This is a fan made story. I don't own the rights to Captain America, any of its characters or any characters within the MCU… Much to my disappointment. This will have some violent content and possible triggers. Steve/Bucky Established Relationship. Constructive criticism is welcome but if you don't like it simply because you don't like the line of thinking, please don't attack me for it.
Author's Note: Sorry, I know this is delayed. I have been having major writer's block. This chapter I am changing things up a bit and starting off with Natalia's POV and the chapter is starting slightly before the end of Chapter 17's end conversation with Natasha, Tony and Bruce.
Chapter 18: Conspiracy and Trust
Natalia had been observing her parents closely since they had rescued her. Her mommy seemed to be unhappy with Bruce, and her daddy, while he did spend a lot of time with her, seemed to get angry a lot and needed a lot of hugs to calm down. She wondered if daddy was always like this or it was just because her and the others being found had changed his life.
She contemplated these things while doing one of the boringly easy math equations that her new tutors had her working on. Her mind filtered out the chatter of how best to solve the math equations for that lesson while she thought about how best to cheer her daddy up. As she thought about it, she settled on food as that was what seemed to make Rebecca, Sarah, George and Joseph happy. Uncle Steve and Uncle Bucky also seemed to like it a lot and everyone seemed to be happiest when they were eating.
With a nod as the tutors left for the day, Natalia watched as the afternoon nanny sat down nearby. Once the nanny was focused on the twins, who had started crying to be fed again, Natalia pulled Sarah and Rebecca into a corner of the room where the adults wouldn't notice them. Once they were alone, she laid out her plan. When she finished she looked to the two other girls, "So, do you think it will work?" She asked. She might be the smartest of them but she wasn't always the best at figuring out how to make people do what she wanted. Rebecca was better at that.
"We can't. We would need an adult to help us. Daddy will get mad if we use the stove without an adult present. Besides, we don't know how to make pancakes," Rebecca pointed out.
"What's this about pancakes?" The nanny, Natalia hadn't really bothered to learn her name, asked.
Natalia hesitated, mulling over Rebecca's words before answering, "I want to surprise daddy and mommy and everyone with breakfast." Natalia decided that if they needed to have an adult's help, then it may as well be the nanny.
"Hmm… Well, you do need an adult to help you cook a breakfast… but… I think I might be able to help you there. I know how to cook and how to keep a surprise a surprise," Ms. Milford, Natalia's brain finally supplied the name of the nanny who had been generally ignored up until this point since being hired. Natalia had spent most of her time that wasn't in lessons with Dr. Culver or Dr. Corrin with her daddy.
"I think that could work," Natalia nodded, satisfied with her coconspirator's offer.
"How do we get around FRIDAY?" Sarah asked. "Won't she tell daddy or uncle Tony if we get up before they do?"
Rebecca shrugged, "Ask her not to? I mean, if we have an adult to help us, we aren't breaking any rules or hurting anyone. She's supposed to want Uncle Tony to be happy, right? This is to make him happy, so she should cooperate."
"I agree," Ms. Milford nodded as she spoke. "So, when are we implementing operation Breakfast?"
"Tomorrow morning," Natalia stated firmly. "You should be her by four because Uncle Steve and Uncle Bucky wake up really early."
Ms. Milford nodded her understanding, "Very well. I will be up before the sun."
Natalia instinctively responded by correcting her, informing the woman how much earlier than the sun she needed to be to be ready on time. Rebecca rolled her eyes, "Do you need me for this or can I sleep until my normal time?"
"I guess I will be okay with just Ms. Milford if you don't want to help," Natalia pouted a little.
"I'll help!" Sarah commented a bit loudly, thankfully the rest of the other adults hadn't noticed that they were conspiring.
"Well, if you don't need me, I'm sleeping while I can," Rebecca shrugged. She wasn't that attached to Uncle Tony, like Natalia was.
They went their separate ways as Natalia's daddy came and took her to his lab. The car that they had been building together for her birthday was almost finished, he assured her. They just needed to pick out the color for the car and he would have some interns paint it because the fumes weren't good for little kids.
Once she picked her color, electric blue, her daddy put her in front of a screen and FRIDAY started to explain all the parts needed to create her own computer. Natalia happily immersed herself into the creative world of computers and programing, only pausing briefly to ask FRIDAY not to wake her daddy in the morning when Sarah, Ms. Milford and she were making the adults breakfast. The AI agreed easily enough since, as Rebecca said, they weren't breaking any rules or hurting anyone by doing it.
The rest of her afternoon was spent in the lab with her daddy. He would occasionally have her pause in her computer building lesson to run an idea past her. She wasn't sure why he thought she should give her opinion of opening up the company to designing non-lethal weaponry for the police to lower the death rates of cops killing innocent people but she told him it sounded like a good idea. When she asked him why he thought her opinion matter, his answer made her freeze, "Because, one day, this company will be your company. I want you to know the ins and outs of it from the start."
Her daddy would say things like that occasionally. She didn't know why it was so important to him but she didn't mind. She liked to spend time with him. Natalia had found that, unlike most people, even her tutors, her daddy was smarter than she was. If he was smarter, than she could learn from him, plus, he understood her when she got excited about learning something new. It was for this reason that she wanted to make him happy. If she could make him happier, less grumpy, maybe he could teach her even more.
Eventually, her lessons with her daddy were at an end as Pietro came into the lab and told them that it was time for dinner. Natalia had found that she really liked to eat, now that the food was yummy and not like what they fed at the facility. She happily allowed her daddy to pick her up and bring her to the elevator. Uncle Bucky had made supper with Rebecca, something that Natalia was curious about and why she had asked Rebecca to help with her plan, Rebecca had been learning how to cook.
Ms. Milford had already left for the day along with the other nanny, Jason Thompson. Rebecca quietly whispered to her that FRIDAY had told her that they were a go for the plan. Natalia smirked in satisfaction at the news. She tried to follow her mommy's movements to eat, like she was being taught. Mommy insisted that it was important to eat in a dignified way. It wasn't always easy, after all, at the facility, they weren't allowed forks or knives, just spoons and they were always watched closely with them. Of course, only Rebecca was allowed to use a knife now, but Natalia knew that was because she was little and not because she wasn't trusted to not hurt others with it.
After supper, Wanda and Pietro watched a dinosaur documentary with them as the other adults went off to do adult things. Pietro and Wanda gave Natalia and the other kids chocolate milk and carrots to nibble on while they watched their documentary. At the end of the second one that they watched, Natalia's daddy came and collected her, declaring it was bedtime. Natalia had gradually become accustomed to her daddy's odd definition of 'bedtime'. The others said that their bedtime was a bit like it was at facility, only now it came with silly, made up stories and hugs and kisses. Natalia got the hugs and kisses from her mommy, like the others did, but she didn't have to lay down and go to sleep until she was ready to. Daddy said it was because she didn't need as much sleep as the other kids did.
Instead, she got to watch daddy work or watch more documentaries or have another lesson with FRIDAY until she was sleepy. When she was finally sleepy, she would just curl up in her daddy's arms and he put her in her bed in the room next to his when he went to bed himself. Tonight, she worked on building a virtual computer, carefully piecing together the bits on the screen with care until she grew drowsy.
Natalia had no problems with waking early in the morning, she always did. She was quiet as she picked up the clothes that mommy had laid out for her the night before. It had become a normal routine, once mommy realized that Natalia would always wake first and could dress herself, she started to just set out her clothing for the next day.
After she was dressed, Natalia carefully slipped out of her bedroom and sneaked to the elevator. She needed to wake Sarah up to help with making breakfast. Ms. Milford would be here soon. FRIDAY was quiet too, keeping the elevator from ringing when she reached Sarah and Rebecca's floor. She crept carefully to Rebecca and Sarah's room and woke Sarah up. Rebecca woke briefly as Natalia helped Sarah dress but just went back to sleep, wanting to get it when she could. Sarah kept yawning as Natalia led her back to the elevator and they took it up to the common floor.
"What now?" Sarah asked once they reached the main floor.
"Ms. Milford should be here soon. Maybe we should start getting the stuff out so that we can begin when she gets here," Natalia suggested.
"Ok. Daddy uses a funny pan for pancakes. It is flat and rectangular instead of round like he uses when making other stuff like bacon," Sarah commented. She had been allowed to watch her older sister and father cooking while Natalia was in the lab so it made sense that she knew what pan was needed.
Sarah led her over to the cabinet where the pans were kept and they started pulling them out to find the funny looking pan. It didn't take much effort since Uncle Steve made pancakes a lot. Natalia got a big circular pan too because Uncle Steve always made bacon with pancakes and so they would probably need both. Natalia let Sarah put the rest back into cabinet like they were supposed to be. After that, Sarah said they would need a bowl too, to mix stuff in. This made sense, so they found a big bowl and put that on the counter as well.
Natalia had realized at this point that they would need to be higher up in order to do any mixing or cooking. She and Sarah worked to move two stools from the nearby bar over to the counter. It was just then that a wide-awake Ms. Milford got off the elevator. She laughed, congratulating them on getting some of the prep work done before she arrived. Ms. Milford set both girls on the stools they had moved over to the counter and then went about the kitchen, collecting the ingredients that they would need to make pancakes and bacon. When she had most of the ingredients on the counter, she suddenly started to look a little concerned and went through the higher up cabinets a few times before sighing.
"Well, that is no good. There's no flour. We can't make pancakes without flour," Ms. Milford pouted. "Sorry girls."
Bother Natalia and Sarah immediately protested, asking if there was anything that could be done, "Well… There is a nearby convenience store that was open when I was coming here. We could go and see if they have flour. Most of those places do have it, even if it is a bit more expensive then at a regular store."
"Are you certain that you can't find the flour?" FRIDAY asked.
"Positive. Pancakes are out of the question without it. Flour is the most important ingredient," Ms. Milford sighed.
"Then we have to go get it!" Sarah demanded. Natalia realized that she wanted to cook something for her daddy and papa as much as Natalia wanted to do for her own.
"Okay. Well, you two are dressed. Just need shoes I suppose," Ms. Milford didn't seem to have much issue with the idea and led them over to a shelf that had recently been installed holding all the kids' shoes.
Natalia worked quickly to put her own shoes on while Ms. Milford helped Sarah put hers on. Once they had their shoes on, they got on the elevator and FRIDAY brought them down to the lobby. Ms. Milford and the girls sneaked past the sleeping guard on duty with ease. Once they were out of the tower, all three giggled in excitement.
Ms. Milford picked up Sarah and held Natalia's hand as she walked them a few blocks away and then turned down an alley, "This is a short cut." She stated as she tugged a suddenly reluctant Natalia down it.
Natalia's instincts suddenly started screaming that something was wrong, "Let's turn back. We can make something else." She resisted against the grip that was growing a lot tighter.
"Nonsense. We're almost there. You said you wanted to make pancakes for you daddy," Ms. Milford pulled her harder now, the grip on Natalia's hand almost painful.
"No! I want to go home," Natalia screeched now, upsetting a nervous Sarah in the process, causing the younger girl to start struggling against the arm holding her to Ms. Milford's side.
The grip on her hand suddenly turned to absolute iron and Natalia could feel the bruise forming the instant another, much larger hand appeared out of the shadows to grab her upper arm in a tight grip, "Idiot girl, you are going home." The newly arrived man growled out.
"You only got two?" Another man appeared from the shadows.
"The most useful two," Ms. Milford snarled as she shoved Sarah into the man's arms. "And I did it without a fight. Much more than you can say."
Natalia was now fighting with all her might, "NO! I won't go back! Daddy! Mommy! HELP!" She screeched frantically, realizing that these people were Hydra. Sarah was also struggling against the man holding her and screaming too.
"Oh! For fuck's sake, get them in the van!" A third man growled as he grabbed Natalia from the other two, he swore at the girl kicked out and bit his hand when he attempted to cover her mouth with it.
Before he could do more, something, or rather someone, hit him from behind, knocking him out cold. Natalia was shoved away from him in a flash by the mystery person and fell silent in her surprise. Less than two seconds later a sobbing Sarah was thumping next to her as the man who held her was unconscious. It was another few seconds before Ms. Milford and the third man were unconscious too.
The guy who had knocked them all out, was crouching in front of Natalia as soon as the last had fallen to the ground, "Shit! You two are the Avenger's kids! How did these lowlifes get their hands on you? Never mind. Let's get you two back to Avengers Tower before they tear apart the city looking for you two."
Sarah was in too much shock to fight the teenaged boy who picked her up and Natalia was in too much awe of her rescuer to argue with him. She was startled when he picked her up too and held her wrapped around his front while Sarah was on his back, "Hold tight you two. I gonna run just in case these guys wake up. The sooner you are back home, the safer you'll be."
Natalia clung to him tightly as he did exactly as he said he would and began running. Natalia felt something lighted bumping her legs for the few minutes while the teen sprinted them back to the tower. When he got there, he started swearing up a storm when he realized he couldn't get the doors open and started alternating between banging on the doors and trying to yank them open.
Natalia realized that FRIDAY was probably holding them shut with a magnetic lock, "FRIDAY! Let us it!" She yelled at the door over her shoulder and the teen fell backward a little as the door he was yanking on suddenly opened. Sarah was still crying as they entered to lobby which immediately woke the on-duty guard.
"I want Daddy! Papa!" Sarah sobbed as she slid off the teen's back and thumped on the floor, her crying and screaming getting louder.
Natalia, glanced out towards the doors and in a strike of inspiration, "FRIDAY! Don't let Ms. Milford in! She's Hydra! And don't let this guy out! He saved us!" Natalia called out.
"Acknowledged, Ms. Stark. Your parents are on their way down," FRIDAY responded. Natalia silently noted that the AI sounded a bit annoyed.
The teenaged boy looked a bit panicked as the elevator popped open a few seconds later and most of the Avengers, in their sleepwear, were flooding out and rushing to the two girls. He pressed against the doors, once more attempting to get them to open only to find that, once more, they wouldn't. At first, the Avengers were focused on the two girls, most clustering around Sarah who was still sobbing, though now it was in her daddy's warm embrace. Natalia was the center of her Mommy, Daddy's and Bruce's attention.
Once their parents had made a cursory assessment of them to make sure they were okay, Natalia's daddy asked what happened. Natalia didn't hesitate to explain that she just wanted to make them breakfast and what had happened. The teen was still standing with his back pressed against the doors, hoping they would open, or maybe that he would phase through them, when Wanda and Pietro focused on him when Natalia pointed him out.
Before Natalia could blink, Pietro had the teen in a choke hold and Wanda was examining his mind, her hand glowing red near his head. The teen's eye's glazed over until Wanda pulled away, "He heard them crying for help and saved them. He is also terrified of us." Wanda announced while Pietro released the teen.
Peter had never imagined that he would be standing in Avengers tower under the full gaze of most of the Avengers, but then, he also had never imagined he would get bitten by a genetically modified spider. In all honesty, he had been dumpster diving for old computer parts when he heard the oddest argument he could imagine. At first, he had frozen in the dumpster he had been in because he heard a van enter the alley. He quietly had settled in to wait out the sudden arrivals out. While what he was doing wasn't technically illegal, a lot of people got a bit touchy if they realize you are going through their dumpsters.
He had come to Manhattan in hopes that he would find some lightly used tech that the wealthy had thrown out because they could afford to, maybe a perfectly good motherboard or five thrown out due to a broken screen. He had been having a bit of success too. A Blu-ray player and two laptops. No telling exactly what was wrong with them before he got home but it was usually an easy fix that the wealthy didn't bother with. Then, he could sell the repaired stuff to a pawn shop for a decent price. He was contemplating the prospect of getting a good windfall out of this when her heard the little girls start screaming.
When both made it clear they were being taken against their will, Peter realized that he couldn't not act. He was super powered after all. Sure, he hadn't managed much with it yet but he couldn't sit and listen to a couple of kids getting kidnapped in the early predawn. He grabbed a good, solid piece of chair leg that had been in the dumpster next to him and flipped out the dumpster as fast as possible.
He quickly brought the bit of wood up against the temple of the guy holding the girl screaming the loudest. It was only his reflexes the kept the man from crushing the poor girl as he fell to the ground. Peter then spun and took out the other guy with the second girl. This one went down as quickly as the first, still surprised by the attack. The other two, one of them a woman, were only slightly more prepared for his attack. All told, it was probably less than a minute between the time that he had exited the dumpster and the four would be kidnappers were out cold on the alley floor.
That was when he focused on the two girls. Peter nearly had a panic attack when he recognized them too. It would be hard not to, even in the dim light, his new powers made his sight good enough to recognize two of the faces that had been plastered all over the news since it first came out that the Avengers had kids, or some of them did at least. It was a little disconcerting how easily the two girls allowed him to gather them up considering that they were almost just kidnapped, but he pushed that aside as he figured maybe they trusted him because he just saved them.
He really didn't have a choice, when he thought about it. He had to get them back to the tower before someone else took it into their heads to kidnap the girls. Once they were securely holding onto him he picked up his nearby back pack that held his loot and ran for the tower, now really grateful for the strength that came from that blasted spider bite.
He was relieved that he got them to the tower with no issue right up until he couldn't get the damned doors to open. The kid clinging to his front screeched something at the building while he yanked on the door, it was a day of the week or something and suddenly the door popped open like it really should have when he first tried. He managed to regain his balance without falling on the ground, though with the two kids, it was a close thing. The girl on his back released him once they were in the lobby, plopping to the ground and crying for her fathers.
The one on his front also released him and Peter sighed in relief, slowly edging back to the door. The red-haired kid, Stark's he thought, was yelling the day Friday again and then giving an order to what he presumed what the on-duty guard that was apparently barely awake. Then the building started talking back, he made his first subtle attempt to open the door and leave only to realize it was once more shut tight, not opening for him.
When the Avengers came out of the elevator, Peter started to contemplate all the ways he could maybe escape if they didn't notice him. Maybe he could break the glass of the doors. Or maybe he could magically start phasing through things like that one guy, Vision, did. Fortunately, they were more focused on their kids than on him, that was until Stark's kid started telling them what happened. Then the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver had him in their powers. He felt the flash of the Witch making him relive what happened before Quicksilver released him. Now it was his turn to thump to the ground. The next few minutes were fuzzy. When he really became aware again, his head was throbbing and there were people talking around him.
As he turned his head to look in the direction of the voices, Peter realized that it was full daylight out. That meant way more than a few minutes had passed, meaning he had blacked out. The next thing he realized was that Stark's kid was staring at him with avid curiosity. She smiled at him when she realized he was awake, before turning to look over her shoulder, "Daddy! Peter's awake!" Her shouting made his head throb even harder.
His groan brought an Asian woman forward, she held out some aspirin and a glass of water, "Here, take this. Wanda's powers tend to cause headaches, even when they aren't being used on you."
Peter sat up and took the pills and sipped the water to wash it down. As soon as the glass was taken by the woman, Stark's daughter was climbing into his lap, much to his surprise. The other little girl had joined her while he was sitting up and snuggled in next to him as well.
"Seems Natalia and Sarah have taken a liking to you. Not too surprising since you did save them from a kidnapping," Captain America sat in a chair near the couch he had been laying on.
"Ah… Yeah… That was just luck, really. I was dumpster diving for discarded tech. I collect it, repair it and sell if for spending money. When I heard the girls screaming… I guess the adrenaline kicked in and I took the kidnappers by surprise…" Peter shifted a bit uncomfortable under the gaze of the core members of the Avengers.
"You don't need to lie to us kid. Wanda pulled the incident from your head, along with a few other more… mentally guarded facts that explained the situation. Genetically modified spider bite? Definitely a new one," The Black Widow sat on the arm on the couch next to him as she spoke.
"I don't know what you're talking about?" Peter attempted weakly.
"Try again, Peter," Peter froze as his aunt came around from behind the couch. He started banging his head against the back of the couch as she sat opposite of him. "How long were you going to wait to tell me that you have super powers?"
"Aun-aunt May! What-what are you doing here?" Peter nearly squeaked out as she stared him down.
"Mr. Stark called me when he found your cellphone after you fainted. You still haven't answered my question. When were you going to tell me, Peter?" Aunt May stared at him in concern.
"Um… Never?" Peter cringed, knowing how bad it sounded but at the same time knew it would be worse if he tried to lie his way out of the situation.
May sighed before looking away and towards the other Avengers and then standing, "Okay, fine! It isn't like I can force him to stop without locking him in a very sturdy cage anyways. But you had better make sure he has the proper training to handle a fight and make his suit bullet proof at least, he's still only fifteen and the only family I have left. And Stark, I swear to God, if something happens to him, I will personally castrate you… With a rusty butter knife. Is that clear."
"Wait… What just happened," Peter asked but was mostly ignored by everyone.
"I know, you have threatened me with a butter knife three times already. Why haven't you threatened anyone else with one?" Tony asked, curious as he faced off with her.
"Because you are the only one of the Avengers that I stand a chance against in a fight… at least without your suit I stand a chance against you. Well… that and I am pretty convinced that it is your fault Peter is going the whole super hero route with his life. He's idolized you since you saved his life at the Stark Expo when he was seven. If not for you, he wouldn't be this crazy," May shrugged and took her seat across from Peter again. "If you get yourself killed, I will never forgive you. Is that clear? You let the others die before getting yourself killed if that's what it takes."
"That's a little dramatic, isn't it?" Captain America spoke again, his low voice startling Peter.
"Ms. Parker, I assure you, if Peter is ever in the field with us, we will do everything in our power to ensure that he isn't harmed," That was Hawkeye, Peter realized that they must have been talking his aunt around while he was unconscious.
"So… I can be Spider-man?" Peter asked uncertain but hopeful based on the conversation.
"I don't like it. I won't be happy about it… but you and I both know that you are as stubborn as your Uncle Ben was and that made him damn near insane," May responded.
"Yay! We get to keep Peter!" The red-head in Peter's lap cheered, accidently whacking him in the face with her upraised arms in the process.
"Well… not keep per say, Natalia. More like he will be coming to the tower frequently to train with Steve and Mommy," Stark corrected her though her excitement hadn't diminished.
"I want him to come to my birthday party! And Aunt May too!" Natalia declared.
"Careful there, Parker. If you aren't, Natalia might try to lock you up in her room to keep," Hawkeye chuckled.
Based on the glint in the almost four-year-old's eye, Peter suspected that Barton was right. After things were discussed a little more, Peter and May were both given Stark Phones for emergency use. Peter's had a calendar filled out with a schedule for the rest of the summer. It included five am wake-ups and him being at Avengers Tower by six for a two-hour training session with the Avengers before he began his day working as an Intern for Stark Industries.
Tony, Peter found that the Avengers didn't like being referred to by their super hero names, explained that Peter had to have a valid reason to be around the Tower so frequently and although officially he was an Intern for Stark Industries, in actually, he would be mostly just running errands for the Avengers that worked in the company. It would give him an opportunity to get to know the team and at the same time, no one would bat an eye at him being around the tower since Stark Industries had plenty of interns as a tech company.
After the explanations were completed, they took him on a tour around the tower. Tony made and offer for him and Aunt May to take a full floor apartment in the tower. Peter suspected that this wasn't the first one at May's expression and that Tony didn't press the issue. After the tour, they were brought back up to the common floor and Peter was able to grab his bag before he and May headed back to their Queens apartment.
When they got home, Peter escaped to his room, temporarily avoiding the long conversation that would be coming once his aunt got him cornered. He looked in his bag and found the tech he had collected had a companion in the form of a Stark Laptop in a protective sleeve. He examined it carefully and gaped when he realized that this wasn't a model on sale. It was clearly a custom build. What it did and its features remained to be seen but he suspected it did a lot more than the standard Stark laptop.