Chapter Nine

It wouldn't be easy to outsmart Natasha Romanoff, Peter knew that. She was the other one HYDRA had warned him about besides the buff captain and the witch. Despite her human status she was smart and quick witted, better than that fool Stark.

Which also meant it would be harder to overpower her, especially in his weakened state thanks to the drugs they gave him, but at least he was free now and these were regular ropes which he could easily rip in half.

But not now, for starters it would be too anticlimactic. He would play with her for a bit, like a cat plays with a mouse.

She was already rattled with the fact Peter brought up that her own past wasn't exactly squeaky clean. He just needed to push a little harder, but at the same time he needed to act quickly. No doubt her Avenger friends were hanging outside like flies.

Peter hardly flinched when the red head pulled out a small dagger and placed it in front of him. Peter didn't even blink, he had been through worse. He still thought being electrocuted was the worse form of torture, not a small dagger.

"Do you know what this is, Peter?" Natasha started swirling the dagger around in the air. "It's a dagger. I got it all the way from Germany, they truly make the best weapons there. Now I don't want to hurt your pretty face, but we are going to need some answers."

Peter didn't even flinch when she pressed the knife against his cheek. She wouldn't dare.

The Black Widow may have a former, dangerous past, but she had turned soft. Half of the Avengers already thought he was a sad puppy, she wouldn't-

The dagger was lowered down his cheek, cutting him, and dropping red blood on the table. That little bitch-

"I'm not kidding, kid," Natasha said coldly as she licked the blood from her lips. "Either you start talking, or I'll make you talk."

Something bubbled inside Peter's chest. It was anger mixed with dread. When he had been kidnapped after his parents had been killed the HYDRA doctors had said something similar. At the time Peter had been young, fragile, he hadn't been able to fight back.

Well, he wasn't fragile anymore and he wasn't going to be traded from being HYDRA's prisoner to being the Avengers' lap dog.

Natasha raised an eyebrow when she saw Peter's cut slowly healing. "Your healing abilities are quite impressive. Might have to go in a little deeper on the other cheek."

Peter's eyes flashed and it took exactly three seconds for him to rip apart the ropes which had tied him to the chair, grip the knife away from Natasha, and jab it against her throat.

Her eyes widened as blood started pouring down her mouth. Her hands touched her neck shakily, obviously Peter had moved too fast, she hadn't been expecting it at all. "Y-You-"

Peter raised the knife again, this time determined to slice her entire throat off even if it meant removing her head. "If you're still talking then that means you are still alive."

The door slammed open, and Peter couldn't help but smirk. So they were spying. His brown eyes caught the attention of Wanda, but she looked different, agitated. Her eyes were red while her hands moved in Peter's direction with some red waves or something equally creepy forming above them.

Peter felt a sharp pain in the back of his head. Memories started flooring inside his head. Receiving the news his parents were dead. Stuffed in the back of a car. Tortured with beatings, starvation, and electrocution, crying himself to sleep, being injected with the spider venom almost daily.

Then everything went black.

"Bruce and Dr. Hahn said everything will be fine. She just needs a lot of rest and to not strain her neck too much." Steve ran a hand through his blonde hair looking exhausted. "Dr. Hahn said she was lucky, the kid almost," he trailed off. "I suspect the only reason he didn't strike the final blow the first time was because he was still a bit jittery from the muscle relaxers, we gave him earlier."

"Where is she now?" Tony demanded with clenched teeth.

"Bruce had the nurses transfer her to a private room in the Med Bay." Steve paced around the room. "The stitches will take a few weeks to heal and then we have to determine if the kid damaged her vocal cords."

Tony cursed.

"Has Clint been informed?" Wanda asked with a raised eyebrow. She looked like she wanted to kill Peter herself.

Bucky nodded. "I called him. He said he and his wife will take the first flight. They should be here sometime tomorrow. Which brings into question what are we going to do about the kid? Stark struggled with him and even though he's fourteen he doesn't seem to have a conscience since he is blindly following HYDRA's agenda. He's a murderer plain and simple and feels no remorse." He almost whispered the last few words, no doubt remembering he had been in the same spot months ago before Steve came to rescue him like his knight in shining armor.

"We should kill him." Wanda's eyes darkened. "He tried to do the same to one of our own."

"Hold on, dark princess, no one is killing anyone. We're talking about a kid," Tony spat.

"Since when did you become so soft?"

"Since I wanted to avoid being labeled a child murderer." Tony rested the back of his head against the wall. Everyone was looking at him instead of looking at Steve, he was the captain after all. However, Steve was looking a little sick as if he would prefer to fight with Loki all over again rather than deal with Peter. But then again no one had dealt with a psychotic, fourteen-year-old superhuman with obvious abandonment issues before.

"I'll take care of it. Find some background information on him." He turned to Wanda and Bucky, "I need you two to talk to each other. Write down everything about HYDRA's weird obsession with creating superhumans. The kid has to have some weakness. We need to figure out how to reverse the brainwashing to avoid sending him to a psych ward. Steve, you're helping me. You know about old school HYDRA. I'm sure those losers are still following every word they were ever told as if they were the gospel."

Steve nodded. "What are we going to be working on?"

A tired smirk crossed Tony's face. "We are going to find every piece of information we can about this Peter Parker."

-End of Chapter Nine-