Hi, everyone! Here's the long-awaited Part 2 of The Spiders and Soldier. Thank you for all the support and kindness with Part 1. I really appreciate it. If anyone wants to make a fan-made video about this story to post on youtube, go ahead! I would love to watch it. Just be sure to credit where you got the story from. :)
If you have not read Part 1 yet, I highly recommend that you do. But chapter 2 should help get you up to date on the most important parts.
Enjoy chapter one!
October 13, 2002
SHIELD Triskelion
Washington D.C. United States of America
Clint Barton
"I know what I saw!" said the red-haired woman sitting in the interrogation room. "And it wasn't a Hydra wannabe group."
Agent Rumlow raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"Well, I'm sorry, , but our intelligence doesn't verify your claims at all."
Agent Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye watched from the other side of the two-way mirror with a SHIELD analyst.
Usually, Rumlow wasn't this insensitive, but for some reason, he was treating all of Natasha's heartbreak and trauma like it was a fairytale.
And it was really pushing Clint's buttons.
Who knows? Maybe he would have the same level of skepticism Brock Rumlow had under different circumstances. But Rumlow didn't find the famous Black Widow with a bullet wound in an abandoned warehouse in Warsaw, fighting to stay alive.
Before she escaped, Natasha had sterilization surgery done on her.
It must've really messed with her hormones because she was fighting back tears.
A display of emotion and pain like that would be considered very unprofessional in the espionage world, but Clint let it slide.
She had had a hard couple of weeks.
It was last week when he gave her a mild anesthetic to help with the crude surgery he performed. The anesthetic not only took away the pain, but also helped the whole story come out.
She was a young Red Room agent and she developed feelings for an assassin in some kind of resurrection of Hydra.. They deserted their organizations, eloped, and had a baby.
But a few weeks ago, they were both captured. The husband was brainwashed and the baby was killed. Natasha barely got out alive.
Clint happened to be stationed in Warsaw to monitor an illegal weapons deal. He found out that undercover Polish police officers were already there, so he decided not to risk ruining their covers. On his way back to the SHIELD safehouse, he found Natasha.
She told him that she had nothing left.
She was ready to defect to SHIELD with all the information that she had on the Red Room.
Clint glanced at the SHIElD analyst next to him, May Parker.
"Are you getting this, May?" he asked.
She nodded and scrawled some notes on her clipboard.
Lately, he had treated May with kid-gloves. Only five days ago, her brothers and their wives were killed in a car accident in Germany.
Ben and Richard Parker had been good friends of Clint's so he looked out for May the best that he could.
Of course, he hadn't found out that they died until yesterday when he got back from Warsaw with Natasha.
Natasha's crying had died down. She was now slumped in the chair with her hand over her mouth as she fought back more tears.
Even though he couldn't see him, Rumlow glanced in Clint's direction.
Rumlow sighed. "Look, Agent Romanoff….I understand you've had a very trying past week. But can you accept the possibility that the Red Room might've done additional operations on you? Maybe they made you hallucinate these things?"
"I wouldn't be surprised." Natasha muttered.
Clint was tempted to walk into that room and replace Rumlow with a more sympathetic interrogator. Maybe Coulson or Sitwell.
"He's not buying her story." Clint said grumpily.
May jotted down some more notes.
"It's a part of his job to be this skeptical." she said. "She was a former Red Room agent, after all."
"Do you believe her?" Clint asked.
May's eyes watered slightly.
"That she lost everything? Yes. I believe her."
With that, she strode out of the room.
December 10, 2002
SHIELD Triskelion
May Parker
May Parker was supposed to be reading over the new reports of terrorist movements in
the Middle East, but instead her eyes were glazing over.
She couldn't focus.
Not since the car accident two months ago.
Out of habit, she pulled out her Nokia and replayed her brother, Ben Parker's final voice message to her.
"May, sorry I missed your call earlier. Now's really not a good time to talk."
There was the sound of muffled background noises, almost as if he was running while speaking into the phone.
"You know we're working undercover. We've just discovered something big."
We included himself, his wife, MJ, Richard, and Gwen.
May didn't know what their mission was. That was classified intel that she didn't have access to.
"I'm sending you this PDF. I need you to get this Fury now."
There were a few beeping sounds.
"Oh, great. It's a bad connection. I'll just tell you right now."
There were some other voices. Ben sighed.
"Richard's right. This isn't a safe line. Look, sis. We might not make it out of here. I just want you to know that we love you. All of us. But you already knew that."
The voicemail ended.
They never did find the phone. And they couldn't track his phone's signal because of some kind of protective software he was using.
A search was conducted, but all they found was a wrecked Chevy floating in a river in Germany. Upstream, there had been an oil truck driving on an unstable bridge. The truck crashed into her brothers' car.
Wrong place, wrong time, they had told her.
Some of the SHIElD higher-ups were more concerned about what Ben, MJ, Richard, and Gwen had discovered rather than their deaths. But the lab they had been working undercover at turned out to be a simple chemical engineering lab.
May placed her head in her palms. She let a few tears fall.
Suddenly, she felt someone's hand on her shoulder, tearing her out of her silent grief.
She looked up. It was Agent Phil Coulson, one of SHIELD's top agents.
"Hey, May." he said with a gentle smile.
He gestured towards the darkened office.
"Everybody's gone home for the day. I thought you might want to clock in."
May shook her head.
"I appreciate the offer, but I-um, have some work I need to catch up on."
She forced a smile, but it was a fib and they both knew it.
Phil sat down at the desk next to hers.
"Listening to Ben's voicemail?" he asked.
May nodded and shut her phone.
"You know, Stark Industries recently invented an improved cellular tracking computer program. I know we did a search and investigation two months ago, but do you want to try again?"
A small flutter of hope rose in May. Yes, they had died. But maybe looking into the Parker Brothers case could shed more light into what they had found.
She handed Phil the phone without hesitation.
One week later, they discovered that Ben had been calling from a facility not in Germany, but in Austria.
After May and a few other analysts looked into the facility, they found that it was guarded by heavy security and lots of red tape. Director Fury himself gave the go-sign to bring in a fully armed unit.
Phil, May, and another agent named Laura Quinn ran the mission.
Soon, May found herself sitting in an armored vehicle with Phil, Laura and a few of the STRIKE team members. They were driving up a steep dirt road in the Alps, the engine growling in protest.
May was wringing her hands, trying to steady her nerves.
As much as she wanted to find what her brothers had found, this had also been her first field mission that might pose danger.
Luckily, Laura's sighs and impatient typing helped keep her mind off of her anxiety.
"Are you okay, Laura?" she asked.
Laura looked up from her phone. She tried to smile.
"Yeah, it's just Clint. It's been two days since the Budapest mission was supposed to be over and he still hasn't called me back."
Laura and Clint Barton had been dating for awhile now. Last week, Clint and Natasha were sent on an assassin mission to Hungary. May had the feeling that Laura didn't like the idea of her boyfriend spending so much time with another woman.
But May didn't think Laura needed to worry. From her perspective, Natasha still seemed to be recovering from the loss of her family.
Phil listened to someone on his comm.
"Alright, we'll be there soon." he responded.
He looked at May and the others with a dire look in his eyes.
"The first STRIKE team arrived ten minutes ago. Whoever was working there evacuated."
Laura narrowed her eyes.
"So they knew we were coming?"
Phil nodded.
"Someone tipped them off, apparently. But there were a few personnel left behind to help with the evacuation. They destroyed most of the files, but there's still enough to salvage. Plus, we've found some stragglers that might have important information."
It sounded like a clean-up job now. May breathed a sigh of relief.
She was bracing herself for a full shoot-out.
Eventually, the jeep screeched to a stop.
May slid a gun into her holster and got out with the others.
The higher altitude made her ears pop as she looked at her surroundings.
It was a dark mountain with snow falling onto her hair and into the collar of her coat.
She could barely make out a dark facility built into the side of a mountain.
The three sets of car headlights were the only sources of light.
Agent Rumlow was waiting for them.
"Alright, Rumlow. What do you have for us?" May asked.
Rumlow gave a grim smile.
"I've got five scientists who won't talk, a few files that may or may not be useful, and a whole lot of dead equipment."
"What have you searched so far?" Laura asked as the wind whirled her hair around.
"Only the western side so far. We think there's more stuff deeper in the facility."
Coulson signaled to four STRIKE team members.
"Watch our sixes," he ordered. "Parker, Quinn, and I are going deeper into this place."
May followed the armed group into the facility.
The first five minutes, it looked like a regular office building.
There were clean corridors that snaked around with doors leading into offices and storage closets. The power had been cut, so each agent had a flashlight to light the way.
Then the corridors got bigger.
Finally, they walked into a large lab.
It looked like whoever worked here left in a hurry. There were papers scattered on the floor and most of the drawers were empty.
Someone even went as far as to shoot a few computer monitors.
"Who wanted their work hidden so badly?" Laura asked, looking at a pile of charred papers and equipment.
"Agent Coulson,"
One of the STRIKE operatives appeared from another hallway.
"We found a gym, a shooting range, and sleeping quarters down that way."
"Oh, that's nice." Laura said snarkily. "Human Resources must've put that in there to keep their employees fit."
They walked down the hallway.
Not only was there a shooting range, but a full armory stocked with bulletproof vest, tasers, and guns.
"And human resources also wanted their employees well-armed." May added, looking at a shelf full of grenades.
Suddenly, a sharp cry rang through the air.
She whirled around.
"Did you hear that?"
Phil nodded. "I think we all did."
They heard the noise again. It was hard to tell if it was a human or an animal.
May, Phil, and Laura started down another corridor with the STRIKE team behind them.
Whatever it was, it cried again.
"Okay, that is definitely a human." Laura muttered.
"It could be a trap." Rumlow warned them.
"I'm willing to take my chances." May said, continuing down the hallway even when a few operatives halted.
"Agent Parker," Rumlow said. "The Black Widow came from a place where they use kids to lull people into a fake sense of security. These people probably do it too."
"And that's why we need to save whoever it is." May insisted.
She sensed Laura and Phil following her, which was a relief.
They turned a corner and into a smaller lab that was the size of a classroom.
Like the rest of the facility, it was dark except for a few red fluorescent lights that hung underneath cabinets.
May kept her gun pointed forward as she scanned the lab.
Just as she was about to give up, the child cried again. This time, way louder.
In a corner of the room, was an older man in a lab coat.
They pointed their guns at him.
"Turn around and put your hands where we can see them." Phil ordered.
The man didn't respond.
He continued to pour fluids into an IV pouch.
May's eyes followed the IV until she saw where it ended.
She nearly lost her stomach.
It was a baby with other IVs plugged into him.
He had marks on his arms from injections.
He looked up at the scientist in horror and whimpered.
Hanging on the wall nearby was a clipboard with notes and other data.
In big, bold letters were the words, SUBJECT 1.
This disgusting creep was experimenting on a baby.
May was infuriated.
She cocked her gun at the scientist, this time, she was much closer.
"Back away from the child." she hissed.
The scientist calmly raised his hands and took a few steps back.
"As you can see, the subject is not harmed." the man said.
But May begged to differ.
The clipboard said he was five months old, but the poor baby looked so much smaller. His ribs were completely visible.
Now that the evil scientist was gone, the baby really started to cry.
"How could you?" Laura said in shock. "That's just a baby."
"No." the scientist sneered. "If you hadn't so rudely interrupted my experiment, that child could become something beyond human."
Phil had his gun trained on the man.
"Keep talking, bud."
May began pulling the IVs out of the baby's arm.
As far as she was concerned, they weren't doing him any good.
"May, that might not be safe." Laura said.
"I hope you realize what you're doing." the scientist said. "This child is the key to a new world order. With this new soldier, we will be able to alter the balance of power in ways that would've never been possible."
A soldier. An experiment. A pawn.
That's all they saw in this baby.
May picked him up.
"Shhhhh. It's alright."
The baby's crying died down.
"Who are the parents?" Phil asked.
The scientist's eyebrows raised.
"Why would you be so curious?"
"Did they give up the kid willingly? Or is someone missing a baby?"
May's heart panged with sympathy for this baby's parents. They must be hurting as badly as she did.
The scientist answered.
"It wasn't their place to decide whether or not to give up the child. But I believe the mother was quite resistant."
"And the father?" Laura asked.
"Gone as far as I'm concerned."
May held the baby tighter.
He was an orphan, all alone in a scary facility, being experimented on.
The STRIKE team burst in and handcuffed the scientist.
"Does he have a name?" May asked.
"What was that?" the scientist said.
"Does he have a name?" she repeated with more fervor.
The scientist shrugged.
"Subject 1. That is all."
An evil organization that gave babies numbers instead of names. It made her sick.
The STRIKE team led the scientist out of the room. But May was still holding the baby.
Phil peered down at the baby with a sad look in his eyes.
"At this point, I don't think we'll be able to find the parents."
May nodded.
"Yeah. These people sure like to cover things up."
Another search of the facility determined that there was nothing else of value.
May made her way back outside with the baby. They didn't find any blankets inside, so May kept the baby nestled safely in the folds of her coat.
A few STRIKE people were dragging the scientist into a van.
He caught sight of May and gave a dark smile.
"You care for him. Like one of the other researchers did. She always insisted on calling him Peter."
They slammed the doors to the van before May could ask anymore questions.
She looked at the baby in her arms.
His big, brown eyes stared up at her.
"Peter? Is that your name?"
He cooed softly and her heart melted.
"You wanna take him in?" Laura asked.
"What?"
"No parents, no history. I think you're free to take him." she said with a smile.
May gave a dry chuckle.
"Laura, I can't take care of a baby. I'm-"
She had plenty of excuses. She had a demanding full-time job. She was in no good emotional state to raise a child.
But she stopped herself. Because she had a feeling that she needed this baby just as much as he needed her.
Laura grinned at her hesitation.
"We'll talk it over with Phil. I'm sure he won't object."
Another agent announced that they were finished here.
"Come on," Laura said. "It's freezing out here."
A few weeks later, on Christmas Eve, May sat cross-legged on a new couch in a new apartment devoid of decorations.
She couldn't bring herself to decorate without her family.
But a five-month-old Peter in her arms helped ease the pain.
She tipped the bottle further, so he could suck up the rest of the formula.
His eyes began to droop and soon, he was asleep.
She glanced at the paperwork on the coffee table.
Fury had given her permission to take Peter in. But he wanted him to be a blood relative instead of adopted. It would draw more attention than it should, he had warned her.
May had already chosen to be his Aunt.
She couldn't let herself pretend to be Peter's mother when his real mother might still be out there.
Of course, he would be a Parker. But May was debating on whether or not to give him a middle name.
May caught sight of a picture frame in a nearby moving box.
It was a photograph of her with Richard and Ben.
After their parents died when they were teenagers, Ben was the one to step up and help the younger two through the grief.
In May's eyes, he was a hero.
And that's how she chose the baby's middle name.
Peter Benjamin Parker.
