Chapter Text
Somewhere far beyond the sluggish daze of Peter’s waking mind, his spidey-sense is blaring. On instinct, his body thrashes against a thick substance that floods his lungs and seeps into the cracks of his eyes as he quickly snaps to awareness. The pain he’s suddenly faced with is like nothing he’s ever felt before, like being ripped apart and being rebuilt again and again and again as his molecules attempt to find the right place, as confused and agonized as he is.
Peter attempts to pry his eyes open but is quickly blinded by the sea of neon green encompassing him. He screams, silenced by the glowing liquid as it seems to make its way into his very blood. Never in his life has he been so certain he’s about to die.
UP! His spidey-sense screams, but he has no clue which way that even is.
Distantly, layers below the endless waves of pain, he knows his thrashing is doing him no good. It’s only the blaring of his spidey sense, screaming at him to fight, to move, to not swallow anything else, that keeps him struggling in the face of this agony. He picks a random direction and kicks out, straining against the heaviness of his limbs. For once in his life he must get lucky, because his hand quickly claws past the surface of the water. With great effort, he’s able to pull himself up above the surface.
If he had any doubts about just how much the torture-liquid was not water, they were quickly dispelled as he took in with squinted, burning eyes the neon green lake he found himself in. Just his luck. Past the blurriness of his eyes, he spots a way out, miserably dragging himself towards the “shore.” As the last of him exits the no-good neon green water, his spidey senses abruptly quiet, sending a sudden wave of exhaustion sweeping through his body.
He must black out for a second, because one moment he’s scanning the large, empty room, and the next he’s face planted on the ground.
“Ugh,” Peter groans, spitting out a disgusting oobleck of the radioactive liquid and clumps of something dark and flaky, “What…”
With all the will of a pseudo-avenger, Peter pushes himself onto his hands and knees, catching himself on aching hands as he nearly falls again.
“Mr. Stark?” Peter calls out hesitantly, voice rasping. He has absolutely no clue how he’s ended up in this situation, and he means it this time. His head is a whirlwind of blurry memories that land just outside his reach, answers frustratingly hanging on the tip of his tongue.
Mr. Stark had been with him, he thinks, but he’s nowhere to be seen now. And had there been someone with a magic cape, or is he imagining that? A flash of something, dust–
“Ow!” Peter hisses, folding over in agony as he grips his head in his hands. The stabbing pain takes away the branch of memory he’d been following, and he’s left panting on the ground with no clue of what was happening or where he was. Did he hit his head?
“Okay,” Peter mutters as the pain fades, “Don’t think too hard about the last few days, got it.”
Wincing, Peter pushes himself up on shaky legs, still coated in green goo. From the burning feeling in his throat and stomach, Peter comes to the unfortunate realization that he must’ve swallowed a lot of it. Wiping what little he can off of his face, Peter limps his way towards the entryway. Well, more of a crack in the wall. He’s not really sure how he’d define the entrance to a massive torture-lake, especially when it’s nothing but some dug out rocks, but now’s not really the time for semantics.
As the pain finally starts to lessen, Peter takes a second to get his wits about him. One second he was… somewhere. Maybe with Mr. Stark? On Avengers business? He tries not to think too deeply about it, not wanting to repeat his “fall to the ground in agony” performance. Then, something or other happened and now he was in an evil mountain dew factory? Potentially concussed? Man, Parker luck really was the worst. That, or the awful luck of being a teenage superhero, who knows. Peter’s bet is on the universe having it out for him specifically.
Looking down, Peter finally notices that he is not, in fact, in his suit. As if the situation couldn’t get any worse–maskless, memoryless, and spitting up neon liquid–he faces potential doom in an oversized t-shirt and baggy jorts. Peter pinches himself and cringes when he doesn’t wake up. Why couldn’t it for once just be a dream?
Peter’s ears prick as his enhanced hearing catches a whispered conversation from outside the chamber. His breath hitches in his chest, because he’s been in the game far too long to think there’s any chance people walking sedately towards where he’d been knocked out and tortured are anything but bad guys.
His legs shake as he attempts to remain standing. There’s no way he’s in any shape to fight even regular people right now. But, he realizes as he glances desperately around the empty cavern, there’s nowhere to hide either.
Think, he urges. The hushed conversation has paused and their footsteps are getting even closer. He can even hear their heartbeats now: calm, unsuspecting. Normally he could work with that, set up an ambush, but right now he’s not even sure he could take one step forward without toppling over. He turns his eyes longingly to the ceiling of the cave, but it’s way too far out of reach for him to jump up onto. Plus, with the way he’s dressed, he’d stick out like a sore thumb against the dark rocks.
His instincts scream at him, and Peter’s heart races as he narrowly ducks below a throwing knife aimed directly at his head. How had they managed to get so close without him realizing? Their heart rates hadn’t even changed!
Adrenaline floods his body, and Peter’s just barely able to fight past his exhaustion to flip out of the way of another knife thrown at his neck. Searing pain floods through his body as he lands the maneuver, but at the very least he’s not stabbed.
Another knife, another dodge, and Peter quickly falls into the rhythm of this fight. He knows the second his adrenaline wanes even slightly his body will give out on him. Considering that these people are trying to kill him, even just as regular ol’ teenager Peter Parker and not Spider-Man, that is the furthest thing from an option. Somehow, he needs to end this fight, and fast.
With what little brain power he has that’s not going into dodging what must be the world’s sharpest throwing knives, Peter tries to track the origin of the blades. While he can’t see anyone in the room with him, he can hear their heart beats and the hushed movement of their clothes.
There’s two of them, moving quickly around the outskirts of the room, bathed in shadows. Their heart beats are still normal despite the intricate way they almost dance around the room. If it comes down to stamina, Peter will die, plain and simple. And they seem very aware of that fact. The rapid thuds of the knife as they fly past Peter are all an attempt to wear him out so they can rush in to deal the finishing blow.
Peter’s one advantage lies in the fact that they’re clearly wary of him. Honestly, he doesn’t think he could take the two of them on in this state, even at close range, but they clearly don’t know that. Otherwise they would’ve stopped circling him like vultures over a rotting carcass in the desert. Peter shudders at his own train of thought, probably not a good sign that he’s the dead body in that scenario.
His instincts screech, louder than ever, as his body attempts to pull itself in two different directions to move out of harm's way. The world seems to slow as Peter realizes just the trap he’s been backed into. One knife flies at his neck while the light footsteps of the other attacker race towards his back. If he dodges, he lands right in their reach. If he doesn’t, he dies. His instincts make the choice as his body flips backwards, out of his control.
“Agh!” Peter hisses, doubling over in agony as the attackers blade pierces through his side. Ruthlessly, the attacker rips his blade out of his back as Peter falls to the ground, bleeding profusely.
Mind clouded in agony, Peter’s hands writhe against his wound as he attempts to put pressure on it. Distantly, he recognizes this is very, very bad. The blade had completely impaled his side. Even with his accelerated healing, it would be a miracle if he didn’t bleed out. Not to mention the darkly clad attacker standing above him, bloodied fricking katana still in hand. The attacker seems to be considering him, staring down at where a pool of blood begins to form under him.
Peter looks down too, and is quickly nauseated at the sight of the green globs mixed in with his blood.
“What…” Peter croaks, transfixed as the globs seem to glow and pulse in time with his heart. Something seems to build in him, overwhelming and terrifying and tinged with green. Suddenly, his instincts are silent, even as the green flooding his vision continues to build. Along with it comes something else: all consuming rage.
“Get away!” Peter screams to his attackers in warning as he quickly becomes overtaken, “Please, run!”
Peter’s body shudders violently and arches off the ground as he seizes, attempting to fight back against the foreign thing in his blood. If he lets this thing win, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt he’ll kill these people, who haven’t listened to his warning and only moved even closer, seeming enraptured.
No matter how much he struggles, the green only continues to build. Desperate, Peter slams his head against the floor beneath him, hoping to knock himself out. But even the sharp pain that floods his head is tangled with green. Hopeless tears fall from his eyes, but even those can’t clear the stubborn liquid on his face.
Against his will, his body rises to its knees, and Peter stares the two in their masked faces as his body shakes with rage and can only say one thing before he is swallowed by green.
“I’m sorry.”