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Thick globs of blood dripped onto the cement.
The shadows stretched, enveloping the north-facing windows and shrouding the interior of the building in darkness.
Sweat dripped down, too, less viscous than the blood but joining it on the ground.
The ceiling was swathed in thick smog, the building having never been so humid before. The smoke from the barrel in the corner gathered and sunk onto the air, almost palpable.
Blood dripped all the more, a puddle developing beneath swaying feet.
Nothing stirred aside from the body swaying from frayed rope, but another man stood nearby, outstretched hand attempting to hold the writhing body steady.
A desperate gasp.
A pained groan.
Then silence again.
The hanging body writhed. The blood dripped. The rope creaked.
Martin Li dropped his arm and stepped away, sighing in frustration, leaving Peter to hang his head in exhaustion.
“Stevens!” Li called, turning back to Peter. He thrust his hand suddenly forward and grabbed Peter’s hair, lifting his head.
Peter cracked his eyes open as another bead of sweat slithered down his temple. His whole body was shaking from fatigue but even so, he managed to creak out, “Give up yet?” It was much weaker than Peter hoped for, but, again, he was so tired.
Stevens appeared in the doorway across the room, and Li gave Peter space as he stepped away to discuss. Pete didn’t want to eavesdrop—he maybe should have, but he just didn’t want to—and he didn’t, just wiggled his wrists. The rope only shredded his skin again, ripping open the wounds that had already healed over, and more blood spilled down his arms.
He winced and stopped struggling, hung his head again, and closed his eyes. He just needed to be still a moment, needed to collect himself. His energy healed the fastest, replenished itself very quickly, but it still had its limits.
Li was draining him of all that he had, attacking him relentlessly in his head, trying his hardest to corrupt him. Unfortunately, fighting was exhausting. For both of them.
Li could just absorb energy from one of his minions and then attack him again, while Peter could not. Peter could only hang there, his feet not even touching the ground.
Li had left the room, making this the longest period of time that Peter had been alone since he was captured.
He’d been here for over a day.
His body was superhuman, but eventually, his shoulders had given out, just recently, too.
Combined with the constant rope burns on his wrists from his struggling and writhing, he had a much harder time fighting Li off. That mental battle was longer and more draining.
He needed to rest now, just let himself hang, and not move, and rest. He was so tired.
He’d dozed for only a few minutes before Li returned, and he only knew it because he was suddenly thrust back into that negative space in his head, Li assaulting him once more.
The combat was over before it even began, no words shared, no punches or lunges. There was just this sudden flash of pain right down his back, and then they were back in the real world, the empty warehouse echoing from something loud and sharp.
And then the sound echoed again, coming from behind him, just a split second before his back flashed in pain, his shoulders throbbing.
Were they—were they whipping him?
Li stood before him watching, waiting.
The whip struck again, and Pete clenched his jaw.
The whip struck again, and Pete shut his eyes.
The whip struck again, and Pete shuddered as blood dripped down his back, down that sensitive spot, and tickled his bare feet.
When Peter focused, he could feel the air move at his back as a sign of the impending lash just before it struck. He tried not to tense, but with every lash, the pain increased, and he couldn’t help it.
When the eleventh lash fell, it snagged upwards and grabbed his shoulder, wrenching his wrists down, and rocking his whole body. He screamed, sharp and short, and then whimpered when the next one hit.
He managed to stay silent for five more, but the screaming started again on the eighteenth lash, and every lash after it.
Tears welled on the sixteenth, and they fell on the nineteenth.
On the twenty-third lash, it ceased.
The reprieve he was given was a welcome one, but short-lived. When he finally cracked his eyes open, he was again in the negative world.
He had free range of motion, could move his arms, could feel his arms, could feel his back, the blood trickling down. He wasn’t naked in this reality, fortunately, that familiar mask a wonderful feeling on his face.
“Peter Parker,” Li stood before him, a monstrous sight in his negative state—and out of nowhere, sharp burning pain snapped at his back, and he flinched, stumbled forward. He was losing his focus, losing his concentration if he could feel his body in the outside world.
Li was doing this on purpose, wearing him down mentally and physically so he’d be too weak to fight back. So he’d be corrupted.
Just imagining all the horrible things Li could make him do if he successfully corrupted him churned Pete’s stomach. Hours ago, when this all started, he’d vowed to himself that Li wouldn’t control him while he still had breath, and he’d meant it. He would fight tooth and nail, even to his dying breath.
He was succeeding, too, which was making Li very frustrated.
Pete never thought of Li as one to get his hands dirty with things like murder and kidnapping, always having one of his corrupted do that, so it was no surprise that Li himself wasn’t the one behind the whip.
“How precious May would be disappointed in you,” Li continued in that derogatory manner. Pete needed to guard himself, guard his mind, and not be swayed by the lies and falsities Martin spewed.
The whip flashed against his back again, and Pete screamed, falling to his hands and knees, and immediately, mental projections of Li’s corrupted swarmed him, holding him still.
Mental projections.
They weren’t real.
Li approached, continued whatever awful speech he wrote, “You’re a disappointment, Peter, always have been.”
The pain arced across his back and his shoulder throbbed in tandem, but Pete couldn’t let Li touch him, couldn’t give Li any opening to corrupt him.
He grit his teeth as his back burned, and Li droned on, “A coward, too, for parading yourself around like a clown wearing a mask, just like us, just like me.”
Li crouched down to Pete’s level, looked him in the eyes, “Don’t you see, Peter? We’re—“
And no. Just no. He has heard this a dozen times before.
We’re the same, you and I. And this is the reason, this little odd coincidence that didn’t prove anything at all, just that people are human. And because we’re human, we must be the same.
“Oh, just shut up already,” Pete interrupted. He hadn’t been crouching there for nothing; he needed to build up energy, a plan, and an escape route. He shook his head, clenched his jaw as the whip made itself known again, but spoke through gritted teeth, “I’ve heard that speech from a dozen other villains like you. I didn’t buy it then, and I most certainly don’t have the money to buy it from you.”
Li leaned forward, just as Pete was hoping for. By leaning forward, Li was balancing on only his toes and would topple easily, and Pete took his chance as Li was threatening, finger waving in his face, “Listen here, you ungrateful—“
They weren’t real.
It was hard to imagine that the entities gripping his arms and shoulders with such strong force weren’t real, but he fundamentally knew it, so he closed his eyes to imagine them away—he and Li were in his head, after all, which meant that somehow, someway, Pete was the one with the most power.
He pushed forward with all the strength he had, breaking free of the corrupted hold, and toppling Li to the ground. He had to do as much damage as he could now, while he had the strength, so through the burning pain in his back, the sharp stabbing pain in his shoulders, and the complete and utter exhaustion in his head, he punch Li square in the jaw with his right fist and in his temple with his left.
Li was taken by surprise and exhausted himself, ejecting them from the negative world right as the whip struck again.
Peter screamed at the sudden shift and at the sudden pain, and his body rocked forward again, pulling his damaged shoulders, and scraping his wrists on the rope.
His efforts in his mind weren’t made up; they took energy and a significant amount after all this time. He was woozy, so he closed his eyes. When that action pushed the moisture over the edge, he didn’t care. He didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with that.
He just wanted to sleep, but the whip struck again, forcing the scream, and Pete was sure he was damaging his throat.
Sooner or later, he won’t have the energy to keep Li at bay, and he’ll either give in to the corruption or fall asleep—could Li corrupt people in their sleep?—because they’ve been at this little cat and mouse waltz for over twenty-four hours. Pete knew he had limits, but so did Li, and Pete was willing to bet that Li’s limits weren’t as high as his, and that Mr. Negative there would be the one to call it quits first.
Li probably didn’t know this about him, but as soon as the constant onslaught was put on pause, Pete could replenish his energy and easily snap the rope. And he was betting on soon.
Li was getting up there in age, and the older one was, the more he needed to sleep. Li couldn’t keep this up for much longer. There was no way.
The whip struck again, and Pete screamed.
His voice was growing weaker as he wearied. His back was alive with fire, licking at his waist and shoulders, and the pain was slowly taking over his head. With every strike, the pain intensified, and he lost that much focus, only being able to think about the pain.
When the next fell, he couldn’t even scream, just sort of moaned.
Li was tired. Pete cracked his eyes open to see Li resting against a wall, taking a bite of a sandwich with a bottle of water in the other hand, and Pete was suddenly very hungry and very thirsty.
The whip fell again, and Pete forgot about those things, only wanted ice, something cold because his body was burning up from the fire eating away his skin.
Li was going to get his much-needed rest while Peter had to swing above the pits of doom like Indiana Jones—
His back lit up in flames, and the crack echoed all in the warehouse.
He could think of nothing but the pain. It demanded his attention, and he was partially grateful for the tears he shed because they weren’t near as hot as his back was and were somewhat comforting—
And the fire grew in intensity as he hung there wishing for sweet, blessed sleep.
When the thirty-seventh lash fell, he sobbed.
When the forty-fourth fell, he passed out.