The numbers on the LCD screen ticked steadily downward.
7.3 kilometers... 5.1... 2.8...
Peter had kept his word about being gentle this time. No acrobatic flips, no stomach-churning spirals. Just smooth, steady arcs between buildings.
It wasn't enough.
Clinging to his back, Veyric still felt the world tilting sideways with every swing. Too much blood lost, too many hours airborne. His face had gone the color of old paper.
"Almost there." Peter's voice drifted back. "Hang on a little longer."
Veyric forced his eyes open. The glass-and-steel canyons of Manhattan had given way to something else entirely. Rusted corrugated warehouses. Lots choked with weeds. Derelict trucks slumped at wrong angles like drunks who'd given up standing.
The place looked like it hadn't seen a living soul in decades.
"This is it?"
Peter touched down smoothly, and Veyric slid off his back, turning a slow, disbelieving circle.
"The key says our destination's fifty meters ahead." Peter frowned at the device. "But this..."
"Looks like a junkyard," Veyric finished.
That was because it was a junkyard. Or close enough. The rusted sign bolted over the entrance still bore faded letters: New York Seventh Waste Treatment Center.
"Director Fury's messing with us, right?" Peter scratched his head. "He built a bunker under a garbage dump?"
Veyric smiled. "This is exactly Fury's style."
He thought of all the absurd secret bases S.H.I.E.L.D. had used across the comics and films.
A waste treatment plant was practically tasteful by comparison.
"Come on. Let's find the entrance."
They picked their way through the abandoned grounds, following the arrow on the key as it adjusted in real time. It guided them past collapsed fencing and mounds of scrap, deeper into the complex, until it pointed directly at something tucked in the corner of a warehouse.
A photo booth.
Veyric stopped dead.
It was one of those old purikura-style booths, the kind that printed sticker photos. The paint on its shell had peeled down to bare metal. Grime and dust caked every inch of glass.
"The key says... this is the spot." Peter looked thoroughly lost.
Veyric stepped inside, covered his nose, and used his sleeve to wipe the screen clean.
It was still powered on. A single line of text glowed against the dark background:
[PLEASE LOOK AT THE CAMERA]
"Look at the camera?" Peter leaned in, instinctively glancing up at the lens mounted above the screen.
Click!
A blinding flash went off, catching Peter full in the face.
"What the..."
Before he could finish, the entire booth began to shake.
Veyric's feet moved on instinct, trying to step back, but the floor had already split open beneath them.
The next instant, both of them dropped straight into darkness.
"AAAAHHH!"
Veyric's scream ricocheted off the walls of the narrow shaft. Wind roared past his ears, his heart slamming against his ribs so hard he could hear it.
This was ten thousand times worse than riding on Spider-Man's back.
"Hold on to me!"
Peter's arm locked around his waist, pulling Veyric tight against his chest, shielding him with his own body.
They plummeted through pitch black. Veyric felt his organs trying to crawl up through his throat.
Three seconds? Five? Ten?
He'd lost all sense of time.
Just when he was certain they'd hit concrete and that would be the end of it...
WHUMP.
They slammed into something soft, bounced twice, and came to a stop.
"Khhh... cough... cough..."
Veyric lay facedown, hacking so hard he thought his lungs might come up. He pried his eyes open and found himself sprawled across an enormous white air cushion, pillowy as a cloud.
"You okay?" Peter had already rolled upright beside him, worry creasing his face.
"Still... alive..." Veyric managed.
He struggled to sit up, and a familiar image flickered through his mind.
Wait. Photo... freefall... air cushion...
He blinked, then couldn't stop himself.
"Did Fury binge-watch Jackie Chan Adventures?!"
Peter stared blankly. "Jackie Chan what?"
"Never mind. Cultural thing." Veyric waved it off.
A low hum rose around them.
Dim emergency lights flickered on, one by one. Not bright LEDs, just a feeble amber glow, barely enough to see by. The entire space was bathed in hazy orange.
Both of them looked up at the same time.
Both of them went still.
"This place is... huge." Peter's voice echoed through the cavernous hall.
Huge didn't cover it.
The vaulted ceiling soared at least five stories overhead before vanishing into shadow. The floor stretched out wide enough to park a fleet of small aircraft. Along the walls, the outlines of instrument panels and display screens were barely visible, every last one dark and dead.
At the center stood a massive circular platform ringed by a dozen workstations. All of them powered down. Silent shapes hunched in the gloom like sleeping giants.
Along the far wall, a row of heavy metal doors stood shoulder to shoulder, each one labeled with a different function:
[Medical Bay] [Armory] [Food Storage] [Rest Area] [Laboratory] [Communications Center]...
Most of them glowed with red "LOCKED" indicators.
Veyric took it all in, a complicated knot of feeling tightening in his chest.
The scale was staggering. But right now, with its dim emergency lighting, its dead equipment, its sealed doors, the place felt less like a command center and more like a tomb someone had forgotten to bury.
"Power's critically low." He frowned. "Most of the facility hasn't even initialized."
Peter walked to the door marked [Armory] and gave it a push. It didn't budge a millimeter.
"Locked tight."
Veyric nodded, scanning the handful of doors with green lights: [Food Storage], [Rest Area], [Restroom].
Only the bare essentials for survival were still running.
"It looks empty now," he said, climbing off the cushion and brushing himself off, "but the potential's real. Once we solve the power problem and build it up piece by piece, this could be a serious base of operations."
"Agreed." Peter nodded.
"For now, though..." Veyric tapped his own chest. "I need to find something to eat."
"Eat?" Peter looked puzzled. "You're hungry?"
"Not me. It."
He tapped his chest again.
Beneath his skin, Venom clung in a state so thin it was nearly transparent, so weak Veyric could barely sense it was there.
"Right, Venom!" Peter's eyes lit with recognition. "It needs chocolate!"
They made for the door labeled [Food Storage].
It was sensor-activated. The moment Veyric stepped close, the panels slid apart.
What lay inside stopped them both in their tracks.
Row after row of metal shelving stretched from floor to ceiling, stacked with military precision. Canned goods, compressed biscuits, dehydrated vegetables, vacuum-sealed meat...
A rough estimate put it at enough to feed ten people for a year.
And the best part, the thing that made Veyric's heart leap: the far-right section was an entire column dedicated to chocolate.
Dove... Cadbury... Lindt... Ferrero Rocher...
"Venom, wake up!" Veyric grabbed fistfuls of chocolate off the shelf. "Look what I found you!"
Against his chest, the paper-thin membrane of black twitched.
"Chocolate...?"
The voice that rose from inside him was barely a breath.
"Dove," Veyric said, grinning. "The smoothest there is."
A tiny black head poked out from his shoulder. Those eyes were dim, but the spark in them was unmistakably real.
"Chocolate... give me..."
Venom's mouth opened weakly. Veyric tore the wrapper off a piece and popped it in.
"Mmm..."
The symbiote chewed with slow, blissful contentment. Its dark mass looked fractionally fuller than before.
"More..."
Veyric fed it a few more pieces. The improvement was visible. At the very least, Venom's words came out whole now.
"Thank you... Veyric..." A note of genuine gratitude threaded through the symbiote's voice. "I feel... much better..."
"Don't mention it." Veyric patted the little head. "From now on, every chocolate in this place is yours."
Venom's eyes blazed bright in an instant. "Really?"
"Really."
"Then I'm eating this entire row!"
"...Maybe pace yourself. Don't demolish the whole supply on day one."
[Ding...]
[Venom is thrilled by the food you provided]
[Venom Affinity +10. Current Value: 90]
Off to the side, Peter watched the exchange between the man and his symbiote, the corners of his mouth curling upward despite himself.
"Looks like we found ourselves a pretty decent new home." He gazed around the dim expanse. "A little rough around the edges, but safe. That's what matters."