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.
He probably should have helped, what with his hands being free and all, but Flash found himself unable to do anything but sit, breath stuttering. Finally, the bag came free with one last shake and the figure threw back his head, hair messy and face bruised. He smiled brightly at Flash.
"Hi," said Peter Parker.
Flash could only stare, feeling completely detached from he whole situation. This was a dream. But no - not even he could come up with something this strange. What?
"Are you okay?" Peter asked after a minute. Clearly, such a stupid question deserved a stupid response.
"Best day of my life, Parker. What are you doing here?" The snark fell flat in the small room, with Flash still huddled against a wall.
"Rescuing you," Peter muttered just loud enough for Flash to hear. "You're welcome." The thing was, he couldn't tell if Parker was joking or not.
"B-but why are you here?" Flash's brain was still stuck on loop of: Parker? What? Parker? What?
"Oh, I don't know, I saw that you'd been kidnapped on the news and thought it would be fun to join you," Peter replied with an unfamiliar sarcasm. "Do you want to get out of here or what?"
"I will do, as soon as my dad pays them their money." The response was robotic. Yes, Flash wanted to get out of here. He didn't want to wait for money. He wanted out, now.
"You think your dad'll pay for me, too?" Peter surveyed the room, still on his knees. He braced his hands on his hips - when had he gotten them free from the zip ties?
"Not a chance. Especially if it's taking him this long to decide whether I'm worth it or not."
Peter flinched a little. So did Flash - he hadn't meant to say that.
"Did they hurt you?"
Flash touched his cheek. "Only a little. You look much worse."
"Gee, thanks. I guess I don't know when to stop struggling. The first couple of messages got stuck in the mail." Peter got up and went to the door to try the handle.
"It's locked," Flash said.
"No, it's not," Peter said, and broke off the handle.
That was enough to get through to Flash. He shot to his feet and hissed, "what are you doing? They'll hear you!"
"Eh. If they wanted us to stay in here then they should have locked the door."
"They did-" Flash began. The bolt was very visibly drawn across, but Peter had just destroyed the entire area, rendering it useless. Before he could finish speaking, Peter was already stepping over the threshold and peering left and right. "What are you doing? Do you want to get us both killed?"
"It's fine, they left a minute ago."
"How do you know that?"
"I heard them talking about it while they beat me up?" Peter sounded unsure. "Anyway, they're gone, and we need to be too."
This might as well happen, Flash thought blankly as he followed Peter towards the exit.
"Ta da!" Peter did jazz hands at the outside world as he ushered Flash through the final door. "Now wait here, I need to grab my bag."
"Your bag? You can buy another bag, Parker, I'll buy you another bag, I'll even replace all the textbooks and upgrade your laptop or actually whatever! Let's just get out of here!" Flash's words went ignored as Peter vanished back inside.
Flash stood, perplexed. He took a step inside. Stepped back out. Looked around. Wondered what to do. Said, "Is he insane?"
"If that's what helps you sleep at night," Peter was back, bag slung over one shoulder like he was strolling down the corridors at school. "Come on," he called as he kept walking - as if Flash was the one keeping them behind.
"Where are we going?" Flash asked after a couple of minutes. Peter was striding through the streets as if he walked through the shady parts of town on the daily, so confidently that Flash had to half-jog to keep up. But for all he knew, they were going in circles.
"Here," Peter announced as they emerged onto a road just as a patrol car pulled around a corner. Peter gave Flash a little push, and he stumbled forward. Then he was running, yelling and waving his arms at the car as the adrenaline from earlier came pumping back, certain that the kidnappers were right behind him and gaining. The police pulled over and asked him what had happened and gave him one of those shock blankets and it was nice and soon his dad had been called and he was back in the security of his own house. He glanced over his shoulder once, when the police were ushering him away, to see the alleyway he and Peter had emerged from. The other boy was gone.
Flash's father wanted him to take a week off school but Flash insisted that the normality would be good for him. "Yo Parker," he yelled down the corridor when he spotted his classmate the next day. "Care for an explanation?"
"Shove off, Eugene," Michelle called back. "You'd think being kidnapped would give you some perspective."
"It actually just raised a lot of questions," Flash said as he reached them. "Like, for starters, what the hell, Parker?"
"I don't know what I've done this time but can we please do this later? I need to talk to Ms Wheal before class."
Flash stared, doubt beginning to fog his memories. "Where were you last night, Peter?"
Peter and Ned exchanged an odd glance. "He was at mine," Ned supplied. "We did the physics and had a movie marathon." He pulled out his phone and showed Flash a picture.
"Why do you want to know?" Peter asked suspiciously.
"You gonna accuse Parker of kidnap next?" Michelle added smoothly. "Because I don't think that's his style."
Flash flushed with annoyance and left them, mind tripping in its haste to ask questions. If it hadn't been Peter rescuing him, who had? Had there been anyone at all? Had he actually gone insane in that small room? But the door hadn't broken by itself, had it? Could he have done that? And how had he found his way to the road?
Flash reached his first class and sat down. Peter was an enigma, alright, but he didn't go around casually rescuing people from kidnap and breaking doors down in his free time. Flash still had no idea what had actually happened to him the day before, but maybe that was just how it should stay.
Some questions were best left unanswered.