Poisonous Dreams (Poisoned part 2)

Peter was gently shaken awake. Why were his eyes so heavy? As he slowly opened them, the events of last night came back to him. The first thing he saw was the IV in his arm. Panicking, he began ripping at it. But strong hands stopped him. "Hey kid, don't do that. That's helping you get better." Peter relaxed then. If Mr. Stark was here, then he was fine.


Someone took his other hand. Peter looked over to see Stephen checking his pulse. "How do you feel today?"


"I feel okay right now, but everything's still fuzzy."


"Okay. Can you feel anything in your legs?"


Peter wiggled his toes. "A little bit. Still not much though."


Doctor Strange made a note on a tablet. He shined a penlight in Peter's eyes and checked his temperature. "Nothing seems to have gotten worse since last night, which is good. That means we correctly identified the poison and the treatment is working."


"What was..." Peter trailed off, but Strange understood.


"It was a low level paralytic. Do you know where you could have run into something like that?"


"No?" Peter racked his brain, searching for anything. He hadn't been in contact with any dangerous weapons while patrolling, he hadn't eaten anything out of the normal— except last night. He had gone down to Tony's Party for just a minute, to be welcomed as Spider-man. In those few minutes, someone had offered him a drink, and like a fool, he had taken it. He went pale.


Tony saw this and wrapped his fingers more securely around Peter's. "What is it, Pete? Did you remember something?"


"Um, yeah." He related what he had just thought of, and Strange nodded.


"That makes sense. This drug is usually ingested."


Tony, however, was livid. "Do you mean that someone did this on purpose to my kid?"


Peter didn't comment on the fact that Tony had just claimed him as his child. Tony didn't seem to notice either, for he kept ranting. "I'm gonna find the bastard who did this and I'm going to cut off their—"


"Tony," Strange warned. "Don't. If it was on purpose, FRIDAY will have recorded it. We'll bring them down, legally."


Peter wasn't really following this anymore. A cloud seemed to have obscured his vision and he was sinking into blackness. He let sleep claim him. But it wasn't a nice sleep, this was a fever-induced haze.


Tony was still arguing when he heard a noise and he looked down to see Peter's eyes roll into the back of his head and he collapsed. Strange saw it too and instantly checked his pulse. "His heart is slowing!" Suddenly, Peter began thrashing. "Hold him down!" Strange commanded Tony. He grabbed a syringe and plunged it into Peter's thigh. After what seemed like an eternity, the boy stopped shaking. Strange looked extremely concerned. "We need to get him into a scan now, I think the poison may be spreading."


The doctor took him into another room and scanned him, and they put tubes and wires all over his body. But Peter didn't feel any of it. He was trapped inside his mind, scenes of horror buffeting him every second. He felt an impending sense of doom, and then—pain. Pure, unrelenting pain. It came in horrible, unending waves that racked his body and tire every thought from his mind. Every second that passed made it worse and worse, and he distantly heard screaming. It occurred to him that it might be him, but he knew that couldn't be right. His brain was trying to formulate words and sounds but nothing was coming out. He thought the words Tony and Stephen, but they made no sense to him. He knew no one by that name, no one that could help him escape.


There were flashes of light, but the light was evil. There were seconds of darkness, and those few moments were blissful. And then, all the light went away and he was left in peace. He reached out his fist and grabbed onto the darkness, letting it claim him.


But then he heard a voice, a chilling, hauntingly persuasive voice calling him. "Peter, come to the light. I'm ready to play, Spider-boy."

Comment