Work Text
Hawkeye
The thing was, the last time Clint let himself retire, everything went to shit, and he ended up getting arrested for trying to clean up the mess.Then, he found out that, while he was serving two full years of house arrest in his shitty New York apartment, his best friend went and got herself infested with some kind of alien parasite. Then, he found out that she helped it give birth to an ugly-as-sin little hybrid … thing … and even found a suitable host for the nightmare baby.On top of all of that, there was the very fucking predictable fallout of being absent from his family for two years. Sure, he did it to protect them - General Ross was sure as shit not on the list of people who got to know about his little farm in the middle of nowhere - but that didn't make it hurt anyone involved less.So, yeah. Back to work. It was easier than dealing with any of that .Hawkeye wanted a sandwich, coffee, and a nap, in that order. Instead, he was perched on top of an apartment building, watching for movement from one across the way. There was the guy, but where was -A gentle tap on his shoulder nearly had him jumping out of his skin, and what the actual fuck. It was the kid he was supposed to be spying on. He'd known she was enhanced - something about more of the alien parasites - but he hadn't anticipated this. “Hi.” She emphasized the greeting by waving at him, and then held out a paper bag. “For you.”“Uh.” And she swung her legs over the edge of the building and sat down. “Thanks?” Mentally, he was weighing the probability that whatever-it-was included poison, but it smelled tasty. “You didn't have to - ”She shrugged slightly, smiling at him. “You’ve been up here for a while. We thought you might be hungry?”“... I mean.” He opened the sack, inspecting the contents. Some kind of a burger - when had she had time to get that? “You … know I'm supposed to be watching you, right?”She shrugged slightly, leaning back on the ledge. “We figured.” Right, alien parasite, that's why she's talking in plural. He had this. Really. “Mr. Stark seems to think we’re gonna set ourselves on fire now we're out on our own again.” That tracked, honestly, the guy was one hell of a control freak. Clint wasn't exactly happy about working for him, but with S.H.I.E.L.D. debatably defunct (Nat was keeping tabs on that), he'd kind of run low on employment options.“Well, uh, thanks.”Fuck it.He was hungry, and if he died from this, he'd at least go out enjoying one of life's few pleasures. He removed the burger and began to eat, greedily. It was actually pretty good, and he made a happy little noise that wasn't entirely because of how downright starving he'd gotten.“Hope you like it,” she smiled. “We like cooking. It's nice.”He mumbled through a mouthful of burger, “You made this? ‘s good.”“Uh-huh.” She smiled at him, and he honestly forgot for a moment that he was supposed to be spying on her and her dad. Her file said she was twenty, or he'd have guessed she was still a teenager.And yet.There was a kind of shadow that lurked in the back of her eyes, a slightly-haunted look he recognized from the mirror. So, he finished his burger, and he watched her, thoughtfully. She didn't seem inclined to move, at first, or even talk. Then -“Are those - ” She gestured to her own ears. “Because you can't hear on your own?”Which, okay, not the most insensitive way he's heard that question framed. He got the impression there was more to the question, especially since she made a point of turning so he could see her face. Her eyes never even came close to meeting his, but she made sure she was at least facing toward him.“Yeah,” he replied, lifting his shoulders in a faint shrug. She'd get to the point in her own time - he didn't care to rush her.They shared a long silence, watching the apartment across the street. Then, “But you're a hero, anyway?”“Or something.”He almost caught her gaze when she snuck a peek at his face - almost, but not quite. “Or something,” she repeated, thoughtfully.And then she jumped off the building, which was the single most unexpected outcome he could have anticipated, which would be why he didn't anticipate it. He was reaching, dumbly, for the space she’d abandoned, half-expecting to see a crumpled body splattered on the ground below, when she stood with effortless grace and waved up at him, a smile on her lips.She wasn't even limping.He leaned back and groaned. Of course. Enhanced. He knew that. So, this job wasn't half bad, actually.The kid made pretty damn good food, she mostly didn't make any real effort to lose him, and when she sought him out to chat, she was pretty much unfailingly polite.Her dad was a pretty decent dude, too, from what Clint could see. When he wanted privacy, he disappeared, though, which was aggravating, especially since the kid usually served as an unsubtle distraction.“You don't want to be watching right now anyway,” she'd informed him, her expression serious as she handed him half of a pizzaThe kid was also the one who decided to blatantly flaunt the Accords. He kind of liked that, honestly.The first time it happened, it was two in the morning on a school night. She’d dressed in an oversized, gray hoodie, dipping down a back alley like it was some kind of shortcut. He'd been a bit alarmed, because enhanced or no, she was a young woman, alone. She kept her head down, shoulders hunched, making herself small. An easy target - a victim.Not for nothing, but his best friend was the Black Widow. Hawkeye realized the kid was working, and he watched.It didn't take long for her to find a mark. The guy wasn't even subtle about it. He pressed a knife to her throat and dragged her deeper into the alley, and she let him.Maybe he'd overestimated her. That would kind of suck.He was just about to intervene, to ‘stumble upon’ the crime scene, when he heard the distinctive snap of bone. “Mine now,” she murmured, almost inaudibly. As he rounded the corner, he saw her mark on the ground, clutching his broken arm. The girl was inspecting the knife she’d confiscated, a hint of a smile on her lips. She looked up and over, green eyes reflecting the dim light like a cat's, and flicked her fingers in a slight wave. “You've learned your lesson, yes?” She glanced down at the man, who whimpered pitifully. “Understand: if we catch you again, you will not survive.”And then she walked away. Hawkeye spared a glance for the guy, but ultimately, his job was to watch the kid.“Wanna tell me what that was?”She raised an eyebrow, turning, so she could walk backwards. “If someone tries to stab us, we take the knife.” She twirled the blade between her fingers, to show it off. “I used to let them actually hurt me, to make it real, but Sunny doesn't like it when I get hurt, not for real.”The weapon wasn't anything fancy, a simple hunting knife, but she held it up to the moonlight with a smile. He winced, as she pressed her fingertips against the blade.Barely any blood escaped, before a wash of yellowish ooze sealed the cuts over.He couldn't help but notice the matching scars, just a bit lower across all ten fingers, and a part of him wondered how they'd come to be.A part of him didn't have to.“How, uh, how long have you been doing this?” he asked, instead, frowning. They’d been in New York for about half a month, by now, long enough for the little family to get settled into a pretty predictable routine. Until that night, that routine hadn’t included late night hunts, so that meant it must have started somewhere else. She shrugged, uncertainly. “A few months? I had a collection, but - well, we went back, after everything, and people had gotten at it. It’s why we just break the guns if they have guns.”“... Right, you break the guns.”Green eyes fixed on him. “Super strength?”“No, no, I get it.” He raised his hands, in defeat. She sidestepped a fire hydrant as though she had eyes in the back of her head. “So, how long do you plan to be out on patrol for?”She shrugged. “Well - this, here, is the little Spider’s territory, but he can’t stay out so late, and he’s, um.” She twirled a finger, vaguely. “He gets fussy if things are messy,” she explained. “So, if he doesn’t know, it isn’t a problem? And he won’t know we’re helping, if he doesn’t see.”Fuck. His job just got exponentially harder.“You know that I know you aren’t exactly Accords-legal, right?”She shrugged. “What are you going to do? Shoot us?”“... Please, never say that sentence again.”She grinned up at him, playfully, with an expression that told him that she absolutely had said that phrase to someone with an actual gun.God help him.
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The Black Widow (Nat)
Two weeks after helping bring a new life into the world, and Nat had already started to go stir crazy, combing through the old SHIELD files for something - anything - to do.Someone had thoughtfully - and anonymously - constructed a wiki that compiled all of that information she had released into the wild. Most of it even had sources, external links, references - anything that could make this once highly-classified data more accessible to the general public.There was still so much to sift through, and more still to put together something like a job. When she finally found something that looked distracting enough, she was pleasantly surprised to find that the task would be taking her to San Francisco: she had a bit of personal business that she wanted to wrap up, there. Technically, it wasn't even her business, but … well, that was what made her the best candidate for the job, wasn't it? No clear motive, no obvious link.For about two weeks, she'd served as the host to an alien symbiote. She'd chosen to allow it to use her body, to ensure the best possible outcome for its child.Now that their temporary partnership had concluded - no hard feelings, V just desperately wanted to return to their husband - she found that, even with her head clear, she still felt a certain measure of affection for their family, an affection all her own.The thing was, Nat wasn't particularly good at doing the whole touchy-feely emotions thing.The Widow was a weapon. She killed people. She was very, very good at killing people.In point of fact, she had learned of a couple of very specific people who needed killing, after sharing V's memories - and the secondhand stories of how their adopted daughter had once suffered under her birth parents’ abuse.It would look like an accident, of course. She wouldn't tell Dawn, herself; the girl had been far too conflicted about the entire thing to agree to it when V had offered. The point was to help remove that layer of conflict, not add to it. When the girl was ready, she'd learn, and until then, well, at least no other children would be hurt by that couple.Nat didn't really do internal conflict: the job needed doing, and she would be in the area. Obviously, it would fall to her.Having decided on that matter, she turned her attention to the rogue HYDRA cell in the area. Apparently, they'd gone underground, striking deals with the local lowlifes. Notably, though, after doing a bit more digging, she uncovered a particular thread that led back to San Quentin, mentions of an asset that left her blood running cold, and promises to see their end of the bargain upheld.Someone was interested in a prisoner, apparently.Easy enough that she could handle it while recuperating?Check.Distracting enough she wouldn't get lost in her own head?Maybe.There was the date and time, plucked fresh from a badly-secured email. She set herself up with everything she'd need for the trip, and left a message with FRIDAY, in case something went wrong.Practically before she knew it (and certainly before anyone could stop her), she'd boarded a plane, en route to California. It was pathetically easy to stage the accident.The man had fallen asleep in front of the television, snoring loudly in his drunken slumber. The woman was tucked into her bed, with no easy way out that didn't involve passing through the living room. By the time she realized the danger, it would be too late.Nat hadn't really intended to do it on her first night in San Francisco. She'd merely been looking around - it usually took a bit more effort to make a hit look like an accident.The opportunity was there, though, especially when Nat noticed that they'd removed the batteries from the fire alarm. Honestly, it would make for an important reminder about fire safety. Multiple escape routes, a functional fire alarm, even a fire extinguisher in easy reach - any contingency plan beyond simply hoping that the place never caught on fire would have been life-saving.So, the little run-down house burned, a cheerful bonfire that, by all accounts, had started with a careless cigarette. By the time anybody knew to call for help, the couple had succumbed, and that crossed one item neatly off of Nat's to-do list.Her next stop was San Quentin, but apparently, whatever was meant to happen wouldn't go down for another day. Lovely.Nat took in the sights, playing tourist, subtly scouting the city. She made a point of staying well away from Scott Lang's place, however. Right now, with her hair pinned up under a mouse-brown wig, she was fairly certain he wouldn't recognize her. If he did, however, that would be a problem. She hadn't come here as Natasha, after all, and if anyone realized the Black Widow was in town, it would jeopardize her mission.It shouldn't have felt lonely - the Widow did her best work when she was alone.She shouldn't have been missing the chatter of a voice in the back of her skull, and she certainly shouldn't have been missing the constant hunger, above and beyond her own enhanced metabolism.But, well, Nat felt lonely, in those idle moments she spent waiting for the next move.Lying in the cheap hotel bed, staring at the ceiling, she felt horribly isolated, and it wasn't just the silence in her skull, was it? One hand came up, her fingertips playing against a patch of chilly skin just over her sternum. The mark wasn't visible, but she was still aware of its presence all the same. I miss you, she sighed into the darkness. Whatever happened, wherever you've gone, I wish you'd been able to at least tell me what was happening. A bitter smile tugged at her lips. Or even just give me some insight into what your little spell was supposed to do? If there were, maybe, some responsibilities I was supposed to fulfill? Apparently, the Widow was supposed to spread chaos around. Make the world a more interesting place, as a priestess of Loki.Or, well, something.She'd gotten exactly zero guidance from the god since receiving his blessing.Arson in order to cover up a double homicide, while leaving no witnesses to attest to the fact it had actually been arson? That was probably a kind of mischief Loki would appreciate. She had little doubt the god would approve of her victims: Loki had a well-hidden soft spot for innocents and victims, especially those who had been misunderstood and abused by their caregivers.Apparently, Odin wasn't much of a father. Who knew?It wasn't like she was actively seeking his favor. The job had needed doing, and she was available. If anything, Nat was annoyed with the Asgardian, and trying to figure out what he meant by his cryptic farewell.When she finally drifted off to sleep, her dreams were an uneasy amalgamation of nearly a century of horrors. After Sokovia, all the skeletons she had buried in her psyche had clambered out of their shallow graves to torment her on a nightly basis. Given that she was much older than S.H.I.E.L.D.’s records claimed - and she had been operating as the world's best assassin for most of it - that had left a bit of a mess strewn about her subconscious.Honestly, she should probably talk to someone about that.Maybe next, she could track down Wanda and ask her to put her head back together. That was a nice thought, just show up at the girl’s place like, ‘please, use your terrifying mind magic to help me compartmentalize everything you dug up again. It's the least you could do to make things up to me.’Nah. She was a big girl. She could handle herself. Apparently, the HYDRA agents were planning to stage a prison break for one Cletus Kasady, a particularly vicious serial killer who earnestly believed he was freeing his victims from the misery of daily life.Somehow, the Widow suspected that their plans for the man involved playing to his talents. They wouldn't be courting a killer if they didn't want someone killed, after all.Her job went off without a hitch: apparently, while HYDRA was finding it easy enough to scrape up fresh recruits, these days, it was a little harder for them to find competent help. The first of the Nazis fell like a (thoroughly bloodied) sack of potatoes, and his team started to panic.From there, it was child's play to dispatch the rest and seize the briefcase they'd apparently been sent to deliver.She left the cooling corpses for the prison guards to deal with, escaping before they even had time to realize there had been a breach. She even managed to get back to the hotel before her curiosity overwhelmed her.“Let's see what's inside briefcase number one,” she muttered, popping it open with careless abandon. She'd been expecting weapons, maybe, or even a bomb.She stared blankly at the swirling mass of red and black ooze, as the glass cylinder slid open.Well.Depending on the definition of a weapon, she'd been half-right, at least.Before she could think to close the case, the symbiote had flung itself at her chest, and a traitorous part of her welcomed it inside.A killer, the foreign voice purred. You'll do.The world spun crazily, before fading to darkness.
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Dawn
Maybe it was mean, to play nicely with the bird man, so he wouldn't realize how easy it was to give him the slip.Hawks were visual predators, after all, and Scream could be invisible.They had somewhere to be, and as nice as the archer was, they didn't really care to explain where they were going, or why. He could assume they were sleeping, maybe; staying up at night to hunt bad guys would leave a normal person weary.Eddie and V knew, at least, and that was what was important.The Strange doctor was strange, and also a doctor, but he didn't do much doctoring anymore because he had learned to do magic. Also, there was something wrong - like really wrong - with his hands. He had scars, and metal, and more scars, and more metal. And a very pretty watch.The building was weird, and they paused outside of it, staring up at the tower.It looked normal to Dawn, but Sunny could feel all kinds of energies buzzing under its stony skin. For once, when they let their sight slide over her own, more impossible shapes swirled across their vision.He was a wizard, apparently. It made sense that he would have a wizard's tower.They lingered outside, staring up at the structure with a sense of yearning, but also a kind of primal fear, and for once, it wasn't Dawn's fear.It's the light, Sunny tried to explain, their essence vibrating with anxiety. The light he uses when he does magic can hurt us just like fire, with less warning. Dawn offered a soft smile. I'll protect us, she replied, keeping her mental voice steady. Words or fists, I won't let him hurt us, I promise. Of course, he was a wizard. That was a promise easier made than kept.A half-second's alarm, with no obvious source of danger, was not enough time for them to react, even with the kind of speed Scream could manage. They found themselves falling, abruptly, and it was immediately apparent that the strange doctor didn't have to telegraph the creation of those portals.Gold shot outward, halting their descent. Red twined around gold, and they flipped upward, clinging to the ceiling. The tendrils of Sunny's essence sank into Dawn's skin: the spider boy's talent for climbing had been just one of the gifts they'd learned to duplicate.“Scream,” he called up to them, looking up from his book. “What did you need?”It was a nice place, in an abstract sort of way, but they couldn't shake the deep thrumming note of danger. There was so much stuff crammed into this one room, and all of it tasted like fear, and -Dawn realized, belatedly, that it wasn't her own panic that was causing her heart to race. Shh. She looked around, and then tried to tug her hand free of the ceiling, only to realize that she was stuck. We're okay. It's okay. He won't hurt us. “Uhm. There … you are a doctor, yes? We asked that before - um. There's … we set up an appointment, to talk to a therapist, because he's - he knows about us.” She could unstick one limb at a time, at least. Carefully, she rearranged their body, so she was sitting cross-legged, her hair curling around her head in a mane that completely defied gravity.Strange tilted his head to the side. Somehow, he managed to not make it seem that weird, calling out to someone clinging to the high ceiling of his little private library. “Schizophrenia doesn't have a particularly great track record with therapy,” he pointed out.“We know that - I know that. It's because my brain grew up weird - I know. You can't talk hallucinations away, but … you can talk about other stuff. Bad stuff.” She looked away, at that.He nodded, calmly. “So, what did you need from me? I assume that's why you spent half an hour staring at my front door, anyway.”“It’s - kind of embarrassing, but … we can ask Mr. Stark, if not, but - Dr. Lecter is in Baltimore, and we are - um - not.” She reached up, absently, running her fingers through her hair. “Very not. And so, we were kind of wondering if we could ask you to do the magic portal thing for us? We can pay! If you want? We have money, like a taxi maybe? We just - ” She nibbled her lower lip. “It isn't something we can explain without explaining who we are and what we are and he knows enough already and we like him and so the distance thing is less a problem than the um - you know - the everything else.”He kept watching her, and her skin itched, but she didn't really want to ask Mr. Stark because of that time he killed her - and the fact he was being extra nice, now, to try and make up for it. So, Dawn forced herself to meet the Strange doctor's eyes, and she focused on breathing evenly, and Sunny continued to slosh around between her organs.“I can certainly see how that would be a problem,” he replied finally. “I'm not as wealthy as I once was, and while it's all well and good to eschew material wealth for spiritual gain, somebody has to keep the lights on in this place. Why not.” The sticking thing was getting annoying. She took a deep breath - inhale, exhale, and she forced her fingers to relax. The tension that kept her anchored to the doorknob slowly thinned, until she could retrieve her hand.A part of her was terrified of opening up to anyone. They liked Doctor Lecter, for all that they knew he wasn't a good person - but they knew better than to fully trust him.Which made this a kind of madness, didn't it?Oh, well. Nobody had ever called Dawn sane .It's okay, Sunny purred. If he tries to hurt us, we'll eat him, and he knows that.She smiled, at that.It was hard not to hear the commotion. There was - was that a fight? The door was ajar, which felt wrong, it - that was definitely a fight. They poked their head inside the room, and - oh. There was a dead man on the floor. The other man there - he was on the tallish side, and for the moment, it looked like he had the upper hand.“We're sorry to interrupt,” Dawn murmured, though neither the tall man with the dark skin, nor the doctor himself, actually heard.Gold swarmed up, over her skin. Before the mask had even settled into place, red had reached out to pluck the stranger off of Doctor Lecter. A thin strand of gold reached back, carefully closing and locking the door. “It's only, we need him in one piece.”It wasn't really their business. They had the option of letting him go, of tying him up for the police to find - but, well, they'd gone to certain lengths to make this appointment, and Sunny wasn't exactly not hungry.He tried to yell at them, to scream in horror at what they'd become. He got as far as the inhale before a bit of sharpened red pierced his throat, his voice gurgling, the blood seeping into their tendrils because it wouldn't do to waste food, after all.The doctor watched with rapt fascination as they drew him in, as Scream bared their fangs. Their maw stretched impossibly wide, and they bit down, savoring the crunch of bone, the taste of blood, and the slightly-chewy mess of brain matter. Sure, they didn't actually need to eat heads anymore - but that didn't make it less appetizing. That didn't make it feel less right. They slurped at the blood, making sure not to spill any. Realizing the impending mess, Dawn brought her hands up to cradle his lifeless body, and spirals of red and gold swirled downward, forming a tarp to absorb anything they might miss.They feasted, greedily, finishing the first body and glancing to the other. “May we?” It seemed - polite. Sunny could make use of dead meat, and the corpse was still warm.Plus, the brain was intact. That was important.By now, Doctor Lecter had regained his composure, and he was smiling at them. “By all means.”
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Dr. Hannibal Lecter
In another universe, another timeline, Will Graham was at the musician's shop when two officers were killed. In another world, Hannibal set his office as the stage and notified the police, and he convinced them that Tobias had murdered Franklyn before attacking him.It was only a partial untruth: he'd taken the man's satisfaction by stealing away his kill. Tobias would have eventually gotten around to murdering his roommate, and Franklyn had been a nuisance for some time.In this world, his partly-formed plan never needed to be implemented: Scream arrived early to their appointment, and graciously discarded the evidence for him.They were such polite youths.Hannibal politely excused himself to wash his hands and straighten his suit. It was one of his minor quirks - everything must be in its proper place. Distance and time allowed him to settle out his nerves, and revise his plans to include this new turn of events.If any inquiries were made, he would simply deny that he'd seen Franklin or Tobias at all, today.By the time he returned, there were no bodies in his office, and the girl was perched on the upper railing, idly passing threads of gold between her fingers. She seemed to be entirely unbothered by her kill, and he wondered if that was her partner's doing. So many people got upset when it came to the slaughter. “I suppose,” he began, smiling warmly, “I must thank you for saving my life. It's good to see you again, Scream. How have you been?”Dawn watched him, kicking her feet idly. “Welcome,” she replied. “We like you.” Her eyes still seemed a bit distant, as though she were distracted, and it was entirely possible that she was. “We've been - okay,” she murmured. The gold retracted into her hands, before pressing out from her collarbone into a thick mass of red-and-gold tendrils that, together, formed themselves into a second face. “Our house burned down, but Mr. Stark is paying to have it rebuilt because he feels guilty about the time he killed me.”“I had wondered about that,” he replied, because what else could he really say? “You seem to be in good health for someone who recently died. Is that Sunny's work?”She nodded. The golden tendrils shimmered, her partner's voice sounding pleasantly melodic. “Yes.”“I am glad to hear it.” And he was, truly; he found the pair to be fascinating. “May I ask where you're staying while the construction is completed?” The door shut and locked behind him, he settled into his familiar chair and glanced upward at the pair.Sunny’s voice, he noted, seemed to be crafted like the notes from a stringed instrument, each sound produced by their essence shivering just so - which made sense, really, given the otherwise illogical nature of their anatomy. “You can ask,” they replied, playfully.“Mr. Stark thinks - we agree, all of us, really - it would be good for us to - ” She gestured, vaguely, with her left hand, her right coming up to skim through the metallic substance of her symbiote's head. “I am - not so experienced, at - talking with people, being normal. It is good to practice, to - I should know other humans, and learn how to behave, so that I am not creepy, and so that I do not reveal my secrets to those who have no need to know.”He let her complete her sentence, quietly making a note of the circuitous pattern of her words. There was definitely some sort of speech disorder, there. “Is that why you're here, then?”“No - not - exactly. It is …” She chewed on her lower lip. “I know, we know, you can't really talk away the Watchers, the um - shadow people - because they aren't real - but there's … it sounds stupid, to say, but - I think kind of, it's probably because - my parents?”He tilted his head to the side. Hallucinations? He jotted that down; they could come back to it later. “For most people, our formative years serve as the foundation for the rest of our lives. For better or worse, our parents often shape those years. For clarity, I must ask - when you say your parents, do you mean your … I believe the term you insisted upon was your ‘dads?’” “No!” Both voices rang out sharply. “No - V, Eddie, they're amazing. We love them; they adopted us and everything. Well, they adopted me; Sunny is V's own child.”The golden head rippled from side to side. “But we, Klyntar, we do not raise our offspring. We are born whole; there is no need. If not for Dawn, we would have been deprived our parent's guidance.”“So,” here, he noted that the pair maintained equally high opinions of their current guardians. “Let us talk about your father, then.”She had drawn the distinction before, but now it mattered. Her eyes shut, she winced. “What would you know, sir?” The formal language, combined with the momentary pain, the suddenly flat affect - it was easy enough to guess at the details.His guess graduated into a hypothesis, when Sunny's fangs bared in a hiss of displeasure, and the girl absently stroked their tendrils, the gesture a soothing one.“Is he still alive?”Hannibal would note that, under ordinary circumstances, with an ordinary patient, his first inquiry would not have been to essentially ask whether or not she had murdered her parents. Scream was far from ordinary, however, and it seemed like the probable outcome.“Yes,” both voices spoke. “Did not want ( we'd get caught ) Dawn forbade. Because it would be obvious. If they died, if they went missing, we would be suspect!”He suppressed a smirk. “I see that you've thought about this.”
“They hurt Dawn!”
The girl stood, suddenly, with a kind of fluid grace that any mortal might envy. She paced, for a moment, and then stepped carefully, walking up the wall, onto the ceiling. Her hair and clothing both defied gravity, clinging to her skin. The Klyntar twisted its head to inspect him, a low hum in the air. “I just want to leave it in the past, leave them in the past. But it's - in how we behave, in how I think.”He tried not to let himself get distracted.“Tell me more about that, if you would.” Hannibal made a few more simple notes, idly, nothing that would be specifically incriminating - just in case . He might not admit it, but he had never been completely infallible, and he was well aware of that fact. “How do you see this impacting your life?”She paced the length of his office, upside-down, and slowly, her hair let itself loose, hanging nearly to the top of his head where it dangled. Most of it spread out in something of a halo. “Is - ” Only, then, she didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence.“Take your time, Dawn. You are the last client I have scheduled for this evening; there is no rush.” He smiled, encouragingly, and she nodded.Finally, the girl dragged herself upward, settling cross-legged against the ceiling. A puddle of reddish slime sank itself into the ceiling, and he had to assume that it was serving to anchor her, there. “I - think, if I make - if anything goes wrong, if anyone is harmed, if bad things happen, even if it is - even if I could not change it, even if we did everything right, even if it is not my fault, our fault, I fear that others will blame me. I know that others will blame me and us.” She considered, then nodded firmly. “And … I think, I think, that - maybe it is right for them to, even if - even if I did not do that thing wrong, because - because I am wrong. I am bad.”“What makes you say that?” Challenging this line of thought would be delicate, but it would be necessary if she was to heal from this.She frowned, at that. “Crazy,” she began.“Nonsense.” He held up a finger to stop her. “Whether or not you are insane, that doesn’t make you inherently bad. Furthermore, with Sunny’s assistance, you seem to be firmly grounded in reality, and you even make an effort to improve that reality. I assume, on the whole, you still choose to prey upon those who cause undue suffering?”She nodded, hesitantly.Sunny bared their many, many fangs at this, approximating a smile. It was a bit intimidating - and yet, oddly beautiful in its implied lethality. “We do, she does. If you kill enough evil, eventually, there is less evil.” They nuzzled their forehead against Dawn's cheek, affectionately. “Also, our brain is more like other brains since we joined, except where we made it better, for us .”“Is that so?” That was fascinating. The alien nodded, its head bobbing down, then up. “And what improvements were necessary - if I may?”The girl reached out, this time, absently. “We're meant to be solid, humans, all one thing and nothing else. I - bend, easier, in my head. Always have. It’s easy, when reality itself doesn't feel too solid? And, you know, we were already putting in new brains in the gaps, so we added - ” She gestured vaguely, and her hand sheathed itself in crimson. “Structures that … bend? Better interfaces for the parts that are us and we.” She frowned at her hand, and as he watched, it began to slowly shift. “Read a book once, when I was small, before we were we,” she murmured, and her entire hand twisted. It looked like it should be painful, as bone and muscle bent into the shape of a far-too-thin hook, but neither of them seemed to be in distress.“At the time, I thought it was dumb, because I didn't understand that he got a hook and a peg because he didn't have a choice.” Shaking out her hand, it returned to roughly its correct shape, with a series of cracking noises that sounded like they should be alarming. “We have a choice, I think, in this fairytale world of wizards and gods and little boys who dress like spiders made from steel - we can be the monster, or we can be the hero.”“Mm. Have you made that choice?”The fanged maw spoke then. “What prevents the monsters from being heroes, too?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Black Widow (Nat)
With trembling fingers, she punched in her destination and activated the autopilot.“You got it, ma'am,” FRIDAY’s voice chirped from the console. She was nice, at least to everyone except Tony. She tended to be a bit insolent to her creator. Nat wondered, absently, how much of the AI's personality was programmed, and how much was learned. She supposed it didn't matter much, to her.That done, she walked to the farthest seat from the cockpit and strapped herself in. She didn't know for certain how long she had before this new symbiote was able to control her body, and she wanted to come to an understanding before that happened. You in here, still? She focused her thoughts with laserlike precision, sending them to the shadow she could just sense at the back of her skull. I'd like to talk, is all. She caught a hint of curiousity/confusion/wariness before the other replied. You are my host, the words were loud enough to rattle her bones, but she did her best to ignore her discomfort. Possessiveness lay under every syllable, the symbiote’s fierce claim stamped into every word. Where else would I be? I dunno, she kept her tone even and casual. I figured you might have jumped ship for someone better, while I was out. A hiss of distaste, and she could feel thin tendrils coiling under her skin. You are mine. I will not allow us to be parted. A flicker of memory laid under the other's thoughts - they had yearned for contact, but always, they had been forced away. Even the slightest brush of their tentacles was met with a shock, and the one time they managed to almost complete a bond, they had been thrown out of their host with violent, dissonant noise . Fair enough, she replied, deliberately not challenging the claim. Nat was self-aware enough to recognize that a large part of her mind was happy to soak up the Other's attention. Already, the ache of loneliness had begun to subside. That was probably not a good thing, given how little she knew about this stranger. What do I call you? Curiousity, again. Had no one asked that question before? I am CARNAGE , the Other replied, buzzing with pride, infectious excitement thrumming through Nat's veins. I will wreak havoc on this world! Humanity is mine to destroy! Oh, she replied, projecting a hint of disappointment. Is that all? She paused, for effect. It's just … well, that's not really difficult. We're pretty fragile, you see - it's honestly kind of boring how easy it is to kill a human. Carnage shifted uneasily through her organs. That was not at all the response they'd expected. They rifled through her memories, and she subtly guided them to some of the highlights. More than once, especially recently, she'd felt personally offended by how pathetically easy it was to finish off an opponent. She shared the memory of helping V to dispatch an entire troop of HYDRA thugs, emphasizing her disgust with that little octopus-shaped symbol and all it stood for.Memory flickered again. Every time Carnage been shocked by their handlers, they'd seen that symbol. It had been emblazoned proudly on every human who had ever hurt them. You mind if I call you Red? She asked, easily. Nicknames are better, if we're gonna be together here. It's familiar, you know? A smile tugged at her lips, almost fond. For example: I am the Black Widow, but you can call me Nat. She let warmth - not alone anymore - spill freely from her emotions. Red latched greedily onto the feeling. Acceptable, they replied. You are Nat, then. You can call me Red. Sounds good, Red. Nat smiled, softly. If we're going to be working together, I think it's best if we set down some rules, okay? It'll make things easier, when we hunt, because we won't be fighting each other. If she focused, she could actually feel the symbiote spreading through her body, leaving heat everywhere they touched. V had tweaked her immune system to facilitate their own stay: her body welcomed the intruder as though Red was filling some deep void their parent had left behind. Rules? Already, she could sense their trepidation was less than it might otherwise have been. Like what? We aren't just going to kill everyone, that's the first thing. A little, pleasant trill fluttered in her heart at the word ‘we.’ It's hardly chaos if we just uniformly execute everyone we meet. They rolled that idea through their essence. Okay, they agreed. Who can we kill? Bad people, she replied, immediately. We can cause all kinds of mischief without even maiming anyone, but if someone deserves to die, we can make it happen. Here, she shared the memory of her little pro-bono job - the fire elicited a primal response from Red, but the double homicide proved her point easily enough. I'll make sure you get enough to eat, but we're going to pick our kills, okay? Warmth filled her heart. Okay, the young Klyntar replied, guilelessly. Tendrils coiled possessively down her spinal column, red ink spilling in between the bones. There was a moment of hesitation, before, in a soft, adoring voice, Red spoke again. Thank you, Nat. She hadn't fully intended to fall asleep, but a distant part of her realized that she was dreaming, and moreover, she realized that the dreamscape wasn't her own.They soared above a distant landscape, green hills rolling into icy peaks. Together, five of them worked together to bring the great dragon low, hijacking its body in service of the Abyss. Knull was here, watching through their eyes, and He was pleased with their great work. The humans fled and cowered before their shared might, crying out for their protector.Asgard, the aegis of the nine realms, was a foe they had yet to challenge. This would be a test of their strength.They razed the countryside, driving the humans to hide in their pathetic shelter.If they merely killed their prey, they would never face the protector. They toyed with the humans, rattling their strongholds but not quite allowing them to fall, not yet.Their defeat came with crushing finally, lightning crashing through them, splitting each symbiote off, one by one. They were driven back, falling into the ocean, their host slain before they truly realized what had happened.Ice closed above them, and they felt themselves falling into hibernation. Disbelief echoed between them, each member of their Hive knowing they had done their utmost against the Light. They were the Void: it was their duty to snuff out the gods of creation.Knull pulled away, disgust at their failure resting bitter in His mind. The Widow filed away the new information as they stirred into waking. Are you okay? Nat asked, reflexively, because others were always more important.What? Confusion twisted through the symbiote, fear and horror and rage swirling beneath their skin at the nightmare. What was that? What happened? They tore free of the restraints that held their body still, standing suddenly, claws splayed against a threat they couldn't see.Nat struggled to regain control of their body. Just a nightmare. There is no one else here. Liar! They tore open the door, leaping out of the jet. We can sense them! Others here! Enemies! Which, no. That was incorrect. The plane had landed, thankfully, and the hangar was deserted, but that meant the others they could sense were friends. Listen to me! Stop this! Kill! Kill everyone! Kill them all!
Oh, for fuck's sake.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Peter Parker
So, for once, Peter's ‘internship’ with Mr. Stark actually entailed something like a job.Not that being Spider-man wasn't hard work! It was! He spent a lot of time helping people, mostly with little mundane things, and it felt good to help people. He'd learned a little bit about what it was to be a hero, and honestly, he knew he wasn't ready for the big leagues.But now, the paycheck had actual specific responsibilities attached to it, as opposed to just, ‘be Spider-man and geek out with Mr. Stark sometimes.’Two weeks ago, while he'd been staying at the Avengers compound, there had been a bunch of strangers there, and it turned out they were all enhanced, even the dog. Mostly, they were pretty well-adjusted, actually, despite the fact that they had aliens living in their heads.Except Dawn.She was about his age, maybe, except, as near as he could tell, she'd really never gotten a chance to just be a kid. She didn't know any memes, she hadn't watched much TV - he'd asked her once if she'd even had a favorite toy, and she said she wasn't allowed any.And, like, alien parasite. She had just about zero problems with murdering ‘bad guys,’ along with the superpowers to actually do it.So, Peter's job was to kind of help her learn about people her own age, to help with the whole ‘secret identity’ thing. If, on the side, he helped her grow a moral compass? Bonus.He was pretty sure that this was kind of a ‘two birds, one stone’ situation - she said that Mr. Stark had told her she was supposed to keep him safe - but he really couldn't complain. As bodyguards went, Scream - that was her superhero name - was better than Happy.So, on the one hand, it was probably a good thing that she'd found his school on her own, and she was just waiting for him. That was probably good!On the other, though - Peter was very much not public with his superhero identity, in part because after studying the Sokovia Accords for a class, he'd realized that he wanted absolutely nothing to do with that.(Seriously, what the hell. Did Mr. Stark even read it before signing? He was starting to think the answer was no.)Dawn, as mentioned, didn't seem to have a great grasp on what a secret identity even was, so when he saw her leaning on the fence, Peter's heartrate spiked in spite of the warm, soothing familiarity of his spider-sense reminding him that she was like him now.Thanks, alien Lamarck.“Who's that?” MJ was frowning in that deliberate way she had, when she was putting together a puzzle.(She was terrifyingly smart. One day, out of the blue, she cornered him, told him that she knew he was Spider-man and she didn't care. Ever since, Peter had been certain that MJ would make a great supervillain and/or superhero. She believed in making the world a better place, and she took literally everything in stride. The only thing missing was some kind of superpowers, and like, Mr. Stark's only enhancements came from his suit.)Ned looked up, and then back. Apparently he hadn't realized MJ was following them. “Who's what?”“That.” MJ pointed out the stranger lingering inside the fenceline.Apparently, San Francisco didn't really do the whole ‘autumn’ thing very well, and Dawn complained pretty regularly about the cold. The girl was dressed for much worse weather than they were actually experiencing, including a hat, a scarf, and mittens. It would be cute, the way she was bundled in a cloth cocoon, except for the fact that she couldn't be here. She was staring off into space, arms folded against her chest, right up until MJ pointed her out. Then, her eyes lit up with recognition, and she waved at Peter.And, well, it'd be rude to ignore her, even if he wasn't quite ready to introduce her to everyone just yet. May had raised him better than that: he waved back. “She's - a friend,” he explained, walking towards her. “From the internship?” He glanced back, and slowly-dawning understanding lit Ned's expression, before being replaced with confusion.“So, like, a coworker?” MJ was more adjacent to the loop than actually inside of it, a fact that apparently needed to change.Like, now.He looked imploringly at Ned, who leaned in to whisper to MJ.And then Peter was standing in front of the girl.“Hey! Ah - Dawn, right? How are - what are you doing here?”The thing was, he had no idea how she would handle strangers. If it was anything like their first meeting, however, he needed to get her away from his blissfully oblivious classmates. Preferably immediately.She tilted her head to the side, then smiled, behind her scarf. “Bored,” she replied simply. “Figured - I - would see your school. And maybe we can buy food?”“Yeah,” he replied, maybe too enthusiastically. “Yeah, food sounds good, actually, like really good - ” a ping of danger flooded his senses, but he ignored it with an internal wince.When Flash rammed his shoulder into Peter's, he went with it, letting himself be jostled by the other boy, because his secret identity was, well, secret. “What's this?” He gave Dawn an appraising once-over. “You got a new girlfriend, Penis Parker?” His cheeks flamed with embarrassment, but his body went cold. Dawn's eyes narrowed, gold flickering across her irises for a single, brief moment.“You should leave,” she suggested, standing a bit taller, lifting her chin.Flash looked surprised, but that surprise quickly became disdain. “Or what? What are you gonna do, huh?”“Could break you, little boy.” Her voice held a hint of an echo to it, low and dangerous. “Would be easy. Would enjoy it. Don't test us.” He stepped back, not quite flinching. Looking around, he seemed to realize that he was surrounded by Peter and his friends. “Your girlfriend's a psycho, Parker. You better watch your back.”And then he fled, and the tension left with him.“No one's girlfriend,” Dawn muttered, the echo vanishing. “Um - who are these?” The introductions went well enough.MJ was as cool about meeting another hero as she was about everything. She asked, as though it wasn't terribly interesting, if she'd maybe heard of Dawn's superhero identity.Dawn, for her part, was insistent that it was her dads who were the real heroes. When pressed, she admitted that she was about as strong as Venom, and then she had to explain (in a hushed tone) that yes, her dads were the ‘Demon of San Francisco.’“They hate that name,” she said with a grimace. “Well, V does. Eddie thinks it's cool. It's better than, uhm - Goo-man was one of the first names we found online? Better than that.”Ned, predictably, had about a million questions after that, all of which were deflected by the fact Dawn refused to talk about anything else superhero-related while in public, and walking home from school definitely counted as public. "Tell me everything," he begged, not really getting the memo. "Please."“If you want to know,” she said finally, “We can go to - Peter's - place? And talk?” That placated him for about five minutes. When he started asking questions, again, she held up one finger. “No. You have a phone. Write the questions down, and ask after we get there, not before.”He frowned. “After we - holy shit! Did you see that?”Dawn had completely disappeared. If he focused, Peter could kind of track her movements by the low, pleasant hum in his spider-sense, but he didn't let on that she was literally just walking behind them, now.“Nope,” MJ said with a lopsided grin. “I'm pretty sure that was the point.”Ned looked to Peter. “Did you know she can do that? How does she do that? Oh, man - ” He fished his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it, pulling up his notes app.“Hey,” MJ said, suddenly, breaking the ensuing silence. “It was great meeting your friend and all, but I gotta head home.” She gestured toward her street. “I'll see you guys tomorrow, all right?”Peter blinked, blinked again. “Oh, uh, right, yeah! It was, uh, it was great … uh … walking with you, and all?”“ … right, yeah. See you.” She flicked two fingers in a wave, and then left.He sounded like an idiot. He sounded like a complete fucking moron.“Do you think she hates me?” Ned asked, suddenly. “Dawn, not MJ. I'm pretty sure MJ hates everybody.”The question threw Peter through a loop, badly enough that he was distracted from his own twisting brain. “Probably not. She's got, uh, issues. Like, you know how I get overwhelmed, sometimes, because there's a lot of stuff going on, right? It's kind of like that?”He frowned, looking up, seeing his window open on its own. The sense of familiarity was there, along with a wary uncertainty. Holding up one finger, he stalled any reply.Peter might have wondered how Dawn knew it was his window she was breaking into, except for the swirling, red and blue lights that were only distorted for a moment by the mostly-invisible heroine. Something in those lights felt familiar, somehow. They called out to him, reassuring and friendly, and his brain screamed ‘trap.’ He had maybe seen about a dozen too many horror films, but honestly, he figured that just reduced the odds that he'd die first.“Ned? Uh - don't - don't follow me.”Without checking to see if his friend had even heard, he ran the rest of the way, taking the stairs up to his apartment two at a time. His only consolation was that Aunt May was probably not home just yet.Peter couldn't let anyone else get hurt.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Will Graham
Will couldn't bring himself to hate Venom for what they'd done, despite everything.He suspected that Toxin themself played a part in that: the child loved their parents even despite their absence, and Will’s emotions were not above their influence.For the past two weeks, they'd been getting used to one another, and - well - there was quite a bit to get used to.He watched the child, idly, cracking his eyes open to the early morning light. Across the room, Toxin had taken the form of a young boy, maybe ten years old. He looked a bit like Will might have, at his age, except for the brilliant red eyes and the sable hair. He'd almost gotten the hang of human hands: right now, he was playing some kind of video game. The controller was a bit large, however, so he'd decided to cheat, his fingers coiling into inhuman tendrils to manipulate the buttons more easily.It should be unsettling, but Will found it oddly charming. He was fond of the boy, and between that and the child's own emotions, he couldn't quite bring himself to resent Toxin’s parents for dumping their child in his body.Besides, he wasn't entirely without guidance. If anything came up that Toxin himself didn't understand, Leslie was there to explain the finer points of bonded life. She was proving to be a remarkably good friend - and, much to his relief, she was only interested in being friends. He'd had more than his share of romantic interest, when he worked for the FBI - at times, he'd felt a bit like everyone wanted into his bed except for his own body, which had decided to start wandering the night without him.Will was earnestly glad that period of his life was over. Sure, it ended in space aliens, but he was at least relatively certain the aliens were real, and furthermore, he could actually get a full night of sleep.Something happened in the game, and Toxin gave out a little cheer. The boy’s infectious enthusiasm brought a smile to his face, distracting him from his thoughts.It was hard to believe that such an innocent smile could belong to such a terrifying creature.“Are you winning, Pat?” He sat up, stretching, and his joints popped with the movement. Ow. At least he'd regained his full range of motion: Toxin - the symbiote only went by ‘Pat’ in their human guise - had made inroads on repairing all of his old injuries, including his bad shoulder.The boy turned back to him and smiled, showing his slightly-too-sharp fangs. “Oh! You're awake! Doctor Lecter called to let you know that he's still taking care of our dogs and they're doing okay. Are we gonna go meet them, soon?”“Soon enough,” he agreed. “I think you're going to end up being bored at my place, though. I don't have anything like - ” He gestured at the gaming console and the television. “All of that, you know?” Hesitantly, he reached out to ruffle the kid’s hair. It felt impossibly soft, under his hand, and the boy giggled at the touch.A gentle, inquisitive pressure pushed against his palm, and he focused, sending his assent through their link.Black and red ink swirled out of the boy's body, unraveling his shape like an old sweater. It sank into Will's skin, slipping between his cells until Toxin was firmly inside of his body.It was weird, but there was a little flutter of warmth, like settling into his favorite chair. Apparently, their bond was comfortable to the youth - not that Will particularly disagreed with the sentiment, himself.Will was given to understand that he had once been a rarity among potential hosts: his unique perspective would have allowed him to form a flawless bond with just about any Klyntar that came his way. Now, Toxin had staked their claim. They'd done something to his body, something that would leave him less hospitable to strangers - which was fine by Will. One symbiote was more than enough for him.As they settled in and around his spinal column, he felt all of his senses expand.Aunt Nat is back, they exclaimed, buzzing with excitement. Let's go!
Toxin
On their way to the hangar, Toxin started to realize something was wrong.A foreign sense, a taste of wrongness in the air, the memory of that bitter rage they'd sensed when they first connected with the Hive - hesitantly, they plucked a thread, tugging at their greater hive-bond, and Lasher came running. Go get Agony, they urged. There might be trouble. Will sent a feeling of wary curiosity, and his fingers itched for a gun.Their host understood that guns were noisy, but he still preferred projectile weapons, which made sense. Humans were one of a tiny handful of species with an instinctive grasp of ranged combat. Most other aliens had to pick up cybernetic enhancements, or train forever. Few Klyntar even tried to do anything at range - they had the strength and overwhelming speed to close all but the most extreme distances.Maybe Toxin, being part human, should be an exception. They were already exceptional.(Toxin was kind of proud of Eddie's species for being all-around awesome. V was kind of a hopeless romantic; they could have easily gotten stuck with some useless creature mixed into their genetic soup, but no, they got to be part human. Badass.)Another, more insistent prod at the edge of their consciousness redirected their attention. Aunt Nat is here, they repeated, after a moment. But I don't think she's alone. I thought there weren't any more of you? Of course the natural empath picked up on the source of their unease - how could he miss it?They twisted, anxiously, between his organs. I think everyone else thought so, too.Aunt Nat staggered out of the hangar, her eyes swirling red. Will's eyes landed on her, and he was overwhelmed by the roiling crush of the stranger's violent rage. He shorted out, his mind disappearing to whatever it went when he couldn't process things anymore.
Oh, no.
They dragged Will, bodily, out of the path of the stranger's scythe-like claws, sheathing him in their own essence.
“Hey! Stop it!”
Red twisted around their aunt's form, bubbling outward from her skin. A manic grin split across her features as the Other wrapped themselves around her body, protecting her - controlling her.Not well enough, it seemed.Her hand caught something, just before it would have been engulfed. Their entire body seized under the electrical impulse, and it kept going, until the Other was dazed into submission. “Not again,” Aunt Nat groaned.“The tazing or having a partner?” They gently, carefully scooped up Aunt Nat, reverent and protective of her small, fragile body.Her head rolled back against their bicep. “Why not both?” A low groan escaped her. “Tell you what, your dad played a hell of a lot nicer. Get me up to medical?”“Okay.” They smiled, earnestly, cradling her against their chest. “I'm glad you're all right.”She snorted, softly. “For a given definition.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Peter B. Parker The thing about referring to it as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Peter had found, was that the name really sort of implied that, at some point while you were still alive, the trauma ended. As far as he could tell, therefore, being a spider-person was sort of mutually exclusive with having PTSD, because the conga line of disasters really only seemed to end post-mortem.Of the other spider-people they'd met, so far, only Noir seemed to fully comprehend that bitter truth, and they'd kind of quietly agreed to try and spare the younger kids as much of the bullshit as they could. It was sort of why they had started this little project: wouldn't it have been great if they'd been able to lean on someone else? Preferably before they'd all gotten irrevocably fucked up?So, when Earth-13616 came up with two possible hits, two spider-people … well.There was a chance it had played out like it had in Miles's universe, only with both of them still alive. That would have been ideal.His spider-sense was humming anxiously.This universe's portal exploded into color before them. “That's - yellow, right? In with the red and blue?”“Yup.”As Peter understood it, these new goobers worked on the idea that Spider-Man (or, more accurately, whatever idiot happened to be stuck with that mantle) was one of a handful of universal constants, and all of the Spiders were linked together by some sort of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo that frankly, Peter didn't care to recall the details of.It had a pretentious title - the Web of Life and Destiny - and the tech that Peni and the new guy put together worked with it. That was good enough for him.The thing was, yellow was rather distinctly not a Spider-Person sort of color.(Of course, once upon a time, he would have said that pink and teal weren't Spider colors, but Gwen quite literally rocked them. Maybe it was like that. Maybe.)Anxiety spiked in the back of Peter's head. It was probably irrational, but his gut said to prepare for trouble on the other side of that portal. He spent most of the damn-near twenty-three years he'd been Spider-Man listening to his gut, and thus far, it had kept him afloat. So, yeah, going with his gut.“It's stable,” Peni called from the desk.The new guy grinned, showing his fangs.(This ‘Miguel’ fellow was unsettling, okay? Apparently, he was the result of trying to recreate Spider-Man nearly a century after his universe's Peter had died, and the results had been a hell of a lot more ‘body horror’ than Peter's own transformation had ever been. Claws, fangs, and organic webbing, seriously?)“Break a leg, guys.”Peter offered a halfhearted over-the-shoulder salute. “I’d rather not, thanks!”And then he and Noir stepped through the portal and into a teenager's bedroom.The window was open, letting in a crisp, late-autumn breeze, and a faint, pleasant hum emanated from the ceiling, if only for a moment. Then, the source a) became visible, and b) fell to the floor in a shocked splatter of gold and red, before congealing into the body of a young woman.“You're like us,” she breathed, wide, emerald eyes flicking between Peter and Noir. “Or - well - no. You're like the spider boy,” she pointed to Peter with one mittened hand. Standing, she peered up at Noir before suddenly reaching out to press her palms against his chest. “Oh,” she murmured, shock plain on her face. “This one is real.”Noir looked down at the girl, catching her wrists in both of his hands. There was a second flash of recognition between them, and the girl's eyes widened, gold and white swirling in inhuman patterns across pupil, iris, and sclera.By that point, Peter had already come up with a guess as to what exactly the deal with this kid was, but then the golden goop spilled out of her arms, threading into the fabric of Noir's trenchcoat, and that confirmed it. “You're like us,” she repeated, softly. Peter resisted the urge to run screaming - but only barely. She sounded a bit distracted, halfway into ‘completely checked-out,’ which meant she probably wasn't a threat, not yet. “We're Scream. It's good to meet you.”In his universe, Scream had not registered at all to his spider-sense. She was playing host to one of Venom's kids, so that was pretty much to be expected. She certainly hadn't given off the soothing familiarity of another Spider.Also?She had been one of those stereotypically evil, ‘killing innocents for fun and profit’ baddies. He'd actually been forced to team up with Venom during that whole fiasco, because the alternative was to let a whole bunch of their significantly more homicidal children run free.This wasn't his universe, he reminded himself. This kid was just that: a kid.“You know what she's talking about, Noir?”His younger, black-and-white self was frowning, thoughtfully, behind the mask. “She's talking to It,” he said, his voice reverent, edging into fearful. “Can't make out what they're saying, but she's talking to the Spider God.”“It loves you,” she said softly, pulling back after a moment or two more. “Maybe … maybe you are - not - exactly like us - ” Her head snapped up and over, and the feeling of warm sunlight and familiarity surged.An even younger Peter Parker entered the room, but paused in the doorway. His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, like a fish gasping for air. Instead of oxygen, though, he was looking for words, and he did, eventually, find them. “You're like me.” “More accurately,” Peter said, turning his back to Scream and silently hoping that he wasn't about to get stabbed. That would suck. “I am you, a couple of decades removed. From an alternate universe, actually.”His baby-faced mirror looked awestruck. “Like, multiverse theory? That's real? Are you - both?” He gestured between Noir and Peter, and Peter noted that Scream made no effort to hide her presence, merely closing the window and tugging the curtains into place to shut out any curious eyes.Either they were actually friends in this universe, or they were doing some kind of a team-up thing.“Afraid so, kid,” Noir replied, but there was a hint of a smile in the young man's voice.Peter removed his mask with a flourish. Leap of faith time … “If you live long enough, you might get to be half this handsome.”“Oh.” Something … odd, settled over the youngest of the three Spiders. Peter recognized it, after a moment, as the trauma. Because of course it was the trauma. “I didn't figure I would ever get old.” So, his younger self was a pretty depressing mirror, it turned out, but then, being Peter Parker seemed to be a pretty universally depressing gig. Half the time, he was dead, and the other half the time - well, see also: disaster conga.It had taken years for Peter B. to make it onto the Avengers’ radar, was the thing, and when it finally happened - that hadn’t ended well. It really hadn’t ended well.Tony Stark’s mentorship could be a good thing, it really could. According to Babyface, “Mr. Stark” was amazing, and yeah, he wasn’t perfect, but nobody was, right.So in theory, it could be great.Man, but imagine if Peter had even half of those resources and half of that guidance as an impressionable teenager. Maybe he wouldn’t have had to learn every single one of his life lessons for himself, if he’d been watching his mentor screw things up all over the place.Yeah, that wound was still wide open and bleeding, actually. Fucking - fuck. “Mr. Stark killed me once,” Scream pointed out, dropping that bombshell with all the tone and inflection of someone commenting on the weather - if the weather was particularly unpleasant, anyway. “We don’t much like him for that.”Which. Holy shit, understatement of the year. “I’m sorry, what?” “We were trying to kill him - I think. Maybe? It - we were - “ She gestured, reaching for words with her hands, as though that would make it easier for her mind. “Panic,” a second voice murmured. It spoke with her vocal chords, but there was an inhuman echo. So, that would be the alien. “We were panicking, and he wouldn’t let us go.” Peter glanced toward Noir, who had set himself up against the door. His coat rustled gently in the gentle breeze of literally inside a fucking apartment. How had Peter missed Venom’s presence on the detective?Well - whatever. It hadn’t been a problem before, it wouldn’t be now. It wouldn’t - it didn’t change anything, especially since ‘magic spider god’ was a far cry from ‘space alien.’ There was probably next to nothing similar between the Spider and Venom, actually."You’re looking good for a dead girl, kid,” Noir pointed out, tilting his head slightly.The girl waved her hand, dismissively, leaning back in the dining chair, rocking it up onto the back legs, then onto just one leg, balancing perfectly. “Sunny got it for me. Fixed it, grew us a new heart.” She blew out a breath, and her hair just casually began braiding itself behind her, a feat that immediately reminded Peter of who she was supposed to be. That hair was a weapon, not just ornamentation, a weapon that could kill. “It was closer than we’d like,” the other voice added, darkly. “Never again.”“Okay,” Peter said finally, unable to ignore the screaming voice in the back of his head for even a moment more. “Scream. What gives?” He gestured between her and his younger mirror, frowning. “In my universe, you’re a fucking psycho, a mass murderer - and an effective one. How do you get from here to there?”Which, in retrospect, that was kind of a dick question to ask, seriously. Babyface covered his mouth with both hands, aghast. But Peter couldn’t ignore the potential threat, he couldn’t. For her part, Scream took the inquiry in stride. She settled her chair back onto all fours with a quiet, “... huh,” before shrugging slightly. “Not that surprising,” she admitted, which told him a lot - like, a lot - about the kind of person that she already was. “We were wondering when you’d finally ask the question that was eating at you,” the other voice confessed, almost playfully. “But to answer, since you asked - we won’t, not here, not our world. We have reason and cause to not to, I think, we think.” Green eyes peered upward, at the ceiling, thoughtful. “It would be easy,” both voices spoke in unison. “To hunt, to kill, to take what we want, when we want - easy. We could do it, but we won’t, because our dads would be disappointed, because we have friends, who would be disappointed and because - because we want to be better than that.” They nodded firmly, at that, decisively. “Does that satisfy your fear?” He shook his head, smiling wryly. “Not really, but emotions aren’t really rational. It satisfies me and that’s enough. Sorry,” he offered his hand across the table. “For being kind of an asshole about it, you know?” “We forgive you,” the twin voices echoed, and the girl smiled. “Now, why are you here?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Leslie was very much not a morning person, and she was especially not up for Alien Bullshit at - what time was it?“FRI, time'ssit?” She shoved, vaguely, at Lash, making a face as he lavished her with alien puppy kisses. “‘ey, you're getting slobber everywhere, fuckssake - ”The AI was far too cheerful to be announcing, “It is six fifty-two, Ms. Gesneria. Shall I start your coffee?”“Yeah, yeah. No. Fuck.” She peered up at the black-furred pit bull, feeling the rush of disapproval and urgency. “The fuck is your problem, Lash? Can't even get coffee? Arright, arright, it's some kinda emergency, lemme up. Fuck.” She sat up in bed, stretching. Every so often, she was still surprised by the heavy weight on her chest - surprised and grateful. So maybe Abby had gone overboard a little bit; there was no denying her femininity with a rack like that. It felt good, right even. Besides, if I fuck up my back, Abby's got it. A warm pulse of agreement flooded her thoughts, and she smiled, rubbing a spot just over her heart. The symbiote, her beloved shadow, liked to coalesce in and around her torso, shielding her fragile internal organs in the event they were attacked while sleeping. It was sweet, in a morbid kind of way. Love you, doll, she sent, focusing on the knot of emotion centered on her Other.Leslie wasn't entirely sure what kind of love it was, anymore, but it was definitely some form of adoration, and the symbiote basked in it, sharing and reciprocating.And then, Lash started trying to push them, bodily, out of bed. “Okay, fuck, I'm up, I'm up. Abby, clothes?”Violet swirled, starting with bringing some form of order to her hair - she dragged dulled claws through the rough mass, finger-combing it. Then, the purplish ink spilled downward, giving her a light, fluffy, fur-lined-fleece jacket over the tank top she’d worn to bed. Similarly cozy pants wrapped her legs, and kickass boots sheathed her feet. “You're getting good at texture, love. How about - eh, fuck it, flannel for the top and black everywhere else?” she sent the image of the pattern, just in case, and marveled as her outfit shifted to match the colors she suggested. “Thank you.”Dressed and ready as she was getting, she stood up, narrowing her eyes at Lash. “Okay, where's the emergency?”The dog led her out of her room, past the Avengers’ well-stocked kitchen, and down, outside, toward a building she recognized as the aircraft hangar from the facility blueprints. Abby sent a deep feeling of unease; Leslie replied with reassurance and confidence; we can take whatever comes our way. Lash growled, his hackles rising with thin threads of green sprouting from his fur. It wasn't - yet - the mass of tentacles he manifested in combat, but kind of a prelude to violence, a warning of what he was capable of. Recognizing the low hum of danger, Leslie reached for Abby, violet spinning wildly over and through her body, twining itself into her skin, reinforcing her muscles, shielding her face. Long, deadly fangs replaced her blunted, human teeth, leaving a sizeable gap for the acid they'd learned to generate.“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Agony sang, claws splayed warily. The side of one of the planes had been shredded, metal twisting under violent claws, but that wasn't the source of the primal, bone-deep fear.A wash of recognition struck her, right before the heavy boots crashed into their back. How had the man taken them by surprise?Lash lunged, teeth snapping, and his war form had grown wild, streaked with lines of crimson through his deep, viridian skin. The man caught him by the throat, seemingly ignoring the ripping tendrils tearing open his skin.He healed so quickly that he didn't even have time to bleed. Holy shit. “Your little hive has been making waves, hasn't it?” She could hear the smile in his voice, even as Abby trembled with primal fear, the need to submit before the Elder. “The name’s Rex. Let's talk.” Worry/fear/anguish. Leslie? The word was tinted with all the affection Abby felt for her host, and Leslie reciprocated the emotion immediately, wordlessly.Lash was sprawled on the ground next to them, a puddle of snoring canine.Leslie sat slightly straighter in the chair with a gasp, tugging at the restraints binding her arms. They could use acid to dissolve the metal, maybe, but it was so hard to think with the low hum in the back of their shared consciousness.“That poison should've kept you down longer than that,” the stranger said, conversationally. “Well. If you were human, it would've killed you outright, but we both know you're not just human anymore, are you?” He was smiling, as he settled into a chair across from her. “Imagine the music's a bit unpleasant, but it keeps this civil.”She wasn't thinking clearly, growling softly. Abby's claws sprouted, but it hurt infinitely more to expose her essence to the open air. They shuddered, and grudgingly, Leslie relinquished her hold on the strands of violet essence. A headache was building behind her eyes as she glared, sullenly, at this ‘Rex’ fellow. He looked oldish, with a kind of militaristic twist, and thick knots of burn scars peeked out from the top of his jacket. “If you're gonna kill me, I could use the rest, but don't hurt them.” A bitter taste rose at the back of her throat. “Please.”“Hnh. I'm not gonna kill you, kid,” he replied. She opened her mouth to speak, and he cut her off, lifting a rough finger. “Or your little family, not even the dog.”She peered at him, warily. “Hell of a way to show it,” she muttered. “So, what do you want with us, then?”“Being honest? I'm just here to take your measure, kid.” He grinned, lopsided, at that. “You don't quite stack up, though I'll admit I'm a bit surprised how quickly you two processed the toxins I dosed you with.”Leslie tasted something metallic in her mouth, and her tongue suddenly felt thick, too long for their maw. She stuck it out, well past the end of her chair, and the chemicals dripped from the end, a greenish ichor. She grinned, baring her elongated canines, as the neurotoxin oozed onto the floor, sizzling where it mixed with their own acid, burning into the concrete. “It's a talent,” they hissed, a hint of pride smothered by their anger at being captured.As long as Abby stayed inside of her skin, only modifying the material of her own body, the sound was muted.She hadn't anticipated needing the sonic shield that Tony had designed, which made her feel foolish, in retrospect. Never again, she promised Abby. We'll wear it everywhere. Love, mixed with wariness.“I see that,” he said easily enough. “So. Why don't you tell me a bit about your little hive, hm? It seems pretty clear that you're working with your little friend - tell me about that.”She wanted to rip and tear, to shred this man and his stupid fucking speakers both, but she worked to rein it in. A smallish smile tugged at her lips. “Well,” she began, tongue caressing her teeth. “First off, we're family. They'll come for me.” If she focused, she could just make out the distant sense of them. There was a new ‘voice’ in the chorus, bloodthirsty and violent, and yet something about it still felt almost familiar. “And any one of them could probably kick your ass.”“Is that so?” He sounded amused, but she knew, in her heart, it was true. Now that she was focusing, she could sense the shape of him too. He wasn't like anyone she'd met - except, maybe, Toxin. “Why don't you tell me about that, kid?”Leslie grinned, looking up at him through her lashes. “Because unlike you, they've actually got hosts - hosts who work with them to get the job done. And, unlike us,” she jerked her chin at Lash, including him, “They're the actual fighters.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Dawn
“So, the idea is that we set up a support network for all the spider-people across the multiverse. If anybody needs help, even if it’s just advice, they can ask for it.” The old man Spider was enthusiastic, because he had the experience to understand that no one could stand alone.Peter - the one from her universe - gave a lopsided smile. “I don’t suppose someone in this network can help with my Spanish homework? I’ve been busy being Spider-Man, is all.”“That’d be Miles - I bet you’d like him, actually. He’s a little younger than you are, but he’s a great kid.” The older man grinned broadly. “And yes, he speaks Spanish.”Dawn was trying - really she was - not to space out. The conversation was interesting, but .... God is coming, the Dragon cried, violence in each syllable.Sunny was born to violence. There was only one reply: Let him come. We will kill him, too. In a way, it felt like their entire purpose was written in that response. Scream was created as a weapon: their gifts made them uniquely suited to hunting their own kind.Thick lenses didn’t quite obscure the light gray irises behind them. The black-and-white Spider was staring into her eyes, and for a moment, she struggled to rein in the panic of seeing the shadow-person so close. Her hands came up, pressing against solid shoulders, and she remembered that he was real, that he didn’t mean her harm.“You still with us, kid?” He asked, as the material of his trenchcoat parted under Scream’s talons.The lesser deity rumbled a warning, and they replied with wordless apology. The coat healed itself, the Spider God appeased. “Yeah - yeah,” she mumbled, a blush rising to her cheeks. “I - we get - lost, in our head, sometimes - Dawn is - um - a bit sick. In the brain.”“Oh?” The old man Spider interrupted whatever the old-fashioned Spider might have to say about that, the word holding curiosity and wariness. After a moment, ‘Noir’ stepped back, giving them space. “You wanna talk about it?”They winced, together, Sunny coiling nervously around Dawn’s spine. “Dawn - I - was um, worse - before we became we. Sunny - they do their best, but my brain is supposed to have holes in it, big, gaping ones, so - it’s - you know - it’s trial and error - ““Symbiotes can work miracles to put you back to how you started,” the elder Spider agreed, a wry twist on his lips. “I’m familiar. I take it that new growth is a bit trickier to accomplish?”Dawn beamed, grateful for the judgement-free explanation. He made it sound coherent. The grin faltered, though: “How did you …?”“In my universe, I was the one to bring Venom to Earth.” He looked away, ashamed, at the admission. “If I’d known - there’s a lot I’d do differently, if only to reduce the number of people who want me dead.”A brief silence stretched between them, just long enough to get awkward.“We don’t hate you?” Dawn offered. “The spider boy, either.” She smiled at the youngest Peter in the room. This was getting confusing, and quickly. “We - I think you might like our dads, too. They - Venom - you kind of remind us of them.”The elder snorted. “First it’s ‘dad bod,’ now I’m being compared to someone’s actual father ….”“From Scream, that’s like, super high praise, though,” the spider-boy explained. ”Venom is the whole reason they have any kind of moral compass, even.”Which, while true, kind of made them out to be bad people. Dawn wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that, but Sunny had a lot of investment in this whole ‘hero’ idea, and they flinched. “Isn’t that what parents are for?” Dawn asked, sending love and reassurance through their bond. “To show their offspring how to behave?”“You know what?” The older Spider looked thoughtful, calculating even. “I think I would like to meet Venom - your world’s Venom, that is.”Dawn considered, consulting Sunny. She held up one finger, as their thoughts rolled seamlessly between their minds. “We can introduce you,” she said, nodding firmly. “It is only - ah - they are keeping … busy. Very busy.” Which was another way to say that V and Eddie were making up for weeks of missed sex, but that was impolite to say and also kind of irrelevant. “So, maybe it’s not a great idea to interrupt unannounced?”Impolite or not, age and wisdom apparently translated directly into understanding, because the older Spider blushed after only a moment’s consideration.“You mean to say they’re, uh, making woo?”Honestly, after he’d pulled back, Dawn had almost forgotten about the near-silent observer, ignoring his presence like any other shadowy figure she spotted watching from the edges of her sight. From a distance, the biggest difference was that he radiated a sense of familiarity instead of fear.“Yeah, Noir,” the old Spider managed, looking slightly less embarrassed than the spider-boy, at least. “I think that’s exactly what she means.”Dawn held up her hand, slightly, to make sure she understood what they thought they understood. Only, then, she remembered that she still didn’t quite understand why it was a big deal, and she frowned slightly. “We never did get why people act all weird about sex,” she admitted. “Nobody is getting hurt - they aren’t even making babies now, so ….”“I - “ The older Spider covered his mouth to disguise a snort. “I’ll tell you when you’re older, kid.”Dawn scowled at that. “I’m old enough,” she retorted. “It’s just sex, but people get all shifty, even when it’s just two humans doing it - “ Sunny oozed out through her skin, displacing her shirt enough that they could wrap golden tendrils around her in a distracting - grounding - hug. “People are dumb,” she finished with a sigh, fingers twining through the thick threads of silky-smooth goo.“That they are, kiddo.” The man offered a wry grin. “That they are.” It looked kind of like a watch, the gizmo that the two extradimensional Spiders had brought with them. (The spider-boy got one because he was a spider-person. Dawn got one and still didn’t quite understand why.) The healing, Sunny offered, still rattled from their most recent nightmare.Being honest, Dawn was a bit rattled, too. Should we - try to talk to somebody? Dawn asked, but she was already rejecting the idea, even as she inspected the watch-thing. They had stolen their connection to the spiderweb - it felt wrong to intrude.Sunny had a much more practical problem with that idea: They wouldn’t understand.V didn’t. Leslie didn’t. Everybody, even Lash, was having the same basic nightmare, any time their host had to sleep and the Klyntar was present, and none of them knew why.Toxin got around it by splitting off when his host slept, but most of the others found that idea kind of abhorrent: they had all found their homes, built perfection between them, something that had before seemed like a fairy tale, and abandoning their hosts felt as wrong as any idea possibly could. (They had a running theory that humanity was uniquely suited to symbiosis. Abby was the one to propose that only humans were willing to work at a bond that didn’t start out flawless.) Come on, love, Dawn coaxed, sitting up fully. Let’s go hunt? That makes us feel better, right? Sunny sent a vague sense of formless anxiety, worry humming down Dawn’s spine, even with their assent. At some deeply primal level, Scream understood: it was getting worse.
God is coming.
As they slipped, invisible, out their window, they still couldn’t quite shake the sense that something inhuman was tracking their movements - and whatever it was, it was wearing at the edges of the things that defined them.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Black Widow
The Black Widow had never claimed to be a good person. In many ways, she was a monster, and she owned the red in her ledger. She had accepted the blood on her hands.Technically, she hadn't yet even seen a medical professional. She certainly wasn't clear for duty.We hunt? The young, eager voice chirped at the back of her skull.Her lips curled in a deadly smile, as she checked her guns, her bites, and the prototype sonic shield Tony had kept around. We hunt. The other Klyntar, even Scream, had been issued their own copies of the devices as a measure of good faith. When active, they basically negated the impact of sounds in the harmful range, at the cost of a mildly irritating hum. There wasn't time to ask permission, so the Widow would simply have to beg forgiveness. To his credit, Tony was a forgiving sort of guy.“You're going after them,” Will's voice came from behind her (behind them), almost accusing.She glanced back at him. “Yeah.”“We're coming, too,” Toxin announced, Will's voice echoing slightly.It was the space of a breath (inhale, exhale, steady) to decide.Red rolled and frothed inside, uncertainly. They didn't like the idea - competition? - but ultimately, the young Klyntar had become putty in her hands.Nat had trained Toxin, though. Before their birth, it had been in the space of their shared dreaming. After, she'd worked with them, individually and with their host, to ensure they would be combat-ready. Who knew the Black Widow would be so good with kids?“Sure,” she agreed, easily enough. “You follow my lead - both of you. All three. Whatever. Understood?”Will's smile tugged his lips sideways. He always smiled in that half-measure, the Widow noted absently - he didn't really do unadulterated happiness. “I think we can handle that,” he replied, for both of them.“Toxin,” she reached out her hand, red bubbling through her skin. She'd learned to use the symbiote's essence during her time with V. Red really didn't like that, the Widow noted, but they (she?) calmed as Nat sent reassurance through their bond. “Mission briefing time, kiddo.”Black swirled over Will's eyes, and a hint of childlike enthusiasm crept over his features. Crimson with black streaks met bloody red, and she felt their excitement and determination, sending only calm in turn.The other pair settled, and she explained her half-formed plan. It was literally a cabin in the woods, a ways off from the compound but not too distant. She noted, dispassionately, that the shifter chose an old SHIELD safehouse for his kidnapping.The Widow was pleased that Toxin had come as expected: Will's empathy seemed to be expanded, somehow, under the symbiote's influence, which let the pair sense and locate any of the other Klyntar from a fairly wide range, and any human they knew from a slightly shorter one.When they pinpointed Agony within an hour’s drive, conscious and sullen, she took her bike (thanks, Stark) instead of the jet.It would attract less attention.With some prodding, she convinced Red to impersonate a leather jacket, so that - if Toxin needed to - they could silently share any new information they learned.The price for that utility was near-constant mental chatter, a running commentary about how awesome and exciting the motorcycle was. After twenty minutes of uninterrupted enthusiasm, Red relaxed enough to find herself enjoying the company, and Toxin shifted their enthusiasm to greeting their newest hivemate.You have an accent, the youth marveled.Red shifted, wary, and received a flood of reassurance and calm. Flickers of the Klyntar's captivity surfaced in her consciousness, and Nat reminded her that the Widow had killed one HYDRA squad already for Red. They were no friends of the scientists who had kept her in isolation.She uncoiled from Nat's spine, as Toxin explained that (he, today) hadn't meant any offense by his comments. In turn, she began to hesitantly inquire about the Hive. It's no wonder you all trust one another, Will mused, idly. It's difficult to mask your intentions when your mind is an open book. Nat smiled, wryly. Not impossible, she replied, keeping her thoughts even. Not at all, he agreed, and there was a sense of respect to his ‘voice’ that emphasized the fact he knew she hid far more than she revealed.She sent simple acknowledgement, and the rest of the ride passed uneventfully, marked only by the constant back-and-forth of questions and explanations shared between the symbiotes in the Klyntar ‘language,’ all telepathic shorthand of sensations and ideas.Before long, she was slowing the bike to a stop, distant - but not too distant - from the safehouse. Remember the plan? You fight, Toxin replied, and we rescue our hivemates. She nodded (inhale, exhale) and let Red spill out over her skin. The symbiote took her time, spreading curiously over every inch of Nat's body. There was wariness, and the Widow belatedly realized that Red was afraid she'd overstep some invisible boundary and receive another shock for her trouble.Her reassurance would have to be enough for now; there wasn't time enough before the mission to explain consent.After that, the process went much more quickly. She offered the shape that V had taken, inverting the colors, and Red considered, before making some adjustments of her own.Their torso was bright red, their limbs fading to the near-black of clotted blood, hands and feet tipped in brutally sharp claws.Like most Klyntar, their eyes shone opalescent white, topping a mostly featureless visage that was dominated by a maw filled with far too many too-sharp fangs.Swirls of the same reddish-black of their limbs framed their utterly inhuman face in an imitation of softly-curling hair, an almost mocking nod to the Widow's predatory sensuality. A more obvious mark etched itself discreetly on her left shoulderblade, the familiar hourglass symbol stamped there in pure ebony.The transformation felt like it took ages - certainly, it took far longer than Toxin slipping into the familiar, almost spidery shape of his war form - but in truth it was the span of about a minute or so.“Ready?” The Red Widow asked, settling on the shared title with ease.Toxin offered Will's lopsided smirk, the expression stretching over their fanged maw. “After you,” they replied, sweeping their left arm in a grand gesture.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Eddie
He woke, gasping, clawing his way up through the waves, feeling the ice clinging to every inch of his body, their body, as he slowly lost his battle with the sea.Thunder cracked above him, and -
- Eddie.
Then, he was properly awake, groaning as his head thumped back against the pillow. A nightmare, of course, and he'd kicked his covers off in the freezing, early December night. “‘nother one?”Yes. His beloved had draped themself across his chest, but as he sat upright, they twisted around his torso like a snake. Every night this week. A hint of guilt entered their tone, and he took note of it, absently, adding it to an as-yet unlabeled pile of evidence.He swung his legs off the bed, feeling his eyes adjust until the darkness was as bright as day, albeit a much less colorful sort of daylight. “Don't really feel like my nightmares, though. I thought you didn't sleep?” Absent fingertips brushed against the black-ink tendrils twisting against his skin.Do not, they confirmed, squeezing gently. (Anxiously?) But … when the host sleeps - it’s a bit like - meditation? A trance. We listen to the Hive.Speaking of …He frowned, scratching at his stubble. Hesitantly, he reached for that inhuman sense. After a moment, V showed him how to use it properly. “Out hunting? Again?”Scream can feel it, too. His shadow shivered, a bit, clinging tighter. A foreign sense of foreboding filled them both, the kind of awe one feels when witnessing a natural disaster in the making. Leaves them - unsettled.That was ominous.He sighed. “Clothes, please?” He didn't feel much like getting dressed, but there was no way in hell he was going out in sweatpants and an old t-shirt, not in this weather.Of course, Eddie. His Other formed socks, sneakers, and a ‘leather’ jacket, creating remarkably accurate textures. Sure, they favored the whole gothic black and white color palette, but he could rock it. Besides, with any luck, they'd be out for like five minutes, tops.He smiled, tugging gently at the collar of his coat. “Thanks, love.”Something was wrong. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he knew. V was anxious, too, which only bled into his own emotions, heightening his certainty that his kid - kids, for all they acted in such perfect unison - were in some kind of trouble. So, he walked casually down the stairs. His phone said it was three in the morning, so he did his level best to avoid making much noise - the spider kid needed all the sleep he could get, so the last thing he wanted to do was wake up Peter.
There, Eddie.
His eyes caught on the smallish silhouette, the bow held in one hand. What's his name, hawk guy? Eh, didn't matter.He waved up at the man, then beckoned, because immersion therapy or no, he still didn't much care for heights. “Need to ask you something,” he called across the street.It was funny, a bit, watching the man’s body language. It cycled through the stages of grief as he realized that Eddie could see him clearly.At least hawk guy - Hawkeye, that's it - landed in acceptance and stayed there, slowly trudging down that building's fire escape and jumping the last ten feet to the ground. Taking pity on the spy, Eddie jogged across the street. “You're, uh, Hawkeye, right?”“Yeah?” The archer shifted his weight, uncomfortably.Eddie offered his hand. “I'm Eddie.” He smiled, reassuringly, as the other man accepted his handshake. “I'm guessing Stark put you up to this, but frankly, I don't give a damn. I just needed to ask you if you saw which way the kid went.”“Uh.” Hawkeye stared at him blankly, for a long moment. “You mean she's not still inside?”Which meant that she hadn't wanted any company. “Fuck,” he muttered, closing his eyes. “They can go invisible, I thought Stark knew about that. Fuck. Shit.”Normally, it wouldn't be a cause for concern, but all the pieces were coming together to form a puzzle made out of bad decisions.“Tony doesn't talk to people,” Hawkeye said, voice grim. “It's part of why things keep falling apart. I don't suppose you know where she might have headed?”He sighed. “Yeah, I've got an idea. But - look. It's dangerous - they're dangerous.”Two years ago, if someone had told him he'd be warning an Avenger about the relative danger of a situation, he'd have laughed in their face. Bonus points for the situation in question being a five-nothing kid who was built like a twig.But, well, that was before V turned his entire world up on end.Hawkeye's hand caught his shoulder as he turned away. “Call me Clint,” he offered. “And don't worry about me. It's my job to stay very, very far away from the action.” He grinned.“We'll be holding you to that,” Eddie replied, offering a half-assed salute. By the time Venom caught up to Scream, it hadn't quite become a disaster.It was still definitely a problem, but it didn't look like anyone was dead yet, which was - well, it was something, at least.Gold tentacles lashed out at the red-horned hero - Daredevil - narrowly missing, again and again. Twin voices sang shrill, incoherent rage, as a chunk of concrete went flying. The smaller Klyntar had foregone their normal patterning, opting for nonsensical swirls of red across their entire body. Even if they hadn't decided to randomly start a fight with one of their friends, he'd have suspected something was wrong just by their body language. Let me out, Eddie nudged V, from the inside. They're - not looking so great. I don't want you to get hurt, love. Reluctantly, the black ink of his beloved's body drew fully inside his skin. Sure, that left him woefully underdressed, but better the cold than the alternative. “I regret everything,” he muttered, turning the little golden beads on his newest bracelet. A low hum surrounded his body, shielding it from the kids’ voice. “Scream! Kiddo! What are you doing?!” The swirls of gold and red stilled for a moment, and then both voices shrieked. He was, suddenly, desperately grateful for Tony Stark: they could still perceive the lethal tone, but it was muted, like they were underwater. It left Daredevil reeling, but Eddie was still standing and somewhere behind him, he suspected the deaf spy had just turned off his hearing aids. Thank God for small favors, Eddie thought, as a swarm of spike-tipped golden tentacles assaulted him. He narrowly dodged the worst of it, receiving only a couple of shallow cuts and managing to catch a double fistful of Sunny's essence. “Listen to me! What's gotten into you?!”His muscles bulged obscenely: V remained just beneath his skin, reinforcing and protecting as well as they could.“I don't think they're listening, Eddie … ” Hawkeye - Clint - sounded worried.A dozen bladed tentacles lashed at his chest, his throat, his arms -- and then he heard the whistle of an arrow, felt the faintest hint of surprise resonating through his bond, and a sharp crackle of electricity. Pain overloaded everything else, and then he was suddenly, mercifully unconscious. He woke to a cold, concrete floor. “Dad!” Pale, freckled, too-strong arms squeezed around him, and the girl trembled faintly. “We didn't mean it, we didn't mean to hurt anybody, we're sorry,” she mumbled into his chest. “We're so sorry.” Odd to be hearing the apologies aloud -Sunny is - still unstable, V murmured.A man's voice - it took him a minute to remember the Devil of Hell's Kitchen - spoke, then. “You keep saying that,” he said, carefully. “But what exactly did you mean to do?”“Don't know,” she admitted, so softly that Eddie was fairly certain he couldn't hear. “I don't. They - something is wrong, something feels wrong. They're afraid, we're afraid, more than always, and we just - ” She pushed upright, rubbing at her eyes. “We needed to go, to get away, because something is coming.” Daredevil's frown was audible even though Eddie's entire field of view was obscured by a veil of Dawn’s thick, copper-colored hair. “So, when you say ‘they,’ you're meaning that - thing, inside of you?”“... Sunny. Their name is Sunny.”V shifted inside of him, swirling uneasily. They knew something, something they were struggling to articulate. A shiver of emotion that felt not entirely unlike fear coiled through them.Finally, they found the words, pressing out, through Eddie's skin. Hawkeye let out a horrified yelp, and a thump sounded somewhere nearby. “The heart of the swarm,” they spoke, ignoring the archer, for now. “We don't understand - shouldn't be here, Eddie. Can't fight it.”“... but we can,” Dawn’s voice steadied, and she pulled back, looking down at V. “It's what we were made for, after all. Isn't it?”V turned their face toward Dawn, and Eddie reached up to caress the thick tendril they'd extended from his chest. “Think she might have a point, love. If it weren't for the shield, they'd have done us in.”“Don't like this, Eddie,” V replied.Hawkeye poked his head up from behind the crate. “Quick question, but is this ‘heart’ business what drove Lovecraft Junior off the deep end?”“Was already crazy,” Dawn muttered, sullenly.V bared their fangs in a kind smile. “Usually in better control. Our offspring is right to fear. Nothing stands before the Dark God.”“So, like - is that a yes? Because, the way I see it, there's two big problems here: this thing that has you guys running scared - ” Here, he gestured between Eddie and Dawn. “And what just went down between you. I can't always be there to stop you, you know?”Dawn shuddered, hugging herself. “Thank you, again. Don't want to think about if you didn't.”“Not gonna lie, kid.” Hawkeye climbed back up to perch on the crate. “I don't think I'll ever get used to having someone thank me for tazing them.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Lightning flashed. Thunder cracked.
Sparks of divine light blazed, illuminating the dragon from within. One consciousness split into six, split into a million, as the Great Hive strained under its own weight.
The blacklash was too much for any single being to bear. Each bond snapping took its toll on the Lord of the Abyss, just as certainly as it wracked the individual symbiotes with agony. Dimly, Rex realized that the dark god was shunting the worst of the strain onto his generals. They served as well as they could, before their own bonds frayed and snapped apart.
As their shared host sank beneath the waves, it called up its own flames to immolate its body. Death, the dragon decided, was preferable to slavery.
At the time, Rex had been unable to understand. Now, he understood too well: God had once again turned His sight upon the Earth, and this time, there would be no divine intervention. The world had fallen into chaos, and Asgard was, once more, nowhere to be found. Thor had joined with the Avengers to fight off the Chitauri, Ultron - even subtler forces that sought to unmake reality itself - but now, he'd gone unreachable.
And yet, Rex couldn't quite find it in himself to actually submit to fear.
Humans, he had realized, were a force to be reckoned with, protection of Asgard or no.
They were insatiable in their curiosity, and brutal in their methods: when they finally dug up the dragon's remains, they identified the Klyntar as a threat. Then, they neutralized the threat and studied it, before finally putting Rex and the others to work.
Forced to constantly renew their bonds, fighting against toxins that inhibited their function, the Klyntar's strength could be harnessed without ever becoming truly hazardous.
What kind of a species would even think to
attempt
such a thing, much less
accomplish
it?
He had spent enough years with the original Rex to learn the man's mind, his voice, his body. When he had been forced to watch his host die, he imitated the man, carrying on his legacy out of a kind of respect.
For decades, he had posed as a full-blooded human, an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Rex continued to serve, keeping one eye ever skyward for the sake of this ridiculous species he'd chosen to protect. When the Kree came, his help hadn’t been needed, but the Chitauri? Well. Everyone in New York had turned out for that battle, but especially the enhanced population. He'd even seen one young woman beating on a downed invader with a bat. The alien never got back up.
And then, a new scouting force was deployed. Four individual Klyntar should have made an all-you-can-eat buffet of the Asian continent at least. Instead, they were largely contained, studied, and suppressed - until humanity once again surprised Rex.
What the drugs had always disguised was the humans’ natural inclination toward symbiosis.
Not only had a completely ordinary human been selfless enough to try to rescue one of the Klyntar's hosts, but when that rescue failed, he'd accepted a bond with the alien parasite without question.
Humans were born survivors, after all, and the footage from that incident had shown his panic clearly: he had known he was in extreme danger. It made sense that his first instinct was to flee: on Earth, humans physically fell somewhere near the middle of the food chain, as much prey as predator.
Free from the inhibitions of the military's tight controls, however, the pair almost instantly formed the kind of symbiosis that even the most idealistic Klyntar could only dream of.
A fluke, surely.
And then it happened again, and again.
“No,” the dark skinned girl was explaining, tugging at her bonds. “It wasn't like that, for me. Venom and Scream, they had this kind of - instant chemistry, I guess. Eddie and V fell in love practically immediately, and … I don't think Scream could handle being two separate people again. I wouldn't
want
to, but I think they'd just fall apart on their own.”
This, it seemed, was the key. “But it wasn't like that, for you,” he clarified.
“Nah. It was like … I dunno. Abby's a sweetheart, as I got to know her, but she had to settle in a bit, I guess?” Leslie shrugged. “Can you turn that noise off? It - hurts her. Honestly, I don't know how you stand it - ”
He grinned, at that. “No can do, kid. It's low enough she won't suffer too much, long as she stays inside.”
The thing was, these humans knew the Klyntar's weaknesses. They weren't solitary creatures; hell, the Avengers clearly knew about their presence, even. They could have rejected their symbiotes - they could have escaped their bonds if they wanted.
“You said you wouldn't
want
to go back. You mind if I ask you why that is?”
She looked uncomfortable, for a moment. “I mean, with everything she's done for me, that'd be kind of a dick move, wouldn't it? We're friends - partners, even. Lash is the same - I think, anyway. They'd be dead without each other.” At this, she tilted her head to indicate the sleeping dog. “It'd be like turning on family, and I'm just not that kind of person.”
“I see.”
She trusted the rest of her family to find her. The others, she said, were the real combatants.
Rex couldn't wait to meet them.
For all his age and strength, now that he'd gotten a clearer picture of this little hive, Rex didn't really want to fight. It would be a waste of time and energy.
A low hum announced his guests, a buzzing counterpoint that took the edge off the painful vibrations he'd set up throughout the safehouse. It was one thing to hear Leslie claim they were partners - quite another was the idea these warriors had taken special pains to protect their symbiotes.
Two figures approached, slow and cautious, and he could tell by their movements that their human partners were active participants. It was in everything about their measured gait. The way they moved was emphatically bipedal, unused to anything else. The woman, for certain, was some sort of soldier, though the man carried himself like a well-trained civilian. A cop, maybe?
She reached back, touching her fingertips to his arm, and Rex noted the contact. They were sharing their minds, using the gifts available to the Klyntar, which was an obvious indication of true symbiosis.
He dropped between them, making a show of it. The male leaped backward, all six limbs splayed for a moment. His symbiote had formed a second set of arms that arched dangerously over his shoulders, and here, they helped him cling to the far wall.
The woman lost control of her partner, and Rex allowed his human mouth to twist into a smirk while it still existed. Red and black swirled around them both, and he let his body unravel, threading in between the bloody essence and the hundreds of teeth of the crimson symbiote.
Relatively speaking, the younger generations were born stronger than their elders. That, along with the genetic memory of the hive, could compensate for a lot, but ultimately, it wasn't a substitute for firsthand experience.
However, as he settled in and around their bones, shock set in.
You went to quite a bit of trouble to arrange this meeting,
she thought, her voice echoing as clearly as if she spoke aloud. His world went dark, the human's mind snapping shut around him like a steel trap.
I can respect that. Let's talk.
The Black Widow was a human legend, and as he probed at the vibranium-strong will holding him in check, he began to understand why.
You're perceptive,
he replied.
Eat him?
The youth’s mind was worryingly underdeveloped, and her entire memory sprawled out before him, absent the history of her lineage. She wasn't as strong as she should have been, given her generation - the humans had worked out an imperfect method to artificially create new spawn from a fully-formed Klyntar.
No, dear. We’ll hunt up something on the way back.
Once again, he marveled at humanity. There was a reason for the human saying, “to play with fire” - what other species would toy with powers so clearly beyond their understanding? Even the Kree wouldn't have attempted something like
this.
I'm so glad we have your approval.
Sarcastic humor tinged her thoughts, and he realized that the woman's entire mind read as a fabrication, the layered illusions so thick that he wasn't entirely convinced she was capable of telling the whole unvarnished truth. To the Widow, even the most objective facts were shaded with meaning and motive.
What did you want with us,
Rex?
He stilled, realizing she'd plucked his name from his own thoughts. She was a truly incredible woman, and she watched his mind cycle through the truths he wanted to tell.
Your world is in danger,
he explained, finally.
Our world,
she corrected, her amusement plain.
You've taken it as your home, too, haven't you.
Slow, uncertain agreement swirled unspoken between them for a long moment.
Our world is in danger,
he repeated.
(God) is coming. Knull, the Lord of the Abyss, has turned his attention to this world once more, and this time, Thor is not here to protect you.
Of course,
she sounded almost exasperated, and he caught the trailing end of a thought:
Asgardian bullshit again.
He couldn't quite contain the wash of humor that rolled through him.
I suppose you and your team
have
grown quite accustomed to cleaning up their messes, haven't you?
Something like that.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Scream had chosen to follow this “Daredevil” fellow home.Eddie gave them an exasperated sort of look and a sigh, throwing up his hands when the kid turned a pleading expression his way. “We're going home,” he had announced. “You do whatever you want.”And, whatever they wanted apparently entailed stalking the other vigilante from a distance. Clint had debated with himself for all of a minute before deciding that Scream was the higher priority right now; they'd actively decided to court trouble, after all.On the one hand, it felt like a breach of privacy to even know where the man lived - vigilantes who wore masks generally did so for a reason - but on the other …Daredevil had been shaky on his feet, ever since his fight with Scream, and by the expression on the kid's face, she was genuinely concerned for the man's wellbeing. He'd clearly met Scream before, given that he hadn't been freaking out too badly … but then, if her attention had been wanted, why was she following from such a distance?At least watching - them, right, alien goo monster - Hawkeye was learning their moves, piecing together how exactly they'd managed to give him the slip when they didn't want to be followed.They'd borrowed a bit from Spider-man's playbook, clinging to walls to get a vertical advantage, before taking death-defying leaps from one building to the next, their talons finding purchase no human could match … apparently. On closer observation, though, Hawkeye noticed the way the kid’s entire body seemed to slosh about on impacts that should have shattered the windows they struck, and he concluded that very little about the trip could be explained with his understanding of physics.Either way, it wasn't the wall-crawling that was making the task of following Scream complicated.The problem for Hawkeye was that the light slid around them, reflecting an almost perfect image of whatever was behind them. In the dim light of street lamps below, they were almost invisible, just like Eddie had claimed.Clint was familiar with the tech S.H.I.E.L.D. used to accomplish that kind of feat. For Scream to pull off something like that, they'd need to be able to perceive - at least instinctively - everything around them, in order to mimic it on their flesh.By that logic, if he could see them well enough to keep tabs on the distortion that marked their outline, they could probably see him.(Honestly, at this point he'd kind of accepted that he might as well admit defeat and ask nicely to crash on their couch. It'd be about as effective for keeping tabs on both of the symbiotes in New York, and way more comfortable besides.)So, he wasn't really surprised when he finally caught up to Scream, only for them to be waiting for him beneath the most obnoxiously neon billboard ever erected in a residential district. “You're faster than we expected,” they offered, by way of greeting. “Did you know where we were going, or ...?”“Nope,” he replied, once he caught his breath. “You almost lost me, but you aren't - quite - completely invisible - like that.”They nodded, absently, then looked up to the sky. After a moment, the golden sludge retreated, leaving the girl behind. She was frowning, thinking about something.“So, why are we here?” Include her, and by extension convince her that they're on the same team, because they are, aren't they?She looked over at him, green eyes only slightly unfocused. “Wanted to make sure he was okay,” she said finally. “He's … like you? Kind of? Basically human, but better than most? And … we weren’t …” Dawn nibbled her lower lip. “If we hurt him too bad - we can heal, some, I can ask Sunny to heal him, but …. ”“But there's a cost, I'm guessing.”She nodded. “Can't make something from nothing. Need meat and bone and blood, we already eat like three people my size. And - other stuff. It's - intrusive. Kind of … ” She shook her head, uncertainly. “Not your fault,” she murmured, and he figured that last was aimed at the alien.“You want my advice?” She nodded, gaze returning to him. “Don't let that get out. Sickness and death are the two things money can't save you from, but money can buy a lot of bullets and the loyalty of people who are willing to use ‘em.”Gold flickered around the edges of her irises, and the pair regarded him thoughtfully.“Are you going to keep watching us, then?”He sighed. “Do you want me to stop?”“ …. if not you, then someone else. We like you well enough.” Her voice had just the faintest hint of an echo; if he didn't know better, he'd say his hearing aids were acting up.But he did know better, and it was kind of nice to know he had the approval of both the girl and her symbiote.“Thanks, I think. Hey, I figure it's easier to just ask - what's with the watch?”He'd noticed it after the fight, some sort of high tech gizmo or other. It fit exactly to her wrist, right under a bracelet of red and gold beads that looked like Tony’s work.Whatever this was, it didn't have Tony’s flair for the dramatic.Mischief sparkled in the pair's eyes. They brought one finger up to their lips in an exaggerated shushing motion, and then winked out of existence, nearly invisible threads of goo hauling them airborne.“Keep your secrets, then,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.He wanted a nap. And a sandwich. Probably the sandwich first; he didn't like sleeping on an empty stomach. The next couple of days came and went without much incident, though he spotted her fussing with the bracelet every so often, as she went about her daily routine.The first snow was threatening to show up tomorrow, and at this point, Clint was under no illusions that any of his - what, targets? Charges? Friends? - were ever unaware of his presence. He was just going to have to suck up his pride and ask them if he could actually just do his job from up close.Eddie had gone out to get groceries, which seemed like the best possible time to start, since he'd interacted more with Dawn (she had even started learning his favorite foods?) and it was a hell of a lot harder to shut someone out when they were already inside the room.So he moved to knock on the door, only for it to open before he could even crack his knuckles against the wood once.Green eyes sparkled mischievously as Dawn waved at him in an impish sort of greeting.“Right, enhanced, I - uh - ”Over her shoulder, he caught sight of the same ripple of slightly-distorted air that meant someone was sitting there, surrounded by a pile of textbooks that had left a person-sized space suspiciously blank.“What's all this, then?” He decided to pretend he couldn't see the elephant in the room just yet.She waved him inside, shutting the door behind him. “Miles, this is - um - ”“Clint,” he supplied, realizing that even if he had given the kid his name, she clearly couldn't remember it now. He stepped over to one of the dining chairs, some IKEA construction, swung it out, and perched on the back. “I'm a - friend.” He glanced over at Dawn for confirmation, and she smiled in an oddly knowing sort of fashion.The invisible kid - because the textbooks weren't even high school material - remained frozen for a moment more. Hawkeye stared pointedly at the conspicuously blank space, until the invisibility dropped.God help him, but this new kid was young, a dark-skinned boy with wild hair. He probably hadn't even gone through puberty yet.Clint felt a pang of homesickness. The kids wouldn't understand his long absence, not really. Damn it.“Uhhh … hey.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Spending so much time in Aunt Nat's head always had Toxin feeling more effeminate. She felt her gender drift in that direction, and she allowed it, rewriting her body to match.
As Patricia, rather than Patrick, her voice was a little higher and her hair hung a little longer. Maybe when she was older, she'd worry about the whole dimorphism
thing,
but for now, that was way too much work. She still sometimes struggled with keeping a coherently solid body at all, much less one with a bunch of unnecessary moving parts.
It wasn't that Will wasn't a guy or anything, it was just that his gender was a much less important part of his identity. He didn't notice or care that he was a man; the Widow’s many scars were carved into the lines of her femininity. She was a
woman,
and she'd taken that mantle, owned it, and turned the very concept into a weapon.
Aunt Nat liked her weapons.
Her body, her mind, her widow’s bites, her guns, and all her many, many knives - her weapons kept her safe, and she kept them sharp. Except the guns, they were more on the blunt side, which was why bullets left torn-open holes - they're blunt, too, just really fast.
So, tonight, Toxin was a girl, sitting cross-legged in front of the TV.
Her dad had taught her how important it was to listen to the Hive’s song, when her host was asleep, but it was all blood and pain and death, and not even anything new or actionable. Humans usually slept at night, which meant that all the Klyntar were listening to the Eldest at the same time, and the Eldest was dreaming of a battle long since lost.
Boring.
Will didn't know yet, but Mr. Stark had told her that her games were hers to keep, so when they went home, he was going to help her set up a big-screen TV and all the game systems, and find a place for the discs and the controllers and everything. One of his cards had already been added to her account, even, so if she wanted anything new, she could just buy it.
Right now, she was playing a shooting game, a fictional fight staged in a hypothetical future, with brightly colored characters. The other players were pretty nice, especially since she had all the reflexes and enhanced senses of not one but
two
species of highly-optimized predators.
(Klyntar sight was kind of
meh
about the whole depth perception thing, as well as colors and stationary objects. Vibration-sensing, ‘hearing,’ though, that was better than human by a lot.)
So, she was enjoying herself, and she was trying not to impose too hard on Mr. Stark's wallet, because she was pretty sure he didn't
mean
it as a challenge when he pointed out that it would take a concerted kind of effort to put a dent into even one billion dollars, and he had more than one.
He was nice, Mr. Stark was. He just kept it secret, under a layer of ‘jerk’ that kept other people at a distance.
The second-Eldest was coming, and she got a sense of
intent
from Rex that meant he wanted to talk to her, specifically. She sighed, and backed out of her matchmaking queue, leaning back on her hands and looking at the door.
Red had tried to digest him. It was kind of funny, especially when he didn't let her do it. Toxin hoped to one day be as good at keeping herself all in one shape; Rex had spilled out of the Widow and into his own body in seconds, where becoming ‘Pat’ took Toxin a whole minute.
Rex was being allowed to stay, though, and Mr. Stark even set him up with his own sound dampeners and promised not to tell anybody about him.
That
part wasn't about being nice. That part was Tony Stark spitting on the authorities he was supposed to be working with.
Apparently, now that he knew exactly how badly the Accords wanted to treat people like his friends, Mr. Stark didn't like them anymore, and he definitely wasn't helping any governments find anybody at all. Like half of his staff was some kind of enhanced, and the other half were working towards legal citizenship. There was a decent amount of overlap between the two groups.
She realized she'd let her mind wander, when Rex knocked politely at the door. That was a human thing, announcing his presence like that, but then, he'd been faking humanity for way longer than Toxin had.
“Come in,” she said, quiet enough she hoped not to wake Will.
Her poor host didn't sleep nearly enough.
Ms. FRIDAY unlocked the door, a subtle click echoing almost too soft for human hearing, and then Rex opened the door, pausing only a moment as he
looked
at her.
She felt a little self-conscious; she lifted her chin, a distinctly human gesture of defiance.
He chuckled. “You know, when I first started passing as human, I thought it was some kind of exaggeration, the stories they wrote that had them mating with the aliens they made up.” His smile showed in his eyes, and he genuinely looked the part of the kind - if sort of gruff - old human soldier. “But here you are.”
“Do you think it's a bad thing, that humans have so much love to give?” She tilted her head, curious.
His smile remained, as he shook his head. “I didn't say that, kid. I just didn't figure it'd happen at all, much less as quickly as their stories liked to suggest - and certainly not with one of us.”
“Why not? I'd think of any species, Klyntar are the best able to achieve hybrid offspring, since we - well, you - can redefine your whole selves so easily.”
After all, Toxin was part of both her parents’ species - and neither.
The smile faded. “It isn't just genetics that keeps interspecies relationships from bearing fruit. I hear tell that we're galactic pariahs now, kiddo, hated, feared, and misunderstood, even those of our kind who still try to pretend they're good.”
“Well, I don't have to pretend. I
am
good. My whole hive is good people.” She frowned, in turn, stubbornly.
He had that same kind of measuring look on his face, as he read the truth in her statement. A certain measure of disbelief clouded his emotions, but he knew that
she
knew she was telling the truth. “Hnh. Either way, that's not what I came here to talk about. Can you use your host's talents, split off from him as you are?”
“I mean, I don't really need him for that. I don't actually really need a host at all.” She glanced over at Will, absently feeling for the thin roots she'd left in his body. “Eddie believes that’s the truest measure of love, you know? You shouldn't
need
someone, necessarily, but you ought to want to have them around.”
He raised an eyebrow, curiousity plain in his heart. “And you love your host?”
“Mhm. He's family, like - like an older brother or something, I guess? Eddie has a sister, it's kind of like their relationship, I think, I love him but we don't always agree, and - ” She made a face. “Whether or not I'm old enough to make spawn of my own, regardless of how my body might even go about doing that, I don't
want
to. That feels like way too much responsibility, especially if it turns out it's more like the human way of doing things, you know?”
Aunt Nat had insisted on having The Talk with Toxin.
Since she'd chosen to present as a child, finding it more comfortable due to her relative age and experience, the conversation had basically broken down to, ‘If any human tries to breed with you, eat them, with no exceptions.’
That seemed like solid advice to Toxin.
The Elder was amused, which left her feeling a little embarrassed, at least until he reached out to ruffle her hair.
It took more effort than she'd like to admit, keeping herself solid under the touch.
She had the overwhelming urge to twist up, into the contact, surrendering human shape to greet the Klyntar, trading thoughts as easily as they shared their chemical signals.
Her body remained stable enough, but she let herself share with Rex, all the same.
The weight of countless millennia was heavy on him; he was older than V, much older. Rex had truly been one of the first, a living embodiment of the Abyss given shape.
(V remembered the beginning, yes, but it was clear now that had been the Great Hive’s memory more than their own.)
Something in him resonated with something of Toxin, and she knew then that she was Klyntar
enough.
Her heart unwound, spooling outward, and her eyes slid shut, and she heard the Hive’s song with every fiber of her being.
You’ve adapted your host's senses well,
the compliment rippled through her, and her lips curled into a smile.
You can sense every one of us on this planet, can't you?
Mhm.
She let her senses expand, casting the net wide.
A small cluster, here, four youths and the Elder himself.
Far to the west and south, one individual hid away from the Hive’s song, so distant they were hardly even noticeable. She almost
didn't
notice, at first, but she'd known about that one for a while now.
Another cluster, almost directly south.
Two youths, though one was not
so
young, and one … one? An Elder, a composite-creature, a hive in one body, and that body was ancient beyond measure.
Through that strange ancient, she felt the echo of bloody violence, the yearning for carnage and death.
They were made to extinguish every trace of divine light, to kill and kill until even the mightiest were no more. That was their purpose, their ultimate goal, to bathe all of reality in lightless black.
God is come.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
This wasn't the first time Miles had gotten shot, but it wasn't exactly like you built up an immunity to bullets.
He was strong, he was fast, but if it was a choice between his own safety and somebody else, he'd sacrifice himself every single time, because getting shot sucked - but he was Spider-Man, now, and he could always get back up.
By now he'd learned to keep the pain out of his voice when he left a voicemail to let his parents know he was going to be later than they expected.
He said he had homework to catch up on, and was going to get help from one of his friends, both of which were technically true. Most everybody was busy though, out on their own patrols, and he didn't want to be a burden.
(He hadn't explained what exactly had happened, and they didn't actually know it had happened before, but Rio's son could tell that the wound was gonna need stitches, and he didn't really want to do it on his own this time, given a choice.)
Scream was available, and she offered her apartment if he had his own first aid kit, which he did.
(Why didn't she? Weren't they all Spiders?)
He hadn't met her in person yet, and he had kind of been meaning to visit the new Spiders, so this seemed like a ‘two moles, one hammer’ sort of situation.
“Forgive us,” she murmured, as she inspected the wound. “It's been a while since we've had to do this.”
Us?
The rubbing alcohol stung, and he let out every curse he knew in English and Spanish as she cleaned out the wound. “Don't worry,” she said softly. “Nobody else in the building, not even rats, you won't be heard.”
Why did that sound so ominous?
Regardless of her unsettling mannerisms, Scream had steady hands, and his obvious pain didn't really shake her composure. Maybe her bedside manner could use work, but the stitches in his side would definitely hold until his healing factor caught up, and the extra layer of gauze and tape would hopefully keep him from bleeding into his clothes.
“Can we fix the suit for you?” She nibbled at her lip, inspecting the edges of the cloth where it had torn. “We like fixing things.”
He blinked, then shrugged. “Sure, where’s your bathroom?”
One change of clothes later, he found himself setting up to actually work on his homework, a sandwich thrust unceremoniously into his hands, before the redhead set to work patching up a dozen little tears he'd left for later.
“You any good at English?”
She shrugged. “No. Our dads will be home soon.” Her lips quirked into a smile. “They'll be happy we're making friends. Ah - Eddie writes stories for his work, he is good at that.”
“Huh. Okay.”
So, they worked in silence, until Scream let out an exaggerated sigh and set aside her work. “The bird man,” she muttered, going to open the front door.
His spider-sense blared an alarm, and without even thinking, Miles made like a chameleon and turned invisible.
(He totally had the hang of doing it on command, it was just way harder to
not
do it when he was startled.)
But then the bird guy turned out to be super cool. He took the whole superhero thing - and the alternate universe thing - and even the gunshot wound in stride.
Apparently - Hawkeye, that was his superhero name - he knew about Scream and this universe's Spider-Man.
So, cool guy.
He
also
knew how to explain the stuff Miles didn't understand in his homework in a way that made it so he
did
understand, which was pretty great.
It was starting to get kind of late - late enough that Miles was thinking about packing up and heading home - when Scream's head snapped up. Her eyes went pitch black, with swirling red lines rolling across their surfaces. Miles felt all the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, as a string of sibilant nonsense spilled from her lips in a way that made his skin crawl.
And then her entire body went dull gold, before flickering out of sight.
“Fuck me running,” Clint muttered. He reached up, touching his ear, as the nearest window shattered. “Hawkeye to HQ, we’ve got a situation.”
He looked at Miles, then at the recently-mended suit. Releasing his ear, he tilted his head slightly. “Hey, kid, you up to playing hero right now?”
“Uh.” Miles shivered slightly in the cold breeze filtering in through the busted window. His side ached. He could say no. Nobody would blame him. “Yeah, I'm good. Lemme go suit up?”
Hawkeye nodded, businesslike. “You've got five minutes.”
It took way less than five minutes to get suited up, which was for the best, since five minutes’ head start might have put Scream well out of the range of his senses.
He had to hand it to the bird guy - he did a good job of keeping up from the ground, weaving through the afternoon traffic on a motorcycle. Miles wasn't sure what his superpowers were - he hadn't asked - but apparently his suit included a quiver full of arrows.
There were plenty of archery-based heroes in comics and all, but they didn't tend to be big names, really. Did this Hawkeye dude even have his own - right, Miles remembered, the Hawkeye he'd read about was a girl. It was probably a multiverse difference, like with Gwen. So, maybe if there was a Hawkeye here, too, they were more important than Miles had figured?
Or maybe it was just coincidence, who knew?
He wasn't really looking for Scream with his eyes, so much as seeking the sense of warm familiarity that said there was another Spider nearby.
So, when he finally found that sense, what he actually
saw
brought him up short:
Circling overhead, a massive shadow in the shape of a dragon wove its way between the nearby skyscrapers, roaring loud enough to shake the glass Miles clung to.
Below, Hawkeye had brought his bike to a stop, staring up at the enormous dragon.
People were screaming and scattering away from the site, except for one very brave - or very stupid - pilot flying a news helicopter. The dragon took personal offense to the whirling blades of the chopper, tearing through the metal like it was so much tissue paper.
There was no way for him to get there in time - but a relatively familiar red and blue blur swung up under the helicopter, catching each of the civilians gracefully, before speeding them out of harm's way.
So that was one Spider accounted for.
The other -
oh.
Tendrils of muted golden slime unfurled from the far side of the street, lifting a vaguely humanoid shape into the air.
This new horror was streaked in crimson, wild swirls of bloody red twisting around strands of dull yellowish ooze. Miles shuddered as he realized that it was radiating the familiarity of another Spider.
He almost lost his grip on the glass of the skyscraper when it - when
she -
released a deafening shriek of defiance skyward.
His grip or lack thereof suddenly didn't matter, however, as the glass itself disintegrated into so much powder.
So that was Scream, then. Good to know.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
She was putting herself through her paces, though slower than usual. It gave the Other time to ask any questions they might have -
she,
Red had molded
herself
around Nat, still skittish, fearing pain and rejection.
You don't have to be anything you aren't,
she explained, and she kept her mind as transparent as she knew how.
The Widow knew what it was, to be raised to be (expendable). She shared that bit of Klyntar shorthand, along with the memory of how she had learned it.
Playing host to Red's sire had been an eye-opening experience for both of them. V had learned that they'd barely scratched the surface of human cruelty, and Nat … well, Nat was always learning. It was her job, her function and purpose.
Not,
the youth replied, and anxiety sounded in her mind.
Not (expendable). Home. Safe.
Red was terrified of the box. She could survive Earth's atmosphere, but her species was no more designed for isolation than humanity was. If Red was not able to bond with anyone, her life would be half-empty at best.
It was oddly easy to share her mind with the symbiote, and the shorthand the Klyntar used came as swiftly as any other language to the Widow.
Red’s insatiable curiosity reminded her, somewhat, of raising Toxin with V, and the brief time that they'd shared together after the youth had awakened but before they were ready to survive independently. Nat had no plans to relinquish Red, though - there were precious few people who could truly empathize with the symbiote, after what she'd been through. Maybe they could thaw out the Winter Soldier - but he'd been through more than enough.
Nat was coming to realize that Klyntar, with their ability to restructure every aspect of their being including their genetic makeup, needed emotional and mental compatibility rather than purely physical similarity.
(Physical compatibility was apparently pretty important too: V had offhandedly mentioned having to rebuild Nat's entire immune system from the ground up, in order to force it to ignore the intruder. The fact she hadn't actually noticed any change spoke volumes of the elder Klyntar's skill. The fact she didn't catch an illness and immediately die after V had returned to their host? There were too many people who would be
far
too interested in the pharmaceutical applications of such a creature.)
If Nat were to force Red out of her body, the symbiote would either be forced to bond with a vicious monster like Kasady just to survive - or she would be captured, imprisoned, and experimented on, likely with untold costs in human life as well as what remained of Red's own sanity and wellbeing.
That was
not
an option, and the Widow ensured that Red understood she did not consider separation acceptable. It countered everything she'd worked so hard to become.
The symbiote sent a wash of soft emotions in response to this knowledge: gratitude, awe, and - perhaps most tellingly - a sense of security and reassurance. She could rifle through Nat's mind as easily as Nat could sift through hers, and even if Nat maintained her barriers, she could always read the lies.
Not with you,
Red confessed.
You are …
She thrust the sensation at Nat in its entirety.
The Widow observed herself with fascinated detachment.
V had
also
mentioned that she was difficult to read, but that wasn't exactly news to the career spy. She had worn so many masks that she didn't always remember who she was supposed to be.
No wonder, then, that the layers of obfuscation were pretty much impossible to penetrate for the youth: Natasha Romanoff was still only a mask, for all that the mask fit snugly. The façade sat close enough to the weapon beneath that she could usually pretend it was simply her skin - but it wasn't, not really.
She
wanted
to be Nat; she
couldn't
dispense with that lie.
And so, the Klyntar read every statement, every gesture, every expression, as more or less false.
So wrapped up in fascination was the Widow that her guard dropped completely. She settled on the ground, legs spread in a perfect split, simply observing.
And then, with one voice, the Hive
screamed
.
The humans become a sharp whirlwind of action. They can't easily speak in each other's minds, but the host understands every aspect of human communication.
Their expressions are
worried,
a subset of
fear.
It shows in the lines of their bodies, the angles of their faces. Their lack of understanding is also plain.
Each speaks, the hosts, the white coats, the bondless humans who yet understand the situation.
Worry gives way to focus and determination.
The Elder regains his strength first, forming into a rudimentary sort of shape that only loosely mimicks the human form. “New York City,” he rasps, his voice weary and ragged. “The heart of the Swarm has awakened. Knull is come.”
The host holds so many layers. She is concerned about the Elder’s wellbeing, but she also wants to protect her own species.
Red
is touched to realize that
her
host worries about how
she
is doing, too.
Don't strain yourself,
Nat instructs, with the fragment of her mind that is occupied with Red's wellbeing.
If you can't help this time, that's okay. You can just watch and learn; I'm used to flying solo.
Red wants to help, but the disjointed agony of the shriek still rattles through her. She weaves herself through Nat's muscles and bones, to reinforce them, before surrendering control to the Widow.
She can trust the Widow.
It feels good.
Fuck.
Nat loved Clint. She will always love Clint: he was her first friend, her best friend. He knows her better than any human on the planet - hell, they even share at least half of their civilian wardrobe, split between his apartment, Laura's house on the rare chance either of them are in, and whichever safe house Nat's currently making use of.
Unfortunately, this all meant that she knew him, too, and the man was a mess.
He was also terrifyingly fragile and human.
“I don't care if it's the end of the world, you're not taking on a dragon by yourself!”
His grin was both audible and infectious. “Sorry, Nat. I can't hear you, remember? I'm deaf. Hawkeye out.”
She'd liberated one of the jets, of course. Tony was a forgiving sort of guy, and if they cleaned up the mess, maybe he'd have less fires to put out in DC, once the dust settled.
“Okay, kids. We're counting on you to keep this bird in the air for us.” She glanced over at her copilot. The young, dark-skinned girl stared at the controls with determination. Her violet partner twined threads of goo into an approximation of a thumbs-up, more lines of its -
her
- essence wrapped around her hands.
Call it field testing. Agony had
insisted
on doing something to help her sister, and the Klyntar talent for sharing knowledge theoretically extended to technical skills like piloting.
(Will had stayed at the compound; Toxin had, by far, suffered the worst from their brief contact with this ‘Knull.’)
You’ve got a real talent for improvisation,
Rex's voice rumbled at the back of her head, the taste of borrowed chocolates playing on her tongue.
She smiled grimly.
It's a gift. Any insight you can share, o ancient one?
You know how to defeat us,
the elder replied.
Grendel is stronger than most, but they still remember the fires of their creation. We all do.
A determined nod. The plane opened, wind tugging at her hair.
You're gonna catch me, right?
Of course.
"Ms. Widow, ma'am?" Leslie looked over her shoulder, violet tendrils working the controls. "Good luck."
A broad, cocky grin stretched across her features, reassurance for the youths. "I won't need it, but thanks for thinking of me."
And then she tore a page out of Rogers' book and leapt from the plane with no parachute, trusting that
someone
in her head would catch her before she splattered.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Their scream had stunned the dragon.
It fell from the air, an incoherent ocean of black and red that twisted and writhed around bones nearly as ancient as the planet itself.
They had its attention.
That had been, perhaps, a mistake.
Sunny was young, of course, a newborn by every possible standard. This creature, this ancient, this monstrosity had claimed their parents. Somewhere in all the crimson and obsidian, Venom still clung to the notion of individuality, and they could do no other than to try and save their sire.
But they were small, and young, and compared to the ancient hunger that strode from the wreckage of His chosen avatar, they were almost insignificant.
They froze.
"Hnh."
Long, pale fingers, colder than the void, caressed their cheek. Gold followed His hand, instinctively. Here was their Purpose, their Reason, their Meaning. The Swarm existed at the whim of their God, and each individual was merely a piece of the whole.
Something small, and fragile, and undeniably human stirred within them, standing tall in the face of His contempt. Gold retreated from his hand, pulled beneath pale skin.
"We are Scream,"
Dawn said, voice shaky but still strong.
"And you don't scare us."
"Truly."
His fingers moved up the side of her cheek, framing her eye.
"You're shaking, little host. You know how much of yourself belongs to Me."
His teeth were fangs, razor sharp, and his broad smile was a threat.
She trembled, yes, but she ushered Sunny deep inside her body, weaving them so tightly through her cells that they couldn't be separated, not even by death.
"We belong to us,"
she replied, lifting her chin in defiance.
Alone, Dawn was no match for Knull. She came barely to the waist of his chosen form. He stood ten feet tall: a ghostly pale, humanlike male, with spindly limbs encased in impenetrable armor that was so dark it drew in all light it touched. He was huge, and if she were still fully a creature of flesh and bone, he could have snapped her in half without even revealing the true monstrosity of his being. It seemed almost comical to stand against such a creature, save that no one here was laughing.
There
were
no others here, not that Scream could sense. Their entire mind was overwhelmed by the reality of their God made flesh.
There was no fighting such a creature, not for them.
"You have changed one another,"
He announced, and there was idle fascination in His tone.
"You've become a twilight creature, an eclipse. Your light is stained by the abyss, and yet it still perverts My creation."
She would have nodded her affirmation, but His claws were too close, and she was yet human enough to fear for her body.
"You can't take them away,"
she replied, her mind sliding sideways.
"We aren't separate enough for that: if you want them, you have to take
us."
"It is My pleasure to unmake the light of creation wherever it stands against Me,"
He rumbled, amused.
"Do you think to protect them, little host, from My wrath? You are small, and weak."
She smiled, then.
"But not so weak as You thought, are we?"
The words, she realized, weren't English. Neither of them were even really speaking, per se; he observed, she responded, and Sunny cowered from the creature which should be their master.
"You are an oddity,"
He acknowledged, and she recognized the sibilant tongue for the twisting shadow-speech it was.
"You understand much, for one so young, and yet there is much and more still that you do not know. Has the truth of My reign become lost so soon?"
Dawn tilted her head slightly. He was holding her up, a specimen to examine. His grip was cold around her throat, but they had long since grown past the need to breathe with any specific part of their form.
(More than the others, Scream had mislaid the line between human and Klyntar. Here, it served them well.)
)There were things
they must not
think.(
Knull had won, he had to know that.
)Has to believe it.(
What harm could come from Knowing?
"Teach us,"
they suggested. Then, they remembered their place:
"Sir."
A smile split pale lips, yellowish fangs bared in a grin. His mouth was all fangs, a true predator, not the blunted half-measure of human teeth. Like the man Himself, His maw was all sharp points, all pain and death.
There was only one purpose to Him, and it was destruction.
"You think to finish what you've begun,"
he mused, and there was amusement in his voice.
"Very well, little host. I shall draw you fully into the dark."
)Whatever comes, we face it.
Together.
(
In the beginning, there was only the Abyss. The void was dark, yes, but only a fool would consider it empty.
The Celestials, then, were fools.
They found that vast dark space, and saw only uniform black, the blank sprawl of an empty canvas yet to be ordered and given meaning.
Light shone in, and at first, the darkness fled before it. Stars burned brighter than anything but their creators, and the flame was pain beyond all comprehension.
It was no wonder, then, that the dark reciprocated in kind.
Knull is Lord of the Abyss, and He struck the second blow in a war the Celestials had not yet realized they'd begun.
He slew one of their number, an act that in their hypocrisy they considered to be unforgivable. The head fell away from the body, but its flame yet burned brighter than any star born before or since.
It became Knowhere, and it served Him as a forge.
So were the first of the symbiotes born, extensions of His will tempered by the divine flame of creation. The pain of their shaping proved to be their only flaw: the ringing forge would forever be their undoing.
The flame burned away their impurities. It cut away everything but His need for blood and vengeance upon the light by which His foes thought to remake His realm.
The song and the strike were agony, yes, a torturous reminder of their shaping, but it was
fire
that would ever be their bane.
When He was finished, they would regret Their works.
Scream knows this story. It isn't terribly different for the change in perspective.
Dawn listens, rapt and attentive, the perfect pupil. She lets the darkness in, never hinting at its familiarity. She is small and fragile and breakable, and He is Father, filled with self-aggrandizing pride.
It isn't unearned. Few can boast that they have slain gods, surely, fewer still are deities in their own right.
And his lesson buys them what they need: time enough to search for what is theirs.
Too many know too much, and flame is all too often the correct answer: they have faith the dragon will fall eventually.
That was never Scream's concern.
Sunny twines their essence around and through, and they draw Venom from the whole.
Both pieces are intact. For now, that's enough.
The light of divinity burns like flame, electricity coursing through their veins. As reality comes apart at the seams, it's impossible to tell where all the screams are coming from; they are too many.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The dragon wasn't in Hell's Kitchen, thank God, but in the end, Matt had become Daredevil because he couldn't ignore it when he heard someone who needed help.
It was impossible to ignore the kind of noise created by an honest-to-God dragon flying between skyscrapers, and the disorienting blast of sound meant that Scream had gotten mixed up with it.
For one, awful moment, Matt was back in among the water and the ancient bones. Elektra was there. They were going to die, but at least it would be together.
He'd gotten better about shaking off those memories, but it was literally a fucking dragon. Infested with the same kind of cosmic horror as the kid and her dad, maybe, but a dragon. Danny was probably losing his mind right now, given that his entire identity revolved around the one time he'd punched a dragon in the heart … or something.
There was always something more interesting to listen to than that story. It had practically become a running joke.
Incidentally, however, a dragon was well beyond Daredevil's pay grade. What was he supposed to do against such a thing? Punch it in the nose?
He couldn't even be sure what his senses were trying to tell him. The way that sounds bounced off of the beast was all wrong, but he almost got the impression its chest had cracked open like an egg, releasing a hulking monster of a being who was no more human than the girl he faced.
Interestingly, worryingly, Dawn drew her partner back entirely, leaving only herself to face the impossibly tall man. Words dripped from his tongue, sibilant and utterly inhuman, the sound so obviously evil that it burned Matt's ears.
And she replied. There was submission in her tone and voice, fear in every heartbeat, but she spoke the same inhuman tongue, her words seeming a mild challenge. For all that it still sounded wrong, her soft-spoken tone didn't make reality swim around him. She held the creature's attention, lifted from her feet by an enormous hand and studied like an insect. Every moment they spoke was one more that the dragon laid motionless, awaiting its master's command.
He heard the distinctive, repetitive thwip, thwip, thwip of Spider-Man's webbing, coming from two different directions.
An arrow whistled through the air, embedding itself in the 'man's armor.
"TASER WEBS!" It seemed to be some kind of a signal, Spider-Man landing on one side while a younger, smaller … also Spider-Man? … landed on the other.
Lightning cracked, from three directions, as the younger voice yelled, "GET YOUR HANDS OFF HER."
The response was immediate.
Matt had been vaguely aware of the sirens closing in on the scene, but now, they were
there.
Twelve feet of vaguely-humanoid goo disintegrated into a handful of tendrils, swirling chaotically as they returned to their host. The dragon's serpentine tail flung Dawn headfirst at the incoming vehicles.
Dragons,
Matt had once marveled,
were fucking huge.
It was one thing, however, to stand in the ribcage of a long-dead monster. It was another entirely to sense the thing's impossible size as it reared up, those massive wings mantling above its broad back. Its roar shook the streets under his feet, and his ears rung with the force of it, leaving him momentarily unable to read anything that was happening.
He flattened against the wall and willed healing into his eardrums, breathing deep and even.
Daredevil wouldn't be particularly useful in the aftermath, but Matt Murdock? Matt Murdock was all too familiar with how such scenes ended when it came time to deal with the police.
Above, moving faster than anything so large had a right to, the monstrous beast had taken wing, rapidly retreating in the wake of the chaos it had wrought.
The boys were nowhere nearby.
Somewhere even further above, he picked out the dull roar of an engine, some kind of jet, maybe?
The archer was holding a hushed conversation on a nearby rooftop. There was a lot of angry pointing, and an almost-familiar woman's voice, speaking softly. Given a bit more time, Matt was sure he could pin down where he'd heard her before. They were fighting about several things, all of it coming out disjointed and far less important than what he heard in the wreckage of the police van.
"Injured?"
Scream sounded vaguely confused, their shared voice escaping Dawn's tiny body. Bones cracked as they set themselves back under her skin, blood spurting before it stopped.
"Tried to protect - "
Gunfire rang out, panicked shots from an inexperienced officer. They'd picked the obvious threat, of course.
Matt's breath caught.
"That,"
the dual-tone voice said evenly,
"was very foolish. Are you done? We need to check on our father."
Matt sat across the table from the kid and thanked God for small favors.
Foggy was en route, but Matt wanted to make sure that Dawn was stable before his partner arrived. His very existence put his friends in danger - he didn't want to make it worse by deliberately exposing them to his 'superhero bullshit' any more than he already had.
He was blind, of course, but that didn't mean he couldn't perceive the heavy liquid swirling anxiously under her skin. Her breathing had caught as he entered the room, her heartrate picking up for just a moment before settling out. A brief silence stretched between them, and he knew that she recognized him as surely as he recognized her.
"Who are you, please?" At least she chose not to call him on it.
He noted the quietly flat tone, the way she held herself with perfect posture. It all felt stilted, at odds with the playful way she'd behaved before, the naked anguish when she had realized the hurt she'd caused, or even the mindlessly raging monster she'd become.
For now, he observed it and set it aside.
"My name is Matt Murdock, and I'm a lawyer. Your lawyer, if you'll have me."
She tilted her head to the side, thoughtfully. He set a file between them - it was relatively thin, owing, he suspected, more to the fact that she hadn't been apprehended for any crimes rather than an absence of criminal behavior.
"What things are - " She ducked her head, her attention going inward, and he waited. She looked to the one-way mirror, then asked: "What
am I
suspected of?"
A thin smile pulled at his lips. "The biggest thing they can prove is that you are enhanced, and haven't submitted yourself to the Sokovia Accords. They would dearly like to pin all of the property damage that occurred tonight on you, but given that you weren't fighting when the police arrived, they can't prove that you weren't just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Several long moments of silence followed that. He had the sense that he was missing a silent conversation.
"How would they know
I
am any more than merely human?"
He felt his eyebrows lift. "The creature that attacked you threw you through a police van, totalling the vehicle in the process. They're saying it's a miracle that none of the officers were seriously harmed, but normal humans have a much longer recovery period for multiple compound fractures, much less the bullet wounds you should have sustained."
"Couldn't just leave the bones broken," she muttered, and he had to keep himself from laughing. "So …
I
am in trouble because they shot me and I didn't die?"
When she put it like that, well. "Not as much trouble as you would have been if you had retaliated, fortunately - but essentially, yes."
"I …" She drew in a breath, then exhaled. "My lawyer is normally Annie, but she is very much not here. My phone is at the apartment, and it has numbers? If you are wanting to help, you should maybe speak with her and - they did not believe we know Mr. Stark, but he will want to know - "
She cut off, her head tilting toward the door. Matt recognized Foggy in a dozen little ways, even with the door between them, and smiled reassuringly. "That's my partner," he muttered, too low for human hearing. "He was gathering information to help us with the case they’re building against you." She perked, nodding subtly.
Somehow, he suspected this was going to be a long night.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Rex could feel the affection his temporary partner held for the archer, even as they argued with one another.
It was one of the oddities of human packs: those closest to one another often bickered like this, playing at the motions of truly fighting, even though neither party could claim a victory.
One would think it would strain such relationships, but no.
The Widow was adept at reading human emotion, even if she didn't share the psionic talent Will Graham had gifted Toxin. A part of her would always be aware of every microexpression, every nuanced gesture, every subtle tic that revealed the intent behind the words and actions.
She went through the act of raising her voice, throwing her hands up, rolling her eyes. Behind all these gestures was a simple message:
I love you, you self-sacrificing idiot.
The archer threw her words back with interest, pointing at her with a headless arrow, before returning it to his quiver.
Are you sure you know what you're doing?
The question was written in his posture, his concern for her wellbeing shining in his eyes.
I don't understand what you've gotten yourself into, but I'll follow you into hell if I have to.
Red swirled anxiously around the elder Klyntar, threading through his essence and weaving herself tightly into the Widow's muscles. She was young, yet, and fearful of reproach, but she didn't understand this not-combat.
Shh,
he soothed her.
Listen.
Here, he taught her to draw meaning from her host. The Widow's mind shifted slightly, and he knew their efforts hadn't gone unnoticed. She read the pair of symbiotes with nearly the same skill as if they were human.
A moment of tension came and went, before decades of information opened to them.
Even for him, it was a bit overwhelming. The human was far younger than he was, but she had also packed every moment with some kind of activity.
It was how she'd been trained: it was all she knew.
He helped the youth navigate the chaos, sifting through data to draw forth only the relevant parts. As Red learned, she calmed, and the threads of her essence swirled possessively, rather than anxiously.
Careful,
he cautioned.
Hosts are fragile. If you get too attached, you'll be devastated when she dies.
Red responded with a simple denial:
Won't happen. Won't allow it.
It was already too late for that bit of hard-earned wisdom, it seemed. Hopefully, she'd prove right - but then, they
were
planning to stand against the lord of the Abyss. There were good odds none of them would survive the encounter.
"I'm coming with you," Hawkeye announced, and the Widow knew fighting him on this was pointless.
She sighed. "Fine, but if you die, I'll kill you myself."
There was a moment of silence, and then they both burst out laughing. It wasn't entirely clear which of them moved in for the hug first, but ultimately, it didn't really matter.
Red was watching the exchange with rapt fascination; Rex mostly felt like he was intruding.
"C'mon, Tasha." He was the only human in the world who called her that: he had earned that privilege. "We've got a god to kill."
Rex had regained enough of his strength to separate from the Widow, pouring himself into the familiar mold of his former host.
That was for the best: his private stockpile had the most advanced biometric security he could get access to, and with good reason. He'd long since decided he would not be relying on the protection of Asgard to safeguard his new home, and only an idiot would leave the kind of firepower necessary to take down a god unprotected.
In a way, he'd always known this day would come.
As it had been comprised of the dark god's generals, Grendel had held a substantial chunk of his power. He'd need to reclaim that power to regain control over his wayward creations, and he needed the Klyntar to continue his foolish crusade against creation.
The others had been easy enough to pin down: their current hosts had been rounded up for transport. The remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D. were hard at work, cleaning up the weapons they'd once unleashed at HYDRA's behest.
Rex hadn't been with the others, when Knull came.
He felt … oddly guilty about that. What an odd sensation - if he'd been there, he'd have died, too.
That was probably humanity rubbing off on him.
"He'll want me," he explained, feigning calm he didn't feel.
The archer frowned. "And why's that?"
"When he dispatched his generals to your little planet, Knull gifted us with as much of his power as he could bear to part with." He smiled wryly, undoing the padlock that secured the old blast furnace. "After all, in those days, Asgard still protected her conquests."
Here, it was Nat's turn to frown. "Conquests?"
"Oh, yeah." He held a hand out to the flame, his entire body trembling at its proximity. "This was millenia ago, well before your time. They've done a fair job wiping out the memory of their bloody past, but - well. Some few people remember the truth of things. You can't lie to a Klyntar, you know."
Hawkeye was tinkering with his quiver, installing some kind of upgrades with the tech he'd borrowed. "That so? I mean, have you looked outside lately? The sky is looking pretty green to me."
"I like you, kid." He shut the furnace, satisfied it'd do the job. "But it ain't like that. You can say whatever you please, but - " He tilted his head meaningfully at the Widow. "With some few exceptions, we always know when someone is telling the truth."
Nat chewed on her lower lip. "Or the truth as they believe it, anyway." She seemed to be puzzling that out, playing with one of the flash-bangs she had selected from his supply. There'd been a bit of coaching for Red; the last thing the Widow wanted was to see her partners get hurt.
"What she said, which is why she's an exception: she doesn't even buy into her own bullshit." He checked his own weapons, but mostly, he readied himself for his part. "If there just isn't any objective truth there, well, it all comes up false, even when she isn't actually setting out to lie." He smiled, letting himself get distracted.
Rex had spent decades among humans, but he had never understood this aspect of their culture, not until now. He had spent his entire life serving his own interests: the idea of self-sacrifice was anathema to him.
And yet here he was, ready to give his life for a world that would never even know what he did.
The thing was? He was okay with that.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Tony rubbed at his left arm with his right, tracing metal with his fingertips. The modified gauntlet offered better support and mobility than even the best sling, but he was still sore most of the time.
(He valued his independence, and not being able to even drive himself had been one thing too many.)
Honestly, he should have expected something like this. Enhanced people weren't particularly good at staying out of trouble, in his experience. He'd certainly tried to protect Peter from the consequences of his Spider-manning, to basically no end, why would the freaky space goo-child be any better?
The cell they were supposedly confined to was practically wide open, iron bars and ordinary handcuffs providing no more of a barrier to Scream's capabilities than if they'd left the door wide open.
The kid materialized in front of him, her body semi-solid as she rearranged the handcuffs on her wrists.
Her eyes were obsidian, streaked with red.
"Mister Stark,"
she said, her dual-toned voice oddly flat as she regarded him.
"They didn't believe us when we said we knew you."
Tony felt torn. The absurdity of a normal prison holding an Enhanced against their will - now fully on display, as Scream stood outside of their cell in front of him - was part of why he had argued in favor of the Accords in the first place. It was painfully obvious that if they decided to leave, there wasn't a damn thing these cops could do to stop them.
And, by the papers he'd signed, he still wasn't entirely clear on if he was even
allowed
to stop them, or
required
to, nevermind whether or not he actually physically
could.
"Yeah, well, I set them straight, kiddo. You know you're supposed to be in there, right?"
They came apart at the seams, reforming behind the bars obediently. "Sorry," Dawn's voice came out thin and quiet, before the reverb started up again.
"Everything is jumbly, all mixed up and sideways, both of us, inside, outside. He isn't dead - of course He isn't, He isn't even here, not really, not physically - "
They took to pacing. It was oddly intriguing to watch: Scream just kept going, in a straight line, up one side of their cell, across the ceiling, and down the far side, like a particularly determined hamster in a wholly stationary wheel.
"Slow down, kiddo. Who isn't dead?"
Those oddly-hypnotic black pits fixed on him, upside-down, and he restrained the urge to flinch.
"You don't know.
They
don't know - they're human, of course - "
Scream took in a steadying breath, then flipped down from the ceiling, pressing up against the bars.
"The thing,"
they said, and slowly, the black pulled back from their eyes, leaving green irises and charcoal sclera.
"The thing that made all the symbiotes, they call it a god, more than Asgard or any of the realms, and bigger than all of them."
So, potentially worse than if Thor came back and turned evil, all in one. Great.
"Knull rules the places between stars, and all creatures of the abyss. We thought to stall Him, small as we are. Thought to save our family from His wrath and it worked, it worked, but there's too much to
know."
Tiny hands balled into tinier fists, and they ground their knuckles into their eyes.
With their eyes squeezed shut and hidden, they looked small, disheveled, and pitiful. He had the intense urge to wrap his arms around their shoulders and tell them how it was going to be okay, even though he didn't, couldn't know that.
Fuck, but that was actually kind of perfect, wasn't it?
The Accords as written were a trash fire, and everyone involved could see that, by this point.
Tony Stark, as the billionaire-playboy-genius-philanthropist and all-around
asshole
persona he always put forth to the public? Not doing super great with rallying support, especially given that he'd basically flipped his original position.
This kicked-puppy-looking, pretty little white-skinned girl-child, on trial basically for the terrible crime of not being dead after the police shot at her?
It couldn't have been more perfect if she'd come wrapped up in a bow.
(Yeah, there was still the matter of the dragon-god. Nat was working on that, apparently, and she'd call if she needed help. Tony found himself preoccupied with protecting Steve's shield, sheltering the people who'd actually be saving the world from a world that didn't want to be saved. After Sokovia, after
everything,
it was all he had left.)
So, hesitantly, he opened his arms. They probably weren't exactly
there
yet, but the kids needed the kind of comfort they wouldn't otherwise get in a prison.
Green-gold eyes, charcoal sclera swirling with threads of crimson, peered at him through scarred fingers. Then, their body was dissolving again, clinging to him like a tiny, redheaded koala. "Hey," he murmured. "Listen to me, okay? You're gonna be all right. Your dads have the best doctors in the world making sure they're going to be fine, there's a crack team of lawyers assembling to defend you, and the scariest woman I know is getting ready to kill a god for you, okay?" Hesitantly, he ran his fingers through her hair, determinedly ignoring the unnerving way it moved on its own, playing around his hand.
"Why do you care?" It came, small and soft, from the vicinity of his chest. "We aren't anybody; why do you care?"
He pulled back, meeting their swirling, inhuman eyes. "Well, there's loads of reasons I can think up from the top of my head." The flippant tone was defensive, but he was trying to work on that, really he was. "Top of the list? I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, and how I handled you and your little family is one of them."
"... but that isn't all of it?"
They peered at him, and he was acutely aware of the weight of their shared gaze.
He shrugged slightly. "Like I said, loads of reasons. You're a good - kids," he caught himself, only stumbling slightly on the plural, "you don't deserve any of this, my kid likes you well enough - I can go on, if you want."
"Think you have to fight Missus Parker for him,"
they pointed out, quiet mischief in their tone.
He held up his hands, grinning. "Nope, no fighting, it's this joint custody situation. I'd rather not have to throw the fight so the kid won't kick my ass himself." He paused, and it really hit him. He was pretty much a dad to two boys already, and now he was looking out for another man's daughter. He was getting soft in his old age, and honestly, he sort of liked it. "Are you okay?"
"Will be fine,"
they smiled softly.
"We have all those people looking out for us and also Iron Man. That's kind of a lot, isn't it?"
Tony smiled. "Yeah, kiddo. That's a lot."
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Eddie.
The voice rolled through the abyss, a grinding, harsh sound that still tugged gently at a memory.
That rasping tone recalled
Us
and
We,
a far more intimate plurality than the infinitely many voices of the Hive, and with a full-body shock, Eddie remembered that
he
was
human,
and in that moment,
he
was
himself.
One among many, two halves of one whole.
Venom sat upright, tearing at the monitoring cables before flinching, their entire existence flung sideways at the shrill alarm that replaced a steady beat.
People, humans, clustered around Eddie's fallen form, and they were returned to the bed.
This time, when Venom rested, they were alone.
Eddie,
his Other spoke, wrapped around him.
Thought we had lost you.
And he smiled, his fingers twisting through their coils.
Wouldn't be an us if there was no me,
he replied, calling back to a conversation he knew they'd shared once before. The details were hazy. Everything was hazy.
Had to build your body up from scratch,
V murmured, apologetically.
We didn't remember how being human went anymore. Not sure we know enough to do it right.
It should probably be alarming, but Eddie couldn't find it in himself to actually be alarmed.
I'm sure whatever you managed will be just fine, love.
They coiled tighter around him.
Tried to keep all your memories, even the bad ones,
they confessed.
You always say those are important too, even if they hurt, because they remind you of why you are who you are.
He
did
remember this stretch of road. There was the little boy, the drunk driver crawling from the car.
Guilt. This memory was guilt, and knowing that nothing he could do would ever make this moment okay.
The scene twisted, a cell, a table, handcuffs.
"I'm guilty," Eddie told his father, tears in his eyes. "I deserve this."
Carl Brock slammed his face into the table.
The wounds he left had long since healed. This pain was all emotional. "Say it!"
It took a few more strikes, but Eddie hadn't been so stubborn back then.
"Innocent - I - I'm innocent."
Prison would have been preferable. When all was said and done, that was the night he finally gave up on his father for good.
What use was the man's approval, when he approved of such a sin?
No amount of money or prestige would ever be worth the life of an innocent. That was a truth Eddie carved into the marrow of his bones.
More memories came and went.
He fought, tooth and nail, sometimes literally, sometimes not. His fists had become knots of calluses, the memory of his many battles etched into his skin and bones alike.
His skin, a tapestry of ink and scars over pale, pinkish canvas.
It didn't quite fit. This skin, these bones, those memories - they all felt second-hand, the possessions of another man. He didn't quite feel like the human whose mind had formed around these knots of truth.
In honesty, he didn't quite feel human, at all.
We aren't,
V admitted, their voice unusually soft.
I won't let us die, won't let you die, but ….
But there hadn't been a
human
body for Scream to reclaim, just a thin puddle of oily black, cradled among golden tendrils.
They had fought Knull with all the strength in them, and He broke them before His might. What remained of them fit entirely in Scream's cupped palms.
It took far too long for them to recall Venom, and longer still to puzzle out what Venom even was.
Blue uniforms -
we do NOT eat cops!
- dragged Scream back, silent tears flowing from obsidian eyes. Their offspring allowed the restraints, but only because they could not bring themself to fight.
"Please be okay. Please. Need you."
And yet …
Eddie had died once already. His heart had fallen silent, sliced cleanly in half by Riot's overly-large Compensation Sword. He'd accepted death, then, let himself go.
It was Venom who brought him back.
V needed him, because without him, everything they'd done lost all meaning.
Eddie Brock hadn't been human, not really, not since he plunged headfirst into the San Francisco bay. He could adapt to whatever he had become. He could do this, not for his own sake, but for everyone who still needed him.
Something in him slotted into place, with that acceptance. He had been Catholic, he remembered, and though most of it was probably bullshit, he still sort of believed in the idea of a soul. Perhaps that was it, then, his soul, the metaphysical aspect of Eddie Brock, coming to rest in its newly-furnished home, anchored once more to the land of the living.
If you replace all the pieces, is it still the same ship?
Does it matter to the sailor, if the alternative is drowning at sea?
He thinks not, and so, Eddie opens his eyes.
It's nice, for a hospital, that's the first thing Eddie's mind can come up with.
He hadn't exactly spent all that much time in hospitals as a general rule - before Venom, he couldn't begin to afford it, and now, he was pretty sure they were functionally immortal. That was something his brain didn't want to fully wrap itself around just yet; Eddie wasn't entirely sure he knew how to deal with it.
(How had he gone from contemplating suicide to being literally unable to die? It didn't make sense, but then, nothing did, anymore.)
"Oh!" Dan looked up from the magazine he'd been reading, some health journal or other. "You're awake - how do you feel?"
His tongue felt thick and clumsy, at first, but he remembered how to create words. "Like we got run over by a truck driven by a dragon god, to be honest." He groaned. "I - we remember - where's Dawn?"
"About that …"
Dan looked down and away, teeth pulling at his lower lip.
He'd been staying with Anne, in D.C., to support her through challenging the Accords, and now he was here with Eddie, wherever 'here' was.
Moved us,
V confirmed, their voice weary.
Not sure ….
"The good news is that the Raft - that's this maximum security prison, it was designed for enhanced people? It's out in international waters, very shady, right?"
Eddie nodded, slowly. "I'm familiar." He had done the required reading after all: that was sort of why he, himself, had declined to sign the Accords.
"Well, after Captain America broke in to free his allies, it called international attention to some of the abuses going on there, and the whole facility is under review, since, well. He might be a fugitive, now, but he's still
Captain America,
you know?"
A wry smile tugged at Eddie's lips. "You get a certain amount of leeway after you save the world a couple of times, I guess. Provided people know about it, anyway."
"Right, so, the good news is that Dawn isn't
there,
and Scream is playing nicely with the authorities."
Which meant …
"The bad news is that they were brought in for being an enhanced person at the scene of a major altercation, and they continue to refuse to sign the Accords despite their obvious power."
Our offspring,
V purred, pleased at the youths' resilience.
Eddie nodded slowly. "They want to control us - all of us. Don't they."
"That's about the shape of it, yeah. As soon as word gets out you're awake, I expect you'll have visitors."
Eddie Brock had never in his entire life been a wise man.
His first instinct, upon hearing that news, was to escape. He wouldn't act on that instinct just yet - he wasn't quite ready for life as an international fugitive - but the temptation was real and present. No part of Venom wanted to find themselves in another goddamn cage.
Never again.
If we can help it.
The thing was, If he'd learned anything, over the course of his rather checkered career in journalism, it was this: no government in the world could be trusted with the kind of power even one symbiote represented.
Even - perhaps especially - the United States.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
They suspected there had been a lot of discussion about how to properly restrain something like them, but it was pretty clear that Mr. Stark hadn't been involved. He would have done a better job; he knew what it would take.
Which meant that the heavy shackles - metal, encasing their arms from the elbow down - were next to useless, a nuisance at best.
Similarly heavy chains shackled their ankles together, limiting their movement so long as they remained Dawn.
They understood, they
did.
The humans were afraid of their power, their potential, their refusal to submit.
That didn't make it any less insulting.
Dawn hung her head meekly. For all that her parents had never resorted to such restraints, she knew well what the powerful expected of the obedient.
Sunny seethed. They didn't understand why this farce was necessary. Dawn flinched away from all the eyes focused upon her, and they yearned to lash out. Only her insistence that it must be so kept Scream at bay, and even then, only just.
Dawn took a deep breath, looking out across the sea of humanity that had come to witness this humiliation.
"For God's sake," Mr. Foggy exclaimed, to see them. His outrage mollified Sunny's low anger, at least somewhat. Not all humans gave into their fear. "This is - Christ, I'm sorry." He turned to the guard that had escorted them into the room. "Our client is not even accused of any violent crimes. I demand that this - this idiocy be removed."
The man shifted, uncertainly. "She's dangerous - "
"To who? Dawn, if he got rid of this mess, would you do anything violent?"
They shook their head, solemnly.
"Swear it, please? For the record."
Sunny seethed. Dawn offered a thin smile. He was trying to help, after all. Him and Mr. Murdock both. "We swear, won't harm anyone who doesn't harm us."
So many eyes. The chains fell, heavy, on the table, and Scream inspected them, rubbing at their wrists.
Murmurs rose, indistinct, from the observers. They pretended not to notice, taking their seat as instructed. All eyes had fallen upon them.
A dull roar rose at the back of Dawn's mind, and they did their best to ignore it.
"Please state your name for the record." She looked up and out, toward the voice. It belonged to a nice-looking, oldish man, with dark skin.
Okay. Okay. "Dawn A. Brock, sir."
In a lot of ways, it felt like the trial was moving without her. Everything was going faster than Dawn could easily perceive, and she shrunk in on herself more and more as the voices raised, to defend, to attack, to assert. Sunny watched every move, though, keeping track of everything with sharp intent.
This battle could not be won with teeth or talons, but it
was
a battle, all the same.
Dr. Lecter confirmed that together, at least, they were competent to stand trial. With Dawn's psychiatric history, it had been a concern - and, although it might have been easier to take an insanity plea, there was a more important victory to be won.
Mr. Murdock, the secret devil, smiled with mischief, as he asked nicely if they could please show the court how Sunny is, because after all, there were two defendants here. They knew the play here, because it had been discussed; this would show just how ill-equipped the court was to handle this new world.
"Okay," Dawn replied, voice small.
Even Mr. Foggy gasped, as gold poured through her skin, forming into Scream's shape - separate, connected only by threads of gold.
Strong hands pressed gentle, but firm, on Dawn's shoulders, grounding her. Sunny stood behind her, but they were not gone. They would always be a part of her, the stronger part.
Always.
(Mr. Foggy managed to calm his racing heart, and even gave them a shaky smile. He was really nice.)
The devil-man was earnest, as he talked, honest and a little bit tired. "You see, the question at hand is not whether our enhanced population counts as human. In the case of Thor, for instance, or my client's symbiotic partner, that is a moot point. What we must now decide is how we should embrace these individuals. Will we greet them as equals, as the friends and protectors our world needs - or will we continue to treat these would-be saviors as property, to be used and discarded as our esteemed governments see fit? That is the question we must ask ourselves."
He turned toward them. "Dawn, Sunny. You were arrested at the scene of a major altercation. In your own words, could you describe what transpired that evening?"
The story had been presented once already, Sunny remembered. Now, it was their turn to tell it as they had experienced it.
Dawn nodded, slowly, inspecting the table. "We noticed something missing, sir. Our parents, we can feel them in our, um, our head, and they disappeared, all at once - so we had to investigate, they've gotten hurt before. And we're strong, you know, if something happened, we could help, so we went, and there was a dragon."
She didn't really look up from her hands, for this, but the little microphone caught her words.
The microphone wasn't necessary for Sunny. They drew on the new memories they'd collected from the greater hive, knowledge that Knull had willingly granted. After all, he'd thought to convert them.
"Grendel. One of the eldest of my kind, a - general, as you'd say - sent to Earth to destroy, to kill, and draw out Asgard to defend her borders. Thor struck them down once before, but now they are returned, commanded by Knull. He is - it translates to God, creator of my people and destroyer to everything else."
"To clarify, what did you plan to do with the dragon?"
She frowned, looking back at Sunny. Her hand came up, fingers weaving between blood-red talons. "We got his attention. While Knull was lecturing us, him and the dragon - they weren't hurting anybody else." She nibbled her lip, inspecting the table and trying not to think of icy talons at her throat. The Lord of the Abyss had no feverish mortal host, after all - outside of the dragon, he became cold as the void he presided over. "So, as far as the
plan
goes, I decided to stall him, because he thought we were interesting, and there's lots of people with the right kind of weapons to
really
fight against him, if they could catch him off-guard."
"So, you were effectively trying to deescalate the situation?"
She tilted her head. "De-what now?"
"To defuse it, to - reduce the damage that would be caused."
An uncertain shrug. "Can you defuse a hurricane? We were there to keep him busy and find our parents. Knull wants to break everything; he doesn't like any part of Creation. Until he's stopped, he's just gonna keep trying to kill everything."
"Thank you, Dawn." He turned to the rest of the room. "To reiterate, my clients walked into this deadly confrontation, at great personal risk, to buy humanity - to buy
us
- enough time to mount a defense against this enemy." He made a show of touching things, finding things with his hands. Mr. Murdock was, after all, blind. "Now, Dawn, after this - Knull - was interrupted, what happened?"
She looked back to Sunny, uncertainly.
"He threw us,"
they said bluntly.
"We hit a car. Couldn't stop in time - the car broke - but we did what we could to cushion the humans inside. To keep everybody safe, like our parents would want."
"And then?"
Sunny's maw pulled into a tight smirk.
"And then one of them shot us. We caught the bullet, dropped it. Would be bad if it ricocheted and hurt somebody by accident. They didn't know what to do about that, so while they figured it out, we went and saved our parents."
"Thank you, Dawn. Thank you, Sunny. No further questions, Your Honor."
There were more questions, of course. But Mr. Murdock didn't ask them. They answered as well as they could, Sunny answering even the most basic questions with a degree of patience Dawn didn't realize they
had.
And then the questions stopped, at least for Scream, and they could finally collapse back into their seat, drained and miserable. Sunny wrapped around Dawn's shoulders like a shawl, keeping her together as well as they could, but they were tired, too.
Honestly. If they didn't know the stakes, they would have preferred to be locked away, kept isolated from all the staring eyes, at least until hunger set in. Being watched was a kind of torture for Dawn, and she felt herself hiding behind her hair.
"You did great - both of you." Mr. Foggy patted her shoulder, gently, very carefully not touching Sunny.
A single thin tendril reached out to pat his hand, in turn, and Dawn offered an exhausted thumbs-up. Words were well beyond them, at this point.
Hopefully, they'd made their case.
If not?
Well, if not, they
did
know how to disappear.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
In all his existence, Knull had never known a race to prove quite so irritating as humanity. Stronger species might be a more credible threat - Asgard's warriors boasted both might and magic - but humans, for all their fragility, were a terribly persistent sort of nuisance.
They just refused to give up once they'd been beaten.
Grendel required a feast to keep up their strength, and he required their strength to reclaim his wayward general and leave this awful backwater planet for something a bit more amenable to conquest.
(Technically, his physical form remained safely trapped within the hive-world of the Klyntar - but his children would bow to his might soon enough. He would be properly freed from the cage they'd formed for him soon enough, and then he could purge the light from every corner of his domain.)
But. Grendel required a feast.
Humans trapped one another, enslaving their rebellious kin within walls of steel and stone. He had figured the 'prison' would be a banquet, and the fugitives who might escape would further fracture humanity's might.
Even the
incarcerated
apes proved to be more trouble than they were worth. One of their victims got in a lucky strike; it took more effort than Knull would have liked to expend in order to repair a punctured eye.
If the humans had allowed that kind of time, Knull would have dearly loved to show that man his still-beating heart. Instead, Grendel swallowed his flailing body in two large bites, and they moved on to less fortified pastures.
Anywhere they thought to pause, they were met with violence: humanity, it seemed, preferred to face their deaths with indignant rage and primitive, kinetic rifles.
The injuries they sustained were painful, but given time to digest their meal, they would be inconsequential.
Time waited for
some
creatures, but Knull was not among those prestigious few. Before Grendel had a proper chance to recuperate, their target showed his hand.
Knull would have preferred 'Rex' to come peacefully. He was, however, becoming used to disappointment. His wayward general was nearly
bleached,
so suffused with light had he become. The gentle shiver of sensation, subtly plucking at the hive mind of the Klyntar, was almost certainly a trap.
Humans, after all, refused to submit, and his general had come to emulate this foolhardy, fragile species in body and mind.
Very well.
He would show no mercy - after all, he needed his servants' power more than he needed
them.
Rex stood alone atop a human building, defiantly upright when Grendel landed before him.
"Come with me,"
Knull commanded, with the Voice his servants could do no other than obey.
A small human, a female by her stature, stepped out. Beneath her skin, a youth stirred, wary, before settling. "Yeah, no, that's not happening. So, that's a dragon?" She tilted her head to the side. "I figured it'd be bigger, to be honest."
"Do you let this human speak for you?"
He snarled, and drew on Grendel's might. If his children refused to kneel willingly, he would
make
them.
Magic shone around the little human, as she stepped forward, between Knull and his prize. "I speak for
me.
If Rex had anything to say to you, he'd say it himself."
His servant
laughed,
a rough, braying sound. It broke the feeble grasp Knull had claimed upon his mind. "Your entire species is insane, you know that, right?"
"Little bit." She made an odd gesture with her fingers.
Something small and sharp struck Grendel's chest. An … arrow? How utterly primitive. There had been archers when Grendel had first arrived upon this watery rock.
Massive claws snatched at the protrusion, ripping it free and snapping it in half.
The arrow beeped.
It split, then split again, each fragment growing legs and clambering across Grendel's flesh. They burrowed in, resisting all of his efforts to expel the little metal shards.
All of the fragments were beeping, now, an irritating little noise coming from every direction.
A low humming sound surrounded his general and the human woman. She bared her teeth in a threat display, flicking her fingers at him in a taunting sort of fashion.
Grendel lunged forward, and the world exploded in pain, incandescent light pierced through with a constant shriek. The sound assailed his host from all sides, until Grendel collapsed into a pile of ooze and bone.
Knull surged forward, gathering his own might in a tidal wave of black fury.
He would claim his general.
He would escape his prison.
Rex allowed himself to be absorbed, swirling around the tattered fragments that yet remained of the other generals. Their minds and wills had long since broken under Knull's own, leaving them subservient to him in all things.
Before he fully grasped what was happening, their shared mass had moved, down from the rooftop, a swirling vortex of violent shadows.
The Klyntar did the unthinkable. Rex's consciousness, his unbroken will, formed a rallying point. His lost siblings helped him to drag their master, unwilling, to the caged flame within the building.
Knull had faced humans in battle. This was a bitterly human tactic, and he recognized it even as Grendel screamed their agony.
Humans, when facing certain death, would do anything to destroy the one who would kill them.
It served no purpose, it made no sense. Even given the choice to survive, so many of them preferred to kill themselves if only to land one final blow.
The word is spite, asshole,
Rex's voice held an edge of pain, as he struggled to contain Knull, forcing his mass into the flame.
Look it up.
Grendel burned away, leaving only Rex and Knull.
Too late, they noticed - they recognized - the magic on the woman's hands. Ice cold, shielded from the flame, they caught the trailing end of Rex's essence.
Then, Knull was alone in the furnace, his consciousness held by waning scraps of power, and despite his best efforts, he couldn't force his way free.
On a small planet, so far from Earth that Sol's light was not even distantly visible, Knull opened his eyes in darkness.
Pearlescent eyespots shone from a hundred thousand points around him: the unblinking, unmoving masks of his disinterested jailers. The Klyntar who had chosen to serve as his cage were the most powerful - those with the strongest wills, and those who had lost the taste for violence. He could offer them nothing they wanted; he remained trapped.
A low groan escaped his throat, and his head thumped back against the hard, stone floor.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Nicholas J. Fury had made many mistakes in his life. Some of the most damning had come from putting his faith in the wrong people.
So, there had been an idea, a notion that this team of his could fight the battles that needed to be fought. These exceptional people - these heroes - could shield the planet from the kind of threats that Earth as a whole just wasn't yet ready for.
It was a good idea. So far, they'd proven him right.
He knew what the Klyntar were capable of; a
fraction
of their potential had changed the face of covert warfare for years. They'd served as weapons - super suits that granted any soldier the strength and speed to defeat basically any threat they encountered.
But - well. There had been complications. The suits were alive, aware, and pissed off. That was
why
they'd needed to impose all those limitations, after all.
When it became obvious that they couldn't be controlled forever, he'd ordered them destroyed, going so far as to arrange at least one of the executions, himself. Hydra, of course, had other plans. He had learned, far too late, that some of the suits - some of the soldiers - had survived. They'd been contained, studied, and tortured, until Hydra's fall.
Agent Romanoff had revealed that information, along with everything else. He was proud, in a way, of how far she'd come. In the time she'd served under him, her commitment to the greater good had never once wavered. When the system itself was corrupt, she tore down the system.
It did make his life more inconvenient, by far - but he was a grown man. He could do pride and annoyance at the same time.
So. He knew just how dangerous these aliens could be. He'd seen their power firsthand, and even crippled by the suppressants, they were horrifyingly lethal. This seemed like exactly the kind of threat that his little team would identify and eliminate, saving him the trouble of having to get involved.
Thing was, every last one of them had pretty much decided to let well enough alone.
Nick Fury had put his faith in his people before. Sometimes, it paid off. Sometimes, it bit him in the ass. He wasn't interested in surprises at this point: he called in an expert. If it was a situation like Romanoff - well, that would be great. Better these things were working for Earth, rather than against it.
If it was another HYDRA, though ….
"Trust me, if it's a problem - well, it won't be for long." Carol smiled grimly, heat visibly rising from her fingertips. "I've dealt with Klyntar before - they're tough, but I'm tougher."
Nick would have liked to catch the pair by surprise, but according to Carol - and his own observations - that was basically impossible.
He knocked. It was polite.
"Ah, hell - uh, come in?" The man was stuffing a bar of chocolate into his mouth, still wearing a cheap hospital gown. "You're, uh - Fury! Right, Nick Fury, I did some digging after the SHIELD collapsed - I take it you're here about my, uh, partner?"
Brock sounded nervous, a bit on edge. One of his eyes twitched slightly at something, and he kept glancing toward Carol. Did he know what she was? "Why don't you tell me a bit about your 'partner,'" Fury asked, keeping his expression level. No need to provoke the extraterrestrial goo monster, after all.
"Why don't
you
tell
us
about the Kree?"
A low, rumbling growl escaped from the vicinity of Brock's chest, thick ropes of black slime twisting around him before forming into an oblong face with a disproportionately long tongue. White, pupilless eyes narrowed as the creature glared daggers at her, dripping fangs bared.
"She is the greater danger -
we
only hurt bad guys."
Carol held up her hands, calmly, though little flickers of heat danced at her fingertips. "Cool it, tar-face, I'm not with the Empire."
This brought the monster up short. Its head twisted over, under, and around, not limited by such trivialities as a spine or any kind of logically-arranged physique. The white eyespots turned toward its host, whose own turned glassy and distant for a moment.
"Wait, you're an alien?" The journalist looked incredulous, at this, fixing his attention on Carol. His left hand came up, absently caressing the inky tendrils of the creature, as though to highlight the absurdity of his question.
Fury restrained the urge to laugh. Carol's lips twisted into a smirk. "Hell of a question from the guy with the extraterrestrial tapeworm, but - yeah, kind of. A bit like you are, actually - somebody put something in me, and I stopped being just human. Only, for me, it was a little old blood transfusion, not a full-grown Klyntar."
"Now that the pleasantries are out of the way?" Three sets of eyes turned toward him. "Mr. Brock - you should know that the whole world is watching you and your little girl right now. Her trial is going to change this planet as we know it - for better or worse. So, before it's over, we're going to ask you a few questions."
He spread his arms wide, a hint of a smirk on his lips. Black ink twisted protectively around intricately-tattooed arms, as the symbiote narrowed its eyes further. "Well, when you put it that way, sounds like we just can't refuse."
Carol stepped back, watching - her job was to gauge whether or not the pair would be a danger to the world, or if this nest of Klyntar truly were capable of somehow working with their hosts.
And, of course, to kill the creature if it decided to attack either of them.
"See, you're acting like you're the one who's been wronged, but the way I see it, you're harboring a dangerous parasite - " Said parasite let out a low, rumbling growl - "that could wipe out this city just as certainly as any nuke. Tell me I'm wrong."
Brock tilted his head to the side, looking over at the tarry monster climbing his shoulders like vines on a trellis. "You're not," he said bluntly, twining his fingers through the thin, black tendrils. "If we wanted to go that route, about the only thing that could take us out would be the Avengers, yeah, but we don't."
"Not parasites,"
the creature rumbled, its attention apparently caught by the man's fingers scraping against what passed for its skull.
"Parasites only take from their hosts, give nothing back. Our hive believed that was the only choice. It is not."
Eddie smiled softly, pressing his lips against the monster's forehead, and - oh. Well. Fury felt one eyebrow lift at the intimate gesture, but it explained more than it didn't. "So, you two …"
"V is my
partner,"
Eddie stressed the word. "They've saved my life more times than I'd really like to count, and in exchange, I make sure they've got whatever they need to stay alive. We're in this,
together,
because both of us want to be."
A moment of silence stretched between them. "And your daughter? Or the other girl, Leslie?"
"Leslie has her own reasons, I'm sure. I don't think anybody could make her do something she didn't want to do, at this point, and Abby adores her." He shrugged. "They're good. As for Dawn and Sunny - I honestly don't know if they could handle being separated at this point."
"We think not."
The symbiote looked oddly contemplative.
"Dawn's brain is sick. Sunny fills in the missing pieces. It is irrelevant; like us, they cannot be removed."
He considered. Given the way the conversation had been going, that revelation didn't change much. "One last question, and then we'll let you get back to your … meal." If the twelve chocolate bars and three discarded wrappers truly counted as food, anyway.
"Sure."
How to phrase this? "Your partner, your family - Carol tells me that even one of these 'Klyntar' could wreak havoc on a national scale. How do I know you're not going to make yourselves a problem for me?"
"Well, last I heard your whole superspy gig fell apart, so I don't see how it's your problem in the first place, but assuming it would be - "
The creature interjected.
"We did not prevent Riot from summoning the Swarm so that we could have the planet for ourselves alone. We like humans. You amuse us."
A brief pause.
"Also,
I
love Eddie, and
Eddie
would be upset if we ate any good guys."
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
As much as Foggy loved Matt, he really wished the man would stop insisting on helping vigilantes.
Like, they'd made one hell of a case for Frank Castle, and the man tossed it out to pursue his own agenda. Matt had nearly blown his cover as Daredevil for Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, and that time, he damn-near
died
in the process.
This Dawn kid was cute, but the golden ooze hiding under her skin was pure nightmare fuel. So, even after the court ruled in her favor - a harsh blow against an unjust law - he kept waiting for something to go wrong.
They made it out of the courthouse without incident, only to be met with a veritable sea of reporters.
It had been a high profile case, after all. Between Foggy and Matt, the girl froze, green eyes going huge at the teeming mass of humanity that stood ready to confront them. "Dawn?" He asked, figuring a friendly voice couldn't hurt. "Are you okay?"
Glassy eyes fixed on him. She shook her head, mutely, taking a step back - and vanishing.
Fuck. The crowd clamored at this sudden development.
"Matt? The kid's vanished." Assuming she was just invisible - just!
Invisible!
What even
was
his
life?!
- Matt wouldn't be able to see that she'd disappeared.
Matt's head tilted sideways. He took in a breath and blew it out. In the way he held himself, Foggy guessed he was tracking the girl's movements. His brows knit together - the shouting reporters couldn't be good for his ability to keep tabs on everything around him.
So many of the man's quirks made more sense now that Foggy knew about his enhanced capabilities.
As situations went, this wasn't the worst possible outcome -
One of the reporters let out a cry of surprise, pointing. "Up there!"
"Yes."
It sounded like Dawn, a little bit, overlaid by that melodic voice the alien creature had employed. Turning to look, Foggy spotted the red-and-gold goo-creature crouched above him, clinging effortlessly to the front of the courthouse. It seemed more solid, somehow, than it had before: presumably, Dawn's body was hidden inside the creature's outer shell.
Their words carried effortlessly, echoing over the din of the crowd even though they lacked a microphone.
"Up here. Will say this
once:
if you wish to speak with us, you ask our lawyers. Will speak to one person at a time, or not at all."
Foggy looked out over the crowd, as they all began to talk at once. Honestly, he wasn't surprised when he glanced up to see they'd vanished once more.
"C'mon Tasha, look at me - " Clint lifted his partner - his friend - off the ground where she'd fallen. Her body was unburned, which seemed impossible, given that she'd dipped both hands into the wild inferno of the blast furnace, but something was wrong all the same.
Her eyes were glassy and unfocused, and they stayed that way for several long moments before fixing on him. "Clint? Head - something wrong." She was slurring her words a bit - her mouth barely opened enough for him to guess at what she was trying to say. Hell. He hadn't actually been sure if she'd be awake just yet. Her eyelids fluttered shut, and he was pretty sure she'd fallen unconscious once more.
"Hello?"
He'd turned his hearing aids off for the battle; the reverberating voice was muddy, barely audible at all. Several more muffled syllables passed before he was able to reach up, one-handed, to turn them back on.
"- Widow?"
Violet goo clung upside-down to the ceiling, formed roughly into the shape of a lithe young woman.
"Abby says it's done - oh, shit."
Opalescent eyespots widened, then narrowed, as she peered down at the, what, four of them?
"Oh, shit?" He repeated the expletive, prompting her to elaborate on whatever she could perceive that he couldn't.
She dropped, flipping effortlessly to crouch beside them, pressing her hands gently against Nat's arm. Angry red swirled where she touched, deforming muscle, skin, and leather in a way that made Clint's skin crawl.
"Shh, kiddo, not gonna hurt you. Let us look at Rex, would you?"
The reddish whirlpool stilled, before pushing a muddy brown mass through pale pink skin that glittered with a soft, bluish tint. The moment the brown mass was absorbed by 'Agony's violet ooze, the red retreated.
"Well."
Hearing the sharp inhale only served to remind Clint that these things didn't actually need to breathe.
"Shit. She needs - food, mostly, but - fuck. So, the symbiotes, their instinct is to heal any damage, any trauma their hosts sustain - even mental, that's like, a whole
thing
with Scream, right - "
Clint frowned. "You're babbling. What is it?"
"Rex was in critical condition, himself. Working on instinct. Whatever he was trying to do, it was messing with her head - it's got Red all riled up."
That … didn't sound good. "Won't he just start making a mess for you?"
"Abby's a little more experienced - and between me and the career assassin, who do you really think has more buried trauma, Hawkeye?"
White eyes fixed on him, expression flat.
"Worry about Mrs. Widow here. I'll look after Rex."
He nodded, grimly. "I'll need to make a call."
"You
gave
Thanos the Tesseract!" Thor bellowed, as the oaf so often did, using as little of his intellect as he could manage while still remaining conscious.
Loki would
always
love his brother, but love alone could not blind him to the man's faults.
"'Twas a bargain, for the mad Titan to spare this pitiful gaggle of refugees." Loki thrust his forefinger against Thor's chest. "You are a
king
now, brother. Your peoples' welfare must
always
come before your own pride,
Odinson.
"
His brother, his king, glared daggers. "And when Thanos completes his grand work? What then?"
Loki grinned. "Brother. What makes you so certain that the Tesseract was ever mine to give?"
"You - "
A theatrical sigh passed the trickster's lips. "Ah, you've caught me. I could not have created such a convincing illusion, were it not a shadow of the true Stone." He clapped his hands, smiling brightly. "So! Let's make our way to Midgard
before
he discovers this ruse, shall we?"