This chapter will include mild spoilers for "Ripple", the Peter Parker fanfic included in this series and happening before this book.

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The ID card from a young woman's hand passed over the scanner of the front door.

"Weclome," FRIDAY lit up the screen blue, "Wendy Weber." The door unlocked for her and she left the dark night behind, to instead hear her flat shoes click against the clean floors of the Storage house of her boss.

"Did Mr. Stark really make you work overtime again?" Her boyfriend's voice came from the phone in her pocket, brightly shining through the white material of that rather airy lab coat. With the dexterity of someone clumsy, Wendy dropped her ID into the other pocket, moved her coffee into the freed hand and finally got the phone out again.

"He doesn't make me do anything, Peter," she smiled to him sweetly. After all, Peter Parker insisted on staying on facetime all throughout this quick last errand, to make sure she doesn't get into any trouble. The night was dangerous, according to Spider-Man, but since Wendy didn't like having a masked escort at all times, calls had to do.

"In fact," she continued, "he told me it would be alright to do this tomorrow too. But then again, I prefer leaving my weekends free, because that's when you also take a break from the photography thing. And I may also adore seeing this place empty."

"How doesn't it spook you? Is my girlfriend really this much of a badass?"

"You know it," Wendy laughed a little. "We're still on for that magic show this weekend, yes?"

"Of course," Peter smiled. He was in their bed, not yet changed out of his work clothes. "Aunt May still denies she bought us the tickets and I've looked the show up. Apparently, it's going to be a pretty exclusive premiere."

"Oh, so I finally have an occasion to wear that dress?"

Throughout their conversation, Wendy didn't stay still. Unlike her Peter, she looked far more composed, even though lab work hours tired her out and this overtime was bringing some exhaustion under her blue eyes. Her hair managed to stay true to a pristine image of a responsible scientist in a research field.

"What does Stark need at midnight anyway?" The conversation finally circled back around, the second Peter noticed Wendy lowering her phone to pass another door's security.

"That's classified," she laughed. Breaking rules was still embedded into her DNA though, no matter how distant Multiverse travels seemed from the life she had now. So it didn't take her long to cast a grin down at her phone and whisper, "Something about an Omega Project and his friend being off planet for too long. You know Mr. Stark got a bit... weird after he returned from space."

Wendy shrugged, "Not worth giving it too much thought though. He just overworks himself to cope with the infinity out there. I can vouch that sometimes, the vastness of the seen world is overwhelming. Alright." She puffed, having to skillfully hold her coffee, her phone and her ID card for a third time, to get to the right storage unit. "Gotta put you back into the pocket now, Pete."

"The pocket again?" he audibly pouted.

"Or you could just end the call-"

"The pocket's fine," Peter blurted out. "I love... all these fabrics up close. It's like ASMR, but for the eyes."

Wendy shook her head with a faint laugh, walking past the two walls of files and right to the boxes in the middle. According to Mr. Stark's message, they would be needing a retired project, stored in one of those bigger boxes and marked with the letter omega. Each box needed a passcode to be opened and she was given just one so she had to go through them until the passcode worked.

She sighed deeply and deserted her coffee on the nearest empty spot amongst the shelves. However, Wendy couldn't even begin entering the first digits of the passcode into the screen of the first giant box that a weird sound echoed from the hallway.

"This was even worse than flying."

An abnormally deep voice felt like a faraway murmur and Wendy froze. She surely thought she'd be the only one working overtime, on a Friday night. Peter couldn't quite hear everything she was hearing through a phone call and Wendy didn't bother him with it. Abandoning her task momentarily, she walked back to the exit of the storage room she entered, opened the door and held it that way, so she could peek both sides, down the hallway.

"FRIDAY?" Wendy called.

She waited a moment for the answer of the operating system of  the building, but the delay was far too lengthy. It was enough to trigger her paranoia and have her exit the storage room, walk quickly down the hallway, back to the nearest post where anyone could type their need for help to FRIDAY, if voice activation wasn't an option. Only the screen, forever lit, was now glitching right before her eyes.

FRIDAY was down.

"You okay there, darling?" Peter's voice came from her pocket, followed by Ebony's meow, meaning only that their black cat had finally joined him in laying around.

"Did you hear a cat?" The monstrously deep voice returned, echoing the halls and Wendy's hand flinched to her pocket, to turn the volume down, almost all the way. The next step was having Peter see her face, see her shushing him.

"You don't talk much, do you?" Once again, the deep voice sent shivers down Wendy's spine, even though she was pretty sure the intruder was not approaching her location, but rather moving further from it. Her adventurer side was itching, her very soul needed this danger for a long time, and now, to stay put was out of question.

She was definitely going to follow the scary voice.

Looking back at her phone, she saw the ceiling of the room. She didn't need to see Peter to know he was putting on his suit just then, so she took the freedom of closing the call and the screen.

It didn't take her nearly as much as it should have to soundlessly identify the source of all this noise. Looking around a corner, she noticed the servers room's door was wide open and inside of it, at least one figure was distinguished: someone wearing a white cape and hood. Wendy physically flinched once the tongue of a second creature gave away its presence next to the caped person. Though she couldn't see what they were doing, she was pretty sure they wouldn't need to deactivate FRIDAY if they were friends of Mr. Stark.

Moon Knight plugged Grizzly's drive into the grid.

Grizzly tried to keep his excitement in when his screen changed. Focusing strictly on getting this done fast, he started entering the credentials he knew. After all, it would take far more than ten minutes to hijack Tony Stark's property, unless you already had access to it. Or at least your friend, who's currently in business with SHIELD, had. Grizzly used Agent W's info to log in to the satellite he needed and began downloading maps, scans, while running a quick search through the Stark and SHIELD databases. Maybe their nemesis held some information on the common enemy.

While he was in the midst of all of that, a red light lit above the exit of the bunker and the speakers behind him blasted out: "Warning: perimeter alert."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Grizzly cursed and pulled out the live security footage from around the building upstairs.

"What? Forgot to calibrate the sensors to stop picking up stray cats like you do?" Paul was in the chair next to Grizzly, from where he could watch what the old man was doing, but also the vitals system of their vampire in dire need of a coffin and about thrice as much blood as the demon's rituals for the day.

Two more live sons of bitches were waiting outside the infirmary, tied to some pipes, beside the carcasses of their other two friends. A new teleportation circle also rested unbothered on the floor, for the ten minute mark he was timing on his wrist watch.

However, Grizzly's whole morale dropped at the sight he got off the cameras. "O.M.N.I.U.M. is tracking Clara," he breathed out, changing back the screen to his own task.

"We weren't followed," Venom sounded in the comms. "I made sure of it."

"Then they have another way to track her down that we don't know yet," Grizzly's tone became rough, impatient, and stressed. "I don't have time to deal with this. Paul, take care of the intruders."

"Take care as in...?" The demon asked, lazily sitting up.

"Kill them all before they report anything back. Our mission depends on its secrecy."

Paul kept his usual comments to a silent smirk now. He stepped around the desk and whistled on his way to the exit. From his shadow, paws formed. Good Boy, the hellhound, appeared beside his master, tangibly sharp teeth drooling for the violence.

"That doesn't sound good," Venom hummed, looking down at the hard drive, then at Moon Knight. The latter was hardly talkative, which could only mean that Venom had the time and silence to nurture back his thoughts about having a true rematch with this fellow.

"Those are still my boyfriends behind the mask," Clara reminded Venom.

"But now we know they come back to life," the symbiote whined back, shamelessly out loud too.

It made Moon Knight lift his gaze and half glare at the alien, before both of them got distracted by a camera flash.

Outside the server room, at the end of the hallway, a tiny, young human girl held the phone which took a picture. Wendy was visibly regretting her choice of getting proof of this for later reports back to her boss, but at least she had the mind to immediately turned her back and started running.

"Stay here and watch the drive," Moon Knight already ran from Venom's side, after the girl. Frankly, he only needed her phone carrying that picture. He didn't know how far he should take the discretion of the mission, but better be safe than sorry.

Venom crunched in his position, beside the drive, watching the hallway with a tingle of wanting to go be part of whatever was happening there and was more interesting than waiting. "Tell me how much time we have left," he ordered in the comms.

"Six more minutes," Grizzly answered back to Venom's message, the timer also going by fast on his screen. He closed the live security footage completely, beginning to skim through the documents he was stealing instead. There was no need to follow Paul's every step, because the second he called his hellhound, it sure would be a won fight.

More than a dozen O.M.N.I.U.M. soldiers entered the building and met an unnatural darkness. Though the day was just beginning outside, the rooms were pitch black, worse than during the night. In that darkness, two pairs of red eyes shone before the soldiers.

The door slammed closed on its own, trapping them all in there with the demon. "Open fire!"

Moon Knight caught up with Wendy in no time really. He kicked her ankles, had her fall over, then stepped around to get to the phone. Without picking it up, he smashed his heel into it until the whole thing looked cracked enough to be unrepairable.

"Watch out for the web," Khonshu calmly warned, suddenly deciding to make himself heard.

"Web?"

The second he questioned it, Moon Knight had his peripheral view to the right covered by a sticky thing, making him stumble away from Wendy. A guy in an oddly tight blue and red suit helped the girl to her feet and stood between the white cape and her. Spider-Man got one look at Moon Knight, from head to toe, and tilted his head to the side.

"Are you my mummy?"

Behind him, Wendy sighed. If this wasn't a moment to hide identities, she would have shouted: Peter Parker, that is the worst pun you could have ever made at a time like this!

With the phone now destroyed, all Moon Knight really had left to do was get back to Venom so they both get transported to the bunker when the time runs out. That meant he had to get past these kids.

Spider-Man looked down at the phone besides Moon Knight and gasped. "You don't know it's rude to destroy the property of pretty people? It's a line above the rule about not breaking into fancy buildings to steal, Mr. Washing-Machine-Tide-Pod-Commercial."

Moon Knight didn't waste his breath answering the overly talkative child and instead started running. Though Khonshu was pretty much shouting in his ear that they could take down this joke of a "hero", he had entirely different plans.

"Here he comes...," Spider-Man got ready, stepping his right foot back and bracing for impact.

Moon Knight changed direction in the last second and jumped his run on the wall to his right. It was a narrow hallway so the cape flicked towards Peter, tingles making him dodge down. Moon Knight landed behind Spider-Man and Wendy, but the girl grabbed the cape in the last second, holding him back from running away.

Just before she could have been brought down to the ground again, Spider-Man took hold of the cape and smashed Moon Knight into the wall instead. "Run," he whispered to Wendy, "get FRIDAY working."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Marc sighed beneath the ceremonial suit, which already begun healing up the little bruises of getting thrown into a wall with a force he would have never attributed to such a skinny guy.

"Are we fighting now or would you rather let this punk in spandex beat your ass?" Khonshu towered behind Spider-Man, looking down at his avatar with a clear nuance of disappointment trapped by the bones of his skull.

Moon Knight looked at first over his shoulder. Spider-Man watched those bright white eyes and thought the glare was directed towards him, especially as it was quickly followed by this caped fellow spinning around and landing a kick. It was fast enough so that Peter's reflexes could only lift his hands up and avoid getting hit in the face directly.

The impact of the hit propelled him towards the same wall, a bit further down the narrow hall, but with all his stickiness, he attached to it, climbed to the ceiling and rained web over the enemy, without noticing first that he was now carrying two moon shaped blades which cut right through the webs.

Busy cutting the just shot webs from blocking his sight, Moon Knight had to take the punch of Spider-Man landing back in front of him. Marc's jaw popped out of place, then back in place in a matter of seconds, as long as it took his head to raise again and return the punch. It was unexpected that a random guy in tight clothes could hold his ground as long and as strongly to even swallow the pain Marc knew his fists should inflict.

"Time's up," Grizzly called into Clara's ear and Venom took the drive, swallowing it inside his chest until his host could get a grip of it and protect it. He had other priorities, and that was regrouping with Moon Knight. It was easy to follow the direction from which loud noises were coming from.

Neither Moon Knight, nor Spider-Man found it easy to win against the other though. The skinny guy was formidable at dodging and the caped one seemed to take no substantial damage.

Then Peter's tingles flared a buzz around his head double the usual amount and though he leant back from the moon blade, slapping it out of Moon Knight's gloved hand, he was immediately tackled to the ground by a big and salivating dark thing.

Venom rolled on the ground with Spider-Man, landed on his feet, then pinned the tiny thing to the wall.

"Hello, Spider-Boy," Venom opened his huge mouth in an intimidation game and easily said, Spider-Man started squirming away, either because of the disgusting saliva, the terrifying teeth, or at least the suffocating grip the alien had on his throat.

All his squirming got him to plant the soles of his feet on the wall behind him, then curve his spine and get enough force so that when his knees came up, they closed Venom's mouth and made him bite his own tongue. Then, from that dosage of dizziness Spider-Man pushed the alien away with his feet and flipped himself to land on the ground.

Moon Knight punched him off his feet again, while Venom recovered.

"Where's our way out?" Grizzly heard Marc's voice through the comms, but just before he was going to answer, the door of the bunker exploded and his instinct was first to secure his laptop, then himself, under the table. The door hit the table, scraped its surface, moved it so that Grizzly's shoulder took the damage of an unexpected punch, then flew across the hallway with the rooms.

Through the just formed cracks on the table, Grizzly watched just three O.M.N.I.U.M. soldiers made it through and they were obviously in reckon mode, studying the room. They eyed the prisoners, dismissed them, then pointed their guns to the infirmary. Grizzly's heart trembled in anger and fear.

His jaw clenched. If he didn't do something, they were going to shoot Michael and... No, Grizzly couldn't even think of losing him like this.

He left the laptop safely beneath the table and sneaked out, opening a drawer in his way and taking out an old smoke bomb. Grizzly's hands didn't shake, but he hurried to activate it and toss it over the table at the soldiers.

"Of course they're not answering," Venom roared.

"I swear, she can do so much better than this, team-wise," Marc mumbled.

"Thank you!" Venom gestured with his arms just in time to get his left hand filled with webs just shot at them by Spider-Man. "I keep telling her that, but just like with you, she never listens."

"I can literally hear both of you," Clara's voice sounded rather annoyed in Venom's mind. He focused on grabbing hold of the web, twisting it around his wrist and pulling back. Spider-Man smashed right into Moon Knight's waiting fist. He dropped to the ground, at least a bit dazed.

Then the lights switched back on in the whole building. Windows descended down reinforced shields, entrances started locking all around them, security cameras began recording again and most importantly, the ground opened, letting out white sentinel versions of the Iron Man suit.

"Metal's not tasty," Venom complained out loud, while the sentinels raised their hands with beams ready to fire.

Ready to fire used to be the O.M.N.I.U.M. soldiers as well, before the entire room clogged with thick white smoke and through it, Grizzly moved soundlessly and deadly, even without wielding any particular weapons at first. The first person in his path was tackled to the ground in a deathlock that facilitated the bearded man to snap that soldier's neck, clean and bare handed.

He stole his gun and got up, twisting it in his grip so he hit the hilt into the knees of the next man without getting off the ground. While this one caught the reflex of lifting his leg, Grizzly made sure he lifted too high and fell on his back and only there did he place the barrel down, under the helmet and right on the throat.

Grizzly pulled the trigger without a single blink of hesitation and the sound finally gave away his location to the last soldier standing.

He dodged two rounds, and aimed to get the fire away from the table and the infirmary where the two subjects of his care laid: the laptop and Michael. While passing by the front of the exit, Grizzly caught the sound of screams, meaning that Paul was still busy upstairs and these three just happened to slip past him, absolutely careless of the faith their colleagues had.

The firing continued mindlessly and Grizzly was forced to start running. Even then, as he slid to the ground, a bullet scraped his left shoulder. He heard fleshy sounds and that made him aware Paul's prisoners were dead.

Bullets stopped raining abruptly and Grizzly looked back just in time to see the dismembered body of the soldier falling into a pile, with Good Boy next to it, a bit bigger than usual since it was just out of combat.

Paul climbed down the stairs, heavily. At first, from the retracting shadow, his feet seemed to be giant claws, leaving behind burn marks where he walked. The weaker the darkness got, the fainter was the red of his eyes until it was clear that outside was day and he looked like a normal human, with only a single drop of blood on his left cheek.

"Bloody hell, get out of my circle, G!" Paul immediately glared and gestured, panicked for the bearded man to move. "Tell the lovers to hug or something, I'm bringing them back."

Grizzly exited the circle, but before neating out the creases of his vest, he casted a side glance towards Michael and sighed, a little relieved, to see he was alright and still safe, slightly building some stability. Next, he sent the message through the comms for Venom and Moon Knight, who were in the middle of a Terminator reenactment featuring aliens and webs.

Venom screamed and tentacles turned to spades. Half of them hit their target and ripped apart a Stark Industries sentinel, while the other half were burned away by reactor beams. Fire was not Venom's friend and he wasn't sure how many of these bastards he could claw, bite into or tear apart before those blasts would get him to act a bit cowardly next to Marc.

Moon Knight looked like he was holding himself together in a rather formidable way, but that was only because Venom didn't have the time to notice how many blasts actually hit him, nor the insight of hearing the noise in his head, coming from the criticism of a God.

"Is technology really beating you, Marc?" Khonshu puffed. "These puny human creations are making you hurt, my little Moon Knight? Hit back like you mean it! You are barely inflicting any damage... Not to compare, but the devouring worm is doing a greater job at this than you. Do better!"

Marc got hit with another blast right in the middle of his chest while he blocked that sentinel from getting to Venom.

"This is embarrassing to watch," Khonshu brought his hand up to his skull. But what Khonshu didn't know was that Marc noticed Venom's skin caught fire too easily against these blasts. Clara's symbiote was sensitive to burns.

Then Grizzly's message came and Venom immediately turned around. They've been fighting back to back until then. Moon Knight threw one of his moon blades at Spider-Man to prick his suit and stick it to the wall it tried to get a jump at them from. Venom wrapped his arms around his fight partner and looked down, waiting for the "magic" circle.

Their embrace didn't solve the attack. The sentinels continued firing and Spider-Man already freed himself. Five blasts were about to hit them, along with a web which would take advantage of their weak choice for a hug, but the portal for teleportation hadn't opened yet.

"Oh, well...," Marc heard Venom say the moment a circle of pitch black blood opened on the ceiling above. It pooled down, attached to them like glue, and then pulled them through. All blasts hit the ground, along with Peter's webs, while Marc and Clara fell from the ceiling down on Moroccan floor, into the bunker. Their suits were gone.

"Two anger issues lovers delivered back, safely," Paul smiled over them, looking directly at Grizzly. "I can be nice when I want to, see?"

Clara was the first to let go, since she did land on top of Marc and he took most of the fall. She pulled out of her jacket the drive and threw it back at Grizzly. "Your hair," she breathed out her exhaustion, "did we miss anything?"

"A complication," Grizzly drove a hand through his hair and Paul wiped away the drop of blood from his cheek, only to place it in his mouth. Good Boy had long retreated in the shadow of his master.

"When is there no complication with you guys?" Marc sat up. With Clara's hand offered immediately, he pulled himself back on his feet as well.

"O.M.N.I.U.M. has a means to track Clara through," Grizzly explained their complication with a slightly defeated sigh.

"Of course they do," Clara wasn't surprised. "They've always been one step ahead of us when they wanted to after all. But that doesn't matter right now. Did you get all the info we needed to go get my sister back?"

"Yes, but this does change everything. Now they'll know we are coming." The bad news shouldn't have shocked any of them, but they still weighed pressure on the atmosphere there, clogged with death.

Grizzly thought this tension was getting too much to handle, alas, he decided to fuck it and get away, retrieve his laptop and open it to the documents from SHIELD that he stole in those ten minutes. "Oleg Montes' Nation of Ideal United Masses," he worded out for them, "or for short, O.M.N.I.U.M.. SHIELD had felt and registered their presence during the second world war, but their activity was tracked back from before the first one. Oleg Montes? His research on the human brain is studied decades after his death by those who will fund the Winter Soldier project for the Soviet Union. But O.M.N.I.U.M. itself... it never shows up publicly again since world war two. They use facets, like Harrow and the fake identity of Dr. Hayes-"

"Hayes-!" A choked voice had all four of them turn around and look towards the infirmary, then through its open door at Michael. His skeletal hand was twitching. Grizzly passed the laptop to Marc and ran into the infirmary, at the bedside, tenderly capturing that shivering hand into his certain grip.

Grizzly shushed him, because even if his light sensitive eyes couldn't open fully, Michael struggled to speak. Paul took advantage silently of the fresh souls he ate and summoned some darkness in that infirmary, to make it easier for Michael to adjust back.

"He wants to release a virus," Michael whimpered. "... to filter out the elite... the ideal humans, whose minds are worth manipulating and whose bodies are ready."

"Michael..."

"Ready for what?" Clara asked before Grizzly could shush Michael again.

"Carry on the species, somewhere else."

"They want to destroy the planet," Marc mumbled, remembering Khonshu's warnings of them.

"Everyone else is a monster and they are to be cleansed in the monster-made fire," Michael started choking out these words, they drained him and his heartbeat was accelerating. "The institute is a house for his volunteers, followers of false prophecies. Priscila-!"

Clara flinched. Her jaw locked and her gaze unfocused.

Michael couldn't continue his speech anymore, his vitals were all over the place from the strain of escaping the virus he was injected with, still not cleansed by the blood transfusions.

That is when the sound of her surrounding world faded. Clara realized the inevitability of fate and a smile shivered onto her lips.

"Marc?"

His head immediately turned towards her, ready to be there for her in whatever way she needed-

"Is Khonshu here?"

That numb question was the last thing he would have expected to hear. Marc took a quick glance around the room, before he allowed his eyes to return to Clara's. He nodded for her.

"Can you point me in his direction?"

Another unexpected question. Something in his heart twisted. Something was wrong yet he was compelled to abide and point in the corner where he was seeing Khonshu then. Paul and Grizzly watched as Clara turned towards that place and spoke though she saw no God. She believed Marc wouldn't lie.

"I know you want to hear this, you old bitch. You were right."

"Had a feeling she was the smart one," Marc heard Khonshu say.

"Right?" he stepped towards Clara instead, to stand beside her. "Right about what?"

She nodded towards the corner Khonshu should be at, then turned to Marc, face riddled with all the pain she was trying to hide. "We already know how to take this enemy down. Jake and I learnt that in the alley back in San Francisco too. We already know how to win, in a way they won't see it coming."

"We do?" Grizzly reluctantly exited the infirmary.

"No," Marc suddenly realized. Eyes widened, ever so lightly. Was this the cold sweat of a cruel deja vu?

"It is the only way," Clara tried to make herself seem at peace with the idea. It didn't work.

"What way? Talk with us, Clara."

Marc moved Grizzly's demands to the background and when Clara tried to look away from him, he placed his hands desperately on her shoulders, shaking his head. "No, it's a stupid plan. We are not doing that. Not after all... Clara, we don't have to let him win."

"We are running out of time and options. The enemy is too dangerous to wait any longer and this is my sister we are trying to save here-"

"I can't lose you!" His voice cracked. His grip just got a notch tighter.

"Would someone bloody tell me what's going on?!"

Clara's bitter smile was the passage by which she moved Marc's hands off of her and turned to Grizzly. "Khonshu, the God Marc serves as Moon Knight, knows what O.M.N.I.U.M. is after. They must be needing my Venom for this virus they are creating and they are desperate to get him. If I was to turn myself in, you'd have an insider who can locate Priscila so Paul can get her out. I would be a good distraction for an infiltration."

"What about you?" Grizzly asked slowly.

"We follow Khonshu's plan. Moon Knight can interfere and destroy O.M.N.I.U.M. as initially planned-"

"You'd die," Marc interrupted her again. "And I do not... will not trust Khonshu with bringing you back to life!"

"I don't trust him either," Clara shook her head. "What would my life be without Venom anyway?"

"Clara, we're not letting you die," Grizzly shook his head.

"Then I won't," she shrugged. "But this is the best plan... No, actually, this is the only plan we have with a certainty that it will work."

"Please don't," Marc's accent changed to British and Clara knew that if she turned around she'd see Steven shedding tears.

"I'm sorry, Steven, but this truly is the only way we can do what you like doing most."

"What is that?"

"Saving the world," Clara smiled, still not turning around. Jake hated this cowardice of not looking him in the eye so he grasped her arm and turned her to face him. He was their last hope at changing her mind.

"No," he shook his head. "You know I do everything you ask of me, love. But not this one, please. I'm begging you to change your mind. Let me go with you. Let me be by your side."

"Jake, it's the element of surprise which will save us..."

"Fuck the element of surprise!" He shouted a bit too loud for being right in front of her. His hands moved to touch her cheeks, to gently caress and hold back the need to just cling to her tighter. "Clara...," his voice softened.

"They think you're dead and that is exactly why this is going to work. They won't be looking for you, they won't see you coming at all. You'll be able to carry out the plan. Destroy them."

"And save you," Jake completed.

Clara didn't nod, didn't smile. Her eyes dropped and in that second she looked away, the gentle touch turned more firm, more assertive. She looked up and Marc furrowed his brows, holding back tears. "We will save you," he breathed out.

The mission was settled beyond the agreement of all involved parties, but before taking any leap of faith, Clara had to regain her composure and the bathroom was the sanctuary she chose. The sink was the altar which her hands gripped, for her life depended on it.

"Venom," she called. For them, it started before a mirror. That ugly motel where she named him and they accepted each other for the first time. Now, she called out his name with a shaking tone.

"I need to know if you're okay with this, buddy. We might not make it out of Cairo..."

"That little faith you have in your boyfriends?" Venom hoped a little tease would cure the tightness in his chest. It didn't. "What about the God? He could bring you back..."

"Not without you," Clara shook her head. "I don't want to come back without you."

"Clara..."

"No. You're all I have. You've been there for me always, no matter what. What am I without you? I'm nothing. I'm stupid, 'cause I've never bothered with studies... I'm weak. Can't even aim a fucking gun. There's no life without you for me."

"You're not stupid," Khonshu's voice interrupted their conversation. He didn't show a corporal form, but his voice echoed for only Clara to hear. "And you're not weak. In fact, you have my blessing for your bravery, Clara Carita. Thank you."

"Clara?" Venom asked after a moment in which Clara stared ahead, without blinking at all. She flinched out of that and straightened up, understanding nothing from what she had just heard. There was no sign of the stupid pigeon skull once she took a look around.

"Are you with me?" She looked back in the mirror.

It took a moment, but she managed to glimpse at the face of her symbiote in the reflection, "Till the day I die."

"I can promise to bring her back if she dies," Khonshu spoke to Marc, moments after the mission started. He already regretted not having hugged Clara longer, not telling her one last time how much she meant to him... thinking that he'd tell her when they see each other again. How selfish that was of him. Now uncertainty ate at his soul. It hurt.

"But Marc... Her worm is not from this planet."

"His name is Venom," he bitterly corrected Khonshu. A tear rolled down his left cheek and after a long blink, he sniffed in and continued, in a different voice, "... And my name is Steven."

"Venom is from another planet and his mind has always been out of my reach. Him, I cannot bring back and I need you three to understand that Clara, without Venom..."

"Is wonderful," Steven completed him. "With or without him, she's wonderful, but it's not about who she is. It's about the venom of existing without the person you love the most and that is a torture I would never wish upon her."

A break caught Steven's soft exhale, "So just shut up. We will save them both."

"Of course...," Khonshu agreed in uncertainty and slowly, "... love can change the way of the world." His mutter was to himself, uncertain.

author's note:    peter and wendy cameo checkkk and yes, the magic show they mentioned going to is gonna be the one we see in my multiverse of madness fic, "the magician". gotta love linking it all up.

and yep, i love linking shit up for this book as well, going to leave unintentional loose ends, as you can see. how do you all like the action sense? because on a mental/emotional note, i think clara has grown quite a bit, marc too.

for those of you who can and want to support my writing/this series further, i have a ko-fi link in my bio. thanks for considering 💗

next update: tomorrow