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Having accelerated healing sounded beautiful, beneficial, ethereal even. One may assume it was something beyond desirable, perhaps especially so when being tortured. One would be oh, so very, incredibly, horrifically deluded.
See, ever since Peter had been kidnapped by Hydra, he had learnt what it meant to fear himself. His healing factor was working overtime in his mind, twisting and turning as it unraveled the knots that hydra kept tying in his mind. They couldn’t wipe him clean like they could with the Winter Soldier, whatever clean slate they could get from him would quickly have parts return until he was no longer wiped clean.
At first, Peter had hoped they would decide their efforts were futile and let him go, or at least stop putting him in that cursed chair that ripped through the very fabric of his being, tearing him apart at the seems, only for him to be sewn back together shortly after.
Perhaps if the healing was faster it wouldn't hurt so much, wouldn't scare him so completely. But no. It was fast, too fast for Hydra to be happy, but not nearly fast enough for Peter to ever be able to trust himself again. Not completely.
Hydra built a pattern. They would wipe him, control him, set him some horrid task, and sometimes he would complete it before his mind healed enough to break through the programming. Other times? Well... Peter still had nightmares of coming to in the middle of clawing through still living flesh with his bare hands, or over a dead body, or halfway through beating someone to death. The worst of it was when he became aware of what he was doing and that he didn't want to, but the programming stuck and he was trapped inside his mind while it healed, watching his body acting so brutally outside his control. Those times were rare and usually short, but it fractured his soul each and every time.
The only thing Peter could trust was that his mind always seemed to heal away the trigger words quickly. So, if he broke free once after the chair, he could trust they couldn’t get him under their control until he was back in the chair again. That, of course, meant far more time in agony sat in said chair as Hydra fried his fighting brain again and again, but still. It was a relief to know he had some power over his own body, at least when he hadn't been in the chair too recently.
More recently though, Hydra had a breakthrough. A breakthrough about him.
Now they knew what they had been trying to torture out of him for so long – when he wasn’t in the chair or being stored, he was being tortured for information about his powers. Now they knew. Knew that his body could only heal so much at once.
Suddenly, the pattern changed.
First, they beat him to within an inch of his life. Then they put him in the chair, making that process faster given they weren't fighting the healing the entire time. Then, and only then, was he under their control.
Of course, he would break free sooner or later, but as they got used to having this new control over him they started to experiment on him, because that's what Hydra just loved to do. They realised they could slow his mind's healing by forcing him to injure himself constantly while under their control. His healing would focus on that first, leaving his mind broken for longer.
Peter was exhausted. He didn't remember the last time he wasn’t injured – hell, he didn't remember much of anything at all really. Memories weren't the focus of his accelerated healing anymore. He hoped that didn't mean they were gone forever, but he had no clue. Would he recover them if he ever stopped being hurt? He didn't know.
They could control him long enough to send him on missions now. He was always back at the base long before he regained control. He wished he wouldn't remember every single thing he did under their control, but he did. He remembered slicing through crowds, killing mercilessly. He remembered turning his knives on himself, slashing at his arms and not taking note of the blood flowing from them as he continued towards. He remembered killing targets and innocents alike. He remembered returning, remembered waiting patiently in his cell, remembered coming to. Then came the screams. Once he was back in control, he lashed out, clawed at the walls, screamed bloody murder, sobbed until he couldn’t see through the tears, attacked anyone who entered.
Eventually exhaustion would wear his thrashing body out, and he would crumple, usually still sobbing, wherever he stood, shaking and crying until sleep over took him.
Every single time, he would wake up lashed onto the chair, held down with restraints even he couldn’t break through, and the cycle would begin again. And again. And again.
In one moment of clarity amidst the screaming, Peter thought of the Avengers. Hydra hated them, and Peter was now a reliable asset. He wondered how long it would be until he was sent to kill one of them. Worse still, he wondered if he would succeed. He feared he would. They would be distracted by his injuries, by his sudden return, by him. He'd been able to hold his own against them all when on equal footing before. If Hydra sent him, he'd have the advantage. Plus, he'd be going for the kill, which was always far easier. Taking a target alive was much more of a challenge. His mind flashed with images of each Avenger dead and bloodied underneath his hands, and what little composure he had snapped.
His screaming returned full force, though by now it was hoarse and broken. That didn't take much given the only time his vocal cords were used was in these screaming fits. They too would heal eventually, though his healing would be focused on fixing his mind for a long time first. A losing battle, Peter feared, but he wouldn't give up these agonising moments of clarity for anything.