Stronger

chapter fifteen

Hello, my lovely readers.

This is low-key my favorite chapter

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He woke up sweating and thrashing around from the nightmares. The room he was in was different. Familiar, but it looked different than the ones in the facility.

Was it some new form of torture they were going to try? Or was it an experiment?

He didn't want to know, so instead he brought his knees to his chest, clamped his eyes shut, and ducked his head down.

People around him were speaking to each other quietly, but no one spoke to him. Not yet.

His arm felt weird, and he peeked at it to see a cast concealing it. After seeing that, he shifted and felt bandages covering his body. There was an IV connected to his arm and his shock collar was gone.

It must've been Envo then. It would be one of those times when he got fixed up, only to continue experiments. Envo said he did it so that it wouldn't skew the data. 

It was just a bonus when Peter had thought he had been saved the first few times and Envo got to crush his hopes.

He felt a tentative hand on his knee, and a voice hesitantly said, "Pete?"

That's what Envo called him. So it was him. He was here to give Peter either another round of interrogation or to test his healing. Both hurt about the same.

"No, no. Don't. Please, don't," Peter muttered to himself. If he said it to Envo, it would just get him hurt worse for speaking when he wasn't supposed to. He hated the pain, he hated Envo. He wanted to shove the hand off his knee but didn't in fear of the consequences. Goosebumps rose up around his hand.

"Pete, it's us."

The voices sounded different, kinder maybe. But he wouldn't fall for Envo's tricks again. It always made him so mad when Envo would trick him into thinking he's safe. He almost always broke a rule when he was tricked like this. This time was no different.

"Stop! Stop it! Just stop with the mind games, get it over with already!" He almost screamed. Shit. He broke a rule. He spoke when he wasn't supposed to. Not only that, but he yelled directly at Envo. What would happen to him? What torture would he suffer this time?

"Pete, what do you mean? You're safe."

No. No, he wasn't. Especially not now. Was the physical pain Peter suffered through not enough, so Envo had to bring him mental, emotional pain too?

The hand moved off his knee and reached gently towards Peter's back and Peter flinched harshly. He'd already yelled, so it was going to be worse. Why not just let his anger out if it wouldn't make a difference? That's what he usually did. So he screamed, "Don't touch me! Just stop!"

He was crying now. The voice was trying to console him, but he knew it was fake. It always was, even in his nightmares. He muttered things like "Stop" or "Please", but mostly to himself now. It wouldn't make a difference to Envo. But then...

"Peter, look at me. Calm down."

Peter? No one called him Peter anymore. Envo called him Pete, the others didn't talk to him. Was... was he really safe?

He wanted to believe it, but couldn't bring himself to look up. If he looked up, it could all fade away just like normal. It would be Envo staring back at him.

Though after a few minutes of them comforting him, he couldn't stand it and had to look. He was first met with the stare of Tony. He looked around the room to see the other Avengers there too, but Tony had been the one talking to him. His eyes widened in disbelief, but purely out of habit, he looked away, wincing at the eye contact.