Caught In A Web

Chapter Five - Camisado

Can't take the kid from the fight

Take the fight from the kid

Sit back, relax, sit back, relapse again

Can't take the kid from the fight

Take the fight from the kid

Just sit back, just sit back

-"Camisado," Panic! At The Disco

- - -

Peter couldn't see anything, he couldn't hear anything. He was in a tiny room that was pitch black and soundproof. He was alone and trapped and crying in the dark. Because in the dark there was nothing to distract his mind, nothing to keep it from wandering to dark places.

Tony was pissed. When a guard came to take him, he fought and they had to shock him hard to make him manageable. They took him to the maze alone and he refused to run the course. They shocked him at increasingly painful intervals, eventually trying the prod, and he wouldn't bend.

"Bring me Stryker," he kept saying. Eventually, Stryker came walking across the room to him. Tony flung himself at the man and it took two of the guards to keep him from attacking their boss.

"What the fuck did you do with Peter?!" Tony was twisting and struggling in the arms of the guards with the anger of a mother bear.

"Maybe I didn't see any use in him anymore. Or maybe I just didn't see a point in rewarding you for disobeying me by seeing him. And I promise, if you keep up this behavior, you'll never see him again."

Tony stopped struggling, fuming.

"And Tony? Never try to summon me again. It won't turn out well for you.

-

Peter slept, because there was nothing else for him to do. At least when he dreamt, he wasn't in the dark anymore. 

He had tried talking to himself, but he had gotten shocked. He had tried climbing the walls, but he had gotten shocked. The room was too small to pace, so he curled up on the hard floor and thought about home.

How long had they been gone? Was anyone looking for them? Was Aunt May okay? Ned? MJ? Tony? Was he going to die here, far away from home, in the dark, without saying goodbye?

He was left in the dark for what felt like days. Occasionally, he would wake up to find food and water on a dimly lit tray, which he'd take willingly, but the light would leave as soon as he fell asleep again.

And then the cycle of pain began once more.

At some point, he woke up to an electric shock to the neck. He darted to his feet and bumped into a wall, but he knew that he had to stand up fast to keep them from shocking him again. And as soon as he got balanced one of the walls opened and the guard with the cuffs was in front, dangling them on his finger again.

Peter held out his hands.

-

In the weeks that followed, both of them learned not to talk, not to look up at anyone, and to do what they were told fast and well. For Peter, what he was told consisted of basically walking from his dark room to a lab for tests. He was shocked for any wrong step, any tiny mistake, any movement as they operated on him. For Tony, what he was told to do was more varied, consisting of movement from place to place, runs through the maze, lab tests, anything that caught Stryker's fancy.

And it wore on them both.

Tony was losing some of that fighting spirit. He was finding it more difficult to get up fast enough, to hold his chin up and stare people in the chest, to find the right snarky remark to get shocked for. He was starting to have nightmares again, he thought he was over that, but the extended time away from home and the new traumatic experiences were bringing back ones he had tried to bury away.

Peter, whose mental health had already been unsteady sometimes before they were taken, was now sinking into submissiveness and depression. His eyes barely left the ground, he flinched at anything and everything, let anyone do basically anything to him, never spoke, and he was having suicidal thoughts again. He and his therapist had worked through it last time, back when the bullying was bad, but this was so much worse. What was the point of living if his life was just pain and darkness? If everyone already thought he was dead?

He was as good as dead already.

-

One day, Stryker himself came to visit Tony in his cell. Two guards held Tony down again, but they weren't necessary. He wasn't planning on putting up a fight.

"Congratulations, Tony! You get a new room! Get up, let's go." Tony was pulled to his feet, Stryker continued to talk as they walked. "The old tests have gotten rather... well, old, I must say. It's time for a new one. You don't actually have to do much to participate in this test. It is designed more to just put you under extreme stress and see if you can handle it. Turn here."

They reached a room with what looked like an airlocked door. Tony was tossed to the ground inside and the door sealed behind him. Stryker's voice continued over the speaker system.

"Slowly, we're going to remove the air in your room. Not enough that you suffocate, but just enough that you cannot catch your breath. If your heartbeat becomes erratic, we'll raise the air content. If it slows too much and you catch your breath, we'll lower it. Enjoy!"

No. Nonononono. This was so much worse than everything else. Tony pressed down the memories welling up of his near-death in space and the torture in Afghanistan. He curled up in the corner and tried not to panic as he felt the air thinning.

-

Peter was woken by a more violent shock than usual. He stumbled to his feet through the pain and nearly fell again because of the electricity still coursing through him. Cuffy (Peter's mental nickname for the guard with the cuffs) entered as usual, cuffing him tight and pulling him out of the room as his eyes were still adjusting to the harsh artificial lights, but they took different turns than normal. He wasn't sure if he was imagining it, but it seemed like the guards were being rougher than usual with him, too.

They reached their destination, and Cuffy briefly removed Peter's cuffs before shoving him against the cold, metal wall of the new room and cuffing his wrists to it so far apart that his arms could barely bend. His ankles were also cuffed to the wall. Peter felt incredibly vulnerable, somehow more so than when he was strapped to a table, and he couldn't even get a good look around the room because his eyes didn't leave the floor. His spidey sense never helped anymore, because everyone and everything was dangerous here.

After about five minutes of having to stand like that, Stryker walked into the room, cattle prod in hand.

"We have our mutant here." Stryker placed one hand on the wall above Peter's shoulder, getting his face uncomfortably close. "And that is all you are. A mutant. I don't want you getting any ideas. You and I, we're gonna have some fun."