Chapter Text
The Spider was alone most of the time.
It walked in its dim room with one hand on the cold stone wall. Six steps, turn, eight steps, turn, six steps, turn, eight steps. Repeat.
It had a blanket. The soldiers taught it how to fold it neatly and place it in the corner.
Every 16,000 heartbeats (the Spider could hear so much, but in its room there was only its heartbeat and footsteps), a tray was pushed through a slot in the door. The Spider ate alone.
When the Spider was not alone, it was in pain.
Sometimes the soldiers brought it to a room filled with things and bright lights and strapped it to a table. The not-soldiers in white coats poked the Spider and looked at the machines and poked the Spider more.
The Spider’s heartbeat was faster when the soldiers brought it to the bright room. It always left aching.
Sometimes the soldiers brought the Spider to a different room. They hit the Spider and yelled at it until it hit back. The Spider learned commands in that room.
Run.
Stick.
Jump.
Block.
Shoot.
The Spider was very good at following commands. It had always been good at following commands. That was all it had ever done.
One day (all the days were the same and always had been and always would be), 15,982 heartbeats since the Spider finished its last meal of paste and water, the soldiers came and took it to the command-room.
The Spider did not feel emotions, but it hesitated when it saw what was in the room. This was not a soldier. It was not a white-coat-not-soldier either. It was something new. New things always hurt.
The new thing was tiny, shorter than the Spider (and the Spider was the shortest thing in the facility). Its hair was red. Its face was wet. It wore the same dark clothes that the Spider wore.
The Spider was commanded to fight. The command was harder to follow than normal. The Spider did not want things, but if the command had not been to fight, it would have been easier to follow. But the Spider was good at commands, regardless.
It fought.
The new thing did not fight back.
The soldiers were disappointed. They yelled. The Spider fought the new thing again, but this time a soldier jerked like they weren’t in control and grabbed the Spider.
The Spider flipped him over its shoulder and jumped to grab the new thing.
The Spider’s head hurt.
The Spider fell on the stone ground.
The soldiers did not yell. They looked at each other in the not-angry way they did when the Spider succeeded at a new skill.
The Spider did not understand. The Spider fell; the soldiers should be yelling.
A soldier pulled the Spider back to its feet.
The cycle continued for the rest of the day. The Spider attacked the new thing (the soldiers called it the Phoenix). The Spider would be winning, then a soldier would fall on top of it, or the Spider’s head would hurt, and the Spider would fall.
The Phoenix’s face was still wet. It still screamed when the Spider punched it or trapped it in its webs.
The Spider understood fighting. It understood that it could do things that the soldiers could not, like sticking to walls and throwing soldiers across the room and making webs from its wrists. It was beginning to understand that the Phoenix could do things that even the Spider could not do.
The soldiers stopped giving the command to fight when both the Spider and the Phoenix were bloody and swaying on their bare feet in the cold room.
The Spider was put back in its room. Alone.
It sat down on its blanket. The blanket was softer than the stone, but not as soft as the Spider’s clothes. It was still the second softest thing it had ever felt.
A tray was pushed through the slot in the door. The Spider ate.
The Spider slept.
The Spider was woken up by its door opening. The Spider leapt to attention as the soldier pushed the Phoenix into its room.
‘Quiet’ was the command.
The Spider observed the Phoenix. Its face was wetter than before. It was loud, like when someone was punched in the stomach, and their breath was forced from their lungs. Like when the Spider hit the soldiers too hard, and they screamed and screamed and screamed. Loud like how the Spider used to be loud-
The Spider had never been loud. The Spider was good at commands.
The command was quiet.
The Spider did not know how to make the Phoenix quiet. The Spider was good at commands. Quiet.
The Spider was quietest when it was sleeping. It slept on the blanket.
The Spider grabbed the blanket and held it out to the Phoenix. The Phoenix’s wet-breathing-screaming got quieter. It slowly held out its hand. The Spider stayed still. It let the Phoenix touch the blanket with its shaking hand. It let the Phoenix grab the edge tightly.
The Spider had never been not-alone without being in pain. It was new.
The blanket hung between their small hands. Quiet.
The Spider was still tired. Its sleep had been interrupted by the Phoenix.
When the Spider sat on the floor, the Phoenix did not let go of the blanket. It did not let go, but it did not sit down.
The Spider put its back against the wall (an eight-step wall). It was tired, and it had made it quiet. The Spider was good at commands.
The blanket hung between them. The Spider thought it would be easier to sleep if the Phoenix sat down too. It looked at the Phoenix, then at the ground.
“Are you going to hurt me?”
That was not a command. The Spider was not supposed to hear things that weren’t commands. The Spider was supposed to keep the Phoenix quiet. The Spider was good at commands.
The Spider looked at the Phoenix, then at the ground.
The Phoenix sat on the ground (its back was on a six-step wall). The blanket hung between them.
The Spider closed its eyes (its eyes did not look like the soldier’s eyes; it had seen its reflection in a piece of glass once).
“Who are you?”
That was not a command. It did not sound like the soldiers. It was soft and high and trembling. It reminded the Spider of its heartbeat. The Spider opened its eyes. The Phoenix’s face looked less wet.
The Spider had made it quiet. It closed its eyes and slept.
—-
When the Spider woke, the Phoenix was asleep under the Spider’s blanket. Its red hair spread out across the stone like blood sprayed from a wound.
When a tray was pushed through the slot with two bowls of sludge, the Spider poked the Phoenix in the side. The Phoenix flinched and was in the corner of the room instantly, blanket clutched in its hands.
The Spider held out one of the bowls.
The Phoenix stared at him (it had eyes like the soldiers, not like the Spider’s, but did not look at the Spider like the soldiers did).
It reached a hand out for the bowl.
They ate together.
—-
The soldiers came 3,674 heartbeats later to take them back to the command-room. The Phoenix screamed even though the soldiers didn’t hurt it. The Spider didn’t understand. The soldiers didn’t like it when the Spider screamed. They probably wouldn’t like it when the Phoenix screamed either.
Quiet.
The Spider didn’t have the blanket, so it put its hand on the Phoenix’s hand. They had held the blanket between them; this was almost the same.
(The Spider’s hand burned, but it wasn’t in pain).
The Phoenix’s screams stopped. The soldiers took them to the command-room.
When the soldiers commanded the Spider to fight, it thought of the blanket and the hair that looked like blood. The Spider was good at commands.
They fought.
The Spider fell.
The Phoenix was hit.
The soldiers were pulled around.
Again again again.
—-
The day the Phoenix told the Spider it used to have a name is the first day it was sent for reconditioning.
It came back blank-eyed and quiet.
So so quiet.
—-
It was no longer new that the Phoenix and the Spider shared a room and fought in the command-room and ate together.
The Spider was still taken to the bright room with the white-coat-not-soldiers by itself. The Phoenix always had a wet face when the Spider was pushed back into their room.
The Spider would put the blanket over the Phoenix and put its hand on the Phoenix’s hand or blood-red hair until its face was dry again.
“Quiet,” the Spider whispered one day while placing its hand on Phoenix’s head. It sounded harsh and garbled. The Spider had not spoken in a long time (ever?).
The Phoenix looked at the Spider with an open mouth and wide eyes. Then its arms were around the Spider’s shoulders and its face was buried in its neck.
The Spider got a feeling like being punched when one least expects it.
It was better than a punch, though.
—-
The Phoenix was getting better at the headache-control. When they fought, the Spider had to guard its mind as well as its body. The soldiers couldn’t guard their minds.
The soldiers started putting bracelets on the Phoenix when they weren’t fighting. It couldn’t get into their minds when the bracelets were on.
The Spider was getting better at fighting. It knew because the soldiers didn’t look angry at the end of the Spider’s fights against them. They even gave the Spider new people to fight. Soldiers, but special ones called Black Widows. The soldiers sometimes called them spiders. The Spider wondered if they were the same spider as it.
The Phoenix sometimes fought the Widows. The Spider always had to wrap the blanket around the Phoenix tightly and hold its hand on those days.
—-
The white-coats had made the Spider into something new. It had been strapped to their table for a long time, 19,842 heartbeats. When it was let back into its room, it lay down on the blanket and could not find the energy to hold the Phoenix’s hand, even when its face got wet.
“What did they do?” The Phoenix’s voice was rougher than when it had first spoken to the Spider. It had been a long time since it had been able to talk as much as it wanted.
“Venom.” The Spider’s voice was still rough, still hard. It did not use many words, but it had been practicing. For the Phoenix. The Phoenix was softer when the Spider spoke to it.
The Spider opened its mouth to show the Phoenix its new feature. Sharp fangs that burned with unreleased toxins.
The white-coats had commanded the Spider to only bite a target if commanded to use lethal force.
“Do they hurt?” the Phoenix asked. The Phoenix was strange.
The Spider shrugged. Everything hurt, always.
“There was a place where everything didn’t hurt, I know there was,” the Phoenix whispered. The reconditioning had wiped whatever that place was from the Phoenix’s memory. The Spider was sure it had never been in such a place. It wished the Phoenix was there, though.
“You hurt never,” the Spider murmured. A reassurance. A promise.
—-
The Phoenix had been with the Spider longer than the Spider had been alone when the world seemed to end.
The Spider could hear explosions and screaming and clamoring from its room where it was only supposed to be able to hear its heartbeat.
The Phoenix was clinging to the Spider. The Spider held it tight and watched the door.
It would use its venom, even with no command, if something new was going to hurt the Phoenix. (It would use its venom and the target would slump to the ground and scream and scream and scream and then be still).
“Calm,” the Spider said. The Phoenix liked calm more than quiet.
The noises were getting closer. The door locked from the outside. The noises were at the door: clunking, yelling, scratching.
The hallway was brighter than the room; it stung the Spider’s eyes, hiding whatever had opened the door from it. It did not sound like a soldier (or a white-coat or a widow or a Phoenix). It was something new.
“What the hell is this?”