Chapter 11 – Leads

'You need a break.'

Peter opens his mouth to argue with the sorcerer but closes it again and looks down with a frown at the look on Doctor Strange's face. He knows when he won't win an argument. 'It's harder than I thought it would be,' he admits.

Strange's face softens slightly and he leans back in his chair with a nod. 'I can understand that. Which is why I said you need a break. It's not easy going through someone else's memories, and in this case the being whose memories we are seeing is particularly violent. Something which is very different to your own nature.'

'I'm not so sure anymore,' he murmurs, glad they're in one of the bedrooms away from everyone else.

'Somehow I thought we'd end up with me becoming a therapist,' Strange sighs with a chuckle. 'Everyone can see you're holding something back, Peter. I'll admit I was hoping that this exercise of yours would end up with you confiding at least part of what is troubling you.'

'So, you agreed so that you could get me to spill my secrets not to help find Wanda and Bucky?'

Strange fixes him with a hard look. 'That was uncalled for.'

'I'm sorry,' Peter looks down again. 'I just…sometimes I feel like there's two people inside of me right now, and one of them just wants to use these abilities I have to take out anything I face. Kill them. But…I don't want that. I've never wanted it. So, I don't know why suddenly it seems like I do and…' he trails off.

'And?'

'And…and I'm scared that maybe that's just something I'm telling myself. That the truth…'

Strange allows him to sit in silence while he works up the courage to say what he needs to.

'That the truth is I am a killer. And that's why Beck…that's why his illusions…'

Strange sits up a little straighter then. 'What did his illusions show you?'

Peter bits his lip. 'I killed him,' he admits.

'Killed who?'

He shakes his head. 'Can we do a little more with Venom's memories first please? I think we're close to something and I don't want to get to a point where I can't face going in.'

'Peter-'

'Just once more, Doc,' he pleads, 'then I promise I'll answer all your questions on Beck.'

Strange huffs in frustration. 'This is against my better judgment, and I imagine I'll regret it, but fine. Once more. But then no more until you have answered my questions.'

'Deal,' Peter nods, and prepares himself to face Venom's captivity.


'Look at this!' Shuri shouts in exciting, grabbing the back of Tony's chair and dragging it over to see her screen.

'You know, you could have just waited like a normal person,' he grumbles.

'You always did the same thing to me,' Bruce points out from his place at the coffee table. Tony just sticks his tongue out at him.

'EDITH kept a link to Beck's systems,' she continues, ignoring both of them, 'and even though they've destroyed all the physical evidence of the systems, there's a couple of things they couldn't get rid of. We thought the encryption on the emails was too hard to follow right? So I decided to follow it manually-'

'-and you've found something already?' Clint asks, coming to stand behind them. 'That should have taken days.'

'For you maybe,' Shuri rolls her eyes and Tony has to bite back a grin at the offended look on the archer's face. 'But the trail leads back to a very remote and very well protected farm house right here.' She points to a spot on a map.

'Well protected as in we've got traps waiting to go off around us, or-'

'Don't be ridiculous, Clint, it's just a farmhouse. I'm talking about cyber protection. Thing was like the equivalent of a Fort Knox inside a Fort Knox inside a Wakandan Embassy,' Shuri interrupts.

'But you got through?' Steve asks, coming over.

'Of course,' she says as if the answer was obvious. 'But it won't be where they are being held.'

'Why not?' Bruce asks.

'Because they said where they were being held was like an old castle dungeon or something,' Steve answers, 'and this farmhouse is your normal, everyday farmhouse. I very much doubt they've got dungeons down underneath it, not from the description Loki, Bucky and Wanda gave anyway.'

'But it will be the place where someone linked to HYDRA is holed up,' Clint replies, 'so it's a good place to start.'

'Anything from the illusions side of Beck's work that might be able to help us here? Do you think they could fool satellite images?' Steve asks Tony.

'Not without EDITH,' he shakes his head, 'Beck's tech is advanced, but before he had access to EDITH he was limited to smaller scale illusions.'

'Did he just admit someone else had advanced tech?' Clint puts a hand to Tony's forehead. 'He does feel a little warm.'

'Buzz off bird brain,' he smacks the arm away. 'Besides I say Wakanda tech is advanced all the time!'

'Guys not now,' Bruce groans. 'Where is this farmhouse anyway?'

'Not far from the border in Sokovia,' is Shuri's answer.


Peter comes out of the memory as he falls to the floor, gasping for air and desperately trying to hold himself up as his body shakes violently.

'Peter!' Strange is kneeling next to him, rubbing his back and speaking calmly, getting him to breathe and stop hyperventilating.

'I know that man,' he gasps out, tears running down his face.

Strange continues to instruct him on breathing until, finally, he doesn't feel quite so much like a new born fawn, and is able to breathe regularly again. 'Alright?'

'Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I just-'

'No apologies,' the sorcerer cuts him off. Before he can say anything else there's a knock on the door and Tony comes in.

'What happened?' he asks, hurrying over to them.

'Peter had a bit of shock coming out of the last memory and just needed some time to calm down,' Strange reassures the inventor. Then he adds. 'I'll wait outside with the others until you're ready to join us.'

They're quiet until he closes the door with a soft click, then Tony offers him a hand. 'Come on, Champ, let's get you up.'

Peter takes it and lets the man pull him to his feet and sit him back on the couch. 'Tony, I saw something in Venom's memories that-'

'Woah. Hold on a second there, kid,' Tony smiles at him. 'Before we talk about that I want to talk about Beck.'

'Alright?' Peter can feel his stomach sinking. He knows he messed up badly with Beck, and he's been hoping to put off this conversation as long as possible.

'Now there was a hell of a lot of shit that we'll discuss when we've got Wanda and Bucky back, but there's one thing I'm really disappointed in, Peter, and I feel like we need to talk about it right now.'

'Oh god, I'm so sorry,' he starts babbling, 'I didn't mean to give away EDITH I just didn't know what to do and I was feeling-'

'It's not about EDITH, Pete.'

'Is it about the strike on the school bus? Because I really didn't mean for her to try and kill my classmate, I mean she took that the wrong way and I think we seriously need to look at AI interpretation of instructions-'

'Pete it's not the strike on your classmate.'

'It's not?'

'No.'

'Then is it-'

'It's this,' and Tony takes out his phone and presses play on the screen.

Peter frowns as he recognises the inside of the Stark jet. Happy's voice comes through the speakers. 'You handle the suit. I'll handle the music.'

'Is it because I made a new suit?' he asks, as the music comes over the speakers on the plane.

'Oh, I love Led Zepplin!' he hears himself say. Then Tony presses pause, looking at him with an expectant eyebrow.

'…what did I do?' he asks.

'Led Zepplin? Led Zepplin! Peter how can you have spent so much time with me and not know that you were listening to AC/DC?' Tony demands.

Peter just sits and looks at him with his mouth hanging open. 'That's it? You wanted to have a talk because I confused Led Zepplin and AC/DC?'

Tony frowns. 'Peter Benjamin Parker we need to have a long discussion about your music education.'

'But…but I nearly destroyed London, and gave a maniac control of your tech, and nearly killed a classmate!'

'So?'

'So? That's all you can say: so?' he nearly screams.

The door opens behind them. 'Tony don't you dare tell me you went ahead and talked about the damn band,' Steve's frustrated voice comes from the doorway.

'It was important!' the inventor counters. 'Besides if you want to talk about nearly destroying cities you nearly took out Washington so you can zip it Captain.'

'You know I wasn't going to say anything about it,' comes the response. 'Hell, I'm just impressed he kept all his friends safe.'

Peter looks between the two of them, mouth hanging open. 'But…I…but…' something snaps inside of him and he feels the tears pouring down his face, hot and shameful. He buries his face in his hands, fingers digging into his scalp.

The hum of the reactor fills his ear as Tony's arms fold him into the inventor's chest. On his other side the couch dips from Steve's weight and a hand rubs soothingly up and down his back.

'He made me kill you,' he finally admits. 'He,' he hiccups and continues, 'I shot a web and pulled on something and I looked down and it was the reactor. I looked up and it was just like being back in Wakanda. Except this time I'd taken the reactor out of you, not Thanos. And…and…'

'And I also saw what you did afterwards,' Tony's voice is soft and reassuring. 'I also know I'm only here today because you were the one that got that reactor to me in Wakanda in time.'

'Peter, we all make mistakes on missions. Things go wrong,' Steve's voice is tight, 'hell we wouldn't be in the position we're in now if we were all perfect. The important thing is we put them right when they do go wrong. Out of all of us, you're the one who has shown that the most, and hell kid you're still younger than most of us were when we started in our roles. Except perhaps, Nat.'

'But she's always been an exception,' Tony adds.

'You're the best of us kid,' Steve tells him, 'already you're the best of us. And you're only going to keep getting better. Just don't beat yourself up about things that you can't change, or you'll end up destroying yourself.'

'Can you forgive me?' Peter asks Tony. 'For what I did in that-'

'Peter,' Tony pulls away and forces him to look at him, 'there's nothing to forgive. It was an illusion. It wasn't real. I know that's not who you are. Seems to me you just need to remember that yourself.' Then he gives him a grin. 'But you're so grounded for not knowing AC/DC.'

Peter groans as Steve laughs behind him. 'No, you're not,' he reassures him, 'Captain's orders.'

'There's something we found in Venom's memories,' Peter tells them, feeling a little stronger now he's admitted what happened. 'The guy in charge of the group that took him? I recognised him.'

'Who was it?' Steve asks.

Peter swallows, knowing he's not going to like the answer. 'Zemo. Helmut Zemo, the guy who forced us all to fight in Germany.'

He sees both Tony's and Steve's faces drain of colour, and knows exactly how they feel.


A/N: Hello everyone! I hope you've all had a good week and you enjoy this chapter. Thank you so much for all the support for the story so far, please do let me know what you think of it and if there's anything you'd like to see in the future. I'm going to be catching up with replies tomorrow as I've lost track of what I've responded to and what I haven't and I'm so sorry for that!

Love always,

L x

As always, here's your sneak peek:

A low groan comes from the super soldier. 'They are really not as friendly as they pretended to be.' He manages to push himself onto his back and Wanda tries to bite back on the whimper that escapes at the sight of his bloodied face.

'Bucky…'

'Hey, it looks worse than it is,' he tries to reassure her with a smile, but she can feel the pain he's in.

'No, it doesn't.'