The screen with all the files disappeared quickly behind the video player. After spending an hour scrolling through all of the photo files, she was left without an answer and the audio file had turned out to be only a song, which she would ask him about later when the opportunity arose.

Despite the frame only showing him from the shoulders up, Gwen could see that Peter had filmed the video from the kitchen, and the little date written in green on the bottom corner of the screen told her that it had been recorded the night before last. At least now she knew where he had gone when she'd felt him get up, and it was much less gross than her original theory that he'd had a meeting with the toilet.

Her chin rested upon her chest as she pushed all other thoughts aside to focus just as he began speaking to the camera. The first few minutes just consisted of him reminiscing over the times he couldn't talk to her using coherent sentences, which seemed a little odd, but she shrugged it off with a silent laugh as the image of their first couple of conversations flashed through her mind. Her laughter fell flat when she caught his next words, and she even rewound the video a few seconds to make sure she had heard right.

"I told you that I was going to fight Venom and put an end to this, but that's only partly true, hence this video. If I had told you my real plan beforehand, I know you would only try to stop me. The thing is, I have gone to fight Venom, and you know as well as I that this won't stop until the symbiote is destroyed, or until it has what it wants; me. So, I'm going into the fight with high hopes but if all else fails, I won't let you be put at risk anymore. If Venom wins, that will end this. That's the reason for this video, I promised to always be honest and this is me doing that incase I don't get the chance to."

She couldn't have hit the spacebar to pause the video fast enough, but once the screen froze, Gwen put the laptop aside and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and planted her face in the palm of her hands. They had spent hours together coming up with a plan to fight back against Venom, every detail of the trap was carefully thought out, and that whole time she had been completely oblivious that he'd had a backup plan. His video was nothing short of goodbye just in case things went south, and she hated it. Lifting her head, she glanced at the laptop and then slammed it closed. She wouldn't watch the rest, not until everything was over.

After only minutes sat in complete silence with her own thoughts for company, she slowly began to lose the fight to keep her eyes open and eventually drifted into a light sleep. By morning, it would all feel like a bad dream and she would be laughing at how much she'd over thought it all.

The impact of his body being slammed into the ground is what jolted Peter out of his unconscious state, but he kept his eyes closed. He could feel the presence of the enemy, even without visual confirmation, and alerting them that he was awake would be a bad move.

"Here." The Lizard hissed. "Foolish Parker tried to reason with the cops, and they did most of the hard work. He's here, and he's injured. Fighting us both at the same time will be impossible. We should use this chance to ki-"

"No! We need him alive… for now."

Venom? In the haze of pain and half-consciousness, Peter could barely make out the symbiote's voice, but he didn't have to strain too hard to figure it out. While he and Gwen were busy working on their trap, Venom had been working on one of his own. The Lizard had been nothing but a distraction, and he had fallen for it.

"Alive?" The Lizard spat. "I have waited years for this, why on earth would I give him the chance to let him slip again?"

"Because…"

Venom lingered on the word, and Peter drew in a rattling breath and held it, willing for something to interrupt the conversation and stop what was about to be shared between two of his biggest enemies.

"There is still use for him."

He had to get up. If he didn't, the cat would be out of the bag and it would bring more trouble to their doorstep. It was a mystery how long he had been out for, and how much blood he had already lost from the bullet wound and claw marks, but he couldn't stay down.

"What use?"

"You mean you don't know?" Venom quizzed in amusement. "Parker's little girlfriend is just like him now and if we don't act now, there's going to be-"

Peter grit his teeth and squinted his eyes shut, trying to block out what he already knew was going to be said. It was bad enough with Venom's knowledge. The image of Gwen filled the darkness of his mind, and everything that had already happened because of this ongoing battle, and as if on cue, he was back in the bedroom with a tray of pancakes in his hands and his eyes upon her as he'd caught her fussing over his suit.

"I said, what exactly did you do to my web shooters?"

"Nothing much… just added a few more options."

"More options?" He questioned.

"Yeah, you know… web grenades, instant flame webs, electricity resistant webs, ice webs. Nothing too fancy."

He had used only the regular webs, having all but completely forgotten about the upgrades she had made. Everything she had done remained unused, and since both Venom and the Lizard thought that he was unconscious, all he had to do was wait for them to make a move, then he could take both by surprise.

"That baby cannot be born. With the blood of the web slinger running through it, we'll be ruined."

Peter released the breath he had been holding and swallowed back his anger. It would be better to wait for them to attack him, but damn if he hadn't wanted to instigate before, he did now. In his state though, he would be killed before he even got the chance. He couldn't afford to lose, because without him in the way, it would be all too easy for Venom to get what he wants. That couldn't happen. He had to put up a fight, for the sake of everything that mattered to him.

"Then we should take him… I'll bet that we can use him to get to what we really want."

"Like Hell you can!" He snapped, forcing himself onto his feet despite his wounds. "You'll have to beat me first."

Venom and the Lizard looked at him as he stood, with one arm wrapped around his waist as if to keep himself upright, then exchanged a glance as they both started to laugh. Peter's eyes darkened, and as their laughter died, he snapped. Pushing down on the second button of his web shooters, he activated the web grenades, and both the symbiote and the oversized reptile were barraged by several webs that exploded like firecrackers upon contact. While they were both blindsided, he chose to focus on Venom first, and hammered his finger down repeatedly on the third button and drew a circle of flaming webs around him, preventing the symbiote from being able to go anywhere.

Just as the Lizard began to recover, Peter aimed and pressed down on the next button, activating more webs. As they hit their target without fail, they froze, and the scaled green skin began to ice over, limiting the Lizard's movements until he could no longer even blink.

"Not so tough now." He mocked, and winced as he felt the bullet lodged in his shoulder move just a little. With time to think thanks to the upgrades to his webs, he glanced down and brought his hand up to check on the wound. Even as he wiped the blood away, it was replaced by more, only adding another reason for him to move quickly.

"You think this is going to stop us… these flames won't last forever." Venom growled.

"Move even an inch and I'll make sure you go up in flames." Peter warned.

"You can't stop us both at the same time."

Peter smirked and fired another web at Venom, which caught alight as soon as it landed on the symbiote's face. Venom screeched, and he had to cover his ears as he watched the sticky black substance shrink back into Eddie and disappear from sight.

"Forgetting someone?"

"Huh?"

He whirled around in haste, but before he could react, the Lizard's claws swiped at him, creating three deep scratches across his chest, and then again, deepening them. Peter cried out in pain and attempted to jump to a wall to avoid another hit, only to be caught by the Lizard's tail, knocking him back on the ground.

Meanwhile, only a short distance away, Eddie examined the ring of flaming webs that trapped him, and brought a hand up to his face where burns still covered the left side after the last time fire had been used to beat him in a fight. It took only the memory for his hatred towards Peter to come flooding back through him, and then he had an idea.

"Web." He said quietly with a malicious smile.

Deep inside Eddie, Venom gloated and worked his way through him and to his wrists, where he surfaced. A thick black web sprang out and attached itself to the wall that Peter had tried to jump to. Eddie closed his eyes, knowing that the stunt could go either way, and then put one foot in front of the other and then sprang into the air, clinging to the web and swinging himself out of the ring of fire. Peter had barely got back on his feet when a sticky black web traveled up his legs, further up his waist, covering his chest and eventually his neck, cutting off his airways. He attempted a rasping breath, but to no avail, and with no air, everything around him started to blur again.

"Finally… this will all be over." Venom hissed in triumph, watching as Peter's legs gave way and his body went limp in the tangle of symbiote web.

"What are you planning to do with him?"

"Kill him, of course." Venom stated in amusement. "But first he will suffer."

Gwen drew in a breath and knelt down in the freshly cut grass, not too bothered about how it pricked at her bare legs. The grave in front of her lay bare, with only a bunch of wilted flowers to decorate it, and the name on the headstone was obscured by them. A breeze swept through the cemetery and she shivered. Though it wasn't the cold air that bothered her, but the empty feeling that'd come over her since arriving. Before she had the chance to think about what she was doing, she reached for the flowers and removed them, revealing the name engraved in the marble stone. Her eyes widened with both shock and horror as the gold letters shone under the light of the sun, highlighting the words Peter Parker. Letting go of the breath she'd been holding, the dead plants fell from her hand as she sat, staring at the name with barely a thought running through her mind.

"You're next."

She heard the words as clear as day, but they came as more of an echo in through the breeze. Unable to stand anymore, she stood up and dusted herself off, ready to leave. As she whirled around, she was met face to face with Eddie, half of his face covered in the burns that had been caused by herself and Peter only a few months prior, and just as quickly as he was there, he was replaced by Venom.

It was her pounding heart that brought her out of the dream and into the waking world, but even as the last traces of sleep faded, the horrors that had haunted her there, didn't. The natural instinct to reach across the bed and feel Peter there with her kicked in almost instantly, but she was quickly reminded that she was not in bed, she was on the couch and Peter was not with her.

Gwen sat up and rubbed the grit out of her eyes. It never really occurred to her how quiet a house could be when there was only one person in it. Simon was still with May until the weekend, and without company, the silence was almost unsettling. Her gaze fell upon the laptop beside her, recalling the video that she had stopped watching before falling asleep, and her heart dropped. Only then did it dawn on her that the night was over, and she became all too aware of the daylight that streaked the room through the curtains. Night had faded to day, and Peter hadn't returned. Just the thought that Venom had gotten the better of him was sickening, but she refused to believe it. Her eyes drifted to her phone that had been discarded on the table, and pondered it for a moment before reaching across and picking it up. She scrolled through all the contacts, then stopped and put the phone back down. If she called him now, and he was caught in a fight, it would only be a dangerous distraction.

"If all goes to plan, I'll be back before sunrise" he had told her right before he left, but there was no sign of him, and her brief look at her phone told her it was late morning, almost noon.

Throughout the night, it had been bad enough, but the uncertainty now was almost too much to bear. It was worse not being able to do anything about it, or anything that would help at least. She had counted on his words the entire night, but there was nothing to count on anymore. There were things that needed to be done, and the idea of going about the day like usual and getting them done while not knowing where Peter was or if he was okay, wasn't one she wanted to consider. With a heavy sigh, she picked up the phone again, and this time hit the call button. It rang only a few times, and her heart leapt into her throat as Peter's voice came through the other end, followed by disappointment as it turned out to be only his voicemail.

"Hi, it's Peter… Parker. Leave your note at the beep and I'll uh… I'll get back to you."

Gwen didn't bother leaving a message. If he wasn't answering then there was a good reason for it. There wasn't much that could be done on her part until he either called her back or walked through the door, but she didn't want to sit for another second with all of the worst wild thoughts she had for company. Gathering her crutches, she struggled onto her feet and into the hall. For now, she would have to keep busy and just hope that she was wrong.