Chapter Text
Peter slipped quietly through the echoing corridors trying to remain as quiet as possible. Each room he walked past was filled with strange contraptions rearing their ugly heads. They looked like torture devices out of the Bond movies he watched as a kid, though, he tried not to think about that too hard. Jess had told their reconnaissance team over and over and over again to just focus on reconnaissance, and Peter would have to oblige.
After going missing for almost an entire week, there was no telling what they were doing to Miguel here. Focused on getting him back, he didn’t wanna think about all that shit right now.
The team stopped in a corridor split into three paths. Each Spider carried their eyes through the darkness as if waiting for something. “His tracker live again?” Hobie supplied when he found himself stumped.
Lyla and Jess ran a quick diagnostic, to no suffice. “Nothing.”
Peter’s stomach sank. This is where Miguel’s tracker had shot the distress beam from, so they had assumed that he was here. It was just now dawning upon Peter that that could’ve been an incorrect assumption— it took them a few hours to respond after figuring out how to breach the Alchamex unit.
They could’ve baited the team with it and taken him somewhere else, or maybe Miguel had escaped and was in 647 without Lyla or a watch or maybe even his suit. Lost. Scared.
The group was still at a standstill, starting to discuss dividing and conquering. That would never work— they didn’t know who all was here with them, and if someone triggered defense mechanisms or ran into some guards on their own, they were fucked. They’d lock down the entire building, and the Spiders would have to bring an entire army to get back in here to chase a dead trail.
Peter took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. Drowning out the other spider’s chatter, he thought of Miguel. What the warmth of his presence felt like. What it felt like when he was anticipating one of his angry outbursts, or what sparring him with little hope of winning felt like.
The phantom of his presence shot directly down the hall in front of them, not much further. “Follow me,” Peter told the group, and they got to moving.
“Where are we going?” Miles whisper shouted. He sounded doubtful of Peter’s command despite following him anyway, and Peter was doubtful of himself too. But what other option did they have? Awash with the sudden burst of desperation to find Miguel, Peter listened to his gut.
A red, hot shock struck every inch of Peter’s skin. With a premonition so intense that it might’ve hurt, he threw an arm out and froze. Jess, Hobie, and Miles followed suit, maybe not because of his command but because they’d felt it too.
The hallway spilled open into a large, circular shaped room with unrecognizable devices and dirty, beige linoleum floors. Peering through the darkness, Peter couldn’t see past any wall or door that exited the bottlenecked room.
Near writhing with the sense of disappointment, Peter fell back one step and sighed. His nerves hadn’t worn off yet, but he figured it was a matter of needing to fall back and keep looking— end of the line, no Miguel. Some guard with an evil neurotoxin or laser gun or something was probably hiding around the corner.
And then, they heard it.
A low sounding growl erupted from the darkness, and Peter froze, feeling like something was honing in on him, waiting to pounce. Then, he saw— red eyes gleamed at him, cutting through the shadows of the room. They looked wild and blood hungry, and Peter immediately knew.
“He’s gone mad, ain’t he?” Hobie whispered.
“Quiet,” Jess advised Hobie and Miles. Her expression was lethally serious as the reality of the situation set in. “No loud noises, no sudden movements.”
The two spiders nodded. Hobie offered no conjecture.
Miles began to join Peter’s side, and Jess held him back. “Peter’s gonna try to handle this. Anything happens, you go with Hobie and you run for your life. Do you hear me?”
“And you and Peter?” Hobie pushed in.
“Don’t worry about us. Worry about the kid.” All while she spoke, she pulled a syringe-gun and loaded a canister of some green stuff into it. Another growl emerged from the room, and Peter tried to calm his own nerves before continuing.
“You got me, Jess?” Peter whispered.
“On your six,” she reassured him.
Another warning growl came as Peter took a cautious step forward. “Hey Miggs,” he called into the darkness. He tried to keep his voice sweet and calm, nearly to no avail. In a dark room with a feral Miguel— who could SEE in the dark— was really not an ideal situation to be in. He’d never experienced this before; feeling like Miguel was predator and he was prey. Jess told him it was a possibility after she noticed they got closer, but he never expected the moment to be real. Not like this.
Another snarl broke from Miguel’s chest, and Peter steadied his breathing, reminding himself that Jess was behind him. Frozen with anticipation and caution, he was in standoff with the other man. “We’re just gonna help you, Miguel. We’re gonna take you home, okay?” Peter spoke softly and authoritatively, slowly craning an upturned hand out as a peace offering. Despite how far he was standing from Miguel, his growling got louder and louder in warning, and Peter got more worried that he’d get his arms ripped off or have venom coursing through his veins in the next few moments.
Defying all of the fear building inside his chest, Peter promptly realized he made the wrong choice after taking a step forward. He hit the ground and his nerves burst into flame when Miguel came flying at him, claws extended and fangs flashing in the slight glow of the room. Jess acted fast enough to follow suit, and instead of doing as told, both Hobie and Miles ran towards the three spiders instead of retreating like true insubordinates.
But instead of being ripped apart or bitten and paralyzed or instantly killed by Miguel’s wrath, both Peter and Jess stayed in one piece. A zap reverberated through the room, and Miguel’s more human sounding vocalizations rang out. He groaned and gasped for air and cried, and Peter immediately got to his feet and chased after him.
Jess followed closely behind, and the two found Miguel huddled against the wall with his teeth gritted together. His claws ripped through the linoleum floor and hot tears rushed down his face.
Peter felt like he was gonna puke taking in the whole scene. Miguel wore a hospital gown and was bleeding from several wounds on his shoulders and back, and was covered almost head to toe in black-purple bruises. He had dropped so much weight from when Peter had last seen him, so much that his face looked gaunt and he no longer filled out his shoulders. Worst of all, a metal collar was around his neck, a muzzle covering the bottom half of his face. Both and the skin surrounding them were marred with claw marks.
Jess punched Peter’s shoulder, and he turned to her. She looked like she was trying to hold down vomit too, though, her face held the same expression of concentration as always. “Be strong.”
Peter nodded and fell to Miguel’s side instantly. So afraid and in pain and in need of comfort, he immediately fell into Peter’s arms. His gasps fell somewhere between man and beast, and Peter squeezed him tight, promising everything would be okay. “We’re gonna get you out of here Miggs, it’s gonna be okay.”
Jess dosed Miguel and his pupils blew wide. His skin got clammy and his muscles relaxed so that he fell slack against Peter. As the medicine worked through his bloodstream, Miguel’s breathing slowed, and although he was still incoherent, at least he was calm.
Hobie fell to their side while Miles opened a portal back to HQ, taking in the sight of the collar and muzzle. He ran his fingers along the cool edges like he was determining what he could do, all to no avail. The wounds on his face and neck were so extensive that Hobie was worried he’d just hurt him more by taking it off. And the smell— the blood and metal mixing with the salt of sweat. Hobie’s throat caught as the portal opened. “This shit is evil.”
A stretcher came to get Miguel. The four followed him through the long hallway leading through the medwing, and Peter realized his ears were ringing and that his face felt wet. When he passed by the other spiders looking the way he did— pale and weak and in pain and incoherent— silence would work its way through the hall and suppress whatever conversation was happening before they passed by.
It was normal for spiders to come back pretty banged up after fights, but everyone suspected Miguel missing for a few days now. Finding he had reappeared seeming like he was tortured— muzzled and collared like an animal, starved, beaten. It was disturbing as much as it was confusing seeing Miguel of all people like this.
“He needs AB negative blood and enough morphine to kill a horse, he’ll burn it all up if you don’t use enough,” Jess started ordering the spiders in the medwing. There was no doubt they knew what they were doing— most of the spiders in the medwing were doctors in their day to day lives before coming here. But Miguel, who normally licked his wounds on his own and was never seen this extensively injured by them before, had to be taken care of carefully.
Peter felt like he was floating while watching them wash his wounds and listening to Jess order them around. “Set his nose before his healing factor kicks in, it’s fast— fingers too. Don’t use glue, use stitches, or else he’ll ruin your work. He needs twice the saline. He needs a feeding tube before he starves. He needs—“
“He isn’t healing, Jess.”
Jess blinked at everyone working to keep him alive, as if she didn’t know why. But she knew why, and it wasn’t uncertainty in her eye, it was fear.
“The muzzle.”
They lifted their eyes towards Peter when he spoke and they stared.
“Don’t worry. He’s too weak to bite.” Peter just about gagged on the last word— bite.
The doctors nodded and got to undoing the buckles and locks in the muzzle, and Miguel worked up to a quiet groan. His eyes were pulled close with delirium, and Peter wondered if that could save him at all.
It didn’t. Peter jumped back when he cried out at the sensation of it being pulled up, and as they removed the cool metal from the wounds and caked blood of Miguel’s skin, he screamed.
Peter couldn’t take it anymore. He covered his ears and stormed out into the hall, not running somewhere but anywhere to get away from the sound of Miguel’s screams. The sound reverberated within his skull despite Peter managing to run out of earshot, and Peter didn’t know if it would ever get out of his head.
***
The first time Peter had seen Miguel again, it had been two days.
Normally, after Miguel and anybody else who accompanied him had been mangled on some FUBAR mission in a strange dimension they had never seen before, he needed some space. Peter would typically oblige and leave him alone to lick his wounds and recenter, otherwise he wasn’t much fun to be around. This time, though, there wasn’t much of an option.
“He just won’t listen to me,” Lyla paced around in the air above Peter’s head while she lamented. “I mean— I understand that he’s a workaholic, but this is egregious.”
“What is he even working on?” Peter questioned through a mouthful of fries. It wasn’t like he would be going on any missions soon. The state that he last saw the other man in was absolutely hellish, and regardless of his rapid healing, everything they did to keep him alive needed time to fully set.
“He’s been fixated on 647 since he got up, researching their Alchemax and cross-referencing it with his. I have no clue what he’s looking for but he won’t give it a rest.”
Peter stared down at his French fries, suddenly unenthused but the idea of trying to finish them. “Yeah, I’ll talk to him.”
Peter abandoned his meal and started on his way to Miguel’s office, watching the window view of Nueva York slide in and out of his line of sight. While making his way over, something about him felt heavy and a little afraid. Normally, when Miguel had called him in, he felt like he was on the way to the principal's office or something, expecting Miguel to talk and talk and talk for the better part of an hour and probably admonish for the rest of it. This time, though, he felt something more… worried? Peter couldn’t put his finger on the feeling.
The elevator doors to Miguel’s office split open, and Peter crept through the winding maze of its entrance. There was no greeting or acknowledgement of Peter’s presence, but the sound of his footsteps and the sliding of the steel elevator doors surely was enough for Miguel to hear.
“Miggs? You up there?” Peter called through cupped hands. No response other than the echo of his voice. With not much left to do, Peter swung from the floor to the bottom side of Miguel’s platform before walking over to the surface.
He found Miguel, sitting instead of standing for once, typing away at his computer. The holographic screens that filled his vision were had images of the Alchemax building they’d found him in, as well as files regarding 647’s Doc Ock. Miguel’s face, illuminated by the orange light of all the screens, held this completely despondent look while he flipped through an endless cache of information. He still looked like shit, too.
“Hey big guy,” Peter spoke quietly to him, and as he looked upon the other man, his heart started to feel too heavy for his chest. It dawned upon him that the last time he’d saw him, he was wearing a muzzle and a shock collar. The scarring, standing pale against his ambery skin, as well as the sight of the bruising on his face and neck, was a lot to look at. Worst of all, he still looked so very thin. So sickly. Peter didn’t know what to say other than the truth: “You look like shit.”
“I’ve definitely seen better days.” Miguel’s voice sounded broken too, creaking as it escaped the depths of his chest. Peter couldn’t think of just one thing he could ascribe the damage to.
Peter stepped a little closer to him, and Miguel turned his face away, as if hiding from him.
“Hey.” Peter called after him. He took in the sight of his posture, shoulders slumped forward and head craned away. He looked dejected, almost as if cowering from Peter’s line of sight. “What are you working on?”
Miguel turned back to one of his screens and Peter, out of the corner of his eye, could see the extent of the damage stretching across the lower half of Miguel’s face. “Studying 647’s Alchemax. While I was there they— um,” Miguel swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “Ran some tests on me. I’m worried about their dimension’s Spider-Man.”
Peter’s eyes welled up with tears, and he was overcome with the urge to reach out to Miguel. He almost did, but stopped himself once his hand was hovering over Miguel’s shoulder. “Oh, Miggs…”
“I know,” Miguel said softly. His voice caught in his throat as he spoke. “I just— I know.” At a loss for words, he leaned into Peter’s hand.
Peter, elated by the acceptance of his physical touch, leaned into Miguel and started combing his fingers through his hair. “Maybe you should give it a rest.” Asking Miguel to rest often felt like pulling teeth, but Peter found that he could never resist trying.
Much to his surprise, Miguel shook his head. “I don’t know why they were testing me, but it couldn’t have been for anything good. I need to know what they want to know before they find it.”
“I get that. I get it I just— you could use some sleep, is all.”
“Peter—“
Peter hunched over Miguel and pulled his head against his chest, unsure of how to negotiate without attempting to charm him. Pulling the side of his face, Peter planted a kiss on his temple. “Just tonight. You know that this is the only way I know how to help.”
Miguel finally looked up at Peter, fully showing I his face— burned and bruised and cut, a large part of the scars being of his own doing. His neck showed the worst of it, with a reddened imprint from the collar they had put on him. “Please?”
Miguel’s eyes cast downward, and he fully leaned his weight into Peter’s. “Yeah. You got me.”
Puppy dog eyes always worked on him.