Spider-man, Spider-boy and Spider-El |Stranger Things AU|

~part II., chapter 11.~

Hopper walked through the metal gate with no issue, both Will and Jane stayed standing in front of it, watching the gate with wide eyes.

"Come on, kids. We don't have all day," Hopper said, Jane and Will shot one last look at each other before Jane took a shaky step. Will wondered why she was so nervous, it was him who got infected by the radioactive spider.

Jane stepped through the gate with closed eyes, it triggered nothing, she let out a sigh of relief and quickly walked through. Will took a few slow steps before he stood right in front of the gate, he quickly jumped through, if it was to trigger something, it would have, but it didn't.

"Ah, cheif Hopper, I was expecting you already. Who's that with you?" a man aproached them with a friendly smile.

"Dr. Owens, hello. That's my daughter, Jane and my girlfriend's son William," Hopper said as he was shaking hands with the other man.

"Will for short," Will mummbled.

"Welcome to the institute, you kids seemed nervous about our security system," Dr. Owens laughed.

"We saw a movie recently where a similiar gate shoot lazers at people passing through," Jane said with an awkward laugh.

"Today's kids and their TVs," Dr. Owens rolled his eyes and began walking, Hopper next to him while Will and Jane followed.

"Here on the left we have what's left of the kids testing, sad story, really," Dr. Owens said, gesturing to glass pains that framed the hallway the four of them were just walking on. On the left side there was about five small rooms filled with beds, and across were what looked like interogation rooms. Jane stopped and watched the sight, Will noticed and walked back to her, noticing Jane crying.

"You okay?" Will whispered, Jane shot her head up and to her left where Will was standing with a worried look.

"I.. yeah," Jane said wiping her tears off, "I just, you heard what happened to those kids? If you imagine it could have been us," Jane gave off a sad smile, before walking to catch up with Dr. Owens and Hopper. Will shot a last look to the rooms below them before catching up with the adults too.

"...and as for now, we have no further information about any of the escaped children. You know where eleven is, right?" Will caught Dr. Owens telling Hopper.

"At a safer place, neither I could track her if I wanted to," Hopper replied.

"What about Jane? Did you meet eleven?" Dr. Owens turned to Jane.

"N-no, I didn't know dad knew about her," Jane said, looking over at Hopper.

"I didn't tell her about anything," Hopper explained.

"Then why taking the kids over now?" Dr. Owens asked Hopper.

"Jane said their teacher told them about Venom and scared them, so I brought them over to calm them down," Hopper explained.

"Oh, scary teacher," Dr. Owens nodded.

"Nobody likes him, he's always so mean to everyone and grades everyone unfairly, not even Will gets A's and he's always got it right," Jane let out in annoyance.

"And sometimes he glares at Jane for the whole lesson," Will added, Hopper looked at him, then at Jane with raised brow.

"That's because I was rude to him at a hall, you weren't there," Jane explained to Will with a smile.

"Alright, moving on. This is the radioactive area, please stay in the secured areas," Dr. Owens said as he opened a door with a key card to reveal a room with a path framed by those giant quaranteen foils. Hopper followed close behind him, Jane and Will behind Hopper.

"This is where Venom escaped from?" Will asked.

"Oh, no, no. This is where Venom was tested, and the other subjects. We'll get to where the experiments were stored later," Dr. Owens explained, "Now to calm you down, you would see Venom aproaching you, and if you do avoid, unless you're compatible with him. We have tests to figure who is compatible, we're trying to find a host amongst the volunteers, so for fun you can try it too," Dr. Owens laughed at his own joke, no one else found it funny.

"Did you figure out how to trap or destroy him?" Jane asked the real question.

"For now, we're working on finding a host. If we don't run more test, we'll never be able to defeat him, so there's those tests for now," Dr. Owens said.

"How powerfull is Venom? Does he have some weaknesses?" Will asked curiously.

"The only known weakness of Venom is his host. Venom can exist on his own, but acording to test results the previous sciencists made, he isn't strong when he isn't ocupying a host, that's why he needs to find one. When Venom has a host, if the host gets hurt when Venom isn't activated, Venom gets hurt and weaker too," Dr. Owens explained.

"But if he doesn't have a host?" Jane asked.

"Then, he's invincible, even if the host dies, Venom lives on in hope to find a new one," Dr. Owens explained.

"But he's weak when without a host, right?" Will asked unsure.

"Yes, Venom needs to suck out energy of his host to exist. Here is the board of Venom's poor victims," Dr. Owens said, stopping at the door to an office and opened them to reveal a board filled with photos and names of people, on the other side there was another board with photos of more people and some animals with names next to them.

"What's this?" Will asked, walking into the room, even though Dr. Owens stayed outside. Will walked over to the second board, seeing a photo of lizardman Benny.

"I wouldn't go there," Dr. Owens warned, but Will wasn't paying attention to him as his eyes flew over to a photo of a readhead.

"That's Nancy's friend. Why is her photo here?" Will looked over at Dr. Owens.

"You really shouldn't be there," Dr. Owens said.

"What is this?" Will pointed at the board again.

"These people were reported missing, sheriff here thinks it may have something to do with Venom, or something else with the lab," Dr. Owens explained. Will turned to Hopper.

"It's all just in theory for now, let's continue," Hopper said, and with Dr. Owens they started walking further, Jane followed, Will quickly snapped a picture of each of the boards on his phone and left the room, closing the door behind.

"Now, this is where the animals and Venom were kept," Dr. Owens said after opening another door with a key card. It revealed a room full of cages and glass aquariums, one was at the very top, cracked. "We don't experiment on the animals anymore," Dr. Owens added.

"How about the spider I brought in?" Hopper asked.

"It didn't have a number, but we think experiment fourty-two had found a spider lady and had babies, hence the spider you brought in happened. But like I said, it's a theory and we don't know for sure where it came from," Dr. Owens explained, Hopper nodded.

"And the mutant?" Hopper asked.

"Ah, yes. Maybe we should go on our own to see, why don't you kiddos go try the Venom compatibility tests over there?" Dr. Owens said, leading Will and Jane to the next room. Then he left with Hopper.

"He's taking him to see the body," Jane explained while walking ahead.

"And why won't they take us over?" Will asked, looking behind the two men.

"Because we're under eighteen," Jane explained, sitting on a chair across from a lady in lab suit. "The man who left with our dad said we can take the Venom compatibility test," Jane gave her a smile, the lady smiled back. Will walked behind Dr. Owens and Hopper quietly, hoping they won't see him.

"Now really, Jim, what is the deal with those kids?" Dr. Owens asked seriously, Hopper sighed.