"So, not going to surrender then?" Iron Man asked Venom. "It's only a matter of time. I have the Iron Legion, I have Gamma Troppers, and I'm just better than you."

Venom shrugged, "But you dont look as good in a skin-tight suit. I mean, that groin plate is definitely size small. At least you don't have to use a lot of Vibranium there."

Iron Man attacked. Two drones fired off missiles while Iron Man blasted at him with his disruptor.

Venom felt the burns as the beam hit his armour. Part of him flaked off, and even the energy curtain in Wakanda hadn't been as painful as this. Gritting his teeth, Venom dodged another blow. He backflipped away as the beam flashed towards him, taking away the armour covering his leg.

Venom cursed. That damn disruptor was small, and could only target a limb. Iron Man would have to get lucky and hit his head for it to be anything more of an annoyance. What irked Venom most was its effectiveness. A larger version would probably disintegrate him with one shot. He shuddered to think what it would do to a normal Symbiote and its unlucky host.

Thankfully he had realised the gap in his powers, and Liv had prepared him. He concentrated and thicker armoured greeves slid down from the back. The Mark Three was in testing but now seemed like a good time as any. And as a repulsor blast hit and bounced off the Vibranium alloy plating, Venom grinned.

As a drone fired he let it hit the charging plates on his back. As the bright repulsor rings on his wrist lit up, he fired at Venombuster.

“To slow.” The suit jetted to one side and he returned fire. The blast stripped the symbskin armour from Venom's hand and reduced the skin to ash. The cold air bit into his fingers as a stinging pain while the skin regrew. Venom snarled as he clenched his hand. The Mark Three armour was still gloveless with a slit up the wrists. Liv was working on a solution to his natural stickiness and web powers but hadn't cracked it just yet.

Taking a breath Venom knew he had to do something. His stamina was immense, and after all his upgrades and the arc reactor, he could fight for hours. But as Natasha and Logan had proved, regeneration was tiring and painful.

“Enough,” he yelled, and the pack on his back lit up. A short burst took him to one drone, where a bladed arm split its armoured shell through the centre. That was one. His senses were working overtime. In the dark, he cut off his vision and relied on the electronic signatures of each armour.

Using short controlled bursts, he flew randomly in various directions. Tracking software was only as good as the system controlling it, he had to keep moving to stop it from getting a lock. As he worked his way around each suit, he wondered how he was being tracked. Iron Man had to be getting telemetry from somewhere unhindered by the buildings. Venom figured it was a satellite.

Liv, can you track and find out if a Stark Satellite is overhead? He’s got me pinned and I need to blind him.

I can, but it will take time. If it's a spycam, then your camouflage should be enough to fool it. Heat for your flight pack, photons for the arc reactor, or cycle between them. It probably doesn't have a huge array of sensors. 

Venom laughed, I have an idea, how high is it?

It would be in a high orbit. Sorry dear, but you’d never reach it before you suffocated. I can try to hack it if I found it, but with Agents poking around, it would be risky.

He had thought of taking a suit up high and detonating it, hopefully taking the satellite out with it. If it was at twelve thousand feet, with the other GPS satellites, it was way too high.

Right, no reason to give them an excuse. Plan B then.

Venom shot straight up, dragging four suits of armour behind him. Iron Man didn't follow and let his drones do their job. In the edges of the atmosphere, Venom recoated his armour black and cut all power to every system. The drones frosted but then heated, while he let ice coat him. Track me now shitheads. As he fell, the drones remained, unable to find the now cold armour.

A web shot out and snagged the bottom of a suit. Using it as leverage Venom whipped around it, tying it with a web. As he landed on its back, he pressed his hand to its head and sliced open its central processing unit. After a moment, the armour was now under his control.

Laying flat on it, he surfed towards another suit. As he neared, a thin razor-sharp tendril shot out. It sliced through the unit's rocket boots, sending the drone plummeting to the ground.

Venom felt slightly guilty about that, as it would probably land on someone's car. But, if Tony was going to bitch about using the Legion in New York, he shouldn't have deployed them. Some champion of the law he was.

Meanwhile, Tony was swearing. The Legion drones were flying randomly, trying to locate Parker. As soon as he hit the lower edge of the atmosphere, he vanished into the cold. There was no heat or radiation coming from anywhere in the sky, and as he checked each drone he cursed. To him, he could see every one of them on his tracker. Their Friend or Foe system and a transponder kept them on his HUD. As he checked, one unit wasn't registering to the satellite above. It was dark to its camera, and he figured Peter must have hijacked it. He watched as it would fly close to another drone, that drone would register as disabled, and then it would jet off.

Smartass, Tony thought to himself, but he had also learned. Modok had commanded his own Legion, and Ultron hijacked any armour he could find. So, each unit had a failsafe in case of a hostile takeover. Separate from the main core, a small explosive charge was mounted around the arc reactor. Sending a kill signal to the compromised drone, it exploded, sending a black shadow flying.

Tony had a choice to make, Peter was right, nothing good ever came of locking people up. Sure, they needed oversight, but this went past that and right into fascism. 

They didn’t want Peter for his flagrant use of his powers, they wanted him for his secrets. Even Tony felt that when they tried to seize the Iron Man technology. Do as we tell you or else they had said, and that irked Tony. He was one for freedom of technology. It was idiots that made the world a dangerous place, not tech. Something he agreed with Liv on, and by association, Peter.

He knew he should put aside their little spat. Maya had warned him about it, that he was a grown man and fighting with a child was beneath him. He had argued that Peter had started it, and he was fine with the way things were. Both of which were the wrong thing to say. After he had kissed her ass long enough, she pointed out they were both wrong. She wasn't taking anyone's side but he needed Peter. Peter was the only one that could prove that Helen Cho was full of shit. That had been the plan, right until Ross and his Gamma goons turned up at the tower, waving warrants.

This was the one time he wrote a script and stuck to it. He knew Ross or one of his flunkies was monitoring his feeds. With the stakes, he couldn't risk anything on even a ninety-nine per cent chance he wouldn't get caught. He would just never admit that anyone other than Parker was smart enough to figure out binary in their head.

He just had to hope that Peter would put aside their little feud and listen. Peter was brilliant, if misguided. The personal stuff could be forgiven but he had to act fast.

“Reroute power to the sub sonar systems and load program one. Repeat and goddammit Pete, don't a smart dumb guy.”

As Venom’s senses kept track of the Legion and Venombuster, he could feel the pulses, coming from Tony’s active scan. He stopped for a moment, clinging to the side of a building. The pulses hit him, but they were wrong, it was a scan but in a strange pattern. 

Is that binary? He thought. Oh, screw him. He settled down to figure out what the hell Tony was saying.

Not safe. Hostages. Help. Help. Help.

Oh, godammit, Venom thought. No wonder Stark wasn't trying very hard. There were a few times the disruptor blasts could have been a little higher and could have taken his head off. and he had no way to stop a tracking satellite completely. 

Venom decided to risk it and he felt for Tony's mind. Please don't have a stupid Vibranium helmet. His attempts scattered over Tony’s armour. He figured if it wasn't Vibranium he had one of those damn helmets Shaw used. Stupid dumbass motherfricking tin can asshole. Venom sent out a flurry of expletives, all aimed at Tony but he knew he wasn't getting past the armour. Right, then we do this the hard way.

Tony was tracking the dark shadow as it sent out webbing and latched onto a nearby building. It was scattering almost everything, but even in the dark shadows, it was still a presence. He just couldn't track it with anything other than his eyes.

A spotlight on his shoulder lit up, illuminating an area. As he swept it over the side of the building, there was a flicker of movement and his impact collision alarm went off. It was too late. Peter had lept from drone to drone, keeping himself cold and dark until he could get close enough.

“Got you,” it whispered and Tony felt the stabbing pain in his chest as it plunged a blade through his armour.

Tony, yeah I know, but listen, we need to make it look good. If you're honest, then just think and I’ll hear you.

The blade stopped just over the hole in his chest. He had fixed it using surgery, but it was still a weak point. Normal armour plates were useless and it was the one spot he had used Vibranium. He was annoyed Peter had just stabbed right through it, He groaned as he felt a prickle against his skin, and then pain. The tip of the blade pierced his sternum, and a chilling ache followed it

After giving up the Mind Stone, Peter could communicate with the Symbiotes just fine. Communicating with anyone else was an issue without skin-to-skin contact. He had limited success with some of the Augments, but only a few. The only choice he had to get the truth as to why Tony suddenly turned on him was to stab him. They weren't friends, but they left each other alone over a mutual respect for Friday.

Sorry, but I do owe you for blasting me earlier.

Tony shook as the pain spread across his chest, but as the pair floated, he heard the voice once more.

Explain yourself right damn now or I stab further in.

Please, they have Jocasta, I had to. This is bigger than us Pete, and I had no choice. Vision was supposed to stop you.

That was the dumbest plan ever, and the beating?

We thought our threat would stop you. Ross thought going after your mom would get you to reveal yourself. Pete listen. This is bigger than just the Xandarians. They want us out here killing each other, they want us to be fighting. Our fighting gives them more excuses to tighten the laws.

Well, duh. Malik is Hydra, so what's new?

You, you knew?

Well, not about the fake-out, that was a surprise. But I've been expecting Doom or Hydra or some other moron to try something. You are right, and powers aren't to be played with, but this goes past that. There are kids Tony, and you should have fought, you should have come to me and we could have done this together.

They took Jo! I had no choice.

I learned the hard way, Tony. There is always a choice. They wouldn't have hurt her.

You don't know that! 

Peter's mind was flooded with reports and emails from Helen Cho. Her neural cloning of a human brain into synthetic pathways had failed at every turn. She had reached out to Tony, to let her examine Jocasta or Vision, and he had blown her off. She had wanted to do a deep dissection of one of the three, and Tony had point-blankly refused. So, she took the next alternate route. She blamed Tony for her work's failure and his attack on her lab as to why her models failed. The three Synthezoids were hers and had been seized illegally. All Coulson did afterwards was apply pressure. If he didn't cooperate, Vision and Jocasta were to be taken to a secure facility and dismantled. Nobody believed they were alive, and Tony didn’t even bother to say they had souls. It was hard for him to believe, let alone anyone else.

Peter snorted, yeah, that was stupid, so now what?

Tony coughed, and his lips stained with blood.

I kinda want you to take your hand out of my chest.

Peter, he heard a softer voice call to him.

It's fine, stay away. He told it.

Peter Parker! What The Hell Do You Think You Doing!

It was like being punched in the head. Emma was the only telepath strong enough, and in New York, to hammer at his mind like that.

Dammit, he’s fine, we’re just talking.

Are you an idiot? Oh, don’t answer that, of course you are. It's me, darling, and you spoiled my daring rescue. I was hoping to get your heart all a flutter, and not find you fisting Tony Stark. What will the internet say?

Peter looked at his hand in Tony's chest, and the blood flowing from the cracks in his armour. 

It’s uh, really not what it looks like. He’ll live. He might not like me for a while but it's, he sent and as he stood. Call an ambulance for Tony, he sighed. It was painful as Tony gritted his teeth and they lowered themselves to the ground.

“Thanks, jackass. That hurt.” Tony groaned as the symbskin in his chest retracted, leaving behind a dose of healing cells.

“Yeah yeah, quit whining, it was your plan,” Venom said as he lay Tony down on the sidewalk.

“My plan was not for you to paralyse me and stick your hand in my chest.” Tony tried to reboot his armour and activate its life support systems. But as a precaution against being hijacked, it had forcefully shut down and needed to be reset from a back panel. A design flaw Tony was going to fix.

“It worked, and now you get to have pretty nurses tend your tired and broken heart." Venom waved a hand. "kiss your whatever better,” Venom said, as he lifted the faceplate clear to let Tony see.

Tony rolled his eyes, “Not helping, Maya will kill me if I even.”

Venom lifted a hand, “Yeah, dude. Don't care. Tired of stupid AI, government assholes, and uh, dammit, the big guy.”

Closing his eyes, Venom stood as he checked Tony one last time, as he opened his eyes, he felt it. A huge signal heading towards him. The burning heat and the rage, and he knew that he had finally caught the attention of the biggest fish.