Having made a deal with Deadpool, we began discussing what to do next, including our prisoner. To do that, we first had to piece together the sequence of events. There were many unanswered questions.
"Oh, come on," Deadpool tried to sweet talk me. "You'd be surprised how cooperative people become after you cut something off."
The mercenary suggested moving straight to the intimate part of the interrogation. I wasn't ready to support that idea, and I wasn't alone.
"No," Bobbi protested. "It's all because of that experiment. Something in her brain broke after it. The Doctor was always kind to me. Peter, tell her. Everything can still be fixed."
"You see, Bobbi," I hesitated, "I already gave Stans a drug that was supposed to stabilize her condition and reduce the side effects of the serum. She was supposed to wake up calmly in a couple of weeks. Either I screwed up, or, more likely, you and your slimy friend did. If that's the case, I have no idea what you did."
Just then, a black blob emerged from Bobbi's shoulder, quickly forming into a toothy head with huge white eyes.
"No, I just healed her a little. I gave her immune system a push, shared some of my energy. I just sped up the healing process. And then she latched onto me like a parasite. She drained so much energy that I blacked out. I didn't even realize we had bonded until they told me."
"That's a nice story, but it's hard to believe," Deadpool said.
I noticed that this symbiote spoke very much like Bobbi. The same intonations, the same speech patterns, the same expressiveness. The Venom from my past world might have picked up some character traits from its hosts, but this was a different level. How deep was the mental connection between them?
"So you don't remember anything that happened after the hospital?" I asked.
"Nope. Nothing. Complete blank," the symbiote said, then retreated back into Bobbi's body. The girl just shrugged, not commenting on her partner's actions.
"Okay, kids," the mercenary cut in again. "You're not going to figure anything out like this. We need to go talk to your gluttonous doctor and beat it out of her. Okay, okay, first we'll just ask. We'll only torture her if she starts being difficult."
Having reached some kind of understanding, the three of us went into the basement room that was serving as a prison, where the bound, practically cocooned prisoner still lay.
"We need to free her mouth," I noted.
"On it." Deadpool pulled one of her swords from its sheath. Twirling it menacingly, she approached the prisoner.
I hadn't bothered to make solvent in advance. If the webbing had been stronger, it could have been a problem. Fortunately, the current version, though very strong, was easily cut by sharp steel.
Stans looked even worse than after the fight at the mansion. She seemed to have shriveled up from the inside. Her skin was cracked and covered in unhealthy pigmentation. Deadpool had been right about one thing. By saving Stans's life at the mansion, I had ultimately accomplished nothing. She was dying, and quickly.
"We should have waited a couple more minutes. She would have croaked on her own," Deadpool noted.
"Doctor," Bobbi cried out, pushing the mercenary aside and rushing to the dying woman. "What's wrong with you?"
Stans looked at her former guard with clouded eyes. A flicker of recognition passed through them.
"Come to watch me die?" she smirked.
"No, no, Doctor. We're going to help you. We'll definitely cure you," the girl sobbed. "We'll figure something out. We'll take you to the hospital."
As she spoke, Bobbi looked at me with pleading eyes.
"The doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with her before. And now..." A thought struck me. "You were trying to use the symbiote to prevent cell death, weren't you?"
Stans glared at me and smirked.
"Why would I help you, Parker? Go to hell," she said, then started coughing.
"Doctor," Bobbi exclaimed. "We want to help you. Help us understand what happened to you."
"Bobbi," Stans whispered. "You're so stupid. Do you think I worked for Cindy because I was forced to? Fool. I was just using her resources and influence to continue my research. And she assigned the dumbest, most naive girl in her gang to watch over me."
Stans laughed in the stunned girl's face, then choked on another coughing fit. Her laughter turned into a bark.
"But you, Parker." She suddenly shifted her attention to me. "You're just as much of an idiot as your daddy. Wondering how I got his notes?"
I felt my insides clench at those words.
"I took them from Richard's corpse after I blew his brains out with a revolver. His and his wife's. Too bad they didn't take you with them."
What? What did she say? I felt the ground disappear from under my feet. This bitch had just confessed to killing my father.
"What bad luck," Stans continued, her voice growing weaker. "They chose the same ship as me. Just my luck. And you can't even... get revenge."
She looked at us with gloating satisfaction. This woman, she reveled in our suffering. She savored the fact that even facing death, there was someone she could hurt. She died with a smile on her lips.
"Wow, man." Deadpool put her hand on my shoulder. "That sucks. But it could have been worse. At least the other sailors didn't eat your daddy after the shipwreck. That was a real possibility with a name like that."
Was she fucking joking? Was that supposed to be her way of supporting me? Joking about my father's death?
"What a bitch you are, Wilson," I said through clenched teeth. "But that was funny." I tried to smile, but I felt my face cracking like a crumpled bag of chips.
Wilson went to dispose of Stans's remains, and Bobbi volunteered to drive me home.
"I thought I knew her. I thought she was my friend. Was it all just an act?" Bobbi asked tiredly, leaning against the steering wheel when we arrived.
What could I say to that? I hadn't known Stans in life, but her last words fit all too well with the symbiote's story about blacking out after healing her at the hospital.
"What are your plans now?" I tried to distract Bobbi from her sad thoughts.
"Well, before the asteroid fell, I was going to take the firefighter exam. Now I don't know."
"Speaking of asteroids, does Venom still claim to be from another planet?"
But it wasn't the girl who answered me. The symbiote decided to speak up again.
"You don't believe me, human?"
"Honestly, it's hard to believe in aliens," I smirked. "I'd be more inclined to believe you escaped from some military lab. Or escaped. Which is it?"
"It doesn't matter. Symbiotes don't have a concept of gender. We don't need a partner of our own species to reproduce. My home planet is Klyntar. It's very far from Earth. You call it the Andromeda Galaxy."
"Is that so?" I whistled. "And how did you travel two and a half million light years?"
"I don't know how I got here. My memories are fragmented. The remains of my ship were a molten, fused lump of metal. I don't even know how I survived the crash."
"So you can't tell me anything useful?" I smirked. The symbiote, deciding not to answer, retreated back into the girl's body. "Well, good luck with your new endeavors, Bobbi."
"Yeah... thanks, Peter. For everything."
"And get rid of that truck. It's too easy to trace."
Having parted ways with my unexpected allies, Venom and Deadpool, I finally headed home. I was looking forward to continuing my other adventures with Mary Jane in bed. Actually, no. First, I just wanted to shower and sleep. It had been a very long, eventful day. I could feel the exhaustion in every muscle of my body. Second, it was almost dawn. MJ was probably still asleep.
Standing under the shower, I replayed the events of the past day, piecing together fragments. I should thank Stans for her deathbed confession. It helped a lot.
So, what did we have? Stans's serum had been partially successful, but with a number of side effects. I suspected a lack of energy played a big role. As I understood it, when Captain America was created, an entire city had to be blacked out to power the Vita Rays. My emitter should have kickstarted the changes in her body, but there wasn't enough energy for the whole process. That was why Stans had fallen into a coma. I had suspected that before. The antiserum I had made for Stans should have reversed the changes or at least stopped them. But then the symbiote interfered. Not only did it interfere, it provided energy and stimulated her immune system. The result was obvious. Stans's transformation was completed, but side effects appeared. Then the doctor tricked the symbiote into bonding with her, hoping it could prevent cell death. Then she ransacked Connors's lab and fought Reptilia. The end result was that Reptilia crawled into the sewers to lick her wounds, while Stans tried to find a way to reverse her aging, occasionally snacking on civilians. That was what had drawn the attention of Deadpool's employers, SHIELD, and Spider Girl.
And there was a gap. How had she found out about Connors? And why hadn't she come to me first? I had been lying at home, defenseless.
Speaking of Spider Girl. After my shower, I found my phone and sent a message to Connors's number. "How's our scaly, tailed problem doing?"
A response came quickly. "The drug worked. The lizard dropped her tail. The webbing is amazing. Just what I needed. Thanks so much."
I smirked smugly. Of course the webbing was amazing. And the fact that the antiserum for the Lizard had worked as intended was good news. It gave me hope that the antiserum for Stans had also been flawless. I sent another message. "The tentacle problem has also been resolved. P.S. Clear your message history before returning the phone."
That night, that morning, I couldn't sleep for a long time. I kept replaying Stans's confession, trying to decide what to believe. But damn it, it all fit. If the symbiote really was an alien from another galaxy, then Richard Parker had never worked on the Venom project. Therefore, the cause of his and Mary Parker's death in this world must be different.
Stans had my father's research results. She could have taken them after killing him. That creature had managed to reopen old wounds. I hadn't thought they could still cause me so much pain.
And now I would never know why she did it. Why she killed my parents.
I woke up an hour before noon, mentally shattered but disgustingly alert physically. The Longevity Formula's doing, I supposed. Just what I needed. I had no desire to work on the formula, so I decided to burn off the excess energy. I could put off the research until Deadpool found me a place. I didn't even have a computer anymore. I decided to start with a run. But first, I called the mercenary and hinted that it would be a good idea to grab the equipment left at Cindy's mansion. We hadn't had time for that yesterday. Wilson accepted the new task without objection and promised to do it in her own unique way. I had motivated her well.
Finding some conditionally athletic clothes in my wardrobe, shorts and a t shirt, I went out to win the hearts of the women I met with the sight of my skinny ankles. The results of my first workout exceeded my expectations. I ran about three kilometers at a pretty good pace, then another five, dripping with sweat and gasping for air like a fish thrown onto the shore. Running past the Watsons' house, I ran into Mary Jane with a bag of groceries.
"You didn't call," she said immediately when we met.
"Yeah," I hesitated. "I passed out as soon as I got home. I just woke up an hour ago. Sorry."
"I'll forgive you if you come to band practice with me today," MJ said with a sly smile.
Hey, she was using my own trick. That wasn't fair.
"Your band?" The girl nodded. "Of course. Let's go."
MJ smiled even brighter and pulled me to her by the fabric of my shirt.
"Um, I shouldn't. I'm all sweaty." But she cut me off with a kiss.
"Just shower first, hero," MJ giggled, pulling away from me and covering her nose. "I'll be over in an hour."
Wow. No questions, no reproaches. Even considering the special attitude toward men in this world, was that normal? It was doubly strange, given that attitude. Was Mary Jane always this carefree?
There was barely enough time to wash my clothes, eat, and clean myself up. I was going out, after all. MJ wanted to show off her boyfriend to her friends. If she wanted them to be jealous, I would make them jealous.
At the appointed time, Mary Jane appeared on my doorstep. She was wearing tight jeans again and a tight white tank top that showed off her figure very well. I immediately wanted to remind her where we had left off before Bobbi showed up, just as she had asked yesterday.
"Ready, hero?" she asked, beaming.
She clearly found it funny to call me that. After all, almost all the heroes here were women. And most of them were still new. Even Stark was being dragged through the courts, forced to share her technology with the people, in the form of the government, of course. The idea that such power could be concentrated in one person's hands hadn't yet taken root in people's minds.
The girls rehearsed in an old garage. That wasn't surprising. Neither was their repertoire, which consisted of rock and roll songs. I expected all of that. What I didn't expect to find there, especially as a band member, was Gwen Stacy. I knew she loved music, but a senior intern for Connors, a top student, and suddenly a drummer in Mary Jane's band. Not to mention her second identity as Spider Woman. Did she ever even go home?