Caught In A Web

Chapter Six - Pompeii

But if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like

Nothing changed at all?

And if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like

You've been here before?

-"Pompeii," Bastille

- - -

Stryker began by stepping away from the wall and then touching the tip of the cattle prod to the metal, sending flares of pain through Peter's whole body. Again and again, and every time reinforcing Peter's status as nothing but a mutant.

He held the prod under Peter's chin, just below the skin so that Peter could hear the buzz.

"Now, tell me. What are you?"

"Human," Peter choked out. He screamed in pain as Stryker jabbed him with the prod again, and at the same time his collar shocked him as well.

"Wrong answer. Let's try again. What are you?"

The electricity session went on for nearly an hour in total before Peter finally choked out the word "mutant."

Stryker smiled, passing the cattle prod off to a guard. He then addressed Cuffy.

"Get him turned around. I want his back towards me. And someone, fetch me a scalpel. Remove his shirt."

Having his back to the room was so much worse. Peter closed his eyes, trying to remove one sense from the overload.

"Let's make sure you remember what you are," Stryker said once he had what he wanted. "You may heal fast, but that doesn't prevent scarring."

And with that, he began to carve into Peter's back. The boy screamed again, he couldn't help it, and Stryker just laughed. As his slow work continued, the guards began to see the word 'MUTANT' spelled out in cuts along Peter's back, crossing his shoulder blades and perfectly split between either half of his spine. Peter was sobbing, and he could feel warm blood running down his back along with the burning pain.

"Now what are you?"

"...a mutant"

"WHAT ARE YOU?!"

"A mutant!" Peter's collar continued to shock him whenever he spoke, even after being asked. Tears were streaming down Peter's face and dripping off of his chin.

"And that's all you will ever be. You think you're Stark's favorite, that you're important, but you're not. Not that it matters, anyway, because he's gone. Nobody's coming to save you."

Nobody was coming. He'd be here forever. 

That day, Peter was made to scream until his voice was gone. He was brought to the brink of death and left there overnight to heal. That was the point where he hated himself and his powers the most. He just wanted his body to let him die. He'd get to see his parents again, and all of the pain would stop.

His brain was already repressing that day's contents. They had done so much, he couldn't list everything. He didn't want to be able to. He watched his own blood pool on the floor as he let himself go limp in his restraints.

-

This process went on for days. Peter couldn't scream anymore, couldn't reply to the questions, so he got more pain. 

Water. Fire. Knives. Electricity. Cold. Words. Fists and hard leather boots. Tainted food. They gave him all of it. And he couldn't fight back, or he wouldn't fight back, because he was hoping they would make a mistake. Go too far. Accidentally kill him and then it would be over.

And then one day, they got close. They got close enough that he fell unconscious, prone, and woke up in a new room in a pool of his own blood.

-

Tony didn't know how long he was left there, nearly suffocating, but it was the best feeling in the world for him when the air came back. He breathed the air and made a promise to himself once more to never take it for granted. The door opened and a tray of food and water was slid in.

He ate and drank like the food would disappear if he didn't consume it fast enough. He flinched as the speaker crackled to life again after that eternity of silence.

"Hello again, Tony. Did you have fun? There's something that I'd like for you to see, so if you'd direct your attention to the window that used to be a wall..."

Tony looked at it, and found that he was looking into a room with two things in it: a knife and a prone body. Three things if you count the pool of blood coming from under it.

He knew who it was, and yet he didn't want to believe it. What had they done to his kid? Was he alive? Why the hell would anyone do this to a child?

Tony saw Peter, and he barely recognized him. He was thinner, paler. His hair was bloody and greasy and didn't poof up in curls anymore, instead just laying in matted patches on his head. He wasn't wearing a shirt and was laying on his stomach, and Tony could see hundreds of scars on his back, but he took notice of the thrice-carved 'MUTANT' the most. His torso was bruised and battered, several fingers looked broken, his hands looked burned, and of course there were the electricity burns in the unmistakable shape of the tip of the cattle prod. Tony sported several of those burns himself. Peter's wrists looked raw and his whole body looked weak, fragile, not like the healthy boy he remembered from before this, before everything.

And then he woke up.

Tony felt a pang in his chest as he watched Peter spring to his feet, stumble, fall, and then try again. As he saw the countless more wounds on the front of the boy's torso. He felt a tear run down his face and put one hand against the glass.

"He can't see you, Tony. I'm sure you've guessed."

"What. Did. You. Do. To him?" Tony responded, pounding his fist against the glass and rising to his feet. He got a shock for an answer and was left to watch again.

Peter had seen the knife. Tony realized that he could also hear Peter, because he heard the boy's breath quicken as he backed himself into a corner and curled into a ball.

He was being given a choice.

-

Peter heard Stryker's voice over the speakers in his room. He hated that voice, feared it. He backed away into a corner to protect himself from it.

"Our tests have been concluded. We have no more use of you, mutant child. Do what you will with yourself."

The knife was for him. So that he could... kill himself. He had been pleading for death and now a tool had been placed before him and he was afraid.

He was afraid. For all of these weeks and weeks and weeks he had been afraid. Terrified. Tony had been afraid, too, but he had always been the braver of them. Stronger. 

And he was gone. And Peter had a choice.

He picked up the knife, twirling it in his hand, testing the edge with his fingertip.

Sharp. Painful. Blood welled from the point where he broke the skin.

He stared at it for well over an hour, thinking. 

And then he made his choice. 

He pointed the knife towards his chest with both hands and closed his eyes.