Chapter 2.
October 15th (later that day)
The next time Peter woke up, he felt more alert than the last time, but still somehow incredibly groggy. His senses were going crazy, warning him of danger as if it was actively coming at him in every direction and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it. His instincts were screaming at him to scurry off into a nearby corner to hide.
He couldn’t help think his fear instincts were starting to feel more spider and less human every time something happened to him.
He was very aware this time that he had somehow been kidnapped. That he was being locked up somewhere. But he still couldn’t remember how.
There was a cough from somewhere in the hallway, and his head jerked to find that small sliver of light he’d latched onto the first time he’d woken up. Then he suddenly remembered a guy talking to a Thomas, and it had sounded like there was someone in the room with him.
He didn’t call out for Thomas this time. Instead, he tentatively flexed all his muscles, one by one, testing his own strength. He was weak- way too weak- and a flash of panic turned the blood in his veins ice cold when he couldn’t move his right arm. He swung his left hand over quietly to feel for it, and let out a breath of relief when he felt it was still there. He at least hadn’t lost the arm- but something was definitely wrong with the prosthetic.
The sensation as he ran his fingers along the fake flesh was odd. It was as if he was running his fingers along someone else’s arm. He could feel the arm under his fingers, could tell it was there. But there was nothing telling him the arm was being touched. His father and Fitz had gone the extra mile to make sure that it would feel as much like a real arm as possible- and that included having touch receptors.
Okay, so he was trapped somewhere with someone else, weakened by something, and his prosthetic arm was out of commission.
Perfect.
With a sigh, he used his left arm to quietly push himself up. The sliver of light from the corner danced around before his eyes as his head adjusted to the sudden movement. He didn’t wait for the dancing to completely stop before he tried to stand up.
He needed to find the other person. Preferably without alerting whoever was standing guard on the other side of the door, or wall. He assumed it was a door. He had to have gotten in there somehow. His eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the dark and that sliver of light was practically glaring at him now.
His legs shook violently once he was finally standing and he cursed under his breath as he immediately fell over and slammed into a wall, the noise echoing loudly through the dark and cold room. He realized then that he at least wasn’t in any pain. Whatever they had given him to make him so weak was probably making him numb and he wondered if there were any injuries he hadn’t yet noticed because of it. He felt incredibly heavy and weak. But even when he slammed into the concrete wall, he felt nothing else. That was another potential problem he added to his list. But for now, he took the lack of pain as a grace. A grace that came with a dire cost.
Kidnapped and trapped with some stranger, probably drugged, prosthetic arm out of commission, possibly injured.
It just kept getting better.
He listened tentatively from his spot on the wall to see if he’d inadvertently attracted some unwanted attention. There was a mumble he couldn’t quite distinguish and the sound of a chair scraping against the floor but nothing else. Maybe whoever was out there wasn’t paying him any attention. His senses that warned him of danger were still screaming at him, but not any more or less than they had been since he’d woken up.
“Thomas?”
Nothing.
“Thomas!” He hissed again, more urgently, and it suddenly clicked that there were no other sounds of breathing in the room outside of his own or any heartbeats.
“Thomas!” He tried again anyway, taking a step away from the wall and immediately crashing back to the ground. The sound of his body hitting the floor echoed through the room, and it was quickly followed by a loud knocking.
“Oi! We know your name, shut up before I make you shut up.”
“What did you do to Thomas?” Peter asked, his voice sounding strangled, still laying on the floor. He wasn’t sure what the threat was about knowing his name. Unless they meant… they knew he was Spider-Man. Or knew he was Tony Stark’s son. Either way, he could see the potential for motif more clearly now. And the fact they were able to actually weaken him suggested that it was the Spider-Man thing.
That scared the living crap out of him, but he preferred that scenario over the dad scenario. If this had something to do with Tony, that could potentially mean he was in danger too and currently Peter was useless to help.
“Why are you talking in the third person, kid? It’s weird. And I’m not gonna spill all my secrets yet. But good try.” The man drawled and his amused tone seemed to bite at Peter and get under his skin. Peter narrowed his eyes at the sliver of light, as if it had been the light alone that had personally offended him.
For all the teen could tell at this point, it was the light. It was the only thing he could actually see. He closed his eyes, and forced himself to try and focus as he sat back up and replayed the man’s words over in his head for some sort of clue. He was still drowsy and weak, and his thoughts felt like a pile of puzzle pieces that didn’t match.
“I’m not,” Peter croaked after a beat of silence.
“Not what? Not weird or not talking in the third person?” Peter’s eyes flew open, the signals in his head that had been screaming danger suddenly louder and he noticed the little sliver of light he’d been watching was gone and he could feel someone physically watching him.
“That’s right. They did say you go by a different name now, didn’t they? What, did daddy not tell you your real name when you had your big reunion?” The man laughed, and it was too loud and then the light was back for a just a second before he heard something click and the light was gone again, leaving Peter in nothing but darkness and silence again.