Chapter Text
The job was supposed to be an easy one. Get in, swipe the shipping itinerary, get out. Knowing exactly what kinds of weapons the Benedettis were bringing into play would be beneficial for both the family and their clientele, so despite how easy it was going to be Harley knew it was an important heist. He and Peter had been assigned to it for that very reason. Both of them were small, nimble, light on their feet and easy to miss. They had grown up on the streets doing this exact type of thing for years. It was right up their alley.
Black Widow had ensured they had all the information they needed - security systems, guard shifts, the works - and between himself and Peter, they had ensured that the plan was flawless.
Or it should have been. It was supposed to be.
Now, with a split lip and a bloody nose and an already-forming black eye, and with a sluggishly bleeding stab wound in his leg, Harley was beginning to think otherwise. He was half-standing on his good leg, being held upright by two brutish thugs that he knew couldn’t be part of the Benedetti gang because they lacked the trademark interlocking triangle tattoo on their necks. They were ugly fuckers too. Absolutely no redeeming features. None. But really, he didn’t give a rat’s ass about his own situation right now, because not ten feet away Peter was curled up on the ground looking worse off than Harley felt. A third and fourth pair of assholes were standing over him, each wielding brass knuckles and some fucking monumental brass balls, because really, why else would these bastards target two of Tony Stark’s family?
You don’t mess with the Merchant of Death and get away with it.
Peter coughed, his arm wrapped tightly around his middle as he struggled to his knees. Beneath Peter’s stealth suit, Harley was sure there was already a canvas of bruises across his ribs and stomach. Fucking bastards. Harley snarled, yanking against his captors.
“You sons of bitches!” he snapped, unable to stop himself from lashing out. “This has nothing to do with you. Back the fuck off!”
“Says who, you?” The thug holding his right arm chuckled, setting off a spattering of dark laughter from his pals. A chorus of idiots. Fantastic.
“Yeah, me,” Harley spat. “You’re making a huge fucking mistake, jackass.”
“H-Harley, d...don’t – gah!” Peter’s attempt to dissuade Harley from arguing back was cut short by a kick to his ribs, sending him sprawling onto his back on the concrete floor of the shipping warehouse they had been cornered in.
“LET HIM GO!” Finally wrenching one arm free, Harley elbowed Asshole One in the face, then landed a well-aimed fist across Asshole Two’s jaw. They both recoiled, leaving Harley to dart forward in an attempt to reach his partner in crime. His friend. His brother, in all but blood. “PETE–”
Wham!
Before Harley saw it coming, he was suddenly winded by a steel bat to the gut. It knocked all the air from him, made him double over, and sent him to his knees in a fit of wheezing, desperate coughing. His knees hit the ground hard, his injured leg screaming and his palms scraping against the rough concrete. This was wrong. This was all wrong. Nothing was going according to plan, and Widow’s information was always flawless, which meant–
“Which one d’you think is his golden boy?” one of the Brass Knuckles asked, barely cutting through the spinning in Harley’s head and the ringing in his ears.
“I’d reckon it’s this one,” mused the other, and when he heard Peter let out a hiss of pain, Harley raised his head far enough to see the man had grabbed Peter by the hair and yanked him up into a sitting position. Fucking. Bastards. “‘Member what the boss said? You hear what his buddy called him? Peter. The softy, right?”
“H-He’s n...not–” Harley panted, trying to protest despite his severe lack of oxygen. But when Peter met his eyes, he froze. Peter was blinking at him. Wincing, really, but Harley recognizes it immediately. Morse code.
Dash. Dash-dash-dash. Dash-dot. Dash-dot-dash-dash.
Then the pattern repeated. If Harley wasn’t so out of it, he might have been quicker on the uptake, but as it stood he stared at Peter for a few long, agonizing seconds, his mind working at a sluggish pace.
Dash. Dash-dash-dash…
“...think the boss’d mind if we roughed him up a bit?”
Another round of rough laughter drilled through Harley’s ears as he fought to stay focussed.
Dash. Dash-dash-dash. Dash-dot–
T-O-N-Y.
Tony.
Recognition flared in Harley’s chest, followed quickly by a conflicted kind of denial. He knew what Peter was trying to tell him. Get out. Get Tony. Come back for me. There was no way in hell he was about to leave his brother here alone at the hands of these jerkwads.
Except...Tony could stop this whole thing. He could. Even if he sent in Black Widow by herself, she could take down all of these bastards within seconds. (Technically Harley and Peter could have taken them too, if they hadn’t been made the second they approached the building. But clearly that wasn’t the case.) They needed to get a message out for help, and between the two of them, Harley was the one these idiots were paying the least attention to. It had to be him.
He hated that it had to be him.
If he had his way, Harley would stay behind and let these jerks pummel him into the ground for all he cared, as long as it meant Peter would be able to get to safety before him. But today seemed to be chock full of Harley not getting his way. Fuck.
Tony. Get Tony. The faster he got Tony, the faster Peter would be okay.
Harley blinked back in response, a careful and even dash-dot-dash-dash. “Y”...yes. He watched Peter let out a shaking breath, his eyes closing and his jaw tensing. This couldn’t wait even a second longer. Not caring if they followed him, not caring if his lungs were still aching, Harley was on his feet faster than any of the brutes could react. He tore off across the warehouse - he wished he was faster; Peter had always been faster - and paid no mind to the pain throbbing through his left thigh. He could put pressure on it later. He needed to get out now. Voices shouted after him, rough and angry, reverberating off of the concrete space and half-empty warehouse but finding Harley only moments too late. They didn’t seem to be following, and all the better for Harley really, because it meant he could hide somewhere nearby and within reach of Peter without getting caught. Or that was the plan, anyhow.
Hopefully this plan worked out a lot better than the last one had.
It wasn’t until Harley was slumped back against a stack of crates, his utility belt tightened almost painfully around his upper leg and his teeth gritted in belated pain, that he dug his phone out of his pocket with shaking, bloodstained hands. He scrolled down to Tony’s contact and hit send...and prayed that the mafia boss wasn’t too busy to answer the call.
Tony was in the very beginnings of a routine deal with Wilson Fisk that his phone buzzed in his pocket. Fisk stilled, eyeing Tony in something akin to annoyed amusement, but Tony paid the mob boss no mind as he deftly withdrew his cell from his inside suit pocket. He answered without looking, knowing that it could only be one of a few people if the call made it past his custom “Do Not Disturb” settings. With the phone to his ear, Tony waited silently for the person on the other end to talk first. When the first sounds that reached him were panting breaths and a grunt of pain, he stilled.
“T...Tony–”
Tony recognized the voice almost instantly. Harley. A chill ran down his spine at the tone in the kid’s words, and his eyes took on a sharp, dark kind of focus in an instant. He held up a silencing hand to Fisk, ignoring the irate look on the man’s face. Kingpin could wait.
“What happened?” he asked instead, his focus entirely on his call and his torso turned slightly away in a false show of seeking privacy. He had never heard Harley sound this strained before, this unsteady. After becoming familiar with the firecracker confidence that Harley seemed to exude on a near-constant basis, the sudden polar shift was unnerving.
“The...the - fffuck–“ For a second or two, Harley’s ragged breathing was all Tony could hear. His jaw tensed. “...the B...Benedetti job. S...S-Someone snitched. Knew we were coming–“
“What?” Tony’s voice was low and dangerous, and he shot a sharp look back towards Natasha, who had been standing a few feet back on his right. She raised an eyebrow at him in question. In his ear, he heard a distant cry of pain, one that he wished didn’t sound so familiar. He tried not to think about the implications of who it might be as Harley swore and carried on in a low, harsh, frantic whisper.
“–they made us. Instantly.” There was a muffled sound of scuffing and shuffling, a thump, a hiss of pain. “I can’t...s-see from here. We - th-they’ve got Peter. I got - I got away to, to call you, but–“
They’ve got Peter.
They’ve got Peter.
Something unidentifiable lurched in Tony’s chest. His jaw clenched, his teeth grinding together, and he forced himself to take a few slow, deep breaths. Harley was injured, and presumably Peter was as well. That was all Tony needed to hear to make a decision.
“You’ve got this, right Honeybear?” Tony asked rhetorically, tossing a casual hand signal in Rhodey’s direction out of sight of Fisk and his men. The boys. Top priority. It was enough for his second in command to understand what he meant. At Rhodey’s nod, Tony offered Fisk a polite smile and brief incline of his head before turning his back on the boss. He trusted War Machine to handle the deal with equal professionalism and respect, as well as the borderline-brutal-yet-friendly negotiating that the Avengers were known for.
“I apologize for the change of plans, Mr. Fisk, but I’m sure you understand how it can be. The kind of world we live in does tend to shift gears so quickly, doesn’t it…?”
With Rhodey’s words behind him, Tony tuned back into the call with Harley, quick gestures to Clint and Natasha ensuring that the change of position was as smooth as ever. Clint stepped up to stand in as Rhodey’s defense, with the lower-tiered Pietro Maximoff at his side, and Natasha fell into step beside Tony with practiced ease. They hadn’t even reached the car awaiting them just beyond the meeting point when Tony spoke.
“Stay quiet,” he muttered urgently into the phone. “Stay down. If you see the opportunity to leave, take it. I’ll be there in five.”
Screw the fact that the Benedetti shipping warehouse was at least fifteen minutes away. If he said he’d be there in five, he’d be there in five.
“Thank you. Th-Thanks - gah, sonofabitch this hurts–” Tony winced at Harley’s hissed outburst. “...P...Peter told me to go, I didn’t want - d-didn’t want to. Had to. Had to–”
“I get it, kid,” Tony cut him off. “Don’t talk. Save your breath, capiche?”
Natasha waited until both she and Tony were in the privacy of Tony’s sleek black Audi before eyeing him critically and asking:
“Which kid?”
“Benedetti’s warehouse, Hap,” Tony threw sharp instructions to the driver. “I need to get there yesterday.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
“And both,” Tony added, this time to Natasha. “Both of the boys. Benedetti job went sideways. Harley says they were made from the get-go. He thinks someone snitched.”
Natasha’s hardened expression and pursed lips were enough to show her displeasure.
“You want me to look into it?”
“You know me so well,” Tony murmured. “But that can wait. Boys first. Investigation later.”
“Understood.”
“...w-wait...I think–” A muffled hiss of pain. “–shit, ffffuh - mmmph...it...I think it's a t-trap–”
Tony almost missed the fact that Harley was talking at all, his thoughts already racing ahead toward a plan of attack, both for the warehouse and for sniffing out their mole. He had his focus on the boy again in a heartbeat.
“What?"
"They - when they took....took P-Peter, they - ngh–” Harley panted harshly, then snarled in what Tony could only assume was frustration. “...th-they were s-saying how he's - he's your ‘golden boy’. An' they d...didn't really bother ch...chasing me. Might - m-might be a trap..."
"Of course it's a trap,” Tony muttered, rolling his eyes. “They're always traps. You think I would have held the position I do if I didn't always expect an ambush?"
All the same, it was satisfying to note the way Natasha immediately took in that new piece of information, her eyes already calculating the best course of action. This was exactly why she was his left hand, second best only to Rhodey as his right.
"R-Right. Heh. Smart m...man."
The kid was still babbling. Had he even left the warehouse yet? The thought alone had Tony’s pulse leaping, something he would never admit aloud. His knee bounced impatiently and his eyes narrowed.
"Keener, get out of there,” he ordered sharply. “Now. If they're not looking for you, then now would be an opportune time to–"
"No."
Tony stilled and his voice became dangerously low.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"No,” Harley repeated, and shit, the kid must really have a death wish if he was pushing Tony this far. “Not leaving w...without Pete."
...fuck.
Tony had always known the pair was inseparable, but he had hoped they would be smart enough to know when getting out alone was the better option. For a moment he supposed Peter would be clever enough to leave and await help especially when told to do so...but no, Tony reminded himself. That boy was loyal to a damn fault as well. In this line of work, that was both a strength and a weakness.
"...you're a damn idiot,” Tony told Harley finally.
"I know, boss."
“At least you’re aware of it.”
Torn between frustration towards Harley, unease towards the current situation, and a quietly burning rage toward the people who thought themselves powerful enough to go against the Merchant of Death (because this was absolutely intended to send him a message), Tony was left stewing in muddled silence as he waited out the car ride.
Five minutes. He had promised Harley five minutes, and he’d be damned if he didn’t deliver.
The air was ringing. It had been for a while. Or - or maybe it was just his ears? Peter couldn’t be sure, but something, somewhere, was ringing and it was driving him crazy. Or buzzing. Was it a buzz? Was it the lights? Whatever it was, he wished it would stop so he could get some damn sleep.
No. Not sleep. Can’t sleep. Stay awake.
Peter’s most recent memories were somewhat jumbled, a mix of physical pain and muffled sounds and disjointed images. He could feel rough plastic digging into his wrists and ankles, his arms wrenched behind his back so he couldn’t move away from the stiff chair beneath him...but he wasn’t exactly feeling up to sitting upright at the moment anyhow. Instead, he was slumped forward, something he was only aware of because of the weight of his own head lolling against his chest and the strain his position was putting on his shoulders. God, he was sore.
Why was he so sore? If he thought about it, he could only bring forth a vague memory of how he had gotten in this position. He had been on a job…right? A heist of some kind? With...with Harley.
Harley.
Where was Harley?
Focus, Pete. C’mon. Use your head. Tony always said you could think your way out of any situation. Figure it out.
It took a lot of effort to drag himself out of the fuzzy swirl of semi-consciousness he had been floating in, more effort than he reckoned it should have. The moment he felt anywhere close to being aware of his surroundings he instantly realized why. His head was throbbing painfully, feeling much more like a cracked egg than a skull at the moment. Head injury. Intentional too, if memory served.
Steel bat? Yeah, that sounded right.
At least the guy wielding it had enough sense to swing lightly. Otherwise, Peter might not have been waking up here at all.
It couldn’t have been long since Harley had left. (He had left, as Peter now recalled, hopefully to get in touch with Tony...and he also remembered the four assholes who had ambushed them looking pissed to all hell before they went full Lights Out on him, so Harley must have gotten away.) If Harley had managed to contact backup then all Peter had to do was wait and pointedly not die. Easy enough. Hopefully.
Peter shifted in his seat, trying to sit up, and hissed sharply when pain flared up the side of his ribcage. Ah, shit. Right. There was some definite bruising there too, from the beatdown he had gotten earlier. Lovely. Hopefully nothing was fractured or broken–
“Looks like the Itsy Bitsy Spider is awake.”
That voice. He knew that voice. Peter raised his head and peered through the half-darkened warehouse, squinting when it sent a throb of pain through his temples. Who…?
On his right, a figure stepped into view, a skull-adorned mask in his hands and a pair of cross-body holsters creating a striking “X” across his chest and across the finely tailored vest he was wearing. Crossbones. Brock Rumlow. Peter recognized him instantly. Rumlow was a part of Black Widow’s hit squad, the best of the best. Top tier fighters and experts in their field. Peter had a few fleeting memories of Nat commenting on Rumlow’s tendency to question orders and forge his own path on the occasional job, but his work more than made up for the minor offenses of disobedience. He was an asset and Natasha knew how to work with him to get what she wanted out of him.
For the briefest of moments, Peter wondered if Crossbones was here to help him...but when he spotted one of the thugs from before standing at attention off to the side, he knew that couldn’t be the case. They were here with him. They were working for him. There was a rat in the Carbonell family, a rat in the Avengers, and Peter was looking right at him.
“...you s...sold us out,” Peter said bluntly, wincing from the pain in his side as he shifted to sit back in his seat, trying to take the pressure off of his shoulders. He forced out a bitter half-chuckle, panting against the tightness in his chest. “Widow’s not gonna – nph – gonna l-like that very much. N...Neither will the boss.”
“That’s kind of the point, kid,” Rumlow smirked, turning his mask over and over idly between gloved hands. “See, there’s this thing called a soft spot. A weakness, if you will.” He paced slowly in front of Peter, making a curving arc around the seat to which Peter was tied. “And, oh boy, does the boss sure have a soft spot.”
The man’s path turned rather abruptly toward Peter, who flinched back as Rumlow reached out and gripped him by the chin. A borderline wicked grin split his features.
“For you.” Rumlow tightened his grip, shaking Peter’s head ever-so-slightly, then let go to pat him roughly on the cheek. Peter’s ears were ringing again. “Well...not just you. The Tater-Tot too, but he’s already playing his part. From what I know of you...you two are pretty protective of each other, huh? Joined at the hip. Like brothers, really. It’d be cute if it weren’t so damn exploitable.”
Cold dread began to pool in Peter’s gut, finding space between the sharp, invisible daggers that were making it so hard to breathe, between the uneasy feeling crawling beneath his skin and the palpable grit that was keeping him focussed and conscious. His jaw tensed, his teeth clenching, as he realized what exactly Rumlow was implying. Harley didn’t just get lucky and escape. Harley was meant to escape, so he could contact Tony, so Tony would–
Fuck.
“A trap,” Peter spat, his eyes hardening. “You th...think that’ll work? Against - a-against Black Widow? Against the...the Merchant of Death?”
His lungs were burning but he didn’t care.
“With his golden boy as leverage?” Rumlow shot back. “You’d be surprised what people would do for the people they care about.”
I think you’re the one who’s gonna be surprised, Peter wanted to say. But what came out instead was:
“What’s the...the point?”
Rumlow, who had been on the verge of walking away, paused mid-stride. He glanced back over his shoulder incredulously and leveled Peter with a look that made it clear how stupid he thought the question was.
“The point?” he repeated. A surprised little chuckle escaped him, and he passed his mask off to the muscle standing off to the side. He approached Peter slowly, rolling up his sleeves as he went. “The point, Spider-Bait, is power. See, the boss has been running things for a little too long...and he plays a little too clean for my liking. I think it’s about time someone new took over with a slightly more...ambitious business plan in mind. Don’t you think?”
Rumlow was directly in front of Peter now, standing over him with his hands in his pockets and a look in his eyes that had Peter’s skin crawling. It wasn’t the first time he had felt it. Harley often told him he had a keen sense for whether or not someone could be trusted, and Peter usually followed it...which was half the reason he had chosen Tony as his pickpocket target a few years ago. He hadn’t sensed any kind of impending danger coming from the man so he had stuck with his chosen mark, pilfering the man’s wallet and leading to Tony Stark bringing both Peter and Harley into the family fold.
Peter supposed his instincts hadn’t been wrong. Tony wasn’t a danger to him.
With Rumlow...Crossbones...Peter had absolutely felt this same crawling unease around the man before now, but he had assumed it was because the guy could be a loose cannon. Natasha had told him as much. Maybe he should have trusted his instincts. Maybe he could have seen this coming. Maybe.
“I don’t,” Peter muttered through gritted teeth. “I don’t think.” It was just as hard to breathe as before, his lungs screaming and sharp pains licking at his ribs, but he ignored it. He pushed past it. “The boss doesn’t play d...dirty, because he plays smart. He - kn-knows the game, he knows the p...politics of it. He toes the line when he needs to, but - but he knows when to hold back. He’s only as bloody as the...the job requires, and it fucking works.”
“That’s not playing smart, kid, that’s playing scared,” Rumlow snorted. “This entire operation could be so much more powerful with a stronger hand on the wheel.”
Tony? Scared? As-fucking-if.
“If you’re looking for stronger, you’re the wrong man for the job. Tony is t...ten times the Don you’d ever be, and if he goes, those loyal to him would follow in a goddamn heartbeat. Without your - your friends back there, you’d be nothing but–”
Click.
The cold touch of steel against his skin made him still. He went almost cross-eyed staring up at the gun barrel pressed to his forehead, the burning eyes of the man behind the trigger boring furiously into Peter’s.
“You’re lucky I need you alive, pipsqueak,” Rumlow ground out. He pressed his hand forward, the metal of the gun digging into Peter’s skin and making him gulp.
He needs you alive he needs you alive he needs you ali–
“Try again,” Peter heard next. “What would I be?”
In most circumstances, Peter would have shut his mouth and obeyed. He would have stayed quiet and played along and done what he could to stay in his captor’s good graces, because the longer he stayed alive the better. Play dumb, play innocent, play it cool - that was what Tony and Natasha had taught him. But perhaps he had spent too much time around Harley, or maybe it was that aforementioned loyalty rearing its head, but something stopped him from holding his tongue.
“Compared to Tony?” he heard himself hiss. “You’re nothing.”
Peter saw the backswing before he felt the impact, hard steel colliding with his temple and making his head spin from the whiplash. The force of it made him bite his tongue...and he wished the tang of copper he tasted afterward wasn’t quite so familiar. He had never been pistol-whipped before, but based on this one experience alone he would be very glad if it never happened again. His head was spinning, his skull pounding with pain, and everything sounded like it was underwater. There was a dull ringing in his ears again and he was almost certain he was bleeding where the gun had struck him. And he couldn’t breathe.
Fuck. He shouldn’t have said that.
Several things happened at once, but with how clouded everything felt and sounded to Peter, he couldn’t quite be sure of the details. There was gunfire, of that he was certain, and shouting...and maybe a distant explosion? Then silence...or at least Peter thought it was silent. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t hear properly, couldn’t focus.
“...eter? Come on, little Spider. Look at me, Паучонок. Eyes open.”
Who…? Natasha. Peter groaned, trying to sit up but unable to find his equilibrium. He slumped sideways, caught by a firm but gentle hand, and it was only then that he managed to open his eyes. He squinted as Natasha’s fiery hair came into view, the red strands pulled back into a neat bun and away from her face. Red. Red hair. It wasn’t until he found the familiar green of her eyes that he let himself relax, leaning forward into her hold and letting out a pleading whine. He panted weakly against her shoulder for a second or two before he found his voice
“...h-home?”
“Soon.”
Soon was enough.