Author's Note: This started with two prompts that I combined into one. The individual parts are being posted as they are written over on tumblr if you'd like to follow. For this chapter here, I combined parts 1 and 2 to share all of Gordon's adventure. Warning for whump and TW for spiders. I have bolded the first two words that start the spider section, and the last two words that end it, so you can skip it if you want to. Blanket warning for my - I mean Gordon's - potty mouth (I edited most of them out, I promise)
Less than a minute.
Gordon could work miracles in less than a minute. In 51.2 seconds, he went from Gordon Tracy, son of the late Jefferson Tracy, to Gordon Tracy, Olympic Gold Medalist representing the United States of America. He'd let the muscular pull, push, recovery rhythm of the butterfly stroke propel him past world records.
But of course he never really had to think about how to move through water.
Focus.
He had shackles to pick.
"You're running out of time, Gordon Tracy."
Damn it all.
Now the Hood was just being rude. It was Virgil's face and voice that taunted him– though it really wasn't his voice because Virgil could never speak to Gordon with a tone so laced with malice. Ire, sure. Hatred and malevolence, no way in hell.
Gordon would tear the Hood apart for stealing his brother's voice, starting with a solid right hook in his snickering mug once he got out this.
Arms crossed, the Hood had a timer in one hand and an unrecognizable gun in the other. Though Gordon knew guns, he couldn't recognize this one from the quick glance he'd spared. He'd had no time to look.
35 seconds.
He could do this. In that amount of time he'd saved an electrified Thunderbird 2 from a free fall by redocking his pod in the plummeting behemoth and connecting their computer systems to regain control. He hadn't needed time to think, just react – his brother's life was dependent on Thunderbird 2's survival.
His brother whose voice was stolen by a madman.
"My, my, didn't my niece teach you better than that?"
Leave Kayo out of this, you stupid, greedy, motherf - His survival thus far had been a little bit Kayo, a little bit Parker, and a whole lot of Brains. Parker for the lock picking knowledge, Kayo for the speed and survival tactics, Brains for the lock pick built into the bottom of his boots.
And sure, maybe a little bit of his own survival training helped.
A minute to remove the shackles in exchange for freedom. 60 seconds. Gordon could save lives in 60 seconds. He can, and will, save his own.
15 seconds left.
"Tick tock."
His hands fumbled with the small pick between his fingers and the awkward angle of a lock he couldn't even see, only feel.
8
7
6
Click!
The shackles came free and fell to the ground with a clatter. Gordon panted, his heart pounding in his chest.
"Very good. Perhaps, you have some worth to me after all."
"But-"
"Oh, I was never going to let you go, Gordon Tracy. But thank you for the…" Virgil-that's-not-really-Virgil waved a hand towards Gordon's shoes. "Demonstration."
Rage welled up inside him.
It was Virgil's face, sure, but Gordon had punched Virgil before. Hell, Virgil had punched him before. And the man in front of him wasn't really Virgil anyway. So, Gordon launched himself at the Hood, preparing to attack.
In his anger, he'd forgotten about the gun. He wouldn't have entered a gunfight with his fists if he remembered. Taking out your opponent 101. His WASP superior officers would have been sorely disappointed in him.
Sans his standard yellow baldric (because the Hood had taken that from him too), Gordon gasped at the sudden impact that hit his chest. Even though the projectile's force wasn't enough to drive him back, the gun, intended for mid-range, packed a hell of a punch, and there was a terrifying moment when Gordon looked down at his body and expected to see blood. Instead, the dart protruding from his left pectoral carried a blue liquid, an injection of something. He didn't know what, and somehow, that thought was even less comforting.
The swift lethargy that flowed through his muscles slowed him as the drug hit.
Gordon crumpled to the dirty cement floor as Virgil cackled in his ear, and all went black.
Gordon's love of the sea came first from the fact that the sea was so different from the plains of Kansas, secondly that it was a part of the Earth itself he loved so much. and thirdly – and most importantly– because the first time he stepped into the rushing waves of the ocean it had been like finally learning to breathe.
Gordon had learned to appreciate all of Earth's life at a young age. He was never a rescue scout like Scott, as there was a bit too much focus on badgework for his tastes, but his youth was spent making mud pies, watching bird's nests, and observing caterpillar chrysalises all the same.
The summer Gordon was six, Scotty had taken him out to the barn late at night and showed him how to make a lantern of fireflies. Their adventure pack (really Scott's school bag, repurposed) held a flashlight, mason jars, a couple pieces of mesh to put overtop the glass, and two bug nets.
No brothers were allowed – this was for him and Scotty only.
He'd abandoned the bug net for his hands pretty quickly, and within a few minutes, he'd managed to catch five or so for his lightning bug lantern. Of course, Scott had managed to catch more because he was older and also because he'd shared this memory with all his brothers and this was only Gordon's first time.
It had been so pretty, the fireflies dancing in the mason jar, their lights slowly dimming and brightening in a mellow cadence that soothed his soul. But then, he realized their little bodies, which were used to flying around in the expanse of the sky, were suddenly confined to the glass container of the jar. And he saw not beauty but pain.
It was a lovely, bittersweet memory he kept close to his heart because it represented a key moment of his youth: first growing up with Scott as an older brother and also the first time he'd felt a creature's cry reach him. It was the same wail he felt when he read about oil spills off the coast of Alaska and illegal fishing nets that should not still be in use, and, god, the absolute trash humanity left in the oceans for poor sea turtles to choke over.
Scott hadn't understood where the tears came from suddenly, but Gordon remembered his brother kneeling in front of him so their eyesight was level, and he recalled him asking what happened and what Gordon needed, completely uncaring that his jeans were getting dirty in the fertilized soil. And the best thing about Scott was that he was the type of older brother that didn't laugh or ignore him when Gordon said "they want out" through blubbering tears. He just helped Gordon release their fireflies back into the night, and instead they spent their evening counting their happy flickering until the numbers lulled Gordon to sleep.
The memory faded; the fireflies behind his eyes converged to a fragment on the other side of his lids, and a piercing white struck his brain with each blink as he awoke.
His feet were cold. The Hood had stolen his boots. Of freaking course. His next realization was that the rest of him was not as cold as his feet. In fact, that light coming in through the window was making his face and neck feel quite flushed.
It was the light that told him he was somewhere new. Previously the Hood had kept him locked in the darkness in his cell.
He groaned, shifting to sit up and look around his new abode, which was compact and with no angles to define the walls. But it was all glass, and so the window he thought was present was actually the room itself. And the floor he realized, feeling the material against the pads of his feet as he stood, was also glass.
His investigation was short lived, and Gordon hissed as the attempt to put weight on his left foot shot a laser of pain up through his ankle.
God, the Hood must have really thrown him in here, he thought.
He looked up.
No, not thrown. Dropped.
The ceiling of the room was not a ceiling at all, but the top of a bottle where the glass curved inward and then continued upward.
It was not quite what he imagined…. being the test subject of a madman. Maybe a tube or a cage or the cell where he was before would make sense, but a human-sized glass bottle? He felt like one of the fireflies he was just dreaming of, and of course, the Hood had to steal that memory too, in addition to his baldric, his boots, and his brother's face.
As Gordon squinted to peer past the glass, the light that had been penetrating his new home suddenly darkened with a singular brown eye filling the expanse of the vessel, disorienting the shape so that the pupil was huge and the iris round, and the rest was…well, still huge just not as much so.
Fire raced through his ankle as he backed up two steps, stumbling into the back of the bottle.
"Gordon?" The eye said in a deep rumble.
The hell? He knew that voice.
"Fuse?"
"Shit, man, you're tiny."
His instinct was to look at his hands, but of course, they were the same from his perspective, though perhaps a bit grimier than they were before he was captured, tossed in a cell, and then forced to pick his way out of his shackles for no reason other than the Hood's demented sense of pleasure.
The eye was then replaced with Fuse's hand as he picked up the bottle to clasp it by the neck and pull it off of what was clearly a high shelf, with Gordon still inside.
Everything was not okay.
He was not okay.
It was never a human-sized bottle, and as his world shifted with Fuse raising the glass, Gordon realized he was lucky if he was half a foot tall.
Gordon pressed his hands against the smooth glass.
"What is all this, Fuse?" Gordon asked, hoping his voice carried enough to be heard, though it echoed around the small containment. "What did he do to me? Are my brothers okay?"
Gordon was not expecting much of an answer, and it was rather obvious what happened to him. But the surprise in Fuse's expression softened for a moment all the same, visible even through the distortion of the glass, and Gordon could recognize the conflict behind the silent pause.
"I shouldn't be talking to ya," Fuse said.
"Fuse. Please?"
"Mmm. They're fine. He only captured you." The bottle shook briefly under Fuse's hand as he peered through it at Gordon's hopeful expression. "Ah, shit, fine. Okay, so they're coming. The Hood's nervous – packing quickly."
"Where are we?"
Fuse shook his head. That's all Gordon was going to get. From afar, Gordon heard Havoc call her brother, and Gordon could see the momentary panic in the larger, obtrusive eye. The larger man hastily placed Gordon's bottle back on the shelf and turned to answer her, even as Gordon pled for him to wait.
"Fuse! Don't leave me here."
But the man was gone. Gordon slammed his fists against the transparent walls of the makeshift prison with a frustrated growl, even as it gave the smallest of trembles under his hands. A little to close for comfort there. In his swift exit, Fuse had placed the vessel nearer the exposed side of the shelf – shifting off balance there would be a dangerous topple.
Okay, Gordo, time to regroup.
He'd still learned a few things. First – this wasn't a main location and that explained the instability of his container if the intent was for it to be temporary. And he'd learned that his brothers were coming! That meant he wasn't going to sit around and wait for the Hood to take him away to a new base or safe house. He needed to give his brothers the best chance of finding him.
One thing at a time. First, he needed to escape.
So no toppling out; how about toppling in? Gordon turned to investigate the new space his positioning afforded him. It would at least get him onto the shelf if he could put the right amount of pressure in the right place.
He carried with him a lot of important life lessons from his brothers. This one was from John: smacking the bottom was not actually the prime spot to get the ketchup out of a Heinz 57 glass bottle. And because it annoyed his older brother, he used to keep hitting the bottom anyway, even though he knew John was right. So, he would aim for where the 57 would be. His container wasn't quite the same shape, but he could make a well-educated guess. He knew for sure that his reach was too low, so he'd need to jump.
Gordon gave his non-injured right foot a test bounce.
It wouldn't be enough. Gritting his teeth, he lowered his left foot to the floor and launched himself upward to the imaginary 57 before he could think about the pain. His body collided with the opposite side of the container, and he started to slide back to the bottom even as the vessel tipped and then fell to its side with a delicate bounce against the wooden shelf, though it did not shatter.
Dazed, his breath came in gasps and fogged the glass below him.
Keep. Moving. Gordo.
He crawled his way to the opening and out, then stood.
There was little in this room that would give away that there was a prison below and that it was a hideout for the Hood and the Chaos Crew. Overlooking the space as he was now, it appeared to be a simple, lightly decorated lounge room with a mahogany coffee table in the center and a beige reclining couch across from him.
There was an empty cup on the coffee table, so this place at least seemed lived in. Behind him the wall was brick, even though the rest of the room was painted an off-white to complement the furniture. As he glanced over the side of the shelf, he saw that the dark stone extended all the way from the floor to the ceiling. The lingering scent of dusty wood smoke around the area told him his shelf was actually a fireplace, but the part he cared about was the stone. The cut was intentionally rough and uneven to give a rustic appearance to the inside of the home. He could climb down that.
The cold of the rock permeated his fingerless gloves where he dug his nails into a groove and swung his body to the left so his feet could find purchase on the ridges.
The descent was cautious and slow going without the safety net of a rope or a grapple or a spotter at his disposal. He felt the strain in his legs, his arms, his core, even his fingers, as he descended. Virgil – and he felt a pang in his chest thinking about him laughing that awful cackle – would be having a conniption fit if he knew what Gordon was attempting, especially with his ankle throbbing as it did.
He knew his position left him vulnerable, and as he approached the last few rocks before the floor, he was already planning his next move. He needed a rope – if he could get to the couch there was a blanket he could pull a thread from and repurpose. He also needed to hide. It depended on how close his brothers were.
Resources first? Hide first?
He never had the opportunity to decide.
"They're here! Move!"
With an angry shuffle of feet, the floor vibrated, and though the stone held firm in Gordon's capable hands, the shelf above him did not. The container, which he had so precisely calculated how to topple, finished its roll as it tumbled off the shelf into a free fall above him. Time moved quickly and ever so slowly all at once, Gordon's terrified eyes wide as he followed its plunge toward the ground. And he couldn't escape it, couldn't move, couldn't watch –
It shattered.
It landed beside him – too close - with a shower of glass that hurled shiny, translucent daggers into his hair as he ducked his face into the space between his arm and his chest in attempt to protect himself. But the accompanying sound of breaking glass hitting hardwood reverberated in a devastating banshee scream that consumed his body, and he fell stunned, his head spinning, his ears ringing, the soundwaves crippling him even as they coursed through him and carried his own screech aloft.
"Nice try." Female. Havoc. He felt her grab him by his waist between her fingertips and raise him up. He blinked blearily at the blood that ran down his wrist, lacking the energy to fight or even look up at Havoc and Fuse at all.
"Is he ok?"
"Does it matter?" She fumbled to unlatch a box at her side. "We need to go."
His vision started to clear enough for him to realize he was headed back into the darkness, and sure enough, the light disappeared once again with a definitive click of the latch somewhere above him.
The Earth deserved to be loved, appreciated, and respected – she gave live, she could take it away. But to be honest, the Universe was trying to kill him today. He was not sure what he did to upset her so much. After surviving in a cell for who knows how long, escaping the height of a fireplace, and then somehow managing to dodge an incursion of broken glass shards with only a few scratches up his arm, he knew he was either incredibly unlucky or quite lucky indeed (depending on how you spun it).
But this was getting ridiculous.
Spiders were not in his preferred field of study, but he knew enough to recognize the giant wolf spider, family Lycosoeidea, that shared his current space. It was the eye structure that gave it away. Two large black orbs dominated the hairy brown face, with four smaller eyes in a row below. Though he could only see a sliver of them from this angle below the creature, he knew there were two more medium-sized eyes above the main ones. Eight in total over three rows.
In any other situation, Gordon would have carefully captured her in a cup and taken her outside to feast on the pests there. Though wolf spiders would generally only bite humans when provoked, their venom could still be quite painful, and cause swelling and irritation. These, however, were not normal circumstances.
Here she was dangerous; half his size, but still giant. She was as much as prisoner as he was, and who knows how long she'd been in here without food. And worse, unlike their other arachnid cousins who relied on vibrations and movement to see, wolf spiders with their eight eyes could see quite well.
Hers were locked hungrily on him. At the bottom of her elongated jaw, two fangs pointed inward, poised to strike into Gordon's sides. He had no human size to counter her venom; a bite would be his death.
He'd had enough of that already. And this time he had resources.
When Havoc released him into the box, he'd hit the contents of it hard, and everything was unsteady enough to jostle as she moved. Feeling around, a light was the first thing he found, small enough for him to hold in his arms and attached to a ring of a keychain. He was able to hit the power button with the palm of his hand. It would've been his thumb if he was the right size.
Next there was a pair of snips, which was about the same size as himself but clearly intended for delicate cutting based on the proportions of the dangerous edges and the grip.
A small, thin sewing pin there was as well, and a spool of wire. This was a portable diffuser kit for explosives, he realized.
Then, drawn by the light, came the eyes.
In the time it took for him to take stock of the tools around him, the world around them lurched again. He landed on his backside, and the spider was tossed to the other side of the kit. The movement gave him the extra seconds he needed to scramble for the sewing pin and to raise it upward like a rapier just in time to pierce the spider's cephalothorax as she came down with a cry.
God, he felt that.
He shimmied out from under the creature with a wheeze, the world around him still sliding back and forth with Havoc's run.
His heartrate settled, and he lugged the keychain light into his lap where he could easily reach the power button with his hands and started flickering morse code into the container walls, not even sure if the light would reach around the edges of the box.
Gordon had started by counting, but after a while all thought became the sporadic shifting of his dark world and the distorted CPR of his hands hitting the button, and he realized he had no idea how much time had passed since he was thrown into the box. Surely, they were long gone from the safe house by now.
Click Click Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click Click Click.
The world shifted.
Click Click Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click Click Click.
It shifted again.
Click Click Click.
Cli…
The world toppled, hurling him against firm metal as it spun away from the echo of Havoc's groan.
He ducked his head between his knees, bracing for a crash landing that never came, though he felt the connection of the box landing in a new set of hands.
"What's so important in here, I wonder?" He heard a voice say.
A voice that prompted all the adrenaline in his veins to dissipate in an instant, the voice of the clouds in the sky. Brother. Protection. Light flooded his chamber, and Gordon, covered in blood and ichor, wearily looked up at his much larger, cleaner, human-sized brother.
He stood up with a groan and brandished the sewing pin like a sword before sliding it to his side where he'd wrangled a piece of write into a makeshift belt.
"Gord -?!"
"Hi, Scott."
End Note: So this prompt was: running out of time, and in a box with Scott and Gordon. In an effort to think outside the box for in a box my brain went pocket!Gordon, so I went angsty Arrietty/the Borrowers vibes. So that's what we are in for going to next chapters. Thank you so much for reading! And if you had to skip the spider, I am so sorry - I asked by husband what I absolutely had to include based on this concept, and she was his answer. It's where the story actually started, so I felt I needed to keep her. Plus. if you haven't noticed, I write a good bit of Science!Gordon. He's a natural world enthusiast, so it felt right to keep it. The clicks are also SOS, by the way.