CHAPTER 42

Gluttonous Entity: Escape from Oscorp!

You look down at Osborn, clutching the woman to him. You can faintly hear their breathing as you see Stella watching you, seemingly wary. Down the hall you can hear noise- distant movement. The suit breathes for you- you let it. Your sight and perception have been boosted and you feel better than ever.

You feel a little hungry, but that's nothing to worry about. However, with the door having been locked you realize the security's back on, most likely.

You watch Osborn check over the woman, seeing him worried and relieved for the first time. With how he's been acting, it couldn't be, could it?

"Osborn… is that woman. She's your wife, isn't she? She needs medical attention- she been wearing that thing for who knows how long and you've had her in a cold storage."

His shoulders tighten up at your voice. "I know that."

You notice that he doesn't directly answer your question. He doesn't look in your direction, either, as he pulls out a phone and calls a number. "Stand down security and erase all camera footage for the next ten minutes."

He picks up the woman and is still staring away. "This is the most I can do for you. I didn't see anything."

Stella looks unhappy, but she's making a motion at the door with her head.

Before heading out, you pause and look back at Osborn.

"I'll return to discuss things with you later."

Heading out the Door, Stella follows you, keeping three steps distance between you and her. You can tell she's watching you, even without looking at her. Honestly, this thing's pretty useful.

Taking the directions, it takes you seven minutes to get to R&D, roughly. When you get near, your pace picks up as you smell smoke and notice that there's sprinklers going off from the ceiling.

Entering the R&D wing, you notice that the place is in disarray- there's scorch marks, broken equipment and smoke on top of the large amounts of sprinklers running.

The water is cold as you walk through it.

There's some shattered windows by the entrance of the R&D wing, the glass shattered inwards for some of the windows, strangely enough. You can't see Gwen, though

There's about three minutes left before security's back on and someone's made a mess of the area. Behind you, Stella looks alert, a familiar gun in hand.

"HEY, Scarlet Spider, you there?!"

You call out as you look around the ruined lab. There's no noise for a few moments before, eventually, the familiar Red and Blue design of Gwen's alter ego appears.

She's moving carefully through the rubble, but eventually she reaches you and pauses, looking at you.

"Pe-Spider-man, what happened to you?"

Gesturing at the broken window with a thumb, you start moving towards it. "I'll explain in a bit. We need to get out of here."

Heading towards the window, you move to web, but as you think of doing it, webbing-like tendrils shoot out and latch onto a nearby building and begin retracting, pulling you towards it. A second later, your clinging to the side of the building. Wow, this thing responds to your thoughts. That's pretty useful, honestly.

It isn't long before the three of you are sitting on the top of a building a fair distance away- Gwen's shivering a bit from being soaked, though. She's looking at you concerned. Stella's expression mirrors hers.

"Peter- what is that thing?"

Both are staring at you as you look down at your hands, coated in what almost looks like shiny black latex. It isn't though. Not by far. There's more of it that is both nearby and far away at the same time, coming from the direction of Stella.

"We should relocate to somewhere warmer to discuss this, but first- Gwen, what happened to the R&D facility?"

She shakes her head. "It was wrecked when I got there. Seems like whoever broke in wrecked the place to make sure that nobody could tell what they were after."

She pauses at the rooftop edge before looking pensive as she puts back on her mask. "The scorch marks looked familiar, though."

You nod as you lead the three of them to the Lateran Embassy- arriving, you notice there's no lights on and even when you tried to knock on doors and windows, there was no response. Seems like nobody was home, which, upon thinking about it makes sense. They revealed themselves earlier, which means that they wouldn't need to hide here.

Holding what would be the bridge of your nose in exasperation, you apologize to Gwen and Stella.

"Look, I need to go get my clothes and call some people, alright?"

Gwen curiously looks at you. "Really, where are they at, Peter?"

Thinking, you chuckle nervously. "Well, back in Queens."

You feel like you're being stared at blankly behind her mask as you see her shiver. "I'm going home and getting changed. I'll call you in a few and we can find somewhere to meet up, like your house. If that doesn't work, it can wait until tomorrow."

Extending a hand, she swings off before you can reply as Stella stands there, waiting. She's trying not to hide it, but she's slightly shivering too- the slightest hint of gooseflesh visible as you realize you aren't even cold.

Heading back to queens, you stop by your clothes as you search for your phone- you recall that you kept your untraceable one in your belt pouch but it seems to be gone- along with your costume and webshooters- so you grab your 'civilian' phone pulling it out you go to dial the Storms (manually unfortunately)- but both of them aren't answering- the phone goes straight to voicemail for both of them.

You groan as you feel the symbiote vanish as you think about putting on your clothes- Stella embarrassedly averts her eyes until you're dressed, minus your equipment and undergarments and suit.

You head on home after draping your coat over Stella's shoulders. She looks at you, worried, as you give her a shrug. "I can't even tell that it's cold anymore."

Heading back, even though its supposed to be freezing out, you feel like it's a nice day. When you get back, everyone's asleep, so you quietly let yourself and Stella in. Your phone rings in your pocket as Gwen calls.

Answering the phone, Gwen immediately asks you a question.

"Peter, would you mind if I come over? My father's not going to be back until the afternoon tomorrow, so I can talk tonight. And, that costume of yours worries me. It's that thing from your father's notes, isn't it? If so, who knows what could happen?"

You remember the woman- covered in black ooze, turned into a monstrous beast made out of teeth, rage and agony.

You let out a sigh. "Yeah. Better safe than sorry."

You hang up after she tells you she's no the way as you head to the kitchen. Opening the leftover-s you eat. And eat.

After the point you've finished eating the leftovers you realize you're still hungry.

Still so hungry.

Even when Gwen calls to tell you she's arrived you're still hungry. You're careful to not eat everything, just enough. But it doesn't sate the hunger.

Heading down to the basement, Gwen smiles nervously at you as the three of you settle down there. Stella shakes her head, coming back from the direction of the lab's freezer.

"This is dangerous. We should go somewhere where Aunt and Uncle can't get hurt if things go bad. Like that girlfriend's place of yours, Peter."

Gwen looks confused and a bit lost as you look at Stella. "Stella. That's enough."

"Peter, why did she bring up Felicia's place? Is she off visiting family?"

You give Stella a look. She stares back impassively.

"She didn't say, honestly. It's possible that she's doing something related to her family, though."

Gwen looks unconvinced. "Look, Peter, you've trusted me with a lot of things. Why won't you trust me with this?"

She pauses and shakes her head, a defeated look in her face. "Right. Can you go get those notes on that suit then?"

Stella watches you, disappointed, as you head over and grab the bag containing the notes- but it feels lighter, somehow. Opening it, you see that the bag seems to have been opened- the notes are untouched but it seems whatever dark liquid that was in your dad's countermeasures is now gone- the thick bag containing it burst- the notes unharmed- as you notice more to the inside of the bag- seems like there had been some sort of device in there, too.

Pulling the notes out on the suit, you sit down and watch Gwen try to figure them out- they're still outside of your expertise and you'd need like three doctorates to understand all of what this thing is- what you've already figured out was already put to note in a separate piece of notation you wrote out.

After a while, all the while Gwen seems to avoid talking to you, you see her set down the paper and shake her head. "Well, it's a suit that's designed to support the body and augment it. That means that it's part of you- if what your father notes here- it was based off of his DNA, which means you'd be the most compatible with it. But, there were problems- mainly the energy requirements for it to even work. It responds to bioelectrical changes- it uses the electricity of your nervous system to tell it what to do- to an extent, anyway.

"Have you felt any strange changes, Peter?"

"Yeah, I've felt a little hungry, why?"

Gwen looks thoughtful as she nods- making a few notes. "Alright, so I've come up with some theory here- the first is that this thing makes you hungry- the more you use it, the hungrier you are- and like a body, it might turn on you if you get too hungry. Secondly- based on what you've told me about this thing- you should be careful to keep in control of yourself.

"If you give into the hunger, or any other emotion, it'll probably respond. So you cannot, and I cannot stress this enough, lose control of yourself. Secondly, you need a way to get this off of you, and soon. Who knows what it'll do to you, given enough time."

She pauses. "Regardless, I'm going home. Good night, Peter."

After you escort her out- she remaining quiet- you turn around to see Stella staring at you, looking like she wants to say something, but shakes her head and heads upstairs.

You head up to bed and lie down as you feel it in the back of your mind, always hungry. You slowly drift off to an uneasy sleep.

OO

The cold feels good to you, for once. The bruises bother you less as you walk out on the cold Christmas night. It was just as bad as a normal holiday. No, it was worse.

Your old man was especially brutal tonight.

Not like you would have changed how you did things, though.

How dare the old bastard try to hit mom or Jesse. You don't hit girls, no matter what. Hitting another dude's alright, but if you hit a girl, you're no better than filth.

Your right hand aches as you remember the feeling of your fist hitting your old drunkard of a father's jaw. Knocked the old bastard down- Jesse and Mom were safely locked away in a room.

Mom can blame you for making your father angry. He can hit you, you've learned to take his hits. You've learned to be strong, stronger than tears.

You don't know where you're at, exactly. You left after hitting the old drunkard- afraid what you might do.

Rifling through your pockets, you pull out the army application in your pocket and look at it before stuffing it back in.

You could go for the army- be a real american hero. You could go to college- get through with sports.

But what is it you should be doing.

There's a scream nearby- in a dark alley. Rushing, you see a woman being pressed against a wall by some fucker. You're already moving- your shoulder slams into him as you kick the knife in his hand away- you're yelling for the woman to run.

You're not weak- years of football and silent endurance have made you strong.

The bastard goes down in a couple of blows- out cold. Nearby- you can hear the woman on the phone talking to what's probably the cops.

You wait around for the cops to arrive- the woman's crying and thanking you, but all you can do is weakly smile. It doesn't take long before they do get there- taking the bastard you've knocked out and your statement, along with that of the lady's, then and there.

One of the officers talks to another before the man nods and walks over to you with a sigh. "Son, I'm not going to ask why you're out so late on Christmas Night. But you did a brave thing today, you saved that woman from a terrible fate. We could use more people like you."

The officer scratches at his chin. "I'm going to warn you that if I catch you out this late again I'll have to be more strict. Understood, son?"

You nod as the officer waves away. "Now, you should get home."

You nod and head off- glad you didn't have to deal with the humiliation of being brought home in a cop car or having your drunkard of a father come grab you. You head in the direction of home and keep walking, eventually stopping on a park bench in front of some playground below a street light.

Looking down- you see a shadow stretched out before you- white eyes and a spider-emblem on its chest- the shape of your hero Spider-man in black and white before you rub at your eyes- the shape gone- only your own shadow stretched before you.

Getting home to head to bed you glance back at the bench as you feel like you're being watched from the shadows.

Weird.

END
To Be Continued…

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Publisher's Notes:

Venom Version: The symbiote that Peter is wearing right now is the Ultimate Venom version, just a parasite that has been weapon-ized by Oscorp. It is not the original sentient (616) symbiote which was the one Agent Venom and Peter were wearing in the future, it is still roaming around.