It didn't feel like long.
As soon as Clay left with Harley and the other soldiers, Gwen was knocked out with something from a needle and moved to a different room. When she came to, she was laid flat and hooked up to some kind of machine, staring up at a man with a lab coat.
She could hear the rasp of the Arbiter's voice through his mask, giving orders.
"What are you..." Gwen's voice was high and slurred. The man in the lab coat pressed a button and something started beeping.
"Running tests before we figure out the extent of your abilities, before we 'brainwash' you," the Arbiter explained, clasping his hands behind his back after doing fancy air quotes. "You don't mind, do you?"
Gwen glared at him. "I---"
"That was a rhetorical question, obviously." The Arbiter stepped out of her view just as acid slid into her veins through her left arm.
She screamed, of course. The man in the lab coat didn't like that.
Her mouth stinging from a slap, eyes dimming from the growing pain, Gwen gave up. Tony wasn't coming to rescue her. Harley didn't want to come rescue her, even if Clay wouldn't kill him. Not after what she'd done. The harsh, hurtful words she'd spat to him over the past few days danced around in her head, just out of memory's reach, but she knew she'd hurt him. Deep. She didn't know if she could make it up to him, or if she would ever get the chance to.
"Kaufman," the Arbiter whispered. Gwen blinked open her heavy eyes, which were immediately stung by a bright light above her head. "Albrecht's taken care of it. He'll be up to link the experiments in a moment."
A sob built itself up in her throat as hopelessness dragged at her spine, choking her.
Harley was dead.
Her stupidity had killed the love of her life.
She hadn't even been able to apologize, let alone save him.
Harley Keener was dead, and it was all her fault.
She wanted to be angry. She wanted to use the fury to bust out, to punch every HYDRA agent in the face, but she couldn't. Emptiness enveloped her instead of rage. She couldn't move a muscle. She couldn't breathe.
The Arbiter said something to her, but she couldn't hear through the ringing in her ears. He bent low to whisper to her.
"I was just like you." The mask sent a puff of hot air shooting into her ear, making her flinch in discomfort. "I was just like Clay. I lost someone I loved dearly to someone more powerful, like Iron Man killed Clay's father and HYDRA got your little boyfriend. I gave into the rage and let HYDRA do to me what they do best. Unlike Clay Albrecht, mine didn't turn out too well."
With the press of a button, his mask opened accompanied by a sound like Darth Vader's helmet.
She tried not to cry out. If she thought the top half of his head was ugly, the bottom half was torturous.
Where his nose should have been was a twisted lump. His cheeks were torn and red, looking like something had taken bites out of the sides. His jaw was crushed into a sideways shape, his yellowed teeth rotten and black at the gums.
"And I can't wait to watch the same happen to you."
YOU ARE READING
~Broken Family~
FanfictionPeter Parker thought he could catch a break. After being bitten by a radioactive spider, losing his aunt and uncle, and nearly dying after an attack from an evil technology company, he had hoped he could spend some time with his new family. But that...
