Spider-Man. The House Of Venom

Natasha slammed the report down on Fury’s desk, “What the hell is this?”

Fury flipped the file around and raised an eyebrow, “It said interrogate, not screw in a warehouse. You’re on suspension until the report comes back that you're clean.”

Natasha wanted to scream at him, “I did as you asked. I got the information. It was not my fault there was no sample.”

Fury huffed and shrugged, “And this is not the Red Room. We do not have sex with our targets and we do not waltz back into our headquarters with sperm samples.” He stood and jabbed a finger at the file Natasha threw on his desk. “Do you know how many strings I had to pull to make sure you weren’t charged let alone fired? We. Do. Not. Sleep. With. Our. Targets!”

Fury tugged at the lapels of his jacket and sat back down, “We have a new job for you. As you are familiar with the Parker case, you will take the lead on it. Use it to get back into Shield’s good graces.” He slid another file from a drawer in his desk.

Natasha flipped it open and started to read, “Seriously?”

Fury shrugged. “It’ll get your suspension lifted and prove you can actually handle an assignment.”

Natasha nodded and lifted the file, “that it?”

The rumours were already starting and she needed to do damage control. Breaking a few noses would probably not help her case any but it would make her feel better.

Fury leant back in his chair and with a straight face glared at her. “Just don’t fuck him again.”

⁂

Flash had been torn since John's death.

He knew that Peter wasn’t the monster everyone said he was, but he still watched as he let John die. He knew Peter wasn’t a killer, but why was he refusing to come forward?

Even after the closed-door trials both Eddie and himself had been vindicated. Eddie got a slap on the wrist and a one-way ticket out of New York. Flash was still waiting to find out what his punishment was going to be.

He knew there would be one. Nobody was ready for the colossal fuck-up that was the Web Warriors. Harry pushed them and instead of coming out stronger, they broke.

Flash snorted. He had seen Harry, shaking hands with some senator asshole. He recognised him as one of the senators his dad would invite for brandy and cigars after parties. He had no idea who it was, those parties he spent hiding from his father.

He knew Eddie got the better deal. He might have powers, but Flash was different. It was a sudden attack, a darkened hood, and handcuffs in a pitch-black room for him. If he hadn't been sat at a table, he would have expected to wake up missing a kidney.

He stood on the mat, remembering the shitshow that got him here in the first place.

“Please state your name.” came the voice again. It was robotic and obviously fake. Like those jokes where someone breathes from a helium balloon.

“Eugene Thompson, but I prefer Flash.” His mom named him that. He always hated the story she told,

‘he was always out his diaper, quick as a flash and off running’

He hated it less after she died.

“We don’t care what you prefer. Eugene Thompson. You are host to an organism. The Symbiotes. Correct.”

“Yeah, I suppose. I don’t know.”

So that was their game, they were after Peter. Nobody gave a rat's ass about him. The money was gone. Taken to cover Osborn's little murder spree. Criminal charges were raised and once they were done, his dad was ruined. Someone had played a very good game. He saw the signs. Harry with a contract right when he was at his lowest. A new home, friends. All carefully dangled in his face. Now it was the endgame. If he ended up as slides in a freakshow it wouldn’t have surprised him.

“You visited Peter Parker. Why?”

“I bullied him, and wanted to make amends.” That had been his mistake. He should have taken the last piece of advice his dad ever gave him,

‘Leave Parker the hell alone’

If he had listened, if he’d never gone to that diner, this nightmare would never have happened.

“For no other reason?”

Flash snorted,

“Yeah, I wanted him to blow me. He was busy, so how about you come do it?”

“Puerile insults and childish comments will not work in your favour. Why were you visiting Peter Parker?”

Flash closed his eyes. If the fight had taught him one thing he was wasting his powers. Venom, no Peter took the three of them apart. He was stronger, faster, and much better trained. It had been two years since high school and that scrawny Puker was now a blade. Once he took great delight in shoving up their asses.

Harry had told them they were special and they were. They just got big heads. Peter had trained. He knew what it was like to be the underdog. Peter knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of a beating. Peter had learned he wasn’t invincible. Flash hadn’t. If Peter wanted him dead he would be. Peter had grown up, Flash stayed the same arrogant jackass.

That had been the start of it. He was a link to Parker and one that got him off the hook for the same crap they pulled on Eddie. He might come across as a bot slow but he wasn’t stupid and he took their bait, knowing underneath was a silver sharp hook that meant he owed them.

They had offered him a job, and as he looked over at the six-foot-tall mass of blonde-haired blue-eyed muscle he felt woefully inadequate.

“So,” he said with a smirk, “you got your ass kicked by a dame?”

Flash was about to admonish him. It wasn't the Forties anymore, nobody said dame. He was about to, until his new instructor moved faster than he thought possible and threw him across the training room and into a wall, “Well, I ain't no dame.”

⁂

Betty still wasn’t returning his calls.

He looked at his phone once more and shrugged. He couldn’t make her answer so he guessed that was that.

Looking around the old Victorian-style house was depressing. He was grateful Hank liked to keep his bugs downstairs. With five of them living in the house, it was cramped enough that tempers flared every now and again. Mainly Cindy’s

There was something wrong with her. He could feel a tingle every time she was mad. It was as if something inside him was warning him to either get the hell out of there or worse, put her down. He had started to feel it more and more after the dreams. A warning, a new danger sense. But this was Cindy.

He’d tried talking to Hank but he’d brushed him off. Falcon had told him he needed to trust his team more, and he dropped it. Hope and Scott were hiding their less-than-subtle quickies in the toilet to care. That was going to be an argument in itself.

He saw the way Cindy looked at Hope and he didn’t blame her. Hope was very attractive and very intelligent. What he did blame Cindy for was ignoring the very obvious signals she wasn't interested.

Hell, Eddie knew if he saw them, it might as well have been a lighthouse. Nobody cared Cindy was gay. Nobody cared what anyone else did. They cared that she seemed to be ignoring the rebuffs and exploding at the smallest thing after.

Cindy didn’t seem to care though. Hank would take her to talk and she’d calm down. For a few days.

Eddie sat and read the paper. San Fransisco was boring, but after John, boring suited him just fine. It was still there though, that niggle. That small itch in the back of his head that everything was about to go sideways and not in a good way.

Having a danger sense was great, pity it didn’t come with a manual.

⁂

The bedside monitor beeped as Harry stood outside the room.

“Will he live?” he asked and the doctor next to him nodded.

“Bonding was successful.”

Harry tutted, Norman was just like a cockroach, “So why am I here?”

The doctor handed Harry a clipboard. Harry’s face was stoically unmoving as he read the report. The blades removed from Norman had been broken down and analysed. It was not human DNA, it was something much better.

He clenched his jaw as the thought of Peter being the one to screw up all his plans burned furiously in his mind. His eyes darted down the page as he took in everything they had gleaned from the symbskin constructs.

“The samples were enough to clone?” He asked as he reached the recommendations of his science team.

“Not for a fully human subject, but enough,” he stopped as Harry raised his hand.

“Do it,” He handed the clipboard back to the scientist, “and if it fails, you’ll be its first victim.”

⁂

May was happy. The happiest she had been since Ben died. Curt had always been handsome but reserved. Smart but not arrogant. He was a perfect gentleman, and she was in love.

Peter had taken it well. She had expected him to shout and argue when he was told that Curt was one of his father's friends,

“As long as you’re happy May, then I don’t care who you’re dating.”

And she was. Not just with his personality but the sex was fantastic. She was still a young woman. Barely over forty-five, he reignited her passions long buried by Ben’s passing. While one arm made certain things difficult it was still a satisfying relationship.

But there was something wrong. She knew there was a secret. She knew that he’d asked after Richard's research and that Peter had admitted to being sick. She also knew it was a load of shit and they were both lying to her.

Richard had been tight-lipped about his work. Mary was just as bad but May couldn’t help but worry. The science went over her head but Curt reassured her they were working to cure them both. He would always refuse to say of what though.

Sitting in her kitchen worrying wasn’t going to help, but she swore to herself. If Curt hurt Peter that a missing arm would be the least of his troubles.

⁂

Gwen had been quiet since the death of her father. Everyone was giving her the space she needed and when she crawled into a bed, they knew she needed them.

Peter had been just as quiet. Talia had ghosted him. Her phone came back as disconnected and worse when he tried to ask student services for her he got a blank stare.

Talia Romanovich didn’t exist.

If he could describe how he was feeling in one word it wouldn't be betrayed. It was angry.

“Pete?” he heard her ask, and he unclenched his fists. He had been working the anger out. Mainly by thrashing Felicia and then taking that lesson and heading into New York.

He looked over and smiled at her, “Hey, need something?”

“Want to talk?” she asked as she slid down onto his lap, “I mean, we knew girls might not like you but come on.”

He snorted a little laugh, “I think she was some kind of spy.”

Gwen lifted an eyebrow, “Come on. We’ve all had guys ghost us but a spy?”

Peter slid a hand up into her top, feeling Poison purr, “Guys huh?”

Gwen laughed, “Yeah, some dork kept brushing me off, like a complete idiot.”

“Yeah,” he said sullenly, “I think he’s still one.”

Gwen frowned, “really, so a spy?”

“Talia doesn't exist. The guy at the grocery store said she came in once, gave him a twenty and got him to lie. Student services never heard of her and her phone is a burner. She doesn't exist and I think she was after Venom.”

Gwen slid his hand further up, letting his hand cup her breast, “So you think she’ll be back?”

Peter rubbed a thumb over her now excited nipple, grinning, “Yeah, but with a warrant or a bunch of soldiers. That I don’t know.”

Gwen bit her bottom lip. It was just a small thing but Poison was already purring and her underwear was damp,

“Then I guess we should make sure if the condemned man gets a last wish.”

Peter pinched her nipple gently and she squealed and giggled,

“Orgy then?”

Gwen laughed and dipped her head to kiss him, just as the door buzzer went.