Chapter Text
The Parker apartment always woke slowly—soft sunlight through thin curtains, the scent of coffee drifting through narrow halls, the quiet hum of the old refrigerator clicking to life again. On this morning, everything felt gentle in the way only an ordinary life can be. No alarms. No shadows. No danger.
Just family.
Peter sat cross-legged on the living-room rug, wearing mismatched socks and humming a made-up song about dinosaurs who rode bicycles. Half the words weren’t real, and the melody veered wildly, but he sang it with complete conviction. A small plastic puzzle lay in front of him, bright shapes scattered like candy.
“Pete, shoes,” May called softly from the doorway, holding a tiny pair of Velcro sneakers.
“Almost done!” he chirped, squinting at the puzzle. His tongue stuck out in concentration—classic Peter.
“That puzzle’s for seven-year-olds, you know,” May said, amused as she crossed the room.
Peter didn’t look up. He rotated a hexagon piece, paused, then slid it smoothly into the exact right slot. The remaining shapes followed one after another with quiet, satisfying clicks. Finished.
May blinked. “Well. Okay then.”
From the kitchen, Ben flipped a pancake with theatrical flair. “Did he do it again?”
“Yup. Third time this week.”
Ben laughed, deep and warm. “Kid’s gonna run the world someday.”
Peter beamed at that. He didn’t understand the full meaning, but he understood the pride in Ben’s voice. He scrambled up and ran to May, nearly crashing into her legs. She steadied him before he could fall, and his shoe collided harmlessly with her shin instead of his forehead meeting the floor.
“Lucky reflexes,” Ben commented.
May hummed thoughtfully. “Mm. He does have those.”
Peter didn’t notice the exchange. He had already launched into another verse of his dinosaur song as May sat him on the couch and lifted one of his small feet.
“Okay, mister genius-saurus,” she said. “Hold still so I can help you.”
He didn’t. Peter wiggled constantly, legs bouncing, hands tapping against her shoulder, entire body vibrating with barely-contained energy. Still, May tied the shoes perfectly—double knots, because last week Peter discovered he could untie them with his toes and found this hilarious.
The apartment door creaked open then, and the sound of quiet sniffles drifted in. Mrs. Alvarez from the third floor stood in the hallway, her toddler clinging to her leg and crying loudly.
Before May could say anything, Peter hopped down, pattered over, and touched the toddler’s arm with soft fingers.
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “The stairs are loud sometimes. They scared me last week too.”
The boy hiccupped, startled into silence.
Mrs. Alvarez blinked. “Gracias, Peter.”
He shrugged, as if it were nothing. As if empathy came as naturally as breathing.
May met Ben’s eyes over Peter’s head. There was a softness there—pride and love and something else neither of them would ever name until it was far too late. Something about Peter that made him feel just a little bit extraordinary.
The kitchen timer beeped. Ben lifted a perfect golden pancake and set it on a stack already waiting for syrup. “Breakfast’s ready! Come on, kiddo.”
Peter ran in, slid a little too fast on the tile, windmilled his arms, and somehow caught himself on the counter without falling.
“Reflexes,” May muttered under her breath.
“Luck,” Ben countered.
Peter didn’t care about explanations. He cared about pancakes and dinosaurs and the promise of a day where the world was small and kind and exactly as it should be.
He would never have a morning like this again.
Across the street from the Parker apartment, an old gray sedan idled quietly, engine barely a murmur beneath the morning noise of buses and barking dogs. The vehicle was unmarked, unremarkable—nothing to draw a second glance. Inside, however, the air was taut with calculation.
A woman in a dark coat tapped her tablet screen, pulling up the latest assessment file. “Subject 004—Peter Benjamin Parker. Age three-point-eight years.” Her voice held no inflection. It could’ve been a grocery list.
Beside her, a man lifted binoculars with steady, practiced hands. He watched the Parker living-room window, where a small child bounced onto a chair, nearly tipping it, only to steady himself with movements too fluid to be accidental.
“Reflex metric exceeded baseline for his age by one-seventy percent,” the man murmured. “Noted.”
The woman scrolled further. A recorded clip played silently on her tablet: Peter completing the shape puzzle. Another clip showed him comforting the crying toddler in the hallway, small hand gentle on a smaller arm.
“High reasoning,” she said. “Advanced spatial processing.”
“Plus attachment response,” he added. “Rare combination. Useful in early-stage conditioning.”
The woman nodded. “Emotional malleability scores high too. Caregiver dependency appears strong.”
A small green light blinked on the tablet as the system analyzed the cumulative data. Across the top of Peter’s file, new text appeared:
TIER ONE ASSET CANDIDATE — SPIDER PROGRAM
The man didn’t smile, but there was a faint tightening at the edge of his mouth—approval, clinical and empty. “We should notify the extraction unit. He fits all parameters.”
“After the next checkpoint,” the woman replied. “We need confirmation of physical baselines. Strength, balance, pain tolerance. Standard protocol.”
The man lowered the binoculars, satisfied. “The caregivers seem attentive. That’ll expedite imprinting later.”
“Good. Stability at this stage reduces early resistance.”
Peter’s laughter drifted faintly from the open apartment window—a small, bright sound, warm and human.
Neither agent reacted.
The woman tapped a final note onto his file, stylus clicking sharply: Proceed. Then she powered down the tablet with the same calm efficiency one might use to turn off a reading lamp.
“Next candidate,” she said.
The car pulled smoothly away from the curb, merging into traffic without hurry, without alarm, without even a pause.
To them, it was just another morning. Another name checked off a list.
Another child marked for disappearance.
The park near the apartment wasn’t anything special — a couple of swings, a slide that squeaked when kids went down too fast, patches of stubborn grass fighting through worn dirt. But to Peter, it was the whole world. A kingdom of sun-warm metal and shrieking laughter.
May sat on a bench beneath an oak tree, jacket zipped against the breeze, coffee cupped between her hands. She watched her nephew bolt toward the playground with that uncontainable joy only small children possessed — all limbs, all noise, all heart.
“Stay where I can see you, honey!” she called.
Peter gave a vigorous nod and kept running.
At the slide, two kids were already climbing the ladder, their sneakers clacking against metal rungs. A tiny toddler — barely steady on his feet — toddled after them, lower lip wobbling as he struggled to reach the first rung.
Peter skidded to a stop. “Hi,” he chirped, crouching beside the little boy. “You stuck?”
The toddler sniffed, nodding.
Peter placed both hands gently under the boy’s arms. “Okay! One, two, up!” He hoisted him just enough for the boy to grab the rung, then stood behind him, guiding his feet to the next step.
A nearby mom smiled. “That’s very sweet of you,” she said.
Peter shrugged bashfully, cheeks pink, then scampered up after the toddler, cheering when the little boy reached the top. They went down the slide together — Peter with both hands in the air, the toddler squealing in delight.
It was ordinary. Perfectly, beautifully ordinary.
And watched.
Across the park, two men in running gear paused mid-stretch, eyes flicking toward Peter before casually resuming conversation. On a nearby bench, a woman pretending to scroll her phone lifted her gaze just long enough to assess posture, coordination, balance. A man walking a dog knelt to adjust the animal’s collar, hand flicking twice — the signal was small, subtle, invisible to anyone not looking.
Another operative, disguised as a dad pushing a stroller, answered with a single touch to his cap.
Target confirmed.
May glanced at her watch. Ben would be back soon. She smiled as Peter burst into giggles, racing after a group of kids playing tag.
For one fragile moment, her entire world was sunshine, safety, and the sight of her nephew’s bright face.
The Hydra operatives drifted through the park like ghosts — never looking directly at each other, never lingering. To every passerby, they were nothing more than strangers enjoying a mild afternoon.
But their path was already set.
Their decision already made.
And Peter, breathless and happy and impossibly small, had no idea the world he knew was already beginning to close around him.
May relaxed into the bench, letting the rise and fall of noise lull her into comfort. Peter, still energized from tag, darted toward the climbing dome, disappearing behind the curved metal bars.
“Stay where I can see you!” she called again.
A muffled “Okay!” floated back to her.
She smiled, sipping her cooling coffee. Ben would return soon, and they’d all walk home together for lunch. Maybe Peter would insist on helping make sandwiches. Maybe he’d smear peanut butter on the counter again — May would tease him for it later.
A perfectly ordinary afternoon.
Until Peter didn’t come out from behind the climbing structure.
May waited a few seconds. Kids got distracted all the time. Maybe he’d found a rock or a bug or made a new friend. She craned her neck, searching for his messy brown hair.
Nothing.
“Peter?” she called, still casual.
Silence swallowed her voice.
She stood, taking a few steps toward the dome. “Peter? Honey, answer me.”
A woman pushing a stroller paused, unintentionally blocking May’s view for just a second.
One second was all Hydra needed.
Behind the structure, a teenage park volunteer — red vest, bright smile, clipboard — knelt beside Peter, who had paused to examine a dandelion growing up through the sand. His head tilted up at the volunteer, puzzled but unafraid.
“Hey, buddy,” the teen whispered warmly, “your mom’s looking for you.”
Peter blinked. “She’s not my—”
An arm slid smoothly around his middle, lifting him off the ground with practiced ease.
“What—?”
The patch pressed over his mouth looked like a simple medical aid, something harmless. But the moment it made contact with his skin, Peter’s limbs went limp. His eyes widened in confusion, then unfocused, then fluttered.
He didn’t even have time to cry out.
The operative held him close, supporting his weight like any caretaker carrying a tired toddler. To anyone glancing over, it would have looked normal — a volunteer helping a sleepy child.
May stepped around the stroller’s path and finally saw the empty space behind the climbing dome.
Her breath caught.
“Peter?” louder now, sharp, frightened. “Peter!”
The teenage volunteer turned slightly, positioning his body so Peter’s unconscious face was hidden. Another operative — the man who’d been pretending to walk a dog — intercepted May with an apologetic smile.
“Hey, sorry — did you lose someone? I thought I saw a kid run toward the swings.”
May’s gaze snapped to the swings. Empty. Panic clawed into her throat.
“No, he was right here,” she said, voice trembling. “He was right here.”
The dog-walker pointed again. “Maybe he went around the fence? Kids are quick.”
While he spoke, the volunteer moved, blending into the flow of parents and children leaving the park. He crossed to the street where a dark van sat idling. Tinted windows. No plates.
The side door slid open just long enough for him to slip inside with the unconscious boy. It shut without a sound.
The entire snatch had taken just under fifteen seconds.
By the time May broke past the dog-walker and raced to the back of the climbing structure, screaming Peter’s name, the van was already gone.
Ben Parker pulled into the curb with a paper bag of screws and brass hinges balanced on the passenger seat — the last pieces he needed to fix the cabinet May kept apologizing for breaking. He was humming as he stepped out of the car.
Then he saw May.
She was standing near the swings, chest heaving, eyes wild, shouting a name he couldn’t hear from this distance but recognized all the same.
Peter.
Ben’s stomach fell straight through him.
He dropped the bag. It hit the pavement with a dull clatter. He was already running.
“May? May!” he called as he sprinted toward her, but she didn’t turn. She was scanning every corner of the park like she expected Peter to materialize from air if she just believed hard enough.
Ben was three strides from her when something flickered at the corner of his vision — a nondescript dark van rolling away from the far side of the playground. Its back window was tinted, but for a split second, as sunlight angled just right, Ben glimpsed movement inside.
Small. Frantic. A child.
Peter.
He didn’t think. Didn’t question. His legs moved before his mind did. He veered off the path and bolted toward the street.
“Hey!” he shouted, waving his arms. “HEY! STOP!”
The van didn’t slow.
Ben pushed harder, lungs burning. He was close — close enough to see the license plate, close enough to reach —
A man stepped into his path.
Average height. Average face. A hoodie. Jeans. He looked like another parent headed to his car, except he wasn’t moving out of the way.
Ben skidded, about to shout at him.
The man lifted a silenced pistol.
Ben didn’t even register the sound — just a soft, obscene pfft, like air escaping a tire. Then a terrible cold bloomed in his chest.
He staggered.
The world lurched sideways.
Ben collapsed to his knees, then the pavement, eyes fixed on the corner where the van disappeared.
The man pocketed the weapon and walked away as casually as if he’d checked the weather.
Ben’s last breath left him in a thin, broken gasp.
The park noise continued around him — children laughing, swings creaking, dogs barking.
And the van was gone.
Peter woke to humming.
Low, steady, unnatural. The floor beneath him vibrated, and the world swayed like he was on a boat even though he wasn’t on a boat. His head felt fuzzy, heavy, like it was filled with cotton. He blinked slowly.
Everything was gray.
Gray walls. Gray seats. Gray light flickering through tiny windows too high for him to see out of.
He didn’t know this place.
He didn’t know these people.
A soft whimper escaped him before he could stop it. “M… May?”
The two men in the front didn’t turn around. The woman sitting closest to him — brown hair tucked under a cap, eyes unreadable — leaned forward. “Stay still,” she told him quietly, as if speaking to a startled animal. “You’re okay, Peter.”
He froze.
He didn’t remember telling her his name.
Peter pushed himself upright, arms wobbling. The van swayed again, hard enough to make him topple sideways. He scrambled, small hands slipping against the cold metal floor.
“Aunt May?” he called louder, voice high and cracking. “May? I—I want May.”
The woman reached out and pressed a gloved palm to his chest, easing him back down. Not rough. Not cruel. Just final.
“You need to rest,” she said.
“I want May,” Peter sobbed, louder now, trying to twist away from her touch. He reached toward the window — or maybe toward the door — or maybe toward something he wasn’t sure of anymore. “Wanna go home! I wanna go home!”
His cries bounced around the metal walls, swallowed by engine noise.
Warm hands tying his shoes.
Ben flipping pancakes.
Sun on his face in the park.
He reached for those memories like they were right there, right in front of him, bright and golden and safe.
But they slipped through his fingers.
The fuzziness in his head thickened. His vision went syrupy, edges melting into one another. He tried to hold onto the picture of Aunt May smiling down at him that morning — but it wavered, dimmed, crumpled like paper in the rain.
“May…” he whispered, eyelids drooping.
The woman adjusted something beside him — a patch, a line, he didn’t know — and his thoughts blurred completely.
His last clear feeling was a simple, desperate ache:
I want Aunt May.
Then everything went dark.