Peter had always hated being picked up and carried. This time was no different. But he knew that if he acted up one more time he was almost certainly signing the death warrants of his mother and sister and so he stayed still, scowling to himself as a soldier carried him through the compound in a fireman's lift. After he'd given in to Stryker he'd had his grey shirt forcibly cut from his body and ripped in half, one half was scrunched up and shoved into his mouth while the other was wrapped around his head, blindfolding him. They still hadn't removed the gag or the blindfold and Peter was growing increasingly frustrated at having no idea where he was or what time it was or what was going to happen to him. He could hear the echoing of the soldier's footsteps as they moved through the cold hallways towards wherever it was they were going. He heard the soldier swiping a key card and unlocking a door, which clicked open seconds later. He was harshly thrown to the ground, head smacking against the cold concrete. Peter groaned from behind the gag as the soldier roughly grabbed a chunk of his silver hair and pulled his head forwards. Something cold and unwelcome was fastened around his neck, but no matter how hard he tried to protest, the rough hand held him in place until the job was done.
"Don't move." The soldier growled roughly before exiting the room, pulling the door closed behind him with a clank. Peter could hear keys in the locks and sagged back against the floor with a sigh. What the fuck sort of mess had he gotten himself into now... his mum would kill him for this, if he actually survived it.
A couple of hours later, Stryker entered Peter's cell and strode over to where the boy was huddled on the floor. The kid looked like he was shaking, no, he was vibrating.
"Rise and shine Maximoff."
"Go screw yourself." Peter muttered through the gag, though all that could be heard were disgruntled muffles.
Stryker ignored his reply and stuck his hands under the kid's armpits before dragging him across the room. Peter thrashed wildly but couldn't shake Stryker's iron grip no matter what he tried, he was a blur of motion but with his hands and feet still bound, he wasn't going anywhere fast. Stryker dumped him unceremoniously on the ground and soon felt calloused hands holding his feet down, "Don't struggle." Stryker warned him with venom in his voice, he unlocked the cuffs around Peter's ankles and stowed them into his pocket before moving on to the cuffs around the kid's wrists.
Peter lay there in confusion as his limbs were freed, maybe he'd be able to make a break for it, he mused. Just then another, thicker, clunkier, heavier, set of cuffs were fastened around his wrists, though these two didn't seem to be joined together. He couldn't know for sure, however, until the blindfold was removed. He could feel the man's weight crushing down on his chest as he straddled him to keep him in place, Stryker's hand gripped Peter's jaw with bone-crushing strength and yanked out the gag. But before he could even get one word out, Stryker's other hand was covering his mouth and nose, blocking off his air supply.
"Now listen now and listen close." Stryker hissed, "You eat the food I've left for you. Then you sit there quietly until I give you further instructions. Understood?"
Peter nodded frantically, he couldn't get enough air into his lungs and was beginning to panic slightly. Okay, slightly was an understatement. He was beginning to panic a lot. Thankfully, Stryker removed his hand and roughly tore off the blindfold as he stood up. The harsh white light assaulted his eyes as it bore down on him from the fluorescent strips overhead.
"You better eat all of it. I need you at your full strength, Maximoff." Stryker ordered as he made his way to the door and pulled it open. Peter watched his movements carefully and slowly stood up.
The second the door began to open, Peter was running towards it. But this was another escape plan he really hadn't thought through. The manacles around his wrist were connected to a ring on the floor by a chain; he only managed to move two metres forwards before the chains halted him.
Stryker smirked at him and he exited the room, "Gotta try harder than that kid." He said as he pulled the door closed and locked it. He shook his head with a chuckle as he heard Peter's screams of frustration from within the locked room.
He looked around the room, rubbing the back of his head with a frown. If this was his 'cell' then it was the weirdest one he'd ever seen, that's for sure – not that he'd seen any in real life, he was too quick to be caught by the regular police. One wall was simply a large mirror and as he gazed at his reflection he could see how scrappy he already looked, his silver hair was matted with blood and dirt and his shirtless body was pale and shivering. Around his neck, in a striking contrast with his pale skin, was a leather collar. He reached a tentative hand up to it and, reaching around the back of his neck, found his fingers came into contact with a small plastic box. He reached for the buckle on the side of his neck only to find that the collar was secured with two plastic zip-ties and a small metal padlock. He'd seen these used before, but on dogs… not people. Stryker had ordered that soldier to force him into a shock collar. Peter pulled frantically at the padlock, but the fucking thing wouldn't budge. This couldn't be happening; it simply couldn't be happening. Except it was and, for once, Peter had no idea how to get out of this mess.
"No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" Peter yelled, enraged, "You prick! You sick fuck! You…" he trailed off, interrupted by a painful growl from his stomach, reminding him how hungry he really was. His eyes landed on a tray of food on the floor and as he sat down and began to eat he noticed the large treadmill reflected behind him in the mirror. Carefully, Peter stood up, burger in hand, and moved over to inspect it. The manacles he'd been shoved into upon entering the room were chained to the floor ring at the front of the machine. They wanted him to run then, Peter frowned as he finished off his first burger and started on the second. He hadn't been given nearly enough food to get his body back up to full strength. On normal days he would have to eat at least five before he was even remotely close to being at one hundred percent. Stryker didn't seem to know that though, it didn't seem like the guy had even done any research before kidnapping him.
Stryker watched the boy from behind the one-way glass, smirking to himself as the kid inspected the machine.
"Now that you've figured it out, Maximoff. Get on the machine." he said into a microphone and his voice echoed into Peter's prison.
Peter looked up, finally noticing the speakers in each of the four corners of the ceiling, "You know, I thought you were smarter than this, Dickwad. I run way faster than a normal treadmill can cope with." he said staring at the glass having just figured out it wasn't just a mirror, but one-way glass and that Stryker was on the other side watching him. Talk about stalkerish.
"And I thought you were smarter than that, Maximoff. Get on the machine and you'll see how quickly it can move."
"What if I don't want to?" Peter objected as his stomach gave a dissatisfied gurgle.
"Then you'll have to quit acting like a whiney little bitch and do it anyway. I can get a lot of the answers I need by simply doing an autopsy, I hope I don't have to explain to you what that is."
"I'm not stupid I know what it is." Peter snapped back, "If I get on your stupid freaking treadmill will you bring me more food?" he asked, "I don't have an unlimited energy supply here, and I don't think you really want me to collapse of starvation right here right now do you? Two burgers is nowhere near enough, didn't you even do any research? Seriously man I expected better from you. You can threaten me with an autopsy as much as you like, Titface, but I know you wouldn't'a gone to all that trouble of gettin' me here to let me die on your skanky floor before you'd even got to run any tests. I'm more use to you alive and we both fucking know it. So I'll have five burgers with three large portions of fries on the side as well as a bottle of fizz and a tub of mint-choc-chip ice cream. Oh, and a spoon."
"You don't get to make negotiations here Peter." Stryker said with chilling calm in his voice, "You get on the machine, you run, then you'll get what I give you. If I decide to give your pampered ass anything after that."
Peter frowned and climbed onto the machine, never taking his eyes off of where he assumed Stryker to be standing behind the glass. "You'd better not forget about dessert." he huffed as Stryker switched on the machine. It started off painstakingly slowly but quickly gathered speed. Stryker watched from behind the glass as the kid's legs gradually became a blur. This was even better than he'd hoped. He cranked up the speed even higher and still Peter fought on, powering through each step. Exhaustion was slowly beginning to creep up on him and the lack of enough food wasn't making it any better. How long had it been? He wasn't too sure, certainly longer than he usually ran for. He could do this… he could keep going. His foot lost traction with the belt and suddenly nohecouldreallynotkeepgoing. He faceplanted into the belt and rolled off the side as far away from the machine as the chains would let him. He groaned as he tried to move, chest aching from friction burn. His head began to swim as his body caught onto the fact that he was completely depleted of energy and he rested it back against the cool hard floor. Peter managed to flip the mirror off before passing out from complete and utter exhaustion.
"You know, maybe you actually should feed the kid what he asked for, Sir. He's not going to survive off one box meal a day." Merriot spoke up only to be silenced by a look from Stryker.
"Did I ask for your opinion, Merriot?"
"No, Sir." Merriot replied looking at the ground sheepishly.
"Then get out." Stryker snapped and the soldier quickly took his leave.
He switched off the treadmill, recording its final speed in a leatherbound notebook before tucking the notebook and pen back into an inside pocket of his jacket and exiting the control room. The kid had spirit he had to admit, but it was also getting on his nerves. He'd let the little punk have the last laugh today as he sent for a soldier to retrieve the kid's fast food order. But after that he wouldn't be nearly so warm-hearted.
Peter awoke at around the same time his mother was phoning Charles, not that he knew that of course. Grumbling and aching he sat up and leant against the treadmill. He'd actually fallen off it. He couldn't believe he'd actually tripped up. How had he not been able to keep up with it? The grumbling of his stomach answered for him and a scent of something familiar caught his nostrils, he turned towards the door to see what it was. To his delight, sitting there were four burgers and two portions of regular fries. No ice-cream through. No matter, he'd take what he could get. If he could even get to it at all. The food was by the door and he was attached to the fucking floor of all things. He lay down on his stomach, relieved to find that his friction burns had almost all but healed. He inched his way backwards towards the food, trying to catch the corner of the tray with his toe as he strained against the chains. Peter's toe finally caught onto the corner of the tray and he was able to inch it towards him. He made painstakingly slow progress until he managed to get the tray in such a position that he could just kick it into his hands. His gut growled angrily at him before he picked up a, now cold, burger and wolfed it down. And the next, and the next, and the next. The fries were gone in a blur and soon Peter leaned against the treadmill with a satisfied sigh. If nothing, he'd at least been able to convince them to feed him right. For that moment that was enough. But only for that moment.
The next moment however Peter was up and on his feet, yanking furiously at the chains, trying to detach them from the ground but to no avail. "Son of a bitch!" Peter yelled, storming back around the treadmill before lashing out and kicking the tray into the mirror. Nothing. It did fucking nothing. He hadn't expected it to shatter or anything but he'd at least been expecting it to do something.
"Let. Me. Out!" he yelled at the mirror. Was anyone even there? He sagged down onto the belt of the treadmill in a grump. It was probably three in the fucking morning or something. W Stryker was probably curled up in bed sucking his thumb or whatever dickbrained arseholes like him did in their spare time. After what felt like a decade of waiting around not sleeping, a voice came through the intercom.
"Good morning, Maximoff. Enjoy your meal?" Stryker asked in a sickeningly polite manner.
"You forgot the ice-cream." Peter snarked back. Morning? How much time had passed since he'd been taken?
"You fucked up." Stryker replied, "I don't think fuck-ups like you really merit the luxury of dessert."
That one hit home. If it wasn't bad enough to already think of himself as a fuck-up, now he had to be taunted by a dickbag who thought he was one too. Peter didn't look up at the mirror, simply flipped it off in response.
"You will treat your superiors with more respect." Stryker snarled, "Now get running."
"Go stick it where the sun doesn't shine." Peter spat, "I've run for you once, that not enough?"
"I was rather hoping it wouldn't come to this." Stryker said with a smirk as he pressed a button on the remote in his hand.
"Come to wh-" Peter was cut off by a scream that was wrenched from his throat. Electricity tore through his body from the collar, "All right! All right! Stop! I'll do it!" he wheezed as he dropped to his knees from the pain. It lasted for what felt to him like an eternity, though in reality it was only a few dozen seconds.
Eventually, Stryker lifted his thumb from the button, chuckling to himself as he saw the boy on the floor, "Everything moves so slowly for you doesn't it?" he asked, although it was more of a statement, "Fast is your natural state isn't it? So… what, did that feel like an hour to you? A day?"
Peter was breathing heavily as he leant against the treadmill, "Something like that." he muttered, keen to get Stryker to shut up. He could hear the man's bullshit smirk in his voice and it was pissing him off more and more.
"Get on the treadmill. And run." Stryker instructed threateningly, "Or I might be tempted to leave that collar on for a whole minute."
Peter nodded and stood up shakily, body dripping with sweat, "Calm your tits, I'm doing it." he muttered climbing back onto the treadmill. Stryker switched it on, and he began to run.
Here we are, chapter 3. Hope you enjoy and if you do please drop me a comment!