"Letting your personal demons win is the one plausible way of survival. Instead of killing your own mind, in all its facets and cracked mirrors," the recording sounded like a glitch over the break in the woman's voice. She clicked her tongue a few times. Her mouth sounded as dry as her tone. "Use the shards for weapons and protect yourselves from the cruel," she inhaled sharply over the crack in her voice, "cruel world."

Clara heard the recording of her own voice in the distance of her state in which her eyes were closed and her mind felt numb. She was regaining consciousness and that made the recording sound louder.

"Because if anyone already sees you as a monster..."

She didn't remember saying any of those things. She didn't remember how she got to be in a place so bright that when her eyes opened they hurt either. A few slow blinks, a rather long second of convincing her eyes not to roll back along with her heavy head, and Clara finally focused her sight on her true surroundings.

"... it is not up to any of you to prove them wrong, right?"

Clara flinched off her seat. Her shoulders tensed up under her earlobes and her feet helped her leap backwards, at least one step behind the fallen chair, when she noticed her wrists were tied with tight constraints, chained with a protected wire to the ground which would have been under her seat.

She pulled back mindlessly, because she saw just about enough of the place to know this wasn't giving her comforting emotions. A white room, with simple walls, save for the twelve shelves of books, sometimes decorated with some figurines of either a motorcycle or a snow globe of Cairo or San Francisco. There were no windows and the only thing remotely standing out was her brown chair and the intensely colored desk before her. Behind it, she didn't distinguish a person, not until he shifted in his seat and reached over his desk to stop the recording.

"Clara, you have to remain in the trance for us to make some progress," he spoke calmly to her. This wasn't a voice she knew at first. Squinting, she realized this was supposed to be a face she'd be familiar with at least...

"Dr. Hayes," she noted rather breathlessly, still pulling from her restraints. "What happened? How did I get here? What did you do to my mind? I can't remember-"

He raised his hands, "Clara, you are being hysterical again. This is our twelfth session, yet you keep on guarding your mind. I need you to acknowledge that this is for your own good, I am trying to get you diagnosed, so you don't end up with a death penalty for all the crimes you have committed."

Hesitation stopped her from pulling back on her restraints and to that small progress, Dr. Hayes sighed, in the slightest, relieved.

"What?" Clara asked slowly. Her sight was back to normal and now, borderline panicked, she tried to assimilate more of her surroundings. Forced to look down because of the dubiously inconvenience the restraints created for her, she realized she was wearing plain white clothes. Then she glanced again at the room and eyed a certain diploma on the wall: Dr. Dario Hayes.

Clara felt inexplicably cold, but she still continued her inspection of the place, taking in even the man's desk. The cassette in the old record player was titled "Carita Trial in Mexico".

"You do remember the people you've murdered, Clara," Dario insisted, getting the woman to finally look at him.

"Your face," Clara pointed one finger at him.

"What's wrong with my face?" He sighed in a manner which perhaps made it uncanny obvious that he had heard these complaints from her too often.

"Where's your scar?"

"I never had a scar, Clara."

"Bullshit!" she raised her voice again and pulled on her restraints. "What is this? Some mind game? You're trying to get into my head... wasn't the whole world domination plan enough for you, O.M.N.I.U.M. bitches?"

"World domination?" Dr. Hayes tilted his head, his confusion voicing pity for Clara. "Oleg's Mental Nourishing Institute for the Uncontrollable Man. For short, O.M.N.I.U.M.. Clara, I know you are trying to villainize us here, but we are your only chance at avoiding the death penalty and whether you like it or not, I, as your doctor, only want you to get the right treatment."

She stood still until his break to breathe happened. Then, the silence irked her into shaking her head, "This isn't real. This can't be real."

"You think you're dreaming?" Dr. Hayes perked another question at her, watching her determination flatten as thinly as her lips.

Clara knew this wasn't a dream. The pain in her wrists and the coldness in her bones was too real for this to be a dream. "I don't know what this is, but fuck you if you think you can keep me in this place." She put all the strength she thought she had in attempting to break her restraints, however, they didn't budge, and sooner her feet slid against the floor rather than the actual things holding her back gave in.

"What the...? Venom! Wake up, buddy. We need to break out-"

"Venom again?" Dario sighed deeply, leaning back in his comfy, cushioned chair. "I'm sorry to break it to you Clara, for the thousandth time, Venom doesn't exist."

"Shut up," she blurted out, pulling on the restraints again, without any success of using the super strength she could have sworn she had.

"You created Venom so you could live with yourself after killing your father. You were a scared child in a mean and dark world, you had no idea you were creating a monster which would be an outlet of all your anger, through which you will continue killing people. We've already settled this in our last session, Clara, don't you remember?"

Halfway through what he was talking, Clara began shaking her head. At first in a slow disagreement, then in a rapid movement which forced her eyes closed. "Venom!" she called. "This isn't funny anymore. Wake up and help me out, buddy!"

"Venom isn't real."

"Shut up!" She opened her tear filled eyes once he had the audacity to repeat that outrageous idea. "You can't play with my mind."

"I am not playing with your mind," Hayes reassured her calmly. "I am trying to help you, but I cannot do that if you are in constant denial. You need to understand that Venom doesn't exist. He's an imaginary friend, Clara. You are the one who killed all those people."

She immediately leant forward, until her pelvic zone touched his desk, her wrists were pulled back down, keeping her from even getting close to touching him. "They deserved it! They wanted me dead, so I killed them first."

"And the cannibalism?" Dr. Hayes looked serene. He knew he was making progress now, but the pitiful hint in his eyes angered Clara twice as much as her understanding that this -whatever this was- was working his way.

"Venom needs sustenance."

"Wrong," he nodded along. "Venom is not real. You are the one who ate those people."

"No," she denied with a shake of her head, looking away.

"You've been hiding your crimes behind this imaginary friend you created in your childhood, but Clara, I need you to acknowledge, the monster has always been you."

"I'm not a monster!" She snapped back at him.

"Then how do you call a person incapable of feeling remorse?" he inquired, ever composed. He didn't fall for any of her traps of turning this into a shouting match.

"Remorse?" she gasped, taking a step back. "For the likes of my father? He beat me up almost daily. I had to raise and protect my sister, instead of living my fucking childhood. That bitch had it coming and I owe no fucking thing to him, especially not my guilt."

"How about Sufyan Al-Madini?" Dr. Hayes turned over a piece of white paper on his desk which proved to be a picture. "He was twenty-two and trying to finish university. Came from a poor family, with nothing remotely bad in his agenda... Why did you kill him then?"

One look was enough for Clara to get a flash of a memory and recall his face, under the black helmet. Her mind was a mess, but she remembered the hallway in Morocco, above a bar. She was angry... something bad had happened to her and she smashed his helmet with a speaker?

Then bashed his head in. Clara forced her eyes closed to stop the memory, then opened them just to glare at Hayes, "He was trying to kill me. It was self-defense. And he was not innocent, you turned him into a soldier."

"I'm a doctor, I don't turn people into soldiers." Facing yet another disapproval from the woman, Dr. Hayes turned yet to another piece of proof, pointing at the cassette. "We were just listening to something when you decided to put your walls back up again. Your trial, for your father's murder."

"I was never on trial and that is not me on the recording."

Dr. Hayes reached under his desk, "I have a video too-"

"Stop it," Clara once again began pulling on her restraints. "I am not sitting here. I know what is real and what is not."

"You do?" Hayes obviously mocked her. "So you do know you're a world renowned serial killer and that you never properly grew up so you kept your childhood imaginary best friend and-"

"Just shut up!" Clara's shout turned into a gasp of pain as she managed to break her hands, dislocating her bones while getting herself out of the restraints. She fell back, right on her ass and it wrecked her world into a weird dizziness. Why was she unable to remember so many things, but she was so deeply certain she never actually felt pain quite like this?

The door behind her, the door of that white office opened and from the corner of her eyes, Clara saw two people who had heard the commotion of her falling over or were called in by Hayes. How they got there did not matter. They opened the door and that was her way out, which they were blocking.

Clara got herself on her feet and grabbed the first palpable weapon she could find on the desk of the doctor. That was, this time, a blue pen, merch from Finding Dory, that he had in his notebook she would have loved to glimpse at the notes of, but she had no time to.

Those two white-dressed guards were next to her. One grabbed her arm, the other was going for the other, but instead, she spun, clicked the pen open and drove it through his eye. Clara pulled the pen back out and turned towards the other guy grabbing her a notch too hard for her liking. This time, she stabbed through the temple.

Considering she might need it on her way out, Clara took the pen out once more and gave no other gram of attention to Hayes or the room. She ran out, hurried onto a hallway equally white and chose to head on the left side, following nothing but instinct.

"Venom," she muttered to herself. "I need you to wake up. This isn't a dream, so I know you're there. Please, I need-" Clara's run halted besides a patient's room. The plastic card stuck on the outside of the door held a familiar name: M. Morbius.

"Michael?" she questioned, curious to look inside. Her hand's instinct was to reach forward even, but once steps echoed from the other end of the hallway, Clara stopped. It was more important to get herself on guard, only it lasted for only as long as she saw Marc in a wheelchair.

"Marc!" It didn't even matter if he was accompanied by two other guards himself. She couldn't give less of a flying fuck if an army surrounded him at that moment: Clara dropped everything to call out his name then run towards him.

"You're not supposed to be here," the first guard left Marc's side and took threatening steps towards Clara. Her hand tightened on the pen, blood sneaked through her fingers and dripped a few drops on the floor.

Marc's eyes, unfocused from all the drugs in his system, barely held themselves open, but he appreciated that he heard at least the echo of a familiar voice. He tried to follow the sound, but his body was paralyzed and he didn't understand the shadows.

Clara was tiny compared to the guard who grabbed her hand and twisted her wrist until the pen fell out. She gasped in pain while the whole arm got twisted behind her back and the man pushed her chest into the wall. "Marc!" she called again, her voice slowly fading away.

But a second audible sound was an electrifying shock to his senses. Marc blinked once. "Clara...?" he tasted her name slowly, before his eyes suddenly focused and he realized she was there -wherever there was- and she was in trouble.

Every cell of his body hurt, but he forced himself to step out of the wheelchair. "Leave her alone!" His knees buckled and his ankles gave in under the weight of his body, before he could land a punch on the guard trying to pin him back down. The second their arm came near him, Marc bit into it, drawing blood. His legs may have betrayed him, but his hands were certain and while the guard buckled in pain, he punched them in the face.

Clara couldn't watch all of that, because a hit busted the back of her head.

When she opened her eyes, she was back in her chair, restraints on, sitting before Dr. Hayes.

"What the fuck is this?" Clara immediately tensed up, but when she attempted to push her chair back and sit up, she realized the chair was better anchored. She looked up and at both sides of her chair, the guards she killed with a pen held it down. "This...," she murmured, looking at the desk and seeing the clean pen still at its place, "... this isn't right."

"You had a little episode," Dr. Hayes explained, "it's alright to feel a bit confused. And I'm sorry if it feels like I am suddenly pushing your limits, but we're running out of time. I only have a few more sessions left with you, before that death sentence is permanent." He looked into the eyes of a scared woman. Rounded and teary, rapidly moving across the room; her hitched breaths were matching her sharply short blinks.

"Don't you want to live, Clara?" he asked.

A hammer went through Clara's heart and her lips shivered out of her control, mouthing a weak 'yes' while she still did not understand anything. "How did I get here?" she calmed her tone and asked in a more calculated manner. She noticed, next to Hayes' desk, to the right, a new object had appeared: an old TV, like she recalled some of the fancy schools had for their classes in cartoons.

"You don't remember?" Hayes asked in return. "Your sister turned you in. She's the reason you're here." He watched hungirly for Clara's reaction to this information. In an attempt to process everything, trying to make sense of these pieces which did not match together, Clara looked speechless.

He took that as the perfect opportunity to evoke some emotion out of her. "I found it hopeful to know from her that you kept in touch with your sister through the years, in an attempt to keep the bond alive, or rather fool yourself that it had never been broken the night she watched you kill your father."

"She didn't watch," Clara blinked some presence into herself again. "She was behind a closed door. I remember that night clearly. She didn't watch."

"It didn't happen the way you remember," Dr. Hayes gave her a smile filled with a sad compassion. "Your sister was in the same room with you when your father walked in, drunk. He grabbed you because of a music player he thought you stole, when in fact you received it from a boy at school. Your father was getting violent and you got angry. He pushed you into the wall and you grabbed the picture of your mother, smashed it in his head. Multiple times. Until he died, while your sister was crying. You see, I understand why blaming everything on an alien you imagined as your friend in childhood was easier to comprehend than this tough scene. You were still just a child, living in a harsh environment."

Clara didn't know why she started crying, but tears flooded her eyes. Her head bowed in a confused defeat.

"It's alright," Dr. Hayes reassured her. "You are a monster and this is what we are here to help you understand before we begin treatment." Without further preparation, he grabbed the remote and switched on the TV.

Clara heard her own voice come out of the TV, even if with a load of static noise. "Because if anyone already sees you as a monster... it is not up to any of you to prove them wrong, right?" She didn't look up at herself until her voice on the video recording changed. It got deeper... closer to Venom's voice, but eerily different.

"The world's a dark place." Clara raised her eyes with considerable hesitation. She was horrified by what she would see on that screen and she was rightfully scared too, because her heart stopped when she saw that the voice was made by her in the recording. Nothing about her appearance changed, not her eyes, not her skin, not her teeth. It was her. Just her.

"The night is filled with terrors," she had grinned in court. "Our only choice is to accept the Venom of existence."

"Do you see it now?" Dr. Hayes paused the recording. Clara's gaze froze on it. "You have always been the monster. Just you. All alone."

Her face suddenly contorted with all the emotion she remembered to have denied herself her entire life. Eyebrows arched down, her eyes shut and her sadness repressed in pushing the corners of her mouth down, until it felt natural for her upper teeth to graze down on the shivers of her bottom lip. Rounded, warm tears bubbled out from underneath her eyelashes and formed slow rivers on her cheeks. Her nose clogged and air became a luxury past which she couldn't breathe.

"I don't want to do this anymore," words crawled out of her throat. "I don't understand," a whisper followed. "Please, just let me go, I don't want to be here. ¡Por favor! Estoy cansada..."

And she felt sick to her core, through the tears and through the absolute wreck Hayes made of her mind. Her memories blended together until all she could distinguish were the bad times, not even a fraction of whatever good she had had in her life before this. Loneliness and despair consumed her and in the pits of her empty stomach, Clara felt acidity grow. There was no mirror for her to see herself in... but even the details under her eyes, like the bandages around her hands went unnoticed while she suffocated herself further, leaning down over her knees and hugging herself through the nauseating reality.

Only the second the gag reflex spit out vomit from her mouth, her eyes opened and saw a floor colored in the darkness of a night with a bright silver of moonlight.

Her hands, fingers spread, grasped the floor.

"Clara!" Venom's voice rang in her head. "It's a hallucinogen. A smaller dosage of what Michael had, but..."

"I've never been so happy to hear your voice," she cried out before her stomach ache made her puke right there and then again. The stomach pain was being caused by Venom, fighting this strange substance in their body the best he could. Only the substance spread fast, faster than he could act and there was only so much he learnt to use in Clara's body. This thing infected everything in his human, like a microscopic plague.

So Clara started becoming dizzy again in no time. She leant away from the spot she vomited on and turned around until she could look down at Marc. In her glimpse of true reality, she understood he surely was trapped in the same illusionary hell as her. Here, he wasn't moving and she didn't trust herself to get closer without things becoming disgusting.

"Remember that time we caught that virus, buddy?" Clara held her stomach and pushed herself to lean against the nearest wall.

"Of course I do. You almost died and I learnt how important it is that I keep your immune system working-"

"I'll need you to do a deep body cleansing now too," she interrupted, eyes already closing. She lost sense of her legs. "Then do Marc too..."

"How am I supposed to do Marc too?" Venom inquired confused at her whisper.

"Don't know... make him..."

She dozed off mid sentence, fully aware of it too.

"Vomit!" Clara woke up with that exclamation, but she was back in Dr. Hayes' office.

"Vomit?" he asked, utterly shocked by this response.

Clara had no idea what they were talking about. She noticed the old TV was gone and so were the two guards holding her chair. Slowly, after having checked her environment fully, her eyes returned to him.

"Are you alright?" Dr. Hayes slightly narrowed his eyes.

Clara leant forward in her chair and brought her hands close together, between her knees. She was going to silently dislocate her bones now. A little less substance in her system meant a little more consciousness.

"I am fine," she replied in a truthfully slow speech. "Perhaps I am a little fucked up, doc. Life hasn't been nice at all, you know. But... I'm not crazy."

"Clara...," he sighed in a warning manner.

"I am not alone."

"Are you going to tell me about your imaginary friend now? About the sister who hates you? Or maybe about those characters on TV, the Grizzly bear and his snarky detective friend, Paul? Clara, snap out of this."

"I am not alone," she insisted. "And if my existence is a venom, then I'm a fucking parasite and I'm happy with it. Because I am fine." She leant back and nodded. "I'm fine with who I am." Her free hands lifted up. She descended them back down on her knees in a quick slap and got up with a sigh.

"I think I needed to say that out loud," she admitted then, looking at the chair first, then at the doctor. "Thanks for making me say that." Turning her head towards the exit, she smiled, repeating what she needed to remain with herself after this, "I am not alone."

Dr. Hayes let her get out and considering how much she started remembering, Clara appreciated Venom would be pulling her out of this illusion soon. She trusted him. And it was okay to trust him too.

However, no matter how happy she found herself, for being close to her freedom again, after the hardest fight of all, Clara was in a hurry to do two more things here. She found Michael's door and broke it open by pushing her shoulder into it a few times.

With no time to stick around and check on him in that dark room, she rushed through the hallways until she found an empty cafeteria... Empty save for Marc, in a wheelchair, looking absolutely still.

"Marc," Clara placed her right hand over his left then kneeled before him so her eyes could force some contact to his, which looked lost and unfocused only at the floor. At least until she got there. "Yes," she smiled at seeing this little movement, at least on his face, "I'm here." She held his hand tighter. "This isn't real, Marc. No matter what they tell you, it's not real, so don't listen to them, alright?"

His hand started twitching in her grip. He was trying his best to cling to her too.

How was she supposed to let go of him now? Her heart found it impossible.

"Don't listen to them," Clara whispered. "Whatever you do, don't listen to them, honey." She lifted up again and neared her lips to his face, until they pecked gently on top of his bandaged nose. During that little kiss which Marc was struggling to understand past his numbness, Clara pried her hand away.

A blink away, she disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Marc forced his hand off the armrest of the wheelchair, but that only triggered a chain reaction, pumping his body to get up in an instant and fall over.

He was certain his head should have hit the ground, however, his eyes opened to a white, plain office. A diploma was on the wall for the name of Dr. Arthur Harrow and across from him, at a desk filled with trinkets of egyptian value and a snow globe of Casablanca, was the man himself, greeting him with a calm and warm smile.

"Where's Clara?" Marc asked right away, with a rough voice which immediately made him feel the abrasiveness of his throat. It was dry down there, on the same intensity as his whole skin felt the shivers of coldness.

"Clara Carita?" Arthur questioned. "Oh, right... You and her have socialized in the common area of the institute. Unfortunately, we had to separate you considering how violent being in each other's presence made you both."

"Where is Clara?" Marc glared, insisting.

"That doesn't have to concern you anymore, Marc. She got you at a vulnerable time and you're probably not even aware of the fact that Miss Carita is a psychopath, a serial killer. Your safety was my priority, of course, so I moved you to a different wing. Do you not remember any of that?"

Marc fell silent. For a moment, he was uncertain what he could remember and what he could not. His mind was scattered in at least four directions he couldn't find order behind.

"But we're not here to talk about a criminal," Arthur inhaled sharply. "We're here to talk about you. Are you ready to tell me why Steven and Jake exist?" His question managed to get Marc to look up and focus his gaze. His heart skipped a beat and the reassembly of a psychiatric institute finally got to him. It tensed him.

"Or rather," Dr. Harrow considered, "if I am to take what you've told me in our last session... Why do you think Steven and Jake are burdens? Let's start there this time."

Marc couldn't keep eye contact even for a second. His eyes closed, looked down, to the side, anywhere but at the patient doctor. But the longer he pondered on the question, the more instinctive an answer got.

"I didn't tell you that."

"Of course you did," Arthur spoke clearer than Marc's whisper, but by the time he was done nullifying his statement, Marc had raised his head. His empty eyes focused, even if just slightly, on glaring.

"She told me not to trust you," he mumbled, tone low enough to crawl and scrape itself on the ground.

"Miss Carita is as mentally ill as you are, Marc," Dr. Harrow shook his head. "Don't let her behavior affect the progress we were making. About Steven always getting you into trouble. Weren't you upset with him? With his ungratefulness..."

"No," Marc shook his head, interrupting. "This isn't real and you're wrong."

"I'm not real?" Arthur seemed staggered with that information. "That is new, I admit. So what? Khonshu can be real, but I am not?"

"You're not real, because you're dead," Marc's head was bursting through a migraine, but he was rather used to those, through the years in the servitude of Khonshu. "And misinformed," he added, before getting up from his chair.

"Steven's not a burden," Marc rolled his shoulders back, stretched a little, then dropped his hands by his side, to clench into fists while he stepped around the desk and walked on the side of Arthur's chair. "Neither is Jake."

"Marc...?" Arthur watched, warily.

"They're there to be what I need, when I can't," Marc finished his explanation with a relieved exhale. "It's been a little rough for us lately, but... that wasn't our fault. So, I'm sorry, but I'm really not into this whole mind fuck thing."

"Marc-" His next inquiry was interrupted by action. Marc's left hand grabbed the back of Arthur's chair and his right fist punched him right into the face, with all the strength he could muster. That hit made the things from the desk disappear, all but a Finding Dory pen. He grabbed the pen and shoved it in Arthur's right eye. That hit shattered that diploma on the wall to dust.

"What do you mean you don't know how to clean his system?" Clara shouted to Venom as she knelt beside Marc's still body. He was barely breathing and even though she had the knowledge of him coming back to life once, it felt to her as undeniably cruel that she'd ever consider just letting go through that mental battle which almost got the worst out of her.

"I don't know how all human bodies work," Venom complained, just as stressed. "If I go the wrong route in there, he might die either way and I don't want that to be on me!"

"Maybe if we just make him puke a little-?"

"Ah!" Marc sat up from his lying position, his shout making both Clara and Venom scream, while she raised her fists up, defensively. Marc spun around and finally, with their eyes meeting, the screaming session turned into a desperate, clinging embrace in which he grabbed anything he could of her and she gladly suffocated, hiding her face on his shoulder.

"This bitch is like a cat with one too many lives," Venom's exasperated sigh did get some relief puzzled in it.

Marc's hands gripped tightly around Clara, his head leant to the side to bump into hers and he still could not understand what exactly happened to them. Whereas, Clara didn't want to understand. Whatever happened because of the O.M.N.I.U.M. poison was a sick game she was not planning on playing again any time soon.

Their embrace was fearful, if anything. They had feared this was their last battle and they fought to see each other, for a change.

"Wait," Clara leant back. Her left hand slid up to Marc's face, "how did you get out of the hallucinations?"

"You're mind's tougher than you think," Khonshu muttered, a notch prouder than usual. Marc looked back over his shoulder. Through Khonshu's disappearing figure, Paul walked onto their hall and immediately halted his step to cover his nose and pinch his nostrils shut.

"Why the heck does it smell like a farm here?"

"Paul? You're here too?" Clara was, easily said, startled to see the demon stuck around more than his end of the bargain dealt. He was only supposed to get Priscila out. Now that the scent of the place was brought up, it became high time for both Marc and Clara to get up. One arm of his remained wrapped around her while they helped each other to stand.

"Of course I'm here too," Paul rolled his eyes. "Who do you think took out every other soldier so you two could have your vengeance game? Santa? You're bloody welcome, now let's get out of here, before Grizzly's explosives go off, because last I checked, you ain't as good as your boyfriends at surviving fire."

Marc made a step towards the demon first, but he felt Clara remaining behind, therefore, he stopped and turned to see what exactly was holding her back. It was quite a shock that her delay came from taking one last look out the window on her right. She simply had to marvel one last time at the sight of the moonlight bathing over the pyramids on one side, while not so far away, modernity spiked its thousands of lights.

"Next time we're in Cairo," Marc drew his lips even a notch closer to her ear to whisper, "we'll be tourists."

"You promise?" Clara couldn't help but laugh, even if that innocent sound was swift and rather close to the quietness of a bell ringing. Her head turned towards Marc and the breath taken looking in each other's eyes was the single second he spared before, pulling her closer and peppering a soft kiss on her forehead.

"I promise." And his vow was written onto her skin directly.

Paul took care of their teleportation back to the ravaged bunker. The black goo retracted from their bodies and Clara was greeted by a familiar voice she missed far too much.

"Clara!"

It was only for Priscila that she even considered letting go of Marc's hand. The embrace her sister gave her was bone-crushing and much welcomed, because that could only mean she regained her strength.

"I thought you wouldn't show up," Priscila's breath hitched in a little desperate cry, while Clara allowed her hand to fall on top of her sister's head, getting to mess her hair a little.

"Now, it may take me a while, but you know I always do show up..."

"But I specifically told you not to follow me." If she didn't know better, Clara would say that was a true guilt at last in Priscila's voice.

"Well," Clara shrugged, "I'm the big sister, it's not my specialty to listen to you. It should be the other way around."

"Right," Priscila allowed herself to feel tired now that she was reunited with her family. "Thank you," she smiled, leaning back from the hug. Only as soon as the Carita sisters separated, the younger one slapped the oldest's arm.

"What the fuck was that for?!"

Through her glare, Priscila smiled, "For not telling me you're part of a superhero team sooner. Gee, Clara, what else are you not telling me?"

Clara could think of one more thing...

"This is my boyfriend, Marc," she started the introduction by placing her right hand on his shoulder. "Marc, this is my little sister, Priscila."

"Boyfriend?" Priscila had all the rights to be absolutely stunned with this piece of information. She looked between her sister and this man quite a few times before getting the bigger picture and realizing, with a rare sibling pride that they looked alright together. Most of her emotions were however exploding into fireworks to finally see Clara interested in something else other than violence and providing for the family.

Priscila nodded slowly at Marc's wave, "So he's part of the superhero team too?"

Clara wasn't going to answer that one. She turned her eyes towards Marc, trying to convey that he didn't have to answer if he didn't want to and he surely didn't have to anchor himself to this duty for her. But Marc was already replying to her little sister, with a confident smile.

"Oh, yeah, I am."

"Welcome to the team," Grizzly called, all a smile, from the infirmary. He walked out helping Michael walk as well. Dr. Morbius no longer looked like a ghost, or a skeleton, gripping on Grizzly's hand and shoulder with some liveliness.

"Michael," Clara breathed out relieved. Michael smiled back at her as much as he could. He still needed some blood transfusions, but the virus was finally out of his system.

"Your sister had quite a remarkable memory," Grizzly pointed out. "She remembered the anti-virus formula O.M.N.I.U.M. theorized and saved our Michael with it."

"Did she?" Clara glanced at Priscila shortly. "Well, of course she did," it didn't take her long to huff, "she's a little genius in this field."

"So I can join the team-?"

"No," all five proper adults in the room, with Venom's head forming out of Clara's back as well, answered at the same time.

Even with Paul's hellish teleportation method, it took them at least one more day to return to San Francisco. The night was cloudless and the moon was generous with shining its silver over the return to the front of Clara's apartment, where she was absolutely thrilled to see her motorcycle again, so much that she was almost on the verge of hugging it.

Marc was with her, but they had this dreadful feeling that after so much time they've spent together, this was the moment in which they should part ways and assume they'd see each other again tomorrow, or some other day. A hotel room waited for him after all and he only wanted to walk her home from the center of the city, where they first arrived.

However, close to each other, their hands represented their dislike of the idea of letting go so soon, so abruptly. It was as if something bad needed to happen for them to remain together and that simply just didn't sit right with either of them. So fingers got sticky, their hands refused to part.

But the words, though trying their best, were unsuccessful in stopping this wheel from turning, no matter how much they looked into each other's eyes or how close their lips gravitated to each other.

"You know your way back?"

"Mhmm," Marc hummed and immediately beat himself up innerly for not being a fantastic liar.

"It's pretty late..."

"It is."

"Are you trying to insinuate he can't take care of himself in the dark?" Venom sighed. "That's it, let me take over the conversation. You two are impossible-"

"So, see you tomorrow?" Marc tampered with the question which hurt them both. They couldn't just stand there the whole night though, could they? Stay there and wait for the sunrise to witness their stupid love...

Their fingertips were the last to cling before they had to let go and Marc turned around. He didn't know what else to do and frankly, Clara was not used to whatever this was. He took only two steps away before some instinct took over her voice.

"Marc?" He stopped walking. His chest filled with some little joyous hope, though he didn't really know what he expected her to say to him. Inevitably, his eyes lifted to the sky and he glanced at the moon.

"Do you...?" Clara hesitated a lot through her sentence, not because she didn't mean it, but rather because it was the final step to letting herself not be alone. It was one enormous step for her to climb. "Do you maybe... want to go grab some pizza?"

He didn't know what he expected, but this exceeded whatever it was. Casual, normal... her invitation made him smile a bit too widely when he turned around and offered her his hand. It was a first step, that was for sure.

•🌙•

three months later

•🌙•

The alarm clock went off for a second time. Clara's face was hidden between the relaxed curls of her hair and the soft pillow on her side of the bed. From underneath those dark curls, a strand of Venom sneaked out and got ready to snooze one more. He froze in the air though, right above the button, when her groan audibly sounded whilst she turned her head to the side and squinted up to see the time: 10 PM.

"Good morning," she still muttered to Venom, out of irony.

Instead of snoozing, he moved a button to the side and stopped the alarm now. The strand retracted back in her body, but not before making sure to tuck some of her hair behind her ear.

They were nocturnal animals more often than before lately. Their missions and hobbies have almost always been during the night, but the need for sleep had fallen in last place over daytime duties of being a sister, of attempting to fit in with this world. This priority group started changing though, shifting around after the changes in her life.

The bed creaked in a most familiar way while she got herself to sit up on its edge. With one hand reaching up, she rubbed her eyes into fully awakening and that freshly focused sight was used in casting a glance back over her shoulder. The other side of the bed was just as messy as hers.

Senses swarmed in and she was able to identify the water running in the bathroom.

"How much do you wanna bet it's a cold shower?"

"I don't bet on the losing side," Clara mumbled back to her symbiote and finally stood up, taking the house slippers on and passing by the mirror next to the entrance of the bedroom just to gratefully realize her warmest pajamas with Finding Dory still looked as good as the day she bought them.

Dragging her steps out of that room and past the clearly under use bathroom, she made a beeline for the kitchen, to get some coffee started. The light from underneath the bathroom door may have been enough for Venom's night vision, but Clara needed to fully wake up, so she switched on the lights in the kitchen. Illumination immediately forced her to narrow her eyes on the plate waiting on the table, already prepared with a fancy looking sandwich and some green things she couldn't quite identify.

Next to it, a note got her attention and that was what she grabbed first when walking around the table. The message made her smile: 'You've missed three meals in a row and I know Venom has a different diet, but you need some nutrients too. So I made you this.' A little heart was drawn next to Steven's name, signing the note.

Now, it would simply count as a crime for her not to sit down and actually eat what the man cooked for her, even if currently, she overslept by a whole hour and they were quite tight on time to make it to their appointment.

The door of the bathroom opened long after she had finished half the sandwich and left behind an answer on the back of Steven's note, waiting on the table while the plate was moved to their fridge. By then, Clara was already back in the bedroom, clothes already tossed in the bed and her dressing calmly with a dark sweater first.

Amongst the perks of having quite an old apartment was that no one could ever sneak up on her. The creak of the floor made her smile and expect the hug from behind before it actually happened. Paired with the warm embrace was a little kiss on her shoulder. Shamelessly, fresh mint scent exuded off his hair to follow the swirl of sensations. An electrifying shiver was conducted through his fingertips while his hands tried to be discreet about sneaking behind her just-put-on sweater.

"I missed you," Marc lifted his head and brushed his lips over her earlobe to whisper in a way he already knew it tickled her. Clara shivered and the goosebumps felt marvelous under his touch.

"Missed you too, honey," she murmured.

"Then how about a kiss?" He dared in return.

His hands allowed her some space to turn around and face him with one of the most challenging grins he ever met.

"I don't know, Marc, I think I gave you plenty of kisses last night."

"You know damn well that wasn't me last night," her dare was obviously answered in the most delightful manner, so that her play-pretend didn't last too long. Completely compelled to do so by his firm grip on her waist, Clara placed a sweet, but brief kiss on his lips. Her heart has gotten used to this relationship they managed to hold, and the safety of closing her eyes each time with certainty around him reminded her this time how happy she was that her apartment did not feel empty anymore.

One brief kiss was hardly sufficient. It barely counted as a greeting anymore.

Marc followed her as she leant back and took charge of their little catching up. He hasn't been fronting for a while. Between Steven wanting to get himself a stable job as a tour guide at the California Academy of Sciences and Jake voicing his need to live a little as well, Marc also had to tackle his duty as Moon Knight and those masked times were his fragments of presence, ruptured between the moments of lucidity when he could wake up next to Clara and tell that she was happy.

And he was too.

Steven got the job he wanted, Jake was calmer. Marc felt stable, between each movement of their lips and oh, how he rejoiced in knowing he was there to stick around, at least until the New Moon was nearer.

A hot breath got passed between their mouths and Marc guided them a step backwards, heading right back towards the bed, even though he had made it a struggling mission in the steaming bathroom to get dressed for their night out, a night Clara planned with him for months already.

It was December out there. San Francisco didn't get the miracle of snow just yet, but there was still hope, considering how the temperatures dropped.

The drop didn't happen for them. Clara felt a blush creep to her face while she felt Marc's gentle bite on her bottom lip and the brush of his nose against hers. His hands were anything but discreet, trying to already remove her sweater, but before she got completely swayed by him, she raised her hands between them.

Venom immediately played along his host's conflicted needs and pulled on Marc's hair for her. It was to get him away a little, sure, but the mixed signals of the gesture got Marc chuckling.

"No," Clara cut him off, laughing. "I know what you are trying to do and you better keep it in until we get back from the appointment you promised me we'd be there for."

"I was just hoping that maybe you'd agree moving the date in the bedroom is a wiser choice...," Marc tried to honey his tone the best he could. But it was a jest, for he was more than knowledgeable on how much Clara wanted to go out that night. "I can be very persuasive, if you only-"

Clara covered his mouth with her left hand and pointed at him with her right index finger. "Don't start breaking your promises now, Spector." It was a threat, but the desire in his eyes surely diluted any drop of anger she might have had in herself, making it a challenge for her not to grin or feel bashful under his loving gaze.

And Marc wasn't a liar. The framed picture on their bed stand stood as proof: one month after they took down O.M.N.I.U.M. he got her back to Cairo for a short, but absolutely amazing weekend they both deserved. The memories attached to that picture were the start of a happy life they had lost hope of ever living, before meeting each other in a freaking junkyard.

Clara lowered her hand off of his mouth and he grasped it, kissing her knuckles. "Alright..," he agreed with a sigh.

"And anyway," that hand of hers slid to his chest where that shirt he was stubborn enough to put on in the bathroom stuck well to his skin. It was a turtleneck, so without much thought, she hooked a finger under the collar, "Maybe some edging would do you good."

Two could play the teasing game though, because this was pretty much a custom each time he was back. "I want to hear you say those things again when we get back."

It didn't take them too long to get out of the house after that. Clara finished getting dressed and Marc put to good use the tidiness skills from the army to make the bed. On the stairs, Clara passed him an earbud, along with his helmet.

"Careful what music you pick," Venom warned Marc, morphing his head out of Clara after making sure the stairs were not bearing any witnesses for them. "Last time I was nice, but if you get any rock on the playlist imma really toss you off a bridge now."

"Charming as always, Venom."

Once on her motorcycle, Clara was in a posture about four months ago she could have never guessed she'd enjoy. Four month ago, Marc was nothing but an annoyance to her and to share her passion for driving her vehicle with him? What seemed insane back then, now made her feel.

It made her feel.

She's always been whole, but now she started feeling it in the way Marc stopped being shy about holding on to her.

His song choice was not quite as adorable as what Steven usually plays for them, but not as cheesy as Jake's picks either, especially after he found out Clara still speaks Spanish. Marc chose the sort of song which reflected their violent nature without disrupting the peculiarly calm sentiment of driving at night.

Time had a bad habit of flowing differently around them when they were enjoying themselves and in almost no time, Clara parked at their destination. It was the backyard of a mansion on one of the hills overlooking San Francisco, the sort of expensive street they shouldn't be on, but well... there they were.

In their defense, the mansion was deserted and up for renovations which were entirely up to Clara's ex's firm. And why were they there? This particular mansion benefitted from an ice ring in the backyard, one which the new owners wanted gone. But before ripping it to shreds in time for the holidays, some strings got pulled by the man waiting beside it for Clara and Marc.

"Shay," Clara waved.

"Five minutes late," he pointed out with an amusing narrowing of his eyes.

Venom moved out of Clara's body, forming his head to float near hers, just so he could shine his toothy grin briefly at the ex. "There was traffic." In return, Venom got a short wave from Shay, which marked the symbiote's cue to get back in his host's body fully.

"Marc, this is Shay. Shay, this is Marc-"

"The infamous boyfriend," Shay exclaimed and extended his hand to Marc. Their handshake was brief, because Shay was in a bit of a hurry. He pointed Clara to the skates he saved for them then mentioned having to go back to the husband and the little one.

Marc knew what this date was going to be about, but he didn't really think Clara would tie her skates so fast and actually be able to stand on ice, far less slide without her knees buckling. She captured a glimpse at his shock and immediately rolled her eyes, "Don't act so surprised. A lot of dangerous sports become rather easy to learn when you no longer fear getting permanently injured."

"When did you have time to learn ice skating?" Marc asked curiously, bending over his knees to tie his own skates.

Clara got tired of waiting around for him while standing still, especially as up there, the winds were a bit harsher than down in the city. She slid around, like a breeze, slowly forming little circles, not going too far away from the edge so she didn't have to shout her answer for him to hear. "Broke into a couple ice rings during winters. It was... What does Steven call it? Self-care?"

"Aha," Marc nodded along and finally stood up, a bit uncertain, but not about his tying skills, rather about how those thin blades were gonna support him on ice.

Clara left no room for doubt. She was back on the edge, taking both his hands and pulling him onto the ice.

"Take it easy or we'll both fall!" He exclaimed. She found his little beginner fright truly amusing and just got them both to the center of the ice ring in a matter of seconds.

"Come on, Moon Knight," Clara teased, letting go of one hand to point up, "it's a full moon tonight. Aren't you supposed to be at your strongest tonight? Your knees shouldn't be shaking, honey."

Marc knew this was absolutely ridiculous, but he couldn't help it. It was not like he ever ice skated before. And Clara was aware of that, because Jake happened to give her some intel on the matter, in one of their long night talks.

Since he kept on looking down, Clara brought her free hand under his chin and lifted his gaze to hers. "Don't look down, that's when you lose your balance."

"It's easy to say and very hard to execute."

"Just hold my hand. Don't you trust me?"

"I trust you with my life, but the ice, on the other hand...," Marc sneaked a glance down, "that-"

A faraway explosion from the midst of the city below sent a shockwave that made even Clara shake on her skates. She held onto Marc so neither of them fell over, while auburn shades raised and shone against the silver nuances the ice started getting under the full moon. Both of them turned to face the panoramic view of the city and located the tunnels of smoke, the presence of flames, as well as the distant sound of sirens. At least five police cars, two fire squadrons... Venom was still counting when Clara decided to throw a glance back at Marc.

It shouldn't have shocked her to see the Moon Knight costume and that bright white shine of Marc's eyes in it. But it did. This was their date night.

"Seriously?" Clara tried her best not to laugh and actually seem upset about this. She looked away in order for his innocent shrug not to get to her. "We could be ruling this silly world," her arms crossed over her chest with a pout, "but no, you want to save it." One more glance at him paused her speech.

A sigh was inevitable to get out of her at that moment. Clara's eyes returned once more to the city. "Fine. Venom."

This was their date night. But would it really be them if they didn't throw some punches around?

"I'll race you there," Venom bumped his hand into Moon Knight's shoulder, passing the challenge. 

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