Spider-Man was sitting next to his favourite gargoyle. It was funny, but Bruce had proven to be a good listener, and he felt a strange kind of companionship with the piece of sculptured stone worn down and chipped by the years of wind and rain. He found that this part of New York was better suited to more in-depth thinking, and he usually tried to get up here whenever he was in the general vicinity of the building the gargoyle was mounted on. It was always good to get away from his problems and just think, about his normal, everyday, mundane problems and the issues that came from being Spider-Man.
This was one of those times.
Sitting next to Bruce, Spider-Man thought about the recent few days. The battle with Carnage and Dormammu had been a chaotic, frightening one. The idea that the Venom symbiont could reproduce had stunned him, at least for a moment since flowers reproduced asexually. For a creature like the Venom symbiont, a creature that was far more complex, such reproduction was unexpected.
Venom had told him during their first meeting after the creature had bonded to Eddie Brock that the alien symbiont had existed for centuries, encountering many civilisations and discovering many secrets of science and technology from all of those races. When Venom had told him that, Peter had briefly wondered what would have happened if he hadn't rejected the symbiont. The scientist Peter had always prided himself in being had been fascinated by the potential discoveries that he could have made, and the darker part of Peter had wished that he had kept the symbiont and ignored the dangers of keeping it even if it was becoming increasingly aggressive and drawing out his darker impulses.
He would have received that knowledge. New ideas on space travel, perhaps new ways of travelling in reusable space vessels, colonising the planets. New cures for different diseases, the answers which had boggled the minds of many scientists might have seemed like child's play to the symbiont. The more rational side to Peter's nature shut that side of himself up, of course; the symbiont had been tearing his aggressive side out into the open, making him more aggressive.
But the thought still lingered in Peter's mind, and he couldn't get rid of it. The symbiont had known a great deal, but one thing it had not told him about within his own mind when they were bonded together, was how it was vulnerable to sound and any other knowledge of its biology. It was possible the symbiont had deliberately kept that knowledge from him, although what the point was, Peter didn't know. What was the danger of knowing about the symbiont, especially when something could happen?
Carnage had been a surprise, just as the fact the creature had bonded to someone as evil and murderous as Cletus Cassidy who had taken the power of the symbiont. Carnage had done some kind of deal with Mordo and Dormammu and was working with them to drain the life forces out of their victims, but what was even more surprising was how Venom had become an ally, and that Brocks' love for Dr Kafka had was something that the symbiont refused to allow. It was so bad that Kafka and Brock had tried to separate the symbiont and they succeeded, but only temporarily until Spider-Man had gone to Brock for help, thus fulfilling Madame Web's latest prophecy of having unexpected allies to help him fight against evil, especially evil like the kind Carnage and Dormammu were capable of.
Why the weird mystic was appearing before him so frequently was a mystery, but Spider-Man had a feeling something big was coming rapidly but it was impossible for him not to be angry with her for the way he constantly found himself told riddles only to use her advice later. But what Peter really disliked about the whole thing, was how the mystic seemed to think he needed her to hold onto his hand every now and then. He had coped for years without her, and now he had this riddle-loving mystic hovering around him.
Thinking back to the last adventure, Peter felt nothing for Carnage or Dormammu; he didn't know what had happened to the Carnage symbiont and it was unlikely that Dormammu had been totally defeated; the dimension-eating entity was more powerful than the symbiont, and he would likely try again some other time, but hopefully there was another way of dealing with the creature before it was too late. As for Carnage and Venom…
He felt nothing for Carnage; driven by a murderer like Cassidy, the creature was savage and even more dangerous, but while Venom was dangerous, Brock had helped. And now he was gone. Peter was in two minds about that, but he knew one thing. He owed Brock for helping him. And now he was gone. But if there was one thing being Spider-Man had taught him, it was to expect the unexpected, and every enemy he had, somehow found a way to come back, and he had believed the symbiont which bonded to him originally only to bond to Brock had gone for good, so it was possible. Somehow.
And it applied to Carnage, too.
