Spiderman Oneshots

Rescue

Flash Thompson's day had started bad (History essay due that afternoon that he'd forgotten about and had to rush in the car on the way to school), gotten worse (the physics test he was sure would be fine without revision had gone awfully and he didn't know how he was going to explain that report card to his parents) and was now shaping up to be the worst day in the history of days. 

In other words, he'd gotten kidnapped.

He'd been sat in the corner of this room for what must have been hours now, shivering with the damp. The only benefit of the thin, thin walls was that he could hear parts of his kidnappers' conversation. From the sound of it, they were angry that his father had gotten the police involved with attempting to negotiate the ransom. Apparently his story was now all over the news, and they were extremely displeased with all the attention. Flash hugged his knees to his chest, and quietly wished that his dad was stupid enough to just pay the ransom and get him out of here quickly.

He wasn't tied up - the kidnappers had made it very clear at the start what the consequences of any 'funny business' would be. At least the bone-numbing cold of the room also dulled the stinging of his bruised cheek.

He was in pain and scared but there's only so much a human can take before shutting off completely. He thought of his fear and bruises as a distant discomfort, something he'd inevitably end up recounting in the coming weeks in a sterile room, to a faux-sympathetic face his father was paying more than the ransom would cost. Really, it was the boredom that was getting to him in between the angry rants of the kidnappers and the spikes of adrenaline which pushed through his apathy, accompanying images of them bursting in to take their frustration out on him. No, he reminded himself. He was valuable. For now.

He'd recited every poem and song he'd ever memorised and some he hadn't, rehearsed his reunion with his father about fifty times, gone through the periodic table, almost a hundred digits of pi, and even as many questions from the latest academic decathlon practise as he could remember. Once those ran out, he entered the dangerous realm of fantasy. He imagined the Avengers blasting through the thin walls, knocking out his kidnappers and letting him take a selfie with them before flying him home. He imagined Spider-Man swinging through the locked door with a quip, webbing up the kidnappers, recognising Flash and signing his shirt. He imagined any number of heroes coming to his rescue. As the minutes dragged by, he even started to fantasise just about the police finding this place and wrapping him in one of those shock blankets. That would probably be nice. But it wasn't really a fantasy, right? He would be rescued, sooner or later, when his dad stopped messing around and paid the ransom. He wouldn't entertain any alternative. He couldn't.

Flash noticed his breath starting to catch and focused back on tapping out the alphabet in morse code. Counting to a hundred in German. Playing piano scales on the concrete floor.

When raised voices and the sound of a struggle reached his ears Flash thought he was letting his mind wander again and squinted at his hands as if that would make the invisible book he was reading any clearer. The sounds stopped - but then footsteps approached his door and the lock grated open. Hope flooded Flash's soul for a split second - rescue? - until the gruff voice of one of the kidnappers called, "stand back from the door. No funny business, you hear me?"

Flash, already curled into the corner furthest from the door, didn't move. The door opened to reveal the kidnapper, and another person with a bag over their head and their wrists zip-tied behind their back. Clearly they'd put up more of a fight than Flash had. They were thrown roughly to the ground in the middle of the room, then the door was slamming again. 

Flash, frozen, could only watch as the figure groaned and rolled onto their side. "Why," a hoarse voice said remarkably calmly for the situation, "do the kidnappers only find me once I stop looking for them?" A few seconds passed after this strange question, then there was an audible sigh. The figure sat up and started trying to shake the bag off their head with their hands still bound behind them.