[Warnings! Gore sorry.]

The Avengers and the Hunting Spider

Part Two

Chapter- 7

"Sir, Nick Fury is in the building. Shall I direct him to you?" the AI interrupted making Peter jump and look up at the ceiling. It sounded like the female voice he'd heard in the HYDRA facility. Was there an invisible Avenger? HYDRA surely would have known about that. Then again, he hadn't been told much about the Avengers, just to avoid being caught by then. Guess he failed at that.

"Might as well. Son of a bitch will just hunt us down like the one-eyed blood hound he is," Tony said up to the ceiling while rolling his eyes. He almost patted the teen's shoulder but paused and took his hand away. "I'll go delay our resident pirate for a bit."

Natasha simply looked annoyed and followed. "You have maybe fifteen minutes."

They heard Tony yell in a terrible British accent- you'd think having Vision and JARVIS would've helped- from somewhere in the building, "OI PIRATE MAN!" Peter winced at the yelling then winced internally when his shoulder gave a sharp twinge.

"Make that five," and she was gone in a flash of red hair and black leather.

Peter went to finish his sandwich quickly but stopped when Bruce interrupted, "Peter, don't choke yourself. Fury isn't too bad and can wait until you're done." Peter continued, but at a considerably slower pace. He wouldn't disobey them until he could get away...

"The voice was the AI, FRIDAY. Tony has her programmed into the entire tower and his suits too," Clint said, having noticed his jump. Peter made an 'o' with his mouth and nodded silently. That made sense actually.

"So Pete..." The blonde haired man continued talking with the teen to fill the time. It was mostly one-sided unless Clint asked a direct question, but he was more than capable of holding the conversation. Bruce started reading and Bucky sat in the corner, watching.

"Hawkeye, Nick Fury is headed this way," the AI said.

"Wow, Tony must've really annoyed the guy," Clint said sounding... Well, not surprised.

.oO0Oo.

Nick Fury was sitting in the main room when he heard Tony's yell. He rolled his eye and stood to greet them.

Tony raced in and Natasha was speedily following behind. "Take me to him." Was all he said, deciding to ignore Tony entirely.

"We'll let you see him when he's at least a little bit healthier," Tony said, earning an elbow from Natasha.

"Stark, he is a criminal. I don't care if he's on his death-bed I need to talk to him. This is a matter of the security of the people of New York and more," Fury said as he began walking towards the infirmary thanks to Tony's comment.

Natasha stopped him by stepping in the doorway. "No. Director, you really don't understand. Can we just explain something?"

Fury pushed past the two and turned to face them. "What could possibly be so important that you are trying to stall me? Do you know how dangerous he is? I imagine you do."

Okay, Tony thought, that hurt.

The man rolled his eye and continued, all attempts to stop him proven useless. They approached the medbay and the door silently whooshed open.

There in one of the beds was a teen who could not be more than fourteen. Nick Fury took in the bruised face, slung arm, braced foot which peeked out from under the blanket, and wrapped torso. He was holding half a sandwich in his good hand which was no longer wrapped and Fury could barely make out a glint of metal.

He was a kid. Fury shot a harsh look to the brunette man at his side. There was always the possibility their culprit was young, but it hadn't been likely.

The boy had a blank face but his eyes were flicking to everyone then settled on him. Clint was on the teen's other side talking one-sidedly with Peter, and facing away from the door. He probably hadn't even noticed Fury's arrival before so he decided to make his presence known.

"Agent Barton," Fury greeted.

"Fury," Clint said not looking back. Truthfully he'd seen the reflection on one of the expensive and shiny machines that were hooked up to the teen. Bruce gave a weak wave and went back to reading. Tony and Natasha entered seconds after and walked past Fury to the teen's bedside.

Switching back to business mode Fury gave a short nod of approval at the fact they'd at least saved the kid and hadn't broken him. "As you know he's dangerous. I'll need all of the available information on him. Even if we're not logging him into our systems yet."

Clint got up and handed the HYDRA folders over with their own bits of information they'd gathered added in. It was in a folder that was several inches thick.

Fury took it and flipped through a few pages as if checking they were all there. He glimpsed the name of the teen, Peter Parker, then closed it with a 'snap'.

"I'll need you all to debrief as soon as we clear up one other problem. And now we come to the problem of where to put him," he glanced at Peter. "Let's discuss this outside," he motioned towards the door. They nodded and Bruce stayed with Peter in the room.

"FRI, activate white noise," at the confused glances Tony elaborated, "Our guest have enhanced senses so it's to keep peeping ears back there from listening."

"I'm afraid SHIELD may be too dangerous to keep him at," Fury started. "It's been compromised too many times by HYDRA."

A collective 'what' and some other choice words sounded through the hallway in various levels of surprise.

"So where are you going to stick short-stack here?" Tony asked pointing to the door. "You can't be telling me you don't have some place to-"

"To put Peter somewhere he needs to be registered into the SHIELD systems. If HYDRA is somehow still lurking inside SHIELD, they'll find out where we're keeping him and he'll just end right back up in their hands," Fury said. "It might be wiser overall to just put him the system as a casualty."

"Why don't we keep him here," a deep voice asked. The hall was instantly silenced and Tony whipped around to face Bucky. "What?"

"I agree," Clint said, backing up the Winter Soldier. Clint had always been sympathetic to due to his own experience with mind control. If Bucky was thankful he didn't show it outwardly.

Natasha also nodded her approval. Clint said, "I agree. Plus we can observe him here easily."

Tony glanced around in surprise as if he couldn't believe they were all agreeing on something when these people couldn't even agree on pizza toppings. "Might as well. This place should be renamed 'Tower of Strays' as this point." Then he raised his hand.

"As you know there will be rules for now until something can be figured out. The Avengers can't pause their duties to babysit," he warned.

Tony interrupted first. "Okay, ignoring the fact you said 'duties', what kind of rules? And there's six, sometimes more, of us. We're more than capable of watching a kid."

"You probably could watch a regular kid, but he isn't one. He's a solider, a weapon, and more than likely modified for combat," Fury said shortly.

"But he's still exactly that. A child," Natasha stated, her voice almost dangerously low.

Fury gave a her a look showing he didn't believe her. But he wasn't going to argue further. "I do have some rules for if you're going to be keeping him here. We can discuss those with him."

The group went back in to see Peter laying down and staring at the walls like they'd offended him. In actuality the white noise made his ears feel fuzzy and him tired. When it cancelled he turned his attention back to the new person who he rightly guessed was this Nick Fury FRIDAY announced the arrival of.

"I am Director Nick Fury," Fury said. Peter just nodded, given that he'd already guessed that. "You will be staying here until further notice. Understand?" A meek nod. "You and the Avengers will have rules to monitor you and ensure the safety of the people of New York."

Rules? He could follow rules.

"If you don't follow the rules and something bad happens I will be forced to take you into SHIELD as a prisoner." A bluff, the Avengers knew. "Do you want that?"

"No," Peter said while shaking his head, he hated that he sounded and probably looked like a child.

"Hey kid, they'll probably just be easy," Clint comforted, well, he tried. "Like don't stay up past 10 o'clock or something." Peter just stared at Fury, unblinking, waiting for the man to continue.

"First, let no one outside us and Agent Coulson know we have him. As far as the rest of SHIELD knows the Hunting Spider incident was a one time thing. As such, he is not allowed outside the tower," Fury started.

"So is he just never allowed to leave the Tower, Fury? That's a bad idea, I know he's dangerous but he's still a teenager. And one who's under the Avengers watch," Tony said.

"At least let me finish, Stark!" He snapped at the billionaire. This led to a glaring standoff until Fury broke it with a sigh. "Keeping him away from public eye is important for now. Peter Parker has been declared dead for nearly a decade. If he shows up with the same name someone else will notice and then HYDRA will. And he may only be here temporarily, depending on when we can get SHIELD under control and can find him a place to live."

"What are you going to do? Put him in some stranger's family or lock him up?" Tony asked.

"If it comes to that," he said. "It all depends on what happens and whether Peter's safe enough for regular humans to be around. Second, and this is mostly for you Peter, don't cause trouble. Need I go further?"

Peter shook his head. He'd have to be careful.

"Good. Third, I want to know everything you find out about him. That's all for now. I'll contact you all later and check up with you. Send me your debriefing by tomorrow," he said already walking towards the door.

The room stayed silent for a minute while Peter tried to take in what just happened. Tony clapped making Peter jump.

"Alright. It's late- no. It's early. You know what, let's just get to bed."

A few of them ended up just staying in the medbay that night- or day. Though none of them would directly admit it, they wanted to stay nearby in case Peter needed something and so that the teen didn't have a chance to panic.

It was long past five in the morning by the time they all settled down and eventually drifted off to sleep. The sun had risen and the Avenger's alarm had remained thankfully silent allowing them and their guest to sleep peacefully. Tony had FRIDAY black out the windows and told her to not disturb them unless it was life and death, robots, or aliens. Then he went to his room most of the others following his example, leaving Bucky, Steve, and Bruce behind.

.oO0Oo.

Peter's cell was cold... No, that wasn't the right word. This was a bone deep chill that would linger and make you feel as if you were made of ice. He was in the cell huddled against the wall shivering. Even if he wanted he couldn't sleep. There was a constant throbbing coming from... Everywhere. They'd taken samples again that day. It was a cruel cycle of pain, relief, repeat.

For how long? He didn't now. He'd lost count of the days... A week... Month maybe? Possibly longer.

He'd long since given up the hope that someone, anyone would come for him. He had no one else. No one would notice if Peter Parker dissapeared. And no one did. He was still here as proof of that fact. Peter Parker wasn't important enough, and he would never be remembered.

There was a metal bang! From down the hall as they collected a new prisoner for experimemts. He guessed they wouldn't be back for a while now, at least. He shifted and a flare of fire raced through his back where they'd done a spinal tap. He didn't think he'd be able to move well for hours.

He was still bleeding from several contusions all over his small body, so he was laying in a slowly growing puddle of his own blood. His eyes were beginning to get heavy and his blinks sluggish.

He had no idea when he fell asleep but he remembered waking up. It was done so in a way that his senses returned to him all at once and he jolted up. He was soaking wet in ice cold water which made his teeth chatter together.

"Steh auf!" The man commanded motioning for him to stand with a now empty bucket. Still gasping Peter just barely managed to stand. Another came forwards and grabbed his arms.

They marched the bleeding child to that room. The one where the experiments happened. He feebly struggled and received a smack to the head.

The too strong antiseptics burned his nose when the door swung open. Besides the bed on the tray were two gun metal colored devices. He was led over then strapped down. His hands, palm up, were placed where they could reach them easily and were put where he had no movement whatsoever. There was a now familiar snap of rubber gloves then masked people stepped into view.

"Experiment SM68 is ready to receive the prototypes," the one he recognized said as he picked up the scalpel.

He sliced through his wrist skin, exposing muscle and other tissue. They dabbed away the crimson liquid before it fell. Peter whimpered as he felt moving his muscle being moved aside and out of place. Between the blinding pain he felt something freezing cold being slid inside arm.

Then they did it again for his other.

Repeat.

.oO0Oo.

Peter shot up in his medical bed in a cold sweat. He gasped for breath and clutching his wrists to his chest. They throbbed with phantom pains that the nightmares always brought. He glanced around confused. He was here... With these strange people. Not there... Not... Alone.

Steve and Bucky, the ones closest and most sensitive, woke up in time to watch Peter dazedly take in his surroundings now that he wasn't panicking.

He managed to prop himself up in his bed taking care not to disturb his broken ribs too badly or Bruce's feet that were propped up at the very end. The genius himself was slumped in a chair, asleep for once. The only sound was soft snores from to brunette.

"Kid?" Peter's head shot up to face Steve, Captain America, who was sitting on his left side.

His quiet voice whispered back, "Yeah?"

This time Bucky asked the question, "Are you okay?"

The question made him pause for two reasons. One, it was Bucky asking. Second, he had no clue how to answer. So after gaping like a goldfish for a minute, he settled for shrugging.

"How do you feel?" Bucky asked after a moment of silence that was penetrated by snores.

"Tired," he stated.

A huff then pause. "Wanna talk about the nightmare? It helps sometimes."

"It was about when I had the web-shooters implanted," his quiet voice said. He flexed his hand, comforted by the muscle rubbing against metal. His opinion on the devices had changed vastly since he got them. He could hardly remember a time before they put them in. They'd saved his life a number of times and now they felt like a security blanket rather than a weapon.

"When did that happen?" Steve asked. He was moderately curious about the time frame what this kid had been through.

The two men could just make out the teen frowning in concentration. They remembered he still had strong painkillers in his system, probably muddling his brain. "Early..."

"Do you remember it?" Steve asked, his facial expression clearly showed he hoped Peter didn't remember. The teen shook his head but stopped with only a slight wince. It was a far cry from earlier when he didn't dare moving his arm. His healing factor appeared to be trying its hardest to knit his body back together while he was asleep.

Bucky watched Peter for a second decided against confronting the teen on his lie. "Anything else?" No answer. There wasn't anything they could do for him so why did they care so much? The question irritated him so much he wanted to pull his hair out because he just didn't understand.

"Alright," Steve interrupted his thoughts, "you get to sleep and wake us if you need anything," Steve said and patted Peter's knee.

He lay back down and watched as Bucky and Steve drifted off again and sighed silently. If he was going to be stuck here at least he was stuck with them and not SHIELD. He laid back down in his bed and drifted to dreamless sleep, feeling safe for the first time in a long while.

At least for now.