Chapter Text
Tony can feel the nanotechnology shuddering and pulsing all around him. Protecting him now, sure, shielding him inside what feels like a giant robot, but moving almost like it knows it’s been fucking with him for going on ten years.
He’s in control now, sure, a foreign feeling after all this time, but for how long?
He’s still got the computer. He’s still got it. He hasn’t dropped it yet. The suit is strong, it’s fucking bulletproof, but he can still feel the ricochets. The danger is tenfold. They’re actually shooting at them.
They’ve been through this shit before. How many times? How many? Too many failures. Too many.
But this is different he’s got the suit he’s got the computer he’s got control they’ve got control—
Worry eats at his heart in acid bites, and he keeps focus, because he has to, because he has to, because they have to get out. This is it. This is it. It has to be.
“Turn,” Peter yells, and they turn left into the next hallway that comes up, avoiding what sounds like another round of oncoming pandemonium. The lights are blinking red and bright white with the desperation of the situation, and that’s how Tony knows this time is different. There were no lights, any of the other times. None of their other escape attempts were this serious. The lights didn’t go off.
He’s waiting for the loud alarms, too, but he only hears gunshots and yelling and he doesn't know if it’s the assholes yelling or the other prisoners or both, and Peter shoots more of that liquid from his wrist and it sticks to the ceiling and he jumps up and braces himself on the wall. He reaches back and holds his hand out for Tony to stop, and Tony does, breathing hard.
Tony focuses on him, and he’s ready to step in front of him again. The kid’s taken half of these guys out with one punch, like they’re bowling pins, and he’s so much stronger than Tony ever really realized, but he can still get shot. And that doesn’t fly with him, ever, but especially not now when he can do something about it. When he can defend him the way he’s supposed to.
“What?” Tony whispers, and he hears more people getting thrown against the walls a few hallways down, and he hears a roar and he hears screaming.
Red. White. Red. White.
The lights hurt.
Tony blinks against it, and the nanotech moves when he moves.
This is different. This is different. They’re all out. Everybody. Everybody here is out, everybody they’ve been torturing, everybody they’ve been changing and hurting and holding here.
And they’re angry and they’re out of their minds and they’re taking this chance, too.
“You feel something?” Tony asks.
“Yeah,” Peter says. “I think we’re—we’re, uh—” He glances around and looks up and down, and Tony hopes to God they aren’t lost. They’ve mapped this place, they have, but it’s hard to remember when they’re actually out here on their own, out here doing it, and Tony hears sneakers squeaking against the tile somewhere else too. Running now.
So many times so many times he heard that sound but less frantic, more measured, walking beside a gurney he was strapped to, walking into the room holding one of the fucking shrouds or a pair of handcuffs and specks of blood on their sleeves, and those squeaky fucking shoes walking in and taking his kid from him
“I know where we are, I know where we are,” Peter breathes, and he jumps back down, looks back at him and nods. “Just keep going straight.” There’s so much hope in his eyes and Tony nods back and steps in front of him, and both of them start running.
“Okay okay,” Tony says.
The lights get faster and brighter and more sickly when they go white, reminding him how many times they’ve referred to this as a medical facility—
“We’re so close there should be—be a, uh—here, here, it’s the ladder, it’s the ladder, can you go up it in the suit?” Peter asks, and Tony sees it, he sees it at the end of the hall—
“Yeah, I’ll make it, bud—”
More screaming and the lights go faster like they might know they’re close, and Tony keeps his hand—fucking robot hand—on Peter’s shoulder because if he loses him, if he loses him somehow—
He won’t, he won’t—
Not here, not like this, not at the end of the fucking line—
A few more fights burst through the wall, the entire goddamn wall comes down, but they surge forward, away from it, away from it—
And they reach the ladder and Tony urges Peter to go first, and he follows him, and they go up and up and up into what feels like a small tube, and everything’s still unlocked, still open from when they did it—
Red and white fast and faster and faster, and he hears another roar and it feels like the entire place shudders—
And there’s a door, above them, and maybe he should have gone first, but there’s no way he can protect Peter from all sides—
“Okay,” Peter breathes. “Okay okay here it is this is—I’m pushing it open—it’s still unlocked right—”
“Should be,” Tony grunts, worrying about the nanotechnology, worrying about it turning on him, but it hasn’t yet, he still has control. “If it’s not just—stick up there, they can’t see us I don’t think, and I’ll—find the computer—” And it’s dark up here, the red and white swirling around near the mouth of the tube—
“It’s open,” Peter exclaims, and he pushes it, and the light the light the light the sun the sun it streams in—
“Oh my God,” Peter breathes, still surging up, and out. “Oh my God—”
“Keep going,” Tony says, wincing, and the nanotech pulses and shifts the more he moves. “Keep going, bud, keep going, I’m here, I’m right behind you—”
And it’s blinding, blinding, and they keep going and going and Tony barely has his eyes open, and then Peter is taking his hand and pulling him to the surface.
Underground. Underground they’ve been under—they were actually—they were—but now they’re—
Tony grabs onto Peter with one hand and shields his eyes against the sun with the other, the sun, the sun, it’s the sun, and Tony’s heart is going wild, slamming against the inside of his chest, and they’re both swaying with the weight of what they’ve done.
They’re out.
They’re really out. They’re not in there anymore.
They’re not in there.
They’re out, they’re—they’re actually—it isn’t a dream, the sun, the sun—
His vision is nearly blotted out and Peter clings to his arm. Tony thinks he can see a line of trees, and Peter is grabbing at him.
The sirens bubble up from the hell below them, like ten thousand air horns.
“Run,” Tony breathes, holding onto Peter for dear life. “Run. Run.”