Natural Selection

Wherever they were, the only people who could possibly hear Natasha were Peter and their captors, listening as Natasha drowned and gagged from the waterboarding torture they were enacting on her. Peter sat alone in the empty gray confined prison, still chained up to his chair while he listened to her being tortured in another room. His powers were still disabled. That still didn't stop him from trying.

He pulled at the chains with all the strength he had left in his body, but to no avail. All he was doing was hurting himself even more, leaving crimson red marks on his wrists. Once more he let in a deep breath and tried again, straining intensely, grunting in pain, gnashing his teeth together, attempt after attempt. It amazed him how he got himself in this situation. Of all the places he'd rather be, kidnapped by psychopaths never crossed his mind. It was like a bad dream.

Then he looked up and saw that he wasn't alone after all. He wasn't too thrilled to see her again.

"Peter," Gwen spoke to him, her voice so soothing.

"Get me out of here, Gwen," Peter said, exhausted. "Please get me out of here."

But Gwen just stood there, looking at him with neither pity nor apathy. Her face had no recognizable expression. She was blank. Peter didn't understand. He didn't understand why she wasn't doing anything. She just stood and watched him.

"Gwen, please get me out of here," he pleaded again. "I can't free myself. They took my power away . . . they took all of it. I can't do it."

"I can't do it," she monotonously repeated, with no emotion whatsoever.

Peter was puzzled by her presence. She was there to do nothing for him. Nothing at all. It's as though she was only there to taunt him. He expected her to laugh in his face even.

"Gwen, why aren't you helping me?" he begged. "Gwen?"

And with that, Gwen began to fade away, and Peter's vision began to blur. He blinked uncontrollably until he could focus better, and when he did, she was nowhere in sight. Peter felt hopeless upon finding out he was just talking to himself. He let every muscle in his body let loose, dropping his hands chained behind the chair, and letting his head drop down. There was no use.

As though the forces of the universe didn't want him to get any sort of comfort, the door to his confined room swung open, screeching with rusty metal. Miles and two other men with him entered, armed with their handguns. They stood near the door, letting Miles approach Peter slouched in his chair. Peter didn't even bother to straighten himself up.

"You look tired," Miles spoke. "Are you?"

"Very," Peter mumbled.

"Must be from all that running you and Romanoff have doing. That's understandable. But now I need you to wake up for me."

Peter remained uncooperative. His eyes stayed glued to the ground, and his neck stayed hanging loose. Miles became impatient. He forcefully raised his head and smacked him across the face. It was all by surprise that it woke Peter up for sure and it was more painful than he would have anticipated. Peter's heartbeat escalated, and he began panting again.

"Are you awake yet?" Miles barked, looking meaner than the last time.

With no better options, Peter turned his head and looked him in the eye this time, giving Miles assurance that he was listening.

"Good," said Miles sounding satisfied. "Now look, I don't have that much time until I have to report back to my boss about your status, but I want to make sure I do what I can to have you already in good terms with HYDRA's fundamentals."

"You want to train me like a pet?" Peter said, somehow managing to slide in whatever humor was left in him.

Miles actually chuckled. "That would certainly be the nicer way to do this, now wouldn't it? However, HYDRA has different means of . . . conditioning."

The word conditioning never sounded worse than now. Miles reached for his utility belt, Peter expecting him to go for the gun in his holster. Instead he pulled out something not as lethal, but just as intimidating. From what Peter could guess, it appeared to be a taser rod.

"Now tell me…" Miles began. "Is your name Peter Parker?"

Thrown off by the question, Peter naturally hesitated before giving an answer. He didn't know what the catch was.

"Yes?" he answered half-assuredly.

Surprised by Miles' next choice, Peter barely anticipated him striking Peter directly on his leg. Going from nervous at one point to having jolts of electricity surge throughout his body; the young adult had no clue how to deal with it. All he knew how to do was scream.

Miles only held the rod for about three seconds before withdrawing it from Peter's leg. It felt way longer than that for Peter. Though it wasn't the first time he experienced the intensity of voltage beforehand, it was different this time because he had absolutely no control.

"Are you sure?" Miles asked.

Once again, Peter was intrigued by the question. But he simply answered the same as before.

"Yes," he said a lot more stern this time.

To no avail, Miles proceeded to torment him with the taser rod, striking him in the same place, following with Peter's helpless wailing, breaking him more and more. Peter's defensive shell was being wiped away after each shock, putting into a sense of utter helplessness, much to the point to where he let out a painful 'ow', as though he were a child being punished.

Her captors pulled her back up as the spy choked violently yet again. They showed no mercy whatsoever, but pain wasn't going to be enough to break her. The HYDRA agents gave her a moment, and then one of them asked her again, "Where are Coulson and his team hiding?"

Natasha gave her smartass reply. "Do you know what the definition of insanity is? You've done this at least 50 times already."

Heated from her smart aleck response, the agent struck her across the face. The spy let out a grunt from the blow, but nevertheless soaked it all in like the rest of the bruises across her face.

"Okay, apparently not," Natasha muttered.

"Strucker won't be pleased with your defiance," the agent remarked.

"Defiance? Defiance from what? I never swore an oath to world totalitarianism. And besides, I know you're just going to kill me once I do tell you where they are."

"Who knows, you might just get a brighter side of the bargain."

Natasha shook her head, unimpressed. "This isn't a bargain. This is insanity."

The agent struck her again. At this point she was getting used to that. The HYDRA agent was fed up.

"You two watch her closely. Chain her back to the chair," he ordered to the other men in the room, to which they rightly complied. "The bitch doesn't want to talk, he'll make her talk."

After the man stormed out of the dully-lit room, Natasha sat in silence with the two men at her sides. Both of them were armed with handguns at their holsters, which one of them pulled out and pointed directly at her temple, an obvious bluff just to intimidate her.

"You move a single muscle and I'll blow your brains out," the man spoke sternly.

Natasha shifted her eyes in the upper corner of her head to look at the man. So typical, she thought. The spy shifted her eyes about the room, studying and scanning for any sort of plan for escape. For her, it was always best to be five steps ahead so that her moves could be clean-cut. There could be no mistake whatsoever. She had to not only plan how to take out the two men guarding her, but also how she would escape this room safely, and then how to travel across the hallways without being spotted and shot down immediately. It probably took her about a good 30 seconds or so, but she figured it out. She played the entire scenario in her head way faster than how long it would really take.

Instead of doing the usual where she would throw the men off guard by saying something completely off topic, she decided to screw it and get it over. Shifting her eyes once more to the man holding her at gunpoint, she impressively, with the grace of a ballerina and ferocity of a warrior, shifted her head out of the projector of the muzzle, then head-butted him in his ribcage, while proceeding to use enough force to flip her, and the chair with her, completely onto him. The force and momentum of the flip not only tackled the man onto the ground, but also made Natasha manage to land on him entirely, letting the legs of the chair jab onto the captor. With all of this happening in a matter of two seconds, Natasha never lost sight of the gun that the man also had fixed on her before. However, the other guy was going to shoot at any moment now from his reaction to it all occurring before him. As quickly as she could, lying on her side with the chair on top of the man, her back to her other captor, Natasha used the little leverage that she had to grab the gun from behind while trying to peer her head over to get a better look, though not really helping much. Just as she grabbed it, she fired immediately.

The other captor, almost ready to fire before her, got a bullet stuck right in his chest, making him drop his gun right next to him, and sending him onto the hard ground. It actually worked. She though it through a step at a time and it turned out just fine. Now the easy part was out of the way and it was time for the hard part. The chains. She still had to break from the chains. Fortunately, she thought this part through as well, as difficult as it was to be. Natasha, still holding the gun in her hand, nearly dropping it from its recoil after firing it, did the best she could with her hands to maneuver the pistol in the direction of the chains. Through all of this, her heartbeat began escalating from nervousness, as she had no clue as to whether or not anyone else outside the room heard the gunshot go off. Either way it didn't matter since she would have to use it again once more. Once she got the muzzle to touch with the line of chain restraining her arms and hands to the chair, she then began to adjust her torso to where the trajectory of the bullet wouldn't hit her. Bending over down to her knees, straining while she did so, it was not a comfortable position to be in. She then pulled her finger against the trigger, sending yet another loud noise within the room. The silver chains parted instantly.

Finally free from that tight situation, Natasha let out a breath of exhaustion, and then quickly snapped out of it and proceeded to steal the other gun from the man in which she just shot down. Realizing that the other one with the chair lying over him was still conscious, but barely, Natasha walked his way, clutching the gun in her right hand. With no intention of showing any sort of mercy, she crouched down to his level and brutally pistol-whipped him once onto his face, putting him to sleep, and leaving a bloody broken nose. She then also took his gun as well, and then continued her escape plan. Next she had to find Peter.

"Tell me, who are you again?" Miles asked Peter again, who was fighting his tears.

"Why are you doing this to me?" said Peter, begging for any sort of mercy that Miles possibly had left in him.

"That's not what I asked you," Miles responded, impassively.

Once again, he jabbed the taser rod into his other leg, resulting in Peter screaming again at the top of his lungs. After screaming so many times his vocal chords were nearly worn out. His face was beaming red.

"You are Peter Parker, Weapon of HYDRA," Miles repeated yet again.

His attempts at brainwashing Peter were failing, but causing great pain. By far, this was the worst thing Peter's faced in his life. This was by far the worst enemy he has ever come to meet. HYDRA.

Succumbing to his suffering, and losing nearly all hope, tears began to flood down Peter's face. He stopped screaming, and began quietly sobbing to himself, almost forgetting about Miles and the other agents witnessing it all.

"I'm disappointed," Miles coldly remarked. "I have the job of brainwashing a kid off the streets of Brooklyn and he's just as stubborn as her." He looked over to his fellow comrades in the same room, to which they remained stiff and impassive. "She really must have been teaching him."

Once Miles felt he had done what he could, he and the others left Peter alone yet again. Peter's body felt numb and beat. There were bruises and bloody scars across his face. Throughout the entire thing he had tried to be strong, seem brave and unbreakable. But Peter Parker was truly as breakable as a kid on the streets. Even still, he didn't actually grow up on the streets. The streets were rougher. But this was one an entirely different level. Nothing else could have prepared him for it.

As though there were nothing else he felt he could do, Peter kept trying to pull at his chains, despite knowing he would fail. And once he failed again, he jerked violently at them, expecting some sort of leeway this time around. He then shook about uncontrollably from rage, leaning the chair from side to side, shifting it about, and even lifting it off the ground at one point, but there was hardly enough energy left in him to try anything smart with that. He surrendered. Tears started rolling yet again. What felt worse was that there was no way to wipe them off his face. He had to feel as they slowly tickled his cheeks and slipped onto the floor. He had to face his own vulnerability head-on. Peter Parker wasn't able to handle all of this suffering. Only Spider-Man could.