Black Cat growled as she tore the newspaper apart, a grainy but serviceable photo of her with the ‘Black Cat Menace’ was plastered on the front page. Her mugshot, along with Spider-man and Tarantula, was on every copy of the Daily Bugle she could find. What was worse was that they had mainly gone for a pissed off, frustrated housewife angle for her, god forbid she might have other reasons for hunting scumbags than feminist fueled manhate.

From the rooftop, she spied her target. That kid was back at Alexsi's and she needed to find out who he was. She’d still never gotten a good look at his face, but he was skinny, wearing jeans and a short jacket, and no bike or car, she pegged him as one of the drug dealers or one of the kids they paid to get supplies or do courier jobs. She snorted as she watched him lift a heater of some kind, as if that fooled anyone, that a scrawny kid could lift something that heavy. It was a stupid plant or some scheme and as she watched him hoist it onto one shoulder she began to follow him. 

She trailed him across the rooftops to the warehouse district, even though she knew about the meth den shootout that took place here she had figured it was abandoned. Even she knew the cops would check here first if anything suspicious came up and she shook her head at his stupidity. Suspicious package, a lone kid and an abandoned drug lab seemed too easy, Great, she thought as she flexed her fingers, letting the stainless steel razor claws extend and retract, someone to vent on a little after that nonsense the Bugle printed.

After manhandling the heater into the warehouse Peter had shifted to Venom, the water heater wasn't heavy but holding it one hand while he worked was a lot easier with super strength. Throwing it onto his shoulder he leapt and climbed out onto the roof where the main water junction was. The water heater he had taken from Alexsi was an outdoor model, it would be bolted to the outside of the water tower, fed with a pipe from the cold supply and then branch off into two new pipes, one to the hot and one to the cold. The warehouse already had all the plumbing there, just no heater. The large tank would need to be fitted and then wired into the power. Peter was ecstatic over the thought of being able to have a hot shower and not cold water from a barrel. This was the last of the major plumbing to be done. Everything else had been hooked up and checked for leaks.

He was crouched down low, Venom's strength meant fixing and attaching the heater would be easy and then he'd shift back into Peter to do the fiddly wiring and welding jobs. He was carefully moving the large cylinder into place when the first attack struck. He had been too busy concentrating on fixing the heater to the tank that he hadn’t paid any mind to the presence behind him, unable to imagine that someone would climb up onto the warehouse roof to attack him. The razor-sharp blades across his back brought a hiss from his throat. The second attack he dodged, rolling to the side, and spinning into a low crouch he saw his attacker.

She was stunning, wearing a tight black leather or latex bodysuit that hid nothing. Venom couldn't help but notice her muscular figure held two enormous breasts that the outfit did nothing but enhance and display. Her hair was wild, light silver colour and her face was hidden with a half mask, he could only see the steel grey of her eyes under it.

"Why?" was all he asked her.

"You took out Flint, now the kid?" She motioned towards the warehouse, "You tell me why?"

Venom was confused, the kid? Did she think he was here to hurt himself? Of course, he realised that with the symbskin he looked nothing like Parker, his height and build were all wrong. "Parker is nothing to us, we protect him, so why?"

Black Cat was stunned, "Parker? Peter Parker?" No, that couldn't be right, sure she'd heard Gwen talking to MJ about Peters new job and place but, ah she was so stupid, junkyard, scrawny kid, shit. "No problem then, big guy, we good?" She raised her hands and he still crouched held up one hand, his fingernails extending into wickedly sharp claws.

"We will be," and then he leapt.

Venom was mad, When he shifted from Parker the anger at Gwen's dad rose and his frustration at the teasing gained a lot of momentum as well. He'd tried to burn off the excess energy by doing this, carrying a heavy object, working off the adrenaline but when this, this woman cat thing attacked him, she gave him a pointed target, he needed someone to test himself against, juggling eggs was fine but the real test would be taking this bitch down a peg without hurting her. Well, after the claws on his back, hurting her too badly. He also felt something else stir within him, the way her muscles tightened the leather costume she wore, her muscular legs as she backed away brought forth another feeling, one that Gwen’s teasing had left unfulfilled. He might have just found a good way to work out some of his frustrations.

Black Cat saw the claw coming for her face and her heart almost stopped in her chest, she brought up a forearm and deflected the blow, allowing it to slide along her arm as she ducked under the huge biceps of this creature. Its mouth had split open and its grinning maw was filled with the most horrendous teeth she had imagined. As she ducked she drove a knee into its stomach, hoping to wind it but he laughed as it grabbed her thigh. "Mmm, nice" damn brute was feeling her up but the indignation didn't last long as it lifted her up and slammed her into the rooftop.

The wind was knocked out of her and she struggled under his grip. His hand was wrapped around her thigh, squeezing it every now and again, damn pervert she thought and she brought her other knee up and smashed it into his head. Reeling back he bellowed and Black Cat managed to get to her feet, whipped around and caught him on the side of the head with a  roundhouse kick. He staggered and fell to one hand but shook his head and glowered at her. He had a longer reach than her, was stronger but she was faster and as he swung his thick fists at her she weaved under them and scored lines across his biceps with her claws. Whatever his suit was made from sealed back up within seconds.

He swung again and she thought amateur, unskilled and not used to fighting another person but as she moved to avoid a swipe at her head he thudded a fist into her side, she hoped that was the material of her corset cracking and not her ribs as the pain exploded the air from her lungs.

Shit, she thought to herself, he was bigger but she was faster and better trained, she had no doubt she would win but she couldn't take the chance and had to escape, one lucky hit and he'd flatten her. His thick arms swung at her again and again and she dodged and weaved out of his reach. He hissed at her in frustration, and Venom knew he had been right, hitting a trained fighter was much harder than an unsuspecting mugger. 

As he bellowed at her she took the chance to back off, she kept a variety of small pellets in her belt, smoke bombs, flash pellets, trackers, pain killers, and a variety of small but sharp throwing knives. Taking out a knife she threw it straight for his head and when he turned his head to avoid it she threw a smoke bomb at her feet and a flashbang at his face.

She had already dived off the roof and thudded into the ground when the bomb went off, his screech was loud and sounded very angry. Uncaring she took off into a sprint, needing to get as much distance between him and her as possible. "We will find you, Yes We Will. We are VENOM!" he bellowed at the night air. 

His eyes stung from the flashbang she'd thrown and even now he had bright spots in his vision that refused to clear. Venom made a note to see if he could make the eye coverings photochromic and his ear coverings noise cancelling. Even if he had to wear goggles and earpieces underneath his symbskin it would stop that from happening again.

Black Cat was hidden on a warehouse roof a mile or so away from where she had fought Venom, she tentatively touched her side and while not broken her ribs were bruised. Her back was killing her from his slam and she examined the black residue on her hand claws, watching as it crumbled into a fine dust. Damn, she thought, a self-repairing suit would have been handy. Fumbling around in her belt she pulled out a couple of capsules, breaking them between her teeth she took a deep breath, feeling the ache in her side vanish and standing she clutched her side and began to hobble back home. 

If Venom was connected to Peter she needed to rethink her plan, maybe even see if he would be willing to help her. Her father had always warned her about working with a crew, but right now she needed the help. If Peter was getting mixed up with Alexsi, then he would need her help, and if he owed her, she might get him to recruit Venom for her.

In the distance a blue and red-suited man watched the pair fight. He had followed the strange woman, his Black Cat, first to a junkyard and then to a warehouse. He felt bad that he had been stalking her but he needed the money and she was much more interesting than Tarantula. She was attractively built, even if her face was hidden by a mask and pictures of her sold much better than a muscle-bound catsuit wearing thug. It was a sad truth of the industry, and even if Jonah had angled the woman as some pissed off feminist he knew she was after something. Unlike Tarantula she kept away from the streets, instead she scoured the neighbourhoods for targets, and it was always the same M.O. Usually attacking a woman, usually had a history of violent crime and was attached to one of the larger crime families, headed by a shadowy figure known only as Kingpin.

He stumbled upon her and her target and hoped just to get some decent pics, this, however, was gold. His camera memory was full, not just of pictures of his own dazzling saves but now a video of two super brutes slugging it out on a warehouse rooftop. Sure he'd been too far away to hear what they were talking about but swinging fists and throwing kicks meant it was newspaper worthy, more importantly, it was payday for Brock. He drooled as he imagined the steak he could buy with these pictures, oh yeah, he would make Jameson pay through the nose for these. Plus he had a name, one clear message yelled louder than their conversation. 

He had lost the Black Cat as she dived off the warehouse they were fighting on and he moved closer to find that Tarantula had disappeared as well, some random warehouse in the industrial district wasn’t interesting but the fight had been, he could imagine the headline in tomorrow's edition, “Black Cat Vs Tarantula. Super-Villain Show-Down”

Venom, phff stupid name Spider-man thought, Tarantula was much cooler.

~

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