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The cell was dirty and dingy, a hastily constructed cinderblock cube. It was almost funny that they thought these medieval manacles would hold him steadfast to the wall—almost because they actually were.
He was weak and starving, very little strength left in his bones. Repetitive beatings and the lack of food and water ripped away all energy.
He’d only been in their grasp for three days, but his enhanced healing demanded much more food than an average male his size should need, and they provided nothing, only some water every now and then. The drunk ones thought they were funny by offering him alcohol every night and watching as he denied it, refusing to be tempted. What a dry joke.
He might be thirsty, but not that thirsty. Alcohol would only make his situation worse, and dehydration was a serious threat in his state; besides, he’d never be able to feel so much as buzzed. His metabolism consumed calories far too fast, and even more so in this starving wick of a body.
His healing was slowing down, too. The beating he took three hours ago left him bruised and hurting, and a nasty purple spot on his right thigh hasn’t shrunk in the least. It should have been gone after three hours. In his best condition, he wouldn’t have been able to see it at all.
It was unfortunate that he could see his thigh. No, his suit wasn’t ripped. It was gone entirely. They’d taken it. They were smart, knew he had gadgets and gizmos hidden throughout, and weren’t taking chances.
Surprisingly, they weren’t interested in his face or identity. Don Castello was alerted immediately that they had Spider-Man maskless, and he hadn’t cared, hadn’t bothered to even show up to gloat.
Peter was glad they left him the dignity of his underwear. That would have been embarrassing.
Of the dirty and gross details, no, they didn’t make him urinate or defecate in his cell. They were humane to a degree. Breaking his leg so he couldn’t run away was inhumane, but dragging him twice a day to a bathroom that was strangely well-kept and clean was humane.
He felt disgusting though: they never let him wash his hands, or his face, or his body. Dried blood still crusted his left temple from where they smashed his head into unconsciousness and captured him.
That shouldn’t have happened at all. It had been raining that night, and he’d just slipped in the puddle, putting himself in a really bad position—well, a really good position to be clobbered in the head with a rusty pipe a couple of times before collapsing, and then a couple of times before losing consciousness, and he was pretty sure they hit him a couple of times after that just for good measure.
His head was fine though, all healed up, nothing to worry about.
He was so bored in this cell, alone for the majority of his stay, and the moments he wasn’t alone weren’t enjoyable in the least.
When he first awoke, they’d crushed his wrists so he had to hurt himself to get out. No bother, he had just waited about seven hours for them to be healed up and had ripped the chains from the wall. That’s how he discovered the automatic rifles stationed near the ceiling in the next room. He could have easily dodged them, and he did, but he dodged backward out of instinct and back into his little room where there was nowhere else to go and took a bullet through his leg and another through his arm.
Men showed up after that to tase him into unconsciousness.
He hasn’t tried escaping since, and only because every time he wakes, men come in a beat him senseless, break bones, whatnot.
His leg was just about healed to where he could probably stand on it, but he didn’t want to give that away anytime soon. Oh, he was going to escape, but that detail could give him a major advantage, cause their guard would be down.
He just needed to get out of the chains. Yes, he was weakened and couldn’t rip them out himself, but not weak enough to where he couldn’t fight them and win.
Peter knew he wasn’t particularly a good actor, but he thought his pretending to be worse off than he actually was was working quite nicely.
Every time someone came around, he’d beg for food and water—so humiliating, but what can ya do?—and normally he’d be given water, but never food. They were smart, remember? He always threw his voice so it sounded like he was dying of thirst with absolutely no energy at all, dying of hunger by flopping his wrists and arms around in the chains, trying to reach out but, alas, he hadn’t the energy.
The beatings came less frequently, so he thought he was convincing enough. It was most likely night time on day 3, and he hadn’t been beaten at all today.
He hung his head, eyes half-lidded with false pain, and listened as men neared.
“Sir, you’re here! We weren’t told you were coming…”
“I made a detour. I want to see him. Do you still have him?”
“Yes, yes, this way.”
And the door opened revealing Don Castello, well at least, Peter thought it did. This Don had the reputation for blending in, and honestly, Pete didn’t know which of the two men was the guy in charge.
He “weakly” lifted his head and squinted, trying the desperate route again, “Water, please, I need water!”
The man on the right barged at him, kicking him in the ribs, “Shut up, you nuisance, we just gave you some.”
Okay, that kick really stung, and Peter thought maybe a rib was cracked. He wanted to cradle his midsection, but those damn manacles were in the way.
The man backtracked to realign himself with Castello, who spoke, “Pathetic. Just slit his wrists and let him bleed out,” he turned around to leave, adding almost as a second thought, “he’s a waste of our resources.”
Great, Castello really didn’t care at all. Not in the slightest. This was so surreal, almost like these guys didn’t know they had Spider-Man in their grasp. They had just been lucky that night on the rooftop. Why did they even keep him alive and starve him?
What a waste of time!
As Castello said, he was just a waste.
Peter shook his head when he realized he was on the wrong side of his imaginary argument with himself over this. It was all stupid. Guess solitary did that to ya.
Don Castello walked away while the henchman came closer, knife in one hand, and—and keys in the other.
So he was going to let his arms out—of course, he was. Slitting his wrists wouldn’t bleed him dry if they were still hanging by his head. Bet this guy thought Peter was a lot weaker than he was trying to seem, cause Pete knew that was a bad idea, and that that guy really shouldn’t let his arms loose or he’ll escape for sure—and there he goes again, on the wrong side of this.
He should be saying, Yes! He’s letting me out, and now I can escape!
God, what was wrong with him? Was he losing his mind from hunger?
Unfortunately for Peter, the henchman slit his wrist before releasing the manacles, dug the knife in deep and parallel with his arm, and Pete couldn’t help but cry out. That really hurt, and he was actually in serious danger from bleeding out with his healing screwed as it was.
The man didn’t stop with just one arm, he moved to the other as well, and Pete screamed again, clenching his fists tight, and hanging his head. He heard the keys rattle and felt the lock releasing, then his arm was down by his side—and Pete didn’t bother raising his head, hoping the man would think he was unconscious or something and leave well enough alone without hurting him more.
The man released his other arm and stood, just watching as Spider-Man bled out rapidly—and rapidly it was. He was losing a lot of blood very fast.
He couldn’t just die here!
Quickly, he jumped up, swinging his used-to-be broken leg at the man’s wide eyes before he could get any sounds out and knocking him hard into the wall. He crumpled unconscious.
Pete literally didn’t have any clothes on him to tie around his wrists—and he was out of his head enough to not think of grabbing anything off the man he just downed—so he ran out of the room as fast as he could, spots in his vision and lightheaded.
In such a state, perhaps he shouldn’t be fighting bad guys. Maybe he should be stealthily escaping—through that vent!
It was on the ceiling to his right, and he could hear footsteps approaching—from which direction, he wished he knew. His head was swimming and—he was able to duck into the vent right as men lazily came around the corner.
He rested in the vents as they gasped upon seeing their downed coworker, and then one man shouted, “He’s in the vents!”
What? How did they do that? That was way too fast to come to that conclusion! Come on!
He turned over and glanced down into the room and—yeah, oh yeah, that’s how they knew, that was so obvious—he was leaving a literal trail of blood, across the concrete floors, his own footprints showing his direction, leaking from the vent he was in.
He was seriously out of his head and not thinking straight and he needed to get out before he ended up dead.
The room he’d been kept in was cooler than the other room, meaning it was closer to an outside wall since it had no vents. He needed to head that direction if he wanted out quickly.
The gunshot and the bullet—and the lack of spidey-sense as a warning—startled him into action, and he crawled as fast as he could, omitting stealth since they already knew where he was.
It seriously disturbed him, though, that he was sliding around in his own blood, not wearing clothes in the vents. He could feel the warm liquid on his stomach, all down his chest, his legs, and in-between his toes. He would have thrown up had it not been his own.
Still, dropping down from the building and surveying his own body, he was a right state, a freak, and he hoped to DareDevil that nobody saw him like this before he could clean himself up.
His vision was still swimming, his head a little woozy, but he was feeling okay, enough. He could stand, he could walk, and he could run, and that’s all he needed.
As he ran, he checked his wrists, and while he knew his healing was suffering from the malnutrition, it wasn’t completely gone, having already stopped the flow of blood. Looking down on the wounds reminded him that they stung like hell, but the fact that they weren’t leaking anymore was a good sign that he’d live.
The men were behind him, chasing him, but he was still Spider-Man, even without his web-shooters or suit—a distant part of his brain told him to disguise his face, so he smeared blood all over it??? It’d work, but at what cost? He’d surely look like a corpse from a horror movie! God save the poor soul should one witness him in this state—so he ran up a wall and started leaping from rooftops until he lost his breath and had to sit down.
They were in his rearview mirror now, and he was so awfully tired that he couldn’t find any reason to not go to sleep then and there.
He awoke in the hospital, an IV pinching the inside of his left elbow, and a pulse oximeter on his right index finger. Both wrists were bandaged and handcuffed to the bed, and there were two officers in his room watching him, slightly frightened.
“Uh, good morning officers! Lovely day we’re having, isn’t it?”
“Son, we found you covered head to toe in blood on the roof of an apartment building. You probably gave a little girl nightmares for the rest of her life. Care to explain what happened?”
Well, officer, no. No, he wouldn’t.