The bio-electric data of the Klyntar species was entirely beyond human comprehension. To Peter Parker, sitting on the freezing lip of a Hell's Kitchen gargoyle, the alien signals pinging across the globe just felt like a low, vibrating migraine at the base of his skull.
It is a localized broadcast, Venom rumbled, the heavy bass of his voice echoing strictly within Peter's mind. Our homeworld communicates through overlapping electromagnetic waves. But this specific signal... it has no tactical data. No commands. It only contains coordinates.
"So," Peter muttered, his breath pluming in the crisp October air. "They basically just dropped a pin in the group chat?"
Yes. They are intentionally saturating the global frequency. The black sludge beneath Peter's suit rippled uneasily, a physical manifestation of the symbiote's anxiety. They are making noise to mask Riot's silence. He has not broadcasted his location.
"Any idea where he went?"
Venom went dead silent for a long moment. No. But you must understand. Riot is... terrifying. He is the most lethal of my siblings.
"Hey, I'll be careful," Peter said, patting his own chest to reassure the alien. "Besides, your species comes pre-packaged with the most glaring, video-game-boss weaknesses in the universe. If he shows up, I'll just introduce him to a foghorn and a blowtorch. We aren't leaving anything to chance."
With that, Peter dropped off the gargoyle. He free-fell for three seconds before firing a web-line, swinging smoothly toward Queens.
Ten minutes later, Peter landed in a damp, trash-strewn alleyway a block away from Midtown High School. The black symbiote seamlessly retreated beneath his skin, replaced by his standard faded jeans, a plaid button-down, and a heavy winter jacket. He ran his hands through his messy brown hair, adjusted his collar, and dragged his feet toward the front doors.
Wednesday was objectively the worst day of the week. It was a miserable purgatory sandwiched right in the middle of the academic grind. Peter was completely exhausted, running on three hours of sleep, and his afternoon was already booked with the school's Detective Club.
"Hey, Peter. Good morning."
Peter stopped at his locker. Gwen Stacy was standing awkwardly near the adjacent bank of lockers. She wasn't carrying her usual confident, easygoing posture. Instead, she was aggressively twisting the nylon strap of her backpack around her index finger, her blue eyes darting nervously down the hallway.
"Hey, Gwen," Peter said, tossing a heavy calculus textbook onto his top shelf. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah. Fine," Gwen said, biting her lower lip. She stepped a fraction closer, lowering her voice. "Do you have any time after school today? I have something... I really need to talk to you about."
Peter raised an eyebrow. The slight spike in her heart rate triggered a faint buzz in his enhanced hearing. "Uh, yeah. Sure." He offered a warm, reassuring smile. "I can always carve out some time."
"Great." Gwen let out a breath she had clearly been holding. "Just the two of us, okay? Maybe we can grab a burger or something?"
"Just the two of us. You got it."
Gwen offered a tight, relieved smile before turning and practically speed-walking down the corridor toward her homeroom. Peter closed his locker, his brow furrowing. Gwen was rarely secretive, and she definitely wasn't the jittery type.
Harry and Amadeus Cho were already sitting near the back row. Amadeus was aggressively typing complex algorithms into a graphing calculator, completely ignoring the world, while Harry was practically vibrating in his seat.
As soon as Peter dropped his backpack, Harry leaned across the aisle.
"Hey," Harry whispered, his eyes wide. "I was scanning the police scanners this morning. I heard the Avengers entirely vanished. They completely dropped off the grid. Is that true?"
"It's not exactly a dramatic disappearance, Harry," Peter whispered back, rolling his eyes as he pulled out a notebook. "They just deployed on a classified extraction mission. They'll be back by tomorrow afternoon."
Harry's face lit up with the kind of unfiltered, reckless excitement only a billionaire teenager could muster. "Wait. Do you realize what that means? Until tomorrow, Spider-Man is officially the only superhero operating in all of New York City!"
"Do not underestimate the Defenders," Peter muttered, rubbing his temples. "Daredevil would take extreme offense to that. Besides, the whole friendly-neighborhood routine is taking a backseat tonight. I have an appointment with Gwen after school."
Harry's excited grin immediately collapsed into a disappointed pout.
Peter leaned closer, his tone shifting from casual banter to dead serious. "Actually, Harry, there's something else we need to talk about. Do you know a Dr. Otto Octavius?"
Harry blinked, caught off guard by the sudden intensity. "Yeah. He was my dad's old business partner. A brilliant engineer. He passed away a few years ago. Why?"
"The situation is incredibly complicated," Peter said, keeping his voice barely above a breath. "But to put it simply: he's not dead. He's alive, he's currently sitting in a maximum-security cell under Avengers Tower, and he has a serious grudge against your father."
Harry's entire posture stiffened. The blood drained from his face. He knew exactly what those words implied. Faking a business partner's death and burying him in the shadows? That was a signature Norman Osborn maneuver.
Peter didn't sugarcoat it. He quietly recounted the tragic, brutal history Otto had confessed the night before—the stolen patents, the locked-out labs, the sabotaged neural-interface experiment that fused the titanium harness to Otto's spine.
"Now, listen," Peter cautioned, placing a hand on Harry's desk. "This is entirely Otto's side of the story. The guy has a metal octopus welded to his spine; he isn't exactly an unbiased narrator. You can't take it all at face value. But guys like him don't harbor that level of psychotic hatred without a catalyst. There has to be a paper trail. I need you to dig into Oscorp's shadow servers."
Harry sat in total silence. His knuckles turned stark white as he gripped the edge of his desk. He already knew his father was a ruthless, cutthroat corporate shark. But this? Sabotaging a dying man's life-saving surgery just to secure a monopoly on the patents? It was a new, suffocating low.
"I'll try, Pete," Harry finally whispered, his voice hollow. "I'll run the decryption keys tonight. But I don't know how much of the original data Norman actually left intact."
"Just see what you can find," Peter said softly. "And hey... I'm sorry to drop this on you."
The rest of the academic day dragged on with agonizing slowness. By the time the final bell rang, Peter's brain felt like mashed potatoes.
He trudged into the empty classroom designated for the Detective Club. Felicia Hardy was already sitting atop the teacher's desk, casually swinging her legs, her platinum blonde hair catching the afternoon sun.
As the rest of the club filed in, the topic of their upcoming weekend field trip to the Kravinoff Manor was raised.
"I'm actually going to have to bow out of the trip," Harry announced, adjusting his messenger bag. "I have some... personal family records I need to sort through. Plus, Liz's dad is still recovering in the hospital from that weird upstate attack. I really need to stay in the city and be with her."
Felicia let out a dramatic, exaggerated sigh, placing a hand over her heart. "Oh, what a shame. We'll certainly miss your keen deductive skills, Harry."
Peter shot Felicia a flat, intensely disdainful look. He knew for a fact the Black Cat had already broken into the Kravinoff estate, completely mapped the security grid, and verified it was safe. Her fake disappointment was Oscar-worthy.
Felicia completely ignored Peter's glare. She flashed him a sickeningly sweet smile.
The club proceeded with their usual array of lateral-thinking puzzles and cold-case analyses. As the meeting wrapped up, Felicia walked down the aisles, collecting the handwritten answer sheets. When she snatched Peter's paper from his desk, a small, folded yellow sticky note slipped flawlessly from her palm and landed on his notebook.
Peter casually covered the note with his hand. He pulled his phone out under the desk and shot her a quick text: I'm booked this afternoon. Is it a life-or-death emergency?
His phone buzzed five seconds later. Felicia: I secured hard, encrypted evidence of Kingpin's offshore accounts. But it won't expire. Text me when you're done playing high school.
Peter stared at the screen. Wilson Fisk's incriminating evidence.
The Kingpin had already surrendered to the feds. He was currently sitting in a private, luxury suite on Rikers Island, dining on imported steak and running his criminal empire through encrypted burner phones. Handing the FBI another flash drive of offshore accounts wouldn't break Fisk. It would just add three meaningless years to a sentence the billionaire was already treating like a minor hotel stay.
We need to eliminate Fisk once and for all, a dark, heavy voice echoed in the back of Peter's mind. Not murder. Just... permanent retirement. We break into Rikers. We shatter his femurs. We sever his spinal column. We make sure the Kingpin never walks again.
Peter froze.
He aggressively dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, rubbing his temples hard. A cold sweat broke out across the back of his neck. His heart was hammering against his ribs with a violent, predatory rhythm.
Where the hell did that come from? Peter thought, his breathing suddenly shallow. He was becoming increasingly irritable. The dark, brutal impulses were rising to the surface with terrifying ease. He forced the thoughts down, burying the alien aggression under a wall of sheer willpower.
He grabbed his backpack, eager to get out of the stuffy room, and walked out into the main hallway.
Gwen was leaning against the lockers right outside the door, holding her jacket.
"Hey," Peter exhaled, forcing a natural smile. "I was just about to swing by the band room to find you."
"I actually took the afternoon off," Gwen said, shifting her weight nervously. "I skipped rehearsal."
She gestured down the hallway. Standing five feet behind Gwen, looking completely out of place and staring intensely at her shoes, was Cindy Moon.
Gwen offered a helpless, strained smile. "Well... shall we go?"
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