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Something was crushing him. Oh God, something was crushing him and he couldn’t breathe.
It hurt. It hurt so, so bad. His chest was being squeezed like an old, discarded dishrag that held no value anymore. Ringed out and twisted to a new tightness, because there was no fear of it ripping—that was a concern it was no longer worthy of receiving; its worth already out of the picture.
He screamed and bucked, legs kicking against the heaviness. But the thing was stronger and it held him right back down, a ghostly cackle rising up deep within Peter’s mind.
His breaths were cut short, filtered from air to something denser as it passed from the outside through something so thick that it cut off every single light like a veil of pure darkness. Lungs burning, throat gulping, he fought to take back control. Nothing existed beyond this thing, nobody was coming to help him. He was drowning; suffocating; dying.
Fingers, heavier still and so impossibly numb and cold that they couldn’t be his, clawed at the thing imposing upon him.
It pushed back, angry at the attempt to peal it away. Rocks, spiky, large and painful, dug as an almost excruciating discomfort in his back and spine. But the fingers kept digging, even when the thing bore down, vicious as a predator on its squirming prey. It tortured him with its claws, skimming them and their needle sharp points across his skin, throughout his insides. They pulled like disgusting black vines at the barrier within his mind, spilled like the darkest of inks over already splotched paper.
And every second burned like Hell itself was inside him.
His cries floated up through the air or whatever was to be found beyond the presence on his face. Agony flashed hot, too hot, and his eyes began to roll back. There was no give from the thing digging into his chest, sending his ribs inward to compress his diaphragm into a messy, sticky, monstrosity of a ball of goo.
Then, mercifully, just as his voice cracked and faltered, just as his mind tried to tug him into blissful unconsciousness where the thing wouldn’t be able to crush him anymore, the hands—his hands—pulled apart, separating the thing like it had been cut through before. The masse choking him eased up, however slightly, and he sucked in a sharp, petrified breath. Not enough air passed through to his mouth. His throat closed up immediately once again.
He’d be a liar if he said the process didn’t hurt just as bad. He screamed as his fingers dove into the thing on his face, ripping and ripping and ripping with all his might to just get the fucking thing off his damn mouth.
Like removing a whole thick layer of skin, the black mass snaking about his mask peeled off in a huge chunk, breaking apart and sending small fibres into the very air Peter was greedily gulping down, chest heaving. He bolted upright to finish the job, frame quivering until he thought he would collapse.
Flashes and echoes and pleas cut through the night, inside a place where no one but Peter could hear. He cringed into himself, shying away as the thing, now only a harmless mound of wretchedness writhed before him. It hissed in a menacing way, rolling over itself, coming closer.
Then Miles—Miles? When had he gotten there?—scooped up the thing from the sky like the loving angel of a guy he was.
Peter sat there, stunned. Mouth gaping and still struggling to take in proper lung fulls of air, he had no words to fill the terse silence that closed up the grassy yard into a too small lot. But that was okay, because Miles had him covered. Miles always had him covered.
“You okay man? Here, let me help you up.” Before he could process the garbled sounds that had just come out of the boy’s mouth, hands—not his hands—wrapped around him.
He stumbled as the world slanted, the balance—balance…May had talked about balance—tipping too far into the very, very not good side. Disoriented, shaken, his vision swam and he could barely see Miles’s lens-covered eyes widen in horror. He was wrapped once more by those helpful, blissful arms.
It took him a second to settle his reeling mind, to get a hold of everything going wrong within his body. Pain laced every single diameter of his being. His very soul hurt.
Shakily, he said, “We need to leave. Let’s get out of here.” Just as the bells started.
Bells.
There had been a lot of bells, a lot of ringing. It had hurt. It still hurt. God, he still hurt.
Being in the air, racing against the billowing wind, swinging from one strand of web—not black, alien goo, but webs—to the next did nothing to help the horrendous feeling dropping low in his stomach. Vertigo spiralled him about and his muscles took over the treacherous task of keeping him just out of reach of the apartments, seemingly far out and harmless one second then popping out in front of his face the next.
“Pete!” Miles called at one point, when his grasp slipped too early and he nearly plummeted to an untimely demise. He’d needed help dropping down to the roof top, and once his feet firmly planted themselves onto the solid, steady ground, he stumbled away, pushing Miles’s body as far as his weakened arms allowed him. He pressed his side to the brick, not noting how its jagged surface hurt against his beaten body.
There were people hurting a lot more than him. People who were dead, people who had seen others die.
The masse in the pit of his stomach moved, swirling. Like the confusing thoughts flying about his brain telling him that it’s okay, to do better, that everything was going to be alright, that he fucking ruined everything. He hunched over again, sucking in a deep breath.
Miles was talking again, not getting closer but hovering around his peripheral, as if scared. Of course he was scared, Peter—not Peter?— screamed in his mind and a surge of anger followed. How the Hell was he not going to be scared after just fighting a monster?
He was supposed to protect the city, not leave it in shambles.
“Hey, Pete, you doing alright?”
He was supposed to train Miles, not ignore him and leave him to fend against whatever the fuck had just been crawling around inside of him.
“This isn’t your fault, dude. None of this is.”
But it was. All of it was. He had attracted the symbiote, stripping Harry of his cure. His hunger for more power had attached it to him, giving way to a deeper, more vicious craving. Anger that he thought he had buried beyond the point of resurfacing had fueled him—them, depriving his best friend of his single method of survival.
His stomach churned. So, so similar to the thing inside his mind.
If only he had been stronger. A stronger person would have ignored the voice that clung to his deepest sorrows. A stronger man would have refused the offering of the demonic shadow lurking in the darkest depths of his mind. A stronger Spider-Man would have put others first. The symbiote did nothing but help further destruction reality. Nothing could create a monster out of scratch; it had only improved the beast already existing, hidden away under mounds and mounds of sugar-coated lies and joyful half-truths.
Something landed on his shoulder, shattering his thoughts. The symbiote—No, Venom. Venom was its name.
Flinching violently, the gore-ish image of the alien’s true form that he had seen on replay inside his mind each and every time it spoke popped up. Nightmarish, frightening, blood-curdling.
Venom had crawled its way through his pores and into his veins, soaking up his life’s essence to create its own. It had spread like a fucking cancer with opposite effects, enhancing his body into a glorious state that made his head swim like he had been high. It had morphed and fused with him, changing Peter into the perfect host.
Venom had teeth. A huge, gaping maw filled to the brim with spike-length javelins.
His stomach clenched, a warm feeling going up his throat.
What had he told Miles, all those hours ago?
(“Careful, he has big teeth.”)
(“So do I.”)
Unthinkable, unimaginable, grotesque horror flitted through his crumbling thoughts, replacing the numbness that had threatened to take out his knees. Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God! Had he eaten someone? Had he…had he bitten through delicious, disgusting, tender, chewy flesh like some type of deranged cannibal? Was that what sat so heavy in his stomach, taunting him to prove exactly what kind of monster he truly was?
Vomit streaked into his mouth, cutting off his thoughts. His body jerked forward as a heave tore across his stomach and back.
His mask was ripped off in a half-second, splitting at the seam.
He crumbled to the ground as vomit gushed to the ground, followed by more as his body fought to rid itself of the self-inflicted poison. His arms quivered, trying with all their might to keep from collapsing.
“Holy shit!” Miles had leaped back when he had first tore off his mask, and was now in a frenzy, hovering back and forth in an attempt to quell both his nerves and Peter’s evident discomfort. “Holy shit, dude! Just…I don’t know what to do! I should call MJ…yeah, yeah that’s a good idea. Just, take a breath or…or, I don’t know.” He broke off into silence, tense and unnatural, the phone ringing in infuriatingly slow intervals. Peter heaved again.
Miles crouched down, warm palm still vibrating with electricity as it pressed firmly to his back. A stabilizing touch. Peter stilled at the warmth ever-so-slightly.
Then, as the final rings were cut off by a panic-stricken, high pitched voice, his head snapped up, eyes wide and frantic. He lunged for Miles’s phone, ignoring the indignant squawk the boy made as they both toppled onto the rooftop. His hand gripped the phone and yanked it from Miles’s slack fingers. With a quick press of the gleaming red button simply waiting to be used, Peter hung up the call.
“No. No! Do not call MJ!” The monster inside him meant for that to be barked out, but his exhausted, confused mind translated it into a plea. It cracked at the end, throat rubbed raw. How many times had he screamed like that—worse than that—for it to be so painful even uttering the smallest of sounds?
“Alright, man, alright! No calling MJ, even though she asked me to.”
Peter sucked in many breaths, fighting against the constricting feeling that had returned after the brief scuffle. He rolled away from Miles with the feeling of crushing dread pushing down on his frame.
He was quivering again. Or perhaps he had never stopped.
Everything hurt again. Burned. Seared. A quick glance to the world of normality down bellow showed him the city felt the exact same way. Perhaps worse, for there were actual fires in some areas. People laid injured on the street from when he had swung about in his murderous frenzy, searching for Miles. Searching for a grand kill.
His eyes screwed shut. Fuck, what had he done?
“Hey, take it easy, you just puked a ton. Why don’t you just sit back down, man? Settle your thoughts for a second.” Miles was there again, in front of him, arms stretched out in a consoling manner. Damn it, Peter hadn’t even noticed either of them getting up. He had only been wanting to distance himself—distance Miles from whatever lasting effects still boiled in the soupy mess of his mind.
Shaking his head, he said, desperate for Miles to understand, “I did that, Miles. Me!”
“That wasn’t you. The symbiote used you, Pete.”
But it wasn’t that simple. Couldn’t be that simple. The symbiote hadn’t done that to Harry when it acted as his cure. Harry wanted to cure the world, to solve all the problems humanity threw as unexpected curveballs without anyone wanting them.
So what if…what if Peter wanted the exact opposite and that was the sole reason for Venom to smile his greedy, toothy, disgusting smile?
May would be so disappointed.
A sob hitched his shoulders, the first piece of his shattered self brought out into the open. Real emotions, not the mind-warping anger that had grown too quickly and spread like a wildfire, passed through his choked, cracking barrier until he was crying openly.
“I’m sorry,” he sputtered, vision blurring as warm tears crowded the entire surface of his eyes. “I am so, so, so sorry.”
Miles hurried his pace, closing the gap between them so efficiently that Peter couldn’t react before arms encased him. But they weren’t trapping him, either. As strong and steady and secure as they were, there was enough slack, enough give, for Peter to back out if need-be. He gasped for breath, this time fighting his own body’s attempt to shut-out the rest of the world. He could feel the beat of Miles’s heart, pulsing with a mature type of calm, surging with energy that made the hug even warmer, gentler, than it should have been. Peter slumped forward, pressing against the source of his newfound comfort.
“Everything is going to be okay, Peter. It sucks right now and it will no doubt suck a week from now, but trust me: you have people around you that care more for your wellbeing than that of the city. Do not hold it in, whatever you’re feeling. Grieving is good. It helps a lot”—Peter’s crying cut through, doubling over into pained screams as, finally, the barrier broke fully—“and I promise, you will be okay.”