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Peter feels greatly unsettled being out here, at the mercy of a helicopter and the DODC—which at the moment doesn’t have the greatest track record—so far out at sea. Peter can only make out one vague shape of land out through the fog and vastness of the ocean. If something happened to the helicopter, there would be nothing Peter could do. Well, he could float around in the ocean, though that would only last so long.
Peter thinks they’re at least a few hundred miles from their home country, given that they’ve been in the air for just over two hours by now.
The pilot says something into his headset. Peter can’t make out the words over the roar of chopper blades. The DODC escort—Peter thinks the man introduced himself as David—leans over to Peter and passes on they’re about to land.
The helicopter quickly closes the distance to a grey, imposing sphere in the ocean. Though the comparison is a bit crude, it looks like the Death Star, only half submerged and holding the Hulk in ‘Enhanced Psychiatric Containment’ until further notice. Peter would be more than happy to compare it to the Raft, but the DODC has been adamant that this supposedly ‘isn’t the same.’
Numerous guards standby around the heli-pad at the top of the… Death Star… the ship. Each guard’s face is masked by heavy-duty goggles, a facemask, and a helmet—ridiculously overboard—and the combination of guns and batons at each of their hips isn’t doing much in selling the whole Not-Raft idea.
The helicopter slowly lowers itself for a gentle landing, before the ocean surges up to violently crash into the helicopter’s landing skids, making Peter glad he’d kept his seatbelt on—sticky fingers or not.
The guards rush up to greet them and lend a hand in stepping out. The DODC escort—David—gladly accepts the assistance. Peter’s got a bit too much riding on his reputation here to take the help, though he nods kindly at the offering guard. Afterall, he was only let in here because he started throwing his name around; the DODC are desperate to regain the public’s trust, and getting in Spider-man’s good graces wouldn’t do them any harm.
Only one guard takes off their helmet, stepping forward to give David a gruff pat on the shoulder before turning to Peter, holding out his hand in greeting. “Lieutenant Colonel Ross,” he introduces. “A pleasure to meet you, Spider-man.”
Wasn’t that one official for the Accords named Ross? Peter had never met the man that Tony hated so much, but this guard doesn’t look old enough to be the man—perhaps his son? Peter doesn’t mention the connection.
“Well, it seems you already know my name,” Peter jokes, hoping to keep the men happy so as to not get sent away before even getting what he wants. “It’s good to meet you, too.”
Ross clears his throat before gesturing widely at the Death Star around them. “Welcome to the Intensive Containment Facility, home to a variety of… facilities,” he chuckles at his poor wording, as if he’s made a funny joke, before continuing. “We have a wonderful swimming pool, a lovely cafeteria staffed by our residents, and a beautifully lit interior.”
He speaks arrogantly, knowing that this place is anything but wonderful, lovely, and beautiful and still describing it as if everyone here doesn’t know what exactly this facility is.
A prison.
First up on the prison checklist is the fact that three separate swipe-cards and individual PINs are needed to even open the door to enter. The security once Peter passes through the heavy metal doors sets off his spider-sense, though it’s already been buzzing in the background ever since they landed.
What the guards lead Peter to looks almost identical to the scanner he had to stand in at the DODC. They already have the information on file—it wouldn’t hurt him at all to stand in it again. Though hopefully this time they don’t ask him to take off the mask.
Peter lets himself get led into the scanner, not saying anything.
The scanner goes through the same motions as the one at the DODC, reciting out the enhancements and ‘exogenous DNA.’ The robotic tone that it uses to announce his differences is blunt and harsh. Ross smirks for the longer that Peter stands in the scanner, as if it’s put him in some position of greater power, having Spider-man in his little box, regardless of the actual dynamics of the situation.
“Take off your mask, Spider-man,” Ross demands, because of course nothing would be easy here.
Peter simply exaggeratedly widens his eyes, ensuring that his mask gets some semblance of emotion across in the ensuing silent stare he gives Ross.
“No.” Ross should know better than to ask.
Ross gestures to the guards, who aim their guns at Peter in an almost comical replay of the events at the DODC.
“How about now—”
Peter punches the glass wall keeping him ‘trapped,’ shattering the presumably reinforced glass all across the floor of their security chamber.
“How about now,” Peter repeats.
Ross laughs and dismisses the ordeal entirely, instead gesturing for Peter to— “Come along, come along!”
Ross stands in front of a large metal sliding door, it was probably built to withstand extreme force, with no obvious hinge or weak spots, and a completely smooth exterior. He places one hand on a scanner and uses the other to type in a code (912056—a guard walks forward to shield the code from Peter’s view), two other guards also placing their hands on a scanner either side of the door. The security on this place is absolutely over the top, from the perspective of Peter at least. Someone who may or may not become an adversary.
The guards also start typing in a code. Peter keeps his head facing forwards, as if he’s still watching Ross, but within the confines of his mask side eyes a guards code, he misses the start but catches —5684.
91205684, E.V. displays on Peter’s HUD, disappearing the code once Peter blinks in acknowledgement.
Lights flash on top of the door, a deafening alarm signalling that the door would be opening. It slides open anticlimactically, smoothly and without trouble.
Ross saunters inside, but a sudden rumble of the entire facility knocks him off balance, sending him as well as the guards stumbling to keep their balance. Peter stays standing in place, sticky feet to thank, though not without crouching and lowering his centre of balance.
Ross frowns before sending off a guard to figure out what the disturbance is, before reporting back to him.
“Is everything good?” Peter asks.
“Of course. Sometimes the waters here get a little rough is all,” Ross says dismissively.
Ross strolls down the hallways, pointing out anything of interest, including the ‘residents,’ seemingly finding great joy in disclosing the confidential means of what they did to end up here. If this Ross guy isn’t the other Ross’ son, and didn’t get this job by some means of massive nepotism, then Peter will be shocked.
Ross leads them all through a maze of hallways—left, right, through the checkpoint, left, second left—before stopping in front of yet another heavily guarded door, this one requiring a hand-scan similar to the main entrance, unlike the other doors which only required the code. This one, Peter can tell, is reinforced to the same degree, if not more than the initial entrance door.
“And here we are! The home of your beloved—”
The guard Ross had sent off before runs around the corner, looking quite out of breath given that the only issues around here are the ‘rough waters.’ Why they don’t use the walkie-talkies already hanging by each of their sides will never not confuse Peter.
The guard pulls Ross to the side for a moment, starting to whisper something before surreptitiously glancing at Peter and gesturing for them to get into another room first, lest Peter hear.
Ah, maybe that’s why.
The lights suddenly flicker off, and Peter feels adrenaline begin to course through his veins, his body anticipating something his mind doesn’t yet know.
The hairs on Peter’s arms raise.
A roar sounds out from behind the door.
A bang on the door.
“Spider-man,” a guard shouts, shining his flashlight—quite rudely—right into Peter’s eyes, “you’re to follow us. Now!”
“What? No. Tell me what’s going on first.” Peter’s spider-sense is telling him not to trust them.
The guard raises the previously unused walkie-talkie to their lips, quietly whispering in. “Spider-man isn’t coming.”
Peter’s body moves before he has the chance to see why. A dart clinks against the metallic flooring, and everything seems to start moving in the darkness.
Bullets fly as the flashlight stays aimed at Peter, jumping around based solely off of instinct, the light too bright for Peter to make out his true surroundings.
Another bang on the door.
Peter shoots a web and the flashlight (as well as the guard's arm) sticks to the wall. The shooting stops, and Peter stops moving lest they hear him crawling around on the roof.
A blood-curdling scream sounds from deeper within (or out, Peter thinks they’re as far in as one can really go) of the facility—it seems the other residents have reacted to the circumstances too.
An alarm starts blaring and Peter can hear doors that weren’t already closed beginning to slam shut, the power restoring only enough for a shut-down.
Small alarm lights flash blue in sequence, a pre-recorded “EMERGENCY–CODE 3,” playing repetitively.
The guards scramble to the door, rushing out after typing in the code.
Peter wishes he could follow, but he hasn’t yet even gotten to see what he is here for, though he assumes he will in a moment.
A large, green fist punches through the door, another hand reaching through to help pry open the newfound hole.
Peter scratches his neck nervously. He was intending on seeing Bruce, but was not expecting to see him in his other, much bigger, form.
The Hulk steps out of the room, smoke-like gas billowing out from behind him—Peter creeps back cautiously, it’s likely sedative—and rips a handful of darts out of his back. The Hulk throws them to the side and blood spatters around from the darts as they clatter and roll away.
Peter stands upside down on the roof and clears his throat. “Heya, buddy…” he says awkwardly.
The Hulk snarls at him, before his expression relaxes a little. “Spider?” he says with an odd tone to his voice, Peter thinking he can hear a very Bruce-like undertone to the usual growl of the Hulk.
“Everything… loud,” the Hulk says, stumbling forwards with little of the usual self-assurance that the Hulk usually carries.
He starts to shrink, the clothes unstretching and his skin clearing of the green until only Bruce is left lying on the floor, unconscious and at Peter’s full mercy. Peter hurriedly shoots a web and yanks Bruce up to the roof with him, away from the gas.
“Bruce?” Peter asks, looking the man over.
The only response Peter gets to rubbing Bruce’s sternum and squeezing his jaw is a groan. The man is dressed in an all-white straightjacket with the arms ripped out of what Peter assumes was being used to keep them together. Peter shifts his hold on Bruce in preparation to try and get out of here before his hand knocks into a dart that the Hulk seems to have missed. He yanks it out hurriedly, swallowing back the urge to vomit at the length of the needle-tip.
“E.V., the code,” Peter says whilst dropping to the floor and rushing to the keypad.
He types in the code, hoping that the door is still powered. It opens, thankfully, and Peter carries himself and Bruce out of the room.
It’s a mess beyond the door, blood litters the floors, though it’s disturbingly quiet except for the ongoing alarm.
The entire facility—the boat-like, floating facility—shakes for another moment. Peter thinks he can hear the sound of rushing water. He really hopes he can’t.
“The place is fucking flooding!” someone shouts from a distance. Delightful.
Peter runs, bringing Bruce’s unconscious body along with him in a bridal-carry—while not the most dignified, it does the job. There’s no one watching Peter scrabble through the hallways whilst carrying a fully grown (and larger than himself) man anyways.
Peter haphazardly navigates through the winding hallways, following his mental map of the way back, but still lost in the sense that everything looks the same. The sound of rushing water grows closer as Peter nears what he hopes is the exit, as does the sound of people.
Peter turns a corner and finds what all the commotion is about. The quite recognisable entrance—and exit—door has been very kindly built without any waterproofing. Meaning that water is currently spurting out the sides of the doorway, despite the very same doorway remaining very locked.
The group slowly huddles further and further back, the room gradually filling with water, and no one moving to do anything about it.
The door is submerged in knee deep water by the time that Peter decides enough is enough, stepping forward.
Immediately people begin to notice, stepping aside slightly and keeping their wary eyes glued to Peter, standing out in red and blue as he is.
Peter’s not sure if he’ll be able to break the door down. It would’ve been made with the purpose of keeping the Hulk inside. There’s not really a way to circumvent that other than trying to hack it open, but with the system not working (given that even the guards can’t get out), Peter doesn’t think that’d work either.
Peter is about to let Bruce down so he can try to figure out how on earth they’re going to get out before his spider-sense screams at him to move back.
A sharp rock smashes through the door, letting a wave sweep everyone back and slamming their bodies into the wall.
Water rushes in relentlessly, hardly given Peter the chance to anchor himself by sticking to the floor. He holds Bruce like his life depends on it, because the man’s life probably does. People scream.
The ship tilts backward, the rock that Peter can now see is jutting out from a cluster of boulders and tidepools slipping out of the doorway, leaving only a gaping hole in the door's place.
Out the doorway, there’s an island just there.
In the ship, the alarms still haven’t stopped ringing, the people haven’t stopped shouting, and the water hasn’t ceased to sink the vessel.
It’s not hard to make a decision. Not for Peter, anyways—he’s forced to make life or death decisions nearly every day by his own choice to go out as Spider-man.
He wades forward into the water, carrying Bruce with him and trying his best to keep both their heads above water as they slowly go deeper, until Peter loses his footing and has to paddle.
It’s a terrifying thing to subject the both of them to the whim of the water. Peter can’t see anything below, having to only place trust in his body to swim them to shore.
They’re not the only ones. After watching Peter ‘take the plunge,’ as one might say, the other guards and those held within the facility begin to pour out in droves, frantically swimming to the shore.
It’s not a terribly long swim, though it’s a struggle to swim whilst carrying another person. Peter remembers his swim class did a lesson on helping others out of the water, back before he had his powers, but he was too weak then to even attempt it on their mannequin, much less remember the proper technique given that he’d never really practised it.
Peter isn’t the first to reach shore—there’s a few guards sprawled out over the rock pools, panting for air at the effort it must’ve taken to carry all their gear with them. Peter finds an easier time clambering up the slippery rocks, and drags Bruce up with him.
Peter warily eyes the guards who’ve managed to swim here already. They brought all of their gear, or at least far more than necessary given that the entire facility has apparently gotten shipwrecked and is actively sinking. It’s not a good sign for those who don’t ‘belong’ with the guards, namely, Peter and Bruce (though the other residents would also count).
One guard sits up, spotting the pair of supers. “Hey! Get over—” is all Peter lets them get out before webbing their mouth shut.
They let out a muffled shout, scratching at the webs, and Peter takes his chance to shift his hold on Bruce and run. He’s not sticking around to find out what they think of the entire situation. They’d probably blame it on Peter, if anything—after all, Spider-man shows up and then the ship gets wrecked, it’s an open-and-shut case, right? Well, no, because Peter didn’t have anything to do with this, but he doubts that will be the story.
If anything, he can count on the ol’ reliable Daily Bugle to blame Peter for this.
Regardless, he runs across the rock pools, only slipping occasionally on the damp rock. He leaps gaps that no normal person would risk, trying to ensure they won’t be followed.
Beyond the rock pools, there’s a small strip of sand and pebbles, then a dense jungle-like forest. Behind that, stands a large, almost mountain in nearer to the centre of the island. Peter would really rather not subject himself to whatever wildlife lives in the jungle, but given the shouting coming from behind, there’s not much of a choice. The facility was specifically funded to contain the Hulk—they’re not going to let him go easy.
Peter doesn’t want to think of how they’ll get out of here. They’re so far out. He thinks E.V. might still have some signal—he wonders how he’s going to get them out of here.
He runs into the jungle, his feet squelching in the mud with each step.
He can still hear the sound of boots pounding behind him. They must be following his trail. If that’s the case, it won’t matter how fast Peter can go if he can’t cover his tracks.
Peter’s no expert in tracking, nor hiding from said trackers, but he does have a unique skillset.
Peter runs just a little further, giving himself enough distance to do what he thinks might let the pair lose the guards. He wipes what mud he can off of his boots against some dried leaf litter on the ground. It doesn’t amount to very much, but it’ll help regardless. Peter hefts Bruce onto his shoulder, preferring to have both hands free as he slowly climbs up the nearest tree. The tree groans unhappily at the combined weight of them, and the movement causes Bruce to let out a groan too. Hopefully he’s not scared of heights, if he does wake up—Peter’s sure the Hulk wouldn’t be, but Bruce is not the Hulk just as much as the Hulk isn’t Bruce.
Climbing with two people isn’t anything new to Peter—he’s done it plenty of times as Spider-man—but usually he doesn’t need to be quiet about it, is the thing. People are free to scream all they’d like, and Peter can loudly stomp around on the buildings because the screaming is loud enough to cover it. Here though, the only sounds are the squelching footsteps of approaching guards, distant birdcalls, and the ocean. Oh, and the tree’s creaking. And leaves rustling as Peter shifts their weight.
While the guards are still far enough, he jumps to another, more sturdy, tree. Peter winces at the sound of it, but the tree doesn’t creak at every minute change.
Peter settles in for the wait, fiddling around to hold Bruce more comfortably, and finds himself holding Bruce tighter and tighter as the guards near. They track Peter’s footprints to almost directly underneath the pair, and Peter can only hope they don’t look up.
One guard picks up their radio and shouts, “You better find them—” Bruce jerks in Peter's grip, “—Ross will have our heads if we don’t! The entire place is funded to keep the Hulk in—he’s number zero-zero-one for a reason—we’re paid to keep him in!”
Bruce begins to wriggle. Bad timing. Not a good time to wake up, at all. Please stay asleep.
Bruce almost groans. Almost being the key word here, because Peter immediately shoves a hand over Bruce’s mouth, muffling any noise he would’ve otherwise made.
He turns Bruce’s head to make eye-contact with him (or the eye-contact they can, anyways, what with the mask Peter’s wearing) and slowly shakes his head, gesturing a ‘shh’ which would’ve been rude in any situation other than this.
Bruce nods shakily, before opening his mouth anyways. “I’m scared of heights,” he whispers.
Peter nods back, trying to seem caring despite the lack of expression able to be conveyed through the mask, but that’s the extent of what he can give at the moment.
They wait.
The radio-guard seems to have decided this specific spot is great for a chill-out, and hangs around for far longer than necessary, especially given that they were the one yelling about finding Bruce. He even sets down some of his things, taking off his goggles to wipe the sweat off his forehead.
The longer they stay up in the tree, the paler Bruce looks. His forehead is slick with sweat, and his breaths have only gotten heavier the longer they’ve needed to stay quiet. Peter needs them to leave. And soon.
“E.V.,” Peter whispers—Bruce jumps at the sudden noise, and the guard tilts their head at the sound.
“Can you access the radio?” he mumbles even quieter. The guard stands, looking around.
“Yes, Peter. Would you like me to disrupt the channel?” she responds readily.
“No, no. I need you to emulate a male voice saying ‘They’re at the shore,’ can you do that? You can use my voice back-up.”
The guard surveys their surroundings suspiciously. He looks up.
“Done.” Peter hears a slightly robotic, but believable enough, voice through the guard’s radio below.
The guard squints above, the sun glaring into their eyes. He blinks a couple of times, still facing upwards, before shouting “Get them!” and beginning the run back to shore.
That made Peter want to cry.
Peter watches as they leave, waiting until he can hardly hear the guards anymore before turning to Bruce. Bruce also looks like he wants to cry, but for other reasons. He seems to be doing all he can to focus on his breathing, not really paying any attention to Peter at all.
Now to get down. Going down slowly will be a struggle, especially if Bruce doesn’t like heights. Peter decides to rip the bandaid off. “We’re going down in three…”
Bruce yelps.
“Two…”
Bruce holds Peter in a crushing grip.
Peter jumps down before saying one, softening their landing by sending a web overhead to catch some of their weight.
Peter goes to let Bruce go, but it seems the man has let himself go just as much, his legs giving out from underneath him.
Peter guides the man to the ground, ignoring that the mud is making a mess on both of their clothes, ignoring how strikingly it stands out against the white of the straitjacket.
“Just… just give me a minute,” Bruce manages eventually, still breathing heavily.
Peter nods and gives the man his space, opting to think about how on earth they’re going to leave this place.
“E.V., do you have any connection?” Peter asks hopefully.
“Not here, but I may be able to connect to the nearest satellite at a higher altitude.”
Peter looks through the canopy, barely able to make out a taller portion of land, almost a mountain. Of course it can’t be easy.
Peter sighs. He turns to look at Bruce, who has only somewhat calmed down, and feels bad for what he’s about to ask out of the man.
The trek to the top of the mountain isn’t a fun one. E.V. keeps saying they’re not high enough to connect, but Peter feels that they’re plenty high enough, given how much of a distance they’ve had to go.
Finally, finally, they make it high enough to connect to the nearest satellite.
“Who would you like to call?”
Peter hadn’t thought of that. Who can they call, with enough resources to get them off of this island?
Of course there’s only one person who could—somehow—make it happen.
The ringback tone plays long enough that Peter doubts the man will even pick up.
“What is it?” a gruff voice demands immediately upon answering.
“Hey Frank, I'm going to need a hand here…”