definitely wasn't a fan of that. His senses were however, trained too harshly on Mr Stark flying through the air along side Mr Rhodes with what looked like big black daggers jutting out of them for Peter to be too grateful about the avoided collision as almost instantly he snapped in the air, changing direction mid swing to immediately head after his mentor. Between himself and Nat, Peter was sure all of the civilians were out of harms way now, so he decided not to feel too guilty about the sudden redirection and obvious show of loyalty he was currently displaying to the team. He was pretty sure they knew how strong Peter and Tonys weird mentorship/father son thing that they had going on was anyway. He'd messed up enough times calling Tony 'Dad" for them to not see it.
The sight that greeted Peter made him feel almost immediately sick. Protruding out of Tony's chest and Rhodey's right shoulder respectively were two thick black spike which were most certainly not meant to be there. "Oh god, Mr Stark, Mr Rhodes." Peter instantly began fumbling around the two men, trying, yet coming up short for something to do to immediately help them. It wasn't until the face plate on Tony's suit detached itself and Peter could lock on to his mentors reassuring eyes that Peters own body would let him stop fussing and jittering around them. "Kid, we're okay. F.R.I.D.A.Y assessed the damage, and while our current situation isn't great, we're gonna be okay here for a bit." Peter looked to his mentor with slightly watery eyes, which he would of course deny later, and back to Rhodey, who had also removed his own suits faceplate and was looking to Peter with a reassuring gaze. It wasn't until Peter looked over to Thor, who now had a quickly blackening eye and who was crouched on his hands and knees looking disorientated and extremely concussed and then to Wanda, who was attempting to engage with Icarus and who looked like she needed help did Peter decide to leave Mr Stark and Colonel Rhodes. As he stood up from his crouched position above Mr Stark Peters eyes widened and a sense of urgency inside himself grew exponentially as he saw Wanda fly through the air, evidently having been knocked from the sky by the dangerous looking woman in front of him. He didn't even think, instead, Peter let ever natural instinct in his body take over, and quickly enough he had zoned out on everything around him and he was sprinting full pelt towards the winged woman, poised perfectly to leap into the air as he was about to make contact.
Bucky's fight had been going well, all things considered. So far he hadn't felt the usual gut wrenching moment of panic when his eyes would lock with a familiar face from Hydra or cringed as he saw that octopus logo on someones shoulder. He'd stayed back to back with Steve for most of the fight, falling into their steady rhythm of watching the others back and fighting off whoever came up to them next. It was clinical, detached. He was there to get the job done and that was what he intended to do. He was going to cross another Hydra name off of his list. In the skies above him, Bucky could hear the sounds of Sam flying between above himself and Steve and the general perimeter. It brought Bucky an odd sense of solace to be fighting the Hydra soldiers in front of him. In some ways he knew it wasn't going to make amends, it wasn't going to help him heal and It wasn't going to bring back the lives he had taken. But damn it felt good. Bucky didn't really know why, but being able to slip into his fighting style, into something so familiar, to know Steve had his back and that he had Steve's and that Sam was covering them both from above, for a moment it made the world seem a bit smaller, more manageable. Less damaged. His mind was quiet, but he let out a lethal roar as his metal fist connected with another face from the stream of Hydra agents that had at some point swarmed over to where the fight was taking place. He put a bullet from one of his guns into the gut of another Hydra agent, but it was only when Bucky hear Sam mutter out an "Oh shit" from above him did Bucky let his eyes drift from the fight in front of him to follow Sam's gaze to where a black mass was swooping towards the direction of the fight.
"Shit" whispered out Bucky, evidently following in Sams example, before yelling to Steve "We gotta wrap it up with these guys punk, bird girls flying in." All Bucky got from his friend was a nod in response before he and Bucky both redoubled their efforts to take out the Hydra agents around them so they could watch the backs of their team mates and engage with Icarus. A predatory growl made its way out of Bucky's clenched jaw as he brought down his fist onto another Hydra agent. Confident that the man would be out of it for a solid minute Bucky reloaded his gun and quickly buried a mag of bullets into the advancing agents, clearing a path in front of him to make his way over to where he could see Tony and Rhodey engaging the Hydra asset. As he went to make his way towards the woman a searing pain exploded across the right side of Bucky's chest, knocking him straight towards the ground with a cry of unexpected pain, and immediately he recognised Hydra's own version of Nat's widow bites. They'd developed them back in the 90's as just another way to control their 'assets'. They let out an insanely high voltage electric current into whoever they landed on, enough that Bucky knew someone higher up than a foot soldier had to be here. They never issued these hellish things to basic level agents. At some point Bucky's head had lowered to the ground and he fought back a wave of nausea that had come with the shock. With a clenched, shaking fist Bucky roughly brought his hand to where the disk had landed on him and with a muffled grunt of pain he ripped it out of the bit of skin it had ripped into. Just one shock from a disk was enough to kill a regular soldier. He lay for a moment, catching his breath and pushing down the feeling of panic that was slowly building in his chest as the sensation of being shocked in that way brought up memories Bucky thought he hand long since buried. Bucky wasn't sure exactly how long he had been out of it, but with a sharply drawn in breath he pushed himself back up onto his feet, only faltering slightly as a wave of dizziness washed over him. It was Wanda's call for help across the comms that pulled him sharply towards reality, and with a quick glance over his shoulder towards where Steve was, catching eyes with his partner and the sharp nod of his head that told him Steve would hold the Hydra goons off, he took off, grim determination set in his face as he raced towards the asset at the same time as a red and blue clad teenager.
Bucky made quick progress towards the woman whose face he still hadn't gotten a good look at, and sure enough just before he reached her Bucky saw Wanda getting thrown through the air, as two streams of purple energy crashed into her chest, sending her body first into the brick wall of an apartment block, making a sickening cracking sound as her head collided with the wall. Bucky fury grew at seeing Wanda hurt, and quickly he strained his focus on the woman in front of him. He saw Peter just above him and soon enough Icarus came tumbling towards the ground as Peter managed to web up her wings and land a crashing blow to the woman's jaw, causing her to let out a howl of what Bucky assumed was combined pain and frustration. Bucky barked out a quick "Nice job kid." in Peter direction before saying "Keep her wings webbed up kid." But really Peter never stood a chance, for as soon as Icarus had hit the ground she was stood up again, wings fully stretched out behind her and arms out in front of her, as she spat out in a thick Russian accent "грязный предатель" (hello traitor) towards Bucky. Almost unknowably to Bucky himself her froze, as for the first time he was able to get a proper look at the woman in front of him. "привет солдат, давно не виделись. Он еще не возвращается к вам?" (Hello soldier, long time no see. Is it coming back to you yet?) Bucky stood frozen as a sharp fear stung across his body. He knew her. Or at least the soldier did. In his mind flashed images, none sticking around long enough for him to make true sense of them, but enough for him to know exactly who she was. A grim expression grew on Bucky's face and a silent rage worked its way through his blood stream as he felt every nerve ending firing at once, phantom pains associated with what this woman did to him grew and grew enough for Bucky to take notice. Hatred filled him instantly as recognition grew on his face and he immediately dropped into a defensive fighting position, muscles tense and ready to spring towards the monster in front of him. "давай повеселимся, ладно? Я пришел забрать тебя и черную луну домой" (let's have some fun shall we ? I've come to take you and the black moon home) A stone set in Bucky's stomach at those words and with unhindered, blinding rage he ground out "Like hell you have."
He pounced at her so quickly it was only thanks to her wings that Bucky didn't tackle her to the ground immediately. She immediately pulled herself backwards, but Bucky's pursuit continued strongly and soon enough Bucky was close enough to tackle her to the ground landing a hard blow against her as they rolled for a moment as Icarus' wings encased them both. It was Bucky's metal arm digging into the concrete on the ground that eventually stopped the pairs tumbling and immediately he landed a second string of blows across Icarus' face, punctuating each with a word practically screaming at her, "You will not touch Luna." Above him Bucky heard the tell tale signs of Peter about to shoot his webs and so he jumped back quickly allowing the younger kid to pin down the thick black wings onto the road, giving Bucky an even clearer shot. He stood above her, but spoke in a voice low enough for only Icarus to hear, saying, "You will suffer for what you have done." Bucky began to turn away from her, ready to rejoin the fight against the Hydra agents around the area, but Icarus spoke first. "Oh no Soldat, it is you and the Moon who will suffer."
Bucky let out a piercing scream of agony as three of Hydras electrocution disks embedded themselves into his body, one at the base of his skull, one on his metal arm and another on his chest. Immediately he went crashing to the ground in agony and began writhing on the floor in white hot pain as his body screamed at him that it was on fire, being burnt alive. Across the comms came shouts from his teammates, and above him he could hear the kid cry out "Bucky" but all he could do was cry out in utter destroyed agony. Icarus suddenly flew up off of the ground showing that evidently Peter's webs holding her down had all been a play. But that wouldn't stop the younger man from trying to protect his teammate. Peter jumped down quickly from his vantage point on the side of a building to in front of where Bucky lay on the floor, now scarily quiet. Icarus wasn't going to get a single step closer to his friend if Peter had anything do with it. "Hi there !" He quipped to the woman in front of him. "Cool wings ! Very dark and threatening." He dodged a blow aimed at his head, attempting to web Icarus' feet to the ground as he ducked, only to fail as a purple forcefield created a barrier stopping the webs. Before Peter even knew what was happening a wave of purple energy hit him in the shoulder, knocking him back a few steps, but he was determined to keep his footing, and managed to do so, before quickly telling Karen to switch to taser webs, as he shot various webs at Icarus's wings, causing the woman to let out a feral scream before redoubling on Peter with a vengeance. It was why when Sam swooped down next to Peter alongside Vision, who had at some point appeared from wherever he had been the past few months, (Peter suspected he had mostly come back to make sure Wanda was okay). "You alright kid?" Asked Sam quickly taking in the widened eyes on Peter's suit and the boys obviously quick breathing. "Yeh Mr Falcon I'm okay. Bucky's not though." Sam nodded sharply, saying, "go check on him, me and Vis will deal with bird-girl over here."
Peter didn't need telling twice, and so as soon as Sam had finished speaking he ran over to where Bucky was collapsed on the ground. He tapped on the older mans face, saying "Mr Barnes, are you okay?". When he didn't get a response from the super-soldier Peters tapping grew more frantic, as he called out "Karen what's wrong with him?" The AI, as reliable as ever relied to Peter quickly, saying "Sergeant Barnes had three extremely bad burns on his body, one of which has currently disabled his prosthetic arm. He appears to be unconscious." Quickly Peter took up a mantle next to Bucky, determined to keep him safe from whoever may try to come and take him whilst he was unconscious. Or at last that was what Peter had planned to do. He really did mean it. But then he heard the sickening sound of metal being crushed and he heard Sam crying out in pain. And he lifted his head and saw Vision now in a heap on the floor and Sam being crushed by his own wings, which where shrouded in a purple mist and quit frankly Peter didn't know what to do. His instincts were screaming at him to go and help Sam. And across the other side of the street Nat, Steve and Clint looked like they had the rest of the Hydra agents under control. If he'd have known. God if Peter had known he would never have left Bucky's side, but he didn't know. He couldn't see into the future and so, as much as he would regret it later, Peter left Bucky's side and sprinted towards where Icarus was crushing Sam with his own wings. "Hey bird-girl me again!" Peter called out, desperate to try and distract her from where she currently looked like she was killing Sam. Unfortunately, for both Sam and Peter, it didn't work. Instead of turning her gaze away from Sam she simply waved one of her hands in Peters direction and he suddenly found himself encased in a small dark space. His heart began hammering dangerously fast, as Peters mind immediately convinced him he was back under the building, stuck where Toomes had left him. The memory fucking tortured Peter, and now he was stuck, trapped in a tiny, dark box, made of what looked like cement from the road around him. Peter's breathing was quickly growing faster and faster and with all his might Peter tried to force down the waves of nausea he was feeling. Straight away he starts throwing his fists at the walls of his cage, cries of pain falling out of his mouth every time he hit the concrete and it didn't crumble at all. He was getting more and more distressed, so much so that his eyes began to fog up and his head began to swim, his breathing getting faster and faster as he went.
When a certain mechanics voice suddenly spoke to him through his suit Peter could have collapsed in relief. God bless Karen for thinking of calling Mr Stark. "Hey Underoo's. Karen just called a code bug trap, I need you to do me a favour. Can you just breathe for me Pete ? Follow my own yeh Underoo's ? You're okay. You're not back under that building. I promised you remember? I promised I'd never let that happen. You don't think I'd break my promise, do you kid?" Peter shakily shook his head, pushing out a shaky "N-no Mr Stark, never." Across the comms Peter could practically hear Mr Stark let out a shaky breath of his own. "Thats good kid. Good. Now I need you to follow my breathing yeh ?" Peter decided not to trust his own voice to speak, instead choosing to breathe loud enough that he knew Mr Stark would hear him. Mr Stark kept reassuring him across the comms, helping Peter slow his breathing, until eventually Peter said, "I'm good Mr Stark. Im okay. But I don't know how to get out of here." Tony quickly replied, saying, "well, being the genius I am I planned ahead for something like this. Tell Karen to execute protocol 'Iron Fist'." Peter did just that, and suddenly he saw his fists become covered in another shade of red, what looked like reinforced metal. "Fully shock absorbent kid. Punch your way out of there kid. You got this." Peter nodded his head, steeling himself in the box, before throwing all of his weight behind a blow aimed at the sam spot he had been hitting earlier. The wall began to crumble a little but quickly Peter told Karen to filter out the noise input, as the sound of metal on concrete threatened toy overwhelm Peter again. As soon as he got the affirmative from Karen that the sound was dimmed Peter began again, slamming his newly reinforced fists at the concrete surrounding him, feeling gratified when the wall in front of him started crumbling, and, throwing all his weight behind one last punch, the box collapsed in on itself.
Peter fell to his knees in relief, feeling utterly drained now that he had finally burst out of the box. He was glad Karen had the foresight to dim the light input too, knowing that with his senses if he had come out of the cell straight into the light he probably would've gone into a sensory overload. Peter sat, just catching his breath for a while, mumbling over and over to Mr Stark "I'm out. I'm out," unaware of what was going on around him, or at least he was until Karen slowly started bringing in more and more input from the world around him and not to far away from him Peter could hear the panting breaths and grunts of pain coming from Sam. Instantly, Peter remembered just where he was and as quick as thanos could snap his fingers Peter was on his feet, sprinting towards the man who was steadily being crushed. "Hang on Mr Falcon sir!" Called Pete, as slowly he braced himself on the ground and grabbed each of the metal wings folded in around their wearer, and Peter pulled. Peter didn't know what on earth Icarus had done to make the wings metal so strong, Peter was pretty sure they were normally more pliable than this. Then again, Mr Stark might have just upgraded them. He gritted his teeth and strained harder against the metal, letting out a grunt of effort as he finally pulled the wings open enough for Sam to drop out of his wing pack and fall to the ground, panting and coughing as he tried to catch his breath. Peter dropped onto his knees next to Sam, saying "Are you okay Mr Falcon?" Partly out of concern, and although he wouldn't admit it, partly out of his own exhaustion.
The problem was, you see, that in Peter's panic to get himself out of the cage he had been trapped in and his want to go and help his teammate, he had forgotten about Bucky, and more importantly, he had forgotten about Icarus. Sam turned his head up to Peter, a look painted on his face that looked like a mix of utter despair and fierce determination as he spluttered out to Peter, and everyone on the comms "Icarus is gone. And she took Bucky."
Peters heart sank like a rock in a far too big ocean as he barely chocked out. "We need to get back to the tower. She wants Luna."
-AN-
hi everyone, sorry i missed last weeks upload, my parents are getting divorced and i took some time off to process. Hope you're all good,
Love as always
ERS 3 xx