Peter woke to nothing.
No sound.
No wind.
No heartbeat in his ears.
Just black.
Black as far as the eye could see, above, below, behind, ahead. Not the black of a room with the lights off. Not the black of space with stars pricked through it. This was absolute. The kind of black that made you question whether your eyes were even open.
He tried to blink.
Felt the motion, but saw nothing change.
He lifted a hand in front of his face.
Nothing.
No outline. No shadow. No faint glow from the runes that usually lived under his skin. His fingers might as well have been air.
Panic tried to crawl up his throat, but it felt distant, like it belonged to someone else. His body was heavy. Not injury-heavy. Not tired-heavy. Just... absent. Like gravity had forgotten how much he weighed and decided on zero.
He tried to speak.
"Susan?"
The word didn't echo.
It didn't even leave his mouth properly. It died right there on his tongue, swallowed by the black.
"Sable?"
Same thing.
Nothing came back.
He pushed himself up, or thought he did. There was no floor to push against, no sense of up or down. He floated, or maybe he was still lying down. Hard to tell when the universe refused to give him a single reference point.
His mind raced, trying to piece it together.
The last thing he remembered was the blade.
Cold metal punching through his back.
Gorr's voice was soft and tired.
You saved the city. But you couldn't save yourself.
Then pain.
Bright, white-hot, everywhere at once.
Then... this.
The Void?
No.
The Void he'd sealed Gorr in had screamed. It had hunger. It had edges.
This place had none of those things.
This was quieter. Cleaner. Emptier.
He tried to summon the staff.
Nothing happened.
He reached for the Web of Life, the golden threads that usually hummed inside his chest like a second heartbeat.
Silence.
He felt for Anansi, the old trickster, the weaver, the part of him that always had a quip, always had a plan.
Even that felt far away, like a voice calling from the bottom of a very deep well.
For the first time in years, maybe ever, Peter Parker felt truly small.
He closed his eyes.
Opened them again.
Still black.
"Okay," he whispered to the nothing.
"This is new."
No answer.
He tried again, louder.
"Hello?"
The word vanished the instant it left his mouth.
He laughed once, short, dry, more breath than sound.
He floated there for what might have been minutes or centuries. Time didn't seem to work here the way it should. No pulse to count. No breath to measure. Just... being.
And then, very faintly, something changed.
It wasn't light.
It wasn't sound.
It was pressure.
A subtle shift in the nothing, like someone had opened a door on the far side of the black and let in the faintest draft. The sensation brushed the back of his neck again, cooler this time, more deliberate. Not Sable's warmth. Not Susan's steady touch. Something heavier. Hungrier.
Peter turned, or thought he turned. Direction didn't mean much here.
The black in front of him thickened.
Not like fog rolling in.
More like ink bleeding into water, except the water was already ink.
Shapes began to form, long, sinuous lines that weren't quite solid, weren't quite liquid. Tentacles. Dozens of them, coiling slowly out of the void, reaching toward each other like fingers knitting together. They moved with purpose, deliberate, almost careful, as if whatever was making them didn't want to startle him.
The mass grew.
Thicker.
Darker.
Taller.
Until it resolved into something roughly humanoid, broad shoulders, long limbs, a head crowned with jagged white eyespots that glowed faintly against the black-on-black.
Venom.
The symbiote stood there, not quite touching the "ground" that didn't exist, tendrils still drifting lazily around its form like smoke. The familiar white spider-emblem stretched across its chest, but the edges were softer here, less aggressive. Almost... hesitant.
Peter stared.
For once, he didn't have a quip ready.
Venom tilted its head, the motion slow and strangely gentle.
We have been quiet, the voice rumbled inside Peter's skull, not loud, not angry, just... present. We thought silence was what you wanted.
Peter let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. The sound didn't echo, but it felt real for the first time since he'd woken up.
"You've been silent for a while," he said, voice rough. "Yeah. I noticed."
Venom's white eyes narrowed slightly, not threatening, more like it was studying him.
When Eddie died, it said, and we bonded with you again... we felt it. Your desire. You did not want us in your mind the way we were before. No voices. No hunger pushing you. No... control.
Peter's throat tightened.
He remembered that night.
The rain.
The hospital bed.
Eddie's last ragged breath.
And then the black tide sliding over his skin again, familiar and terrifying, and the immediate, bone-deep certainty that he couldn't do this the way they had before.
He'd made one request, clear, quiet, exhausted.
Don't talk in my head unless I need you to.
Venom had listened.
It had stayed quiet through everything, the fights, the plans, the nights he came home after cleaning up the mess that the monsters he left alive when he naively thought they could change. It only rose when Peter's emotions boiled over, when the grief or rage or fear got so loud that even a symbiote couldn't ignore it.
Like the day Fury told him the truth about his parents, that he was his Grandfather.
That day the mask finally cracked.
Venom had surged forward then, not to take over, not to feed, just to hold the pieces together long enough for Peter to keep breathing.
Peter looked at the towering black shape in front of him now, white eyes steady, patient.
"You kept your word," he said quietly.
We did.
A long pause.
We are sorry we could not keep you safe.
Peter gave a small, tired laugh.
"Not your fault. I'm the one who caught the sword."
Venom's tendrils shifted, curling inward slightly, like a shrug, or maybe regret.
You always did have little care for yourself when others are in danger.
Yeah." Peter's voice cracked just a little. "But I'm still here. And they're still out there."
The black around them seemed to listen.
Venom took one slow step closer. Not aggressive. Just... closer.
You are not alone in this dark, it said. We are here. Always have been.
Peter looked up at the massive form, at the white spider on its chest that mirrored the one he carried under his skin.
He swallowed.
"I don't know how to get back," he admitted, voice small.
Venom's head tilted again.
Then we will find the way together.
One thick tendril extended slowly, hovering in front of Peter, not grabbing, not forcing. Offering.
Peter stared at it for a long moment.
Then he reached out.
His hand, shaking just a little, closed around the tendril.
It was warm.
Not hot. Not cold.
Just... warm.
Like coming home after a very long night.
The black around them stayed black.
But now it didn't feel quite so empty.
And somewhere, very far away, a single golden thread flickered brighter.
---
The battlefield froze in the instant the blade emerged from Peter's chest.
A collective gasp ripped through the Einherjar. Shields clattered. Spears trembled in hands that had fought for millennia without ever feeling this kind of helplessness.
Thor's roar died in his throat mid-breath, turning into something raw and broken.
Odin's single eye widened, actually widened, for the first time any living being could remember.
Sable's eyes were filled with tears.
Susan—
Susan made no sound at all.
She simply stared.
The black blade protruding from Peter's sternum.
The slow drip of his blood onto the golden stone.
The way his knees buckled, the staff slipping from fingers that could no longer hold it.
Her force fields flickered once, twice, then collapsed entirely.
The cold that had been gnawing at everyone else finally reached her heart and kept going.
Inside her skull, something woke up screaming.
LET ME OUT.
A voice that wasn't Susan's.
LET ME OUT.
Her eyes, wide, unblinking, reflected the black sword.
LET. ME. OUT!
And something answered.
A supernova of crimson light detonated from Susan's body.
Not the clean blue-white of her usual power.
This was red.
Blood-red.
Rage-red.
The shockwave knocked everyone within twenty feet off their feet, Einherjar, shadows, even Thor staggered back a step.
When the light cleared, Susan still stood in the same place.
But she was not Susan.
Her golden hair had turned silver, long, wild, flowing like liquid mercury.
Her eyes burned the same violent red as the light that had just erupted.
Her costume had shifted, sharper edges, darker accents, a crueler smile curling lips that had once only ever smiled for him.
She looked like Susan.
She sounded like Susan when she finally spoke.
But the voice carried an echo that made the remaining shadows flinch.
"You," Malice said, staring straight at Gorr, "just made a very serious mistake."
Gorr tilted his head, the Necrosword still dripping Peter's blood.
Malice's smile was slow.
Sharp.
Promising.
She raised one hand.
The air around Gorr began to fold inward, force fields, yes, but twisted now, angry, hungry. They didn't protect. They crushed.
The fields snapped shut around Gorr like a vice.
He grunted, actually grunted, as the pressure mounted, bones creaking under invisible weight.
Thor dragged himself upright, eyes wide.
"Susan...?"
"Not quite," Malice answered without looking at him. Her voice was Susan's, but colder, edged with something that had waited years to be let loose.
Sable pushed herself off the wall she'd been thrown against, coughing once, then staring.
"Jesus," she breathed.
Odin took one step forward, Gungnir steady in his grip, but even he hesitated.
Malice didn't wait for permission.
She clenched her fist.
The force fields imploded.
Gorr was hurled backward, crashing through a ruined pillar, the Necrosword skittering across the stone. For the first time since he had arrived, he looked... surprised.
Malice advanced.
Each step cracked the marble beneath her feet.
"You took him from me," she said, voice low, conversational, terrifying.
"You took the only man who ever saw all of me, who truly loved me"
Another step.
The red light around her flared brighter.
"I'm going to take everything from you."
Gorr rose slowly, the Necrosword already crawling back to his hand.
"I've already lost everything once, girl" he said.
Malice smiled wider.
"Then you should be used to what I'm going to do to you."
She thrust both hands forward.
A wall of crimson force slammed into Gorr, driving him back toward the sealed rift.
He planted his feet, shadows surging around him, pushing back.
The two forces met in the center of the bridge, red against black, and the entire realm shuddered.
Thor looked at Odin.
"Father... what is that?"
Odin's voice was quiet, almost reverent.
"That," Odin murmured, voice low and heavy with the weight of centuries, "is what happens when someone runs out of ways to be gentle."
On the broken bridge, Peter's body lay still, blood pooling beneath him in slow, dark rivulets that followed the cracks in the golden stone like ink finding lines already drawn.
But high above, unseen by anyone, a single golden thread, thin as spider silk, flickered once in the empty air.
Then began to pull.
And unnoticed by everyone, the symbiote, silent, patient, always waiting, slowly began to wrap itself around Peter.
Black tendrils, thin at first, almost careful, slid from the shadows. They moved with no sound, no rush, curling over his chest, along his arms, across the wound where the Necrosword had punched through. The blood slowed. The edges of the gash began to knit, not heal completely, not yet, but enough to stop the life from leaking out faster
than it already had.
No one saw.
Susan was still locked in the crimson storm of Malice, her silver-haired fury tearing into Gorr with force fields that crushed and tore.
Sable was dragging herself upright, coughing, eyes fixed on the fight.
Thor was roaring, lightning arcing wildly as he charged back into the fray.
Odin stood motionless for once, Gungnir planted, watching the chaos with an expression no one could read.
The symbiote worked in silence.
Tendrils thickened, spreading across Peter's back, sealing the exit wound, then slipping beneath his skin like roots finding soil. The faint white spider emblem began to form again, not bold and aggressive like Venom's old markings, but quiet, almost protective, centered over his heart.
Peter's fingers twitched.
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