WIND PRESSED AROUND PETER'S BODY, snatching the air from his lungs as if trying to suffocate him.

The world around him was a blur of black. Peter could feel his heart hammer against his ribs like it wanted to jump out of his skin- then a faint, flickering light switched on. His eyes shot up, catching sight of the weak bulb hanging above his head but the anxiety that had steadily unfolded in his chest doubled in size. Cold metal suddenly burned his skin when he felt the tell-tale weight of a gun in his hands, fingers settling automatically on the trigger.

Peter felt as though he should be shaking, yet when he looked at his hands, they were completely still. Confusion bloomed in his eyes when he stared down at the weapon.

Breathing echoed in his ears and Peter's head shot up.

Sitting in front of him was a young woman. She looked up at him, anger and fear fighting for dominance in her expression like she couldn't decide whether to spit insults or start begging for her life. Peter felt sick, the familiar burn crawling up his throat when his body moved on auto-pilot and rested the barrel against her head. "Please-!" She cried out. Her voice cut off, leaving behind a deafening silence that was louder than any gunshot he had ever heard.

Her body slumped forwards despite the restraints. He didn't recognise her face, but Peter knew it would be burned into his memory now; blood pooled around his boots.

Then she moved. The hairs on the back of Peter's neck stood on end as the woman's head slowly rose; her lips were already blue and her skin seemed to decompose before his eyes but he couldn't look away from the disgusting sight. She cocked her head to the side, and the weak lighting caught on the trail of blood that glistened as it ran down her face from the gruesome bullet hole left behind. The continuous drip of the dark liquid on the floor rang in Peter's ears- then he heard her voice.

"You did this to me, why? Why did you hurt me?!"

Peter stumbled back, finally finding the strength to move his legs- a strangled cry of his own escaped past his lips when the world tilted around him and he jolted awake. His breaths were ragged and half formed, as if he had exerted any and all of his energy. He was only vaguely aware of the way his fingers and body trembled despite the covers engulfing him.

Dazedly, Peter stared out at the room around him.

He remembered the redhead- Romanoff. Natasha. - and how she had taken advantage of his subdued state and sequestered him off to an apartment that he was only half sure was her own. When they'd arrived Peter felt the fight that had kept him going in the warehouse drain away, his senses finally dialling back a little with the lack of guns aimed to kill him- though he was hyper aware of the handgun Romanoff kept on her person. The longer he looked out at his surroundings, the more his eyes adjusted. Peter would swear he saw the shadows that were thrown across the room from the streetlights aside creeping closer. That they were suddenly looming over him- he flinched back.

Maybe he was still dreaming.

With the way the dark seemed to thicken, clouding over the room and enveloping him, Peter half believed he was trapped once again in his hellish nightmares. It sucked the little warmth from his body and despite Peter's form curling tight into a ball in an effort to shield himself, the darkness sunk into his bones anyway. Buried itself in and tightened around his chest- once again stealing the breath from his lungs and making him gasp uselessly for air. The cold seeped through his skin and to what was left of his soul, embedding itself before gripping and squeezing it tight in its freezing claw; Peter folded in on himself even more.

The woman's voice ricocheted inside his head, her words dropping with revulsion, terror, anger- Peter dug the heels of his hands into his eyes to stem the flow of sudden tears. He ground his teeth together, suppressing a scream of his own.

"Peter."

A new voice. Foreign yet familiar at the same time. He clung to the sound like it was his own personal life preserve, keeping him afloat in the sea of his own demons that threatened to pull him under blackened water until his lungs burned and the sun disappeared. Peter didn't want to fend for himself in the dark against the cold and the voices- he didn't want to fight anymore.

"You're okay." Came the soft murmur again.

It chased away the cold that had invaded his body, froze his insides and turned his blood into thick tar in his veins. Then the heat was engulfing him, wrapping securely around his quaking frame in a hold that Peter didn't remember feeling before. His head fell against a chest despite his rigid posture and the sobs that racked through his body; Peter hadn't cried in front of someone in years, showing weakness in front of his handlers had never been an option but he couldn't stop as the weight of what he had done come crashing down around him like he was being buried alive.

He felt vulnerable and raw and everything was too much- the arms shifted and Peter felt a flare of gut-wrenching panic. "D-Don't leave." He breathed out, voice cracking.

Natasha didn't respond, instead continued on her self-appointed mission of moving their position so that they were both laying down against the mattress, the teen cradled against her as if he would fall apart if she so much as loosened her grip for even a second. She was still cautious of the boy, hyper vigilant of the way he could throw her away from him and across the room like flicking off a bug. Despite the obvious and blaring dangers, she'd brought him into her apartment anyway- not Shield because apparently the assassin liked a difficult life- but to her own home where she knew he'd be safe and that she could hide him if the need arose.

Peter stiffened in her arms, as if only just realising what he had spoken aloud.

"Wanna talk?" Natasha whispered, hand drifting to his sweaty curls. She could feel tension slowly building in his shoulders; he didn't fight her arms but no longer relaxed into them.

"I can handle it." He ground out defiantly.

"So that's why I'm sat here then?" She asked, still not moving.

"You can go- it's fine." Peter tried pulling away and Natasha thought about letting him go. But there was a tremble to his voice that betrayed his emotions and her arms simply wound tighter around his chest as if she could physically keep him curled up beside her. She took advantage of the moment he paused in bafflement at her reaction and brought him closer.

"Can't get rid of me that easily."

He blinked and wriggled again. "Seriously, you don't have to-"

Natasha huffed. "Shut it kid. It's happening. Let it go."

Silence fell around the pair, Peter dutifully ignoring the relief the seemed to flow into his body and he sunk into Natasha's arms. He hadn't realised how exhausted he felt- it was a deep, constant ache inside his bones that was only now being acknowledge after years of neglect. Uncertainty reared its ugly head before Peter firmly shut it out; he didn't know how the long the comfort of Romanoff would last but he knew he'd rather ignore the fact that his weird sixth sense had silenced than confront it.

"Gotta open up kid." Natasha commented.

"You go first." He grumbled, his hearing zeroing in on the sound of her heartbeat.

It was steady and constant, lulling him to sleep despite his survival urge screaming at him to stay awake, to not give in to the comforts around him. Peter didn't care if he died today or the next- he just wanted sleep and if Romanoff smothered him then he'd deal with it when the time arose.

"I'm a Black Widow. Trained by the KGB." She admitted.

Peter's sleep addled brain pondered the truth to the words- her heart beat hadn't faltered, "Cool." He hummed, sleep fighting to drag him under.

"I've killed people." Natasha added, her voice even.

"Who hasn't?" He muttered, brain involuntarily jumping back to his dream. "I'm a mutate. Hydra."

The words left his lips before he could really think about the consequences of exposing his background, his history. Hydra was all he knew and that small confession felt as though he had just borne his insides to the woman holding him close- Peter half expected her to push him away. "What a pair we make." Natasha said instead, startling Peter as her fingers raked through his hair and across his scalp. Peter arched into the action, making the assassin's lips tug upwards because he reminded her briefly of the cat that liked to roam her apartment building.

"We could be a spider duo." He murmured; words slurred from sleep. An urge to laugh rose in Natasha's throat before it died. She swallowed thickly. "'Cos you know, Black Widow?" He trailed off, for the first time feeling safe where he slept despite it being in the arms of a trained assassin.

However, Natasha remained wide awake.

The comment was silly, but it reminded her that the kid she was holding so tightly in her arms was barely fifteen and had been through things she could only speculate but that she knew were no good. Unconsciously, she shifted him closer, words of a song she faintly remembered from her own childhood falling from her lips to soothe him into a dreamless sleep.

-

Peter was surprised to be woken by the sun resting on his face from a crack in the curtains he didn't remember drawing- he couldn't recall a time when the sun had woken him instead of the harsh fluorescent lights that burned his eyes. Carefully, he climbed out of the bed as his brain slowly filtered in the memories of the previous night and his interaction with Romanoff.

Regret pooled in his stomach.

If he could re-do the interaction, then he would have waved off the woman's concern, in fact, he wouldn't have ever allowed her to drag him back to the apartment in the first place. He should have run. Taken his chances on the street instead of making himself vulnerable-

"Want some waffles kid?" Natasha called into the apartment.

The woman had heard his door open, accompanied by near silent footsteps but she had the upper hand- she knew the apartment like the back of her hand and was a trained killer. So was he, but he didn't look all that threatening when he appeared from the corner, rumpled from sleep.

"Erm, what?"

"Waffles. Do you want some?"

The redhead turned around, waving a spatula around a little bit. She ignored the way Peter's eyes followed the utensil. "I got syrup and strawberries... or cereal, unless Barton ate them all." She grumbled, scowling at the thought as she turned back to the waffle. Peter stared at the back of her head for another moment, gathering himself.

"It's not poisoned, is it?"

There was a suspicious lilt to his voice. "If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead." Natasha shrugged.

"Me too." He commented, voice cool and low. Natasha didn't falter in her movements, but she noted that it was distinctly different from the sleepy voice that had mumbled to her in the dark the previous night. It was sharper, colder. Painfully reminding her that he was more than just your average teenager on the block. He was dangerous.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." She dismissed breezily, plating up the waffles and dropping them on the table as her phone pinged. "Grab the syrup. Top left cupboard, can't miss it." Peter hesitantly did as he was told, unsure on his mixed feelings towards the woman as he found the bottle and wandered over to the small table that Natasha had sat down at. "Eat up. Here." She pushed a bowl of strawberries in front of him. "We'll eat breakfast then I've got to head out. You going to be here when I get back?"

She arched a single eyebrow in question. Peter's face fell, "Do I have a choice?"

"Now you do. Yeah." The strong answer stunned Peter and he snuck a glance at the woman sitting across from him; she met his gaze with a steady one of her own. She wasn't going to keep the kid locked up in her apartment. He had been locked up enough. "Don't have to answer right now. I'll be back tonight- if you're here, we'll get Chinese. If not? I'll get Chinese."

Slowly, Peter nodded before examining the waffle warily and taking a bite. 

A/N

Woo! Chapter two down- I have a lot of pre-typed chapters soooo, yeah, hence the update.

Anywayyy; in this Peter is going to be a little darker but not too much so don't worry- he'll still be geeky and polite, but you can still see the effect that Hydra had on him :)

Also, I love their dynamic so much!! Don't forget to let me know about spelling xoxo.