Twelve hours.
That's all we had.
Twelve hours before Norman unleashed the symbiote into the city's water system—millions infected in seconds. No cure. No reversal. Just black noise, spread across skin and soul.
And I was still losing to it myself.
MJ worked through the night. She'd bypassed firewalls, mirrored servers, dumped Oscorp's archives into a dozen anonymous forums, and lined up press contacts that wouldn't flinch.
Every file we'd uncovered. Every failed test. Every body. Every lie.
She was exhausted. But there was fire in her voice when she whispered:
"He can't control the narrative anymore."
I told her I needed air. That I'd be back soon.
I didn't tell her where I was going.
I swung across the East River, low and fast, trying to ignore the voice that now echoed even when I wasn't thinking.
You're going to fail them again.
You always do.
You weren't strong enough for Ben. You won't be strong enough for her either.
But I was already at the doorstep.
Aunt May answered in a bathrobe, hair pulled back, smile soft.
"Peter."
I hugged her. Tighter than I ever had. She didn't ask why. She just pulled me inside and made tea. Mint and honey. Again.
We sat on the old couch, wrapped in silence.
I didn't know how to say it. That the man I was about to fight had become something inhuman. That I was becoming something else too. That the city might not survive.
That I might not survive.
So instead I asked:
"Did you ever know?"
She smiled again. Not surprised.
"I've always known, Peter."
My throat closed.
"I didn't want you to worry."
"I worried the moment you came into my life," she said softly. "But I've never been ashamed of you."
Her hand brushed mine.
"Ben would be proud. I'm proud."
A tear slipped down my cheek. "I'm scared."
"Of course you are." She leaned in, kissed my forehead. "But fear means you still have something to lose. That means you're still you."
I held her for a long time. Longer than I needed. Longer than I could explain.
Because somewhere in the back of my mind—
I felt it.
The shift.
The tremor.
The arrival.
The lights flickered.
The kettle whistled.
And then stopped.
All at once, the world went still.
I stood.
May looked at me. "Peter—what is it?"
The front door blew off its hinges.
He stepped inside.
Norman.
No—Venom.
He was taller now. Bulked with sinew and shadow. Black veins across skin that shimmered like oil. Teeth jagged like broken glass.
But the eyes—those empty pits—were still his.
Still Norman.
May gasped.
"Go," I said. "Run."
She didn't.
He looked at her. Then at me.
"How fitting," he rasped. "That I end you by taking her."
"Don't."
"You took my son," he hissed. "You took my life. My name. My mind. So I will take what you love."
And then—he moved.
Faster than I could react.
I leapt. Too late.
The tendrils struck her chest. Not fatal. Not yet.
But they held her.
Lifted her.
Pierced her.
"No!" I screamed.
I tackled him, tore him back through the wall, slammed him into the street. We crashed into a parked car, metal crumpling like foil.
He laughed.
"Now you'll know what it feels like."
I punched him again. And again. The street cratered beneath us.
But he didn't bleed. He didn't break.
He only smiled.
I ran back inside.
May lay slumped against the counter, her breathing shallow.
The black was spreading. Slowly.
Poison.
"No, no, no, stay with me."
I dropped beside her, cradled her. My hands shook.
She smiled again. Even now. Even through the pain.
"Still… my boy."
"I'm sorry," I sobbed. "I'm so sorry, May."
"Don't be."
Tears slipped down her cheeks. Her breath came slower now.
"You were… never… meant to carry all this… alone."
"I can't do this without you."
"Yes, you can."
Her hand curled against my chest.
"You have to."
And then—
The hand fell still.
Her eyes didn't close. They just stopped looking at me.
Everything inside me stopped.
The world blurred.
And somewhere in the distance—
I screamed.
I don't remember standing.
I don't remember tearing through the window or leaping off the building.
But I was in the sky.
And I wasn't alone.
The black had caught up to me. Crawled across my arms. My chest. My heart.
And I let it.
Because this time, I didn't want mercy.
I wanted him to suffer.
I don't know how long I was falling.
Only that when I hit the street, the impact shattered a crater into the asphalt. People screamed. Alarms went off. But none of it reached me.
The rage was too loud.
The suit had changed. It wasn't just black anymore—it was alive. Breathing with me. Syncing to my fury. Every heartbeat a drumbeat of war.
This was no longer about saving the city.
This was about ending Norman.
Once and for all.
I didn't go back to MJ.
Not yet.
Because I knew if I saw her face, I might remember who I was.
And right now… I didn't want to.
I didn't want compassion. I didn't want hope.
I wanted blood.
The city noticed.
By nightfall, Spider-Man wasn't the friendly neighborhood kid anymore.
I tore through the skyline like a ghost on fire—faster, more brutal, reckless. I left a trail of broken bones and shattered windows.
People didn't cheer.
They flinched.
Even the criminals whispered my name with fear.
And I fed on it.
Because the pain was quieter when I was angry.
MJ called. Ten times.
I didn't answer.
She left a message:
"Peter, please. I know what happened. I'm so sorry. But don't lose yourself. May wouldn't want that."
But May was gone.
And Norman was still breathing.
So I kept moving.
It was in an abandoned lab near the bridge where I finally cornered him again.
Norman stood at the center of the room, surrounded by broken canisters and pulsing black sacks of symbiote tissue. His eyes glowed. The veins along his neck throbbed. He didn't flinch when I landed in front of him, the building shaking from the impact.
"Come to finish what you started?" he asked, voice like oil over gravel.
"No," I said. "I came to finish what you started."
He chuckled. "You've changed."
"You made me."
"No," he said, stepping forward. "You made you. I just peeled the skin back."
He lunged.
We collided like freight trains.
Fists cracked through steel walls. I ripped through his armor. He threw me through support beams. We were beyond fighting—we were tearing each other apart.
And it wasn't enough.
"You took her from me," I growled, pinning him to the floor.
"She was always going to die," he sneered, symbiote fangs curling from his jaw. "The moment you put on that mask, you made everyone you love a target."
"I protected people."
"You think this started with May?" he spat.
Then—he smiled. That same dead smile he'd worn in the video.
"No, Peter. It started long before that."
My breath caught.
Something in his tone. Too calm. Too rehearsed.
"What are you talking about?"
"I knew who you were the moment I saw the test footage," he said. "That spider was never meant for you. It was supposed to save Harry. Fix his degenerative disease. Our legacy. Our future."
My stomach dropped.
"You—what?"
"You snuck in," he hissed. "Bitten. Changed. And I watched. Watched you squirm. Watched you try to be something you're not. It was… amusing at first. But then I realized—"
He leaned in, voice lower.
"You needed motivation. Something to shape you. Something to break you."
My eyes widened.
"No."
"Yes," he whispered. "I hired the man who shot your uncle. I let it happen."
The room spun.
"I wanted to see who you'd become when the world betrayed you."
And in that moment—
Everything fell apart.
Uncle Ben. The night. The alley. The gun. The sirens.
It hadn't been chance.
It was him.
He took them from me. Both of them.
And I saw red.
The suit took over.
I stopped holding back.
I pummeled him through the wall, through rebar, through stone. Each punch louder than the last. My hands were claws. The black surged across my face.
I heard myself roaring, but it didn't sound like me.
It sounded like something else.
Something born of pain.
And then—
His voice again.
Not Norman's.
Uncle Ben's.
"With great power…"
I froze.
Just for a second.
And Norman struck.
Tendrils wrapped around my throat, dragged me to the floor.
"You're not a hero," he hissed. "You're just like me."
And maybe he was right.
Because I almost killed him.
I wanted to.
Then—
"Peter!"
Her voice. MJ's.
She stood in the wreckage, tears in her eyes.
"You're not him," she said. "You're not this."
I trembled.
The black rippled.
"Please," she whispered. "Don't lose yourself. Not like this."
And somehow—
I found myself.
Just enough.
I released Norman.
He gasped, coughing blood, barely conscious.
MJ rushed to me.
Wrapped her arms around me.
And for the first time in hours—
I let myself break.
Later—
I sat on the rooftop of May's house, the sunrise bleeding across the city.
I'd taken off the black suit.
But its echo still lingered beneath my skin.
MJ sat beside me.
She rested her head on my shoulder.
"You knew him," I said. "Harry. Before all this. Before he—"
"He was good," she whispered. "Not perfect. But good. I think he would've hated what his father became."
"I wish I could've saved him."
"You tried."
"I failed."
She didn't argue.
She just held my hand.
"I'm not sure who I am anymore," I admitted.
"You're still you," she said. "Even when you're lost. You're still Peter."
And I wanted to believe her.
Because I wasn't sure she was right.
I stared out at the skyline—at the waking city, at the rivers of light slithering between concrete towers, at a world that didn't know how close it had come to vanishing beneath a flood of black.
Some part of me wanted to believe her. That I could come back from this. That I wasn't too far gone.
But my hands still shook.
Not from fear.
From what I almost did.
From how easy it had felt.
"I let it in," I said quietly.
MJ lifted her head.
"I wanted to," I continued. "I let it wrap around my bones and hollow me out. Because it was easier than feeling everything else."
She didn't flinch. She didn't look away. She just watched me, eyes wet and steady.
"It doesn't mean you're not still fighting it," she said.
"But what if next time I don't?"
"Then I'll be here to pull you back."
I turned to her. "That's not your job."
"No," she said. "It's not. But I'm not leaving you, Peter. Not after everything."
I closed my eyes. Let the wind carry the silence for a while.
Below, the city stirred. The news was already starting to trickle in—about the blackout, about the break-ins, the footage Oscorp failed to scrub. Soon they'd know. About the symbiote experiments. About Norman. About Spider-Man.
And I didn't know what that meant for me.
I wasn't sure I wanted to.
"I keep thinking about May," I whispered. "How even at the end… she looked at me like I was still worth something."
"You are."
"But what if I'm not?"
What if I'm just… what he said I was? A product of violence. A mistake. A shadow of what was supposed to be?
MJ reached up, her fingers brushing against the side of my face.
"You chose to come back," she said. "Even after everything. Even after he told you what he did. You still didn't kill him."
I looked down at my hands.
They felt foreign.
"I wanted to."
"I know."
"And that scares me."
"It should."
I met her gaze again. There was no judgment in her eyes. Just this unshakable, maddening clarity. Like she'd already made peace with all the pieces of me I couldn't look at.
She touched my chest, where the suit had been hours earlier. Where it still echoed, somewhere deep under the skin.
"I think the scariest part of grief is that it changes you," she whispered. "And no one warns you how much. You don't just lose someone—you lose who you were before it happened."
A breath caught in my throat.
"You're still grieving Harry," she said. "And May. And Ben. And the kid you used to be. But that doesn't mean you're not still you. Just… different."
I nodded, barely.
Then—
"I think I need to bury her."
MJ blinked. "May?"
I nodded again.
"Not a service," I said. "Not something public. Just… her. Me. Maybe you."
She took my hand again.
"I'd be honored."
We buried her beneath the old willow tree in the back lot of the house she loved. No press. No priest. No eulogies read from a podium. Just me, MJ, and the wind through the leaves.
The ground was soft from the recent rain. I dug most of it by hand.
It felt right.
It hurt more than anything.
We laid her beside Ben.
And for the first time since that night…
I let the boy I used to be cry.
By nightfall, the city was on fire again.
Not flames—panic. News stations leaked the files MJ had uploaded. Images of tendrils under microscopes, charts of neural decay, footage of subjects convulsing in labs sealed beneath Oscorp's research divisions.
They called it a virus. A neurological weapon. A corporate scandal.
But I knew better.
It was still alive.
Still spreading.
I stood above the city again, mask in hand, suit clinging tighter than it used to. Not black anymore. Red and blue again.
But it still felt heavier.
MJ's voice crackled through my comm. "I've got eyes on something. Midtown. A lab Oscorp tried to bury. You're not gonna like it."
"Go," I said. "I'll meet you there."
"Peter…"
I paused.
"I'm okay," I lied.
She didn't press.
Because she knew I wasn't.
Not yet.
Maybe never.
But there was work to do.
And if I couldn't save the people I loved…
…I could still save what was left.
I pulled the mask back down.
The city didn't need mercy tonight.
It needed Spider-Man.
And whether I liked it or not…
I was still him.