CROSS POSTED
Tony was not okay. Tony was the exact opposite of okay. Tony, stupid, stupid Tony, not only recruited a teenager, he recruited a teenager that was now being targeted by Hydra. This had to be his fault. Hydra must have somehow found out...
Everyone sat quietly as Bruce unhooked Tony from the various machines, and they followed without protest when he limped into the Greeting Parlor, apparently not up to moving any further. By the time he sat down, his forehead was beaded with sweat, and he was working to pump the lingering cold from his hand from the IV.
"So what do we do?" Tony finally asked, panting. "We can't leave them waiting forever."
Steve shook his head dejectedly, his eyes staring blankly at the floor. Just the slight possibility that any of what he heard could be true had him questioning everything. That was the worst part of all. Reanalyzing everything Peter did, every touch, every sleep-addled confession of adoration, the echoes of Peter's laugh making his whole body ache. He knew Peter, he felt it in every fiber of his being that he did, but he was still disoriented by the torrential current of conflict in his mind.
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"I don't know," Steve admitted lowly. "I don't want to believe it."
"I don't," Tony said, confidently, but his face was hard, fighting back the doubt in his own mind. "Hydra has managed a lot more complex things than voice modulators. I just need to know what we do until I can prove it."
Bucky remained silent. He wasn't wholly convinced that it was Peter on the recording either, but for a totally different reason. Bucky spent countless nights lying awake in fear of Hydra coming back for him since the day he stepped foot out of Wakanda, but for them to send Peter to get him back? That he highly doubted. The kid barely had any training. Not only that, but he was constantly trying to fit in with the group, not finding ways to tear them apart. If they had come up with any other story, he may have believed it. Recon. Sabotage. Even an assassination attempt. But bringing Bucky in? He doubted that.
"It wouldn't hurt to question him," Clint said, eerily serious. He sighed, shaking his head at his hands. "We can put him in interrogation for a few days. I'm not as good as Natasha, but I can do it. If there's anything to know, I can find it."
"Interrogation?" Steve demanded, incredulously. "You can't be serious."
"What do you expect us to do? Look around, Steve." Clint waved to the MedBay doors. "You think I want Peter to be some double agent? I don't, man, but we are three people down right now."
"Two," Tony interjected.
"I don't want to add anyone else to that list because we let our emotions get in the way," Clint continued, pointedly.
"I understand that," Steve snapped back dryly, his face hot. "-but we didn't even give him a chance to defend himself. Like Tony said, they could have altered his voice with that-that voice modulator."
Bruce rubbed his hands down his face. He knew something like this would eventually happen. Not that he truly thought Peter was capable of hurting any one of them, but the secrets Bruce and Tony were piling dangerously high, and if they didn't come clean now, it would only cause more damage later.
