I was just about to start fooling around with Mary Jane in the shower when an annoying buzz echoed through the apartment.
"What the hell?" I muttered. Why couldn't I have even an hour alone with my girlfriend? I already had plenty on my plate.
But there was nothing to be done. I quickly dried off, wrapped a towel around my waist, and headed to the door, leaving MJ alone in the bathroom. I was about to greet the unexpected f*cker. Correction, guest. Opening the door, I found a worried Bobbi.
"Peter, I'm sorry to bother you, but I don't know who else to turn to," she said in a rush. "I need help."
"Come in," I sighed. "I'll get dressed. Wait here."
Mary Jane's head poked out from behind the bathroom door. She was clearly trying to decide whether she needed to hurry and finish showering so she wouldn't miss anything.
"Who is it?" she asked.
"It's hard to explain in two words. I'll tell you later."
Dressing in clean clothes, I stopped by the lab on my way out and grabbed the last working web shooter. I had wanted to make a couple of spares, but I only had enough materials for one.
Returning to the living room, I felt an unhealthy atmosphere. On one hand, there was Bobbi, nervously glancing around. On the other hand, there was the source of those awkward looks. Mary Jane had found one of my t shirts and was wearing nothing else. Well, maybe underwear. I couldn't tell yet.
"I didn't have anything to wear. Do you mind?" MJ demonstratively pressed herself against me for a kiss.
As a friend of mine used to say, you shouldn't start worrying when a girl is bouncing on your cock and screaming your name. You should start worrying when she starts trying on your t shirts in the morning and isn't in a hurry to leave. I didn't share his views. Seeing MJ in my shirt only stirred up a different kind of feeling in me.
"Of course, kitten," I said after the kiss. Yes, she wasn't wearing anything under the shirt. I checked.
"So what did you want to talk about?" I turned to Bobbi.
"Peter, I came to you because I trust you, and I have nowhere else to go. But I've never seen her before, and I can't trust her." Bobbi pointed at Mary Jane. Despite her nervousness, there was a firmness in her voice.
"Believe me, MJ doesn't care about the secrets of your gang. Besides, I was planning to tell her what happened."
"No, Peter, this has nothing to do with Cindy's gang. I'm done with that shit. But something happened. I saw what you're capable of. I was hoping you would understand. But this is my personal secret. I can't tell just anyone. And it's dangerous."
"Is it that serious?" Bobbi nodded.
Was she trying to get off drugs? She was probably just embarrassed to talk about her problems in front of strangers.
"MJ," I began, turning around, but she cut me off with a kiss.
"I'll wait for your call," she whispered, pulling away. "Don't forget where we left off."
"Okay, I'll try not to be long," I said, feeling a sudden rush of blood to my groin.
"Phew. This had better be important, Bobbi," I said, turning back, not yet realizing how deep of a shit my acquaintance had gotten herself into.
*
*
*
Bobbi's Story, Including Details Peter Would Never Know
After parting ways with Parker following his daring escape from Cindy's clutches, Bobbi didn't know where to go. Peter assured her he had wiped all her data from Stans's computer and advised her to lay low to avoid the cops working the case.
That made sense, but Peter was a sheltered boy. He didn't understand the game. Only five people could have given the cops a lead on Bobbi. Mumbler and One Two were her old partners. They had started from the bottom together. Bobbi trusted them as much as she trusted herself. Stans was silent because she was in a coma, and there was no point in her snitching. She was a victim, not a criminal. Archie, Cindy's head of security, knew everything about her, but she was a straight shooter. She honored the code. The only possible threat was Cindy. She was facing serious time, and her lawyer would advise her to become an informant. But if that got out, her own people would kill her. Cindy wasn't stupid. She wouldn't set herself up like that.
So Bobbi wasn't too worried about the cops. Then she saw a sign for a firefighter exam in two days. Once upon a time, before she dropped out, little Bobbi had dreamed of becoming a firefighter. She had always been fascinated by the sound of sirens and the stern faces of firefighters. In their stoicism, firefighters were tragic. The reflections of fires played on their faces, fires that were waiting for them somewhere, fires that had already started somewhere. Little Bobbi dreamed of being a firefighter. She wanted to be a hero who saved lives. But adult life had made its corrections. Bobbi forgot her dream and became a small time criminal.
Why not take this chance? Why not start fresh?
Besides the written test, the firefighter exam included a practical part. You had to overcome an obstacle, put out a simulated fire, pull a victim out of a building, and administer first aid.
Bobbi got excited. She decided to go for it. Which meant she needed to prepare.
Stopping by a hardware store, Bobbi bought everything she needed for the practical test. A mechanical stopwatch, a can of gasoline, a fire resistant jumpsuit, and, of course, a victim. An inflatable rubber man.
Loading her purchases into the pickup truck she had stolen from Cindy's estate, Bobbi drove out to a deserted lot. She knew a place that would be perfect for training.
Arriving at an abandoned house, Bobbi started her preparations. She pulled the dummy out of the truck and carried it into the shack. Then she put on her jumpsuit, grabbed the gas can, and soaked the rickety old shed, inside and out.
"No matter what," Bobbi imagined a story, "he was smoking in bed and fell asleep. Go figure."
She lit a match and tossed it into the puddle of gasoline, grinning.
"And there was a fire." She finished with delight.
Once the fire was blazing, she started her stopwatch and rushed inside, shouting.
"No one else go in. This is serious." She grabbed the dummy and dragged it outside. "You're not going to die. I'm here."
Pulling the victim away from the fire, Bobbi began chest compressions.
"Breathe, Peter. Breathe." But Peter wasn't breathing. So Bobbi started mouth to mouth. "He's going to live. He's definitely going to live."
Having finally saved the victim, Bobbi lay back and stopped her stopwatch. Then her attention was caught by a bright, glowing point in the sky. It didn't look like the other stars. Plus, its intensity kept increasing.
"What the hell?" Bobbi wondered.
She finally realized the point wasn't a star, but an asteroid, rapidly approaching Earth.
"God damn it." Forgetting about Peter, Bobbi ran.
Just in time. A few seconds later, the burning shack exploded into a thousand flaming splinters. The shockwave from the meteor impact slammed Bobbi into the side of the truck, and she blacked out. At least she had fared better than poor Peter, who had died in the fire.
*
*
*
Real Time, the Real Peter
"I woke up about half an hour later to the sound of sirens. The cops were already nearby, and I got scared. I ran. They spotted me and chased me, but I lost them by jumping to the other side of the river," Bobbi recounted.
"And the cops didn't follow you?" I asked in surprise.
"That's the thing." Bobbi leaned forward. "That river was about eight meters wide, Peter. That thing they've been showing on TV, it was inside me. It's called Venom. She's a symbiote. I was the first one she bonded with."
My insides clenched. Not this. A fucking Venom in my house, and I only had one goddamn web shooter. I was defenseless against that monster. They had already gone crazy and started eating everyone in sight. I needed to buy some time, make it not worth their while to kill me. And get them away from the house. Get them away from Mary Jane.
"So it's inside you now? What do you want from me?" I swallowed the lump in my throat and asked.
"What? No, you've got it wrong. She's not with me. And you don't have to be afraid of me. Wait, let me explain." Bobbi took a breath, collecting her thoughts. "Basically, Venom didn't talk to me right away. She was badly damaged, barely alive, to be honest. She spent all her energy just crawling from that asteroid to me. I didn't understand what was happening to me. I got scared and went to the hospital where we first met. I thought Stans could explain what was happening, but she was still in a coma."
Memories of how Bobbi had behaved at the hospital during our last meeting flashed through my mind. Damn. Venom had already been inside her then. And I hadn't noticed. I had chalked it up to drugs. In my defense, you couldn't suspect every junkie of finding Richard's secret development. Wait, she said Venom had crawled from an asteroid to get to her. That was important.
"Wait," I said, collecting my thoughts. "You said an asteroid fell on the shack."
"Well, that's what I thought at first. But it wasn't an asteroid. It was a piece of a ship. The one Venom was traveling on. She's an alien."
"She told you that herself, or is that your theory?"
"If you'd stop interrupting, you'd find out soon enough," Bobbi snapped. "Basically, skipping the boring details, after I spent half my money on food and got some sleep, Venom spoke to me. She told me a bit about her race. They're peaceful creatures. It's in their genes. They need a host to bond with. They give the host protection, abilities, and the host gives them..."
"A place to live and food," I suggested.
"It's unpleasant to think of yourself as a place to live, but yes, you're right. Anyway, we found some common ground. And then the problems started."
I chuckled, imagining what kind of problems Venom could cause. Thanks to reporters and witnesses, the whole city already knew. But Bobbi meant something else.
"Venom started getting weak. Something happened to her when she crashed. She was dying, and we couldn't figure out why."
"Maybe you were the wrong host?" I suggested.
"No," Bobbi snapped, then, embarrassed, continued more calmly. "Venom said she was lucky to have me. That she had never had such a compatible host. It was something else. I remembered Stans, and we thought she could help. We went back to the hospital. Venom examined Stans and said she would wake up in a week. But we couldn't wait that long. Venom would have died by then. Basically, Venom managed to speed up her recovery, but it cost her the last of her strength. She went silent. I haven't heard her voice since, but I could still use her powers when I needed to."
"A quiet, calm symbiote that follows its host's commands," I whistled. "A miracle."
"I told Stans everything. She promised to help. We used the hospital equipment to figure out what was wrong with Venom. No, we didn't kill anyone." Seeing my expression, Bobbi clarified. "Basically, Stans said she understood the problem and injected me with something. Then things got weird. Venom seemed to go crazy. She screamed terribly, and she was peeling away from me. It was very painful. I blacked out. When I woke up, there were bodies everywhere. From the room where I had been lying to the exit, there was a bloody trail. Venom had gone that way. In the lobby, there was a whole platoon of soldiers. All of them had had their heads bitten off. But Stans wasn't among the dead. I think she messed up again, and then she and Venom merged. Venom and Stans are killing people. The military and that woman in red are after them. I don't know what to do, Peter. I feel like I have to help."
"Phew," I sighed with relief when she finally finished. "I think it's better to let the military and Deadpool handle this. They don't need your help."
"No, you don't understand. I want to help Venom. She didn't want to kill anyone. Everything was fine when she was with me. Peter, I was hoping you could find a way to restore her sanity. She's suffering, Peter. I have to help her, but I don't know how."
Wow. I leaned back on the couch, thinking about what I had just heard. Venom's host was worried about the symbiote that had left her. She wanted to help a friendly Venom. A friendly Venom from a race of friendly symbiotes. Ha. Aliens on Earth. The only alien contact I remembered from my past world had ended with me ending up in this one. I was more inclined to believe that Venom had used Bobbi to find the perfect host, one that could match its aggression. And that story about aliens was complete bullshit. A consciousness born within this system could come up with something like that.
"Bobbi, I have bad news for you," I began cautiously. "Let's say Venom really is an alien who needs a host for symbiosis. Although I can't imagine how such a life form could have evolved naturally. Symbiotic creatures usually let all unnecessary functions atrophy. And if a parasite has developed intelligence, it doesn't need an intelligent host. It needs a slave. Your behavior speaks for itself."
"No. I'm in my right mind. Peter, you don't understand. Venom never did anything bad to me. Believe me." Bobbi immediately started trying to convince me otherwise.
"Okay, okay, let's say I believe you. But you can't deny that such a symbiote would spend its whole life searching for the perfect host. That must be the basis of its existence, right?"
"I... yes, that makes sense," the girl agreed, not seeing the trap in my logic.
"What happens when Venom finds a better host than the current one?" Bobbi fell silent.
"Let me draw an analogy. Remember Mumbler's great story?" Bobbi looked at me blankly, so I clarified. "The one about the girlfriend with the rubber dick."
"Oh, right."
"How did that end?" Without waiting for an answer, I continued. "The girlfriend dumps Mumbler for a real man. So, who are you in this story?"
Bobbi thought about it, drawing parallels, trying to figure out where I was going.
"Are you saying I'm Mumbler, and Venom is the girlfriend who found a better partner?" she guessed.
"No, Bobbi, you're not Mumbler. You're the rubber dick. You're the temporary replacement she used while looking for a real dick."
"I get it. You're saying that even if we save Venom, she won't stay with me forever. She'll ditch me as soon as she finds a better host?" Bobbi challenged. "I understand that. But I still want to save her. And Stans too. They're not villains, Peter. They can still be saved."
"I hope so." I thought about it. What should I do in this situation? This world was throwing new problems at me even faster than my old one. "Wait here. No, better go make us some coffee."
Returning to my lab, which had expanded thanks to the equipment I had taken from Connors, I started thinking about the situation while simultaneously assembling a new pair of web shooters. Working with my hands helped me focus.
So, putting all the facts together, I came to the following conclusions.
I didn't know what Venom was. She could be a complete psychopath or a friendly symbiote driven crazy by another of Stans's mistakes. I also didn't know her weaknesses. Was she vulnerable to the same sound frequencies as my father's creation in my past world, or did she not care about noise at all? Bobbi didn't know. Venom was already being hunted by the military, possibly even SHIELD. Deadpool was also after her. Lady Deadpool. Who also had some kind of poison that could stop the symbiote. Someone had hired her. Someone who knew about this world's symbiotes, since they had poison that could take one down. Deadpool also had a teleportation device. I would love to get a look at that.
I also didn't know how quickly Gwen would deal with Reptilia. But I was sure that once she had webs, she would go after Venom again. Venom might start stalking her just like it had stalked me in my past life. Maybe I shouldn't have given her the web shooters.
I looked at the finished pair of web shooters in my hands. They were different. One was from the first batch, identical to the ones I had given Gwen. The other had an additional feature. I thought I could use a trump card. For example, some conductive webbing for my homemade taser, which had been gathering dust anyway. I didn't have the time or resources for anything more. It wouldn't help against Venom, of course, but it would stop someone like Deadpool for a few seconds. Regeneration doesn't help when your muscles are contracting involuntarily. After that, regular webbing would hold her. I remembered that crazy bitch. You never knew what stupid thing she would do next, listening to the voices in her crazy head.
"Get ready, Bobbi. We're going shopping. Do you have money?" I called out, returning to the kitchen. "Oh, my coffee. Thanks. Fuck, it's cold."
On the way back from the supermarket, we ran into an unexpected obstacle.
"Okay, universe, here I am. Your tool. Give me a sign." Deadpool was standing in the middle of the road, arms outstretched, head tilted toward the sky.
Passersby were already glancing at her, and drivers were shouting curses at the mercenary, who was blocking traffic.
I didn't know whether to be happy or not. Judging by what I could see, this version of the talkative mercenary was just as crazy as the old one. But she was the perfect candidate to use as bait. I still didn't know why she wanted Venom. If our intentions regarding the symbiote diverged...
"Um, universe, were you trying to give me a sign?" Deadpool asked after standing there for a minute.
I got out of the car and walked up to Deadpool.
"I'm not the universe, but I can point you toward Venom, if that's what you're interested in."
"Holy shit. It worked."