I was out of the shackles and wrapped up in a hug before I could even force out more tears.

He smells horrible.

I know, deal with it.

   "I'm so sorry," He mummers as he holds me close, "He will truly pay for all that he's done."

"Thank you, but now I'm must apologize." Despite knowing that if I don't get out of here, we might have a large issue, I feel bad for him. He truly has felt the strain of growing industry.

"For what?" He pulls back, looking at me with tears eyes.

"This." His grip doesn't have time to tighten before I move around him and push him forwards. The shackles, as suspected, automatically close around him as he runs into it.

    "I thought-!!" His eyes hold fury, and not the friendly kind. "You used me." He growled as he started to press forwards, "Used me for your own gain." The wall begins to shake as he starts pulling the shackles out of it.

Time to go.

Turning on a dime, I dash out of the block's door and press the only button on there. The door slides shut seconds before he rips the thing out of the cement. I turn to Daniel's cell area and look blankly at five rows of four buttons each.

   "Uh..." I stare at it in search for any sign of what code they used to open the door.

"First row on the bottom, third button." Daniel calls out to me. With a shrug, I press the button.

Beep.

My eyes slightly widen as I look at him.

"How did you-" I cut myself off as I turn, realizing he'd be able to read the code perfectly from where he is. I wave it off, "Next?"

After a couple of seconds of this, the door pops open and I dash into the area. The shackles for him were different, clearly meant for someone stronger than what mine would hold. I study the back of them.

There isn't an inside panel here like there was for me, meaning there's a different release for his. And going on how he hasn't gotten himself free, I'm guessing that he's not able to get his first thing to break it.

I run my hand along the back of the mechanism and feel something out of the ordinary: A switch. I look at him, stuffing the fact that I'm literally right before his nose away, and nod.

"Found something here, sorry if this hurts." Then I switch it. Thankfully, he doesn't start screaming. The shackles open up. I step back as he falls to the floor as rubs his wrists.

"Thank you." He nods to me as we both walk out of the trap.

"Now perhaps we can find a way out of here?" I offer as I look to the door. But not every three seconds after I've spoken, it opens up and a gun is shoved into my face.

"How did you get out? What ability did you use?" A gruff voice growls at me, "What-"

"Please let me stop you there." I hold my hands up and back up slightly, "Your guy was fooled into letting me out. What ability do you think I have?" I scoff, "Surely after kidnapping us you would've checked my grades?"

The gun clicks as the safety goes off. My eyes widen as I can feel something stirring in me.

Let me help, I can get all of us out without issue. Find the other classmates and everything.

If we're unstable, and we go rogue, we might cause more harm than good.

Please, Zoey, consider me as an option.

The barrel goes to Daniel as the superhero clenches his fists.

"Don't think about it, boy. We both know you're not faster than a bullet." The man raises an eyebrow as Daniel narrows his eyes.

But we are!

Swifty, you said unstable!

We've done it before, what's stopping you this time?!

What happens if we have another incident, we'll be locked away, Swifty!

I'm greeted with silence as I slowly feel Daniel backing me up, probably planning on putting me behind him. I stop moving and clear my throat.

   "Did you kidnap the rest of my class too?" The distraction works as he looks at me, waving the gun over and stepping forwards.

   "Shut up! That isn't your business." Although my plan starts to work, Daniel lunges forwards. He sees the opportunity of getting him.

However, he misjudged. The guy had the gun right in front of him before Daniel could even get to him.

    "No!" I call out, closing my eyes as I could just picture the bullet firing. But I don't hear it. Slowly, I sneak my eyes open.

Daniel is standing above the guy with the gun tossed to the side.

"I think you should stay here, he'll be out for a while, and if they're armed then it isn't really safe for you." He pushes his gaze from the guy, to me. Something draws me to agree.

I'll just sit down here and let him deal with it, he's got superpowers. He'll be fine.

You have superpowers. You'd be fine.

Sometimes, I hate your timing.

Yeah, I know.

"There's no way that I'm letting you go out there alone." My hands lower as I head for the door, "You need all the help you can get if we are to figure out where our classmates are, and what is going on here." Before he can stop me, I push past him and open the door.

If I was any slower in immediately diving behind boxes on the left, that would've been it. We would've been done for.

Labcoat is sitting in a chair with his back to us, someone kneeling over him from the other side to probably fix his nose. Someone is standing in the middle though. They have on what looks to be sensors and there's drones flying in circles around him.

"Hurry up, we don't have all day!" He shouts to... the entire second floor full of people.

How did I not get seen?!

I see movement to my left as Daniel joins me behind the crates, looking at me a bit oddly before turning his attention to the people.

"Too many of them." He mutters under his breath, "We won't be able to take them out with just us."

"Then it's a good thing you're not alone!" Never have I been so happy to hear Parker's voice. Spider-Man flips over us and swings up onto one of the hovering drones, White Tiger swinging around from above as she begins to take out those guys, even though I don't see Powerman and Nova, I know they're probably here.

With me right here, Daniel can't help.

"I'll go try and find the classmates!" I call to him over the fighting and bantering, "See if you can help them any!"

"Stay safe!" He responds with a nod while he dashes behind another pile of boxes, probably one that he saw his costume being dropped off at if I were to guess.

Finding another door, I push it open and find myself in a long, narrow hallway. Metal covers me on all sides with thousands of doors standing stoically in periodic intervals.

This looks like it'll be easy.

It isn't any of the doors closest to us.

I slowly move to the center of the hallway, looking both ways as I bite the tip of my tongue.

Can you tell which way it is, at least?

I can try.

I feel her move around in me, particularly focusing on my head. My eyes instinctively close as the lights suddenly get five times brighter, and the smell of metal burns the inside of my nose.

I forgot how uncomfortable this is.

I know that she needs my eyes open, it helps her if she can see at all times, so I open the tightly closed lids and look around. Details in the metal stand out like sore thumbs. A bump here, a scratch here, some sort of mystery stain-that-I-don't-wanna-think-about there. The smell of blood stings my nose as I recoil away from it.

Right. And if you want my help take your hand away from your face.

I lower my hand slowly, eyes watering from the intensity of everything. About a moment later, I find myself standing in front of a broken down door.

"Well, seems like someone was here." I mutter as I look around the area, peeking my head into the room.

"Yes, but you forgot to check if they still were." The deep voice bounces in the room as something hits me square in the chest. I go flying backwards and slide on the floor until I reach the opposite wall.

I'm sorry, I didn't pick up his scent in time.

You're fine, Swifty, just leave me to try and deal with this for now.

The lights look... dimmer. The reek of metal and iron seeps away into the background while I struggle to breath.

"Who-?" I'm cut off by coughing as I look up.

Nobody's there. Literally, the door is even back up and everything.

Are we going insane?

I'm afraid that isn't a question I can answer.

Slowly getting to my feet, I stagger against the wall and look down. My shirt has the imprint of a foot on it. Proof that there was someone, or rather, something there just seconds ago.

We wouldn't be able to take that thing head on yet.

I hobble down the hallway that I came from, looking over my shoulder while occasionally flattening against the wall. I get all the way to the door I left Daniel at without any more instances.

So, all of that was useless. I've come right back where I began.

No wonder Fury says I'm not 'hero material' yet.

He's only saying that because they fear I may be like that parasite. Poison or something.

Venom?

Yes. That.

You need to get better with names, and do less eavesdropping.

I scold her gently as I push the door open again. It looks like everything has been wrapped up, webs hang everywhere, but there's no sign of a bad guy on the loose. And Shield is here, of course.

Spider-Man stands next to Fury as they go deep into conversation, I can tell that the Director is getting a little irritated. The rest of the team is near the middle as they also discuss amongst themselves. Nobody notices little ol' me.

I press against the wall beside the door and let Swifty gradually heal the bruising from earlier, as she healed anything broken immediately. My eyes wanna close, the energy she uses doing this always makes me sleepy.

Wake up, company coming.

I open my eyes slowly as Daniel, out of costume, comes over.

"Hey, you alright?" He kneels beside me, looking more worried than he should. "Whenever you left, a lot of stuff went down. I wasn't able to check in."

"I'm fine, just a bit winded." I smile reassuringly as Swift works on taking the pain away too.

"She's not human!!" Screaming erupts from the room as the man gets all of our attention.

He's looking at us...

Calm.

"She's a monster! A monster!" He struggles in the hold the agents have him in, "And I'll prove it! I'll show you all!" He lets out some sort of battle cry and the agents are sent over his head.

Charging. He's charging.

Daniel steps between me and the man as I push myself to stand, leaning against the wall. More men are filing in behind him to stop him.

"She means no harm-" He starts, but the guy barrels through him. He literally pushes past Daniel like he was a feather.

"I'll show you!!" His hand raises above my head.

Move!

But I couldn't, I froze up. The look in his eyes... they resembled my mother.

Zoey!!

I saw the syringe too late to react. I can barely get out a surprised shout before pain erupts from the base of my neck. Something cold, startlingly cold races through me.

Unstable.

My head starts to sing as pain pulses behind my eyes. The world spins without me while I fall to the ground, panting, and cold.

    "...ou hear me?" A hand presses against my shoulder, "Are you-"

    "Go!!" I shove them away as vision blurs. "Unstable."

It's not me anymore. I can't focus on what's going on, I know things are happening, but I don't know what.

Just go!

Shut it.

Tears feel warm as they run to the corners of my mouth.

Swifty, what did-

I said be quiet!

Something hits me on the side of the head, and I go down. The cement floor a welcoming cushion as blur turns to monotone, and then finally black.