Chapter 4
Peter wakes himself up by savagely coughing, trying to raise his arm to cover the germs and meeting resistance in the form of a metallic clang. His eyes are open but blurry, and he blinks quickly, trying to bring them into focus.
“You’re awake,” a voice to his right says. “Good. Those oafs kept knocking you out, and you did come in with a severe brain bleed. Luckily, you got that healed right up.” Peter finally manages to blink the room into focus and sees that the man is just outside of his field of view. His mouth is still too dry and unresponsive for him to speak, and the man continues, “we managed to sample some DNA while you were out. Truly incredible. Well, not quite incredible yet. Incredible potential, let’s say. I wonder, where did you gain such mutations? Surely your father wouldn’t make you his experiment?”
Peter tries to speak, but nothing comes out. Finally he manages a dry cough and shakes his head. He’s been kidnapped before, but it was always much, much less organized than this. Always some desperate employee or someone hoping to get their hands on some cash. The table that Peter is strapped to starts to move and he feels a bolt of fear through his stomach. He’s tilted so he can’t see the man, no matter how he turns his head. “First,” the man says, “we’ll need to send your father on a goose chase. Rich men love geese.”
Peter feels something cold press against his arm, where the SHHAL is situated. He starts to squirm, and a white hot flash of pain makes him writhe more. It’s the worst pain he’s ever felt, someone digging around in his shoulder, all the while his mind is zapping his brain in what he now realizes must be some kind of danger sense, given the time frames it’s been going off in. He realizes that the sounds, like a dying animal, have been coming from him, and wishes he could stop as it seems like the mad scientist removing the last piece of Tony that Peter can carry around with him enjoys it. Finally, Peter is left with an aching, gushing shoulder wound, and he sees a flash of metal. It barely registers that someone is putting an IV in his elbow, and then the lights go out and he can tell he’s alone.
It doesn’t take long for the nausea to start, and then his restraints drop him. He’s left with manacles and a few links of a chain hanging from his wrist and just the manacles from his legs. Attempts to pull the IV out are fruitless as it is securely attached to his arm. The bag is on a pole that he reluctantly takes with him as he inspects the bed. It must be some kind of magnetic system, he reasons, even as he loses his breakfast. He stands and tries to get a feel for the room, but it’s completely dark. As far as he can tell, there’s the bed in the center of a very small and very empty room. He’s weak, nauseous, and he finally sits against one of the walls, his head against his knees, occasionally dissolving into a fit of tears or dry heaving. This isn’t good, he allows himself to think for the first time. Then, he forces himself to believe, Babbo will find me. He’s Tony Stark. He’ll find me. And dad is in SHIELD. They’ll find me. With those thoughts repeating in his head, he falls into a fitful sleep. Peter wakes, feeling worse than ever, and runs a hand through his hair. A few strands fall out and he rakes his hand through more forcefully. A lot more strands come out, and Peter forces himself to stop. The worst of the sickness seems to have passed, and he tries once again to blindly remove the IV from his arm. With a sigh, he rests his head against the wall and feels his eyes trying to adjust, but there’s no light to let in. With a feeling that is now becoming familiar, a warning shoots up his spine and flares in his skull. Then, with a whirr and a clunk, the lights flip on. Peter gets one good look at the room before he’s dragged by his manacles back to the bed. The IV pulls painfully in his arm, but he’s stuck, spreadeagle, on the bed. He mutters a few words that Dad would probably be annoyed to hear him say, but then again, he reasons, Dad would be saying something similar in this situation. They'll find me soon, he hopes. The return of the doctor interrupts his thoughts. Once again, the table shifts so that Peter can never see the doctor, as he hears the man pull in a rattling cart. “How did you sleep?” the man asks, in that same mild tone. The worst part is that he never seems to let a cruel tone enter his voice, even as he grabs Peter’s arm. Peter flinches, trying to pull away. His danger sense, or whatever it is, is screaming at him, and he wants nothing more than to get away, but the restraints don’t budge. “Don’t hurt yourself,” the man says in that same mild tone, just out of Peter’s field of vision. The table shifts so that Peter is mostly upright, and the man slides Peter’s arm behind him to an angle that just borders on uncomfortable for his shoulder. He cranes his neck, but all he can see is a flash of gloves or the corner of the table, never the man himself.
“We will attempt to anesthetize you,” the man says, “but I am doubtful that it will work.” Peter feels a shot in his forearm, and wills the danger sense to stop going off at every touch. There’s nothing I can do , he begs the sense, trying to take calming breaths. You’re making it worse.
“So, I’m assuming you don’t have many friends?” He asks, more to distract himself than anything. “Given that you had to kidnap one?” He feels pressure on his arm, bordering on painful, and his captor does not reply. “You know, good friendships are built on communication. Some of that might go a long way in our– ah–” He winces as the pressure begins to seriously feel painful. His next words are forced. “In our friendship.”
“Very quick metabolism,” is the man’s only quiet reply. “I’ll give you a choice. I can use the rest of the anesthetic on this arm for the rest of the procedure, although unfortunately that would mean that the other arm will have to be completed sans-pain relief. Or you can try not to squirm.” He’s been working the entire time, and his voice is going in and out as Peter gasps against the pain. He’s speaking as mildly as though they were discussing the weather, and it’s disconcerting.
“How long?” Peter chokes out, his fist opening and closing. His elbow is locked in place, probably by another restraint.
The man pauses as if thinking. “A few more moments. I do assume you would like to save it for the other arm?”
Peter gasps, “yes.” The man hums, and then Peter feels a sensation that he assumes must be stitches. “What did you just do?” he asks, panting. “What was that?”
“I’m simply lifting you toward your full potential,” the man intones. “This may feel a bit warm.” He places something over Peter’s arm, and warm is an understatement. It’s blistering heat.
“What’s your goal here?” Peter asks, dreading the answer. “I mean–” he gasps, pulling his arm fruitlessly against the restraints as his forearm burns– “It doesn’t… seem… like you’re… helping me.” The man doesn’t reply as Peter’s other arm is pulled behind him and he feels the numbing shots go in. Once again, they barely last, and he’s left desperately trying to break free of the restraints while screaming himself hoarseHe gives a particularly determined pull and feels something go wrong. A pain unlike he’s felt arcs up his arm, and he knows immediately that it was a nerve.
As pleasantly as if he were complimenting Peter’s hair, the man confirms Peter’s suspicion, saying, “Please try to stay still. You’ve made me hit a nerve.”
Finally, there’s the stitches, which are the most tolerable part of the process, and then the blistering heat again. The man checks the other arm and makes a satisfied noise. “Very good. There will be one more major procedure tomorrow, and then I’ll be handing you off to the others.”
“Others?” Peter asks, “Who are the others?”
“Much less pleasant than I, I can assure you,” the man says. “Much more rough, much less interested in the sanity of the subject.” He says it with distaste, and Peter hears the sounds of tools being assembled.
“Like you’ve been gentle,” he snorts.
There’s a sigh from behind him and he hears the mechanical clanking of a fortified door. “We shall see what you think of me after you’ve met the others.”
He pushes his cart out of the room and Peter hears the doors shut. The lights clank off, but the restraints don’t drop him this time. His arms are still behind him, still burning, although it’s completely pitch dark. Peter assumed whatever was burning his arms was a fire of some kind, based off of how it felt, although the lack of a bright glow is a strike against that theory.
Peter isn’t sure how long he lays there, but at a certain point he isn’t even feeling the pain anymore. His mind has retreated, until he’s drifting in and out of a place where nothing is real and nothing matters. Every once in a while he has to shake himself, thinking, I’m real, I’m real, it’s real, which is difficult as there’s nothing to see, nothing to feel, no reason to believe that Peter Parker-Stark is a real person, or that this situation has any grounding in reality. There’s nothing but the pain that doesn’t even really feel like pain anymore, it just feels like all there is. Peter’s entire being is centered on agony, and it’s a shaky foundation.
“Dammit, what happened?” Steve asks, looking from his unresponsive husband to the doctor. “Is Rhodey awake?”
“Mr. Rhodes has not yet awoken,” The nurse repeats. “Tony should wake up soon, but he will likely take time to return to lucidity. He has a traumatic brain injury, Seve.” “All the while my son is missing and we have no idea where to start,” Steve exclaims, taking a forceful seat in the hospital chair. He grabs Tony’s hand and lifts it, resting his forehead against it. Pepper has been working on the SHAAL data, which was cut while they were still at the airport, and hasn’t gone back online yet. Steve managed to convince Nick Fury to open an investigation, but they were unsuccessful in tracking the car’s movements after it left the airport with Peter. “It’s too soon for this to be a dead end,” Steve mutters.
“Did you think I was dead?” Tony coughs, gripping Steve’s hand back. “Because I’m not.”
Steve lifts his head, grabbing Tony by the cheeks and kissing him full on the mouth. “Good to have you back.”
“Good to be back,” Tony says, giving Steve a look, “and such a warm welcome.”
“We have to find Peter,” Steve says, reaching into his bag to get Tony’s laptop. “I know you probably feel dazed, but it’s been nearly three days and–”
“Sorry,” Tony interrupts, propping himself up and then thinking better of it, “Who is Peter? What are you talking about?” He reaches up to rub his goatee. “Somethings wrong, I’m sure of it, but I can’t place it.”
Steve stares at Tony, frozen on his way to hand his husband the laptop. “Wait, do you know who I am?”
Tony squints at him. “You’re special, but I don’t–” he glances toward the ceiling and then back at Steve. “I’m not sure I can recall your name. S-St-Stan? Maybe?”
Steve falls back against his chair. “Shit. I’m your husband. Steve.”
“Husband?” Tony asks, craning his neck toward the window, “Where are we, Europe?”
“What year is it?” Steve asks, his dread mounting.
Tony opens his mouth and then closes it. “Funniest thing, I can’t completely recall.”
“Who is the president of the United States?” Steve asks.
“It’s- Oh, I know this one–” Tony snaps his fingers– “Vincent Wellister.”
Steve shakes his head. “Dammit.” he sets the laptop on Tony’s lap and stands up, cursing. Finally, he pushes the nurse call button.
“You’ll have to tell me how on earth I managed to pull you,” Tony says seductively, “is Peter our third?”
“I’m going to throw up,” Steve says, lifting a fist to his mouth. "I’m going to throw up. Peter is your son.”
Finally, Tony’s cool exterior breaks. “Shit, call Pepper, we retain paternity lawyers for this exact–”
“You’ve raised him for over ten years,” Steve bursts out. “He’s fifteen, nearly sixteen. He calls you Babbo and he calls me Dad. We joke that we co parent with Pepper, Rhodey, and his aunt and uncle. The two of you speak italian. I’ve been trying to learn. We live in New York and you taught him how to drive, please Tony.”
There’s real hurt in Tony’s eyes. “I need a drink,” he mutters.
“You’ve been sober for almost eleven years,” Steve tells him, a bit of ice in his tone. “And you’d kill me if I let you throw that away.”
“My head is pounding,” Tony says, reaching one hand up to his forehead. “Something’s wrong, what’s wrong? There was something…” he trails off, searching Steve’s eyes for the answer.
Steve sighs. “Peter’s been kidnapped. He was kidnapped almost three days ago.” There are tears welling in Steve’s eyes and he looks up, willing them not to fall. “He turns sixteen in four days. You–” steve’s voice breaks and the tears spill over. He sits back down, his head in his hands, and his words are muffled. “You bought him a car, as a surprise. We weren’t sure if we were going to give it to him because– Oh God.” The spider bite, the superpowers, the out of control strength, it’s too much to explain. Steve shakes his head, clearing his throat. “Let me know. When it comes back to you.”
The nurses finally arrive, and begin to fuss over Tony, who protests as Steve leaves, “Wait, Stan, shit, Steve, hang on.”
Steve hesitates in the doorway before walking out. Usually, he would call Nat, Sam, or Bucky, but they’ve all been radio silent for over two weeks. Clint took a team to check on them, and they haven’t been in contact for twelve hours. Steve decides to call Pepper, hoping she might have something, anything for him. As soon as she picks up, he can see on her tearstained face that something is very wrong.
“We found the SHHAL,” she says, her voice shaking a little.
Steve perks up. “Do you know where Peter is?”
Pepper breaks down into another round of sobbing, shaking her head. It takes a few moments for her to compose herself. “I was about to call you. SHIELD sent a team out, and they found the SHHAL, but not Peter.”
“What?” Steve asks, ice in his veins. “What are you talking about?”
“Steve,” Pepper says, “It was– they had dug it out of him.” Steve feels like his world is closing in, collapsing. Pepper continues, “it was, Steve, it was bad. They’d dumped it in Montana.”
“Are we sure it was his?” Steve asks desperately, “I mean, it could be a replica that was, I don’t know, hacking into the signal.”
There’s a long moment before Pepper replies, “it was covered in his blood.”
Steve finds himself letting out an uncharacteristic string of swear words. “Tony has amnesia,” he says, “he didn’t know who I was, he wanted me to call the paternity department when I told him he had a son, and he thinks Wellister is still president.” It’s Pepper’s turn to use an uncharacteristic amount of foul language.
“This is bad,” she finally says.
“Yeah,” Steve agrees.
Peter examines his wrists. It’s the first time he’s been unrestrained with the lights on, and the room is just as barren as he’d expected. I must be sixteen by now, he reasons, running his finger over the scar tissue on the inside of his forearm. It’s a long scar, running from his elbow to a few inches from his wrist. A few centimeters higher than the end of the scar is a hole in his wrist, almost unnoticeable. The other is the exact same, although this is his bad hand. It quickly became clear that the doctor, or at least Peter hoped he was a doctor, had done some serious damage to that hand, leaving it with a permanent tremor and difficulty in fine tasks. Peter spends most of his time trying to retrain that hand, imagining he’s holding a pencil and counting how long he can keep the position before it spasms and the imaginary pencil clatters to the floor. Most days he can get to twenty, although if he mimes writing then it’s more like five.
The doctor visits him most days, doing unpleasant and painful things, at all times retaining his composure. The only emotion he’s ever shown is when Peter asked if they’d requested a ransom yet. The sharp laughter echoed in his ears for days, and it was clear that no ransom had been requested, nor were his captors planning on requesting one. The doctor constantly warned Peter about his coworkers, and it started to get to him. By now the familiar zing and then zap in his skull that means someone wishes him ill is a fixture, and it goes off just before the magnets activate and Peter is pulled back onto the table. It doesn’t stop going off until the doors are shut and Peter is on the ground recovering from having his blood drained or his cardiac rhythm reset with massive amounts of electricity.
Peter’s arms and legs snap into place, and it’s routine enough at this point that he even manages to avoid his head being slammed against the table behind him. There’s the familiar mechanical opening of the door, and the cart rolling in. Then Peter hears more people file in, shuffling feet and breathing muffled by masks. Their heartbeats blend together and he tries to tune out the noise. “Welcome back, doc,” Peter says with a joviality he doesn’t feel. “At least I think you’re a doctor. Sounds like you brought friends."
“Today will be only as difficult as you are,” the man says. “And it will be our last day together.” Then, the dreaded words. The man always gives Peter a choice. Both alternatives are unpleasant, but there’s always a third, less pleasant option, waiting if he declines to choose or doesn't choose fast enough. “I’m going to give you a choice,” the man says. “You may have a stress ball, or you may have a mouthguard to keep you from cracking your teeth.”
“How about some anesthetic?” Peter suggests. He’s familiar with this choice, and it always means something incredibly painful is coming.
“How about neither?” The man replies mildly.
“Stress ball,” Peter says quickly. He’s found that the mouthguard interferes with his breathing, and they’ve already found that he can regrow teeth. He shudders against the memory, trying not to relive the moment they’d ripped a molar from his jaw. It was quick at least, but his mind is running the memory over and over, even as he runs his tongue over his teeth, reminding himself that it isn’t happening. A gloved hand presses a stress ball into each of his and he digs his nails in to keep them from impaling his palms. Someone puts a mask over his face and he starts to feel the familiar effects of a drug they’ve often dosed him with. It makes his eyes droop and his muscles feel slack, but it barely has any numbing effects. Another gloved hand pulls the mask aside for a moment and when it returns there’s a scent in his nose. It’s a sharp, unique scent, like hospitals, clorox, citrus, and a few other things he can’t place. People are shuffling around him, but whatever he’s breathing is keeping him from even being able to move his eyes. He doesn’t know if he’s managed to hold on to the stress balls, and then he feels a prick in his neck. There’s something being fed through his blood vessels, he’s sure of it, even as he wonders why there’s anything wrong with that. It’s incredibly painful, but Peter’s brain is split, both feeling floaty and numb, and screaming against the pain. He can’t move, in any case, and so, for what feels like forever, someone pokes around in his head. There are voices, but they’re muffled and Peter just doesn’t know why he’s in so much pain when everything should be so relaxing.
In an instant, the world whites out, and for a moment, he thinks of nothing, feels no pain, and has no idea who he is. The only thing he knows is that smell, oddly familiar but impossible to place–
And then he’s being released from the restraints and everyone is gone. What just happened? He wonders, stumbling to his usual position against the wall. He can remember pain, screaming and white hot, but he doesn’t remember… anything. He reaches up and feels his face. What does he look like? His movements get more frantic, and in the complete and total darkness, he starts to doubt that he even exists. He’s… he must know his own name, must be able to recall a single detail about… anything, really. But there’s nothing. It’s like he wasn’t and then he was, alone in the darkness… Where was he? He starts to feel around, but there’s nothing, endless nothing, and no light. It is with great difficulty that he falls asleep that night, distressed over his lack of a name, and unable to think of even one thing to call himself.
There’s a painful warning in his mind and he stumbles, half asleep to his feet, as the lights go on. There are people silhouetted in the door, three people. The man in the middle is tall, broad, and blonde. All of them are wearing black combat gear. There’s a woman standing behind him and another man, holding a clipboard. “Come on,” the man says, gesturing to follow him.
He stares down at his hands, paralyzed by the knowledge that he knows nothing. Then he returns his gaze to the other man in the room. “I- my name?” he asks.
“I hate it when they’re like this,” the man mutters. Then, louder, “You don’t have one. Come on, let’s go.”
He shakes his head, walking toward the man. The man must know his name. Someone must know his name. But the man feels familiar. At least, he thinks the man is familiar. He can’t tell if it’s really familiarity or if he’s desperate for something to feel familiar, but it doesn’t matter. The annoying buzzing in his mind won’t stop, and he presses his hand to the side of his head. When he lowers it, he notices it shaking. It won’t stop, no matter how he tries. He looks around. No one else’s hand is having an issue. He tries to hold it still with his other hand and it gets swatted off.
“Leave it alone,” the woman says. “Just walk.”
He might not have much, but he can follow orders, so he walks, and he leaves the weird hand alone.