*TRIGGER WARNING FOR NEARLY EVERY TRIGGER*

When I come to, I'm incredibly thankful to be free of the cage before I become aware of my position. I'm spread eagle in mid-air with my limbs cuffed to metal poles. My suit has been stripped from me, so I'm left in my boxers. The room I'm in is dark, grey and round with nothing else in it but me and a few flickering lights. There's a door in front of me and I take a breath before trying to shift. My shout of pain echoes in the room as I'm shocked with high voltages of electricity. I writhe in the air, fighting against the cuffs to no avail until the electricity fades. My body twitches with the aftershocks as I pant from the pain.

"I'm sure you're used to these cuffs." A voice creeps out from behind me and I huff at the sight of Eli as he moves in front of me. He's in pressed slacks and a button-down shirt with sleeves that he's rolling up to his elbows.

"They're somewhat familiar." I sass and he chuckles quietly.

"Good to see your spirits are still high. I'd be disappointed if they were to fade so quickly."

"Hate to disappoint." Eli shakes his head as he steps forward and frames my head with his hands.

"I'm sure you do. You've certainly never disappointed me." He breathes and I try to pull away from him, but my chains hold me still. "You and your sister were just...perfect." I snap at his hand and he flinches back while I smirk. "Yes, you always had claws. Remember this one?" His finger reaches up and taps the scar creeping up onto his face. "Caused by you."

"Want a few more?" I suggest and he sighs, moving behind me and rummaging around in something that I can't see. Until I smell propane. I swallow when he comes back around with a blowtorch and moves close to me. He turns it on and holds the blue flame between us where I can feel the heat on my bare chest.

"I think I'll give you a few more scars instead, Redhallow. I want you to remember me this time." He whispers and I wince when his finger instead of heat traces down the hollow of my throat, over my chest, then my stomach, and finally just under my boxers. Bile fills my mouth before I swallow it, but the moment after my skin feels like it's bubbling off the bone as he holds the torch over my hip. A scream rips out of my throat and the metal beams creak as I strain against them, but Eli's face only lights up with sick joy.

I'm covered in sweat when he stops to admire his handiwork. He sighs and leans forward slightly to touch the wound while I hiss with pain. "That's right. You'll remember my touch from now on, won't you?" He coos as he moves a bit closer so his lips are just beside my ear. My head quickly turns and I latch onto his ear with my teeth, sinking into soft skin as my mouth fills with blood. I jerk my head away from him as he stumbles backwards and spit out half his ear along with his blood. Then I give him a smile with my teeth stained red.

"You'll remember me too." I swear as he stumbles out of the room with a hand held to his ear. Once he's gone, I look down to the snaking burn that travels from mid-thigh, over my hipbone, and towards my belly button. I take a breath and stare down at the floor while trying not to focus on the pain. I try to focus and think back to why he's so familiar. Why does he want me to remember him? Why don't I remember him?

Five days pass before I see him again.

I've received no food and no water, so when I'm suddenly awoken from a dead sleep by a bucket of water in my face, I'm almost grateful. I lick what water I can off my lips and catch droplets dripping from my hair until he slicks it back from my face. "Do you want water?" He asks softly, lifting up my hanging head so I can see his eyes. The green focuses on mine and I sigh.

"I'd prefer whiskey, but hey. Gotta take what you can get." His lips curve up at my response before showing me a bottle of water in his hands. My mouth waters despite myself.

"Here." He squeezes my face so my lips part before pouring the entire bottle down my throat. I chug it desperately, but it's only after I swallow all the contents do I taste a tint of something else. As a last-ditch effort I spit, but it's far too late for that.

"What did you put in it?" I ask as the taste pervades every corner of my mouth. Eli smiles and tosses the bottle to the side as he steps back to watch me.

"Thought you'd be more familiar with the taste. Heard you took quite the foray into the seedier parts of New York when you turned eighteen. I'm sure you've taken stronger stuff than these." Already, my vision grows blurry and my head begins to spin. His hands glide over and into my hair again while I try to jerk away. Direction has gone upside down in my head as my entire world continues to spin in multiple directions. "Now, now, don't fight it. Just let go, Redhallow." He purrs and steps closer to hold my head to his shoulder in an embrace.

"No. Get...get off me." I squirm and try to change only for electricity to shoot through me. Eli jumps backward and even as the blinding white hot pain makes my exhausted body and muscles spasm, I'd rather the pain than his touch. The water still soaking me assists the current that digs into me like a thousand knives before it finally stops. I'm gasping for breath and suck in deep gulps of air while staring Eli down. Instead of looking dejected, he looks positively ecstatic.

"Fight as long as you want, Redhallow. You can't fight forever." He reaches a hand out to touch me again and I stare into his eyes as I trigger the electrocution again.

But unfortunately, he's right.

Three more times I electrocute myself when he reaches out, but each time gets later and later. His thumb manages to slide over my lips, both hands over my shoulders, and his lips over my cheek before I'm completely spent. The drugs have slowed my system incredibly and the pain has exhausted what strength I had. "Are you done?" He asks and I can barely lift my head. His form blurs and shakes until I just drop my head and close my eyes to stop the spinning. Soft hands test the waters by sliding over my hair. If I shock myself again, I'll knock myself out. I can't decide if that would be a good or a bad thing.

"That's right, just give in." His lips whisper over my jaw as his hands slide over my shoulders. With the last bit of my strength, I try to change again. As he jumps back something that could barely be construed as a laugh slips from my lips.

"Fuck...off." Is the last thing I say before everything goes dark.

The next time I wake up, it's from pain.

The burning is back but this time it's coming from behind me on my right shoulder. I throw my head back as I yell and the pain stops. Tears fall from my eyes from the pain as the burn is stretched from my positioning. A satisfied hum leaks from the man behind me as his body slides closer and his lips press kisses around the sizzling flesh. For a moment he vanishes, before coming back and flushing water down my throat. Another tint is in this one, another drug, but he pinches my nose so I have to swallow or choke on it. I'm coughing when his empty hands come back to my body. His hand slides over my abs as he presses his body flush to mine. "Do you remember me yet, boy?" All of a sudden, the memory rushes back to me as if I were reliving it all over again.

"Let me handle him for a few days. I'll get him to behave." The man promises from outside of my cage while I sneer and hiss at him. My father considers my seven-year-old body within the bars of my cage before nodding and slapping Eli's shoulder.

"Here's hoping." He allows and shakes his head at me before leaving the room. Eli smiles and kneels in front of my cage.

"Oh, I don't think hope will be necessary. Do you, boy?" He chuckles while I growl at him fiendishly.

Time passes.

I'm now in a padded room although I've ripped the padding down to the metal walls. The door opens and I'm cowering in the corner as Eli enters with a riding crop in his hands. The door closes. "Now, today we're just going to do a few things to make a little progress. Cooperate, and there will be no need for this." He raises the whip as I stare at him and hiss. His eyes brighten at the challenge. "Change for me." He requests, but I remain resolute. That shining doesn't dim in the slightest as he crouches down in the middle of the room. "Change." I hiss at his request, but quiet when the whip sings through the air and slices across my face.

"Now, now. I warned you. Come stand in front of me." He says and I don't move until he raises the whip again. I scuttle over until I'm standing in front of him and staring at him head-on. "Change for me." He asks another time and this time I obey as I turn into a small black panther. "Good. That wasn't so hard, now wa-" He's forced silent by my paw with claws fully extended upper-cutting his face. He falls backward onto his ass as he holds a hand to his bleeding chin as fury enters his eyes. Eli stands and lifts the whip, bringing it down on me again and again and again and again. "I. Will. Break. You." He says and continues whipping me until his other hand is smoothing over his tired shoulder.

I'm prostrate on the floor, shivering, before I turn back into myself now covered with new scars and welts. "Good boy." He breathes.

And he did. I think as I come back to the present. After spending a few days with him I was sent back to my parents as the perfect obedient child. Anything to not have to go back into that room with that man again. "I...remember...you." I pant, the pain still searing even as his hands rove over my stomach and even dip under my waistband.

"Good. Then you know I can break you. I've done it before, haven't I?" My jaw clenches weakly as his lips skate down my neck. Even as I fight against him in my mind, my body is weak with no food and only a little water. How am I going to get out of this? Pain snaps me out of my thoughts as the blowtorch glides down my right thigh and I can barely breathe because of the pain. Fire fuses the cloth from my underwear to my melting skin and somehow the smell makes it worse. I scream, but nothing comes out as I choke on the hurt, the burning. It stops and I gasp in air before dry heaving. When the room is silent again, he speaks, "Wouldn't it be easier...just to accept the inevitable?" With my eyes shut I can almost imagine his hand rifling through my hair is just Tony's. And as his hands slide lower, I imagine they're just Peter's teasing me on our first official date. "That's it. Relax." He encourages and his voice shatters my hopes.

"N-no." I try to change and barely twitch as the electricity rips through me which makes my burns sear like they were just made. Eli sighs, but rounds me to see my face.

"You'll give in, Redhallow. Just like before." He warns before stepping out of the door. After the shocks fade, I hang there drowsily. He's right. I'll give in eventually; I'm already fading and I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to hold on. I have to get out somehow, some way. My eyes lift to the high-tech cuffs holding my ankles and wrists. Tony would know how these work. They obviously connect to electricity to shock me, maybe even to the electrical core of this place going by the amount of voltage they can direct to me. My brows furrow as I look side to side.

Maybe if I overload the electrical system, it'll crash. But that'll require me to get shocked more than I have before within a short amount of time. I have to try. A few deep breaths later and I'm focusing on the change. I can hear the buzz of electricity before I feel it and I let myself scream without letting my focus waver. The pain pushes me onward. Keep going and it'll stop. Change and it'll stop. I tell myself over and over again as tears soak my face, but I can't stop. I won't stop. My voice is practically gone by the time my vision is starting to blur not only from the tears but from pain. My focus slips away and I'm left to hang there as the final shocks sting my body. Energy drains my body, but the next time I blink and open my eyes, I find I'm in complete darkness.

It worked. The power's out. My spirits lift as I shake my head to awaken and start tugging at the restraints. Without a shock to stop me, I loose two chains in under a minute and fall to the floor. Pain shoots threw me as my arms catch me while my feet are still caught in the chains. Still, I can't stop now. As quickly as I can, I tug until the chains break and I'm finally free to change. I shift to a spider as soon as I'm able and the cuffs still on my wrists falls away as I scurry to the door. Turns out I don't have to crawl under because it slams open to reveal Eli breathing hard with his chest heaving. I don't stop to look at him as I scurry out. The drugs are still circulating my system and I can't afford to slow lest they make me pass out.

"I know you're still here, Redhallow. Do you really want to take the chance of letting me go?" I pause on the ceiling of the long hall before me. "I know where your family lives. Do you really think I'll let them go?" My breathing is shaky as I listen to his voice from inside that room. That fucking room. And I push on. "I'll do the the same to them. The same to anyone I come across! Come on, Redhallow!" He yells and I push myself to go harder, move faster. I'm half delirious from pain, malnourishment, and drugs, but the adrenaline keeps me going. His voice fades the further I go as I duck over doors with the slimmest hope of getting out of here. At the very least, I'm out of his hands and that's enough. That's more than enough.

Finally, I feel a whisper of hair tickle the tiny spider hairs covering my body and I hurry towards it. I almost sob, if spiders could, when I crawl out from one last door and see the moon in a dark sky. I shift back into myself and even though it's slow going, I'm still faster than a spider. A camera. I just need to find a camera and Tony'll find me. I walk through the dark, abandoned streets wincing with pain from the burns marking my body and my general weakness from all the electrocutions. "Please. Please." My voice doesn't even make sound since I'd spent it on screams, but talking keeps me conscious.

I just repeat those words over and over again as I shuffle onward. There aren't any lights ahead, but there is a car. My elbow breaks the driver's side window and I climb inside with no small amount of pain or effort. At least I'm sitting now. Luckily, this person is an idiot and put their keys in the visor. When the car starts, I nearly cry before pulling into the street. It's slow going, but the honks from angry drivers help to keep me from passing out.

By some miracle, I make it to the facility. I pull into the drive and barely have the strength to slip it into park. Still, I get out of the car and limp towards the doors. The drugs are helping me now so I don't feel as much of the pain as I walk towards the blinding light in front of me. I stop and sway on my feet as I see a silhouette moving towards me at a fast pace. When they run into me, I just go limp while clinging onto their shirt. Oil and coffee. Tony. I can hear words blurring together around me as others arrive, but I just cling to Tony and cry into his shoulder.

Too soon, everything goes black.

*A/N*
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