Hello again! Thank you so much for the kind support! School has started again so updates will likely be slower, but no worries because they will come!
I hope you enjoy this chapter!
This chapter contains mentions of medical procedures, sexual assault, police, kidnapping, and torture. It won't be suitable for all readers. Please take care of yourselves.
3 days earlier...
Peter awoke to the mother of all head and body aches. It reminded him of the time when he was in middle school when he took half a bottle of Flintstone's vitamins and had to go to the ER to get his stomach pumped. He had woken up the next morning feeling like he had been hit by a truck. This was similar.
Only this time, he had the most insatiable case of dry mouth. And when he went to lick his lips, he realized he couldn't - there was a barrier. Sticky yet solid, with a bitter, scratchy taste. Tape.
Then it hit him. The taser, the attackers, being thrown in the back of the van.
He had been kidnapped!
Despite the pounding headache, Peter's eyes shot open in a panic. Using his senses, he deduced that he was still in a trunk - likely the same one from earlier, although it wasn't like he could really tell - and that he was traveling at high speeds. Given that he couldn't hear many other vehicles in the distance, he figured that he had already been taken away from the city. Peter had no idea how long he had been unconscious, so he could've been a few miles out of the city or a few hundred miles. Was he even in the same state? Who were these people? What did they want?
Did anyone even know he was gone?
Peter pushed that last thought aside, holding onto a quivering hope that his loved ones were looking for him. He instead tried to focus on the second and third question.
In the brief amount of time it had taken for him to be abducted - really impressive for a superhero - he hadn't gotten a glimpse of any of his attacker's faces, so there went any chance of identifying them at the moment. He knew he had been shoved into a white van, but that wasn't helpful either because it seemed to him that EVERY criminal drives a creepy white van. Peter wished he had been able to grab the license plate number, but he had been disoriented at the time.
Now that that was a dead end, Peter turned to another burning question: was it because of Spider-Man?
If that was the case, then Peter had a huge problem. Peter wasn't in the suit when he had been kidnapped. If he was being abducted because he was Spider-Man, that meant that they had his true identity. And if that was true, all his close friends and family were in danger - May, Ned, MJ...
Peter closed his eyes and swallowed as a lump of panic climbed up his throat. If these people knew he was Spider-Man, then he needed to get out of there immediately. He shifted his body the best he could with his legs and wrists handcuffed to place his feet on what he sensed was the trunk door, when he realized something.
He was handcuffed.
If they knew he was Spider-Man, they would know that handcuffs wouldn't stop him, even if he had been recently tased.
With a sigh of slightly misplaced relief, Peter relaxed a little when he realized that the likelihood of him being targeted for being Spider-Man was significantly lowered.
He recovered his senses quickly, however. Even if he hadn't been abducted because he was Spider-Man, he had still been abducted. It didn't matter if he had been targeted specifically - he was currently in danger.
The problem became, if these people didn't know he was Spider-Man, how would he escape? Would it be worth it to use his powers, even though it could reveal his identity? Would anyone believe them if they told authorities? If they were criminals, could they tell their criminal friends? What if those criminal friends came back to get revenge on him? What if police noticed the evidence and arrested him for being a vigilante?
The fear that Peter had felt when he thought Spider-Man was the target of the kidnapping returned. As much as he wanted to get away, take a hot bath, and melt his soreness away - the results could be catastrophic for him and others. If he wanted to escape, he had to escape as he had been taken - as Peter Parker.
And Peter Parker was just a 16 year old nerd. Not a superhero.
Peter began to run ideas in his head on how to escape without using his powers - he had seen a self-defense video once on how kicking taillights out could help if you were ever trapped in the trunk of a car - when the van came to an abrupt stop, causing Peter to let out a muffled cry as he was thrown against the unforgiving walls of his prison.
His heart pounded when he heard footsteps and voices approach the trunk, before it slammed open and Peter was sharply pulled out of the trunk, stiff muscles protesting.
And in that moment, Peter didn't have to pretend to be a scared 16 year old boy.
Present
If anyone asked, May Parker was completely fine.
Sure, her nephew had been kidnapped, violated, and tortured within an inch of his life, and was now on life support with the possibility of never waking up again, but she was holding it together. And she certainly did not want to talk.
Not after what she'd done.
She had spent the last 24 hours married to Peter's bedside, unwilling to move to do more than relieve herself. And even then, someone else trusted had to be in the room, and she would make record time back to his bedside.
She had combed and washed his hair, since she knew that he would hate how matted with blood it had become. She helped the nurses shift his pillows so he wouldn't get bedsores - as a nurse herself, May knew how painful those could be - and she played Peter's favorite music and movies to drown out the sound of the ventilator breathing for him, reminding May that her beloved Peter couldn't do it on his own.
He looked so small in that hospital bed. So vulnerable. The breathing tube took up half his face, and what was still visible in no way resembled her little boy, with colorful bruises lighting up his forehead and swollen eyelids hiding the long lashes that always gave him such a youthful look.
And despite the damage to his face, it was still easier to look at than the rest of him.
His left arm and shoulder were in a sling, with his wrist encased in a thick splint that covered his broken fingers as well. There were thick, pristine bandages all over his body, covered by the gown but still reminding May of their existence by the bulges visible underneath the thin fabric. There was a box next to his bed - on the side that May didn't venture to - that two chest tubes buried deep next to his biggest surgical incision drained frothy red liquid into. His entire left leg was in a stainless steel brace, with the incision where the broken bone had been repaired still covered with bandages.
May couldn't look at those injuries without thinking about how it would affect him as Spider-Man, which only made her regress to that terrible fight days earlier, and she would feel guilty all over again.
She was Peter's guardian. She was responsible for ensuring that Peter was safe and had all of his needs met. Peter had needed her to keep him safe, and she had failed. In the worst way.
Because she didn't even know he was gone.
The last text he had sent her had been that he was going to Ned's for the weekend. It had hurt her to realize that he didn't want to come home yet, but she wanted to be the understanding adult in that situation. She had hurt him. He needed space. She needed to respect that.
And so when days followed and she hadn't heard from him, she didn't engage. She assumed that he was still needing time. She didn't want to rush that. She would talk to him Monday and tell him that he had to come home, or at least have dinner so that they could talk. He couldn't stay at Ned's forever.
And when Monday came and she got the call from the principal that Peter had not shown up to his morning class, her instinct had been fury. Yet more reason for her to feel guilty now. She had been angry because she thought he had been acting out against her by skipping school.
So that time, she did call him. And she left voicemails when he didn't respond. And eventually all her calls went straight to voicemail, so she stopped calling.
And then came the call. Not from Peter, not from Ned, not from Ned's parents, not any of Peter's teachers. The police.
"Mrs. Parker? I'm calling about your nephew, Peter. I'm afraid there's been an accident..."
She'd never broken so many traffic laws at one time, not even when she was a rebellious teenager. She had gotten to the hospital so quickly, only to wait for hours with no news as Peter fought for his life in surgery.
And all she could think about was where Peter probably was during that weekend. How no one had noticed his absence.
Was all of this preventable?
He had to have been scared. Probably the only hope he had - if he had any hope at all - was that someone was looking for him. That the people he loved and trusted had noticed when he went off the grid and were fighting to bring him back.
But it wasn't true. May had been working, then going home, drinking wine, and watching Stranger Things.
The guilt was eating her alive. He'd probably wished for her to save him. He had to have been scared.
What if he didn't wake up, and his last thought was how terrified he was, and how he wished she had been there to save him?
What if he did wake up, only to come to know that no one had been looking for him, and the fact that he was rescued was some God-given miracle?
There was no doubt in May's mind that Peter wasn't the only one who would have to heal from this. Their relationship would have to mend as well.
3 days earlier
If Peter had to guess, it had been about 12 hours since he went missing.
When they had yanked him out of the trunk, they had immediately slapped duct tape over his eyes before he could get a look at their faces. There had been a short walk/drag to some sort of building, where he was roughly forced down a flight of stairs and then abandoned, the door Peter couldn't see clicking shut and locking behind them.
For awhile, Peter lay still and used his senses to analyze his surroundings. He had heard birds and rustling of dry leaves and grass so he assumed he was near or in some sort of wooded area, which probably meant he was being held in some sort of remote cabin. He could faintly hear multiple pairs of footsteps walking around upstairs and male voices he couldn't make out.
He spent a long time laying there, nothing but the sound of his rapidly beating heart and muffled hyperventilation filling his ears. Peter tried to focus on the positive - none of them had hurt him, except for the whole taser thing, but with his advanced healing he was already passed that. Having his limbs immobilized and one of his senses - his sight - taken away was annoying, but it wouldn't kill him. He had to have been gone for hours now, so certainly someone knew at this point he was missing, right?
It was then that Peter heard the door at the top of the stairs open, with heavy, likely booted footsteps stomping down the stairs towards Peter's incapacitated frame. Peter didn't dare let out a word; aside from the fact his mouth was taped shut, he had no idea who he was dealing with and his spidey senses told him that saying anything would just make things worse for him, so he stayed silent.
Wordlessly, his captor undid the handcuffs around his ankles and pulled Peter to a standing position by the handcuffs that remained around his wrists. He was surprisingly gently led to what Peter assumed was a different part of the same room, when he was thrown down on a softer surface that Peter recognized as a mattress.
His captor still hadn't said a word. Peter's unease grew with every passing moment, unsure of what was coming next but very uncomfortable at the direction things seemed to be going.
The mattress dipped slightly as the man put his weight on the end of the mattress by Peter's legs, which remained freed. Then came the first words to be spoken to Peter since he had been taken:
"Stay still. Do not try to remove the tape."
The command was whispered through gritted teeth, so it was hard to discern any distinct features of the man's voice, but he could have had a Russian accent, if Peter tried to guess.
Peter's senses heightened all at once when suddenly the man touched him firmly yet in a way that felt distinctly affectionate. An affection Peter most certainly did not return in the slightest.
He let out the slightest of grunts as he instinctively tried to sit up and back away, only to be pushed down again by a sharp, commanding hand. The hand pushed hard against Peter's chest as the other, free hand reached down to the zipper on Peter's jeans.
Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no
Peter shook his head and let out muffled protests as he frantically tried to pull away from his attacker. He felt his foot connect with something solid, and heard a sharp intake of breath before he struggled to his feet, trusting his senses to lead him away from the man.
Dizzy and unfamiliar with his environment, even with his enhanced senses Peter was unable to locate any sort of refuge before a hand came out of nowhere and struck him hard across the cheek, causing him to fall to the hard, unforgiving cement below, and causing the duct tape around his eyes to loosen.
In that moment of sight, Peter took in his surroundings. About five feet in front of him was a dingy sofa that probably had not been cleaned this decade, and almost directly to his left was a flight of cement stairs leading to Peter's escape.
Struggling to his feet, Peter dashed for the door, taking the stairs two at a time, as he heard his attacker yell for him to stop and chase after him.
Peter was almost to the door, heart bursting out of his chest with panic when the door swung open, colliding with Peter's speeding form and sending him flying down the stairs he had just run up.
He seemed to fall forever, harsh cement bruising his skin until he finally felt his left leg twist with a painful snap, and his body halted to an abrupt stop as his head cracked on the floor, ripping more of the tape across his eyes and mouth and making the room spin as his leg and head became wracked with agony.
As he stared woozily up at the ceiling, unable to move from shock and pain, Peter watched as one of his captors, assumedly the one who had tried to - God, Peter couldn't even think about that - went into his field of vision, a spinning, cloned form with dark eyes and tanned skin.
The face was hauntingly emotionless when it said "you shouldn't have lost the tape."
Then Peter succumbed to the darkness encroaching on his vision, and he thought no more.
Present
It had been two days since Peter had been admitted to the hospital, and the day that May had been dreading finally came. She couldn't put it off any longer. She had to give her statement to the police.
The officers had been willing to compromise, allowing for the discussion to take place within Peter's hospital room so she wouldn't have to leave him alone. Given the circumstances, the officers seemed to understand her anxiety.
As she sat, she grasped Peter's unbandaged hand, careful of the IV supplying him with vital fluids. In her free hand, Tony gently intertwined his fingers with hers, sensing her discomfort at the situation, and likely feeling the same way himself.
The officers sat in two chairs that nurses had provided them from the waiting room, neutrally colored and not at all comfortable. The first officer, clearly the most experienced of the two, introduced himself as officer Jose Torres, while his clearly less experienced partner, officer Isaac Scheele, nodded his greeting as he sat.
"Mr. Stark, Mrs. Parker," Officer Torres began, acknowledging the presence of both parties. "I wish we were meeting in better circumstances. We are not here to interrogate you in any way, we just need some information that could help us figure out what happened to Peter and why."
"We understand," May said quietly, clearing her throat as she nervously ran a hand through her long hair. "We'd just like to get this over with, please."
Officer Torres nodded solemnly and turned to his paperwork. "Just for the record, can both of you please explain your relation to the victim?"
"Peter is my nephew," May replied neutrally. "And he is also an intern at Stark Industries."
"Alright," Officer Torres affirmed, not bothering to look up from his work. "Mr. Stark, how long has Peter been employed with you?"
"Since the fall of 2016," Tony stated firmly, trying not to think about the bright-eyed freshman he'd befriended and taken to Germany all that time ago. Given the state of Peter now, it was too much guilt.
"Now, Mrs. Parker, it says here that you are Peter's legal guardian. Is that correct?"
May shifted uncomfortably in her chair, not liking where the questions were going. "Yes, that's correct. My late husband and I adopted Peter when his parents passed away."
Officer Torres continued nodding. It was starting to annoy May. "When was the last time you saw Peter before Monday, when he was found injured?"
May felt her eyes begin to water and she took a deep breath to level her voice. "The last time I saw him was early Friday morning, before he went to school. We'd had a fight, and he told me he was going to go stay with a friend for the weekend."
"What is the name of this friend?"
"Ned Leeds."
"We've already spoken to Ned, and he said that he was going to stay with Mr. Stark for the weekend."
May inhaled shakily and Tony took over answering the questions. "He had to have told Ned that before he tried to contact me about it, because my bodyguard - Happy Hogan - received a call from Peter that day but I wasn't able to have him over. I was in the Poconos all weekend."
"I see," Officer Torres neutrally affirmed, although his wrinkled forehead betrayed his confusion. "Now, Mr. Stark, is it often that Peter comes and spends weekends with you?"
Tony remained stoic and blunt. "From time to time, I will have him over to work on projects. We often lose track of time and he spends the night."
"It just seems like Peter gets more privileges than just an intern."
"Peter gets privileges because he's a fucking genius of a kid and has helped my work greatly," Tony snapped, professional exterior evaporating in less than a second.
"Now, Mr. Stark-"
"No!" Tony shouted, his temper lost. "You say this isn't an interrogation but here you are, suggesting that we're lying or hiding something. Like we would in some way be a part of what happened to Peter."
May grasped Tony's arm, which was aggressively pointing at the pair of officers, who had since stood. "Tony-"
"We're here because we love Peter, and because we want to get to the bottom of what happened to him just as much as you all do. Yet you come in here and accuse us -"
"Tony-"
"You insinuate that any part of this could be our responsibility-"
"TONY!" May cried, finally getting the billionaire's attention. On a roll, Tony was about to dismiss her, when she saw what she was staring at.
When he saw, all his anger melted away. He couldn't even remember what he was yelling about. Nothing mattered anymore.
Nothing else mattered, because Peter's eyes were open, dazed eyes staring right back at him.
This took forever and I'm SO sorry, but no matter how long it takes know I haven't forgotten this story! I have very big plans for it and am excited to move forward! College is kicking my ass so it may be awhile before the next update but please be patient! I love you all, thanks for reading!