Chapter 4

Alright so just a quick note - the formatting has been a bit weird lately when I'm moving files over - sorry for the inconvenience if anyone's noticed. If not, I didn't say a word.

Peter clenched his jaw to keep himself from making any noise as they forced him back into their control. Rather than handcuffs though, he was strapped to a metal slab tilted towards the window, what was clearly an experimentation table. The man he recognized as the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent pulled off his mask, storming forward furiously.

"You stupid kid. You think you can stop us just by spewing off a few chemical formulas?" Peter grinned, knowing it must be quite the image considering how beat up he looked.

"Yeah, I do actually." pressure was put on his broken ribs and he slammed his head back against the metal, trying not to cry out. When the pressure was relieved, he took shallow breaths, watching the men carefully. "You won't be able to recreate the super soldier serum from their blood. Even if they did give you the samples, which they probably won't, there isn't any of the serum left. In both cases, their DNA was genetically altered – but there's no way to isolate the changes to recreate, or in certain cases, reverse the effects." he continued glaring, his temper reaching its limits. "So basically, whatever you were hoping to accomplish is already a failed attempt, and you've just brought hell down on your heads."

The ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent rolled his eyes.

"You think their blood was all we wanted?" Peter scowled, clearly unamused.

"Well, considering your penchant for stupid ideas, I'm not really surprised." he expected a blow and was actually caught completely by surprise when none came.

"Your first thought when we took you was that we wanted to lure your parents out. If blood was all we were after, we would've just given a ransom call right away. No, the higher ups want the so called super heroes taken out. What better way to get them where we want them than to have their kid beat up and threatened?"

"They aren't stupid. They're going to suspect that you're planning a trap."

"That doesn't mean they won't willingly walk into it for you."

Peter didn't think he'd ever wanted to kill someone as badly as he did now. Sure there had been the aliens, and it'd been a kill or be killed scenario, but otherwise he'd always left the actual punishment to the authorities. He just subdued. Right now though, facing this guy who was having him beat up just to enrage his family into walking into a trap unprepared, he wanted to kill him.

"Well, even if they do, you'll be hard pressed to actually do much damage."

"That's why we're keeping you around."

Peter stiffened, and he wondered briefly if the plan was actually to kill him before he could get out of there. He mulled the thought over – it wasn't the first time he'd been in life threatening danger. He glanced around, taking in the metal bands around his wrists, and the one that spanned across his chest. Of course, he found it odd that his ankles were left unbound, but he supposed it was because they didn't think he was a big enough threat to completely incapacitate, and they clearly weren't planning on doing any experiments just yet. He realized then that he'd really have to be careful about these people getting their hands on his own blood. He knew what it looked like, and he knew it too wasn't completely human. He didn't need that being discovered sooner than later. Hell, he hadn't even told his folks about his secret identity, he certainly wasn't going to in any way give it up to these goons.

"So, tell me about these experiments you're hoping on doing to me. I can't help but be curious as to what is so important that you risked the fury of the Avengers." the man just gave him a look before looking to the corner where a man in a lab coat was waiting, clearly nervous. He nodded, and the man seemed to go beat red, looking down at the file in his arms.

"Your father was a geneticist known for a theory he was working on with Doctor Curt Connors, a theory on cross-species genetics."

"Yeah, I heard about that when Dr. Connors turned into a giant lizard and rampaged the city." the scientist nodded, clearly growing more confident as he stepped more into his element. "We believe that your father was interested in the idea of a better human, just as much as Dr. Erskine was during the second world war when he – um – created your – um – adopted father, Captain Rogers. We think, however, that instead of creating this new race of humans through a separate source, he was taking DNA from species that already existed."

"Well, that's not only creepy, but hard to believe. Of course, I'm not sure how that involves me. Unless of course you just think it's poetic justice to test my biological fathers theories on me."

"Despite the rumours about your father's unethical practice of testing serums on his child and it being the reason for his death, in truth, you are no better than any other candidate." the man stuttered, but he stepped a bit closer, peering up at Peter with curious brown eyes. "But your reflexes are surprisingly fast considering your youth and lack of training, and you are stronger than we would expect based on your size. I assume your family has trained you in self-defence as you've demonstrated quite splendidly," his praise was cut off by a clearing of the agents' throat, and he flinched before resuming his speech. "It makes your body far more likely to withstand any testing when you have the health and stamina of someone much larger than you appear to be. I'll begin by comparing your blood to that of Captain Rogers, since he was a successful mutation of the human DNA. There may be a way to isolate genomic similarities between the un-mutated and mutated blood. Then once that is done, both will be compared to that of Dr. Banner, because we really don't need a repeat of that... result."

"Well, those are some interesting intentions, but even if you could manage to get my blood and the cap's, how would you get -"

"That's enough." the man in the lab coat flinched away from Peter, returning to his corner as the agent approached him, clearly unamused. "He doesn't need to know anything more. In fact, I think you should extract his blood now. We want to make sure we have a sample to move as quickly as possible in case something happens to the source when the others get here." the words were clearly supposed to be threatening, but Peter just glared. The man in the lab coat went about preparing to draw blood, rolling over a tray with rubbing alcohol, cotton pads, the needles, and what Peter assumed was another tranquilizer dart, just in case. He was just cleaning the inside of his elbow with alcohol when the building shook with an explosion. The military men were instantly in action, and with barely a glance at him, the agent was waving all but one of his men out of the room.

"You – stay here and keep an eye on the doctor. Once he's taken the blood sample get him and the kid out of here. You know the next location." the soldier nodded, moving to guard the door. The building shook again but the soldier stood firm.

"Continue doctor." the doctor nodded, glancing nervously up at Peter. Peter glanced briefly at the release button to the metal encasing him before staring intently at the doctor, and watched the doctors eyes flicker in the direction of the soldier.

"I can handle it. You know I can." the doctor gave a shaky breath, preparing to slip the needle under his skin. When he hesitated, the soldier came forward, obvious not as patient as the agent in charge.

"What's taking so long." he pointed his weapon threatening at where the doctor stood on Peter's other side, and Peter looked at the doctor, giving a quick nod. Before he was even released, Peter swung his legs up, ignoring the pain flaring in his ribs, knocking the soldier away. The doctor hit the release button and he was free, springing forward to knock the soldier back, grabbing the tranquilizer dart of the table and jabbing it into his neck. The soldier dropped like a stone and Peter glanced at the doctor.

"Got any more of those on hand?"

Steve lead the assault into the water plantation, Barton immediately moving to a position where he could use his sniper-like focus to take down enemies from afar while Tony circled in the air, coming down only when it looked like Steve or Natasha needed a bit of backup while they fought their way through the guards on the first floor of the facility.

"Peter's probably a good 3 or 4 floors down." Tony noted, as they finally made it to the emergency stairwell. "How do we want to play this?"

"I'll keep an eye on the exit. We know they're here and I don't plan on letting them get out." Clint noted through their earpieces. A group of soldiers appeared in the stairwell, firing at them, and Tony took them out with a single blast from his palms, watching as Natasha flipped over the banister to land down among them. She grabbed the one that seemed to be the most conscious and slammed him against the wall.

"Where's the boy?" she demanded, and when he didn't answer immediately, she spun him around, twisting his arm behind his back. They all heard the pop when his shoulder was forced out of its socket but she kept twisting.

"Fourth floor down!" he screamed, and Natasha slammed his head against the concrete wall, waving the others after her as she headed down the stairs.

"Just like that, then." Tony noted, and they followed her down, pausing only briefly at the door to the floor. Steve gave a nod, grabbing the handle and opening the door just for Tony to turn into the doorway, blasters shooting the soldiers back, and the other two ducked in after him.

"What are we looking for?" Natasha asked, guns in hand as she ducked and rolled into the entrance to an adjacent hallway, pulling the triggers without hesitation.

"Any sign of Peter or the man you heard on the phone." she nodded and was off, disappearing from sight, and Steve looked to Tony. "I'll go straight ahead, you take the other hall. Keep in touch." Tony just nodded, hand incased in metal grasping Steve's shoulder briefly before he passed, searching for their son.