Well This Is Strange...
The world comes back slowly.
Like a steady drip, drip, drip into his mind and body from the nothingness of a deep sleep.
Tiny whispers seep unintelligibly through the cotton between his ears, no less sluggish than he felt. Water surges in a fragile, icy sheet just below his stomach and has shivers trembling weakly along his numb limbs.
A dull ache overcomes his body, stark among the growing list of dull sensations, and earns a small groan from a scratchy, dry throat. He shifts, mildly surprised in his detached haze that he could even move at all. His fingers weakly tense and curl, finding cold, wet sand in their grasp through the gloves.
Wait... sand? Where was...
He was alive?
Eyelids heavy as lead protest his feeble attempts to open them, though eventually give in after several exhausting attempts to creak open just a sliver. Vivid white blinds his sensitive eyes and they squeeze shut painfully as he winces. Stiff limbs struggle to lift his body, shaking from the strain on already tired muscle.
The normally insulating coat commonplace in his attire was clammy and cold, pressing him back down relentlessly under the weight of soaked fabric. His bones ache as though turned to ice, nearly giving in as he shakes and shivers.
Sand hisses on either side of his bowed head and legs as the damp sand is compressed. Shining metal claws plant themselves as firmly as possible, slowly but steadily lifting him upright. He settles to sit on his knees and almost reflexively thanks them for the help when they remain fixed to keep him steady.
Almost.
This attempt to open his eyes is more successful and he’s met by a blurry golden expanse of sand leading up over a short distance to trees and brush. Sand is stuck to his face and lashes in a gritty sensation that his him wincing in discomfort. A mud-caked glove is swiftly pulled off and grains are wiped away. His skin prickles despite the removal, but is brushed off in favor of squinting and blinking rapidly to clear his vision.
Perplexed, he slowly draws his gaze around the undisturbed beach to survey it.
How’d he get here? Better yet where was here?
Was this where...?
That’s right... the dream... That was real?
Fatigued muscle protests as he rotates to flop into a proper sitting position toward the ocean, actuators lifting and adjusting as well to adapt. Wind and waves dance together here, so seamless it’s hard to tell the difference between the two’s songs. The sun just barely avoids brushing the distant horizon far to the left, casting a warm glow despite the chilly breeze on wet clothes.
Fresh, salty air almost burns with each deep breath and he swallows in a vain attempt to relieve the dryness in his throat. He can’t see any land from here interrupting the endless blue and his brow furrows deeper the longer he looks and scrambles for details.
Neither sight nor sound of any soul disturbs him as the cotton stuffing his head starts to clear up properly. A quick glance down and small beat to assess finds nothing majorly wrong with him, physically – other than what was already wrong, to begin with. No broken bones, no excess wounds minus some scratches and scrapes.
He rapidly became more aware of aching twinges entirely unrelated to waking up soaked on a beach; his body a little banged up for reasons he couldn’t quite grasp. Although his brain quickly caught up and filled in the pieces as it snatched up the memories flittering about in his brain.
That’s right... he was fighting Spider-...
Peter... he was fighting Peter on the river before...
Before...
A voice hissed angrily at the mention of the young hero clad in red and blue and he shook his head, dismissing them with a surprising lack of difficulty. It didn’t go away entirely or without complaint and wasn’t easy, but mostly quieted to return to incomprehensible murmurings with the other three.
So, he hadn’t dreamt it... He could control them now. To an extent, anyway.
He could ignore them. And that’s pretty much all he cared about or wanted at his point after everything...
He wasn’t going to think about this anymore.
The longer he sits, absorbing and thinking, the more prevalent that prickling from before becomes. Fine hair on the back of his neck stood on end and he shivers from more than just the cold. Discomfort. Uneasiness.
Even the voices slowly stopped, listening just as he was. The pair of actuators not planted in the sand swayed around his head, claws clicking and opening to look around suspiciously.
Something was watching them... and they all felt it...
Slowly and with no small amount of tension, he rises to creep back up the beach. Narrowed eyes peer back and forth over the sand all the while, no less wary. He moved carefully... but steadily... toward a perceived safety from the unknown threat.
One of many sweeps over the whispering waves to look down the bank to his right catches a glimpse, just a glimpse, of a small rock poking out of the water. In a single blink, it’s gone and his head whips back to stare at the vacant section of ocean. The feeling of eyes burning into him was gone.
The steady thumping of his heart is growing louder as breath catches in his throat. Something was definitely watching them. He was sure of it. But the longer he sat and longer nothing else appeared, the more doubts started to trickle in.
He hadn’t hallucinated, right? He saw it! Right out there in the seafoam!
...
Right...?
His shoulder is brushed by the blunt end of closed claws as one of them snakes forward to glance at him and he freezes.
We saw it too.
The low murmur makes him jump in its clarity, and the confirmation shouldn’t be comforting considering past experiences with it. But it is. And the more echoing of similar thoughts bounce around inside his head the less paranoid he feels. They couldn’t tamper with his sight, after all – at least, not that he knew of – and he takes a deep breath to try and calm his racing heart.
They stand there for a long, long time. Watching... and waiting. Looking carefully for any sign of whatever had been out there. It takes so long the sun begins to dip below the waves and cast darker, deeper shadows over the sand. So long he’s started doubting himself again.
Maybe it was his imagination... Maybe they’d tampered with his vision after all... They’d never done that before but he’d never been this free of their control before either...
Maybe-
He’s cut off.
There.
We see it.
Further to the left than he’d been looking, sure enough, something has emerged to peek out at them.
It’s too far away to identify, but that only dismisses the idea it’s a human of some sort. That and the length of time it was below the surface. The setting sun in the same direction forces him to squint and effortlessly prevents him from seeing properly. Forcing himself not to look away as tiny hisses surround his head, he stares down the strange shape until it swiftly bobs beneath the surface once more.
He sighs, frowning with a perplexed furrow to his brow. Had it been an animal? Possibly. Honestly, he’d imagine any animal would be pretty interested when faced by a human with four extra limbs on a random beach somewhere.
True to form, as he made his way up to the brush and looked around properly, his actuators spotted it multiple times. Over and over again and in roughly the same amount of time, actually. It’d pop out of the ocean somewhere, usually closer to where the sun was, and watch him for a bit. Only, when noticed, to sink once more into the dark water with a small ripple.
He’d even started predicting when they’d spot it and managed on a handful of occasions to be already looking when it peeked out.
Those times it quickly retreated, much to his amusement.
If he was being truthful, the longer it played this odd game of hide and seek with him, the less afraid of it he was. Desensitized, in a way.
Tired and aching, he sat heavily on the dry sand right up next to the edge to lean against a small tree. The sun was almost completely submerged by the waves now, once deep blue water black as ink as red and orange light reflected off the surface. Even the gentle shade held by the sand was turned to warm gold as the water rose subtly with the tide.
He was exhausted despite the relatively short time awake, even as his mind kept working like it always did. His eye found the waves once more, waiting as his metallic companions chirped idly to each other.
As expected, the water parted as the creature following him slowly surfaced to look out at him. It was closer this time – perhaps from the higher water levels? – but that didn’t say much considering it was still quite far out
What little of the rounded head of this animal poked out was black in the low light. Almost featureless from where he sat. Colorless. At least, not identifiably. This time, it held his gaze unflinchingly rather than hiding after several beats. Maybe it was his distance from shore, maybe his repeated lack of response beyond looking.
But it didn’t flee from his attentions. Or those of the actuators snaking around the small tree and his body to look for themselves.
If anything, he could almost see a slight tint in its head as it regarded him from the onyx waves that sloshed and whispered over the sand. An odd, high-pitched yet simultaneously dull chirping just barely sang out over the ocean, but the lack of movement from the animal had him setting his sights around to find the source.
Was it a bird? He’d never heard anything like that before...
By the time he looked back, the creature was gone. And despite his patience they never resurfaced.
A deep sigh escaped his scratchy throat and he reclined once more in as comfortable a position as possible with the metal limbs coming from his back. Idly, he listened to what scraps of understandable conversation he could from the voices talking and sometimes even debating in his head. They couldn’t seem to settle on anything, in particular, switching gears so quickly he was lost within only minutes from all the seemingly aimless questions and grumbling.
Despite his disdain of the unpleasantness he’d committed as a result of them, the constant droning in the back of his mind was almost a comfort out here alone.
The ocean was a perfect backdrop as he thought through the night, watching and listening as if it would tell him the way back home. Wherever that was.
No answers came, but it was soothing nonetheless.