Usually, watching explosions wouldn't make a person thoughtful. But right now, in Spider Man's case, it did.

"Aw, man, too easy," Agent Venom griped as the last drone fell from the sky and crashed to the floor.

"Oooh, don't say that," Spider Man groaned. "Last time Luke said something like that, Fury heard him, and that's why we had to do the LMD Blob thing."

"Ugh, I remember that. I think my liver's still kinda squished."

"But yeah, you're getting pretty good. I mean, from your first day, you were doing pretty good. You kicked the Beetle's butt the first time you fought him, and he's a mechanical genius and a professional mercenary."

The symbiote flowed away from Flash's face. "I remember that," he said with a cackle and a toothy grin. "Guess all the sports I played helped. But it was like I just knew what to do an' how to fight. I was kinda surprised myself."

Spider Man was glad he had the mask on, because his wince would've immediately attracted attention. It was too much of a reminder of lingering questions he didn't have answers to. Or at least, he did have tentative answers — only they were ones he didn't like. Not at all.

"Hey, Pet— Uh, Spider Man?" Spider Man nodded in approval at the correction; it took Flash a while to get used to not calling his classmates by anything but their code names when in costume. It seemed the habit was starting to sink in. "You thinkin' about something?"

Uh oh. Has my mask gone transparent or something? Or did Flash turn into Mr. Sensitivity somewhere along the line? "Uh... Why do you ask that?"

"I dunno. It just looked like you were kinda a million miles away while I was training."

"You could tell?" Flash shrugged, which only made Spider Man wonder even more just what Venom was doing to Flash's brain and senses. Fortunately, he'd been thinking about more than that — something he could actually bring up. "Well... Yeah, I was thinking about your weaponry. You absorbed it from the Beetle, right?" Flash nodded. "But you're actually not firing actual rockets, are you? They're made out of... symbiote... stuff... right?"

"I... think so?"

"So I was wondering: if you're firing rockets made of... Venom, then maybe you can control them while they're in flight. Like a guidance system."

"Huh. Never thought of that. I want to try. Gimme another drone." The faux mask flowed back over his head as Spider Man tapped on the console in front of him, and another combat drone descended from a panel in the ceiling.

"Now don't even aim at it." Agent Venom faced several feet to the right of it, but kept eye contact. "Maybe try thinking about the missiles hitting the target."

"Um... How am I supposed to do that?"

"Why are you asking me? I don't know! Just... do whatever it is you do when you make tentacles or whatever."

"Okay... Here goes." A pair of black rocket launchers formed out of his shoulders, and fired a barrage of missiles. They streaked toward the empty air to the right of the drone, but Spider Man saw the white eyeholes (or whatever they were) on Agent Venom's face squint in concentration.

Abruptly, the missiles swerved to the left, each one slamming into the drone with thunderous blasts. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left of it but a pile of charred but fortunately easily recycled parts.

"Ohmigosh!" Agent Venom gasped. "I did it! I actually did it!" He began dancing from one leg to the other, fists pumping the air in triumph. "We're more awesome than ever now!"

One word immediately extinguished any pride or pleasure Spider Man had just felt at the discovery. "Uh... Yeah, that's... great." He gulped. "So, uh... How do you feel?"

"Huh? Feel? Fine. Better than fine." The mask flowed away again. "Except I still feel like there's a lot more I can do with this. Felt that way for a long time. I mean, I'm still wearing the same pads I had on the first time I got this thing 'cause it won't come off." He gestured at the rest of the "costume" covering his body. "And I dunno why, but there's something in my brain sayin' that I can do so much more cool stuff, but I don't know how yet." He shrugged. "It's kinda weird. But my entire life's turned kinda weird, y'know?"

"Believe me, I know." But there was much more that he didn't know — that Flash himself probably didn't know.

And that was the entire problem.

"I knew it!" Spider Man ranted as he paced. "I knew a homicidal cannibalistic symbiote made by Osborne just wouldn't roll over like a puppy just because it found a host it kind of liked!"

"Well, we're entering—" Dr. Connors paused. "Sorry, but could you come down? I'm getting a crick in my neck."

"What? Oh, sure." With a graceful flip, Spider Man launched himself off the ceiling and back onto the floor in front of the doctor.

"Thank you. As I was saying, we're entering uncharted territory with the symbiote. I wasn't able to do a lot of testing on it before it became dangerous, and it's undoubtedly gone through some kind of... evolution while it was loose. I believe that's why it didn't bond permanently to Flash the first time it took him over. Obviously, we can study it now, but without a previous baseline, it's hard to say what sort of changes have already taken place."

Spider Man rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, something's definitely different this time. When Harry Osborne was Venom, I could hear when he was in control and when Venom was, just by whether they used 'I' or 'we'. But now, he still sounds like Flash, all the time, even when he does use 'we.'"

"Sounds encouraging. But you're still concerned."

"Of course I'm concerned! Especially now that we know we can't get that thing off him! Whatever happens now, we're all stuck with it, and if there's even the slightest chance he could go all fangy and drooly again... Even when he was being a bully, I didn't want him hurt, and you and I both know Fury and SHIELD will make his life miserable if they get even a whiff of a chance he could get out of control."

Conners tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Let me ask you this: when was the last time your spider sense went off because of him or the symbiote?"

Spider Man paused to consider. "A long time. Actually, I don't think they ever did. Huh." He shook his head. "But maybe it's immune to my spider sense or something. You said it yourself: who knows what's changed? None of us do, not even Flash, and I think that's a problem."

"You could be right. It all depends on how much of Venom — the original Venom — is left in Flash. It's a difficult question, especially since we don't know exactly what the 'original Venom' was, mentally, to begin with."

Spider Man sighed. "The thing was created from me. Why couldn't it think like me too? Wait, that'd be really weird. But at least then we could defeat it while it's stuck in an imagine spot..."

Dr. Conners had no idea what he was talking about, but decided not to question. It was always better not to question. "Believe me, Flash is being closely observed..."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better how?"

"Look, Fury is... Well, he's..." Conners looked around, as if trying to find a sign of a hidden mike, or Fury himself lurking in the shadows.

"A paranoid hardass?"

"If you knew what he did, you'd probably be paranoid too."

"Touche."

"My point is, he's fair," Conners continued. "He took me back, and I did a lot more damage than Flash has." Ah. Maybe, Spider Man thought, that was what this was all about, on some level, at least for the good doctor. "If nothing happens, nothing happens, and Flash has nothing to worry about."

"And if it does?" Spider Man asked quietly.

"Then I think you and I both know you'd be first in line to do something about it." And he was right, dammit.