With a heavy groan, Stans began to regain consciousness. Judging by her appearance, she felt terrible. Besides the accelerated aging I had already noticed, the lack of hair on half her skull and the yellow sclerae of her eyes, shot through with bright red capillaries, were striking.
"What happened?" Stans barely whispered. Then she saw Bobbi's worried face. "Bobbi?"
"It's okay, Doc," the girl tried to comfort her. "We got you out. Don't worry."
"What's the last thing you remember?" I asked.
Stans shifted her confused gaze to me, then looked around, noticed Deadpool, but didn't react to the half woman with a face like Freddy Krueger.
"That creature in the hospital. It went crazy and attacked me. Then nothing. I can't remember anything."
"I see." I thought about it. Was the accelerated aging the symbiote's doing, or was it a side effect of her experiments with the super soldier formula? "Either way, you need to be examined and taken to a hospital."
Our pleasant conversation was interrupted by the click of a hammer.
"Step away from her, little girl." Deadpool grinned. She was holding a pistol in her good hand, leaning on a chair with her injured one.
Bobbi saw the gun pointed at her. She was scared, but she didn't abandon her friend. Instead, she shielded Stans with her body.
"What are you doing?" I asked, stepping aside to get out of the line of fire.
"This isn't a Q and A session. Move it, Bobbi. Don't tempt fate. You know my rule. Shoot first, think later. And now it's time to shoot." Deadpool's anger grew. "Move," she barked.
Bobbi flinched and started to step aside. But then she choked, and her body twisted back. A moment ago, Stans had looked like a frail old woman. Now she was easily on her feet, using Bobbi's body as a shield against Deadpool.
"How you annoy me, you stupid bitch," Stans hissed from behind Bobbi's shoulder.
"The stupid bitch who figured out your lie," Deadpool snarled back.
"You're all just nothing. Lower life forms." Stans continued, her hand tightening around Bobbi's throat. The girl was quickly suffocating. "Give me that thing, Parker." She turned to me.
Her eyes were filled with a thirst for blood and madness. With the cold, unblinking stare of a psychopath, she looked at the container holding the symbiote. At the same time, she was holding Bobbi in the air with one hand and using her as a shield against Deadpool. The serum she had created had apparently worked. The aging and manic madness were the side effects. Now I understood why she needed the equipment. She was trying to fix her old mistakes.
"Whatever you say, ugly." I stepped back and slowly raised my hands.
Stans only had to take a couple of steps to reach the container. But apparently, she felt that the mercenary had no intention of letting her take those steps.
"Shoot, and the girl dies first," Stans threatened.
"You've got me confused with someone else," Deadpool grinned and pulled the trigger.
Two dull shots rang out. The bullets hit the former criminal right in the chest. But Stans, with surprising agility for such an old body, dodged to the side. Then she threw her living shield like a projectile at Deadpool. The mercenary had no chance to avoid the collision. They both tumbled across the floor.
"New rule," Deadpool croaked from a dark corner. "Shoot first and don't think at all."
But she had nothing to shoot with right now.
As soon as Stans released her hostage, I shot regular webbing from my left web shooter right into the woman's face. Then another shot at her legs, just as she lunged forward. Tangled in the webbing, the doctor fell and rolled toward the container with the symbiote. She desperately reached for her prize, but only helped me wrap her up completely.
"Don't even think about it. My webbing isn't easy to break, not with your meager strength," I sneered.
"Oh God, Parker, you're full of surprises. You covered the old lady from head to toe with your white sticky stuff. You should do the same to me. By the way, if you want to say goodbye to your girlfriend, now's the time. I shot both her lungs." The talkative mercenary kept rambling from her corner. "Well, that's awkward. Sorry."
"God damn it," I shouted and rushed to Bobbi. "How is she? Why the fuck did you shoot her?"
"Hey, Mr. Sticky Fingers, you didn't tell me you had more tricks up your sleeve. What was I supposed to do? Give the symbiote to that bitch?"
Bobbi's eyes had already rolled back. Blood was gushing from her mouth and the wounds on her chest. Damn. Severe internal bleeding. Both lungs were damaged. Multiple fractures from the fall. Without immediate medical attention, she wouldn't survive. And where the fuck was SHIELD when you needed them? Had my assumptions been wrong? Had Deadpool managed to avoid being tailed?
The symbiote. It could save her. But it was a risk. Bobbi had said Venom hadn't been aggressive. And her behavior after merging with Stans could be explained by the woman's own madness. But those were just assumptions. Even weakened, Venom was still incredibly dangerous. My eyes fell on the unusually quiet Deadpool.
"I have a job for you." I walked over to what was left of the woman's body.
"Right now? I didn't think you were into that." Ignoring her chatter, I grabbed the mercenary by what remained of her intact suit and lifted her. She was very light. "Hey, I like it rough too, but at least let me regenerate up to my hips."
I dragged Deadpool to the truck's cargo bed and shoved my phone into her hands.
"If Venom goes crazy, turn the music back on."
"So no sex again?" Deadpool asked dejectedly.
I grabbed the container with the symbiote and hurried to the fading Bobbi. The airtight lid came off with a loud pop, but nothing happened. I turned the bucket over, and the symbiote fell onto the girl's chest like a lifeless inkblot. Even covered in human blood, the creature showed no signs of life.
Damn. Had I killed it with the loud music? Damn, damn. I should have signaled Deadpool that I could handle Stans. What a stupid mistake.
Wait. What was that? The inkblot was shrinking. The symbiote was slowly being absorbed into Bobbi's body, right through the bullet holes. I held my breath, waiting for changes. Nothing happened. Bobbi's heart was still beating slowly, but the blood had stopped seeping from her wounds.
"Come on, Venom. Can you heal her? Give me a sign."
And it heard me. A thin tendril extended from the girl's shoulder. It seemed too weak to even lift itself off the floor. It just slid along the ground for a while, forming two simple letters.
NO.
"But why? What do you need?"
The tendril moved again, forming a new short message.
RESOURCES.
An arrow formed from the last letter, pointing at the woman wrapped in my webbing.
It wanted Stans's body. It wanted to use her resources to heal. I remembered how Venom in my past world had offered to let me eat a passerby to heal my wounds after a fight. But it turned out he could have done it without that. He just wanted to provoke me into killing. I didn't think this was the same case.
Killing a psychopath to save a friend. That was acceptable.
I turned to Stans, who had no hope of escaping my webbing and could only grunt and roll her eyes. I went to get Deadpool's katana. But then another idea came to me.
"This is fucked up, man." The mercenary was sitting on a crate, swinging her small, child sized legs. "I haven't been screwed like this since middle school. You're crazy. And don't move, or I'll blow your head off. Fuck, I'd punch you, but my legs haven't grown back yet."
The last part was addressed to Stans, who was lying on the floor of the slowly moving truck's cargo bed. As you might have guessed, Deadpool and I were there too. We couldn't show the mercenary to people in her current state. I decided to keep her company, mostly to make sure she didn't hold a grudge.
"We wouldn't have had to do this if you hadn't shot Bobbi," I said calmly.
"You could have just fed that bitch to the creature. We don't need her anyway. We have nowhere to put her. And now your girlfriend has the symbiote. I'm losing on all fronts."
"What the fuck do you want?" I shouted, ready to use my taser webbing. "You couldn't take Venom yourself like you threatened. So what's your problem? We saved your wrinkled ass from Venom, and you shot Bobbi in thanks."
Just then, someone pounded on the back of the cab. A muffled voice said, "Shut up, both of you. There are cops."
"Great. Finally, some fun." Deadpool waved her pistol menacingly. In her tiny hands, the gun looked ridiculous, especially since she had to hold it with both hands.
"Don't even think about it. We'll handle this. Put the gun away," I hissed at the mercenary.
As we approached the checkpoint, Deadpool started singing a little song.
Here they stand, unearthly and bright,
Our little brothers in blue, day and night.
When I see that patrol cap, I turn into a misanthrope.
La la la la la.
Of course, we were stopped. Through a gap in the truck's side, I studied the scene. There were two police officers. One of them was a man. And he was the first real man I had met in this world. Tall, with strong features and an athletic build, though a bit soft around the edges. He had probably stopped working out recently. I was sure he had no shortage of admirers, with his looks and stern gaze. His partner was a black woman with a shaved head. She walked toward the truck bed, while the man approached the driver's side door.
"Good evening, Sergeant LaGuerta. This is Officer Doakes," the man introduced himself in a deep, pleasant voice. "Please show us your documents."
Deadpool raised her trembling pistol. As soon as the female officer came around the high side of the truck, her shiny head would be in the mercenary's sights.
I shot a glob of regular webbing at the gun, sticking it to the boards. Then I jumped over the side to get behind the woman. But I underestimated her. Her gun was already in her hand. She had noticed me and was pointing it right at my face. But she hesitated when she saw I was just a teenage boy.
"Hey, what are you doing here? Were you kidnapped? Are they holding you against your will?" she asked in a very harsh tone, but she didn't lower the gun.
A true professional. But then, from the other side of the truck, there was a piercing shriek at an incredibly high frequency. The officer was distracted. She stepped back and looked over the side. I quickly closed the distance and swept her legs out from under her. She tried to defend herself at the last moment, but it was too late. I knocked the woman out and went to check on Bobbi.
Walking around the cab, I saw the cop on the ground, crawling away from Bobbi, who had let the symbiote emerge. His lips were trembling in panic, and he was babbling hysterically.
"No, no, no, please, don't. I don't want to die. Please." Venom looked at me uncertainly, not knowing what to do.
Bobbi was at the wheel. It would be hard for her to hit a man, especially in this state. I walked decisively toward the frightened man, which sent him into another fit of terror. He burst into tears.
"Nooo. Please. It was my mom. She raised me like a girl. She wanted to make a woman out of me. I didn't want to be that way. It's not a man's job. I just wanted to be a househusband, like my dad. Let me go. I won't tell anyone."
This time, I didn't hold back. This sniveling idiot had managed to restore my faith in the men of this world and then destroy it in less than a minute.
Following Deadpool's directions, we drove to her hideout. It turned out to be a regular rented apartment, filled to the brim with trash, food waste, and weapons.
"Stop staring at my sexy ass," she shouted, going inside first.
"Were you staring?" Bobbi asked me, shocked.
"What? No," I protested. "But did you notice that her arms and legs look normal until they grow back?"
"That's disgusting, Peter," Bobbi exclaimed.
"Idiot. I was thinking about whether we could prevent her skin from turning into what it becomes when she's fully healed."
"Oh. Okay, sorry."
Once everyone, including the still bound Stans, was inside Deadpool's apartment, we started a meeting. The mercenary was upset that she had lost the bounty on Venom. Surprisingly, she didn't suggest that Bobbi give up the symbiote, and as far as I could tell, she didn't plan any aggressive actions toward the girl. Maybe she had a conscience? Her complaints boiled down to demanding compensation for her expenses.
"Okay, okay, listen." I cut off another of Deadpool's rants. "Bobbi and I don't have enough money to compensate you for your costs and the lost bounty. Although I want to point out again that you had no chance of beating Venom."
"Boring." Deadpool suddenly shot herself in the chin, splattering the contents of her skull over the ceiling and walls.
"God damn it," Bobbi jumped.
"Oh, bro." I rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to suppress my irritation. "Here's what I can offer you. You find me a place for a lab. We'll keep Stans there. I already have some of the equipment..."
"Would you like me to blow you too?" Deadpool interrupted.
I ignored her and continued, pressing my point.
"You'll also be responsible for security. And in return," I paused for effect, "I'll try to fix your appearance problem."
Deadpool froze, swallowing whatever joke she had been about to make. For a full minute, we enjoyed the silence.
"Are you serious? Because you'd better not be joking about this." I nodded, but the mercenary didn't notice and kept talking. "You should think twice before promising something like that. You have no idea how fucking awful it is to go from being a sex bomb to a fucking monster."
"Yes," I shouted. "I understand how important this is to you. That's why I offered. It won't be easy, and it won't be quick. It might take years. But I'm sure this problem can be solved. I can solve it. Consider it a long term contract. You work for me, and your reward is getting your pretty face back."
"And my hair?"
"And your hair too," I smirked.
"And no more masturbating?"
"And no more... what the fuck? Basically, yes or no? Or do I need to figure out where to put the Terminator grandma?"
"Of course, yes. Give me your number. I'll call you when the place is ready."