☑ THE SHADOW | Peter Maximoff

e i g h t

~ 𝐀𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐚 ~

By the time the doctor was finished with his "first wave" of experiments, Amara could barely keep herself awake. Her head throbbed like it never had before, her limbs were shaking with fatigue, and every part of her ached.

She barely registered that she was lifted by two pairs of arms, then dragged across the floor and back through the maze of the dungeon. Her body was too weak to figure out where she was being taken. She couldn't even think about trying to move - just doing nothing was already giving her enough pain.

It was minutes later that she heard the clatter of Graeme's keys as he put it in the cell lock and opened the door. Her figure crashed to the floor as the men dropped her into place, and she had just enough strength to watch with hooded eyes as they dropped Peter onto the ground next to her.

His face was littered with scratches and bruises beginning to form. His eyes were half-shut. He had a little saliva dripping out of his mouth since he was too exhausted to swallow it down (she knew she was in no better position). His body looked as lifeless as she felt.

And they both laid there. Too tired to speak. Too tired to do anything.

She was pretty sure that at some point Peter had actually fallen asleep, but she couldn't find it in herself to. Which was what she thought, until she was startled awake by the rattling of keys again, and the sound of something sliding across the floor.

"Dinner!" Graeme called. She didn't have the will to respond.

As soon as his footsteps faded, however, she mustered up whatever strength she could find to lift up her head and looked behind her. There was a tray sitting on the floor with two small bowls resting on top of it; one for her, and one for Peter.

Using her one good arm (since the other had been drilled into for bone marrow) Amara dragged her body across the floor. The stone scraped against the bare skin of her legs as she moved forward, and it took her a few good minutes, but eventually, she was leaning over the bowls on the ground.

The contents of the dish were nothing pleasant. Each bowl had half a slice of stale bread stuck into a rather pathetic scoop of half cooked oatmeal. And that was it.

Amara did her best to sit up. She scooted her butt back so she could lean against the wall, and ever so slowly, she dunked the bread into the oatmeal and took small bites.

When she was about halfway through she glanced over at Peter, who still hadn't moved from his spot. Never, would she have ever guessed that Peter wouldn't jump (or in this case, crawl) at the first hint of food. Her eyebrows furrowed, and she swallowed down her disgusting bite of oatmeal.

Without a single word, she crawled over to Peter's bowl and grabbed it, then scooted back over to him. As carefully as she could in her weakened state, she put her hand on the other side of his body and flipped him over, allowing him to flop into her lap limply.

She dragged his body over to one of the corners of the cell so she could use two walls to help her support him, and once she deemed him in a more upright position to eat, she broke off a piece of bread and dunked it into the oatmeal.

"Here," she muttered, turning to the mutant that was tucked into the crook of her arm. "Food."

"Too tired," he murmured, and she sighed.

"Come on," she coaxed. "You need to eat."

When he didn't say anything, she quirked an eyebrow.

"Would you like me to shove it down your throat?"

A tiny smile crept up on his face as he whispered, "Maybe."

She rolled her eyes softly and gently guided his mouth open, then plopped the bread into it and watched him chew. They sat like that for the next few minutes, with Amara watching him to make sure he didn't choke on his food while his eyes stayed shut.

The room was slowly beginning to get darker and colder the longer it went on, and she unconsciously clutched onto Peter as he shivered in her grip.

"I... I thought you hate me," he whispered, his breath lightly tickling the skin of her arm.

"I do," she responded. She plopped another piece in his mouth.

"So why are you helping me?"

Amara sighed. It did seem a little uncharacteristic of her to help Peter - she would spend extra effort locking up her homework to make sure he couldn't get to them for school. But... this wasn't schoolwork. And this wasn't him cheating his way through the class.

"I... I guess there are two kinds of hate I have for people," she murmured, scooping up a little more oatmeal. "One for people that annoy the shit out of me, and... another for those that hurt me and people I know."

Peter was silent as she gave him another piece. She was grateful.

Amara didn't tell him that she fed him the last of her oatmeal (especially when considering that she could at least sit up on her own, she knew that it was necessary). She only continued to serve him at her slow pace, ensuring he really was done with every bite he took in.

Even after he was done, however, she frowned. She knew that it wasn't enough. Not even close.

Still. She had to sigh and frown down at him. "That's all of it."

He nodded slowly and felt even more limp in her arms, which encouraged her to rest her own head against the wall.

It could have been her imagination, or it could have really been there. But Amara swore that just before she drifted off into a restless sleep, she heard Peter murmur a tiny "Thank you."

*****

w/c: 1000

a/n: omfg guys thank you so much for 100 reads!! you guys are the best!! xx