All Peter knows are the rubber bars under his palms and the metal slate under his knees. The cage is too narrow for Peter to reach the knot of his blindfold, so he's left in darkness. He's sure this is what Doc wanted: for Peter to be left alone and to drown in panic—let his already pretty impressive anxiety fester in these conditions.

Peter's still not legally allowed to drink, and just because he got his drivers' license in the time between this kidnapping and the last, he's still not mature enough for solitary confinement.

By all rational, the uncomfortable pressure on his arms from holding himself vertical and the anxiety in his gut have him so tensed sleep should be impossible, but the opposite is true. Peter finds himself in and out of consciousness for long periods.

He's not sure how much later it is—his sense of time is punctured by false alarms at noises he doesn't actually hear through the earbuds—when he starts twitching. It's been a good chunk of time since his body was forced into this crunched position, and his muscles aren't accustomed to the strain anymore.

His spasms mean nothing at first, only serving to shake out some of the lactic acid built up. They even feel kinda nice if he focuses on not touching his banged-up leg to the glass-sprinkled floor and keeps the tension on his back to a minimum.

Until he tips a little too far back on a stretch and rocks right into the electric bars. The pain which assaults him is enough to raise bile in his throat, and he lurches upright to stand stock-still until the last volts fizzle out.

He's used to that encounter being accompanied by the bzz! of electricity on flesh. Peter can't decide if it's a better or worse to experience as a silent moment. Definitely unsettling. Removing Peter's senses, especially as he relies on his enhanced ability more than the average person, ties him in a knot he can't slip from. It forces him to retreat his mind off the physical and into a mental space, and the only thought he finds reverberating around his head from every corner is I might've killed my team.

He has a blurry memory of JARVIS' control panel being destroyed by Oc, and he's loath to admit even if the Avengers were uninjured enough to climb out of the subfloors, they're basically digging blind without the brain of the Tower. That's to say nothing of the Avengers which aren't as durable as a Nordic god or a super-serumed soldier or wrapped in a titanium alloy armor. Natasha and Clint's uniforms are great for stealth and athletics but useless against tens of tons of rubble. And Bruce becomes as squishy as any other civilian the minute he de-Hulks.

Peter's even got a bad taste in his mouth thinking of the unconscious HYDRA agents there, unable to defend themselves. Peter did that. It's his fault. He did that to all of them trapped underneath.

Peter works himself into a right fit thinking on the consequences. He clenches his eyes uselessly behind the blindfold and breathes deeply through battered ribs. He wiggles stiff fingers, rolls his neck as much as the collar will allow, and focuses on thinking about anything that's not his situation.

He's deep into rearranging the transition metals of the periodic table by electron count when a spider sense zings through his skull, and he nearly chips a tooth snapping his mouth shut.

He twitches his head to the right, and then to the left, trying to follow his sixth sense but is still unprepared when his earbuds are ripped out.

Oc purrs in his ear, "Are you ready to be useful, Spiderman?"

In jerky little movements, Peter squares his shoulders and tilts his chin to bare his collared neck. It's different than before because he can't see the ceiling with the blindfold on, but it's just as upsetting.

The, "Good boy," he gets in response is moist and breathy against his skin. He covers a shiver by rolling his shoulders as well as he is able within the small space.

Doc is handsy as he removes Peter from the cage, and it takes all the practice of being shocked in the past for Peter to remain still and let the tentacles wander across tender skin. When Peter fails to respond, the claws clamp painfully before unceremoniously dropping Peter.

The action pressures his busted ribs, and he is left breathless on the freezing floor.

Sharp glass from gaps in stitched wounds spills at Oc's rough treatment and slice open Peter's palms as he struggles to support himself. Peter may not be sure of the exact amount of time spent locked in that crate, but it was surely long enough for his healing to start if not for the fact he's beyond exhausted. As it stands, he's starving, and the new little scrapes he can feel trickling blood refuse to heal on their own.

Doc must remember this; he stitched Peter's bigger wounds when he brought him in. Wouldn't want Peter dying on him before their lessons, after all.

As if Oc were reading his mind, Peter hears, "Would you like something to eat, perhaps?" It's been ages since Peter's eaten. He usually carboloads after a workout or patrol, but he hadn't the chance after sparring that morning. More than that, though—Peter hasn't been eating right for months, not since the last time he was here. Mealtimes are sort of hard to stick to when you get used to working for your supper.

A spark shoots from the collar, not strong enough to burn his skin but enough to force a spasm of his neck muscles. "Peter," Oc reprimands, "I asked you a question. Would you like food?"

"Yessir," Peter croaks. He both does and doesn't hope Oc hears the go fuck yourself subtext.

Oc hums. "Then come."

Peter doesn't dare take off the blindfolded in Doc's presence without a plan, but he limps after Doc with certain feet. He knows to skirt the exam table, and he rounds the railings separating the larger platform from the wall of screens without bumping into anything. It's at the edge of the room that Peter falters.

This room is an exact replica of the one Oc kept him in before, but what lies beyond the doorway? Surely Oc has moved facilities; he's unlikely to remain in the same location Peter had broken out of before.

A claw cuffs him on the back of the head hard enough to send Peter tumbling. The arms that catch him are cold and spindly and hual him to a chest that's equally mangled, but Peter's too strung out from the sensory deprivation to reject the interaction outright.

"Hush," Doc chides, stroking the parts of Peter he can reach, "we're just going to get some food in you. Calm yourself, Peter."

Peter's eyes shoot open under the blindfold and his body goes rigid. Peter, Octavius had called him. He'd said it earlier too, but Peter hadn't noticed.

"You…" Peter begins, then smacks his tongue against the roof of his mouth in an attempt to garner some moisture. "You know my name?" he whispers.

Octavius tightens his grip on Peter briefly then lets go. He walks away, claws clicking, without checking to see if Peter will follow. Peter does.

"I've known your name for a quite a while. Since you abandoned me the last time, even." Peter's mind is racing, and he's almost thankful for the extra guide Oc's voice provides as he stumbles sightless through the halls. "It wasn't hard to connect the dots. You cropped up a few years ago, obviously too young for college, and only operate within the local area." Peter hears a door screech open, but their pace doesn't slow. "Didn't take more than a simple hack into the first database to discover Peter Parker: Midtown High School science fair winner and intern at Stark Industries." Peter can hear they quotes around intern.

Peter should be panicking, but he finds his heartbeat's becoming less painful. Partly, it's because he hasn't the energy, but it's also because Oc hasn't mentioned the one person he keeps his secret identity to protect. Oc can know all of his life—threaten to steal any semblance he has at a normalcy—so long as he doesn't touch Aunt May.

Oc stops walking, and Peter bumps into him and rapidly jumps away. Doc starts again in a new direction, and Peter starts to follow but is flung to the ground.

"Stay," Oc says. It's silent for a moment, and Peter rearranges his sore limbs to crouch on the floor. The position stings his stitches where glass is being crunched, but it's safer than laying down.

Telltale tapping makes its way around the perimeter of the room, presumably fiddling with something based on the miscellaneous noises. "Do you know where we are?" Oc inquires.

Peter shakes his head.

"No?" Doc sounds disappointed, but it turns to anger in the next moment. "Don't play stupid, Spiderman. Tell me where we are."

This is a trap if Peter ever saw one, but he doesn't know the answer. How is he supposed to know where they are—he's been tortured, starved, and led blindly around a facility he's never been in before! Unless…

Unless this is the same facility.

Peter gulps. He sorts his thoughts, closes his eyes behind the cloth, and focuses on the senses he can use. The room smells of rust, moist earth, and perhaps…perfume? The last one is faint, almost undetectable if he didn't have enhanced senses, but so familiar. Nonetheless, it's irrelevant to his goal, and he sets aside the variable from his analysis for now. The prevailing scent is of sweat, and beyond the whirring and ticking of Octavius' machines and the loud rasp of his breathing, there is a faint clacking sound like two metal plates smacking together.

Peter racks his brain for memories of the schematics of the facility he was trapped in months ago and compares them against the walk they just took.

Instantly, Peter knows where he is.

"The workroom," Peter answers.

Octavius hums. The sound of a metal appendage tapping against glass confirms his theory.

"You're hungry, aren't you?" Doc Oc says as he approaches Peter. "And you know, I've been just dying to see how you've changed since my last records."

Peter, now having some semblance of the room layout, scrambles for the wall furthest from Oc. If he can reach it before Oc, maybe he can climb out of reach. At least for a little while. At least long enough to make a plan.

Peter dives around the machine he knows is in the middle of the room, places one sticky hand on the wall, and catapults himself as high as he possibly can. His arms spasm with the effort and his broken leg dangles uselessly after him. He can hear Octavius chuckling, but Oc doesn't give chase. Regardless, Peter doesn't stop until he feels the natural curve of the ceiling dome underneath him.

Sticking his good foot firmly against the ceiling, Peter uses both his hands to fumble at the blindfold. It's a testament to Peter's exhaustion that forgoes the knot and just rips the Kevlar material enough to slide it over his head. He's relieved to find he can see perfectly out his previously blurry eye.

Oc's still laughing below him, and Peter chucks the blindfold in his direction. It spirals in the air a few times and floats downward to settle on the top of the weight machine. It's significantly less satisfying than Peter had hoped.

Looking down removed all possible doubts; he's definitely back in the workroom. Its appearance is like a normal gym but for the sparseness and extremely oversized weight racks. And the system of levies spanning the space just above each piece of equipment, creating a web-like, makeshift roof of separation between him and Oc and connecting to a single point above a glass box in a corner of the room which is mostly hidden behind the good Doctor.

Peter remembers the days spent in this room—running on the treadmill until his feet gave out; hammering the steel-enforced punching bag in the corner with bloodied and broken knuckles; snapping tendons at the rowing machine.

Oc trails off during Peter's observations and impatience colors his voice when he shouts up at Peter. "Come down here now, Peter. I trained you better than this."

There's bloody handprints indicating the trail Peter took to the ceiling. The scenery is always red when he's with Oc.

"Not a chance," Peter hisses.

Oc clucks his tongue in disappointment. "Do you need another reminder to be polite?" He reveals a small remote, and Peter connects the dots a second before lightning shoots through the collar around his neck.

Thankfully, the network of levy cords breaks his fall before he can smush into Peter Pudding.

Oc uses a claw to snag a frozen Peter from his ensnarement, carelessly snapping cords and muttering about 'potential memory loss' and 'memory fragmentation altering physical ability' as he drags Peter to the modified weight machine in the center of the room.

Like any typical weight machine, it requires Peter to stand in the center and reach above his head for a handle which is connected by a cord to weight stacks. Only, this machine's weight stack doesn't reside within or even next to the machine, but are controlled by the up and down arrow buttons on the side of the machine and range anywhere from a car to a building. Peter's guessing; he's never made it past the midway point according to Oc.

The readout currently shows a weight of 12.5 Metric Tons. "Pull" Octavius commands, and Peter tugs the handle on autopilot. It's not too heavy; Peter would judge the current amount as 'school bus.'

His healing factor has made good progress on easing the ache around his shoulder blades from sparring, fading the black eye from the HYDRA Agent, and mostly closing the skin around his stitched wounds, but it's been spread among dozens of little injuries, so the large gash at the side of his stomach from being impaled in the elevator shaft popping open and spilling glass at the strain of the wrench isn't unexpected.

Doesn't do a thing to stop the hurt though.

Peter's trying to avoid putting too much pressure on his bad leg, but he shifts on it to ease the pain from his side regardless.

"Interesting. Your healing factor still appears to focus on each wound equally, regardless of their severity to your physical health." Yeah, Peter could have told him that BEFORE he stitched glass into them.

"Down" Oc allows, and Peter immediately lets go. The weight smashes the handle back into the frame of the machine—but there's a deafening CRACK from the corner of the room. Oc hadn't severed the pathway between this machine and the weights when he'd plucked Peter from the web of cords.

Peter's whips his head towards the sound, fearing the worst.

It was wired the way Peter remembers: whatever weight Peter lifts (or pulls, or pushes, or whatever any of the machines in the room require) reaches him through the connection of levies and in actuality rests atop the glass box wedged against the walls.

Peter assumes it's not real glass but rather some kind of reinforced, clear poly methyl methacrylate that can withstand immense pressure. He knows from experience it can survive almost as much as he can so long as he deposits the weight back atop it gently. Which he did not.

And just like Peter remembers, there's an unconscious civilian inside the box. He can't see much of the woman's body as she is curled away from him, but her long, red hair is tangled underneath a knitted sweater, and Peter can just make out the glint of a wedding ring on the hand sprawled above her head.

Peter snarls at Octavius and his voice is venom when he threatens, "Don't you dare hurt her. This is between you and me."

Oc doesn't take his eyes from Peter's side to click the button on the black remote again, and Peter's vision goes white. "Silence."

Peter's played this sadistic game before. How much weight can you hold before it crushes them?

Oc's kidnapped a civilian, and he's turned Peter into the threat.

"Pull."

A wet squelching comes from his side at the action, but Peter sticks his shaking fingers back on the handle and holds the weight steady.

"Subject's healing appears to follow the pattern of focus established during last testing," Oc mumbles into a handheld recorder as he circles Peter, undeterred by Peter's glaring. "Healing has been dispersed equally to all lacerations and contusions regardless of their perceived risk to physical wellbeing or motion capability."

Peter flinches when Oc's flesh finger prods his shoulder blades. "I estimate scapular capillaries at 30 percent their initial damage." He trails his nails down Peter's shoulders and over his arm, stopping at one of the many stitched cuts. He presses roughly, but the skin doesn't give.

Peter bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from making a sound.

One of Oc's claws comes into Peter's field of vision, and he sees it fold backward and open to reveal a sharp, scalpel-like instrument.

He stares at the ceiling so he doesn't have to watch as Oc slices the stitches away and reopens the wound.

"Healing appears to congregate primarily on surface skin tissue, rather than internal outwards." The feeling of Oc rooting around in the cut to fish out glass shards turns Peter's stomach, and Peter wonders how much longer he's going to have to hold the weight. "Conclusive to previous results, the addition of glass seems to have inhibited internal healing, particularly in areas which have experienced constant friction from natural body movements."

Oc seizes Peter's hair and and turns his head to examine a spot on Peter's shoulder. Peter's new position leaves him staring at the unconscious woman. He vaguely wonders who she is. How she got here. If there's someone looking for her, too.

This is so alike to the past that, mentally, Peter's absolutely thrown. Oc's poking and prodding, threatening to hurt a civilian, except it's always Peter that ends up hurting them. It's always Peter's disobedience that screws Otto's testing and results in necessary punishments—Peter would do anything to himself to protect an innocent.

It's almost as if he never left.

Oc releases his face and uses slices open another set of stitches, and Peter nearly drops the weight in surprise. Luckily, his sticky fingers prevent the handle from traveling further than his fingertips, but he eyes follows the levy above him to check the cord hasn't snapped at the motion.

It holds strong, but Peter's own arms tremble. It doesn't escape Doc Oc's notice.

"Despite promising results from initial weight at .5 tons below maximum achieved capacity during last testing, Subject shows rapid decline in ability."

Yeah, Peter thinks, maybe due to the fact 80 percent of my body is covered in injuries and I haven't eaten in forever?

Still, the gears in Peter's mind turn at the comment. Oc had set the machine to almost the same weight he'd maxed out on last time he was here? Peter was lifting it without excessive effort even now. He feels a plan forming.

"Down," Oc grants, and Peter is extremely careful this time to carefully raise the handle to the top of the machine before letting go. The glass box in the corner only groans in response.

Oc, who seems to have forgone talking to Peter directly, clicks the button on the side of the machine, more than doubling the weight.

The readout shows 30 tons. Higher than Peter's ever shown Oc he could lift.

Oc steps back and nods at Peter. When Peter simply glares, Oc sneers. "Pull."

He makes a show of slowly reaching up, fumbling with the handle a couple times, and putting weight on his bad leg to pull. It's easy to let his breathing go choppy, let the trembling in his arms spread to the rest of him.

"Come on, little Spider," Oc prompts when the handle doesn't budge an inch. "You know I have to punish her if you fail, don't you?"

Peter grits his teeth to keep his calm. "I can't lift it," he insists.

Oc's smile returns. "Subject is reluctant to continue," he relays into the recorder, then looks directly into Peter's eyes. "But when properly motivated…" A tentacle snakes behind Oc and plucks at the cord above them connecting the machine to the weights. A single strand splinters off, and the weights sway above the glass box.

"You don't want fail this one, Peter. She's special."

Peter blinks. He looks back to the woman—back to the knitted cardigan and gold ring. The familiar perfume from earlier floods into his brain.

Peter yanks the handle.

Oc's cackles of delight abruptly stop when Peter proceeds to jam his hands back up, letting the weight smash down onto the box.

Peter's still got a grip on the weight though, and he's careful to catch the handle before the weight can completely shatter the box and hurt the woman inside. In a move so fast it's almost a blur, Peter closes the gap between himself and Oc, dragging the weight with him and wrapping the handle around one of Oc's tentacles. Oc is immediately sucked into and slammed against the machine when Peter releases.

Oc will free himself sooner than rather, but it gives Peter the time he needs to scurry to the glass box and punch the already-damaged surface. His first hit has enough force to chip a few quarter-sized holes the front panel. The whole side breaks on the third punch, and Peter swipes his Aunt May from the floor seconds before the weight swinging above her crashes down to the spot she just laid.

The box fractures into thousands of pieces against the burden, and Peter covers May with his body when the poly methyl methacrylate goes flying.

Oc's untangled himself in too-few seconds. Peter's hesitant to uncurl from Aunt May—he's willing to offer any protection he can, even if it's just his fragile body—fearful of retaliation, but Oc stays on the other side of the room to leisurely retrieve his dropped recorder.

"You've changed, haven't you?" Oc muses, his eyes roving unnervingly over Peter's arched body. "It's only been a few months, but that's so much more to a teenage body. You're practically an adult now—and that's changed something, hasn't it? You're stronger now."

But the words go in one ear and out the other because Peter's just realized something about the woman in his arms. The engagement ring on her hand is Aunt May's: a greenish corrosion stains her finger and the two little stones (the third having fallen out ages ago and none of them real—not on Ben's salary) are nestled within. They'd sold May's beautiful wedding ring to pay for bills a couple years ago, but May knew they would get nothing for the cheap, gold engagement ring, and May never takes it off.

But she feels wrong. Peter can see splotches on her skin where red hair dye has freshly stained, and when Peter rolls the unconscious women over, it's not her. It's not Aunt May.

"What did you do with her?" Peter demands, past worrying about the consequences. Oc had placed May's ring on this woman. Had May's perfume. There's no time to worry about himself. "Where is she?"

Oc laughs, delighted, and it's not white pain but red rage that engulfs Peter's vision this time. He half-carries half-drags the woman to the edge of the room and lunges at the Doctor. But Peter's weak, and he loses the fight almost before it begins.

"Spiderman," Oc reprimands, "you should know better." Peter, emotionally and physically drained, growls from the ground as a mental phalange strokes his neck. All he cares about is May.

Oc sighs. "I see training didn't take as well as we'd hoped. Come." Peter is carried towards Not-Aunt-May and placed softly beside her. Oc tilts Peter until he is leaning against her shoulder, and activates the collar.

The woman shrieks to consciousness, and Peter fights through his own agony to throw himself away from her. Her shouts fade to whimpers, which escalate to sobs as she spots Octavius.

"Well, hello," Oc greets and grabs her chin when she attempts to hide it against the wall. "So here's our situation: Spiderman here refuses to follow the rules. He broke them on purpose, risked your life, and needs punishment."

The civilian darts her eyes over to Peter, maskless and wearing only the bottom half of the Spiderman suit, and confusion breaks through the fear on her face.

"Yes," Oc dismisses, "I know he doesn't look like much, but that's Spiderman." Peter attempts a reassuring smile, but his mind is on Aunt May and he's clearly too injured to provide any hope they'll make it out of here. "What I need you to do," Oc tells her as his tentacle transforms into a scalpel again, "is hold still."

The woman screams and thrashes against Octavius' restraint.

"Wait!" Peter yells. "Stop, it's my fault! Leave her alone!"

Oc halts the scalpel centimeters from the woman's face. "You are volunteering? You know you're not allowed to punish yourself."

"I know." Peter obediently crawls forward.

"…Good boy." Oc cocks his head to consider. "I'll tell you what, Peter. A cut for every one you already earned. You keep quiet for the whole thing, and I'll even let her go."

The tentacle is drawn away from the woman's face, and she has a couple seconds to breathe before a scalpel is shoved into her grip.

"I don't…" she stutters, terrified. "I don't understand."

Peter uses his most soothing voice to explain. "It's okay. It's alright, I promise. You're going to be okay. You just have to…" He huffs his frustration at their situation, disregarding the Doctor looming above them. He's too exhausted and too scared to comfort someone else. "I broke the rules, so you have to punish me.

And he did break the rules. Technically. They're broken rules on their own, corrupt and immoral, but Peter did choose to break them willingly. And this civilian, this innocent woman, is here because of him. If not for Peter, she never would have been abducted.

It's his fault.

"I'm sorry," he whispers to her, low so Oc won't hear, and he wraps his fingers over hers on the scalpel. He forces their joined hands to his hip and slices a new wound next to a stitched one.

"N—no!" the woman declares with surprising force, wrenching herself from his grasp. "You're just a kid!" She uses her unoccupied hand to cup his face. "You're just a kid."

Peter can't help leaning into the touch. It reminds him of May, and it's been so long since someone tried to protect him. "It's alrig—"

"Not another word."

Neither Peter nor the woman break contact at the interruption. For being so meek before, the notion of hurting a child sparks a fire in the woman's eyes so fierce even Peter flinches.

"Or what?" she snaps at Oc. "You'll abduct us? Hurt us? News flash: you already have!"

"Not another word," Octavius repeats, emphasizing every syllable and looking only to Peter, "or I keep her too."

Peter slowly reaches out to shadow the woman again, guiding the scalpel to his free forearm just above another stitched cut before letting go. He smiles in encouragement, but she looks green at the very thought. She turns her head back to Doc and opens her mouth, but Peter presses him arm into the scalpel before she can ruin their chance.

It's not even close to the depth of his other wounds, but she gasps and rips both hands from him in an attempt to staunch further harm. She throws the blade to the side, and Peter lurches to grab it. She's resumed her crying—silent tears this time—and Peter feels like the scum of the Earth for making her do this. But it's for her own good.

He pushes the scalpel, hilt-first, against her belly until she takes it from him.

Just do it, Peter begs with his eyes. Do it, and you'll get to be free.

She reads him loud and clear by the But what about you? on her face.

Peter's never been particularly good at handling concern directed at him and he switches tactics, determined to get her out of this. He scowls, ignoring the hurt that flashes across her face, and jerks his arm at her. Get over yourself.

She frowns at him too—and Peter's willing to bet she's a mother by the practiced disappointment—but the fight dies as she glances at Octavius.

Peter unfolds a leg to bump hers softly, and she turns to look at him though fresh tears. The woman is stubborn, but she's not stupid. Normal people have self-preservation, and he doesn't blame her in the least as she adjusts the scalpel more firmly in her hand and uses it to match the cuts along Peter's body.

She wants her freedom and is willing to fight for it, whatever the cost.

Peter's only blessing is her cuts are shallow, which makes it possible for Peter to keep his vow of silence during the ordeal.

The woman stops twice, having run out of visible wounds and thinking she's finished, and the first time it's Peter who twists to present a hidden slice on his thigh, and the second time it's Doc Oc who flattens Peter to the floor and points to his gaping stomach wound. There's blood crusted around it from the rip at the weight machine and all the aggravating movement after, and new blood blends when the woman slices a neat, thin line into his tender stomach just below.

"Again."

Tears blur her vision, her hands shake visibly, and the next swipe overlaps some edges.

"Deeper."

She goes over the same spot again, marginally deeper.

"Make it as deep as the first, and you'll be done."

The woman is trembling so hard she's having trouble holding the scalpel, and Peter's blood smeared against her hand isn't helping.

Peter's not feeling so great himself right now, but he recognizes when a civilian needs help. He wriggles his torso until he's laying against her knees and raises his stomach intro the blade. He doesn't dare use his hands to guide her lest Doc Oc decide that's cheating, but he does elbow her lightly in her thigh.

This is apparently the resolve she needs, and her other hand strokes his hair as she brings the knife to his stomach a final time.

He has to turn and muffle the sounds of his screams into her thighs, and she immediately chucks the scalpel to the other side of the room to scoop Peter into her arms.

Oc's cackling with laughter, and Peter hears him clink to another part of the workroom, but it's all muffled behind the shushing from the woman.

"Shh, shh, it's alright Spiderman. You're okay, baby, you're alright. We're done." Her hands are frantic in their patting his head, but that doesn't detract from their soothing quality. "I'm so sorry, I—I'm," She's choking on her apology now, but he doesn't have the strength to break her hug to comfort her. It doesn't matter though, because she leans him away from her to look him in the eye in the next moment.

"I'm so sorry, Spiderman. Please," she pleads with him to understand, "I have to see my kid, I—she's everything to me. I would do anything for her; I had to."

Peter's breath comes out in hissing grunts, but he pitches his voice to match hers so Oc can't hear them on the other side of the room. "I understand. I promise, it's okay. I would…" He swallows. "I have someone like that too. I thought you were her, actually." With sloppy fingers, he traces the stolen ring on her finger.

The woman seems to be calming, and she glances to make sure Oc is still preoccupied before whispering back, "Is this hers? Is that why he put me in this sweater and dyed my hair? So you would try to save me?"

"I would have saved you anyway," Peter says honestly. "This was just his attempt to find my limits. Psychological warfare, I guess." It kind of worked, too.

"Well, thank you. Whoever she is, she's a lucky woman." The fire is back in her eyes, and as the banging sounds grow louder as Oc loses patience, the woman informs him, "My daughter's name is Rose."

"May," Peter returns.

The woman nods, and she cradles Peter to her chest again, rocking him. "You don't deserve this, Spiderman. I'm so sorry for all that you've been through."

It takes everything in Peter not to burst into tears on the spot. He hasn't been held like this in so long—and never by someone who knew he was Spiderman. He can't stop his throat from closing, and there's a vicious, lonely part of him that wants to break his deal with Oc—that wants to let go of his tongue and scream so he can keep this woman with him. Why does he always have to suffer alone?

Oc exclaims triumphantly as he finds what he was looking for.

"When he lets you go," Peter says under his breath, dragging the words out like thorns in skin and digging his fingers into the fabric of her shirt, "go South. There's a town not too far from here with access to a phone." It had taken Peter almost two full days to find it last time he escaped, but he had been concussed, backtracking to throw off Oc, and traveling in the wrong direction most of the time. It shouldn't take her longer than half a day. "Find the Avengers. Ask for Nick Fury or SHIELD. Tell them where I am. Tell them…" But there's no message he can send. He doesn't even know if they're well enough to get to him. He doesn't even know if they're alive.

The woman stills, and the workshop grows silent as Oc looms above them, but either he really didn't hear them or decides it's not worth the trouble because he tosses a curved needle and thread at their feet and points to Peter.

Peter rarely needs to sew a wound, the skin grows over the thread and creates complications more often than not, but Peter doesn't utter a word as Rose's mom threads the needle. He rests a hand on her knee in reassurance. He's willing to withstand some inconvenience in the face of her freedom.

Doc Oc is leaning over their heads, but this time it seems to irritate the woman rather than spook her, and she completes the task strong with significantly less shaky hands. It's clear she's not familiar with sutures because she references the previously stitched cuts before she risks piercing and waits for Oc to point to the next cut rather than assuming which need stitches.

Her efforts are sloppy but well-meaning. Luckily, not many of the new slices are deep enough to 'need' sutures because for all the woman's bravery, she's breathing carefully through her mouth after the third procedure.

By the time Doc points and tells her, "Last one," she looks about two seconds from vomiting all over him as she re-threads the needle.

Fortunately for her, it's the last one. Unfortunately for Peter, it's the worst one.

She pinches together the gaping edges of his old stomach wound, directly above the fresher wound she already stitched, and Peter has to release her knee so he doesn't shatter it.

She works fast—inexperienced and poorly, but fast. As she nips off the end of the string with her teeth, she freezes. Peter feels a fingernail gently dislodge a shard of glass from the corner of the wound.

"What the fuck is this?" Rose's mom turns around to face Oc and lurches to her feet. There's blood coating her clothes—her borrowed sweater—so vibrant it's almost the same red as the dye in her hair, and it gives her a rumpled, unhinged look. "What," she repeats in Oc's face, getting louder with every word, "the fuck is this!"

"An experiment," Oc replies sweetly.

A feral growl emanates from the woman, and Peter leaps to wrap his arms around her before she can pounce at Octavius. It doesn't stop her from clawing at him, but Peter's got her secured and she can do no harm to herself.

"He's a child!" she screams.

Oc tsk-tisks. "He's Spiderman."

"He's a teenager, you sadistic fuck!" Peter grunts as her elbow flies back into his shoulder, and she immediately stops flailing. She takes a deep breath. "I don't care what your reasoning is," she says, significantly calmer, "and I don't care if he's Spiderman; he is a human being, and you won't treat him like a lab rat in my presence."

At this, Oc bursts into laughter. "Well," he seethes between guffaws, "it's a good thing you're leaving my presence very soon then, isn't it?"

Peter and Rose's mom flinch as a metal claw enters their space, but it merely picks up the needle and spare thread from the floor and whips back into Oc. The immediate threat has passed, and Rose's mom has to adapt their positions to keep Peter upright as the adrenaline leaves him.

Oc scoffs and strides away from them. "Peter," Oc calls without looking back, "return to your pen."

The woman's eyes flicker to his—she knows his name!—but she turns right back around to glare at Oc's retreating figure.

She gathers Peter's loose limbs and shuffles his arm over her shoulder to help him walk. Together, they stumble their way through the halls after Otto.

Peter struggles to plant his feet when they get close to the room Peter woke up in, but he doesn't need to; Oc stands in the doorway, blocking their path and forcing them to a halt.

"You did well, Peter. You kept your silence, so I'll keep my end of the deal. Return to your pen willingly, and I'll let her go as we agreed."

Peter hears the sigh to his left, but he keeps his mouth shut. He's relieved, but he waits for the other shoe to drop.

"Or," Oc continues, stepping to the side and gesturing to the exam table in the room, "you can bring her in there with you, and I'll tell you where your Aunt is."

Peter's heart stops in his chest. Rose's mom is just a civilian; she doesn't deserve any of this—but neither does Aunt May. And Peter would do anything for his aunt. If this woman's daughter, Rose, was here, there would be no competition whom Rose's mom would throw to the crazy doctor.

But she's not Spiderman; she's allowed to make selfish decisions in a way Peter, who has the weight of innocents on his shoulders, never can.

Peter straightens, ignoring the way Rose's mom tightens around him at the action. He's sure in his decision in a way he hasn't been in weeks, and his voice doesn't waver when he speaks. "Let her go, Ocky. Deal's a deal."

Rose's mom sobs with relief, and Doc Oc's lips twist hideously as he taps a finger against his chin. "No, I don't think I will, actually. She seems rather effective for our purposes."

Peter would like to state for the record that he freaking knew it. So much so, in fact, that he planned ahead. Peter dives through an open door to his right with the woman, missing the tentacle Oc shoots at them by inches. "Go!" he yells as he slams the door shut behind them and crunches the knob, and to her credit, Rose's mom books it down the hall without question.

Peter had tried to stop them at this point of the hall because this hallway leads to an exit. It's how he escaped last time, and it's how Rose's mom is going to escape this time.

The door is reinforced but won't hinder Oc long, and Peter overturns anything he can get his hands on as he runs—chairs, medical tables, scrap metal. Traffic cones in the road at best to a charging mechanical sociopath, but every second counts.

Rose's mom lets out a huff as she abruptly slams into the flat wall at the end of the hall. "No!" she screams, slamming her open palms against the wall. "No! There's no way out!"

"Yes, there is," Peter pants. He points a shaky finger to the submarine hatch above them. The facility is underground, which is why it's so hard to detect or escape, but she'll be able to figure her way once she reaches the surface. Allowing adrenaline to fuel his muscles, Peter scampers up the wall and heaves at the operating wheel. The hatch groans its distress, but it eventually unlocks and lifts at Peter's insistence.

The light is bright enough to make his eyes water, but there's no time to appreciate it as the door at the other end of the hallway crashes open.

Peter offers his hand to Rose's mom. "Come on, ma'am. Let's get you to your daughter."

She climbs up him as if she's got sticky fingers of her own, and she moans when her knees connect with grass.

"Remember what I told you?" he demands, breaking her illusion and yelling to be heard over a charging Octavius, "The town?"

"Yes! Yes, I remember. But Peter! You have to come with me!" Her hand is outstretched in a mirror to his earlier. They both know he'd only slow her down in his condition, yet she's willing to cripple her escape to free him from further torture.

Peter gifts her a weary grin. "I can't. He still has May."

Her eyes are sad, but she nods. She claws at her left hand, snatches his wrist before he can retreat, and presses the ring into his hand.

"Save her, like you saved me."

He uses what strength he has left to heave the hatch shut and crunch the circular latch so it's impossible to turn.

Good luck going after her now, Ocky.

Mission accomplished, he slips Aunt May's ring over his pinky ringer and allows the tentacle that comes seconds later to capture him.

Oc holds him aloft and pants into his face, furious. "I have to punish them for your mistakes. You know that. And since you just let our guest escape, our next lesson will have a special appearance now."

Oc drags Peter behind him, heedless of the toppled metal scraps and furniture Peter bangs against as they trek through familiar halls. "I thought we could do this without bringing the only person who cares about you into this, Peter."

When they reach the examination room, Oc tosses Peter into his cage, and seeing Peter clamber for non-electric bars settles Doc. He wipes a wrinkled, flesh hand over his sparse hair and picks up a cloth material from a nearby worktable.

Peter's skin is smoking, but he's still got enough fight to spit at Oc. It doesn't reach him, and the effort reminds Peter how parched he is.

"I thought it was enough that you killed your team."

Peter tries to duck his head, but Oc reattaches the blindfold—the material feels tougher than the previous Kevlar—tight enough to dig into the sensitive skin under his eyes.

"But I see I was wrong. You traded your own aunt for some random civilian. What a poor excuse for family you are."

Peter slams against the bars, but they don't bend and the shock he receives in return is not worth trying again.

"But rest assured, Spiderman," Oc promises as he stalks out of the room, "I won't underestimate you again."

Peter clenches his hands, then stops when he hears a tiny creaking from the bars. Alone in the room, Peter allows himself a smirk.

You just did, he thinks.