Disclaimer: Everything you recognise here either came from the MCU films or the original Marvel comics, but I hope you enjoy the results anyway

Feedback: Feel free

AN: Picture Stephen Arnell for Taskmaster when he confronts Peter and Kate directly.

The Legacies' Triad

As the small army of mercenaries moved towards them, Kate came to a decision that she hoped she wasn't going to regret later. Reaching into her quiver, her fingers flicked over the arrows until she found the distinctive tip of the explosive arrow, Kate pulling it out, setting the indicated timer, and firing it into the air so that it would explode a short distance away from their approaching enemies. Just as she'd hoped, the explosion wasn't enough to seriously hurt anyone, but it knocked the first wave of mercenaries off-balance, allowing her to prepare a new wave of arrows while Peter leapt forward to take them on directly.

For a few moments, the fight was a blur of motion that Kate wasn't fully conscious of as she moved from one enemy to the next. She was aware enough of what was going on to ensure that she never fired an arrow that might have been at risk of hitting Peter, and she could register how her friend was moving from one enemy soldier to the next with a speed that went beyond anything she'd seen him demonstrate before, but it was as though her training just took over when she had to use it for the first time in the field. She was aware that more of their attackers were focusing on Peter right now, but she wasn't going to complain about that; even with her training, Peter was better suited to knock down a bunch of armoured thugs, particularly when he could get in close enough that they couldn't draw their weapons to use on him.

Kate took care to make sure that she was firing to wound rather than anything fatal as much as possible, and even if she thought she'd come close to crossing that line a couple of times if someone moved the wrong way. A few of the soldiers managed to get in close towards her, but even Kate's limited hand-to-hand experience was enough for her to knock them back when she was already in a fighting mood and ready for action. Once the initial chaos was over, Kate was satisfied to look around and see that everybody else on this roof was still breathing, while she and Peter were the only ones standing and fully conscious.

"Nice," she grinned over at Peter as he landed beside her. Kate immediately told herself not to be annoyed at how Peter didn't even seem to be that tired at what he'd done while Kate was fighting down the urge to gasp after all that effort.

"Not bad," another voice said, forcing Kate to remember that she and Peter weren't alone as she looked back at the edge of the building where Taskmaster was standing. "Granted, these men still needed training to be more than disposable grunts, but kudos to you for holding your own."

"We do what we can," Peter said, flexing his shoulders as he looked at the armoured figure. "Was there even a point behind that?"

"Test the waters," the man countered, reaching behind his back and drawing a long sword and a circular shield. "And I've gotta say, you're not bad… but I'm better."

Kate drew an arrow and fired it at the man, but he moved the shield with the kind of ease Kate had only seen in video footage of Captain America when she was watching footage of the Avengers in action, defecting the arrow before it could hit. The man jumped off the building edge and moved rapidly towards Kate, only for Peter to jump forward and launch a desperate punch at the man's face. The blow just glanced off the front of Taskmaster's mask as he bent back in time to dodge the punch, and Peter only just had time to adjust his arm before his opponent brought his sword up to strike at it. The attack just grazed past Peter's arm rather than severing it outright, but the man followed that attack up with a kick to the chest that forced Peter to release his grip and leap back. Kate took the opportunity to fire another arrow, but the Taskmaster turned around and cut the arrow in half before it could make contact.

"Pe-Spidey!" Kate called out anxiously as Peter was forced back, desperately trying to hit the larger man even as his opponent moved to block his attacks with growing ease. "Can you just-?"

A sudden kick from the other man left Peter bent over the edge of the roof in a way that Kate worried would have caused paralysis if she didn't know how well Peter could bend his body when he was swinging (she liked to watch him move around; was that a bad thing?) before Taskmaster turned to head towards her. Realising that he was already too close for her to shoot an arrow at him, Kate tossed her bow to the side and pulled out a couple of standard arrows, holding them up in a defensive manner.

"You're kidding me, right?" Taskmaster looked mockingly at her as she stood before him, slinging his shield onto his back and returning the sword to its scabbard as he turned around. "This is just… I mean, I get that you're a kid-"

Kate wasn't sure if it was anger at being dismissed so easily or the fear of how much he seemed to know about her and Peter already that set it off, but she began lashing out as though she was attacking the other man with daggers rather than arrows. The most infuriating part at first was how the older man just stepped back to avoid her attacks as though she wasn't even worth defending against properly, but then she struck one of his arms and the subsequent sparks made the man's eyes narrow under his skull-like mask.

"Mistake," he said, grabbing Kate's wrists before she could follow up on her successful blow. Kate could only stare at the man in horror as he began to tighten his grip on her wrists, forcing her to open her hands and drop the arrows-

"NO!" Peter yelled, charging in from behind and kicking the man in the back. Taskmaster released his grip on Kate's wrists before he could do anything than make her feel a bit sore, but then he turned around and drew his weapons again in basically the same motion, forcing Peter to leap backwards to avoid the attack. Kate winced as she fell backwards and caught herself on her hands, fighting down the pain she felt as she could suddenly only watch Peter once again struggling against this unknown mercenary who had some kind of connection to Yelena…

For reasons Kate wasn't sure she could properly describe, that inspired her to ignore the pain in her wrists as she sat back up. She didn't know what connection Yelena had to this guy, but if she and Peter were going to learn those answers, they had to stop Taskmaster before he could do anything more serious.

"You can't win, you idiots!" Taskmaster's voice yelled out, Kate looking up to see the masked man brandishing his sword at Peter while holding his shield in Kate's direction. "I have access to the combat data of all the true Avengers and this suit augments my strength; what can a couple of young amateurs do?"

Peter was cut off before he could respond when Kate fired another arrow at their armoured attacker. Taskmaster raised his shield to deflect the first arrow, but when Peter fired a strand of webbing at the man's raised arm, as Kate fired another arrow at the mercenary that strand of webbing held his arm in place for just a moment too long for him to deflect the second arrow. The weapon struck the man in the side, just below his ribcage, and then set off a surge of electrical energy that seemed to envelop the whole area. Peter's lenses seemed to glitch for a moment as the energy surge passed over him, but his suit returned to normal before he had time to properly worry about it.

"What the-?" Taskmaster yelled, looking at himself in shock as he raised his arms to face Peter. Even with his limited combat experience, Peter could tell that this guy was moving slightly slower than he had been earlier, and the way his arms moved around the metal on his suit…

"Tech," Peter said as the realisation hit him. "You said that suit augments your strength…"

"Shut up, you stupid-!" Taskmaster began as he drew his sword, only for Peter to duck under the weapon and deliver a punch to the face that sent Taskmaster staggering back. His loss of balance was only reinforced when Kate leapt forward to kick him in the back, allowing Peter to deliver another kick to the man's head as he was sent forward again. Taskmaster swayed for a moment, but then a double punch to the front and back of his head finally sent him to the ground with a decisive thud.

"Cool," Kate said, shaking her hands and wincing from the pain. "That worked."

"What was that?" Peter looked at her curiously. "The arrow, I mean?"

"EMP arrow," Kate grinned at him, before looking at him in surprise. "Hey, is Susan OK? I was kind of-"

"I am fine," Susan said over Peter's HUD. "Mr Stark ensured no risk of collateral damage like that."

"Susan's fine," Peter said to the archer. "From what she said, I'm thinking that Mr Stark helped Mr Barton put together that kind of weapon so that… well, so that it wouldn't hurt his tech."

"That's possible?"

"You can shield stuff against EMPs, so it would make sense for Mr Stark to make sure Mr Barton's weapons would be able to damage other peoples' stuff without affecting his," Peter shrugged before he glanced back at Taskmaster. "That does leave us with the issue of what to do with this guy…"

"Yeah, if he has anything to do with Yelena…" Kate shook her head before she looked back at him. "I think we're going to need an expert opinion."

Even when he agreed to the suggestion, Peter wasn't sure what he had really expected when he tried to make the first call. The thought of just leaving the guy webbed up on a rooftop somewhere had been amusing for a moment, but on the other hand the thought of him possibly escaping before anyone could find him had been too much of a risk. He wasn't prepared to call Mr Stark about this guy until he had a clearer idea of what linked this guy to Yelena, and there was also the question of what this Taskmaster guy might know about Kate, so the safest option was to keep an eye on him directly before they could talk with their friend.

Taking him back to the safehouse had been a tricky decision, but Peter had webbed up their prisoner's mask and limbs to make sure he couldn't get away or properly register where he was in case he woke up. They had left him in a different room in the safehouse while they made the call on the safehouse's video phone, but they had left the door open to make sure they could keep an eye on him even as they called Yelena.

Neither teen was sure how long they should expect to wait when they placed the call, but they were pleasantly surprised when Yelena picked up the call after only a few moments. The Russian assassin was wearing a casual dark green top and a denim jacket, and was standing in what looked like another safehouse, looking at the screen with a casual smile.

"This is a home number?" Kate said in surprise.

"This is a number for my personal comms that is automatically routed through the system of the safehouse I am using," Yelena corrected her. "You can say many things about my former trainers, but you cannot say they are inefficient."

"That's kinda why we called you," Peter said, jerking his thumb towards the room where their captive was waiting. "We just had a run in with this guy who… well, he called himself 'Taskmaster'-"

"Taskmaster?" Yelena repeated, looking at Peter with a new sense of urgency before her forehead furrowed in confusion. "You are certain that it is a guy?"

"Yeah, he was pretty talkative about it," Peter nodded at her.

"He could talk?"

"Guy was pretty vocal about how we couldn't stop him before we shut down his suit and knocked him over," Kate affirmed, looking curiously at Yelena. "He mentioned that he had something to do with the… Red Room; does that mean you know this guy?"

"My sister and I… the man who created the Red Room program augmented his daughter with technological assets that allowed her to imitate the combat skills of others," Yelena explained, even as the tension in her shoulders made it clear to both teens that there were things she wasn't telling them about this situation. "His daughter received those upgrades after she… was seriously injured, and there is some question about her mental state; she never spoke during the confrontation or did anything more than fight. We were able to break her conditioning and left her with trusted doctors to receive help, but it may be that the program used the same technology on other operatives."

"She was the original and we fought one of the newer models?" Kate said.

"Most likely," Yelena nodded at Kate. "You were able to stop this man?"

"I… kept him busy until Kate could hit him with an EMP arrow that knocked out his suit's tech," Peter said. "He could still fight, but it was a lot harder for him; he wasn't as much of a challenge once the tech wasn't a factor."

"That makes sense," Yelena nodded at him. "The Taskmaster program was about augmenting physical capabilities, but they would become reliant on their technology."

"And if people need the tech that much, they're not worth anything without it," Peter said, trying not to focus too much on the sudden memory of his difficult encounter with Mr Stark after the close call on the ferry.

"Which is one reason you both want me to practice without weapons, huh?" Kate noted.

"And I would like to watch you do that while Peter takes this Taskmaster to prison," Yelena put in.

"What?" Peter and Kate said simultaneously.

"Is that safe?" Peter asked. "I mean, if this guy has something to do with you-?"

"I can send a report to your city's police records that will establish that this man has a criminal record…" Yelena said with a smile, before she assumed a more curious expression. "Can I see his face?"

"Be right back," Peter held up a hand as he ran back to pick up the still-unconscious Taskmaster and carry him into the communication room, taking off his mask to show his face to Yelena. The man behind the mask gave the impression of being in his early thirties, with a wide, handsome face with short hair and stubble on his chin.

"You know this guy?" Kate asked.

"Just a moment…" Yelena said, turning to study something off to the left of her side of the screen, before she turned back to them with a nod. "His name is Tony Masters."

"You found him that quickly?"

"The link to the Taskmaster program was not hard to trace; I simply had no reason to look before now-"

"Hold on; Tony Masters?" Peter cut in, looking incredulously at the screen. "And you're sure he's not the first person to be a… Taskmaster?"

"I am certain."

"…Yeah, that seems like a bit of a weird coincidence," Kate noted as she looked at the still-unconscious mercenary.

"Dreykov had his own warped sense of humour," Yelena said with a dismissive shrug. "He may have chosen Masters as part of this program because he liked the correlation of his name to the program."

"Anyway," Peter said as he slipped the mask back on Masters' face, "if you know his name, does that mean he's got a legitimate criminal record… if you get what I mean?"

"Which I can pass on to the relevant police authorities so that they can access it when you drop him off," Yelena nodded at Peter. "I take it he did not use your names?"

"He called us 'kids', but… no, he didn't seem to know who we were…"

"That would fit this information," Yelena noted as she glanced to the side again. "Apparently the process of augmenting the Taskmaster tech into his brain would have likely compromised the parts of Masters' brain responsible for recalling personal information such as names."

"So… he can fight like that but he can't remember what to call people?" Kate said. "Weird trade-off…"

"Sounds a bit like The Dead Zone."

"The what?" Yelena asked.

"It's a book by Stephen King; I read it a while back," Peter explained. "The main character gets some kind of prophetic visions after he suffered brain damage while he was in a coma, but some side-effect of his injuries stops him properly processing details like street addresses."

"Oh yeah, I think I read… about that one…" Kate said, trailing off with an awkward shrug.

"It does not sound like a bad analogy in this case," Yelena noted. "From what I have read in the files, Masters would have difficulty recalling such personal details on his own, so you are both safe to assume he will not be able to turn you in if he is taken into custody under the Accords."

"But he'll recall enough that nobody can say we just dumped some brain-damaged crook on their doorstep and claimed he was behind some crimes, right?" Peter checked.

"That will not be an issue," Yelena said firmly. "You get him to the nearest prison and I will send the relevant details to your police department; I can assess the status of Kate Bishop's training in the process."

"Don't you have-?" Kate began.

"Nothing that cannot wait," Yelena cut her off with a brief smile. "Besides, it is… good to see you both again."

"Good to see you too," Peter smiled at her before he pulled his own mask back on and lifted Masters over his shoulders. "Like to stick around, but I should probably get this guy to the authorities, huh?"