Spider-Man of Earth 65

He was standing among dust and among destruction. Ahead of him was the source of the destruction.

"Just because you're weak to water doesn't mean I'm going to quit."

The brackish scent of the Lower Bay stung his nose through the gooey mask. The Symbiote screamed in his head, shrieking at him to retreat, to get away, but he ignored it. He leaped thirty feet forward and landed till his ankles were in the water. The Symbiote was shrieking and tearing itself from him. He wasn't too deep and yet this thing was going crazy.

"Pull yourself together, Symbiote."

His arms plunged into the water, electricity crackling red-hot from his fingertips and surging through the dark waves.

ZZZRRRRT-SSHHHH! KRSHHHH!

'More power! More bioelectricity! Burn and electrocute this thing until it's nothing but a crispy lizard!'

BZZZZT-CRACK! ZZZZAP!

The bay became a living conduit of power. The glow from his bioelectricity pulsed like a blood-red sun beneath the surface. The effect was immediate. Creature Z, still submerged, let out a distorted, muffled roar as every nerve in its monstrous form was electrified. Water boiled. Fish died instantly.

VVVRRRZAP-BOOM!

The kaiju lurched, its massive head breaching the surface, its mouth opening in a soundless howl.

Then came the glow.

Its dorsals flashed with ominous green light, brighter, more controlled, faster than before. Shit. It was learning. Evolving. No hesitation this time. No build-up. It was about to fire.

Panic surged in Spider-Man's chest. His hands ripped from the water, his entire body flexing as he super-jumped into the air. He could see it—Creature Z's mouth widening, the unstable swirl of gamma energy coalescing at the back of its throat. He was directly in its line of fire.

Could he block it? Could his bioelectricity counteract it? Maybe. Maybe not. He didn't want to find out.

Tendrils exploded from the massive red spider-emblem on his chest, black, writhing appendages whipping with impossible speed and size. Growing rapidly, they latched onto Creature Z's maw, gripping the monstrous snout, prying it upwards just as the Gamma Breath discharged.

A beam of devastating green energy ripped through the sky instead of incinerating everything in front of it. It split the heavens open, parting clouds, burning a hole straight into the atmosphere. Spider-Man didn't breathe. Couldn't. The sheer magnitude of power was beyond anything he had ever witnessed, let alone deflected.

The Symbiote pulsed, spreading its influence. More tendrils lashed out, massive building-esque limbs constricting around Creature Z's gargantuan body. More and more. Thick, coiling appendages snaking around its limbs, its torso, its serpentine neck. The kaiju struggled, but Spider-Man squeezed tighter.

'Come on, come on...!'

It fought. So did he.

More, more, more!

Make it disappear!

He roared and the head of the lizard was caged and sealed in black. The Symbiote Spider-Man pushed and pushed. Make it disappear! Make it disappear! Make it disappear!

Make it disappear! 

The black mass engulfed it, swallowing the monster whole. A 1,700-foot-tall titan, wrapped completely in living darkness.

For one fleeting second, he thought he had won.

Then the burning started.

He felt it through the Symbiote—the unbearable radiation pouring from Creature Z's body. The corruption. The mutation. The power. The black tendrils began to shrivel where they touched its skin. The Symbiote screamed in agony, unable to sustain this much mass, unable to hold down something that only grew stronger the more it was attacked.

Spider-Man clenched his jaw. He couldn't kill it. He physically couldn't.

But he could get rid of it.

The decision was instant. The Symbiote obeyed. He started to spin.

It began with a slow rotation, dragging the kaiju with him, but as he built up momentum, as the tendrils flexed and pulled and coiled, it turned into a violent, blurring cyclone. The entire ocean seemed to twist with him.

Creature Z roared—furious, helpless.

Spider-Man let go.

The world snapped.

The blackened, bound titan hurtled into the sky. 1,700 feet of height and nearly half a million tones of weight tearing through the atmosphere like a missile. It disappeared within minutes, a dark stain against the endless blue.

Except in that moment of letting go, gravity and momentum struck Spider-Man too.

The force of his throw sent him hurtling backward, straight into the shattered city. Buildings blurred past him in a dizzying rush, and he barely had time to brace before he slammed into the ruins of a collapsed skyscraper.

He didn't know what happened or how it happened. He didn't know where he was or if it was safe. A building, a road, a sewer even. He could not see the city he put his life on the line to save.

His eyes and ears and lips were charred. They healed.

Then stopped halfway through. 

For the first time in a long time, Felix felt cold.

A sharp, biting chill against his skin, against his nerves, against his very being. He was on his back, half-buried in rubble, and struggling to open his eyes. His vision swam, nothing but shifting blurs of grey and light, flickers of movement beyond his periphery.

And then, the whispers.

The Symbiote was retreating.

Not disappearing, not severing, but burrowing deeper—into his mind, his nerves, his bloodstream. It was self-preservation, a tactical retreat. He felt it seep into the folds of his brain like ink bleeding through paper. Felt its presence coil around his thoughts, binding itself to him on an even deeper level. He could still hear its murmurs, could still sense its emotions like a second pulse, but it had abandoned his body, leaving nothing behind but his own fragile, battered flesh.

He was bare.

The realization was distant, muted by exhaustion and pain. The Symbiote had shielded him from impact, had absorbed so much, but it could only do so much before even it reached its limits. And now, stripped of its armor, stripped of its strength, Felix lay still, shivering beneath the weight of the shattered city.

Voices broke through the haze.

"Got a live one here!"

The crunch of boots on debris, hurried and desperate. Felix's breaths came shallow, chest rising and falling beneath the dust. His head lolled to the side as silhouettes loomed above him, blurred against the harsh searchlights sweeping the wreckage.

"Male, early twenties—Jesus, he's got nothing on him. Get a blanket over him, now."

A heavy fabric draped over his shoulders, coarse and rough. Hands moved around him, checking for injuries, pressing against bruised skin, testing for broken bones.

"How the hell did he survive this?" another voice muttered.

A pause. A radio crackled.

"We have a survivor. Requesting immediate evac."

Felix fought to keep his breathing even, fought to keep his mind from sinking further into the void of unconsciousness. He didn't know if they recognized him. Didn't know if they saw something in him beyond the dust and blood and ruin.

He only knew that he was alive.

He blanked out.

****

"Nnggh..."

Colour returned to the world. The smell was...plain. Empty even.

Felix stirred. Opening his eyes and tilting down, he saw he was in a bed.

"Huh....?"

His lips ached and his limbs were wrapped in bandages. Everything hurt. He blinked his eyes more and more, staring at the sterile white ceiling above him. The air...to be precise, it was cold and artificial.

'Like a lab...'

The rhythmic hum of machinery and the distant murmur of voices told him everything he needed to know before he even sat up. A containment unit. Not a hospital, not a prison, but something in between. He looked over. There was glass between him and what seemed to be a highly advanced hallway.

SHIELD. 

They had taken him after the battle.

His hands flexed under the thin sheets, feeling his fingers tremble slightly. He wasn't healing as fast as he should. That was… strange. Then a voice, soft and insidious, curled in his head.

'Do not be alarmed.'

Felix stiffened. Honestly, as much as he wanted to freak out, he couldn't. This was within his calculations. The Symbiote. It was still inside him. Not wrapped around his body like armor, not forming those monstrous tendrils that had torn into Creature Z, but embedded deep.

'You. You're in my brain.' 

'You...know us...'

A loud grating breath echoed in his eardrums. Felix had experienced lots in his time as Spider-Man. Mentions of the multiverse, Symbiotes, a literal weapon of a god, and a kaiju. This came as no surprise to him and yet the chill and sounds were grating and spine-chilling in a way that was downright uncomfortable.

'We had to adapt,' the Symbiote continued. 'We are in a state of hibernation. It was the only way to ensure survival. However… doing so has dampened some of our abilities. Our healing, for instance.'

'My healing is...' Felix exhaled, long and slow. Calm down. Think things through. Don't be alarmed. Felix had known of this possibility; of SHIELD catching him and him needing to seem innocent. 'Good. If I had healed overnight, they'd have figured something out. That would've been bad.'

'Yes. Very bad.'

The intercom in the room crackled. "Awake, hm?" A familiar voice, dry and authoritative. Nick Fury. "I bet you have some questions."

Felix cleared his throat, the taste of dust and blood lingering on his tongue. "Yeah. What...what happened to that thing?"

"Thrown alll the way into the atmosphere. We're keeping track of it as we speak."

"And?"

"It won't be coming down anytime soon. Not today tomorrow, not the year after, or anytime this decade. We did the numbers."

"I...see."

So it worked. He did it. He actually did it! He won! The long sigh of relief and ensuing laughter was acceptable for both a civilian and the hero.

"Good to see some smiles. I'm sending someone in," Fury said.

The reinforced door slid at the left side of the glass wall opened with a hiss. A single SHIELD agent entered, typical yellow hazmat suit and all. Thick and shielding his face with a thick glass material that Felix with his unenhanced vision could not see through.

A tray of food in hand, the hazmat agent placed it on the small table beside the bed and stepped back. Felix met the agent's gaze through the tinted visor. He really couldn't see through it. His vision was no longer perfect.

To go from utter perfection back to normal was...he blinked several times, hoping that the Symbiote would rectify this weakness soon. It didn't.

"Thanks." Felix reached for the food. The agent said nothing, turned, and left, the door sealing shut behind him.

"Eat up," Fury said. "You're our special guest after all."

Special guest. 'He's playing coy. Don't tell me...'

The Symbiote's voice slithered back into his thoughts. 'They do not know.'

Felix paused mid-bite. 'What?'

'I saw it. I saaaaw. I heaaard. Theeeeey have no idea you're Spider-Man. They think you were caught in the crossfire. An exceeeellent scientist, they said over and over.'

'W-wait, but don't they have my blood...?'

I' am me. You are you. But we are Symbiotic. When I told your Extremis that I required rest and for your powers to cease, it ceased.'

It was a request and the Extremis listened. What Extremis ultimately lacked was insight and wisdom. It relied solely on instinct. It sought solely to correct without thought, hence why it even tried to adapt to the need of sleep. It saw that sleep was causing him stress and thus reduced how many hours he needed. But doing that ignored the psychological affects. Felix loved his sleep. It gave him peace. It gave him time to relax. But Extremis? It did not see that. It saw danger and its instincts rectified what it could. At the rate it was going, worst case scenario, Extremis was going to stop him from shitting and eating.

But the Symbiote. The Symbiote could act as the guiding system. It was acting as the guiding system.

'Just like I predicted...'

The spider-bite, the body. Extremis, the mind. Now the Symbiote, which seemed to be interacting with his very soul. All three elements were within his grasp.

'Yes, just as we predicted when we met. So do not be alarmed. Our powers shall return as soon as you wish for it to be.'

A wave of relief washed over him. He set the food down, rubbing a hand over his face. 'For now, I have to play the part of Felix Faeth. No powers yet but you are on stand-by, right?'

'We arrrre.'

Nick Fury's voice cut through the intercom again. "Are you not going to ask why you're here?"

Felix put on a stoic mask. He folded his hands and lay on the bed like a good little patient. "I'm a scientist. I know why."

Silence. Then Fury spoke, louder. "You were in a location we designated as a high-risk spot. Incredible amounts of radiation. Thousands were there. We were lucky to find you."

"But unlike the thousands, I'm a VIP, right? So it's more than just luck."

"Smart man. Really smart man. Exactly. We can't be saving and isolating every person we see in the Helicarrier. Only the important ones."

Felix nodded. He could very easily break out of this if he wanted to. He didn't how exactly strong he was but he doubted there was anything on the planet that could stop him now that he possessed the Symbiote.

He scowled.

The city. It needed him. And he was trapped here. His folded hands turned to fists, clenching tight.

"You want to ask about somebody, don't you?" Fury said. "I get it. Everybody here feels the same. Even my own agents. Unfortunately, I can't go down and start searching for one person out of millions. But, I can put the name down on the priority list. The firefighters and police will do their best."

"..."

"What's the name?"

Felix inhaled sharply, then looked down. His voice was quieter than he expected when he spoke. "Yeah… Rio Morales and her son, Miles Morales. Is that possible?"

"Two people, hm? Well, if it's mother and son, it's gonna be hard. Lots of families got split up. Where do they live?"

"Harlem."

Fury let out a thoughtful hum. "Then you're in luck. Only some tall buildings and schools went down. Sounds messed up, but even though casualties were in the hundreds, those are actually really good numbers."

Felix closed his eyes, exhaling. 'Good numbers. Right. As if hundreds dead was something to be relieved about.'

Fury let the silence linger for a moment before speaking again. "Look, I know you probably think you're stuck here for a while. Containment procedures, radiation protocols, all that. And yeah, technically, you should be here for at least a week. But we both know that's not happening."

"..."

"You're a scientist, right? A valuable one. We need every mind on deck. So congratulations, Dr. Faeth. You just became an exception."

Felix narrowed his eyes and looked right at the camera in the corner of the room. "How soon?"

"We did an analysis of your blood and hair and everything. By our estimations, could be a couple hours. Maybe tomorrow. We got lucky, we picked you up before it could seep into your nerves early. Either way, you're getting back out there with me. I need all the advice I can get for a catastrophe like this."

Felix didn't know whether to be relieved or concerned. These people did not suspect him in the slightest in the anymore. They trusted him. After a thorough analysis of his blood and hair, they deemed him an ordinary man. This was good. Great even. That meant he could continue to live normally.

Except...

Was there a normal to get back to in the first place?

He wanted to go out. He wanted to save people. Every second, every hour, it could mean one more death.

'But...what about my own future?'

Exposing himself here and now would leave to problems like no other. SHIELD and the governments of the world would NEVER leave him alone. Him, Spider-Man, who stopped a walking nuke.

His fists were almost tight enough to draw blood. He hated it. He hated being here. He apologized to Rio and Miles but...

If Spider-Man wanted to live to fight another day, Felix Faeth also had to live. He had to stay his hand.

"Thank you, Vice-Director Fury. I'll...do my best."

The intercom crackled one last time. "Welcome to the SHIELD Helicarrier then, Felix Faeth. I'll see you soon."