Stronger

chapter fourteen

Too soon, Envo came back in to start the torture again. Today he decided to burn Peter. He had big metal poles again. The ones that were red-hot and shaped like T's to make it easy to hold it to his back.

It was a million times worse than a cigarette burn. He lost count of how many times he was burned. Stars danced in his vision, and eventually, he thankfully passed out. He wished he would stay asleep though. Not have to wake up only to face new horrors and pains.

The days went on. He lost all concept of time.

Wake up, torture, pass out, repeat. That was his new schedule. For the first few days, he got food. Then after that, they started to starve him to see how his healing would react.

Then, instead of waking up to find the horrors of the previous day almost gone, he woke up to find them still there, healing at just barely more than a normal rate. They were starting to leave scars now, too.

That only added to the science experiment he would see in the mirror now.

Not that he'd seen himself since he'd been kidnapped. He had no idea what he looked like anymore.

The torture slowly got worse, moving on to being cut open with knives, being whipped, eventually being stabbed, shot, and even breaking bones. Everything hurt. His healing factor barely worked without food.

Finally, one day they started to feed him again. For at least what he thought was a couple of days, they left him alone. Brought him food and allowed him to heal. He did, but not without scars.

––🕷––

He woke up in a hospital bed, his head buried in his knees, all curled up. It sent hope through him. Did someone save him? Was he safe? Someone spoke kindly, softly. They told Peter he was safe now.

He wore a small, hopeful smile as he looked up. Did Tony save him? It must've been Tony. He could go home. He wouldn't have to feel any more pain.

Except he wasn't. When he looked up, he was met with the mismatched eyes of Envo. He wasn't safe. It was a trick.

"What did I say about looking me in the eyes?" He had a sinister grin.

It made Peter furious, and he broke a few more rules. It didn't go unpunished though. 

What was the point of tricking him like that anyway? To bring satisfaction to that psychopath, Envo? 

After that, they left him alone again, probably to heal like before, since the process was disrupted.

He wasn't sure why they allowed him to heal–maybe so that they could have a sort of blank slate to continue experiments–but he was glad he got a break. When he was almost fully healed though, they started more experiments.

They had him fight and dodge weapons, and stick to the walls of flooding rooms again just like normal. But now, every other day it would switch off. In between those days, were now experiments on his enhanced senses–vision and hearing. They didn't really care about the others.

They would shine lights that were way too bright in his face and they shut all the lights off, back and forth. They tested him with different colors or strobe lights, none of them failing to bring him a migraine soon after and for the entire next day.

Then they would play soft, high-pitched sounds. It started out so that, even with his super hearing, he could barely hear it. Then it slowly got louder and louder until he wished he would just go deaf instead. That didn't help with the migraines either.

He always got super bad sensory overloads as well. When he got them, it was a fifty-fifty chance between them doing more experiments or them leaving him alone.