Chapter 1
Six cups of coffee on a dare (you dared yourself).
Little to no sleep for most of the week (you know what they say about New York).
And a bank robbery you quickly memorized the address of before tuning out your personal police scanner, suiting up, and swinging your way to the bank. You felt yourself occasionally twitch on your web, from both the coffee and the lack of sleep, which probably looked hilarious to the people below who watched you swing in the air, and you promised yourself to clear your schedule asap to sneak in some sleep between superheroing. Unfortunately for you, crime never rests, and neither does work, unless you had some chill bosses.
You all but fell into the bank in an attempt at a smooth landing after an especially bad twitch. Luckily there was a window opened for you, meaning less noise to draw attention to yourself as you stumbled in. You weren't on the ground for long before aiming up and shooting a web to the ceiling, pulling yourself up as fast as you can before perching upside down and surveying the robbery still taking place under you.
‘Okay,’ you thought to yourself, ‘I know I'm on a caffeine high, so let's get this done before I crash.’ You gave your head a shake and looked back down to the lobby below, spotting a few hostages who had, obviously, seen you first. You held a finger up to where your lips would be had it not had been for the mask, taking your eyes off those particular hostages and scanning the room again. No casualties as far as you could see, and about five or six robbers; nothing you can't handle, and, maybe this was the coffee talking, almost boring. You tried shaking that thought away as you crawled to the front of the building where a look out was standing by the door, but the way you automatically webbed him and his gun up to the ceiling next to you without thinking about it kind of furthered your point.
You were still new to the hero gig, but by now the crimes were becoming routine, and while you were grateful that you were helping people and saving the day, it all seemed like stuff any other officer should be able to stop without you. You also definitely were extra help for your city, but there were also certain people who hated you and tried so hard to smear your name with their own following of other people who hated you despite the good you try to do. After webbing up a couple of more robbers, you fought the urge to sit on the ceiling and ponder if this was just your personal worries leaking into your hero life.
Maybe you were just lonely- ‘no. No. No time for that, that didn't even make sense,’ you thought to yourself, especially with your spider-sense going off and making you look in the direction of the floor with all those hostages that were about to be hurt by whatever you could hear about to bulldoze it's way into the building-
Definitely not the time.
“Hang on!” You dropped your sneaky strategy in favor of quickly webbing and pulling the hostages out of harm's way, simultaneously dodging the bullets from the robbers who were now aware of your presence. Despite the not-so-warm welcome, you made an effort to get the couple of them away from the danger-zone that was the wall you've been pulling everyone else away from.
You were fast enough to get everyone who was too close out of the way before the wall came crashing down, rubble soaring high enough that you had to stop that from hitting anyone as well. As the smoke started to clear, you jumped down after checking to make sure the people you caught were unharmed. You still couldn't see what just crashed through, and your focus was on the hostages still on the ground who were trying to run to the exit behind you. Anyone in the crowd with a gun got some webbing to the ankles, and their weapon confiscated. A scream within the smoke got your attention, and you jumped right in, expecting a hurt hostage or even one of the robbers trying to draw you out. You were ready for both, but not for what you actually found.
A giant, vaguely human-shaped black mass with it’s back turned to you held one of the robbers in its hand, slowly crushing and squeezing the screams out of him. The creature had pulled off his ski mask and seemed to be talking to him, and after shaking off your shock, you managed to hear,
“Let's see if you taste as vile as your actions today.” You watched as it tilted its head back and stretched out its jaw, about to lower the screeching man calling for help into that cavern of sharp teeth before running back into action. You jumped and landed on its shoulder, aiming your wrists and webbing its mouth shut with your web-shooters. It opened its eyes up at you in surprise and it took everything not to stumble back and fall off of from your perch on its shoulder.
‘Isn't that terrifying,’ you thought, looking into its stark, white eyes.
“Love the enthusiasm, friend. But, that's not how we do things here. Why don't you put the bad man down and we can talk about your eating habits, yeah?” You think it smiled at you from under the webs covering its mouth, but the eyes read more of a glare. Then, you felt something hit your chest and slowly looked down to find some what looked like some of its skin that had extended out from its it's back attached to you.
“Is that a ‘no’?”
It flung you back behind it and you crashed through the bank doors, landing at the feet of police and the crowd of onlookers who had gathered around the bank, including reporters and photographers. A couple of lights and cameras and mics were in your face the moment you landed, and the brightness of all the lights did nothing to help with your disorientation from the crash.
“Spider-Woman, what's going on in there?”
“Do you have any information about the monster that just broke into the bank?”
“What is your response to those calling you a menace to the city?”
“Are you in cahoots with whatever that creature is in the bank?”
You just got to your feet and rushed back into the building, shouting back a, “I'm a little busy right now,” over your shoulder. You come back to the creature dropping the bloodied robber onto the floor, staring up the ceiling at the people you left up there. ‘Oops.’
Your head whipped around frantically, fearing the worst as it seemed ready to make its way up, and you spotted a rather large piece of rubble it had left from its entrance.
“Hey! Big guy!” It turned around to face you, its mouth uncovered and giving you a big grin, showing off all its teeth, making you shiver from the sight. You webbed up the rubble, gripping the webs tight in your hands and pulling, and you prayed your recently new found strength hadn't somehow worn out since you last used it.
“If you're gonna play with your food,” with all your might you pulled and pulled until the rubble was airborne, and you spun, “you're going to bed early!” With that you launched it at the creature, but something told you that wouldn't be enough, so you swung yourself right after it, and when the creature easily blocked the rubble with its arms, you were right behind it, your feet meeting the creature's face, causing it to at least stumble back from the impact. You jumped up back to the ceiling, crawling as fast as you can to the hostages (who you left in a nicer web than the robbers, mind you), keeping an eye on the monster on the ground and simultaneously searching for a safe exit route for everyone. You crawled around them, silently reassuring them that you would keep them safe.
“So you're Spider-Woman. We've heard about you, little bug.” It slowly followed your every movement from the floor, stalking you.
“I wish I could say the same for you.” You wondered how fast you could create a makeshift slide from a close by window. You cursed yourself for not telling the police to get a ladder or get the fire department on the way while you were outside. You looked down, and it still had its eyes on you, even without pupils or irises to speak of, you still felt it. “You new in town?”
“Visiting. We don't mean to intrude on your work, little bug; we’re merely trying to lend a hand.”
“And get some lunch in while you're at it? Like I said, I like your enthusiasm, but I prefer to leave people in one piece. By the way-” you spot a pen and paper on a desk below and grab them with a couple of strings of web. You jump towards a nearby wall and slide down, jumping into a chair that's facing it (them?). “Could I get a name to go with that gorgeous smile of yours? The press outside are dying to know all about you; there's already rumors about us and it's pretty hot stuff.”
You look towards the open door for a split second and see all the cameras struggling to get a view of the action, and in that second your spider-sense goes haywire and you're jumping out of your seat and landing on the creature's extended arm.
“We,” it pulls the arm back into itself and you jump off, dodging when it goes for you a second time,
“are,” you're too slow the third time, and it grabs you, giving you no time to brace yourself as it yanks you towards what you can only assume to be your final resting place in its jaws,
“ Venom .”