Seven days. Seven days is all it took Peter to figure out a way out. The only problem was that it involved making a deal with the devil. During one of his Sessions in the Room, Art walked in to speak with him, to see if he could finally break the seemingly unbreakable. Sure, the Artist knew that the Spider-kid was already broken, but he had yet to cave and it was fascinating. So there hung Peter, dangling from the ceiling by thick chains and cuffs, toes hovering above the cement floor, head hanging limply against his chest. Art wandered up to him and cleared his throat.

"Hello Peter, how are you today?" No response. Art tried again.

"Did you enjoy meeting Tony Stark yet again? Interesting to find out that he gave up looking for you wasn't it. It's almost as though he doesn't care about you." A slight twitch and bob of the kid's head. There it is.

"Not feeling awfully chatty today are we. Well, that's alright," the man sighed softly, pursing his lips before pulling out a small device and holding it out. Peter lifted his head slightly, just enough to look the man in the eyes and see the silver device. "This here is basically a tape recorder, just jazzed up by yours truly. I thought that you might want to hear what was on it."

The tape played and Peter shrank in on himself, letting his chin drop to his chest once again, rattling the chains above. Even though the tape had all but three sentences on it, it still hurt him. Peter knew that it wasn't true, deep down he knew that Tony would never say that he didn't care about him, that he purposefully gave up, that he barely tried, and wasn't worth the effort, but it was harsh hearing it said aloud. Peter clenched his jaw and smothered the voice telling him it was all true and brought forth his tech brain. Each little discrepancy he heard, every piece that seemed slightly off, gave Peter the knowledge that this tape was spliced together. It was well done, and without his super hearing, he never would have heard the tiniest inflections that didn't quite fit together. There were words in between, before, and after that Peter wasn't allowed to hear. Smirking to himself, Peter let himself appear dejected and broken.

Art smiled the widest he had as he watched the boy's face literally fall when he heard what his supposed mentor had said. He was afraid that maybe he had pushed the boy beyond the breaking point, passed his walls, and started building him up again. It appears that this tape shattered everything the boy had created again. Any hope he had built up was dashed by a few words from an old colleague.

"Are you alright Peter," the man spoke softly, trying to create the appearance that he truly cared for the boy. He wanted Peter to trust him, but he wanted to break him more. Peter shook his head softly, brown locks limply shifting with the motion. "I'm going to lower you down, is that alright?" A gentle nod and Art brought the kid down slowly. He was so close so no matter how much he wanted to drop the child to the cold floor, he couldn't.

As soon as Peter's feet hit the ground and the chain slackened, he collapsed to his knees, and once the chain was as loose as possible, he coughed violently and collapsed to the side, his shoulders a mess of pain. It was getting harder and harder to breathe the longer he was dangling, and his shoulders were slowly being pulled from their sockets with the strain. Sure he was light, but all that weight on his shoulders, at an awkward angle nonetheless, was bound to injure him. He just hoped they would heal.

Peter flinched as the man touched his arm lightly, jerking away from the man in true fear. If he got out of here, Peter wasn't sure if he'd ever be okay with being touched again. He loved touch, but now, after over a month of constant torture and pain at the hands of people, he wasn't sure if he could handle that anymore. Slowly, Art helped the boy into a sitting position and Peter forced himself to relax into the man's grip. He knew that the only way out was to make Art trust that he trusted him, as confusing as that sounds. Art wanted Peter on his side, he wanted Peter to trust him, so Peter needed Art to think exactly that. This way, he could figure out exactly what was happening with everyone and find out how to fix it.

So Peter forced himself to pretend this man was comforting, and even with every fiber of his being yelling and screaming at him to sprint away as fast as he could, he made himself remain hugged against the man who had put him through hell over the past many weeks; the Devil.

It took forever, but finally Art got the boy to his feet and led him, on unsteady legs, out of the Room and towards his office. Sitting the boy in a chair, Art sat across from him behind his desk and stared at the tiny, broken boy. There was a slight twinge of something that crossed his heart, but he dismissed it as heartburn and moved on.

"Peter, I know this is going to be tough for you, but I need you to tell me what you can about each of the Avengers."

"I thought you knew everything," Peter replied, making his voice sound as small and pathetic as possible while refusing to make eye contact.

"We do," the man chuckled. "But I'd like to hear your version of everything you know about them." So Peter told the man everything that wasn't going to harm anyone. He left out things that could cause harm, and added in details that were unnecessary. He talked about Tony's habit of figuring out equations in his sleep, but forgetting them when he'd wake up. The thing was, he didn't know a whole lot about the other Avengers, so he went off of what he'd heard and what he'd seen. There wasn't much to tell, so the conversation wasn't too long.

"Would you like to see Tony," Art asked as Peter's rambles trailed off. The boy's head gave a slightly bob to indicate a yes, and Art ushered the boy up from the seat and led him to the lab where Stark was being held. The door hissed open and Tony stopped his fiddling to glance up, jaw hitting the floor when he saw a defeated looking Peter standing behind the Devil.

"Peter?"