Chapter 2
Peter’s head felt fuzzy.
He wasn’t a stranger to being knocked out cold– that tended to come with being a crime-fighting superhero– but it didn’t often happen, to say the least. His eyelids felt so, so heavy- why was he so tired?- and he tried to force them open with all the strength he could muster. As he slowly roused his senses and tried to clear his head, he waited to hear the voice of Dr. Helen Cho who always seemed to be in the room whenever Peter woke up.
Only Peter opened his eyes, and he wasn’t in the familiar Medical Wing of the Avenger’s Compound.
No, he was somewhere else.
It was still a hospital, of sorts. Or not? He couldn’t be sure. He looked down at his body and saw a thin, papery white gown covering him. As he came to his senses, the memory of what had happened came flooding back into his head and Peter immediately started to panic. Someone had sabotaged him and Happy, and then their car crashed. Someone had sabotaged him and Happy. Not only that, but they’d sabotaged them with poison strong enough to knock Peter out. There’s no way Happy could’ve survived that!
Peter jolted up but found his arms and legs restrained with unnaturally strong restraints. Restraints were no problem for Peter, and so he pulled with all of his might to break them.
Only, they didn’t break.
Peter frowned, and pulled harder, clenching his teeth and straining every muscle in his body this time.
They still didn’t break.
Something didn’t feel right- the back of his neck hadn’t stopped tingling since he came to his senses. Everything was screaming at him to get out of here.
“Mr. Parker, I’m so glad you’re awake!” The voice was even and masculine, and Peter’s head snapped to the doorway just a second before the source of the voice appeared. A short man with a white coat walked through, hands clasped behind his back. He was rather handsome which Peter hated to admit.
“Where am I? Who are you?”
“That explanation will come soon, Mr. Parker. More importantly, how are you feeling? You were in a pretty nasty accident back there, but fortunately, your abilities allowed you to heal faster than we anticipated.”
Peter frowned. “We weren’t in an accident- somebody gassed us!”
The man simply chuckled and shook his head. “Regardless of what happened, Peter, you’re with us now. If you feel ill, or injured, or like something isn’t quite right, simply call for ‘Dr. Xanadu.’ That’s me! And I’ll be right here.”
Peter scowled at the man but didn’t say anything as the doctor returned from where he came from. He glanced at the restraints and tried to pull again, but it was no use. Whatever this material was, it was strong, strong enough for his super-human strength not to be able to break it. His heart fluttered in his chest. Happy. And Mr. Stark. And the rest of the Avengers– were they okay?!! Peter hoped that whoever captured him didn’t get the rest of them, and he hoped with all of his might that Happy had been able to survive that gas. Either way, Peter was panicked but he knew that the Avengers would be there within the hour to save him. Mr. Stark wouldn’t let anything happen to them.
He laid back on the bed and closed his eyes, trying to distract himself from being strapped to this bed in an unfamiliar place with no way out. A couple of months back, Sam had been taken by a vigilante group operating out of Chicago, and the team had saved him in a matter of hours. It had been an ugly fight, and they almost lost a few people, but in the end, they’d gotten Sam out without any repercussions. Peter recalled how frantic and concerned Steve had been, and he just hoped that’s how Tony was acting now. Something about this place did not feel right.
“Oh, Peter! You’re here!” A shrill voice squealed. Peter’s eyes flew open and he spotted three… characters, to say the least, rush into his room lugging a cart full of a bunch of strange tools and… makeup? That Peter didn’t seem to recognize. The woman squealing had bright blue hair and lavender skin, and something about the way her body was shaped and her face just seemed… of. The second person Peter couldn’t discern the gender of, and had pastel yellow hair with appropriately matched skin. Strangely enough, the second person had whiskers growing out of their cheek and didn’t appear to be human. Peter squinted his eyes and tried to figure out what exactly they were before moving his eyes to the third person– okay, that was just a straight-up alien. She was tall, like, eight-feet-tall, with a bright pink pixie cut and a face not dissimilar from some of the aliens he’d fought when fighting against Thanos. The grotesque face smiled at Peter, and Peter nearly fainted. Were they all aliens?!
“Who are you guys?” Peter exclaimed, trying to get away but going nowhere due to the restraints. The lady with the blue hair clasped her hands together in front of her chest excitedly and grinned.
“I’m Sapphire, dear, and this is Bruly, and Meyha. We’re your designer team here to get you into tip-top shape for the games!”
Peter furrowed his brows. “Games?”
The trio took a step closer and began to unpack and sort stuff on the cart. Peter gulped. He was almost positive that one of the tools he saw was designed to remove hair.
“Of course!” The yellow-haired one, who he was assuming was Bruly, exclaimed. “By popular vote, you were the twenty-fourth out of twenty-four selected to be in here! The people love you already, Peter! But, they love the others even more– which is why we’re here to make you more… suitable!”
Sapphire stepped closer and scrunched her nose, running her fingers through Peter’s unruly curls that he hardly ever bothered to tame. “We can work with this,” she said with uncertainty, trying to keep her voice bubbly and optimistic.
“You still didn’t answer my question. Where am I, and what are these games?!”
“Oh, silly me, I forgot to tell you! The Seventy-fourth Annual Games are quite the spectacle, designed to attract tourists from all over! You will be competing against twenty-three other candidates, voted in by the people of our delightful city, in a wonderful sort of battle royale! You will be faced with hunger, dehydration, amazing creatures designed by our wonderful Gamemakers, and of course, other teenagers with abilities similar to your own! It’ll be wonderful, Peter! The winners receive all of the wealth, treasure, and fame that they desire,” Sapphire said with a content sigh. “And our job is to get you looking your absolute best so that you gain popularity and possibly receive sponsored gifts during the games!”
Peter zoned out about halfway through Sapphire’s ramble, and his face paled. This had to be some sort of sick joke, right? Maybe some bad guy had gassed him and now he was planted in a horrible nightmare that he simply had to wake up from. Or maybe this was some sort of elaborate prank from the Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor, or Sam and Bucky were getting him back for all the little pranks he and Tony played on them. This couldn’t possibly be real- it was asinine! There was no way anyone would put twenty-four teenagers into an arena in a battle royale– Peter prayed to whatever deity was listening that they didn’t mean fight to the death. That couldn’t be true, right? And what did they mean, teenagers with abilities like his own? Were there twenty-three other teenagers that had been bitten by radioactive spiders and received powers instead of dying?! If they did mean killing… Peter would refuse to kill any other innocent teenager, especially in the case of some sort of sick, twisted game like these. There’s no way he could bring himself to do that.
He closed his eyes as the prep team poked and prodded the length of his entire body, and wished that Mr. Stark and the Avengers would get here soon.
Tony Stark was officially panicking.
Not that he wasn’t the second he saw Happy’s lifeless body being loaded into an ambulance with no reports of his kid.
Now, things just seemed worse. It had been two hours since the crash happened, and Tony had had quite the fight with the ambulance crew trying to divert their destination to the Avengers Compound where the trusted Helen Cho could surely take proper care of Happy and nurse him back to health. The Avengers had finally arrived and immediately set upon scouring the city for any trace of Peter Parker or Spider-Man. FRIDAY was nearly frying her systems trying to search every little camera in the city and Tony… Tony was on the verge of one of the worst panic attacks he’d ever had.
He was grateful that the team was here to help him and with little complaints. They all loved the little shit and knew he could fend for himself, but something about this was different. Something was more serious. They all searched the city and desperately wished for his little head to pop up and scare them with a funny one-liner that would only serve to irritate them. They’d been throughout the city for two hours, and nobody found even a single breadcrumb. It was like the kid hadn’t existed ever since he left school.
When the Avengers decided to regroup at the Compound and pound out a different game plan, they all walked into Tony staring out of the large glass wall at the end of the common area they all shared.
Sam, as he tended to do whenever he was stressed, immediately tasked himself to bake a fresh batch of cookies to occupy their minds and mouths while they fretted. It was the only way he could keep himself from being so anxious, too.
“Tony, we’re going to find him,” Steve asserted in his confident voice. He was confident in his team- he was not confident that they’d find him in good shape. Whoever had done this was clearly no amateur.
“Not before something horrible happens to him,” Tony hummed in response. Steve glanced at Nat, who had a concerned look on her face.
“You don’t know that,” Nat added, taking a step forwards toward Tony. “It’s Peter. He can hold his own.”
“Something is telling me that someone who is smart enough to outsmart my car and my tech might have an edge on the kid,” Tony responded in a snarky, stressed tone. He turned away from the window and collapsed onto the couch, stroking the stubble on his chin. He kept his sunglasses on because he felt like if people couldn’t see his eyes they wouldn’t see how stressed and scared and guilty he felt. This was his fault. If he’d been the one to pick the boy up as he’d promised…
“Well, moping around on the couch isn’t exactly going to help,” Bucky included, crossing his arms. Steve gave him a disapproving look.
“Oh, gee, thank you to the ancient wonder twins for helping the cause! You’re right, buckos, I should just smile and be happy and tap my heels together and everything should go back to normal!”
“Look, Tony, all they’re saying is that we just need to take a deep breath and come up with a game plan,” Bruce said, attempting to mediate and stepping in between the couch where Tony sat and Bucky and Steve. He nervously glanced between both parties. “This happened on the same day we were going to infiltrate a base in the Bronx run by a contractor who used to develop technology for HYDRA. I’m sure they have contacts, and they might even have enough to know we were being sent out tonight. Let’s run tonight’s mission like normal and see if anything turns up, okay?”
Tony stared at Bruce. Bruce was one of his most trusted friends and probably one of the only people that Tony considered smarter than him, but the words coming out of his mouth didn’t make sense. Tony mulled on Bruce’s idea for a minute, chewing his words over and really thinking about it– he didn’t like playing a waiting game, but he couldn’t see any feasibly alternative that they’d already covered, so this would have to suffice.
“Fine. We wait. But if there’s nothing by the morning, I’m calling Fury, got it?”
Steve nodded. “We’ll call in Fury.”