The Vengeance of Venom
(Chapter 1)
"How do I get myself in these messes?" Spider-Man wondered. As a superhero he always seemed to get pulled in every single direction. One day he could be out stopping a mugger on the street, and the next he could be stopping an alien invasion over New York. Or... he could be where he was now with the avengers trying to stop a jet from crashing into the city. Oh! Did he forget to mention he was aboard said jet... while it was partially on fire?
Yeah, his life was pretty hectic. Right now he was trying to find a way to reroute the ship's power and release the controls so Iron Man could safely piolet him and Black Widow away from certain death while Thor did his best to slow their descent. No pressure or anything.
The ship suddenly jerked. Good thing he had spider powers that allowed him to stick to almost any surface. If he didn't he would've been sent flying into and out the windshield. Seriously, how on earth did he get himself in these messes? He genuinely wanted to know.
"Thanks a lot Thor! Want to try looking for a self destruct button next time?!" Iron man complained. "I'm opening an impromptu brainstorm session here, what have you got PJs?"
Spider-Man instantly knew Iron Man was talking to him as that was the nickname he'd given him due to his superhero costume covering his entire body and being homemade. It wasn't at all fancy like his armor or Widow's tech suit, but it was his and he made it with his own two hands and his aunt's sewing needles.
"It looks like he's taken over the electrical systems, I can't override! He's gonna crash us!"
"And to make things more fun he's reprogramed the security on his cell's door. keeping us out. It's too thick to blast through so I'm going to try and hack in." said Black Widow as the redhead woman tried her best to stay calm as she used her wrist mounted computer.
Sirens were soon blaring which put the wall-crawler on edge. He left the open control panel he was working on and hurried to the cockpit with Iron man. "Any chance that beeping just means free ice cream?"
"It means we're coming in for a landing, and not the smooth kind." Iron Man answered.
Well wasn't that just perfect? "This probably isn't the best time, but I'm totally sorry for dragging you all into this mess!"
The older hero eyed the teen curiously. "Apologizing and taking responsibility for your actions... have you learned nothing from me?"
Quite the contrary, he'd learned plenty from Iron Man. He was a hero to aspire too and the leader of arguably the greatest collection of heroes in the world. He'd helped him out quite a bit with learning how to fight smarter and to keep collateral damage to a minimum. That last part he was still working on.
Now where was he? Oh that's right, crashing to his doom. "Anyone on the ground who could lend a hand?"
"Way ahead of you webs."
What did he mean by that? Spider-Man looked out the jet window to see the ground fast approaching. That and... oh! That's what he meant by way ahead. Not only was the ground coming up fast, but so was a certain burly green figure. Bruce Banner... A.K.K, the incredible Hulk.
On instinct Spider-Man shut his eyes and felt the entire jet rumble. Thanks to his powers he wouldn't go flying but it still felt as if he was experiencing a miniature earthquake. Eventually the rumbling ceased and after a few seconds her opened his eyes to see everyone inside no worse for wear.
"That could've been smoother." he heard Hulk say from outside.
"I've had worse landings... when Hawkeye was flying." Window commented, unfazed by the crash.
Wanting to stretch his legs for a bit, Spider-Man climbed out of the now smashed window and onto the jet's roof. It felt good to be back on the ground. It's just too bad this moment of calm would be sort lived. An all too familiar pull in the back of his head said so.
"Uh... guys?" Spidey started before the sound of scrapped metal reached his ears. Soon a thick metal door was launched into the air. This was wasn't good. "He's free!"
That caught the groups attention as the prisoner sprang fourth. Now Spider-Man had faced a lot of bizarre criminals in his short career as a hero. He'd fought a girl who turns into pure energy, a villain made of sand, an internet streamer, and living black sludge. But this guy was literally a giant floating head with baby limbs... M.O.D.O.K... mental organism designed only for killing.
"You will never contain the brilliance of MODOK!" he declared arrogantly. "I have discarded that so called power dampener you put on me."
"Yeah? Well I didn't actually have the time to test the dampening system on a technopath like you-" Spider-Man began before he was forced to dodge what he called a brain blast.
"Do not interrupt me you blabbering fool!" M.O.D.O.K seethed before quickly re-collecting himself. "As I was saying, taking control of your ship was child's play. As will be terminating the Avengers!"
"Wait!" Spider-Man cut in. "I'd just like to point out I'm technically not an Avenger."
The beam in the center of M.O.D.O.K's head began to glow furiously. "Stop talking!" he shouted before firing a mental blast at the waiting heroes. Iron Man managed to jump to the side while Hulk blocked the mental attack head on for Spiders. "It is about time you sad excuses for super beings realized the true potential-"
He was suddenly cut off as he tried to frantically avoid the lighting bolts raining down on him.
"And to think the man of spiders speaks excessively." came the voice of Thor from above. The proud son of Odin twirled his hammer expertly as he charged the giant floating head. M.O.D.O.K managed to dodge the first strike, but he wasn't quick enough to avoid the second headed his way.
The big head man was struck hard and sent flying towards Hulk like a living baseball. The green man managed to catch him by the baby legs and suplexed him into the ground. M.O.D.O.K didn't take to kindly to this and quickly whirled around on the ground to catch both Hulk and the prince with a mental blast.
The two biggest heavy hitters of the Avengers were sent sailing through the air and slammed into a nearby stone bridge, reducing it to rubble. The telepath took a moment to admire his handiwork before remembering he still had other heroes ruin.
The first one to come at him was the wall crawling menace known as Spider-Man who he tried and failed to pin down. "To be fair, when I tracked M.O.D.O.K's location I really thought taking him down would be a whole lot easier."
That was a rookie mistake on his part. He should've known M.O.D.O.K wouldn't go down easy. He was a top tier criminal for a reason.
"But you did find him." Black Widow praised before charging up her batons. "That's something even we haven't done yet."
The former spy launched herself onto the giant head before giving him a good zap from her batons. This proved to be an affective attack too as the giant floating head began to sputter.
"You throwing shade at me Widow?" Iron Man asked as he blasted the villain with his repulsors. Widow jumped off just in before the twin blasts sent M.O.D.O.K crashing into the side of the jet. "That was shade- Woah!"
Widow's eyes suddenly went wide as Iron Man turned his repulsors on her. Before he could blast her Thor returned to the battle to defend his teammate with his hammer. The beam was deflected and Iron Man was the shoved halfway across the ground by the Asgardian price.
"Iron Man does not like this so called shade." said aloud as he watched Iron Man prepare for his next attack.
"I'm not in control of my armor!" he exclaimed before launching a volley of beams at his team. The heroes did their best to avoid being shot as M.O.D.O.K took this time to gloat. "Yes! He speaks the truth! As a technopath it is I operating Iron Man's entire system! And now you will all fall by your own leader's hand! Hahahahaha! Poetic!"
As Iron Man continued to take potshots against his will while everyone took cover behind a broken peace of scrap. M.O.D.O.K would've had him move in but found himself interrupted by a returning green terror.
"Hey Tony! Sorry, not sorry!"
The Hulk's sneak attack was ruined by a unibeam from his Arc Reactor that sent the jolly green giant flying away. "Woah!" he yelped as he felt something connect with his back. He turned his head to see Spider-Man had webbed his way onto his back. "What are you doing webs? You can't shut me down from the outside."
"I know, but I can adjusted your oscillating wave propagation." the web slinger said before tempering with Iron Man's suit. The suit suddenly froze in it's tracks and a green wave of energy released. The technopath screamed when the wave sought him out and he was sent plummeting into the earth with a loud crunch.
Spidey winced, that had to hurt.
"He's unconscious." Widow said which caused the others present to relax. She turned towards the two responsible. "An explanation would be nice."
"When we were in the jet trying to get control back, I ran a power scan over M.O.D.O.K and learned what wave propagation he used to override technology with." Spider-Man explained before turning to Tony. "So I adjusted your armor to the inverse of M.O.D.O.K's waves which created a feedback loop and then... kaboom!"
Quite genius if he had to say so himself.
Hulk simply huffed before bumping past Iron Man, clearly sore about get blasted. "Why didn't you think of that."
"I would have... eventually." he said.
Hulk and Thor wasted no time in tying the villain up while Widow took a picture to commemorate the moment. No doubt to show Ms. Marvel since she wasn't involved in this mission. Which begged the question, where was she? Normally she was with the Avengers when they went on mission in the city.
The two had formed a pretty strong friendship since their very first team up where they shut down A.I.M and Bilderberg Academy. They started off rocky but found that they actually work pretty well together.
"So hunting down M.O.D.O.K was on your superhero to do list?" Tony asked, breaking the distracted hero from his thoughts.
"Yeah... it's been a rough year. Stopping the symbiote invasion, Dark Goblin and the Lizard taking over Horizon High. I'm tired of getting dragged in every direction so I'm trying to be a bit more proactive. Even if this did not go as smoothly as I hoped."
"Kid... it never does." Tony says from experience. "But tracking down M.O.D.O.K and knocking him out, brilliant. Not sure what your plans are after high-school but there may be room for you on the team."
Did he just hear Iron Man right? Did he just say there might be room on the team? For him? "Are you serious?! Does that mean I'd get to move into the tower?!"
"Of course. It's a 24/7 job." Tony said plainly. Being a hero was very time consuming. "Being an Avenger would be your whole life."
"My whole life? No family, no friends?" Spider-Man said in confusion.
"Look at it like getting a new dysfunctional yet powerful family." Tony said while watching Thor and Hulk play tug of war over M.O.D.O.K. He could see what Tony meant but... that seemed like a lot.
"Joining the Avengers would be a dream come true, but uh... a big change for me. Can I think about it?" he asked.
"Sure kid. Take your time." Tony said as he began to walk away. "But just , you know, hurry up."
"Right." he said to himself, before remembering his thoughts from earlier. "Oh, Tony, before you go."
"Yeah, kid?"
"Uh..." he suddenly became nervous. "Where's Ms. Marvel? Normally she's with you guys when you do missions here in the city."
"Ms. M? It's her day off. Why?" Tony asked.
"No reason... it's just... well, you see there's this dance going on at Horizon and-"
"You want to ask her out, don't you?" Tony smirked. He couldn't see it, but he could tell PJ's was blushing. Now this was his area of expertise. "Word of advice, use the direct approach."
"Direct... right. I'm very direct." he said unconvincingly. "Anyway, do know where I could find her if she's even in the city that is because I know she's a Jersey girl and..."
"Relax webs, she's here in New York. She's probably at that café place... what's the name... Q's Cup of Joe I think."
Well that was convenient. "I know the place, thanks."
"No problem. Good luck." Tony says before finally walking off.
Spidey swung off.
To be continued...