Chapter Eight

Night of Peter's Defection, Hydra's Paris Base…

"We will be accelerating Seven's program," a thick German accent said.

Peter's world froze at those six words. Damnit, they were set to do missions in the Spring; this is what he had been afraid of, Lila's natural abilities showing too much.

He was in the Commander's office, standing on plush carpets and debating the ramifications of killing his trainer and the Commander in that moment, who sat behind a metal desk, smoking.

"Understood, Master," Peter said to his last- and most sadistic- trainer. "When will I be relieved?"

The man smirked and scratched his beard.

"Tomorrow morning, after drills. I must admit, Spider, you did… exceptionally well."

Peter said nothing and kept his face a careful blank. His trainer seemed pleased with that.

"To think, you broke a child of our greatest enemy, one we obtained by sheer chance, into a perfect Hydra recruit. Truly extraordinary. In a few years you could be where I am."

Now the second man, the Commander of the base, coughed from his chair. The man was covered in scars from six decades in Hydra; Peter never felt safe around him, even as his double chin warbled with each puff of the cigarette.

"Enough of over-praising, Fritz. As a… reward, so to speak, you will be assigned to the Avenger Unit. The youngest ever, in Hydra history," the Commander said to a stoic Peter.

Once again, Peter did nothing. The Avenger Unit, the darkest Hydra head, was solely dedicated to wiping the Avengers and Shield off the face of the Earth.

When Peter left the Commander's office, his pace was measured. He did not run, but stalked towards Facility Five, and kept himself neutral when he arrived to see Lila being drilled by another instructor, an unconscious sack of a woman on the ground nearby.

Peter's Moscow trainer, the man who ripped his morality out of him before he was Lila's age and guided him to his first kill in that awful place.

"Ah, Spider," the man he wanted to kill more than anyone else greeted when he noticed Peter in the doorway. And that was the moment Peter knew it was true: he despised this man, and the fact his hands were on Lila, giving her a gun, made it near impossible to maintain his composer. He would kill this man.

"Herr Ivan," he said with the man's preferred address, instead of lobbing a knife at him. "I heard the news."

Ivan smiled, like a wolf. "Seven will be a part of the newest program. Treatments will commence this spring; We are hopeful she will surpass even you and the Soldier".

"If Hydra wills it. You leave tomorrow, sir?" A subtle way to tell him to fuck off. Ivan didn't notice, surprisingly, and nodded. Lila looked terrified, glancing between Ivan, Peter, and the woman who looked like a prostitute; Ivan must have grabbed one on his way in, choosing from Paris's countless ranks.

"Da, but I wished to get started early. You took months of conditioning to take your first life; let's see if we can 'rip the band-aid off' as the Americans say." Here he turned to Lila, who hesitantly picked up the gun. Peter nodded at her, eyes like stone.

'Just do it, Lila' a part of his mind begged, so Ivan would leave and they could slip out. But he knew killing would change her. When he had his, the human body had become like cardboard targets, and he couldn't remember the face of that poor man. But for Lila, killing someone without that conditioning, would destroy her. It was why Hydra had the process, the conditioning they did.

Damnit, why was Ivan breaking it? Lila raised the gun, gulping. Her arms shook. Ivan leaned down and caressed her hair, like he used to do to Peter's class.

He still had nightmares about that hand in his hair. It was easy to be lulled into a sense of safety by it. But he had witnessed over a dozen children who, even after completing a task correctly, had their necks snapped by that hand that had before offered comfort.

"Shoot her in the head and I will give you a picture of your Mamma," Ivan cooed.

He wouldn't, but it almost worked. Lila's hope, her need for family made her arms steady. That was what he admired about her, her determination to complete tasks; too bad that extended to murdering her innocence.

"Stop," Peter ordered. Lila's arms dropped as Ivan whipped around, his face in a snarl.

"I knew you were compromised," he said, "and now I have proof. What would your esteemed father say?"

Peter stiffened despite himself. It was an old dig and Ivan knew it. He should have been over it.

"You got compromised, Spider," Ivan said again, "But we can fix that. Stand down, now, before the girl gets hurt."

"No."

God, that was the first time he had ever told any of his superiors that. It felt good. It felt meaningful. By the warped expression Ivan gave him, the man felt it too, the shift.

"Wrong choice."

Ivan had a clicker in his hand- why had Peter not noticed it- and sent out word to no doubt the base's many defense teams.

The man was dead before he hit the floor, Peter callously taking his knife out of the man's throat and attaching a shell shocked Lila to his back with some webbing. He pocketed the gun and grabbed Lila's half of the go-bag, stashed in the rafters of the room in a blind spot; his half with all his webs and extra grenades were in their bunk, and would have to be left behind.

Right now, he had to improvise and escape a base full of assassins with a small child on his six.

Peter had never felt freer.

Present, with Clint…

"You go get her," Nat said, eyes locked on the carnage around them. It was a mess in all aspects- physical, political, and situational. Clint wanted to thank her and leave, but common sense made him say what he really wished he didn't have to.

"I can barely walk, Nat."

It was true. Clint was useless, his arm shredded, and leg twisted wrong, a bullet in the ribs; his use would be waiting for Shield, loathe he was to admit it.

"You know I will bring her home."

He closed his eyes in pain and listened for the distant (hopefully) Shield reinforcements. The Winter Soldier was out for the count and continuously tased by a powerline; Clint would put his money on the monster still winning.

"I know. Spider should have taken care of that other one, and the tracker we gave him shows they're at sea but..."

"If he hasn't done it, I will do it. I will end him if I need to."

"I know. He saved you. Both of us. Multiple times."

Natasha just looked at him.

He grunted as his partner of over a decade ran off towards the docks that Spider had told them about, no doubt requesting back-up to follow her on comms. Clint idly wondered if he had done the right thing, telling a kid they profiled as unhealthily attached and delusional to go kill a second Hydra super assassin and guard his kid.

Spider's words, his nature, seemed genuine. Clint had seen bullshit, and there was not an ounce of it with Spider, not with Lila.

"Laura's gonna kill me," he whispered as he plopped on the ground. A shard of glass in his shoulder protested the action.

Natasha Romanov was not someone who trusted anyone easily. This included defectors who appeared to be acting in her niece's best interest.

Spider had done the impossible the night of his defection and kept doing it every day he survived. His continued existence and his easy way of taking out Hydra contacts Shield had on their list for years spoke of skill and tenacity.

Nick Fury was determined to interrogate and maybe recruit the teenager to Shield. Hell, all they had to do was replenish his arsenal and he'd likely merrily destroy the root of Hydra.

Tony and Steve insisted that the kid cared for Lila, and probably had a deeper motive for how evasive he was with everyone, how brutal he was to the child's enemies.

Natasha saw all their sides. She agreed with them in some way. But she refused to trust Spider.

Spider was unhinged in a way only those raised like Natasha could be. She recognized his obsession because it was an echo of she was with her sister, or with her former roommate in the Red Room.

Both of those children were killed, inadvertently and directly by her, respectively.

She and Spider were kin. They were siblings of bloodshed and violence.

Which is why she couldn't trust him, would never trust someone who was Natasha as she was before Clint and Shield. If Spider did his job, if the secondary Hydra super soldier was dead like he promised and he was guarding Lila, then Natasha would thank the kid.

Right before she killed him.

Natasha ignored her gut reaction of wrong at that thought; Shield, for all it was a Black Ops organization, had limits. And those limits made her stutter at what she used to do daily. Normally, she was grateful for that line.

Tonight, she might have to cross it, and cross it she would, for Lila's safety.

Natasha looked at the mangled mess of a once no doubt deadly Hydra super soldier. The man was no Winter Soldier- Natasha had seen how fresh he was to his strength, and she would deal with that implication later- but he had been formidable.

Now he could hardly be called human with all the stab wounds and jagged rips in the skin that were partially healed. There was a rusted pipe through the man's stomach. Bullet wounds in the knee caps and two in the head spoke of a fierce battle, as did the burning carnage around her.

Spider, like her, obviously knew that in order to kill an enhanced, one had three options: take an instant kill shot, stop their healing ability, or hack at them until even their enhanced body couldn't fight death's embrace.

Spider had gone with option three.

"Agent Romanov!"

Finally. Her reinforcements had arrived. She turned away from the bloodied body that had once been white and muscled, and raised an eyebrow at the seven-man Shield team dropping out of a hovercraft.

"Four of you keep your weapons trained on him and shoot with extreme prejudice if he revives," she ordered. It was a testament to their trust in leadership that they didn't question the order.

The leader, a man in his late forties with a scarred forehead spoke. Agent Felix, if she recalled.

"And the other three?"

"I'll need your medic and two others for retrieving Sparrow."

They all stiffened and nodded. Within thirty seconds she and her requested three took off from the docks.

Sparrow was what Shield had codenamed Lila and everything pertaining to her retrieval. The few that were in the know, including Felix, all had children of their own; this mission was personal for them.

With Peter…

He was aware he was dying, when Lila cried on his chest. A comfortable haze was on him like a blanket. He really wanted to go back to sleep.

"But I promised her dad I'd protect her until he came," he thought. That made him blink, awareness trying to fight off that blanket.

A cacophony of pain in his nerves hit as the ship he recalled they were on blew its horn. Peter would forever be ashamed, but in that moment, he begged that he would die right then and there.

Death eluded him, but the blanket was back, though an annoying noise accompanied Lila's sobs.

"Peter!"

Ah. That had been his groan, then. He focused on his hand and lifted it to plop it on her head. He wanted to speak, wanted to tell her that it was okay, that her dad was going to be there soon and he was so sorry for his screw up. That he regretted all his choices that had kept her from her real family. Peter wanted to say sorry. Sorry that his cowardice meant she had to shoot someone. Sorry that he couldn't take out an overpowered wrecking ball of a man that couldn't even aim a punch right without almost dying. His voice wouldn't cooperate though. The sweet nothingness gripped him again and fighting it proved futile.

"Ung."

Lila's head whipped up from her crying. Peter was awake!

"Peter!"

She knew he'd be better. He always did the impossible, always kept his word. Her fretting earlier had been misplaced; her brother was going to be okay.

But his eyes wouldn't open. She had to see them open, to know he was really there.

"Open your eyes, Peter. Please," Lila whispered.

His hand rose and plopped down on her hair. She braced herself, as his mouth opened like he was going to speak, to give her instructions on how to make it right.

But then his hand slid back off and he went back to mostly dead. Lila felt like cursing, because he looked even worse than before.

Just then her ears picked up footsteps; Lila let her lessons kick in. She would do whatever she had to. She would not hide when those footsteps opened the door.

Lila was a Barton. And the Bartons did not stand down when family needed them. Peter was hers, and she would protect him.

She tensed when a muffled conversation grew close, and gripped Peter's gun. Her hand shook but Lila tried not to think about it.

"Spider, we're coming in."

So it was Hydra. Only Hydra called him that name he hated. Lila bit her cheek to steady herself as she moved into position.

When the doors screeched apart, Lila raised the gun, her knife poised for her first kill.

"I will shoot."

With Natasha and Shield…

"The GPS says they should be in this one, Agent Romanov."

Natasha nodded to Mary, the medic with the tracker who had spoken. Their aircraft was parked and shrouded nearby, ready for Lila's medical care.

"Be ready," she murmured. "He can hear us, for sure."

"Got it."

"Spider, we're coming in," she called, louder.

They slid the doors open slowly, in case he spooked. Natasha would normally toss a knockout gas grenade or not give a warning, but Spider had to be treated with care.

Natasha expected to see Spider hovering over Lila or perched on the ceiling with a weapon and determined look.

What she had not been expecting was her niece to be crouched in an eerily familiar stance in front of an obviously bleeding out Spider, her eyes defiant.

"I will shoot."

The first words Natasha had heard from her in what felt like a lifetime, and they were a promise to murder her for the sake of a Hydra defector.

Bartons were truly a special breed.

Natasha kept her face blank as she raised her hands slowly in surrender. She wanted to hug the child, to bat the gun away and take her from this hellhole. But she recognized the look in Lila's eyes. They said that the child before her had changed and would not back down.

The child struggled to place Natasha's face in the bad lighting. It wasn't surprising; Natasha was covered in soot, grime, and her hair was under a black bandana to keep it out of the way.

"Lila," Natasha said slowly, "I'm Auntie Nat. You know me. I need you to step away from Spider." She could hear her team shift behind her, taking her lead.

To her surprise Lila nodded as recognition fully hit at the voice. But the gun stayed steady at headshot level.

"Hi, Aunt Nat," Lila said. "Are you going to hurt Peter?"

The realization that Spider had a real name slammed into Natasha. Of course he did, everyone had a name. But Natasha wanted him to be as abstract and inhuman as possible.

"Is that his name, Peter?" She asked in an attempt to stall as her mind warred with itself.

Lila nodded, firm.

"Peter. Not Spider. He's my brother. He saved me."

So earnest, so direct. Lila really did take after her father.

But that earnestness is what got them into trouble. How did one explain to a child that the one they called brother was better off dead? That the one she was defending had done the impossible and taken out two very enhanced individuals? That if she let him live, he would more than likely snap? That the Peter Lila loved was a mask to hide behind? That Natasha felt she was living behind a mask most days?

"Let me get you help first," she tried to bargain. Natasha wasn't sure if Peter woke up that they could contain him. In fact, she was certain they couldn't.

"No! Not until you promise to save Peter. He always saves me. But now he needs help. You're an Avenger. You help people."

Natasha allowed a fond smile to form at the girl's simplistic idea of what Natasha was. But it was true; she did help people.

And Peter was a person who rescued her niece when Natasha couldn't.

She prayed she wouldn't regret the next sentence.

"Then let's help Peter."

Natasha had gotten too soft in Shield.

Twelve hours later…

Fury looked through the camera at their newest prisoner. The unconscious kid had gone through surgery and several transfusions, and still his doctors were only mostly certain he'd survive the night.

He better, is all Fury had to say on the matter.

When he had ordered his two best to stand down and let him handle the retrieval after Hydra launched a preemptive strike it was with the certainty that they wouldn't hold back a killing blow on the best chance at getting rid of Hydra. Fury knew how protective Clint and Natasha were, and of the hate that smoldered under the surface after the first time the kid had made off with Lila Barton.

And Fury needed Spider, needed Peter, alive.

Even if all the bases the kid knew were already burned to the ground, he would know people, know the intel that Fury had to have if he hoped to see Hydra annihilated in his lifetime.

"And that's what the doctors said, Director Fury… Director Fury?"

He grunted at Hill, aware that he had gotten lost in thought but not willing to admit it.

"He will live. Am I understood, Hill?"

His right hand just nodded and left to talk to more medical experts.

When he was alone in his office once more, Fury switched his eye to the other kid he needed information from. And this one would be more difficult than the still-almost-expired one in his med-bay: Lila Barton.

He let a smile twitch as on screen the entire Barton family hugged their youngest; it was a good day when they actually did something good.