A/N: Ok, remember how I said the next chapter was going to be all of Peter's story for Sound of Silence? I lied. Rather, I changed my mind. Because my husband has been playing Spiderman 2 on the PS5, and YOU GUYS, the big villains? KRAVEN AND VENOM. It's uncanny. And so inspiring I just couldn't help myself. I can't make any promises because life is crazy, and I'm working hard on attempting to get an original novel published, but I started binge writing material for this book today, and I may just release chapters for awhile? And if things get to the point where I can't work on it, I'll post the rest of the scenes/ideas I had planned? I'm just rolling with it. Hopefully this is good news for those of you still sticking around. Anyway, here is CHAPTER TWO, continuing off chapter one with Ultron's return. I am currently writing/almost done with chapter three, so I'll post that when it's finished.

Onward!

CHAPTER TWO

Heart of Darkness

QUEENS

. . .

. . .

Peter Parker

"Peter, that you?"

"Yeah, it's me."

That's what I try to say, anyways. It comes out garbled and thick, thanks to the massive last bite of sandwich I just shoved into my mouth as I kick the door shut behind me.

May lifts an eyebrow, unimpressed as she leans against the kitchen counter. Behind her, the microwave glows a dull yellow as a flat bag spins inside it.

My ears prick at the first pop, and I swallow. "Popcorn?"

"Wouldn't be much of a movie night without it."

"Which is usually why we leave the making of the snacks to me," I say pointedly as I crumble up the sandwich paper, now only full of crumbs and smears of mayo, into a ball and toss it effortlessly into the trash can across the kitchen.

"Maybe try showing up on time for once."

"Hey, I was saving the city from a substantial threat."

"Your empty stomach?" she looks pointedly at the crumbs dusting the front of my shirt, then shakes her head with a rueful smile. "Mail's on the table."

I slide my jacket off, tossing it over the couch as rapid popping sounds fill the kitchen. I breathe in the buttery scent as I pick up the small stack of envelopes bearing my name. "We continuing the Fast and Furious marathon?"

"If we have to," May calls distantly as she rummages through the fridge for sodas.

"Everyone's looking for the thrill, but what's real is family."

"Spare me the quotes."

I grin as I toss the first two small white envelopes aside in favor of the mysterious manila envelope with no return address. Brows knitting together, I tilt my head as I turn it over and tear the top open to dump the contents into my waiting palm.

Cold metal hits my skin, heavier than I expect, and I blink down at the intricate metal box in my hand. Silver in color, etched with foreign designs, the seal on its lid broken. When I pry it open, there's nothing inside.

And I don't know why, but a violent shiver suddenly ripples down my spine, raising the hairs on the back of my neck and my arms.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

The sounds of the kernels popping in the microwave grow louder, sharper, like rapid gunfire that nearly makes me flinch.

I stare and stare at that empty box, not sure why dread is yawning awake inside me.

I glance up at May, but she's slipping down the hall, humming as she heads toward her room, the sodas she fetched already sitting open on the counter.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

The dread doesn't abate. It deepens, rooting into me, a knowing that something is terribly, cataclysmically wrong, and it all has to do with the small metal container in my hand.

A thought strikes. Impossible. But—

With my free hand I drop the manila envelope and pull out my phone, my heart racing in my chest as I pull up a live feed that I haven't bothered to check in months, not since before the Kraven fiasco and my kidnapping by the Dravec into deep space.

But when I enter the code Bucky gave me, only error messages come up.

Panic seizes my insides with an icy grip, one I try to shake off, because it doesn't mean anything. An empty box from an unknown source, not being able to pull up that Wakandan live feed, it's all coincidence. It means nothing. Nothing.

POP-POP-POP-POP-

An acrid, burning smell fills the kitchen, and I look up at the microwave, at the fully puffed up bag. "May?" I call, feeling a sick urgency spreading through me. "May, I think we need to—"

Crack.

My head whips toward the archway leading into the hallway.

Everything I am is wiped suddenly clean. Replaced with heady, all-consuming terror.

The box falls from my hands and clatters heavily to the tile floor.

The silhouette is black and hulking, hunched over to keep from hitting the ceiling. My eyes take in the black, oily sheen of its textured skin. The claws glinting from its massive fingers.

I follow the lines of its arms, its shoulders, up, up, up to that face—that face, seared into my memory, branded into nightmares with a permanency I can never forget.

Venom grins.

I can't move. I just stare, all my muscles locked into place as the world falls away around me, all my senses focused on the impossible nightmare before me.

"You have no words for us?" The growling bass of its voice shudders through me. Venom cocks its head, still grinning, drool dripping from its viciously sharp teeth as a long, pink tongue darts out to taste the air. "No warm welcome? Disappointing. We have missed you. We have come home."

Don't pass out. Don't pass out.

Gray static prickles in my peripherals, my lungs protesting with a fiery burn, and I force myself to inhale, to breathe. "I—you—"

It steps into the kitchen. So large, so dark and deformed and unnatural standing behind the counter, next to the microwave that has gone dark, that reeks of smoke and burnt popcorn.

Popcorn.

May. May, where is she?

Drip. Drip.

I glance down, away from that horrible face to the claws hanging slack at its sides, and something drips down from the sharp curve of a talon to drop onto the white tile.

Red.

Something white hot lashes through me, and I lunge, not for Venom, but for the hallway.

The air is knocked from my lungs at the impact as I'm slammed against the wall. Plaster cracks behind me. Before I can settle back onto my feet, a massive hand wraps around my forearm, lifting me high and pinning me to the wall. Another clamps over my mouth, so huge it dwarfs my jaw, my nose, making it almost impossible to breathe.

I immediately struggle, kicking out as my free hand tries to pry the claws from my face, but Venom is too close, its body trapping mine, preventing me from getting enough momentum to do any damage or shove it away.

My eyes zero in on the stretching grin across its monstrous face, at the crooked jumble of thin, razor sharp fangs crammed into his mouth, slick with saliva.

Where its skin touches mine, ice cold radiates, seeping into me with horrifying familiarity, like it's ready to burrow beneath me again, sapping out my heat.

"We've missed you," Venom says again, its voice as deep as its skin is cold, rumbling and demonic and reverberating against my very bones.

Its jaw parts, a long, serpentine tongue flicking out, tasting the air close to my face. I cringe, my eyes squeezing shut and my head trying to turn away from it, recoiling from its touch. Nausea lurches sharply in my stomach, painful chills shuddering across my skin. Please don't, please don't—

"You taste like terror," Venom's voice rumbles against my skin, though its tongue hasn't touched my skin. "You taste like fury. Delicious."

I thrash again, putting all my desperate strength into the movement, but it's not enough.

The gray static starts to swarm my vision again, leaving me lightheaded, and I sag, breathing hard through my nose as I will myself once more not to pass out.

Venom lowers its hand to my throat, squeezing hard enough to detain me, but letting me suck in a lungful of air. "Who—" I cough, trying again. "Who's in there?"

Because it can't just be Venom. It's a parasite, an alien symbiote that relies on its host to survive, to be. And Hydra, they went through so many candidates trying to find someone, anyone that could survive the parasite, but none could.

Until me.

Venom's grin widens. "Does it bother you? That we have taken another?"

"Who?" I demand.

"He is nothing," Venom practically purrs. "Just a vessel. A door. But you? You are home. Won't you let us in?"

Chills shudder violently through me, my entire body recoiling against its icy touch, against the mere thought of Venom being a part of me once more.

It leans in, and I turn my head as much as I'm able, its cold breath brushing against my ear. "Say yes. Let us in, let us come home, and we will let you save her."

My eyes snap to Venom's, milky white wounds in a bed of eel-slick black.

May.

"Let us in."

To take over my body. To obliterate everything that is me to make room for that monster.

To save her. To save Aunt May.

I suck in a breath. Venom leans in, eager, hungry—

My senses go haywire as blasts of sound barrel into us: an ear-splitting bass, a high pitched scream—layered and tangible in waves that rip through my eardrums.

Venom releases me abruptly, shrieking as it staggers back, its skin rippling and tendrils erupting everywhere to lash at the air.

I slide to the floor, my hands clamped over my ears as I stare wide-eyed at the entry to the hallway.

May leans against the wooden frame, her face pale and furious as she holds out her hand. A silver metal gauntlet covers her forearm, a glowing circle coming up to rest against the palm of her hand, like one of Mr. Stark's suits. From it, sonic waves blast into Venom, sending the symbiote crashing into the kitchen table, which collapses into splintering wood under its writhing form.

For a split second, the black tendrils of its face split just enough for me to catch a glimpse of pale, human skin, a screaming mouth, a pair of eyes squeezed shut in pain.

Then a hand is curling into the material of my shirt and hauling me to my feet.

May doesn't let go as she shoves me out the front door, keeping her gauntleted hand aimed at Venom as she plants herself in the doorway.

She pushes me. "GO!" she mouths, the sound of her voice eclipsed by the sonic emitter, by Venom's screams.

I shake my head, grabbing her shoulder.

Then my eyes drop to her shirt beneath my hand, wet and dark with blood that spreads down across her side, her middle.

I grip her harder, my heart seizing in my chest.

May snarls something at me I can't hear, shoving at me again to get me to run.

When I don't move, her features soften for a split second. Then she turns the sonic emitter on me.

I stagger back, gasping as the pain ripples through me, threatening to split my head wide open as I lurch down the hall. My hands are clasped tight to my ears as I look back at her, my eyes watering.

"RUN!" she mouths, just as black surges from the doorway, and May turns the sonic emitter back on Venom.

But this time, it's ready.

Its hand seizes her gauntleted arm and wrenches.

The sonic waves abruptly stop, my ears still ringing so badly that the screeching metal is muffled. But I hear the sudden snap of bones and May's sharp scream.

Venom snarls, its jaws stretching open as it lunges for her throat.

I barrel into the symbiote shoulder first, roaring as I wrap my arms around its middle, as I slam us into the window at the end of the hall. I get a glimpse of May collapsing to the ground, clutching her arm just as glass, plaster, and bricks explode all around me.

And together, Venom and I fall into open air.

MAY PARKER

. . .

. . .

Through the odors of coppery blood and dusty plaster, I can still smell the sharp scent of burnt popcorn. It clings to the insides of my nostrils as I gasp in shallow breaths.

The pain is everywhere, atrocious enough that I let out another bellowing scream just to try and release some of the agony from my body. From my heart, twisting in my chest.

There are other screams, too, all around the hall as people flee down the stairs in a rush to escape the danger they don't even understand.

I swallow, dry mouthed, and look up as someone crouches beside me.

Abdul, from next door, his expression horrified as his hands hover over me, unsure of where to touch, how to help.

"I've called 911," he says. "You're going to be alright. Help is coming."

I cough, my body tensing as I hiss from the ripping pain it causes. "Y-your phone."

He frowns, but obeys without hesitation, thrusting it into my good hand, even though it smears blood all over his phone. My other hand lies limp and unmoving at my side, my arm bent at an angle I can't think about, won't think about.

I dial, then hold the phone to my ear. The world is narrowing down to the heavy beat of my heart, to the sight of my ravaged body sprawled on the floor. Even Abdul seems to fade away, though I can hear him calling to his wife.

The call goes through on the first ring.

"Tony—"

"May? May, where's Peter? What's happening?"

"Save him," I say, clenching my teeth hard as I swallow back the thick taste of pennies. My head swims, the pain dulling at its edge. "SAVE HIM."

Agony lances through me white hot, and a strangled cry rips from my throat. My blood-soaked fingers slip against the phone, nearly dropping it.

Abdul mutters apologies as he presses pale blue towels against my middle, his eyes wide with panic.

Through the ringing in my ears, I dimly register that Tony Stark is shouting at me through the phone. It takes five breaths for me to find my voice, though I don't recognize it at all. "You promised—-don't let it—-don't let it take him. You save him."

"We're coming. Goddamn it, May, you wait for me, do you understand? You wait!"

My lips twitch into a small smile before it crumples, my cheeks suddenly wet with tears. "God, please, don't let it take my boy. Not again. Promise me."

A beat of strained silence. A ragged breath. "I promise."

The phone slips from my hands.

A/N: So I've learned recently that this site changed some things in my absence, and you now have to reselect the button confirming you want email notifications? I was not aware of this, so I've been missing all my emails for however long. If any of you know other people who used to read this series, feel free to reach out to them to let them know I am posting things again, in case they missed it because like me, they didn't have this button selected for email notifications like I used to!

Thanks for those who are still reading and letting me know your thoughts! THIS IS ALL FOR YOU LOVELY PEOPLE.

RedHood001: Yes, I definitely wanted/planned to explore things with both Dr. Strange and Loki in this series, especially tied to Wanda! Dr. Strange MAY or may not be making an appearance in this one (no spoilers yet just in case I get to write out more than I think I will) but I hadn't planned out his interactions with Wanda in this installment. He does play a big role in the future books I planned on writing but will probably not be able to get to. :/ I'm so glad you got the House of M reference! I was super happy with that, and I totally agree, even the most super powerful of characters need some kind of cap, so I'm glad you liked it! Thanks for all your thoughts!

Heroes21: Awwww! Thank you! :D Bless you, that seriously made my day

Aron R Vig: I hope the news that I will be writing some new material for this book (as much as time will allow) is uplifting! I was gutted too, not to be able to devote time and attention to this series that I've loved writing SO much. Melts my heart that it has provided you with comfort, as it did me. Thank you so much for your kind words!

Megan81159: Yay for making your day! Your review made mine! I love Wanda SO much, and as much as I enjoyed seeing her so powerful and badass in Mutliverse of Madness, the tragedy of her entire arc in the MCU just devastated me. I mean, clearly I put her through a lot too, lol, but I want her remembered as the hero she is. Which I planned on exploring more in later installments.

COMING UP: CHAPTER THREE, RUN RABBIT RUN