Peter hummed tunelessly to himself, legs swaying back and forth over the edge of the building, as he read his text book, listening for any signs of distress. It had been a quiet week though, and the cops didn't seem to need any help. Not his brand of help, at any rate. They were mostly working on investigating right now, which Peter didn't help with.

No, what Peter concentrated on was active crime. The stuff that he could stop while it was happening. The type of stuff that didn't take too much of his time away from school work or friends, or spending time with Aunt May. He'd like to pretend that that had been his idea, but it wasn't. Not really. The decision was actually one born of a very long conversation that had followed the screaming match that Aunt May had on the phone with Mr. Stark, and the subsequent dressing down of his poor decision making skills when Mr. Stark had let slip that Peter had had a building dropped on him, which she hadn't known about, because it hadn't been on the news.

As a result, he wasn't actually allowed to follow through on any of the bigger stuff that he stumbled across, and was to report directly to Mr. Stark with anything that he thought might be on the same scale as the Vulture, or anything that might require in-depth investigating. It irked him, but he understood the reasoning behind it. He also rather enjoyed the weekend access to Stark labs that had come after the dressing down that May had given Mr. Stark the next time that he had visited the apartment.

He'd been sat here for a while, nothing happening, and his light was starting to fade, so he gathered his stuff into his backpack, ready to head home, when he heard the faint sound of gunshots. Unlike the rest of the gunshots that he'd heard that evening, it was not followed by the sound of sirens, and Peter webbed his bag to the roof before taking off in the direction that they were coming from. He arrived fairly quickly, as it was pretty much just down the street from where he'd been perched, and almost kicked himself when he read the words 'Shooting Range' emblazoned across the front of the building.

He turned to head back to where he'd left his stuff when he thought he heard a scream. He froze for a moment, listening, and when nothing followed besides the sound of relieved laughter and some excited voices, too muffled to make out anything else, he shrugged it off and swung away. Might as well go home and get some sleep. Tomorrow was a lab day, and he wanted to play around with his web fluid, which was easier on an active mind.

For whatever reason, he couldn't seem to forget that scream that he thought he heard, though he tried to put it out of his head as he drifted to sleep.


When Danny blinked himself awake, his side throbbing in pain and a heavy weight at his throat, his arms wrenched behind his back, he almost expected to see white walls. Instead, he was met with the sound of dripping water, and a stereotypical movie villain type cell. Stone, or maybe concrete, made up three of the four walls. The last was a grid of iron bars, with a door set in the middle. However the wall opposite the bars, the one at his back, did not have a window. Neither did any of the others, which made the cell dark, as the only light source seemed to be a flickering fluorescent in the hallway.

The cell opposite him was empty, and he was in too much pain to drag himself to see if there was any more cells, and, if there were, if there was anyone in them. Instead, throat sore and voice cracking, he called out. "Hello?" he paused a moment to see if there was a response, and when none came, he continued. "Is anyone there?"

He moved to sit up at the continued silence, and struggled when he found that the pain in his shoulders was because his hands were cuffed behind his back. He immediately went to phase out of it, thinking that these people would have no idea how to subdue a ghost, and was shocked when he found that it didn't work. In fact, now that he'd noticed it, he couldn't feel the comforting chill of his core, either. Just like when Vlad had shot him with the plasmius maximus, minus the electrifying pain.

He struggled for several minutes, pain and panic flooding his body and constricting his chest, making it difficult to breathe. When he stopped struggling, and focused on getting his breathing back, he heard footsteps echoing down the hall, from a distance, and getting closer. If he was any judge, there were multiple, but the echoing made it difficult to tell how many. He closed his eyes and focused on breathing.

Quickly, far too quickly, the steps came to a stop. In front of his cell stood the woman that he had seen earlier, a man with a creepy grin, and several other men and women in lab coats.

"Ah, you're awake," the woman said, in that smooth voice of hers that made Danny's skin crawl. The woman gestured towards Creepy Grin Man next to her. "This is Ajax. You and him will be getting very… friendly for the foreseeable future. Have fun with your new specimen, Ajax." the last was directed to Creepy Grin Man, Ajax, before she turned and left, her heels click click clicking down the hall as she went.

Danny looked at 'Ajax'. The man was eerily silent, and his piercing stare was starting to freak Danny out.

"Nice guest room you got here." Danny said nervously when the man didn't speak. "I mean, it's a little dark, and kinda cold. Also, wet. I Lied. This is a terrible guest room. Not the worst I've stayed in, mind, but you know. Two out of five stars at best." Ajaxs' face seemed to be twitching, and he wasn't smiling anymore. "Hey, did you know that 'Ajax' is a brand of dish soap? Is that your given name? Did your parents name you after soap on purpose? You know, Ajax is a stupid name. I think I'll call you Soap Man."

Soap Man's lips twisted into a sneer. "Bring him along. And someone find me a gag." Soap Man turned and followed the same path down the hall as Creepy lady had, as the other 'scientists' opened his cell and yanked him, none too gently, too his feet.

Danny hissed in pain as the movement jostled the gunshot wound… and wasn't that an odd thing to think about. When he'd thought of getting shot before he'd always supposed that it would be with ghost weaponry, he'd never even considered how much a real gun might hurt. Or that it wouldn't heal like all his wounds from ghost fighting always had. But then, he couldn't reach his core right now, and he thought that might have something to do with his lack of a healing ability at this moment.

"Hey, careful with the merchandise!" he snapped when they dragged him through the door unceremoniously. "You'll throw off all your lab results if you damage the 'specimen'!" the last word was spat out with as much anger as Danny could muster through the fear. Someone hit him in the head and he went quiet as the world spun around him, black spots dancing in his vision. He went limp and allowed them to drag him.