Home isn't just a place

Chapter Twenty

When Peter awoke, it was to an argument.

"---not leaving him! Find the damn thing on your own!" his dad shouted, making Peter wince. Apparently they didn't see it, though, as they kept on fighting.

"I'm not asking you to leave, Tony," Steve said placatingly. "I just need your help locating it."

"You want me to give up on finding a cure for my dying son to help you find a missing Hydra experiment?!" Tony scoffed. Peter frowned. Experiment? "Yeah right! I'm not doing it, Cap! Peter needs me!"

"And so do the Avengers!" Steve argued. "Please, Tony, this experiment... It could be another Peter... Do you really want to do that to a person?"

Peter froze.

Tony seethed. "Fuck. You." he hissed. "How dare you! I'm trying to do what's best for my son! As a parent my first duty is to him not to some Hydra experiment that we don't know anything about---"

"There's another experiment?" Peter cut in, giving up on his facade in favor of finding out what the fuck was going on.

Steve and Tony froze, barely concealed horror on their faces as they turned to look at him. It was obvious that this information was not supposed to reach him, making Peter all the more angry. If what they were saying was true---and judging by their frozen expressions, it was---then there was another person out there like him.

Hydra had replaced him.

(It made him feel sickly grateful and Peter felt nausea roar inside his gut.)

"Peter..." Tony said softly, reaching out towards him. Peter flinched away from him, a mild stab of regret hitting him at the pain in Tony's eyes, but he was too angry, too betrayed, to care.

"There's another one?" he asked again, bracing his hands on the bed to push him up. "Hydra kidnapped another kid and..." Peter couldn't even finish the sentence.

Steve winced. "We don't know that, Pete." he said. "We don't know anything. They might not have been... taken. It could be a willing participant."

Peter scoffed. "Yeah, as willing as me, I suppose." he bit out. Tony flinched. "When were you going to tell me?" he asked, changing tactics.

"Tell you?" Tony asked.

Peter turned to face him, a scowl etched into his face. "About the kid? When were you going to tell me that someone else was taken because of me?"

Tony swallowed a weird noise that came from the back of his throat and moved forward. This time, Peter let Tony pull him in for a hug, frustrated tears welling up in his eyes, but Peter refused to let them fall.

"This is not your fault," Tony said fiercely. "Do you understand me, Peter? Not your fault."

"Yes it is!" Peter shouted. "It is my fault! I didn't go back to being their fucking slave so they take another one?!"

"Peter!" Tony cried. "Watch it."

"No!" he yelled. "This is... this is insane! You have to see that! Hydra took someone else! They put them through what I went through---" Tony and Steve flinched at that, a look of pity flashing in their eyes, and it only served to make him even angrier. "---just because I got out! And now, instead of going after them and trying to save them, you're refusing? Because I'm dying? That's bullshit!"

Tony's jaw clenched. "This is not your decision, Peter." he said tersely. Peter grit his teeth. "They can handle this mission just fine without me."