Lacuna (Spiderman X reader)

Chapter 28

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It was early afternoon on Saturday, and you were at A.I.M. headquarters participating in your now mandatory and rather strict training under supervision of the same crew you'd met on your first day at A.I.M.--Dr. Schmidt, Eto, and Jimmy. Their pleasant company helped you to feel like less of a tool being tested for future use and more like an actual person, though the threat of Mr. Adams crushing your ribs—and your friends—lingered in the back of your mind the entire time.

"I dunno, Dr. Schmidt, I feel like she's just not getting the right level of challenge," you vaguely heard Eto say in the background as you clotheslined Jimmy's sparring-bot. "It's just muscle memory now, there's no real adrenaline. We need to step it up if Mr. Adams expects her to go up against Spider-Man and Iron Man."

"What do you think, Jimmy?"

You were standing on Jimmy's robot now, panting and looking at the three scientists. You wiped a bit of sweat off your forehead and flicked it off the back of your hand to the ground.

"Well my sparring-bot doesn't really have any higher settings, so unless you plan to bring in an actual person to fight her-"

Dr. Schmidt's face lit up, his hand in a thoughtful position over his mouth.

"Oh, no, Dr. Schmidt, absolutely not-" Eto straightened up, exasperated, turning to face Dr. Schmidt.

"What? What is he thinking of?" You called out, concerned.

"I am not going to be in the same room with that—that thing-" Eto was grimacing.

"If we're bringing him out, we need to get behind a safety window," Jimmy seemed nervous.

"Bring what thing out?!"

"Y/n, do you remember the news about a year ago when a black-suited Spider-Man was running around the city?"

"We can't let her fight that thing, it's insane and there's no way to control it-"

"If she can beat Venom, she can more than hold her own against an Avenger."

"Wait—Venom?! I thought Spider-Man beat that thing, destroyed it or something in a fire!"

"Not quite," Dr. Schmidt piped up. "We got our hands on it, and we've been keeping it around. Absolutely fascinating test-subject, if you ask me."

"Doesn't it—doesn't it need a host?" You knew you weren't going to like the answer.

"We have more than a sufficient supply of volunteers," Dr. Schmidt said, waiving his hand dismissively. "Dr. Eto, if you would retrieve Venom for us-"

"With all due respect, I don't think it's a good idea, Dr. Schmidt."

Suddenly an idea—a brilliant, dangerous idea—popped into your head.

"I think it's a great idea. I'm up for it."

Eto gave you a solemn look. "Alright. I'll go retrieve Venom and find one of the host volunteers." She swept out of the training room, the tail of her white lab coat waving at you as she passed through the door.

Jimmy came forward to collect his sparring-bot and wheeled it out of the room on it's carrier. Dr. Schmidt approached you with a small towel. You accepted it and dried off your face and neck.

"So what's the deal with Venom?"

"We're not exactly sure where it came from, but what we know is it's a highly intelligent symbiote that seeks to either control or collaborate with the host to achieve it's personal goals, usually by offering to help the host in the process, and that it is... It can be very psychologically difficult to be the host. Some of our tests have resulted in the host developing a drug-like dependence on Venom to the point where going long periods without it result in withdrawal symptoms. The most common result so far has been increasing mental instability and increasingly violent tendencies, likely a result of the Venom wanting to escape the base."

"Is there any danger of it trying to attach to me?"

"About thirty percent chance, yes. Just don't let it grab you for more than twenty seconds. At thirty is when it begins to attach, and after a minute and a half it starts to try to get into your head to try to make a deal with you. With the equipment we have it's pretty easy to scare it off, it's only after forty-eight hours that it really starts to actually take over. It doesn't like fire or loud noises, so maybe that whole glowing thing you do with your body might scare it, hm?" Dr. Schmidt smiled at you like he hadn't just told you you were going to fight a sentient goo that tries to take over people's minds and slowly drive them insane.

"Sure," you nodded.

"Now, I know me and Eto and Jimmy usually just hang out by the door and watch while you spar, but because we don't have any powers to fight back with against Venom and it is known to lash out, we'll be behind that mirror, watching and ready to help if it goes south. Alright?"

You nodded, psyching yourself up.

"I wouldn't suggest this if I didn't think you were ready to handle the challenge, Y/n. You're gonna do great."

Jimmy and Eto entered through the sliding steel doors of the training room, followed by a large, bald, strong-looking man in what looked like a surfer's wetsuit with suction-cup shaped medical sensors built in at key points on his body, including a set on his cranium. He was easily two or three times your mass and many heads taller than everyone in the room. Eto was holding a large glass cylinder, the length of her slender torso and half as wide around. Inside was an eery swirling black mass gathered at the bottom, tentacles travelling up the inside walls like slime-mold or a disfigured octopus. If a faceless mass of intelligent goo could ever embody the word sinister, this was it.

"Blake, this is Black Light. Black Light, this is one of our best field agents, we just call him Blake," Jimmy introduced the two of you.

Blake nodded. "Pleasure to meat you, Miss. Big fan."

You shook his hand, which engulfed yours.

"Blake is by far our most capable Venom host we have. He may look like just a big mountain of beef, but he's also one of our smartest men, and has quite the functional relationship with our odd little symbiote." Jimmy paused. "Well. Functional as one can be with Venom, anyway."

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