Euphoric | Peter Parker

32 - Who Am I

Searing pain. It was tearing me apart at the seams as I tried my hardest to keep it all in. I knew that I was laying curled up on the floor, but I couldn't remember when I fell to begin with. Time was beginning to blend together as the pain made it feel as if I had been screaming out in agony for hours. Whatever the Doctor did to me felt ten times worse than whenever I experienced my first headache at Peter's school. And this time round I was certain that I most likely had thrown up from the severity of the experience.

I could hear a voice around me but my wailing was drowning them out. Even with my eyes closed I could tell that the mirror dimension was illuminating a bright blue light that was coming from my body.  Ansel was right, I was deemed to explode.

Through the pain, all I could think about was Peter. I was letting him down. If I had told him what was going on, the Doctor probably wouldn't have kidnapped me during Liz's party. Peter would've known what to do. Why did I have to hide it from him? What a mess.

But this is what the Doctor, Aloysis, and Ansel wanted me to do. They wanted me to release the electricity so everything would go back to normal, but this was worse. This was going to kill me. I couldn't handle it for much longer. I tried redirecting the pain but I was starting to become numb to it all. I couldn't tell where it started or when it would end.

It reminded me of when I was young. Gouging out fragments of metal from my wounds with my sharp, tiny fingers, all alone. There would be days where I would see nobody. Not even be given anything to eat until I was deemed useful or needed to be tested on again. Both scenarios ended with me in writhing pain. No one knew the limitations to my capabilities, nor did anyone care about how much my little body could handle.
I was a survivor. Born with the abilities already in my dna, as I've recently discovered, but I figure that was unknown at the time. They had injected others, but their bodies couldn't keep up with the strength of the serum. I just so happened to be the first one to take it and evolve into what they wanted: a weapon.
There were tests where it was discovered that I couldn't completely control what I possessed. It was as if my abilities were overwhelming my frail body. They would always stop it before it spiraled more out of control, but they are no longer here. He isn't here anymore to give the orders to shut me down. To knock me out and lock me back up for days, all alone, until he felt it was time to try it again and to go farther than before.
I am no longer their puppet, but why do I feel so lost without them?
The Avengers accepted me for who I was. I am a killer, they understood that. However, they have given me too much freedom. Their affection wasn't a reward for obedience, it was a constant emotion that I received. Stark accepted me as one of his own. He had legally made me a child of his. Is that why I no longer have control?
No. I have died. I, the killer, was killed for killing my killer's mother. My mother. My mind was possessed for killing the person that threatened to murder Peter right in front of me.
Peter. This all comes back to him. He is in danger. I am his protector. He sees me as a friend. I have affection toward him that is constant. I have to save him. I must live.

I need to end this.

I continued to scream as I tried to make myself rise to my feet. I got to sitting on my knees when another wave of pain shot throughout my entire body. I wasn't going to be able to stand and stay conscious the entire time. I shot out my arms and pointed my index and middle fingers as I forced my eyes to open. I could sense all the pain redirect itself through my arms as I channeled out the electricity and watched as it escaped through my fingers.
All that could be heard was the crackling of the bolts as I was now sobbing from the intensity.

I collapsed onto my back once all of the electricity exited my body. I could hear the panic in the Doctor's voice as he came over to me and knelt down in front of my face, but couldn't make out exactly what he was saying to me. I stared at him as his muffled questions kept getting drowned out by my crying.
I wasn't dead. I was still alive. My heart was still beating. Half of my crying was from the fact that I survived.
He glanced down at my hands and went silent as he quickly looked back at my face. He stood back up and casted some sort of spell that levitated my body out of the mirror dimension and back into the real world. I was gently placed back onto the floor as I could hear him running around the room away from my line of vision.
I tried to sit myself up but winced when I lifted my arms. Something didn't feel right. I continued to wince as I lifted up my hands and I let out a scream once I saw what had happened.
Both my hands were now a dark purple with deep red veins lining them. Both were dripping with fresh blood, but my left hand was worse. The tips of my index and middle fingers looked like bloody stubs. It was as if they were ripped off.
My hands fell to my chest as the Doctor came back to me with white bandages. He gently wrapped them around my forearms and fingers as he tried to ask me a few questions.
He sounded as if he was speaking to me while I was underwater. I kept asking him to talk louder but nothing was happening. He stopped wrapping and motioned for me to sit up. I slowly did and immediately fell down onto my right side. All of the motion was making me light headed.
He grabbed my ankles and stomped my feet against the floor. I jumped as a small amount of vibrations danced throughout my body and then stilled.