Peter was terrible at cooking. He battled supervillains at least once per week, but he couldn't cook to save his life. Luckily, he'd never had to fight a villain whose weakness was good food.

Today was one of those rare occurrences where he actually attempted to cook something. Peter planned on making wheatcakes, since they usually had the stuff to make them in the pantry. Plus, he loved eating them. He opened the cabinet door, breathing in the faint scent of spices before gathering the dry ingredients- whole wheat flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt- in his arms. Once he had the things he needed, he went to put them on the kitchen counter. As he walked over, Peter almost dropped the flour, but a crimson tendril came out of his hand to stabilize it. He sighed in relief briefly, before freezing as he realized what had just happened.

Peter slowly placed the ingredients down on the counter. He lifted his hands up to his face, scrutinizing them and slowly turning them so he could see both sides. Carnage? he questioned to himself. Was his admittedly sleep-deprived brain playing tricks on him? That hadn't happened before, but Peter knew it was possible.

After about ten seconds of staring at his hands, he found nothing. He thought about what he'd done recently, trying to think of a time a symbiote could have bonded to him. He couldn't think of anything, so he decided it must've been his imagination, then picked up the flour and went back to making his wheatcakes.

He mixed the dry ingredients together, then added the wet ones, mixing them in one by one. Once the mix was smooth and there weren't any lumps, he went to get a frying pan from the bottom cupboard next to the stove. He turned on one of the stove burners, grabbed the butter, and waited for the pan to heat up. Then, his phone rang. It was Aunt May, saying that she would be home later than usual. I guess these can be a good surprise for her, if I don't mess them up, Peter thought.

Peter turned the stove burner to high, and put a small amount of butter on the pan. After the butter melted, he poured some of the mix into the pan. As he watched the mix darken from pale tan to a golden brown, he saw smoke come from the pan. Probably time to flip it over.

Before he got to follow through with his thought, the smoke alarm went off. And with it, all hell broke loose. The alarm's loud screeching shook Peter to his core. Why is it so loud?, he thought. It wasn't this loud last time it went off. Is this one of Shield's "improvements"? As the smoke alarm continued to go off, Peter got more and more uncomfortable. It felt like something was trying to burst from his skin. He dropped the frying pan in his discomfort, but he barely noticed.

Peter's arms reached up to his ears and covered them, to no avail. The horrible sound still echoed throughout his body. He squeezed his eyes shut, and as he tried to control his reaction, he felt a weird tingling in his skin. Suddenly multiple little red tendrils came out of his body, writhing in unison.

The tendrils soon coalesced into bigger ones, wiggling around with no care as to what they touched or hit. Pots, pans, and other kitchen utensils were knocked down from shelves and counters, and the sensation of touch coming from an unknown part of his body caused Peter to open his eyes again. He yelped in surprise when he saw the tendrils. Okay, definitely not a hallucination.

Peter continued to writhe in pain, trying to get far enough away from the blaring alarm so he could process what was happening. He left the kitchen and sprinted upstairs, tendrils waving as he tried to escape the sound. When he finished climbing the stairs, the alarm was still audible, but not nearly as pain-inducing. He dashed into his room and closed the door for one last bit of protection against the noise.

"What's going on?" Peter said aloud, though there was nobody else in the room. "These look like symbiote tendrils, but I'm not bonded with one, unless somehow one found me when I was sleeping. But why would it wait until now to show itself?"

He went through his memories of the past week again, thinking about when he could possibly have encountered a symbiote. On Monday, the Ultimates fought Electro. That's probably not it, since symbiotes hate electricity. The Web Warriors fought Kraven a couple days ago, that's a possibility considering Kraven's past plans. It wouldn't be out of character for him to force me to bond with a symbiote to "bring out the beast inside" or something. Though he'd probably need to work with Hydra or Ock. As he considered more and more ways he could've come across one, an idea came to him.

Peter focused on the way the alarm had affected him. It felt like it was disrupting his whole body, as if the symbiote was interwoven throughout it instead of covering him or being underneath his skin. Both times he'd bonded to a symbiote they didn't unbond with sound, but when he first encountered Venom, he used electricity to get it off him, and he felt the symbiote's distress, but it was distinctly different from his own pain. This sensation felt like the symbiote was him. And when Harry was Venom, the symbiote separated from him when there were high frequencies of sound, but that wasn't happening to Peter. It didn't make any sort of effort to leave him. Is it possible my body is creating the tendrils, and I'm not bonded with a symbiote at all? But why would this happen right now? I've heard the smoke alarm go off before, and it was just slightly unpleasant. So, what changed?

Suddenly, a sound came from the first floor of the house. Someone was opening the door. How do I explain this? I don't understand it myself! He heard Sam saying, "What happened here?"

Peter yelled back, "Uh, I was trying to cook. As you might be able to tell, it didn't go that well. Would you mind turning the smoke alarm off for me?"

"Sure, but why didn't you do it already?" This was followed by a gasp, and then Sam spoke again. "Jeez, I knew you were bad at cooking, but I didn't think you were bad enough to mess up the whole kitchen. You've really outdone yourself." Peter heard Sam move a few things around, probably so he could reach the smoke alarm, and then its terrible beeping finally stopped.

Peter shouted, "You have no idea how relieved I feel." Then, he exited his room and descended the stairs. "Time to clean up, I guess," he said while walking into the kitchen.

Sam started helping him tidy up the kitchen, saying, "You still didn't tell me why the smoke alarm had you hiding in your room. Is something up with your head or something, webhead?"

"It's… hard to explain. And I'm not even sure my explanation is right. But-" Sam accidentally banged some pots together as he picked them up. The noise startled Peter, and a small tendril came out of his skin again. Peter gestured to the tendril. "That's why. No idea why it's happening, though. I don't remember bonding with a symbiote recently. And I haven't felt the presence of one, you know, how it feels like there's another consciousness in your head. So I really don't know what's going on."

Sam said, "Could it be from you? Since they're made of your blood and all, maybe the symbiote is just you? You already have your blood, so there's not much left to the formula, or whatever the word is."

"I guess that's a possibility, I even pondered it earlier, but why would it suddenly start now? It's not like this is the first time I've heard loud noises since I got bitten." Peter thought for a moment. "Maybe we should focus on figuring out the extent of what's going on with this before we try to figure out why? Since we're kinda just grasping at straws, and until we can figure out what happened we'll need to know how this affects me. So that we can make sure this doesn't impact my patrols and stuff, I don't want to be a liability."

Sam nodded. "Sounds like a good idea. And it also sounds like you'll need someone to watch your back on hero duty while we're figuring this out, in case you run into Klaw or Shriek or something. If the smoke alarm can cause all this"-he gestured around at the kitchen-"you shouldn't risk being alone while fighting, Webs. By the way, what were you making that caused the alarm to go off?"

Peter picked the partially burnt wheatcake off the floor and held it up. "I wanted to make wheatcakes like Aunt May's. And she does so much for me, so I thought I should learn to make them myself. Not that mine could ever be as good as hers."

"After we clean up this mess, maybe I can help you cook without burning anything."

"Sure, that sounds great," Peter said with a slight smile.