Six-months ago, Paris. Hydra Base….
Five days ago Peter's world became confusing. Very confusing.
Before, it was beautifully uninvolved, not needing his moral input. He trained, he pretended he wasn't the best on his squad, and he killed people. Life made sense, Hydra made sense.
Even when the stray emotion of longing for something more peaked out, the apathy-filled peace of Peter's existence stayed a cozy familiar. He stamped down any threats to the peace he had convinced himself existed with viciousness he rarely showed to even Shield agents when it did.
Days were easier, before five days ago. Before five days ago he was uncomplicated. He was making someone proud, in his mind.
Before five days ago nothing mattered.
Then the stick of a child walked out of a childhood nightmare, where he had personally ended his generation's Thirteen and Twenty, who were just like her.
"You're doing it wrong, Seven."
Seven. His old number. Before he threw it off for Spider. And then it claimed another.
Peter was unsure why his original plan had not been put into action yet; he had no room for another in his life, and the twisting in his gut was more reason why he should reach out and snap the creature that made his uncomplicated world feel like a labyrinth in two.
Lila- no, Seven- did an even worse attempt at the form.
He resisted an annoyed huff at the sniffle as he gripped the newest member of Hydra's wrist to help guide it to the correct form. When his supposed apprentice winced, he loosened up slightly.
Only because letting it die from an injury in the first month's training spar would be a sting on his pride. That's what he told himself, anyway, as images of the customary second bloodbath that would take place after they had one month of training filled his head.
They were not used in Peter's time- they came after and had been an effective way to weed out the untalented. Much like how the private apprenticeships to specific enhanced agents like Peter were relatively new; If she lived past the month she would be his responsibility through her tenth year- save for the Moscow year that everyone had to endure- where she'd receive a similar enhancement that he had.
His apprentice would survive it.
Then he would break her spine, or at least injure her to the degree that she was assigned another trainer. Bile had risen when he pondered that future.
"Again!"
"Yes, Trainer".
She bit her lip as she threw punch after weak punch into thin air. Peter could tell she had some training- likely from her father, his mind supplied- but it would not save her here. It was still sloppy, but already she showed promise.
The pair were in training Facility Five; It was a dingy and low ceilinged place with only a worn sparring mat and a climbing rope. Technically, Peter could have used his rank to snatch Facility One, the most high tech and brightly lit room.
But something in his stomach let Hayate have it. It had nothing to do with the fact the cameras were awful and had no audio in Five, he insisted.
It had nothing to do with his original plan of stopping the "apprenticeship" early. That was gone the moment his eyes made the mistake of looking into hers.
He had avoided them ever since.
Looking at them caused emotions he didn't want, promises he refused to make threatened to spill out into the open.
"Stop," he ordered after ten more minutes of shaky forms. His apprentice collapsed at his feet and looked down at the ground. She seemed to sense his discomfort at eye contact.
Good.
"You are to follow my movements, Seven. Copy." And off they went, teacher and student in sync.
The child stumbled at the simple kick that went up and to a pivot. Mostly in sync, then, he noted.
Days were a blur to Peter; the Hydra agent rarely let his apprentice rest, a restlessness causing him to pace even when she collapsed on the mat; it was not good enough.
In the tournament, Peter would not be there. He could not be. So he pushed his namesake to her brink.
And then he pushed further. Never as far as he was at her age; it felt like a hand grabbed his shoulder every time he threatened to slip down to the brutality of his own upbringing. Peter had never been shown mercy, or kindness, not when Hydra stood for their very eradication.
But when the small girl rolled into a ball after running for hours, Peter didn't do what was done to him or tell her to get up or she wouldn't eat that day.
He snuck her ration from the cafeteria and tossed it by her head, turning away before she could look up.
Peter prayed his leniency wasn't going to make him bury her.
Lila had won the spar, beating Hayate's disgrace. Every student but her had shown up to the spar dead on their feet, with Hydra administrators withholding food from them; only those that lived would get a meal, as why waste food on a walking corpse?
Peter had forgotten his meal bar by Lila's bunk that morning.
The new number Six- Hayate's professed prodigy if one had listened to the Hydra gossip, which Peter never did- was put down after losing all five rounds, and Peter's old recruit-mate was on guard duty in the sewers until further notice. Four and Two followed Six shortly after; all their trainers would be given older trainees whose assigned teachers had perished in the pointless war against Shield if the higher-ups determined it was an apprentice issue rather than a trainer one.
Lila sat in their room staring at nothing even hours later, ignoring the steaming rice that was given to her as the top student. When did she become Lila in his mind, Peter wondered? And when did the training facility room become their room?
"Seven," he said. She continued to gaze through the fog of herself.
She was lost in her mind. More than likely analyzing the deaths she inadvertently caused by winning. That bothered him more than he liked.
"Seven. Seven." He took a gulp of air. "Li-Li-Lila."
A small head snapped up at the sound of her name, and eyes met his. Peter was ashamed to say he flinched slightly back. Her eyes were a reflection of what he used to be, no, of the children he killed to get where he was. Pools of endless emotion looked at him, anchoring into him so he couldn't turn away.
It was the longing he saw in his own, in a bygone era.
"Y-you said my name." Her voice was tiny, crusty from misuse.
He didn't say 'you've been that in my mind since day one, no matter the delusions I tried to tell myself. You are not a number. Not to me'. That was impossible to choke out. At least not yet.
But Peter could not stop the nod, nor the treacherous "only when we're here. You can call me Peter."
Something formed then, something deep. He felt a noose tighten at his blatant treason. Somehow it felt lighter on his neck than anything ever had.
"Okay, Peter," she whispered.
Shipping Container, North Atlantic, Present Day…
There was a certain place Lila went to when things became unbearable. It was her playground, where Daddy pushed her on the swings and Mommy helped her with cartwheels; It was sacred, and was always bathed in warm sunlight. She could hear her heartbeat when in that place, and could always keep calm by focusing on the thudding of the beat.
She first went there when the boy from Disney didn't wake up, after she tackled him; Hydra, as she learned, was not kind to those who failed. Peter woke her up from that, when he took her to a bath and sat outside the door for however long it took her to wash the blood and urine off of her. She hadn't known his name then, but he was safe. He was her protector. It was why she had tried so hard for him, in that first month.
The next time she went to that playground was when she won the tournament, and the head Hydra trainer, known as Master Facilitator in official capacities, gave her a big bowl of rice so watery it could be soup with a smile. He kept smiling at her that she thought everything was good now that Lila had won.
But then, with a smile, he killed three kids who Lila beat. She bolted into that sunny playground, and wanted to stay there, with her bedroom on the second floor overlooking it. Lila could see it so clearly, her warm bed in eyesight while she swung on the swing.
Peter had called her by the name Hydra refused to call her by, the name she was beginning to have slip away to the before.
That was when Peter became her Brother.
When on the race to freedom that stormy night that made her muscles feel like marble, and he got them to the place he said he would, he had become her savior.
Now Lila tried to get to that playground again. If she did, if she stayed very still, then Peter would come. He would say or do something and become even better than he was.
But she failed, the sight gluing her to the present, not letting her slip to the past; Peter was the sort of still that meant he would join Six and the Disney boy.
Lila reached a trembling hand to touch his back, shaking him. He may have breathed. Maybe. But other than that, nothing. When she drew her hand back, it was that red that destroyed everything about what made old Lila, Lila.
"P-Peter," she whispered again. "Please."
A slight breath. Lila might have imagined it.
But breathing meant nothing in their world, not with the amount of red Lila was seeing.
Peter was who fixed both him and Lila up, when needed. When her thigh needed stitches, he had sewed it up while talking about his Papa, who sold him like the Disney boy. She had told him then that her Daddy could be his too, but was shushed like she didn't know any better.
Lila could not rely on Peter to fix this, whatever this was.
Peter had taught her the basics of stitches, but mending his thigh while he calmly walked her through it was different from him dying on the ground of a shipping container; she was still confused on how she got there. Flashes of smoke and running harder than she ever had were squashed back down; Lila didn't want to think about the night, she wanted to survive it.
"Just like that, Bug," Peter said, and gave her a thumbs up when she made one good stitch. She had taught him that.
"But, this is so hard, and you're in pain," she had said.
"Better to be in pain while you learn this now, than be dead when you need to use it later. Next we'll learn what to do when someone stops breathing."
The thought of Peter dying then, when they were in their room, had been a foreign concept to Lila. Now it was happening.
Another breath, this one even further apart. And Lila, who always cried for Peter, wiped the beginnings of the newest set away. She pulled out the rudimentary medical kit she had on her always and frisked for Peter's from his pockets, ignoring the blood.
Her brother could count on her.
Nine Hours Previously, Morocco…
Something… something was wrong. This, Peter was sure about. It was a truth etched in his soul, and it rang out with the dull pangs of his Sense.
Four hours ago heartbeats began disappearing as they went to less populous parts of town.
Three-and-a-half hours ago, Peter had spotted that same nobody from earlier, the drug and gun smell replaced by something worse. The man once again slipped away, but Peter knew: they were made.
Three hours ago they had begun to be followed, by what Peter didn't know. He prayed for Shield, but the two snapped necks of German speaking acquaintances said other-wise. Four times he almost implemented his contingency plan with Lila, but each time his Sense almost deafened him with how wrong it was.
"Who are you. Another head of Hydra's tracker unit?" He had spat the question out hours earlier when they had managed to capture the t. The disgusting smelling man beneath him had spit towards a Lila who was three feet away.
"Ich bin nicht einmal ein Oberhaupt von Hydra, du Verräter; Sie kommen, Bug."
Peter had snapped the man's neck before reason won out.
'I'm not even a head of Hydra… they're coming for you, Bug'...
Peter really didn't want his suspicions of who "they" were to be confirmed. There had been no comms, meaning he couldn't track their counterparts through it, couldn't know what their plan was. His instincts were screaming to root out every operative in the city and disembowel them, slowly.
His objective was not murder, though, but rescue.
So instead he scooped Lila up and tapped a code explaining that they were changing plans, that if he dropped her she had to run as fast as she could, towards the harbor, towards anywhere.
He was ready for a fire fight like before, ready to defeat anything that was thrown his way.
And then there was silence. By now Peter had taken to the the roof tops, the moon rising through clouds, affording slinky darkness to slip through. But the silence had him scaling back down to the alleys and back through the maze of streets in hopes of blocking the bullets sure to come. Heartbeats were missing, save one Peter had dreaded since the first time his femur was broken by the owner of it.
"What's wrong, Peter," Lila asked. She had relaxed when they went on the rooftops, thinking they would escape. As he weaved under under an arch and through another side street, he ignored her.
Suddenly he let instincts take over and he flipped back to an obviously ancient wall and launched back to the roofs. His worst fear had come true;
The Winter Soldier had been brought out of hibernation.
"Shit."
Lila gulped.
The man who killed so many of his classmates through sheer beatdowns and represented an older, more sinister version of Hydra that even the current top echelons hesitated to return to. Rumors of other Assets, other Soldats existing kept most of the legacy families from infighting. That ghost story always made Peter scratch his head a bit, because scary stories about armies of Winter Soldier stood no purpose.
Because just one soldier was enough.
And that single Winter Soldier tore up the wall and jumped on the roof, gun aimed chest level at Peter.
Peter knew that in an outright fight, he had no chance. But he was trained never to fight outright, to always do it dirty.
He glared at the Winter Soldier in defiance; he had survived the man before. It could be done.
'But that was during sparring sessions,' his mind mocked. 'Look at him now. That creature has only one order in his mind: kill you and Lila.'
"Fancy seeing you here, Teacher… or I guess Soldat with us now," he said, wanting to gauge how far gone the other man was; in his most lucid times the Winter Soldier held back enough to not kill, to see that he was a part of the human race. Nevermind that the man would rip his head off for betraying the Hydra machine; Peter would have done the same a year ago.
Blank, lifeless brown eyes stared at him. That meant the demon was on the roof. Peter tensed in preparation to bolt again; He took a bullet to the forearm for it.
Lila screamed, short and stifled as their practice kicked in. The sound that came out almost brought a hint of humanity into the brainwashed man's face, but it flickered out before it began.
Ignoring the hot flashes of agony that accompanied any wound from a bullet, Peter backflipped off the terracotta roof and ran through the alleyway, zig-zagging between openings.
Peter knew how the man fought, to an extent. He had seen the grainy footage of past fights like every other agent, and had been the man's punching bag for over a year.
The Winter Soldier just did his job. No frills, no wasted movements. No rush.
He just pursued with unrelenting fidelity. He hunted.
And now he was hunting them. Peter's ears were tuned to the monster from Hydra's basement, listening to the reupholstering of the gun, and the almost huff in boredom as muscles shook out.
He could make out the heavy thuds of the Winter Soldier in hot pursuit, growing closer with each stride, and deftly switched Lila from his back to his front.
As they turned a corner he managed to throw a web, some of his last, into the man's face. It gave them five seconds to weave through more streets, but he knew it wouldn't be enough.
He was right.
A metal hand grabbed Peter's head as they passed a trash heap that reeked of rotten food, squeezing as it yanked him back. Peter threw Lila into the pile and grabbed the bigger man by the flesh arm and center. He flipped his opponent over his head, chunks of hair going with it. Before he landed, Peter had dropped down and bolted past towards Lila, intending on continuing the escape.
He was promptly grabbed by the right leg and hurled into the opposite wall head first.
Peter saw starbursts of lights that pulsated with the throbbing in his already healing arm, wincing as the Winter Soldier languidly rose, turning his attention to Lila, whom he had previously ignored.
The man pulled out the gun from his holster once more.
Red replaced the lights. Peter was immediately latched onto his back with a knife as he dug in between metal and flesh, making passes at the throat. It lacked any sort of finesse but it worked. He was a killer, and damn him if he couldn't put his only skills to protect the one layed on the trash heap.
The Winter Soldier let out a guttural scream and lurched forward to throw him. It seemed that Peter was in luck, as the man didn't remember that when Peter stuck, he stuck. Being rammed over and over and over into walls, the ground, and some stray rebar did nothing to his grip.
Peter kept stabbing. He cursed his knife for being so short.
The gun was dropped in the struggle, right by Lila, who looked between it and the fight.
What she did next would be amongst his most pride filled and most sorrowful: Lila Barton picked the gun up and with practiced ease, shot the Winter Soldier in the groin.
She stared in shock, never having shot an actual human being before and lacking the complete indoctrination that Peter had when he had his first meet up of bullet and flesh.
But she stayed strong. Peter ignored the chaos of agony and rage, and on the next attempt to ram him into the wall he raised his feet. They connected, pushed through by the force, and held on. Next he swung up and over, tossing the larger man over onto the roof above, the man still writhing in pain.
"Soldat! Status!"
Comms blared to life, along with at least ten Hydra agents from the sound of it, headed right towards them.
"Of course the handlers have them with him" Peter muttered, bitter.
Peter scooped his apprentice and the gun back up and kept running, hating all his decisions that day.
If only he hadn't ignored that "common criminal" who had slipped past him smelling of drugs, that same man wouldn't have reported their location and cleared the area, making survival even harder.
Because when the public was not in attendance, true evil could happen.
If only he had realized as soon as it became quiet, that Hydra only emptied out spots they controlled and only for certain secret Assets. Assets like the one on their heels.
If only Peter hadn't taken the longer path, or let himself get funneled like a rookie.
But now he had to live with those bad decisions.
Earlier, With Shield…
Shield was not having a good night. They had taken losses. Heavy losses.
All because of a leak. A damn leak that no-one could answer for, and because of that the Gibraltar base was burned, fires were spreading, and Clint was ignoring orders and flying to Morocco with Nat.
Oh and Hydra had found Spider before they had. Lovely.
Fury had promised he'd take care of it.
"Clint," Natasha said, "calm down."
"Don't you dare," he said. His hands turned bleached white on the steering.
"Someone has to. You will be no good to Lila if you walk into a bullet!"
The same song and dance that has been done countless times these endless months since Lila was taken.
He could argue with her, or agree, or even just scream. But instead Clint ignores her and glances down at a photo of his family in Lila's favorite place.
It was taken a week before it all went to Hell.
Nat wouldn't understand, couldn't. She was a pseudo-aunt, but he was a real dad.Clint was doing this because he was already dead without his little girl.
And the only way to revive him was to bring her home where she belonged.
"We'll be there in ten-minutes. I will get your quiver," Natasha said after looking at the picture with him.
"And my knives," he called out after a beat.
With Peter…
Dodging bullets with thunder in the background took him back to the first night he was branded a traitor.
Only this time he had no real way to get out. Not with the Winter Soldier on the chase with the rest of the kill squad.
Peter had been on such a kill squad once. In fact one guy he had sliced a knife through two houses ago had been on several missions with him. They were not really enhanced, but they provided enough of a challenge that any chance of taking out the Soldier was gone, at least while they still breathed.
"Lila."
Dodge a bullet. Toss a knife and hear it hit a skull. Wince as something hits his back. Keep running. Ignore the helicopter in pursuit.
"No."
Dodge, grab a tossed grenade and lob it back. Grumble as the only enhanced individual more deadly than you bats it away like a kitten. Ignore the helicopter being used to keep your location and probably communicate that this was a police blackout evening.
"I will come for you."
"No."
"I'm sorry, but you have to. If I don't… I will."
Peter waits for a break in the roofs, hearing more heartbeats, meaning they reached the end of the Hydra blackout.
Peter's eyes scanned the sky until he saw what he had been praying for several blocks for.
Before Lila could react he used the last of his web fluid that he had been saving to grab the helicopter and pull down and to the left. It crashed into a tower, bringing both down and radio static and the darkness only a blackout could bring filled his senses.
Peter wasted no time,taking minor shrapnel slices as he hopped down to the ground as electricity filled the air and agents screamed above.
The barrier between him and Hydra let him give the one who gave him purpose a final hug.
"Please. Do this," he whispered. "For me."
She ran.
He covered her until her footsteps faded in the growing cacophony of people finally realizing their power was out. When he determined that she would not become collateral damage he made his way back up.
Peter was back on the roofs as the smoke cleared and the sparks fizzled out. He faced his opponents, knowing that his death stared him down in the form of a singed and bloody- but unfortunately healing- Soldier.
Two forms dropping from a Shield issued jet between him and Hydra was either a gift or a curse.
From the gun pointed at him by the one man Peter was never allowed to kill, it was leaning towards the latter.
Even without that spectacular explosion to guide their way, they would have found Spider and Hydra's little standoff, but now they were working on borrowed time before civilians stumbled on the black-ops level mission.
Clint was rigid as he crouched, gun locked onto Spider, knife in his other hand. Nat watched his back; She seemed to know the regenerating psycho, and was not happy about it.
The archer's hackles raised as his stomach plummeted at her displeasure.
"You don't recognize me," she said in Russian. Clint ignored it for the moment for the bigger problem:
Spider had his weapon mirrored, face filled with a deep sadness and determination. It's what stopped him from immediately taking the shot.
"Just tell me where she is," he begged.
Spider looked ready to spill, and Clint strained to hear it, his trigger finger loosening up a tad.
But then Spider moved the weapon's angle to his right and fired two rounds into a barely alive Hydra agent running towards Nat.
Well that was unexpected.
Peter had been taking a gamble with moving his line of sight away from the gun that was aimed right at his head. He was grateful it worked out for him, not being killed and all, but even if it had, he had come to the realization that this was it: his mission to save Lila was also to reunite her with her Dad.
No matter if and when it ended in his demise. He had no hope, no chance, if he had to face the Winter Soldier and the rest of the squad.
Peter hated teamwork, but he would do it, if the spies in front of him would trust their common objective enough to do so.
The Soldier shook himself out of whatever the hell kind of stupor he had been in and was reaching down to grab an automatic from one of the bodies on the rooftop. Hawkeye swiveled and shot three rounds before whipping a bow out and firing concussion arrows at the Soldier.
Peter had so much to say in that moment, a lifetime of conversation and apologies. But he settled for what mattered as he darted past Hawkeye.
"Lila is on her way to Port 46 and into a shipping container, but if we do not stop them first they will kill her," he murmured.
He saw a determined nod out of his peripheral and focused on the only enhanced individual he had met who could make him crumble.
And he had to defeat him.
He stumbled through the docks, ears honing in on the heartbeat he knew better than his own. His sight might be fading, but his hearing wouldn't.
She was sleeping, probably passed out from exhaustion after doing the incredible, he mused.
A pang in his chest, either from the knife wound or sorrow that he wouldn't be able to tell her what her dad did for him, Peter wasn't sure.
The pact he made that night… he wished for a happy ending, like his Bug wanted on every mission story he told.
A rusted red container, too near where the workers were, was where Lila slept. Peter hobbled to it, getting delirious. His senses were still going haywire, and for a moment he feared that he led Hydra to her.
But no, that was just his body giving up.
He should sleep.
Peter ignored the thought and plopped down, facing the door in vigil.
He would watch while she rested. He could sleep later, when she arrived.
Present, With Lila…
Lila could tell they were moving. A stray thought that a doctor could have helped was squashed;
People don't help kids like her and Peter.
But she failed to help him too. Daddy would have, but he was who knew where.
She had tried to mend him, like Peter taught her; It wasn't like before though, and she could count more than a dozen wounds on him.
'Which one? What's the worst?'
The one by the heart? But it was twisting the skin together already, and was shallow. Or the stomach one? Lila tried that, but it seemed to bleed more and she took off her jacket to stem the flow with pressure.
Lila realized that the slow, shallow breaths meant she wasn't doing anything to help.
She wanted someone to take over, to help Peter. Someone who wasn't her.
She wanted her Dad.
End! I know… another cliffhanger. I promise I'm not mean, but like, I had to cut something out as it was too long again haha. Anyway, I hope it was at least a little bit interesting, as fight scenes are… not my strong suit.
