sixty-four.
Sometime in between Wanda promising that she'll be right back, she's in the middle of helping Steve not blow up the kitchen, and her actually walking out of his apartment, Peter's managed to zone out again. This memory felt so much worse than the last that his head started to throb.
May finally accepted to try and escape her confines at Peter's literal pleading at her to try and escape. God only knew how long they had before someone came for them. Their time was cut short by a door across from May's table opened up. No, no, no, no! This wasn't happening now, they were going to get out! A large man in a lab coat walked into the room, surveying the area and May's broken cuff.
Peter, thinking he'd do whatever he could to protect her, stepped between where she lay on the table and where the man was entering from, scalpel held up in offense. "Don't come any closer, or... Or I'll use this!"
The man could tell just by the boy's shaking had that using the scalpel as a weapon was the last thing that he wanted to do. He could tell that the boy didn't want to hurt him and to tell the truth, he didn't want to hurt the boy either.
The man sighed as he stepped around the room, "You know... I have a daughter about your age... You remind me of her."
Peter, incredulously scoffed, "What, do you torture her too?"
The man just stared for a moment and shook his head. "No, I'd never hurt a hair on her head. But you've got a sharp object pointed at me and it makes you look just like her... She's very, headstrong. Though, she wasn't always. She was a part of the same program as you, though her... Initiation was a lot less complicated than yours."
"What does that mean?"
"She's a woman. You know what it means. Unfortunately, after all of what she went through, there was no point." The man moves around the room, still not bothering to look up at Peter. "She couldn't conceive in the first place... That's why they picked you. You couldn't either, but they figured they could change you... Based on your lab results, they were right."
Peter's hand was still shaking when the man came closer. He didn't want to hurt anyone... He thinks he remembers, he used to help people. He used to protect them against people like this. The man grabbed his hand and made it impossible for him to drop the scalpel. Peter's brows furrowed. The man spun him around to face the woman on the table, and with his hand still firmly wrapped around the scalpel, he tried to fight whatever he was about to be forced into doing.
"Peter, if you don't do this, then I have to, and I promise you I'll do it much slower..."
May held Peter's eye for a long moment, silently urging him to do whatever this man wanted him to do. This was the difference between her life and his. She could give her life for him, for a chance that he'll escape. Though he was her nephew, he was like her son, and she would do this for him. Even if he was the one hurting her, she would never hold it against him.
With the man's hand still tightly holding his, Peter's arm raised and slammed back down. The scalpel sunk into May's stomach, but the man wouldn't let him pull the blade away... Instead, he was forced to drag it across the entirety of her lower abdomen. May couldn't hold back her scream, and though she could very well lash out and swing, Peter was the closest one and even now she would never lay a hand on him.
Tears were streaming down his face, even though he didn't know why. He didn't know just how much this woman meant to him, or how much he meant to her in return.
The scalpel was finally removed from her abdomen, only for the man to force Peter to plunge it into her chest and slice downwardly over her heart... And the blood just kept coming.