Chapter Text
Tony aims his left gauntlet at it and fires up the flamethrower, pushing it to its absolute limit.
The flames shoot out. Venom screams.
Peter screams louder, dodging back and away from Tony’s hold. He’s clinging to his chest, stumbling away. Venom rolls across him the moment he’s out of Tony’s reach, sinking into Peter’s flesh and overtaking him once again. In a moment, Venom is airborne, swinging from the scaffolding and into the air, putting as much distance between itself and the Avengers as possible. Tony curses, launching himself into the air after Venom.
“Sam, cut it off--”
Venom launches itself at Sam before he can react, ripping the wings free of suit in one smooth motion, sending the man into free fall.
Tony hesitates for a moment, torn between chasing Venom or catching Sam. He curses, then veers away from Venom, catching Sam by the ruined stumps of his wings and lowering them to the ground.
“Thanks,” Sam says, shakily. “I didn’t see him through the rain. Shit, he’s fast--”
“FRIDAY, scan the area,” Tony says, cutting him off. “Find Venom.”
“Scan complete,” FRIDAY responds. “He’s gone, boss.”
Tony curses.
Their one chance to catch Venom and save Peter. Gone.
* * *
Time passes.
Peter’s not sure where he ends and the alien begins. He knew once; there was a solid chasm between where his higher thought processes went to war against the alien intelligence that functioned more on instinct than anything else.
He isn’t sure when it happened--maybe during one of those uneasy dreams inside the black cocoons he trapped them inside of during those first few, confusing weeks--but a kind of synthesis formed. An understanding. The alien wasn’t evil, not necessarily. It was simply amplifying what it thought was the best of Peter: his sense of justice, his strength, his mutated powers. It didn’t understand that the rage was unnatural, that killing was wrong, until Peter pounded distant memories of Ben’s death into the alien thing’s consciousness. The symbiote, unused to emotions, had been horrified and sick.
That’s when the understanding began to form. The alien quit trying to impose itself on Peter. The headless corpses stopped appearing, and the city entered an uneasy peace with the night. Peter finds ways to eat that don’t include human brains. He gains muscle and strength, while simultaneously slimming down to something close to his natural form, the suit conforming to his body.
One night, a month after the Avengers fail to capture him, Venom emerges from the black webbed cocoon Peter trapped him inside hours before. Venom’s mind is half human, half symbiote, the two sides more or less in accord with one another as it leaps into the rainy New York night, swinging from building to building and gaining a new understanding of its power and abilities with every passing second.
Two months after Peter Parker’s ‘death,’ Spider-Man returns to his patrols in a sleek black suit, webbing up muggers, carjackers, bike thieves, and would-be murderers with an eerie silence. The people of New York keep a wary distance. The Avengers hunt him relentlessly, but eventually give up and drift back apart.
Iron Man does not give up. But he never catches Venom either. It’s an endless game of cat and mouse between them.
* * *
Peter watches May’s apartment. He wants to talk to her, to see her. He doesn't dare risk it.
One night, she peers out of his bedroom window, looking around at the shadows. She hugs herself, nervous, but firm. After a few minutes, she pulls open the window and leans outside.
“I know you’re here, Peter,” she says quietly. “Please come talk to me.”
Peter doesn’t move for a very long time. May keeps looking out into the shadows, and he realizes that she'll stay there all night, waiting for him to come home. His emotions have shifted, become less human, less empathetic than before, but that thought is enough to sting his heart. He wills the symbiote off of his skin, letting it sink through his clothes until it disappears, and then silently leaps out of the shadows and onto the fire escape.
May startles, letting out a quiet gasp of shock. She freezes, staring at him for a long moment, before stepping back from the window so he can come inside. He crawls into his room, his movements too quick and smooth to be entirely human, and stands a few feet from May, looking around.
His room is exactly as he left it weeks ago except for the bed; the blankets are rumpled, and look recently used, as if someone has laid there recently. May, most likely. Mourning him in his bed. That thought hurts him, and the symbiote amplifies his grief and guilt, without meaning to.
“I can make dinner,” she says, nervous and awkward and frightened. Frightened for him, not of him, and he’s surprised to see that. Surprised and relieved. “I mean. It’s not-- You haven’t been eating people anymore, right?”
“I don’t do that anymore,” Peter says.
She lets out a sigh of relief. “Okay. Yeah. That’s really good. No more eating people.”
“May--” he starts, his voice breaking.
She crosses over to him and hugs him. He clings back to her, burying his head in her shoulder, careful of his new strength.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” she murmurs. “Can you stay?”
“No.”
She slumps, her grip on him growing tighter. “I can call Tony. We can figure this out, okay? We can--”
“No,” Peter says, hesitantly. “It’s too late for that. I just wanted to see you.”
“Peter, please stay, let me help--”
He hugs her, burying his face against her shoulder and memorizing this moment. A moment later, he pushes himself out of her arms and back through the window, slipping through the shadows in the blink of an eye. May is left standing in his room, suddenly alone.
He hears her choked sobs, and swings away before he can change his mind.
* * *
More days pass. Peter checks in on May during slower nights when criminals aren’t quite as numerous or brave. Most nights, the apartment is dark. On others, he can see light peeking through May’s bedroom window or out of the living room. One night, he catches the smell of something warm and freshly cooked resting on the window sill leading into his bedroom. He leaps onto the building and crawls close.
There, on the window sill, is a plate, knife, fork, and a small bottle of syrup. The plate is stacked high with wheatcakes, freshly made and steaming in the night air. Peter stares at the plate for a long moment before tentatively taking it, the cutlery, and the syrup, and propping himself up on the wall to eat. He cleans his plate, sets the knife and fork down on the window sill, and then uses the syrup to draw out a small heart in the center of the plate before setting it down and closing the window. Once done, he leaps off of the building and back into the night.
* * *
He’s half asleep, tucked away inside one of his cocoons when two things wake him up: the incessant tingling buzz of his spider senses, and the low bass thrum of a massive machine hovering above the city. The cocoon splits open, letting in the late spring air, and Peter crawls out of it, tense. He sees a donut shaped spaceship hovering above New York. If he stretches the limits of his senses, he can hear terrified screams.
He launches himself into the air, swinging for the ship. People on the ground point and stare as he swings above their heads, flying towards the ship. He swings straight into a battle between Iron Man and a massive alien with a hammer as big as a motorcycle. The alien raises the hammer--
A surge of protective fury hits Peter. This is his home. The alien symbiote amplifies his rage, giving him strength and speed. Peter slings out a thick web that catches the hammer before it can fall and yanks hard. The alien staggers back with a confused snarl, whirling to face Peter.
Peter slams into the alien’s midsection knee, feeling the armor and bones beneath shatter from the impact. The alien’s furious snarl turns into a frightened shriek when Peter allows his other to swell their form up to Venom’s true size. He pounds his fists across the alien’s face and armor, denting it to near uselessness before flinging the alien away from Iron Man. The unfortunate alien flies across the park, bouncing off of a gurgling fountain before sprawling into an unconscious heap in the grass.
The fury is still there. Peter fights it back before he loses control completely, swallowing back his rage to turn and look at Iron Man, to make sure he’s okay---
Tony is staring at him, helmet open, an expression of shock, horror, and hope on his face.
“Kid? What the hell--” Tony starts. He sees a man in the cloak being dragged away by another alien and curses. “Look, these guys are here for Dr. Strange, they’re going for a magic rock in his necklace. If there’s anything left of Peter in there, I need you to go help him--”
Peter is already gone. He swings after Dr. Strange and his captor, dodging signs and cars and other debris the alien in the black armor throws at him with alarming grace. He hears the alien mutter darkly, gaining speed as he and the unconscious Dr. Strange beam up inside the ship.
Peter swings after them, braces himself against a nearby building, and then launches himself up into the air, slinging out a web that just barely catches the edge of the ship as it starts to rise. He rises with it, clambering up the swaying web line until he’s able to grip the ship itself. The ship rises and rises. The wind is unbearable, the air is painfully thin, and Peter begins to struggle against the lack of oxygen. He tears at the metal of the ship, tries to find a way inside this stupid donut, until his vision begins to go black at the edges. He gasps for breath, losing his grip on the smooth metal of the ship and sliding off of it.
Peter falls. There’s nothing to catch him when he’s this high up. He hits the ground hard enough to shatter pavement and send tremors through every nearby building. He lays there, vision red with pain, too weak to move. The symbiote, having weathered the brunt of the fall, sinks back inside Peter, weak and rattled. It saved his life. He lays there, letting the symbiote and his own enhanced powers knit him back together, too weak and too overwhelmed with pain to even whimper.
Some time later, he hears repulsors to his right and rolls over slowly, painfully.
Rhodey is staring at him from above the crater. He drops down beside him, letting his helmet roll back so Peter can see his face.
“Peter? Are you the one in charge right now?” Rhodey asks warily. Peter gives a weak nod, and an even weaker cough.
“Tony---” Peter rasps. His voice comes out weak, more hissing than human, and he realizes he hasn’t actually used his voice since that last visit with May. That his voice has changed.
“Tony went after the alien. He saw you fall and told me to track you,” Rhodey says. He leans down and lifts Peter up into his arms. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here before people start asking uncomfortable questions.”
Peter is in no shape to argue; he slumps against Rhodey, letting his head thump against his armored shoulder. “May--”
“We don’t know. The cell towers in the city were knocked out by that alien tech,” Rhodey replies. “Happy’s on the way to your apartment. You and I are getting out of here.”
“Where are we going?” Peter asks, letting his eyes close.
“To the Avengers Tower,” Rhodey says, letting his helmet snap back into place as he rises up from the ground and begins to fly out of the city. Peter watches the city pass by, and then allows himself to pass out.
This is the last thing he wanted, to be found by an Avenger, but right now they don’t have time to deal with his strange hang ups.
At least he knows he’s safe with Rhodey.
* * *
Rhodey tucks him away inside his old room. Peter stays there, half dozing, letting himself heal. He can hear the Avengers speaking in hushed tones down the hall. Rhodey speaking with General Ross. Rhodey speaking with Steve and Natasha. Happy speaking to Rhodey, urgently, and in a way that sets Peter’s teeth on edge. After a few moments, Rhodey knocks on Peter’s door frame.
“Hey, kid,” Rhodey says, his tone wary and hesitant. “Are you awake? Can we talk?”
“Yes,” Peter says quietly, sitting up. He does it too quickly, too smoothly; the motion is more slithering snake than acrobatic human.
Rhodey pauses at that, then walks inside the room. Steve follows him, as does Natasha. The three of them take up positions in various parts of the room. The only one brave enough to get close to Peter is Rhodey.
“What’s wrong?” Peter asks.
Rhodey sighs. “May’s hurt. When the ship appeared over the city, it tossed around cars and caused a few buildings to collapse. She was driving the FEAST truck and...”
He trails off. Peter grips the metal frame of his bed. The metal twists beneath his hands like paper, groaning in protest. A red haze begins to fill his vision. Despite all of this, his voice remains uncannily calm.
“Is she dead?”
“No,” Rhodey replies. “She’s in a coma. The doctors aren’t sure she’ll wake up. Happy’s with her right now.”
Not dead. Not dead, thank god. Peter feels some of his anger drain away, replaced with a weary relief. There’s still a hot coal of rage smoldering inside him, but it’s temporarily dampened.
“I can take you there,” Rhodey offers.
Peter hesitates, and then shakes his head. “No. Happy will protect her.”
“If that’s what you want,” Rhodey says.
“Where’s Tony?” Peter asks after a long moment.
“With the alien ship. We haven’t had any contact from him in hours,” Steve says. “He’s probably taking the fight to them.”
Peter reads between the lines there. He can imagine how good the odds are for Tony. The coal burns brighter for a moment. If he hadn’t lost his grip on the ship--
“An invasion force is heading for us as we speak,” Natasha says quietly. “We’re headed to Wakanda.”
“I’m going with you,” Peter says.
“Are you sure you’re up for--” Rhodey starts.
“They hurt my May,” Peter says in that eerie, too calm voice. “I’m going.”
There’s no argument after that. The Avengers understand revenge.
It’s in the name, after all.
* * *
The Avengers eye him warily inside the quinjet. Wanda keeps glancing at him from the corner of her eye. Bruce frowns at him, visibly debating with himself over whether he should speak to Peter or not. Sam frowns at him, one of the few able to look him in the eye. Peter tilts his head, returning the frank look.
"New wings?" Peter asks.
Sam shrugs. "Kind of. Tony helped me upgrade them."
Peter nods, going quiet. After a moment, the more human side of himself kicks in. "Sorry for breaking them. And for trying to kill you."
"I thought you just needed a way to distract Tony to keep him from following you," Sam says.
"I did it for both reasons,” Peter admits after a moment, shifting uncomfortably. He doesn’t like to think back to the fight in the construction site. That’s a time both he and his other don’t like to think back on. “Escape and-and to hurt you.”
"You or the alien thing inside you?" Sam asks.
Peter hesitates. He hadn't been in control then, that’s true. He frowns, glancing away. "Doesn't matter."
"I think it does," Sam replies quietly.
An odd tension fills the jet after that. Peter finally realizes that the Avengers think he isn't in control of himself. That he's being used. They don't understand that he and the symbiote are more or less one and the same now.
"Touchdown in one minute,” Steve calls back. “King T’Challa and his entourage will meet us. Look sharp, Avengers. We’re asking a big favor of him.”
“Yeah, that’s putting it lightly,” Bruce says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Hi, how are ya, can we bring an alien invasion to your doorstep and borrow a surgery center, please?”
“Guess we’ll just have to impress him with our impeccable manners,” Rhodey says, clapping Bruce’s shoulder as the quinjet enters its final approach and touches down.
The back ramp begins to lower and Bruce stands up, frowning after Rhodey as he pulls on his coat.
“Do we bow?” he asks Rhodey. Rhodey grins at him, and Peter can see the mischievous spark in his eye light up.
The other Avengers trail after them. Peter stays behind, thoughtful. He doesn’t snap out of it until he feels a presence nearby.
Steve Rogers stands next to Peter, watching him closely. “Are you sure you’re up for this, Peter?”
“Yes.”
Steve hesitates. “I’m not sure if I should let you out of this quinjet, you know. I promised Tony I’d help him find you--”
“Tony’s not coming back,” Peter replies. “He went into an alien ship alone. Even Iron Man can’t face that alone.”
Steve is silent for a moment, and then realization hits him. “You blame yourself for that.”
“I was on the ship, too. I fell. It would be different if I was there with him. And now Aunt May is hurt,” Peter says. He stands up and, with a thought, lets the symbiote cover him from head to toe. Steve watches him, disturbed. “You could not keep me away if you tried.”
He stalks down the ramp and after the Avengers. The Dora Milaje watch him warily.
After a few moments, Steve follows him.
* * *
The battle is a complete shitshow, almost from the start. There’s nothing to swing from in the Wakandan prairie, but he can sprint as quickly as T’Challa and Steve, and he’s just as strong. His web bombs trap swathes of enemies, giving the Wakandan warriors time to cut apart the enemies before they can break free. Peter moves up and down the line, helping any warriors he finds and bodily ripping apart any aliens that get too close. This last part earns him a wary nod of respect from M’Baku when Petery crushes one alien beneath his feet and rips the head off another leaping for the Wakandan Chief’s back.
That smoldering coal of rage from the Tower flashes into a white heat of fury when Peter sees Steve dragged to the ground and tossed between the strange doglike aliens. The fury turns blinding when Rhodey is shot out of the sky by one of the Black Order. He’s been struggling against letting it loose all this time. He keeps it contained for now, but the air is rich with the smell of blood and the symbiote is eager to take its fill of flesh. Letting Venom take over and eat the dead probably won’t win him any favors, however.
Fortunately, that’s when Thor arrives. Not long after that, Thanos does as well.
And that’s when things go bad.
* * *
Peter is cut off from the others. He’d been trying to reach Rhodey or Bruce when an army of those four armed alien dogs came upon him. He fights them, two or three at a time, often using the unluckiest alien in his reach as a battering ram against the rest. In most normal armies, this would be enough to crush the morale of the attacking force. That isn’t the case here; these things only know how to kill, and Peter is slowly, gradually overwhelmed, buried beneath a tide of aliens that rip and tear at his symbiote other and the flesh beneath.
Just as he’s about to submit to the tide, a flash of lightning and crack of thunder echoes over the field. The aliens are incinerated in an instant. He slumps in relief, exhausted. Footsteps approach him, and he overhears voices speaking to one another.
“War Machine is hurt. The doctors are not sure they can save him,” a woman with a Wakandan accent says.
“Dammit,” Natasha replies. “But they aren’t sure?”
“On any other day, he would survive. Right now, our doctors are overwhelmed. What of this one?”
Someone drops down to their knees beside him and reaches down to press against the pulse point on his neck. “He’s alive.”
“Vision is on the field!” Steve cries into comms. “We need help!”
“Peter, stay down,” Natasha says quietly, pressing a hand to his shoulder. She’s the only Avenger brave enough to touch him aside from Rhodey. “You’re hurt. Let us help you.”
Peter ignores her. His body is screaming in pain, his head is throbbing, blood is streaming down his side and head in large enough quantities that it leaks from the suit. The sound of the battle around them is deafening, confusing, and it makes his head worse. Somewhere, he can sense Thanos.
Let me take over . I will fight. I will save them.
Peter hesitates. He and the symbiote have formed a kind of partnership these days, but Peter’s never given full control over to Venom again. Not since those first few disastrous weeks after their joining.
Please. Let me help.
Empathy. The alien symbiote really is learning from him. After a long moment, he nods. That smoldering coal of rage flashes into a white heat of fury when Peter sees Steve dragged to the ground and tossed between the strange doglike aliens. The fury turns blinding when Rhodey is shot out of the sky by one of the Black Order. He’s been struggling against letting it loose all this time. He lets it take over.
Peter’s form, black and white from the symbiote, suddenly swells up to Venom’s true size. HIs limbs swell with muscle as he stands, growing until he nearly matches the Hulk’s size. His lips pull back, revealing rows of needlepoint teeth, and his eyes grow huge and slanted in a vague mimicry of his old suit. The strength is intoxicating. Why did he ever fight against this?
Natasha staggers back and away from him, dragging one of the Dora Milaje with her as she moves. The Wakandan warrior stares at him.
“What in Bast’s name is--”
“Run,” Natasha says. “Run now. Steve, Venom’s here--”
They sprint away, Natasha speaking urgently into her comms as she moves. Venom scoffs, rolling his shoulders, turning to face the direction Steve and Thor had run towards moments ago. Venom is faster than Peter when he moves across the field; he runs on all fours, fingers and feet tipped with black claws that churn the bloody ground beneath him, ripping deep furrows as he sprints towards the clump of woods. He sees a flash of yellow light, a flash of green, yelling, and then broken sobbing from Wanda Maximoff as Vision falls to the ground.
By the time he reaches them, Thor has buried his axe into Thanos’s chest.
“You should have gone for the head,” Thanos sneers at Thor. He raises his hand, preparing to make one final Snap.
Venom appears near Thor and clamps down on the Gauntlet, all needle sharp teeth and scorched flesh beneath swirling darkness. Every now and then, the darkness pulls away, revealing Peter’s bruised, bleeding, and burned flesh beneath the symbiote. He roughly shoves Thor aside. The Asgardian stumbles away from Peter and the symbiote in shock and horror.
“The head?” Venom hisses.
“What are you,” Thanos whispers.
“The head,” Venom repeats, grinning, his jaws extending. Thanos has enough time to feel bright terror before Venom snaps his head forward.
There’s a very loud, echoing crunch when his jaws snap shut. Blood fills Venom's mouth, knowledge of what Thanos plans to do follows. Knowledge of what he did seeps into Venom's mind. Images of the battle on Titan fill his thoughts. Inside their shared thoughts, Peter sees Tony beaten, stabbed, killed. He sees Dr. Strange lying lifeless across dusty ground. He sees people he doesn’t know--the Guardians of the Galaxy--crushed beneath a fallen moon.
Thor stumbles back and away, horrified and pale with nausea as Venom spits out the head within its jaws. Steve slowly pushes himself up, hurt and weak, but approaching Peter despite all of it. He keeps his hands in view.
"Peter--" he starts.
"He hurt May. He killed Tony."
Steve pauses, grief and pain flashing over his expression, before he takes another step. "I'm sorry, son. Let's take a few steps back from Thanos and get you to a doctor. Okay? You're hurt."
Thor is looking between the fallen Thanos, Steve, and Venom, confused and horrified. "Captain, who is this?"
"His name's Peter. He’s Tony's kid," Steve says, quietly.
Thor is briefly struck with confusion, but he lowers Stormbreaker, raising his free hand, palm out, as he takes a few steps back to keep from crowding Venom. Steve takes another step closer. He’s limping, and hurt worse than he's letting on. Peter can hear his heart make quick little stuttering beats, the kind Uncle Ben's made before he died.
Peter stops to take in their losses, forcing Venom to stop as well. Tony’s dead. The Guardians of the Galaxy are dead. Dr. Strange is dead. Vision is dead. Rhodey is grievously hurt. Captain America will die the moment he realizes the fight is over. So much loss. He looks at the Gauntlet that's fallen from Thanos's limp hand.
If we take this power, we take the responsibility, Peter thinks to himself. He then sends his intentions to his alien other. The symbiote ponders that, counters with a wave of grief and anger, but finally agrees. It does not want to be separated from Peter. But it does as he wishes. Venom picks up the gauntlet and shoves his hand inside.
Crackling energy sears him, drawing jagged, multicolor lines up along his arm and shoulder. Venom only has one shot at this.
“Peter, no,” Steve cries out. “Put the stones down--”
“We are not Peter. We are Venom,” Venom says.
And then he snaps his fingers.
* * *
The timeline pauses. It shifts, reversing like a river running backwards. Weeks. Months.
Peter’s vision fades to some strange, orange place full of water.
When he blinks, he’s in another time and place altogether.
* * *
Tony aims his left gauntlet at it and fires up the flamethrower, pushing it to its absolute limit.
The flames shoot out. Venom screams.
Peter screams louder, dodging back and away from Tony’s hold. He’s clinging to his chest, stumbling away. Venom rolls across him the moment he’s out of Tony’s reach, sinking into Peter’s flesh and overtaking him once again.
He’s left reeling. There’s so much discord in their thought processes, their movements. Peter thinks hard at the symbiote, bombarding it with memories and thoughts and ideas that previously took weeks for it to understand. The symbiote pauses, horrified and confused.
But it doesn’t stop Peter from grabbing Tony’s flamethrower gauntlet and aiming it at his own chest.