Chapter 12: Confrontations

Peter walked about the living room, lost in thoughts. Richards was busy looking into Peter’s microscope at his study desk, the dead suit lying on far left side of the desk. Richards continued to look through the eyepieces as he observed the sample of the alien. The cells did not show any signs of life; some appeared to have yellow stains in them, probably from the serum. All the while Mary Jane sat staring at the two, feeling useless. After all, there was not much she could do except worry about Peter who, by the way, seemed all better now. She got up and walked into the kitchen. Peter looked at her as if he hadn’t seen her for a long time, not as he used to under normal days. He followed her there, and she was just standing there at the counter, staring down at the sink.

“MJ,” Peter said softly. “You okay?”

She had tears in her eyes which she tried to hide with best of her abilities. But Peter knew her well. He walked up to her and put his right hand on her shoulder. Mary Jane embraced him as she cried openly now, tears trickling down her red cheeks.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Peter comforted her by sliding his hand on her back very gently, again and again. “It is all over.”

“I am just glad you’re alright, Peter. I felt so scared. I thought I might lose you forever.”

“It’s not that easy to get rid of me,” Peter joked, giving her a smile. Mary Jane slapped him on his arm for that. “Sorry.”

“Why don’t you give this all up? We could live our life without Spider-Man.”

“We’ve have discussed this before, MJ. I know it can seem pretty tough at times, but this is something we can’t give up, not like this.”

Mary Jane sobbed. She nodded, knowing it was useless to convince him of giving up being Spider-Man.

“I can’t say how much it means to me that you stood by me after all that I said,” Peter said, his tone was apologetic. “Forgive me, Mary Jane.”

“Oh, Peter.”

They both embraced each other; Peter too had tears in his eyes now. Just as they were about to kiss, Richards walked in, interrupting the moment. “Whoops!” He apologized and stepped back out. Peter and Mary Jane just gave each other a warm smile, as she wiped the tears with her hand.

“What did you find?” Peter asked Richards when he walked into his room. He sat on the chair next to the study desk. Mary Jane stood right behind Peter.

“Well, you see, even before I injected the suit with the first dose of the serum, it was already dying. The serum caused it to separate from your mind and thus accelerating the time of death because it no longer had the means to feed on or live on.”

“But isn’t this all a good thing,” Mary Jane suggested. “I mean if that awful thing is dead, there is no danger from it.”

“You have a point,” Richards said, cracking his knuckles as he thought about the situation in front of him. “But how did it just die?”

“Maybe it failed to bond with me successfully?” Peter said to himself more than he did to Richards. “Maybe I never actually accepted it; subconsciously. But after I dropped Jameson, I was sure that would be it.”

“I don’t know Peter,” Richards said. “Perhaps it was the replication process. You know how sometimes when a mother births a child; sometimes it’s not possible for both to survive. Maybe it’s the same situation here.”

“Perhaps, but we have got bigger things to worry about now. Like that other Spider-Man and Tony’s going after him. We’ve got to find them!”

In some forgotten part of the city…

Venom lunged at Iron-Man, sending both of them through the brick wall into the next room. He was too fast for Iron-Man for he disappeared for one quick second and sneaked up on him and kicked him on his back. Drops of blood gushed out of his cracked helmet. Iron-Man had taken that time to ready his concentrated laser weapon in his right hand piece. As Venom lunged at him again, he dropped on his back to evade the attack and fired the laser as he went over him. The laser fazed him a little but didn’t stop him from attacking, like a mad dog he got up much too quickly and fired black webbing at his laser weapon, pulling it apart.

Iron-Man used his jets to boost towards Venom sending him through another brick wall. He waited for him to come running at him back through the hole in the wall but he didn’t. The room in which he landed was darkened so nothing inside was visible, Iron-Man waited and waited but he didn’t come. He felt in his guts something was wrong. Suddenly he fell on his back and was wrapped around by black tentacles; Venom had sneaked up on him again. “How the hell…?” Iron-Man cried out, surprised.

“I can extend limbs from my suit, does your suit has that capability?” Venom asked, laughing menacingly. He retracted his tentacles while also tying Iron-Man in his webbing, and holding him upside down in front of him.

“No,” Iron-Man responded, while still being suspended upside down by Venom. “But it can do this!”

“Yeah, do what?” Venom asked. Nothing happened. “Do wha...ah…AAARRRRGGGH!”

Venom shouted at the top of his lungs, releasing his hold on Iron-Man and dropping him.

“You bastard, you tried to burn me!” Venom shouted at him, rubbing his right arm.

“I know how you can’t take immense heat.”

“See how you take this!”

Iron-Man, even though he saw it, could not evade Venom’s attack for he had extended numerous limbs from his suit that came from every corner, which bounded his arms and legs. Venom swung the bounded Iron-Man around a full 360 degrees, finally releasing him as he went through the wall and fell out the building four storey’s down. Venom looked down through the hole in the wall at the still body of Iron-Man. He jumped down straight towards him, but Iron-Man quickly rolled aside. Venom fell hard on the ground, dazed for couple of seconds but recovering quickly.

“You know,” Iron-Man said, trying to catch his breath for his suit had suffered quite a lot of damage. His helmet view gave him the description of the extensive damage that suit had suffered. “What I can’t figure is if you know who Spider-Man is, why didn’t you make it public?”

“I want him to myself,” Venom said, not leaving his guard down if Iron-man tried something as they talked. “Besides, making this public would be troublesome for all of us.”

“Well I can’t argue with that.”

Venom fired a web-line, but Iron-Man was quick this time to avoid it but in that moment he had fired a second web-line that caught him by the throat. He was pulled towards Venom, choking as he did.

“Now, tell me where is Peter!” Venom demanded, choking him harder. Iron-Man pointed towards his throat. “Oh, yeah, right.”

After Venom loosened the grip, Iron-Man took in huge breath of air and said “Go ta hell, you slime!”

Venom now enraged, punched Iron-Man in the chest hard enough for it crack. He continued to punch him until Iron-Man groaned from pain. “I swear I’ll kill you if don’t tell me where he is.”

Iron-Man was too beaten to respond in anyway. Venom released him and he dropped to the ground, not moving at all. Venom stood there thinking about something. “I can try his apartment but even he isn’t stupid enough to go there. It would be too obvious,” he murmured under his breath. He started grinning. “But than again, sometimes the most obvious place is the place to look. I’ll check it out after I take care of personal business.”