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Peter’s in DC when they’re called up. Active duty, of course; the level nines were thorough about making sure Hydra’s people were on shift. He’s only got the time it takes to draw his gun to choose his side, and when he does, there are three surprised Hydra corpses on the ground. They’d been recruited together, and he can’t seem to get his hands to stop shaking. Agent Morrison’s drawn his own gun now, but Peter ignores him, ignores everything in favor of falling to his knees with his palms pressed to his eyes. He’s so fucked. He’s so utterly fucked.
“Agent Roberts,” Morrison says, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Agent Roberts. Don’t fall apart on me now. We need to figure out what’s happening.”
Apparently, saving his life is enough to get Peter off Morrison’s shit list. He’s going to go right back on it soon enough: getting caught playing Galaga in front of Tony Stark isn’t anything on being a Hydra plant.
“They were Hydra,” he says.
“How do you know?” Morrison asks, going to examine the bodies, like there would be anything as blatant as a tattoo or a button. If loyalty could be determined by marks or uniforms, they wouldn’t be in this shitstorm.
There are many ways he can answer it, more ways he can lie, but instead he puts his gun on the ground with a soft click and answers, “Hail Hydra.”
Morrison’s head whips around and his gun’s half up before he really looks at Peter. The hand with the gun falters, and then drops. “Shit,” he says. “Since when?”
“Recruitment,” Peter answers.
“You saved my life,” Morrison says. “Why the hell would a Hydra agent save my life?” He shakes his head. “Do you even know why you saved my life?”
Peter nods, because it’s hard to put into words but he’s had a lot of time to think about what would happen if the Hydra sleeper agents were ever activated. He’s seen the world Hydra wants to build—a world stripped of diversity, of humanity—and he’s seen the kind of people Hydra wants to kill. He’s got friends on both sides, but in the world Hydra wants to build, there’s no place for men like Peter Roberts. No place for Marco and his partner Jake, who are both killer DPS and wickedly funny. No place for Jaclyn, for the "crime" of being born Black. She can out heal any of them and does it freesyle shit talking the raid boss. His gamer friends--all those nerds, freaks, and non-conformists--most of them won't live long enough to be ground down.
“I guess I’m defecting, sir,” Peter says.
“Okay,” says Morrison, because he’s pragmatic. He’ll work with what he has, even if it’s a traitor. “Do you know who we can trust?”
Peter shakes his head. “I know who we can’t, some of them, but we work in cells. I don’t know who all’s Hydra, but most of the level nines are. Maybe all of them.” If he’d known who was safe, he might have gotten out. He has this fantasy sometimes of walking up to Director Fury and turning them all in. He also has nightmares where he actually does it, and Fury looks at him with that checkmate smile, and Peter knows, he knows, that Fury’s one of them and there won’t be enough ash to fit in a thimble once Fury’s done with him. Hydra isn’t kind to traitors.
He’s not looking for pity, but the flash of it in Morrison’s face proves Morrison guesses at least some of how Hydra traps and breaks its soldiers. Peter’s done terrible things for SHIELD, but he’s done far worse for Hydra and with less reason. Hydra makes the implications clear: there is no place for them but in Hydra, no one else who will take them with what they’ve done, but in Hydra, there was acceptance, camaraderie, purpose. They are part of something special, something greater than themselves, and only the awareness that that something had Peter in its crosshairs made him second guess it.
“Give me the list of who you know we can’t trust. Anyone they’re shooting at is probably on our side,” Morrison says, and Peter feels both relief and shame that figuring their way out of his mess is his SO’s job and all he has to do is take orders. He lists what names he can: the one he knows, the ones he suspects, the ones he thinks might be clean.
What information he has is, ultimately, useless because Captain America drops Hydra’s Helicarriers on the Triskelion, and the Black Window drops the mother of all data breaches into the Internet. Overnight, SHIELD is disbanded, and Peter is no longer Morrison’s responsibility. Morrison doesn’t see it that way, because he gives Peter his spare bedroom for the night and contacts Agent Romanov the next day.
“An odd place for an ambush,” she says as she walks in, expression cool and collected. Steve Rogers is a step behind.
“No ambush,” Morrison said. “Thanks for coming.”
“You said you had information on Hydra,” Steve prompts.
“I have someone with information on Hydra,” Morrison says, and gestures to Peter, who’s sitting on the couch. Morrison took his gun after the dust settled, and Peter isn’t entirely sure who Morrison worried he’d use it on.
“Agent Peter Roberts,” Romanov says. She raises an eyebrow at Morrison.
“He’s Hydra,” Morrison says bluntly, and both Avengers stiffen. Peter stays very still. “He defected at the start, before we knew you’d won. He saved my life and fought on our side, but I don’t know what to do with him.” He spreads his hands helplessly. “I never needed deprogramming.”
“But I have,” Romanov says.
“You have, and so has Agent Barton. Hydra will come after him. I can’t protect him.”
“But we can,” Romanov finishes.
“Please,” Morrison says.
“Could be a trap,” Rogers says, looking between Peter and Morrison.
“Could be,” Romanov agrees. “We need a place to interrogate him.”
Peter tries not to, but he flinches. He’s done enough interrogations to know what to expect. He knows that this must be why Morrison took his gun, so Peter couldn’t make it a quick end.
“Stark’s tower should work,” Rogers says. “Better security, and the whole thing’s wired with cameras.”
“New York’s a drive,” Romanov comments, but it wasn’t a disagreement.
“Better than leading Hydra to where we’re crashing.”
She nods and pulls out a cell phone. She presses and holds one, and then says into it, “We need a van,” and hangs up. Fifteen long, silent minutes later, the man on the other end of the phone proves to be Agent Barton. Romanov sedates Peter without warning, and when he wakes, he’s resting on a bed in a windowless room. He’s wearing new clothing, and he suspects they searched him as well as stripping him. He focuses on his breathing to hold back his panic.
Romanov doesn’t leave him there long enough, but she’s known for her unconventional techniques.
“Peter Roberts,” she says. “You were an agent of SHIELD for six years.”
He nods and sits up on the bed. He knows how this goes. She’ll set the baseline for what he’ll say under threat of torture, and then compare it to what he says under torture, until he’s no longer capable of speaking—or breathing.
“How long were you Hydra?”
“I’m not sure,” Peter admits. “I was recruited into Hydra before I joined SHIELD. They trained me for five years.”
“You record says you’re twenty-five,” Romanov points out.
Peter swallows. “Yes. Hydra started training me when I was fifteen.”
“How were you recruited?”
“At gunpoint,” he says. “There was a group of us recruited at the same time, ten originally. Not all of them made it through training. It was brutal. They make sure you’re strong, make sure you’re loyal. If you wash out, the other trainees take care of you. They don’t tell you who's involved, but they let you know how far the organization spreads. Go to the cops, you might as well run to Hydra and save yourself the false hope. But if you’re loyal, they’ll reward you.”
“If you’re not?”
“They want fanatics, but everyone knows it’s better to die from the pill than the punishment.”
“But you didn’t use it. You haven’t used it.”
Peter shakes his head. “I don’t want to die.”
“What do you want?”
“I was supposed to raid last night,” Peter says. Romanov blinks at the non sequitur and raises her eyebrows.
“Raid what?”
“World of Warcraft. I was supposed to log on with my video game friends and try to kill video game dragons as a fucking paladin. I don’t get to be a paladin in real life, Agent Romanov. I have to be a fucking monster. Who the hell wants to be a monster?”
“I joined SHIELD so I could be the right kind of monster,” Romanov answers.
“You think SHIELD would take me?” Peter asks and doesn’t bother to hide his bitterness.
“Do you want to be a part of SHIELD?” Romanov asks in return, and it makes Peter pause.
“I never had a choice. I never have a choice.”
Romanov’s expression was painfully sympathetic. “You do now, Peter. ”
“I want out.” The words were out before he could think to censor them, but Romanov didn’t seem angry. Her silent encouragement made the words impossible to keep in. “Oh, god. I just want out. I know I can’t; I know no one’s going to let me walk away, but I just want to be done with this. I don’t want to hurt people anymore. Not for Hydra, not for SHIELD, not for anyone.”
Romanov nods. “I looked up your file. You’ve been reprimanded repeatedly for playing video games on shift. ‘Agent Roberts has the potential for excellence, but is easily bored and distracted,’” she quotes. “Were you ordered to under perform?”
Peter’s fists clench. “They were unhappy with my lack of promotion,” he says, trying to keep the expression from his voice. Romanov makes a little humming noise of understanding.
“Disappointing Hydra seems a little dangerous,” she comments.
“They’re pretty good at making sure their punishments don’t cause permanent damage,” Peter says. “There’s enough classified missions that no one questions too closely if you start showing signs of it.” He grimaces. “Trauma’s endemic to SHIELD, after all.”
“And buried by Hydra therapists,” Romanov agrees. “This many incidents should have flagged your file for review. Cognitive disassociation techniques like video games are a common enough response to trauma. At minimum, you should have been evaluated for your fitness for duty.”
“Hydra doesn’t care if you’re fit for duty. You do your job or you’re retired.”
“Morrison was trying to have you removed as an active agent,” Romanov says. “He tried several times to have you moved into a non-combat IT position, but the senior agents in his command chain considered you too useful in the field.”
Peter rubs a hand over his eyes.
“Not all of SHIELD was rotten,” Romanov continues relentlessly. “Not everyone wanted to use you until they broke you.”
“I’m glad I chose him,” Peter growls, not bothering to hide his tears. “I fucking glad I chose him.” He takes a shaky breath. “I thought he hated me. He was on my fucking case all the time. I’d have quit if it wouldn’t have gotten me a bullet in the head.”
Romanov arches one perfect fucking eyebrow at that.
“Yeah, I get it,” Peter grumbles. "What now?"
"A real therapist," Romanov says. "Debriefing. Eventual discharge. A recommendation to a civilian IT position. Maybe a better gaming computer if Stark takes pity on you."
It was impossible. Too good to be true. But…
She met his gaze steadily. She didn't hurt him. She'd saved New York from aliens and exposed Hydra to the world.
Maybe if the Black Widow got to be a hero, a shitty Hydra agent could retire to be a shitty IT guy who played Galaga on the clock. Maybe someday he'd even be a paladin.