Detached

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 25 Prompt - Isolation

Truth is, Peter didn’t do the best alone. He was an extrovert at heart and probably had some repressed abandonment issues he’d rather not think about right now but this was fine. He was fine.

Words: 3213, Chapters: 1/1 (Complete), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Peter Parker & May Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, May Parker, Tony Stark

TW: Depression, Delirium, Panic Attacks, Paranoia, Descent into Madness

Read on AO3 or below the line break.

Peter groaned, squinting his eyes shut further instead of trying to open them. His head was throbbing and his thoughts were sluggish and dizzy. He could tell he was lying down but everything seemed to be spinning around him making him feel nauseous – he swallowed down the bile attempting to rise in his throat and took deep breaths through his nose. Mind over matter and all that. Once he felt a little more steady, Peter took stock.

The floor he was lying on was hard and cold and he was positioned awkwardly with his arms folded under him, tingles running through them painfully from the compression of veins and arteries. Carefully, Peter cracked his eyes open. The room he was in was dark and the air had the damp quality of somewhere underground and Peter blinked his eyes shut again. Yeah he had no idea where he was or how he got here.

With effort, he rolled over to lie flat on his back but made no attempt to try and sit up yet. The last thing he remembered was getting up for school. It was Friday and he was looking forward to going to Ned’s after school and spending the weekend having movie marathons and building the newest Star Wars Lego kit Ned had picked up with his birthday money. He remembered getting ready to leave, pulling his Spider-Man suit from his bag and hiding it in his closet (he had promised to take a break since he had been overdoing just a little over the last few weeks), he thumbed past a text from Mr. Stark – he didn’t want to read anything from him right now, fighting stressed him out and he didn’t want to deal with it…

He left his apartment. He was going to walk to school instead of taking the subway because it was hot out and he was feeling a little sensitive today and he wasn’t sure he could handle the smell. His Spidey sense had been tingling since he had gotten up that morning but it had been doing that off and on for days since his fight with…

He was walking to school. Everything was fine.

But now he’s here? How did it happen? Peter’s head throbbed lowly and threateningly as he tried to wrack his memory for the answer so he stopped and tried to make himself relax. He was probably kidnapped right? He had been kidnapped a couple times before and he knew how this worked. Once his assailants realized he was awake and semi-aware they would come in to highlight their terms, probably rough him up a bit and then Mr. Stark and Colonel Rhodes would track him down and break him out.

But… would Mr. Stark really come to get him now? After everything.

‘Don’t think about that Peter,’ he told himself. He was already about five seconds from a panic attack and that just wouldn’t do. He needed to keep it together. If his captors thought he was breaking so early things could get so much worse. He was fine. Just some deep breaths.

Peter opened his eyes again. The room was almost too dark to see anything, lit only by a small red emergency light in one corner that left strange shadows and distorted shapes and colors. The room was small – maybe ten feet by ten feet if he was lucky – and mostly empty. There were three large cases with water bottles and a few boxes of crackers in one corner and a metal toilet was in the other. A haphazard pile of ratty looking blankets that smelled like mildew were a few feet away from Peter.

This was new. He was almost never provided water or food in the few times he had been taken before, not that he was gone long enough to need anything.

Something felt off.

Using every bit of strength he had left, Peter levered himself up and leaned heavily against the wall while his vision span in circles and nausea crept back up his throat. Whatever he had been dosed with must have been pretty potent to leave him feeling like this. So plans. He would wait to see what the people who took him wanted. He would let his metabolism work off the drugs. Maybe he would crawl over and grab a bottle of water once he felt a little more steady and hope that they hadn’t been tampered with.

It was all a waiting game.

————————————————

Okay so this was weird.

Peter took another sip of his - up tampered thank god – water and swirled it around in his mouth. It had easily been at least a few hours since he had woken up and no one had come through the solid metal door that Perter had yet been able to break through. Someone always came in to monologue.

And it just proved that whoever took him knew he was Spider-Man since he wasn’t able to break out.

“This is fine,” Peter said out loud just to hear something. “They’re just working on a longer timeline is all.”

Truth is, Peter didn’t do the best alone. He was an extrovert at heart and probably had some repressed abandonment issues he’d rather not think about right now but this was fine. He was fine.

More time passed.

And more time.

Pulling one of the blankets around his shoulders and wedging himself into a corner Peter curled tightly around his legs. He was tired and he wasn’t sure if it was because of the drugs or if it had been that long he had been trapped here. Regardless he figured he may as well take a nap. Hopefully it would encourage some asshole into bursting into the room to wake him up and, if it didn’t, maybe sleeping would help clear the remaining fog from Peter’s head.

His sleep was anything but easy though. He woke up continuously as if startled and it took forever to relax enough again to doze. He had nightmares; little nebulous things that made little sense and faded the second he woke up but left his respiratory rate elevated and his heart thudding in his chest. It took time but he eventually was tired enough to sleep deep enough not to dream.

When he woke up the room was completely unchanged and Peter gulped. His mind was spiraling and taking him to dark places and it wasn’t the time to go there yet. He hadn’t even been here for that long he didn’t think. Maybe not even a full day. It wasn’t time to freak out yet.

Peter distracts himself by grabbing another water bottle and a pack of the peanut butter crackers. He eats three of them and saves the rest of the pack for later. Washes it down with a few sips of water and tries to ignore the aching and cramping in his stomach as it growls. Something is telling him to ration his food and water. He doesn’t know how long he’s going to be stuck here after all but it can’t be that much longer right? Mr. Stark will come to get him. He wouldn’t leave him here.

The ‘day’ passes slowly. Peter paces the full length of the room, he searches every nook and cranny for cameras or microphones. He tries to take apart the emergency light but its completely sealed and he doesn’t want to tamper with it and potentially leave himself in complete darkness. He counts his water bottles (one hundred forty-eight since he already drank two) and his crackers (forty-nine and a half packs) and organizes and reorganizes them. He paces some more and practices his breathing exercises.

He falls into an uneasy sleep.

“Okay time to come up with a plan,” Peter tells himself the next day. “A feasible plan.”

He comes up with nothing. He likes brainstorming but he’s always needed to write things down to properly organize anything and he has nothing to write with but blood and nothing to write on but the wall. He’s not desperate enough to do that.

Instead he does fifty push up and sit ups. It feels good to do something physical so he jogs around the room for what’s probably a few hours. He stops when he drains a full bottle of water in a second and he can’t do that. He doesn’t know how long he’s here and he has to ration and what if no one comes to get him and he’s stuck here forever and he runs out of food and water a human can only go without water for a few days and…

Peter gasps and collapses to his knees, bowing his face down to rest his forehead on the cool stone floor as the room spins from lack of oxygen and he tries to control his breathing. Four-Seven-Eight. He remembers that from his, very few, therapy appointments after Ben. Four-Seven-Eight. Four-Seven-Eight.

It’s not working.

Peter sobs brokenly and his throat feels like its closing, his vision is spinning and dimming his muscles are weak and-

He wakes up with a gasp and a cough some untold amount of time later. His head hurts from the panic attack and he lets himself cry quietly for a few minutes. He’s alone. He hates being alone.

How long has he been here?

The laugh that bubbles up from his chest is a little unhinged and that just won’t do. Peter needs to lock it down and get his shit together because he can’t just sit here and lose it because that is flat out unacceptable.

So he gets up and walks around the bare room. He does some yoga that he had been learning from Pepper and May and focuses on his breathing since breathing is important in yoga. When he’s done he does some cool down stretches and feels a lot better. More steady. He eats the other three crackers in the pack he opened up and drinks some water. He’s tired so he curls back up in the corner with his blanket and pillows his head on his arm.

He wakes up and the room is unchanged.

Again.

How long has he been here?

Peter’s stomach feels like its actually eating itself so he eats a couple crackers and indulges in half a bottle of water. It does nothing to make him more full but he pretends it does. He feels a little weak and out of it this ‘morning’ and he stumbles as he walks laps around the room. He hasn’t gone this long without a decent meal since he was bitten and its freaking him out a little.

The yoga worked yesterday. He’s going to do more of that he thinks.

His limbs are shakier than yesterday and he gets out of breath on some of the more advanced poses so he slows down and really takes the time to work through each new position and hold it before slowly transitioning to the next. He’s exhausted when he finishes and can barely do a short cool down due to his painful muscles so he just lies flat on his back for a while and breathes through it.

His head itches from the sweat he’s worked up and when he scratches at his scalp his fingernails come away with little balls of dead skin and blood under them and he crinkles his nose. He hasn’t gone this long without a proper shower in… a long time and he hates it. He wants to be clean. His hair is greasy and flat and flopping into his face.

He could use some of the water. He doesn’t have soap and its not the same as a shower but…

No. He needs to save the water. He can handle being dirty for a few more days. A week tops. He’ll be out of here soon. Maybe he should take a nap to pass the time? He is kinda sleepy from his workout, a nap would be nice.

When he wakes up again he doesn’t bother moving. He’s really tired and its not like he has anywhere to be so what’s the point?

He closes his eyes again.

He’s only eaten two full packs of crackers since he got here so Peter decides to gorge himself and eat a full pack of six and drink a full bottle of water. His throat is dry and his tongue is sticky and tacky in his mouth from dehydration so the food and water are like nectar and ambrosia to him. But…

He had more water right?

Peter counts the bottles and comes up two short. That’s impossible, he’s alone and he didn’t drink two extra bottles so where did they go? His breath is coming out in hasty pumps as he panics and counts again. No! He’s missing three bottles! How is this happening?

Peter stumbles up and goes to the door. Someone has to have come in while he was asleep and taken the water so that means the door was opened. He scrabbles at the edges, tearing his nails to shreds and smearing blood everywhere as he tears at the hinges to try to get it opened. It has to open!

His breath is coming too fast and his lungs are burning and his eyes are burning and he’s choking and falling to the floor and-

He wakes up curled in a ball by the door feeling out of it but more in control. He drags himself back to his pile of water bottles and, very carefully, counts them again.

And once more.

He isn’t missing any after all, he just didn’t count correctly. Peter wants to laugh. Peter wants to cry. He does neither. His muscles are tight and on the verge of cramping so he does some light stretches to try to work everything out. It helps a little but he feels too tired and out of it to do laps around the room or yoga and he’s afraid to meditate so he curls back up in the corner again. He’s hungry but he doesn’t dare eat anymore crackers since he had a full pack already today.

Or was it yesterday?

He decides it doesn’t matter – he can’t eat them right now. What he can do is sleep so he does.

His dream is about May. About sitting in the kitchen and listening to classic rock and pretending to do his homework but really gossiping about his classmates and her about her coworkers while she burns pork chops in the oven. They laugh while they fan the smoke away from the blaring fire alarm and out the open window and pull out a take out menu at random from the drawer. They aren’t picky eaters and they’re curled up on the couch watching Stranger Things with tacos. May jumps and launches her taco toward the ceiling and they spend the rest of the night cleaning avocado off the popcorn ceiling.

He wakes up with silent tears leaking down his face and a feeling of desolation eating up his insides. It feels like his heart is clenching and like his chest is closing in painfully and his stomach doesn’t ache from hunger for once but feels like a tightly clenched back hole instead. Peter doesn’t bother wiping his face, just turns over to face the wall and curls up even tighter. It’s too hard to move.

It’s a few days later that his legs start cramping whenever he moves them too suddenly and he feels like screaming from the resisting burning pain. He isn’t really hungry anymore but he forces down a couple of crackers everyday and tries to drink at least half a bottle of water. He’s losing weight as his metabolism eats at his minimal fat stores before starting on his muscles and he panics again when he notices his stomach is starting to become concave.

How long has he been here?

Peter supposes it makes sense though. Why would Mr. Stark come for him now? After what he did? His mentor may be the very definition of a helicopter parent but he wasn’t strict and if Peter would have just listened to him… but now he’s alone.

Peter sniffs loudly. He’s cried a few times since he’s been here but he hasn’t let himself break down. He’s tried to keep it together but is it really worth it? He’s alone. No one’s coming for him.

He’s going to die here. Alone.

He sobs. He wants to cry but the tears won’t come so all that’s left are painful, hitching breaths and horrible whining sounds. He doesn’t think he even sounds human anymore and maybe he isn’t. He doesn’t feel human.

He doesn’t make the effort to eat or drink that day and the next time he wakes up he’s too weak to even crawl over to the pile of water bottles and crackers. He decides that it’s a good thing. He can feel himself losing it, can feel himself falling apart and at least this way he’ll go quicker. He can’t stand this. He can’t stand being alone. He wants May. He wants Ned and MJ. He wants Mr. Stark. He doesn’t want to die and he really doesn’t want to die alone.

This isn’t fair.

It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair it isn’t fair it isn’t fair it isn’t-

He didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye. He hadn’t seen May in two days before he was taken due to her schedule and now he’d never see her again. He was the last of her family and he was being selfish and leaving her alone. He’d already taken away he husband and now look at him? He breaks everything he touches.

He’s tired. He’s so tired. Peter lets his eyes close. He’s just going to nap.

“Kiddo? Rhodey he’s not responding he looks… fuck Rhodey clear me a path I’ve got to get him out of here! Peter, its me kid. You’re okay I’m going to take care of everything now so you just relax alright? Rhodes I swear to god if you don’t handle it.”

Peter frowns in his delirium. That voice sounds like Mr. Stark but that’s impossible. Peter’s dead. He was dying. He gave up right?

“I’ve got you buddy you’re going to be just fine,” the voice says again and it sounds a little robotic – just like Mr. Stark does in the Iron Man armor actually. He feels like he’s floating. “You’re aunt and I have been worried sick Petey, you didn’t even send a postcard!” The voice is trying to be humorous but is falling flat. It’s nice though. It’s been a long time since Peter has heard anything but his own thoughts.

“Just a quick little flight Webs,” he’s told, the ground rocking under him. It almost feels like being carried and it warms him just a little. His brain has been sabotaging him at every turn but at least its making his death peaceful.

“No no buddy,” the voice sounds a little frantic but its like listening through a pool of water. “Stay with me Peter, you’re going to be okay just stay with me.”

He hates disappointing the voice but he’s tired.

So tired.

Peter drifts.

https://www.change.org/p/marvel-please-undo-one-more-day

Please sign the petition at the link provided below if you’d like to see Marvel Comics bring the marriage of Peter and Mary Jane Watson-Parker back permanently into continuity in the monthly Spider-Man comics and have their marriage return for the 900th issue of “The Amazing Spider-Man” comic book.

https://www.change.org/p/hasbro-retro-doc-ock-figure-please

Please sign the petition at the link provided above if you’d like to see Hasbro make an all-new “Marvel Legends” Retro Spider-Man action figure of Doctor Octopus in his classic green-and-orange costume with all-new bendable wire tentacles accessories included.

this took way too long, my hands are begging me to stop doing art

on an unrelated note, gonna go back to drawing now :)

Lunchtime

Ms. Marvel: Beyond The Limit #1

Black Cat #10

Black Widow #11

head over heels