Peter’s head lolled against his chest, his eyes dropping shut. He knew he was supposed to keep them open, but everything was so fuzzy…
He spluttered from the sudden rush of water, which turned into a violent coughing fit. His eyes shot open to see the man who had kidnapped him standing before him. Peter wrapped his arms around his chest, curling into himself to conserve the warmth that the ice cold water had stolen.
“I told you not to sleep. That’s your second strike.” The man smiled cruelly at Peter, then crouched down to his level. “You don’t want to find out what happens after strike three do you?”
It took Peter a moment to remember what had led to this moment—to remember that this wasn’t his life, just a very brief, painful, interlude, to what was, admittedly, an extremely strange life.
When he finally got his brain to work the way it was supposed to, Peter, voice hoarse, said, “Frankly, I don’t like baseball. Could we just use numbers without the whole ‘strike’ thing?”
The man’s smile twitched downward. Peter’s spidey sense barely had time to make its presence known before the man had slammed Peter’s chin upward.
Peter gasped from the pain as his head snapped back. He didn’t have any time to recover before the man had his neck in a vice like grip against the wall. Peter scratched at the man’s thick fingers, but they didn’t move.
“I would suggest you shut your mouth and just stay awake, hm?”
Peter was released a second later and he tucked his head down to his chest with a ragged gasp. The man cast a look of disgust towards him that Peter missed before he left the room.
The metal door clanged shut behind him.
Peter widened his eyes, trying to force some kind of awareness into himself. He didn’t know how long he had been awake already—a week? Everything moved like syrup. All he knew was that Mr. Stark should’ve been here by now.
He’d read the statistics, the police reports—how could he not, as Spider-man—he knew that the chance of finding a missing child decreased exponentially the longer they were gone. Those kids didn’t have Iron Man looking out for them, or Aunt May for that matter, but still. It had been a long time.
It was hard to be hopeful when he kept seeing shadows every time he turned his head. His goal was to stay awake, to avoid whatever horror the man had been teasing for weeks. He knew it was inevitable, but he was scared. He was trying to put it off for as long as possible.
Every time he blinked, it felt like his eyelids grew heavier. His limbs felt like they were filled with lead. At this point, it was all he could do to make it through each individual moment. Thinking too much farther ahead of that made his head spin.
The gray concrete walls meshed with the floor until everything was one long corridor that he was looking down. Peter gave his head a quick shake and he was back in his small cell.
The dim buzzing bulb overhead switched off, and Peter was left in dark silence. He scrubbed at his eyes furiously. It was going to be a long night.