Archive of Our Own ^beta

A fool I was to sleep at noon,

Dear Mr. Parker

Yes, I was the one who covered the Life Foundation Scandal back in December, and had been covering it for some time before. Those photos that were taken back in January actually, but the person in them is actually unknown. However, I can tell you what you’re looking at is an alien symbiote, which was illegally brought down by the Life Foundation. All except one was killed by the surviving symbiote, known as Venom, who is now a sort-of vigilante figure in San Francisco-

“But we do not eat people anymore.”

“Being a vigilante doesn’t mean we fucking eat people, V! Do you think Daredevil eats his enemies? Punisher? Jessica frickin’ Jones?”

“It is efficient. And we are hungry.”

“Yeah, for dinner! Not human flesh!”

“Loser.”

Not a lot of information was given out by the police or Foundation about what happened, but I was able to glean a few things-

“We were there, Eddie.”

“Yeah, well I can’t exactly tell him that, alien symbiote I technically stole from a multi-billion dollar company.”

The symbiotes are alien in nature, and what they do is form a symbiotic bond with the host, in which they give the host strength, healing, and other various factors while the host offers them a place to live. The symbiotes are also conscious of their actions, and can and will take over the host if given an opportunity. However, as most of the symbiotes were killed, it’s highly unlikely you’ll come into contact with one. And don’t worry about your friend, your secret is safe with me.

Sincerely,

Eddie Brock

Eddie sighs as he rereads the email. “D’you think we should send another one? This one was kinda vague as shit.”

Venom emerges, drooling as usual from his jagged teeth. “Why would a child be interested in usss? He is a child, a baby?”

“Yup. Peter Parker, age twel-wait, he’s thirteen. Technically, he’s a teenager.” Eddie squints at his screen, rubbing at his tired eyes. “Seems like the right age bracket to start getting into conspiracies.”

“He takesss photosss?”

“Sold a few of Spider-Man to the Daily Bugle,” Eddie confirms, “Only known photos of the vigilante. They’re decent quality.”

Venom hums. “Tiny spider.”

Eddie yawns, closing his laptop, but he couldn’t shake that feeling of unease as he caught a glimpse of the death toll in New York right now.  It kept rising , and suddenly some kid from Queens is asking questions. It just didn’t make sense. “Sure. Whatever you want to think.”

Behind him, the clock set for a different time zone in a different state Eddie hasn’t lived in for years strikes 11:28.

And wake when night is chilly

Rio Morales is just trying to get Miles to go to bed.

“I wanna stay up,” Miles protests, pouting as if that’ll help him. Maybe it might, if it had been his father putting him to bed. But it’s his mother, and she cannot be swayed.

“That’s nice,” Rio tells him, already ushering him into the Captain America-themed blankets. Is it weird to have a war criminal on your son’s bed? Yeah, she thinks so,  but Miles loves him.

“ Mom,” Miles complains, thrashing around in the sheets. “I want to stay up and wait for dad. I’m bored in here.”

“It’s bedtime, baby,” Rio tells her kid, knowing full well her husband wouldn’t be back till the wee hours of morning. Her dark hair sticks to the back of her neck right under her scrubs and she really feels like she needs a shower. “Daddy’s not going to be home anytime soon.”

Miles scowls, up to his chin in blankets. “Then when is he coming home?”

Rio kisses his forehead, tendrils of foreboding swirling unsettled in her stomach. “When he finishes his case. But he’ll be home before you know it.”

“Is Uncle Aaron still sick?” Miles’ voice is muffled by the pillows, leg hanging over the side of the bed. “Can I go hang out with him tomorrow?”

Rio sighed. Jeff was off on the Spider-Man case and Aaron was claiming he was sick, refusing to even talk on the phone. She had half a mind to go marching up to his place tomorrow, but something told her to do that was to do something she didn’t want to do.

Dios. This week was turning into a nightmare of the worst kind minute by minute, day by day as each sunset died.

Rio kissed her son’s forehead again, hands cupping his still-chubby cheeks, reminding her that he was still a kid, still her little baby. “Maybe another day, okay? How about tomorrow we go to that museum, alright? The space one?”

Miles nods excitedly, then yawns and falls back to his bed, curling up in the blankets. “Love you, mama.”

Rio runs her nails over his shoulder, soothing him into sleep. “Love you too, mijo.”

The Star Wars clock behind her ticks to 11:30.

Beneath the comfortless cold moon;

“I mean it!”

A slew of increasingly tired journalists and highly caffeinated editors sighed as they heard the booming voice from inside the office. There’s only a few left, most of the staff and all of the interns having gone home, but there’s enough for an audience.

“I want the latest news on this guy! Photos, stories, hell, if Stan the Hotdog man thinks he’s seen that menace swinging around Times Square, I want it!”

Norah Winters taps the tip of her heel on the floor, staring down Jameson with icy blue eyes. “There’s nothing. I checked.”

Jameson scowls, hands curling into fists. “There has to be something. No one just disappears in this city.”

“Daredevil. Punisher. Luke Cage, for a bit. Why don’t we do a story on that? The return of the Punisher?”

Jameson’s fist slams to the desk, but Norah doesn’t jump, tucking a blonde curl behind her ear. “The readers don’t want that. They want something new, something entirely new. And we need to be on top of this, Winters. No slacking off.”

The dozen journalists working overtime sighed from where they were.

  Norah braced herself on the desk, manicured nails tapping rapidly. She speaks low, calmly. “The last time Spider-Man was spotted, it was three days ago. Since then, we’ve had multiple sightings of the Punisher, Jessica Jones is rumored to be missing, Luke Cage and Iron Fist have been pushing outside of where they usually go, and there’s been heavy speculation that there’s been a misuse of power at government level. Something big is going on, Jonah. Something bigger than Metro Gen or the attack at that church.”

“And Spider-Man connects to all that,” Jonah insists, much to Norah’s sigh of exasperation, “Look. I know we don’t see eye to eye on vigilantes-”

Norah gives him a look.

“But you’ve worked here for five years,” Jonah spreads his hands, “We both know that’s something fishy’s going on, whether Spider-Man is in on it is up for debate, but,” he adds, right before Norah opens her mouth, “I know you know that the best place to start is with Spider-Man.”

Norah stays quiet for a second.

The exhausted journalists make their way closer to the exit, eyeing that closed office door.

“Who took the photos we got? The first ones?”

Jonah breathes a sigh of relief, shoulders slumping as he picks through a pile of papers and offers some to Norah. “His name’s Peter Parker. You won’t find his first name anywhere, but just look up his last name and you’re good.”

Norah flips through the photos. All of them are blurry, but good enough to make out an outline of a person, a mask, and the strange unsettling way they perch on the roof. She stops on the last paper, which has a photo of a kid with curly russet hair and a line that’s too faint to make out on paper on cheek. He’s not smiling, and is actively cringing away from the photo. “He’s a kid?”

Jonah shrugs. “He got photos. He gets paid.”

Norah shakes her head, tucking the papers under her arm. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good luck, Winters.”

The clock Jonah was gifted by his interns, all tacky and loved, reads 11:34.

A fool to pluck my rose too soon,

“Sir?”

Tony Stark rubs at his eyes, leaning back into his leather upholstered chair. “Yes, FRIDAY?”

“Sir, Secretary Ross would like to schedule a meeting regarding the transaction of Avengers Tower, preferably to take place later in the week.”

Stark swirls his whiskey in his crystal glass, tie and blazer rumpled. “Tell him that he’s paying for dinner.”

“Will notify him as soon as possible, sir.”

The A.I goes silent, presumably to alert General Mustache of his impending date. Stark continues to look out the window and out into the forest, Avengers Compound illuminating what it can. It’s located in the Adirondacks, far away and isolated enough so no one would be able to find it easily.

At least, that’s what Tony thought.

But one of the containers that was transporting alien tech and various other items that should never be in any other hands besides the people who own it got blown up while it was being moved from Avengers Tower to the Compound. Things are missing, things are destroyed, and Tony doesn’t have a clue who did it.

Well.

He’s heard rumors. Rumors about a weapons ring, created by alien scraps and ruins of battles. Rumors about a group of people who were creating things no person should ever have. Rumors that they did this because they had no other choice, displaced because of something they had no control of.

He knows who did it.

But he also knows that they’re discreet. Pick only a little bit to avoid getting caught, to being noticed. He’s had instances with them before. But...this isn’t like the thieves he’s been ignoring. Explosions? Come on, a baby’s smarter than that.

It does make him wonder though.

What happened? Why did that steal go wrong? He wasn’t aware anything was happening, Rhodney was off in D.C, and Vision was who knows where. There was no one to stop it and there was no one to know anything was going on.

God, he hopes it’s not Ross. He knows why Ross wants him down in NYC and it’s not going to happen.

Ross dug himself his own hole and he can lie in it.

Tony Stark closes his eyes, and burrows into his armchair, ignoring the world around him as the clock goes to 11:37.

A fool to snap my lily.

Julie Barnes closes her blinds as she prepares to go to bed.

It’s just a safety precaution. Y’know, with all  of the crap that’s going on, it’s just best if she does the little things. Though it’s highly unlikely that anything would ever happen to her, just some washed-up ballerina who works as a waitress to afford a crummy one-bedroom apartment in the middle of the worst part in Manhattan.

Sex and the City did not even remotely give a accurate reality of adult life.

Thankfully, her work’s stayed open during all the chaos. Even with the threat of a murderous being, people still want their coffee. Which is good, ‘cause that means Julie gets paid. And Julie needs money.

So much money.

Yawning, she checks her phone. With a jolt she quickly identifies as delight, she realizes Dex finally texted her back.

I’d love to grab coffee sometime.

Whenever works best for you?

He uses perfect grammar and capitalization, that dork.

She texts back, grinning in her ratty pajama bottoms and Hulk t-shirt.

I’d love that

Don’t know my schedule right now

I’ll get back to you

His reply comes back seconds later.

See you then.

Julie puts her phone down, lips curling as she gets into her bed and wraps herself in the blankets.

 He’s a good person. A good friend. She’s glad they reconnected. He just seemed so sad in that cafe’, so lost and alone and Julie recognized him and-

She’s making friends. Everything’s going to get better.

The screen on her phone reads 11:40.

My garden-plot I have not kept;

Eloise Waters had lived in Queens for forty-two years. She’s sixty-three, now, with three grown children and four grandchildren and  a dog named Rascal that likes to eat her slippers under her bed.

She’s lived through some exciting times. Her wife, Donna, loves it here. Never wants to leave. They’ve raised their children here, bought a house here, it’s their home. They got married five years ago, after decades of being together and raising a family and now it’s just peaceful.

However, if she gets one more headline about her neighborhoods’ own superhero bein’ a mass-murderer, she’ll march up to that Daily Bugle and give Jameson the ego-thrashing his mother apparently never gave to him.

Donna doesn’t even look up from her book, calmly reading a bit before bed. “Please go to bed, darling. It’s not good for you to be stressed like this.”

Eloise does not go to bed. She’s a smart woman, and she knows that the kind, young man that helped her when she dropped her groceries in the middle of the street would never be what the media is painting him as. “This bullshit, Donna! Bullshit!”

Donna simply flips to the next page. “I know.”

“He’s not some serial killer! How the hell do these airheads manage to get it all wrong?!” Eloise shakes her head. “I never.”

Donna puts her book down on the bed, her long silver hair dark at the ends and platinum at the roots. She’s as beautiful as the day Eloise saw her. “Darling. Everything will be fine.”

Eloise makes a mmph noise, crossing her arms. Yeah, she’s got grandchildren, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be petty.

Donna continues, taking Eloise’s callused, wrinkled hand in her smooth, dark-skinned hand. “You’re right. He is a hero, and what they are doing to him is wrong. However, it is nearly midnight, and if you keep me up a second more, I will smother you in your sleep.”

Eloise narrows her eyes. Donna looks serious, but she can never tell. Even after all these years, her love always manages to surprise her. “....you wouldn’t.”

Donna flips the cover open to her book, adjusting her reading glasses. “I do love your speeches, darling.  Just not when I’m trying to read.”

“He’s a good person, Donna.”

Donna looks over at her, expression fond. “I know, dear.”

Eloise gets into the bed and curls up close to her wife, the clock chiming 11:41.

Faded and all-forsaken,

“Steve, we can’t just up and go to New York.”

“Wilson’s right, Rogers. It’s not worth it.”

Steve Rogers, former Avenger and current war criminal, does not like this idea. “Brooklyn is my home. If this is as bad as they’re making it to be-”

“It’s also the home of a few hundred federal agents, a lot of cops, and currently, Secretary Ross,” Natasha Romanoff, former KGB agent and woman who did something that included bombs a few weeks ago, points out, adjusting her Widow Bites. “Not to mention the handful of temperamental vigilantes and Stark.”

“Stark’s upstate,” Sam Wilson, former paratrooper and current devil’s advocate, nudges in, “And the vigilantes can’t all be bad .”

“Iron Fist is a nobody. Luke Cage took down the underworld of Harlem and recently got out of prison. Jessica Jones is known for the two killings of super-powered individuals and has been taken into custody multiple times. Daredevil beats up criminals in a kevlar devil suit. The Punisher has been presumed dead twice, arrested and sent to Rikers, escaped, and is on the run for dozens of murders.  I sincerely doubt that not one of them has had a normal or uneventful life.”

Sam crosses his arms. “Well, maybe they just need therapy.”

“I think that this is their therapy.”

“Natasha,” Steve begins, leaning against a ratty couch in their rundown motel room in Serbia. It’s dirty and cold, and they’ve been using Steve as a heater.  “This is bigger than they’re making it out to be.”

“And they can handle it,” Natasha flexes her fingers. “The vigilantes are handling it, and I’m sure that if we barge in there, we will make things worse. Ross is there, Stark will be there, and we can’t risk getting sent back to Raft. We have no basic understanding of what’s going on besides the fact that there’s an enhanced threat.”

“But-”

“Brooklyn’s out, Rogers. We can only do so much.” Natasha slides her batons into their sheaths. “I know it’s your hometown, Steve, but there’s too many players in this game.”

Steve still looks on the fence, so Natasha sighs. “If it gets really, really bad, like Avenger-level bad, then we’ll move in. But only if there’s no one else to handle it. Okay?”

Steve finally nods at that, still not at ease. “I’m just afraid-”

“Well, if it’s HYDRA, then we’ll see,” Sam looks eager to get out of the motel room, “Now let's go kick some Nazi ass.”

That gets a snort out of Steve and a slight twitch of the lips from Natasha as they exit quietly through the motel, the watch on Steve’s wrist, still set to New York time, ticking to 11:44.

I weep as I have never wept:

“Is Peter gonna come back?”

Leo looks over at her brother, the latter of which is staring out the window as it rains, raindrops sticking to the glass. “I don’t think so. He’s still with Dad and Pe-Frank.”

Zach slouches over the couch, burying his head in his hands. “I miss him.”

“We only knew him for a few hours,” Leo points out. Aaron’s out for the moment, getting some groceries from the store across the way. “And he calls and texts.”

Zach’s voice is mushed and muffled. “I felt safer.”

Leo draws the blanket over her shoulders, shivering a bit. “Me too.”

The apartment is quiet as Zach watches the rain. Aaron’s good. He’s really nice, and he doesn’t treat them like they’re babies. They can’t go outside, but he lets them watch TV and they can use the Xbox while he’s at work. Leo and Zach try to help out where they can, cleaning and whatnot, but she’s homesick. Peter, somehow, found her dad. He found Frank. 

Leo heard her Dad. He’s alive, and so is mom, and they’re going to make things right.

But she wants to go home.

“D’you think that Peter knows Frank?”

Leo turns to look at her brother. “They’re literally-”

“Not like that!” Zach snaps back, arms slung over the couch. “I meant like they know know each other. Duh.”

Leo stares at her sibling. “How would they know each other?”

Zach mushes his face into a pillow. “Dad said that Frank wasn’t happy with Peter bein’ Spider-Man. And Peter told me that Frank told him that he had to stay with him, and he just sounded annoyed. Like, y’know, we do.”

Like family

“Maybe,” Leo allows, “Still weird. Has Peter texted anything yet.”

“No. But dad wants to call tomorrow.”

“Ok.” Leo taps her feet, on edge as always.

She doesn’t ask if he wants to go to bed. And neither does he.

teeth&claws&blood&pain&fear&therippingnoisethat s h r e d d e d the door

Aaron’s alarm clock flips to 11:47.

Oh it was summer when I slept,

“Can you believe this shit?”

Weasel sighs internally, as his best friend and worst enemy drunkenly waves at the television screen. “I’m sure they considered you as a suspect initially-”

Wade waggles his finger at him, and Weasel regrets ever letting this man into his personal life. “Nuh-uh, Weasy-pie. I’m not talking about the heartbreaking but understandable letdown. I’m talking about the fact that we barely have confirmation on whether this guy exists or not and the Feds are going full gung-ho tryin’ to pump this guy full of lead.”

“And I’m supposed to be surprised?”

“It’s not fair,” Wade whines, thumping his head down on the bar. Weasel notes with much disapproval that he’s leaving marks. He’s leaving marks he’s not going to clean up.

Not that the bar gets cleaned up anyway.

“I was so close to collecting that Gold Card of his,” Wade laments, mask rolled-up to his nose. “One more to complete the set, and Fisk set out his own reward for the guy just as I finally got sweet ol’ Charmaine to give it to me. Nearly cleared out my account just to get that crisp, shiny, luscious-”

“Alright!” Weasel held up his hands, moving to the other side of the bar. “I don’t need to hear your mastubation fantasies about getting Gold Cards. We all know you get off to owning the Gold Cards no one will ever take up.”

“I dunno, that Castle one is looking more and more enticing-”

Weasel snorts, cleaning a glass with an equally dirty rag. Hellhouse was not known for its cleanliness. “I’d like to see you try to take the Punisher down.”

“Aww, does Weasy-poo have an incy-wincy crush on the mass-murderer? And let’s be clear here,” Wade crosses his muscular legs at the thighs, drinking another shot. “I could take on that Thomas Jane-wannabe any day. It’s just that he’s terrifying and also very useful for clearing out competition.”

Weasel nods sagely, already a bit tipsy. “Like spring-cleaning, but he kills the pedos. And the morons. Really wipes up the assholes.”

Wade points at him, triumphant. “Exactly! And that’s how we know Spider-Man’s got some shit ahead, ‘cause Castle’s been spotted with him. And he’s still kicking and swinging. So it means, my precious-”

“I get it.” Weasel walks back into the kitchen. “Blah, blah, cover-up, that bullshit.”

“Yes. I want a pancake.”

“Get it yourself, you fucknugget.”

In the dirty and food-encrusted kitchen, the time ticks to 11:49.

It's winter now I waken.

She needs to talk with Jessica. 

Like, yesterday.

Like, actually yesterday.

She tried, okay?

Trish Walker, former child star and aspiring dumpster hero, huddles under a bus stop as the rain pours, thundering around her. Her phone is held tightly in her hands, screen lighting up as she tries to dial Jessica’s number again.

No response.

She must’ve blocked it.

Trish huffs, thinking. The back of her jacket is soaked, sending shivers down her spine even in the warm-ish weather. The street is mostly empty, a rare sight for New York, but not a surprise considering the circumstances.

Jessica hasn’t been seen in four days. Not by Costa. Not by the Arochos. Not even by Malcolm, but he didn’t seem worried.

“She’s got a case,” he’d told her, “And that case is taking longer than expected.”

Does that case also include having small children clean your apartment and generally be snarky about answering the door?

Maybe.

But still.

She knows-

She knows Jessica isn’t happy with her. That their relationship is in tatters. That they can never go back to how they used to be. 

But this is a desperate time, and Jessica won’t answer her phone. 

Trish knows exactly what kind of case Jessica took up. 

It’s the kind of one that requires copious amounts of alcohol and the threats of new injuries, and new trauma and new nightmares and new losses. Jessica could never stay away from what’s going on, no matter how hard she pretended she could. She’d never. It’s not in her blood, her bones. 

And now Jessica’s not picking up her phone. 

There’s been sightings of Luke Cage and Iron Fist, rare glimpses of the Punisher, and rarer looks at Spider-Man, but there’s been no news whatsoever about her sister. Yeah, it’s presumed she’s working with them, but Trish would like some actual proof.

And having the Punisher thrown in makes her nervous.

She wants to talk to her sister. That’s all she wants. Just a simple phone call.

Trish can help now. She can be of use instead of being a damsel in distress. She can do things she couldn’t before. She’s stronger. Faster. Better. She can take a punch and keep going, giving it back 10x stronger. She’s better than she could have thought.

And she can help.

But only if she can find Jess.

Her watch ticks to 11:51.

Talk what you please of future spring

“Maynard?”

Maynard jerks awake, previously dozing off in her chair. “Brett? You’re awake?”

“God, I hope so,” Brett moves sluggishly, touching the tubes around his nose. “Or else this is one normal dream.”

Maynard scoots closer to her partner, chair squeaking in the mostly silent hospital room. The sound of stretchers and talking voices permeates the walls, creating a muffled background noise. “Were the other ones all absolutely bonkers?”

Brett stretches, groaning in pain and still blinking away sleep in his eyes. “Horrible. I had one where everybody was a zombie, where my mom loved me more than Nelson, and one where Parker was Spider-Man. Which was really just weird.”

Maynard stops at that, tilting her head. Her heart thunders a bit, thinking of a sweet-faced kid with a scowl and bruised knuckles. “Peter?”

“Who else?” Brett rubs at his eyes, oblivious to Maynard’s thoughts. “That would be a nightmare.”

He looks up at Maynard, clearly expecting some sort of response. “Right?” 

Maynard doesn’t have the heart to break his naivety or innocence. “Right. He came to visit you a couple days ago. He was bothering Foggy the entire time.”

Brett raises an eyebrow, trying to adjust so he can sit up. “Nelson was here? Damn, I feel bad.”

His tone implied that he was, in fact, not feeling any sort of sympathy or guilt that Foggy Nelson was forced to interact with Peter Parker.

“Yeah, well,” Maynard takes a seat on the edge of the bed, tired from the week's events and relieved that one of her friends was still alive. “You missed a lot. For one, FBI’s taken over the case completely. Got some new guy, Special Agent Poindexter. Kind of a dick, if we’re being honest. Jessica Jones is on the verge of being declared a missing person, but that’s really no surprise to anyone. There’s been some murders, and Karen Page hasn’t shown up for work in about a week, so there’s that.”

She clears her throat.

“Also, Frank Castle is alive.”

On second thought, maybe she shouldn’t have dropped that explosive morsel of information just as he was waking up.

“He’s back?” Brett glances at his bed, as if wishing hard enough that he could slip back under the covers and go to a land without cannibalistic monsters or children with blue and black fists or soldiers with spray-painted skulls or men who wore the face of the devil like it was a second skin. “How recent?”

“Hours after you went under,” Maynard rakes a hand through her curls, “From what I’ve heard, he’s working with the vigilantes.”

Which means he’s working with Peter.

She should’ve tried to stop him. But with what? What could she have done that wouldn’t have made everything so much worse?

“But everyone’s okay?” Brett repeats, finally getting himself to sit up. “My mom, my sister, her kids, the Nelsons, they’re all good?”

Maynard nods, glad she could give him this much. “All good. Anne and Edward are thinking of moving to Florida.”

Brett snorts. “I’m glad.”

The old-school minute-hand clock on the wall outside the door ticks to 11:53.

A nd sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:—

The sewers of New York smell like rat poop and putrid scent that no person could ever put a name to. Something that conveyed feelings of lost things and abandoned thoughts. Something that felt like home to the creature swiftly moving through the sewers.

It didn’t know who it was.

It didn’t know what it was.

It didn’t know why it was.

It knew what it did.

It knew that it took something from someone, took their humanity, their mind, their free will. That it never cared, the selfish creature knew.

This was a fitting punishment.

The Lizard-yes, yes, that is what it is, what it became-snarls, pacing in six-inch murky water. Everything smells, everything hurts, everything is wrong. It’s not supposed to be like this, it should never be like this.

But it deserved this.

It blamed the woman, the woman with the son with bruises and silk, but she wasn’t to blame. She wanted to do good. Her work was used by others, by it. She had a blueprint. They created the monster.

It lied to her son, her baby. Her light, her love. The good thing in her life.

It hurt someone. It hurt someone badly. Claws raking across skin in an act of rage, an act born out frustration with itself.

It tried to absolve itself of its sins, but it made everything so much worse. So very bad, the situation the creature made of its own ignorance and self-interest. The pain it caused is felt through every pore in the creature’s body, a karma that whatever apathetic being above bestowed to it.

It deserves it.

This is it’s fault.

The woman with a soft smile’s body lying with a gaping hole in the middle, her lips smiling no longer.

The child’s limp form washed up on some shore, pale and cold.

The man holding a necklace made from memories and held together by nostalgia, head bowed with grief.

This is it’s fault.

The clock strikes 11:56.

Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,

Let me out let me out let me out

Jigsaw examines the terrain it’s in, on top of some building in SoHo. They’ll have to lie low for a few days, then they’ll strike. Again and again, till the city is shaped to their liking.

Blood and gore. They crave it.

Let me out you son of a bitch

Jigsaw rolls their eyes. This host is difficult, to say the least. The symbiote can’t tell if the outrage is born out of morality or the loss of free will, but it doesn’t matter either way. The last scraps of the host will die, just like the other scraps did. Tiny bits of personality they dealt with at first, bits of rage and memory, slowly gathering into a consciousness that had awareness and feelings.

Jigsaw scoffs. Feelings. Like the host ever had those before. The host likes to pretend, yes. Likes to pretend he is the victim, he is the martyr. 

But he is the betrayer. He is the one who caused the pain, the glass to break. He is a liar, an oath-breaker, a kin-slayer.

He put those scars on his face of his own accord.

He has reaped what he sowed, and the salt in his tears is delicious to the malice of those he wronged.

Jigsaw has no kin.

They were born of faulty science experiments, of dubious ethics and lies. They are the creation of a man, but with the relation of a monster. They have no one but their host and the lingering emotions he had.

I said let me out

They have all his memories.

I don’t want to do what you do

But the host does. He enjoys watching them scream. Likes watching them cry. Likes watching the light fade and the movement go still. 

Because Jigsaw was never meant to be like this.

But the host, the host gave it life. The host gave it purpose. A mission.

Jigsaw had asked him.

Vengeance, the host had replied.

And so Jigsaw became him.

The host is Jigsaw.

Jigsaw is the host.

Those scraps? The ones still alive?

They are what didn’t get absorbed.

Jigsaw had simply granted a wish.

That wish was granted.

The clock is 11:59.

No more to laugh, no more to sing,

He can hear the heartbeats.

One fast, one slow.

He can hear distant sobbing, one that speaks of grief and an agonizing pain, but he ignores it the best he can. He aches, but there’s still more to do, more to help. 

The grief will have to stay.

His shoes crunch on gravel, boots softer than they should be. He’s not supposed to be here, not supposed to have heard anything. But his hearing’s better than it has been in months, and tonight he was treated to tears and screams from across the way.

He still can’t move as well as he would like. His left leg gets all jammed and stiff when he’s not careful.

But he’s mobile.

He crouches behind a car, listening intently and twitching his nose.

The smell of leather and kevlar reaches his nose, and he wrinkles his nose in disgust. It tells of lies and untruths,  and innocent blood and false heroes. It smells of trouble, and it makes his blood rage.

It smells blue.

The figure with the fast heartbeat approaches the slow one, an object held ready in his hands, poised to throw. He wonders if they can hear the sobbing, the gasping of lungs over a piece of metal that smells like copper.

He wonders if the blue heartbeat knows it’s because of him.

The fast heartbeat moves closer and closer, his heart beating faster with every step. The city air is full of rain, spattering the two with rain droplets that soak his shirt and fall into his boots. And then-

He flies out from behind the car, immediately setting into offensive as he launches his fist at the other guy, catching him right in the eye.

He’s got a mask.

Dammit-

He aims a kick at the guy’s wrist, knocking the object out of their hands. The rain creates puddles for their feet to dance in this wait for death. The suit is harder to fight against, but the other guy is new, unused to it. He doesn’t know how to move, how to fight in this thing. 

Not like he does.

He grabs the side of the other guy’s head, careful to stay in the shadows as he slams the head against the floor, the shoulders bouncing slightly as they make contact. The other guy is out like a light, which is good. One less thing he has to worry about.

Then he approaches the small heartbeat.

Fading ever so slowly.

Stab wound, bullet to the chest, concussion, stabbed, it’s not a short list of his injuries. He needs help.

The distant sobbing starts once again, being left behind in the grand-scheme of the plan.

He stoops down, and-

Picks up the lightweight in his arms, the slow heartbeat stuttering with every barely-there breath. He’s not aware of where he is, rain washing the blood away, as his eyes open and close, appearing and disappearing.

They can help.

But they need to do it his way.

Matthew Murdock carries Peter Parker away from the Pier and the unconscious body of Dex Poindexter, and into his shadows, into the deeper reaches of Hell’s Kitchen, as the rain pours like a pitcher and the church bell rings at midnight, signaling a new day and the birth of a new sun, as the sky kisses the moon goodbye.

I sit alone with sorrow.