What Now??? - Irondad Spiderson Marvel

The Hydra Spider

Peter was not himself anymore. He didn't know exactly what he was. He knew the only person he could talk to was James. He and James had begun confiding in each other when they realized if they talked to the Hydra agents about any of this, it would just result in lots and lots of pain. Every once in a while, James was out of cryo for long enough that he would tell Peter, 'call me Bucky', but then he would go back in cryo and not recognize the name again. To be fair, Peter would forget most things from his old life, too, when we went in cryo. Right now he had been avoiding cryo for about a month, and was beginning to remember things from his past. Where his powers came from. Who he failed to save. His father, selling him to Hydra. His first mission: kill a man, who, with time, Peter had come to realize had been his father.

He knew this wasn't right. He was pretty sure he was fighting for the wrong cause. But Hydra was all he knew. Did that just reinforce that fact that he was on the wrong side, or should everyone know just Hydra? Peter knew the answer to that. The answer was electrocuted into him every time he stepped a toe out of line. Hydra was wrong. But Hydra was in his head. He knew he was fighting for the wrong side, but he couldn't turn away.

That all changed when James didn't come back. Hydra sent him on a mission; he never returned. The Hydra agents were more irritable, put Peter in cryo much more often. He had been given most of James's missions, so he was almost always out. It still felt nice to swing, even if it was for bad causes. He enjoyed being the Hydra Spider, but not because of who he killed. Because of what he got to do. Swing through the streets with his webs and scare the shit out of random people, but in a nice (but kinda mean cause they usually recognized him from the news) way.

Today he was going on a mission they had been preparing him for for a long time. They were sending him to kill James. Peter had fought against it at first, because James had been his friend, but they tossed his brain in the blender and he started to not care as much. They put him through lots of training, even gave him a new, advanced metal ear.

Oh, yeah, the ear.

Well, when Peter's dad had sold him to Hydra, he had secretly implanted a tracker in his ear. Not wanting to do the complicated surgery, Hydra just gave him a new ear. It was similar to a hearing aid: he could turn it up and hear minuscule sounds (not that he couldn't do that without it), or he could turn it down and block out everything on that side of his head.

They sent him off bright and early in the morning. They had wanted to send a strike team, but Peter had been insistent on going alone.

Peter had grown up in Queens even before he was sold to Hydra. To be fair, he was sold at eight and still had a little of the mask of childhood innocence, but he understood enough. Being in Hydra had only enforced what he already knew about life: keep your arms crossed, keep your head up, and keep your valuables where you can see them. He found James's apartment rather quickly, but it was clearly empty. So he began walking about.

Soon, he came to an open-air market. He spotted James's familiar hair next to the plums, and slowly began stalking over. He stepped into a shadow for a moment and slipped off his normal clothes, revealing his suit, black and green, underneath. He tugged on his mask in a half a second then jumped back out of the shadow. He hopped on top of the stalls immediately, and luckily no one saw him. He crawled over to the plums section, happily finding a crack right next to James.

He shot down a web and pulled James up. No one seemed to notice, except James, of course. As soon as James was with him on the top of the stalls, Peter grabbed him in a stranglehold.

Then, slowly and imperceptibly, he loosened his grip and let James breathe. His hand, trapped in between the back of James's neck and his own chest, began moving at a frantic pace on James's neck.