Part 2: Pain Scale
Summary:
Riven isn't being questioned — he's being measured. Hydra doesn't want answers, just reactions. And they get them. The pain isn't theatrical — it's clinical. Designed. Perfected. The screams Hydra rips out of him aren't a side effect. They're data. And Riven… is breaking.
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The lights dimmed first.
Then the restraints tightened.
Then the machines came.
There was no one in the room with him. Just the hum of mechanical arms descending, and the hiss of hydraulic joints locking into place.
Then the voice:
> "Begin Series One. Physical stress induction. No anesthetic."
---
The first clamp locked onto his thigh.
The second wrapped around his ribs.
The third took his arm.
They didn't just squeeze.
They pulled.
Twisted.
Cranked.
The pressure built like a steel vice around his body — until bone pressed against tendon, tendon against joint.
He held his breath.
For two seconds.
Then five.
Then ten.
Until the first tendon popped.
And he screamed.
---
Not a grunt. Not a groan.
A raw, involuntary animal sound — ripped straight from his lungs. Shaking. Loud.
He tried to control it.
He couldn't.
The second wave hit harder. The machines adjusted on the fly, tightening in micro-measured bursts, just slow enough to avoid rupture.
But not slow enough to avoid agony.
---
His spine arched.
His wrists fought the cuffs until skin split.
His voice cracked from the pitch of it.
> "STOP!"
He said it once.
Then again.
Then again.
No one answered.
The arms didn't stop.
The pain didn't pause.
The machines just logged it — every spasm, every heartbeat, every scream.
---
By the time the first session ended, his chest was soaked in sweat.
One eye had swollen shut.
His lips were cracked from dehydration.
His voice was gone.
But his mind was still there.
He remembered every second.
---
The screen blinked again.
> SESSION 2: NEURAL / SENSORY
He couldn't lift his head.
But he saw the new tools drop from the ceiling — thinner arms, tipped with buzzing metal threads.
Not surgical.
Punitive.
---
The first needle slid under his fingernail.
He choked on the scream.
The second burned just beneath his temple — a nerve trigger.
The third went into the top of his foot.
He thrashed.
He begged.
But the room didn't care.
---
They weren't looking for anything.
They just wanted to see what he could take.
And what he couldn't.
---
By the end, he wasn't silent from strength.
He was hoarse from screaming too much.
The walls had heard every second.
And the cameras kept rolling.
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