Chapter 3
When Peter wakes up, his head is killing him.
His jaw aches and he has to creak it once, twice, to feel better. He feels like he’s gone ten rounds with a blender and lost.
He blinks, trying to adjust to the light of the room.
He’s laying on a simple cot, bare expect for a small pillow and harsh-feeling blanket. There’s a sink with a pipe under it in the far corner and a small toilet, for which Peters feels a twinge of gratitude.
Head pulsing, her stumbles to the toilet to relieve himself and then sticks his head under the sink, trying to wash the blood that had been clotting in his hair. He takes several gulps of water and starts to feel halfway normal.
That is, until the door opens.
He recognizes the person who walks in immediately. He’s been on the cover of Science Weekly, been on every red carpet and celebrity event peter can think of, even a Vouge launch party.
It’s Norman Osborn.
“Hello Peter.” He says casually, as if he’s meeting Peter for lunch and not in some prison cell.
“Norman Osborn?” peter asks, disbelief causing his tone to go up an octave higher than he would have liked.
“You’ve heard of me. Good.”
Honestly, Peter is too stunned to say anything. Norman picks up on it but seems undisturbed by the circumstances.
“I’ve heard a great deal about your work on Q-Blood. Fascinating technology.”
“Are you crazy?” Peter asks.
“No, I don’t believe so. I’m a businessman, Peter. I have a great interest in new, emerging talent.”
Peter goes still. There’s something about this man, all predatory and calm. Like a lioness about to attack a zebra. He’s dangerous.
“I deliver mail.”
Norman smirks at him, and it’s the first time Peter sees anything in the man’s eyes that isn’t cold and calculating. It’s amusement.
“We both know you’re much more than that, Peter. I’ve seen your work firsthand. You’re brilliant. I’d like you to work for me.”
Peter sniffs. “I’d rather get pecked to death by hummingbirds.”
“Unfortunate, considering your situation.” Norman waves his hand at the surrounding room, the bare bed, and the metal sink.
“Just let me go.” Peter says, slightly cringing to himself. Like he’s in a position to give orders.
“And risk you working on Q-Blood for Stark?”
Peter shakes his head. No use in pulling punches now.
“It’s too risky. The results could-,” he stalls, thinking back to Ben, just for a moment “I will never work on Q-Blood again.”
Norman tilts his head, as if expecting this answer.
“It can help a lot of people, Peter. The nanotech could heal people on the molecular level. It can eliminate the bad cells. Cancer, lupus, heart disease- a thing of the past.”
Peter thinks of May, laying on a hospital bed, not looking human. Pale and sickly, yellow in skin, unable to even go to the bathroom by herself at the end…
“There will be other researchers.” Peter says, “Who can figure it out in a way that it can’t be weaponized.”
Osborn sighs. “You are a very intelligent man, peter. Think about the notoriety that can come with a find this this. The power, the fame. You could fund any project you’d wish.”
Peter swallows, hard. “I’m in the business of nonentity.”
He stays quiet, and Peter feels the need to fill it.
“Why am I here, Osborn? Just for you to explain to me why I should keep working on Q-Blood?”
He doesn’t want to even mention that he’s only one half of a team. There’s no way he could even reproduce the results without Gwen, but there’s a nagging little pull in the back of his mind that maybe he can convince Osborn to forget about her.
“I want to give you some time to think about it. You stay here until you decide to work on Q-Blood for me.”
Peter’s heart skips a beat, and then two. This is what he was afraid of; he’s never been one for confined spaces in the first place, and this billionaire is seriously suggesting that Peter is going to stay here until he starts to work on Q-Blood for Oscorp?
“Seriously?” Peter asks in disbelief. “You’re- you’re going to hold me hostage until I decide to work for you?”
“I did offer you a job, before. You declined. Consider this the job opportunity.”
Peter scowls. “People get to leave their jobs at the end of the day. Also, they don’t get punched in the face and kidnapped if they decline a job offer.”
Normal Osborn gives Peter a tight smile, the type of smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He turns back towards the door and opens it.
“Think about, Mr. Parker.”
Peter rushes, but the heavy door slams shut before Peter can reach it. He hears the click of a lock and footsteps that fade away.
“Damn it!” Peter bangs on the door. “Let me out!”
It’s useless, and he is freaking out.
Peter forces himself to calm down. Take one breath, then two. He’s a smart guy. He can figure something out.
He takes the time to glance around the room. The walls are concrete and smooth to the touch. The ceiling is lower than he’s used to, even in his crappy apartment. The only light is three low-hanging lightbulbs on the ceiling and the faded red dot of a fire alarm.
Peter groans and throws himself onto the bed on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He squints, trying to make things clearer without his glasses. The red light on the ceiling. The smoke detector.
Bingo.
Peter’s heart skips a beat. For once he’s glad he’s a gangly as he is. He stands up on the bed and reaches up. His fingers just graze the smoke detector. He stands on the tips of his toes, stretching as much as his body allows. He grips plastic edge of the smoke detector and yanks it open. Peter can’t quite make it out, but he feels it with his fingertips. A battery. His calves are aching now, so he must put his feet flat on the bed for a moment more before stretching up again. It takes two tries, but he manages to yank the battery from the smoke detector. He slides it into his pocket without another glance and stretches back up to shut the plastic cover. The red light has turned off, but there’s no noticeable damage to the smoke detector either way.
He sits down on the cot, inspecting the battery. It’s a simple name-brand double A battery. Peter is sure there’s another in the smoke detector, but he only needs the one. He spares a glance at the worktable. There is a plastic cup with pencils and pens.
He sits down at the worktable and takes a pen. It’s the kind that you can click at the top. Peter unscrews the top of the pen, releasing the plastic stick with the ink, putting that aside. He’s more interested in the small metal spring. When he was younger, he would assemble and reassemble the pens in class, pretending he was some secret agent preparing a dart gun or something dumb like that. He’s glad he did that now.
He carefully unwinds the coiled spring, flipping it over. He straightens the wire and then curls it again, creating a spiral parallel to the original shape of the spring. He sets the spring down and takes the battery from his pocket. There’s nothing sharp enough. He swears quietly to himself, turning the battery over to the flat side. He puts his right thumbnail to his mouth. He bites one edge of his nail and rips it with his teeth, creating an uneven, jagged edge. He palms the battery in his left hand and gets to work. He follows the indented lines at first with his nail, making small little rips in the plastic. He’s not sure how long it takes to unwrap the plastic from the flat side of the battery, but when he finally does it and sits up his neck aches form the effort. He had been slouching over his project too long. He cracks his neck and rubs the nail on right numb. It’s rubbed red and raw, bleeding at the bed of his nail. But he’s got the job done. Peter sweeps the plastic rips onto the floor and studies the battery. The outer flat part is the negative, which means the center…
He picks up the metal spiral and holds it to positive side of the battery. For a few seconds, Peter thinks it’s not working. Right before he’s about to remove the metal spiral, it starts to glow red with heat.
“Yes!” he whispers.
He goes to the door. There’s the back end of a control panel. He rips the nail off his left thumb this time and gets to work, unscrewing the back panel from the wall. He’s rusty with his knowledge of electricity, but he’s sure if he starts soldering wires, he can figure something out.
He places the spiral back onto the battery. It starts to glow red hot and Peter grits his teeth as the metal by his finger starts to get too warm for comfort. Once he’s sure it hot enough, he places it to one of the wires. The coating on the wire smokes briefly and the shutters to a stop. Peter lets out a huff of frustration and places the spiral back onto the battery, waits for it to get hot, and places it on the wire again. Rinse, repeat. It takes six movements back and forth between the battery and the wire. On the sixth try, Peter cuts right through the wire like a hot knife through butter.
Or a hot pen spring through wires.
Peter made the right call, because as soon as he draws the spiral away from the wire, there’s a faint clicking sound of the door unlocking.
“Yes!” Peter hisses through his teeth. He spares a final glance around the room, at the bed and the sink and the desk. He walks back over to the desk and grabs a new pen. Not the best weapon, but it’s better than nothing. He slips the battery and metal into his pocket, just in case.
He goes back to the door and places and ear to the door. Nothing. He takes a deep breath and opens the door, just a crack. No one.
He opens the door further. He’s in a hallway. There are no windows or outside light, so maybe underground but he can’t be sure. Gwen’s lab hallway didn’t have any windows either, nor did her lab.
Pulse jumping in his throat, he takes cautious steps down the hallway, just for a moment, before he looks down at his feet. Shoes!
He slinks back to the room he was in before and takes of his ratty sneakers. They’re one wrong step from falling apart, but they were the last thing May had ever bought for Peter, right before she had gone to the hospital for the last time. Peter remembers he has insisted he didn’t need any new shoes, but May had just winked at him and passed a credit card to the cashier. It hurt him to leave them behind now.
He thinks about it for a moment, and then pulls off his socks as well. They were a birthday present from Gwen, ankle length with little light sabers on them. They were quieter than his bare feet, but he could slip easily. Especially knowing the way he walked normally. He needed all the help he could get.
He goes back out into the hallway. If he can just find a way out of here, he can go to StarkTower, or maybe the police. If he can’t find a way out, even a phone would do. He could call Gwen and leave the line open long enough for her to trace the call and figure out where he was…
He reaches a door. He sticks his ear to it. It’s quiet. He drops down to the ground and tries to look under the crack in the door. It’s still and dark. He tries the handle. It’s locked. There’s another panel by the door, similar to the panel in the other door.
Peter takes the battery and metal out of his pocket. His fingers are shaking, and he’s feeling more nervous without the privacy of the room. He accidently burns himself a few times as he slowly makes work of the lock with his little-, welding device?
It takes a few tries, but he short-circuits the panel and hears the click of the lock. He sticks his head in the room. It’s a janitor’s closet, hardly bigger than a small walk-in closet. Peter slinks into the room and turns on the light, trying to find something useful. Toilet paper roles and paper towels- he could start a fire, maybe? But he’s not sure how he could control it. He’s not the Human Torch or like that x-man guy with the lighter he had seen on the news once. He eyes some paper products on the shelf, some basic cleaning chemicals- stink bomb material, maybe? But that would only create a scene, or a distraction that would bring people to his location.
Then he spots a toolbox. Peter’s hands fly to it, opening it. There are a few screws, a couple of wooden dowels, and the jackpot- a mallet and a screwdriver. Peter has never been so happy to hold tools before in his entire life. He shoves the battery and metal back into his pocket again and takes the screwdriver and mallet. Finally., he can start getting into rooms faster.
He cracks opens the janitor’s door again and is just about to leave when the vent on the ceiling catches his eye. It’s small, but so his he.
He goes to the vent and drags the shelf holing the paper towels under it. He’s not very athletic, and it takes some effort. He’s panting when he manages it, wishing for his inhaler. And his glasses.
He climbs the shelf one step at the time until he reaches the vent. He squints at the screws on the vent. Not quite a fit for the screw driver, but he can make it work. The familiar weight of tools in his hand is comforting and he makes quick work of the screws. He places them into his pockets, not wanting to risk them falling off the shelf and making noise.
The screws removed; he takes the cover off. The vents are dusty and gross, but he can fit.
He uses the screwdriver to make a hole in the bottom half of his shirt, enough that he can get his fingers in there and rip a sizeable piece. He ties it around his face to act as a mask; the last thing he wants it to cough while in the vents.
He reaches up into the vent, feeling around. It’s almost sticky with coated dust, but the walls feel wide enough. He pulls himself into the vent, sweating with the effort. How the hell was he going to do this? He finds himself wishing for the sink water like before. He debates bring the tools, but they’re metal and can clank on the metal vents. He thinks about finding a bag and maybe some rope or string, to drag the tools with him Shawshank-style, but that would take time.
He can’t wait any longer.
Peter puts the tools on the shelf, feeling bad about leaving them behind. He allows himself three steadying breaths and pulls the rest of himself through the vent. It’s a tight squeeze, his shoulders feel like they’re pressing into his lungs, but he can move. He wiggles and slide slowly, dragging himself through the vent in a facsimile of an army- crawl.
Peter isn’t sure how long he goes on like this, crawling and stopping to catch his breath. Even with the lower half of his shirt over his nose and mouth, he’s wheezing from the dust.
He crawls through the vents at a snails’ pace. When he passes the first opening to the vent, he peers through the slats of the cover. There’s that guy, Grant, who had offered him the job in the first place. It looks like a nice office. He’s talking to someone on the phone, half whispering. Peter can’t hear anything, but he can see a window in the guy’s office, which means he’s above ground at least.
He keeps crawling. The next open vent looks like a break room. There’s a sofa and the glowing blue light from a vending machine. There is more quiet chatting, so Peter moves on.
He crawls further into the vent, vaguely wondering what on his earth his plan is. Surprise: he doesn’t have one! He keeps going forward until the vent ends at a metal wall. There’s no way forward or up, only a chute down. Peter swears to himself. He can’t turn around in such a tight space. He tries to move backwards but his elbows make it impossible to move backwards. He must go down the vent chute headfirst.
For a moment, he remembers watching a crime documentary with Gwen late one night; about some guy who had wet caving and had gotten stuck head-down, legs up in some cave in Utah, and he died after like three days or something.
He takes as deep a breath as the dust and activity will let him and shudders before going headfirst into the shoot.
It’s a short drop, maybe five or eight feet, he can’t tell, but it’s fast. The dust had made it easier for him to slide down with speed. He goes face-first into another vent.
The speeds causes him to break the vent with his face. He slides out of the vent into the room, forehead stinging with the force of the impact. He tries to fight off coughs and yanks the homemade mask off his face. He coughs without sounds, making his eyes burn and ears ring. It takes him almost thirty seconds to get ahold of himself.
By the time he does, Peter realizes he’s in some sort of lab. Well, lab really isn’t the right word. It looks more like a containment area. The room is dark and there’s no one it, thankfully. But there are large tubes from floor to ceiling filled with stringy white things. Peter must walk up to them to see clearly. Spiderwebs. There are hundreds- thousands of spiders in each tube, illuminated by blue lights.
Peter whirls around the room. There are dozens of the tubes, rows and rows forwards and backwards.
Just what the hell as Oscorp working on?
He blinks. He has to focus. He can wonder about spider tubes later.
He walks and up and down the rows of spider tubes. No phones, no paper, there nothing in here that he can use.
He goes back to the vent. Maybe if he can find something in here to stand on, he can use it as leverage to jump back up into the vent. He can wait in the vents with the dust and dirt until the break room empties. He is sure there’s a phone or something he can find to call Gwen.
That’s when Peter feels a sharp sting on the back of his left hand. He can’t help it; he swears out loud and raises his hand to his face. There is a spider on his hand. he tries to shake it off, but it won’t let go of Peter’s hand. peter smacks it with his right hand hard enough for the sound to reverberate off the walls, and the spider falls to the ground, unmoving. Peter shakes his hand out, trying to ignore the sting before giving the spider a second glance. It looks like some kind of black-widow spider with the red etching on it’s back, but he can’t make it out clearly without his glasses. He groans to himself. The last thing he needs right now is to die of some spider bite.
But he feels fine; the stinging as even stopped now, so he goes back to the vent. There’s nothing he can use, but if he stretches his arms, he can get a good grip and try to pull himself back up the vent.
Peter goes back into the vent and stretches. He can’t get the to the edge of the vent, even on the tips of his toes. He risks one jump, and then another one, wincing as the metal clangs loudly. He can’t reach the vent.
He groans in frustration and goes back out of the vent. He does a walkthrough of the room, no other vents, nothing he can use-, just the one door on the far side. He sighs and goes to the door. He drops to his stomach to look under the door. There’s no crack like before, he can’t tell if there’s anyone outside or not. He debates waiting in the room for someone to come in the door and try to slip out as they walk it, but he’s already feeling extra winded.
Peter steels himself and places a hand on the handle. He creaks open the door just a hair. There’s no one in immediately in view. Peter gives the door another push, delicately and steps into the hallway.
“Shit.”
It slips out before he can stop it. There are two security guards down the hallway from him. They turn when he swears.
Stupid, stupid!
“Hey!” one guard says.
Peter takes off down the opposite end of the hallway. He’s not a very fast runner, and the guards seem to know it. It only takes a few moments for them to catch up to him. It feels like a repeat of before, strong arms around his waist, lifting him off his feet. But there’s something off- maybe all the dust he’s just inhaled, but Peter feels weaker than before. More tired. All it takes is one solid whack to the side of his head and he’s too dizzy to fight any longer.