Sandman screamed as he reconstituted under the water. Whatever that white Venom bitch had used had hurt him more than the first time he had transformed. Every part of him ached and even now he could feel small bubbles popping as he rid himself of the spray. He didn't know sand could react like that.

The pain alone would have filled his lungs with water. He lay still as the cool waters washed it off. He felt the pain subside as the gravelly bottom of the river helped him rebuild the damage.  He was thankful one part of his transformation was he no longer needed to breathe.

⁂

Venom had moved to the controls of the reactor, hoping to shut it down. As he approached a whine flooded the area and the harness with an unconscious or dead Liv started up. She hung limply as two arms lifted her, electricity crackling over her body. The other two arms grabbed onto the beams of the understructure. With no effort, it rose and waved its arms menacingly at them.

Venom saw Ock wasn't out of the fight. "Poison, Cat. Take care of her," he shouted and shook his head as he looked at the control panel in front of him. Ock might have been unstable, but she was still a genius. Now needed to figure out how to shut it down without causing an overload.

Black Cat and Poison nodded and swung under the structure. Taking a side each, they distracted the harness away from Venom. As they tried to capture it, its limbs struck out at random. Ock was unconscious as it weaved in and out of the support struts. Whatever self-defence protocol did not care if she was bashed against the underframe.

"Venom, this thing won't stay still," Black Cat shouted. She was frustrated at how easily the four limbs could outmanoeuvre them.

Poison was hesitant to join the fight. Her acid webs were great but Ock was hiding in the lower reaches of the reactor platform. One wrong move and she could send the whole thing crashing down.

"Kinda busy here, just web the whole damn area to get it," Venom shouted back. Ock might have been a genius but her design choice for the control panel was terrible.

Why was there just no big red button marked Off? He lamented as he started to understand the various readouts.

The reactor itself hummed quietly. Its core was still stable from the initial startup but Venom watched a gauge start to rise. It was going to go critical as heavier elements started to destabilise the reaction.

Black Cat and Poison played hide and seek with the harness, cursing as it seemed to be outwitting them.

Venom was too engrossed in figuring out the machine that he never noticed the swirl of sand behind him.

Sandman reconstituted himself and slammed both fists into Venom's back. He was sent flying forwards and into the control panel.

An eerie and unwelcome beeping started. Soon licks of solar activity were whipping free from the small but deadly ball of plasma.

"You stupid shit," Venom yelled and pointed, "if that goes critical then boom, we all die here, even you."

Sandman didn't understand and he didn't care. He'd almost lost his daughter. He wanted payback, he needed payback.

"Raaagh," he yelled at Venom and his arms extended, sending a stream of particles flying towards him. Venom crossed both his arms in front of his face feeling the microscopic grit tearing at him.

No no, he thought to himself. He could have saved himself or the machine, and without thinking doomed them all.

Sandman had gone crazy and the console next to him sparked and flared with bright lights and then died. The thin hope he could shut this thing down was gone.

Venom had leapt out of the way. Flipping backwards and sending a fine layer of webbing over the console. He hoped it was enough to stop more sand from damaging the circuits inside. It was a small hope that he could maybe still salvage things.

He shot globs of tar but Sandman countered them easily. Whips of sand caught them in midair and caught them. Launching them back at him, they smashed into the front of that panel.

Venom groaned as it was now hopeless. The fight was lost, now all he could do was take out Sandman as quickly as possible and try to shut down the reactor.

He dived away from the console and took a quick glance at the other pair. Poison had sprayed a fine acidic mist into the air. As the harness dodged to avoid it, Black Cat shot her grapple and tied it to a strut. Poison moved behind it, and coated the whole thing in sticky webs. It was secure and neither arm could move. They whined as they strained against the material but were stuck fast.

Sandman had seen the fight as well. "You stay outta this girls. This ain't your business," he shouted at the pair.

Black Cat and Poison swung up and were about to move beside Venom when he pointed at the reactor. They took one look at the lines of plasma arcing from the reactor. As they struck the failing magnetic barrier, they showered the structure in sparks.

"Are you crazy, this thing is going nuclear. Hiroshima, ring any bells?" Poison yelled at both Venom and Sandman. "Stop fighting you morons."

She ignored the pair and took a look at the sparking console. Its main panel was dented and scratched from the sandblasts aimed at Venom.

"Shit, fucking shit," she yelled and pulled the panel straight off the front, inside was worse. The wires were fused together and there was sand everywhere. The controls were wrecked and even if she or Peter could rewire them the damage was done.

"Stop it," Black Cat swung up standing between Venom and Sandman, “Poison, what's the damage? Venom is more the engineer but I figure that melted and sparking means bad. Venom, we need to stop this, we need to shut the reactor down."

Sandman huffed but backed down, "this ain't over," he scowled at Venom.

Venom stared, "Right. You'', he pointed at Sandman. "Start feeding your sand into the reactor. Poison, use something to melt the steel of the building. Cat, feed Poison whatever scrap you can pull free," he directed.

"That won't work. The acid will melt the steel into a gas," Poison replied.

"Just melt it enough to make it bendable, the heat from the reactor will take care of the rest."

Venom jumped down into the substructure of the platform. The harness seemed to have finally powered down and he began to cut it free. Ock was covered in blood and bruises. He had no doubt she was dead, and he shook his head.

"We need to dump this in the river," he shouted as he swung up and grabbed the body of Max as well. He felt a small pang of guilt as he recognised the man.

Electro. he thought, now I remember. 

Peter had only met Flint once, and he was covered in grease and dirt. Now close up, he got a much better view of the man. With the pieces falling into place. If Max was Electro and Flint was Sandman and they all worked for Aleksei then there was no doubt Aleksei was Rhino.

Shit, not the time for this.

He cut Max free and moved him onto the warehouse floor. That was for later. The out-of-control nuclear reactor took precedence.

Where the harness had fought off Poison and Black Cat, her glasses had been knocked clear. As a final act of respect, he grabbed them folded and put them in her coat pocket. As a precaution, he folded the arms of the harness over her and webbed it all into a bundle.

Lifting her up, he slid the package next to the reactor controls. and then headed back down into the substructure. There was not enough scrap in the warehouse for his idea. So he began to punch the far-end struts, knocking the smaller ones free.

Poison was spraying steel sheeting held by Black Cat. As they let it fall into the reactor Sandman begrudgingly sent sprays of sand after it. Soon the rector was surrounded by a swirling ball of hot glass and steel. Even at this distance, they could feel the temperature drop. Their plan was working.

"Keep going," Venom shouted.

He hoped that by dumping the reactor in the river the sudden shock of the cold would contract the mix. With no air and no more hydrogen, it would snuff itself out. Even if the glass shattered it would just be debris the reactor would be unable to process. Its silicone and iron would be too heavy to fuse properly.

He had been punching for what felt like an eternity. His hands were slowly becoming numb as the smaller struts had been knocked free. As he broke one it was collected by Black Cat to feed to the reactor. All that was left was four giant meter-thick steel beams, one at each corner of a square.

"How's it going up there?" he shouted.

"We're out of scrap, so what your doing, keep doing it," Black Cat shouted back down.

"I need Poison." He could punch these beams all day but they wouldn't budge, he needed Poison to weaken them first. "Sandman, keep feeding glass into the core. Poison, spray these four struts and then go back and help him."

Sandman was looking pained. The stream of sand coming from his body was now a few centimetres thick and he had fallen to one knee. "Too much, too much,"

"You can do this," Black Cat put her hand on his shoulder. "Think of your daughter," and with a steeled look, he breathed deep and the trickle became a stream again.

Poison sprayed the acid on the beams, letting it trickle down.

Once she was done, Venom took a deep breath, letting the change take him more.

His face split into the maw he detested so much and his frame bulked up. Adrenaline and testosterone flooded his system. Endorphins raged through his brain. As he felt the buzz he punched and the steel dented, its angle moving an inch.

"AAHHH" he yelled and punched again.

The steel yielded more, and with each yell, he punched again. The steel deforming slowly and with a final yell he struck out. All his power went into that punch as the beam buckled, tilting the platform. He was now a behemoth. Muscles strained under black symbskin as they converted anything and everything into muscle.

Black Cat watched as Poison and Sandman slid towards the reactor. Without thinking she sent a grapple line and caught her friend. She swore as Ock snagged on the side of the console but Max slid down and back towards the reactor. His body lifted and flew up, knocking into Sandman and dragging the pair towards the core.

Sandman, too tired and too weak to fight back, slid and his chest made contact with the reactor. A normal man would have burned, but his sand body melted and instantly fused to it. The heat was a searing ball of agony. Even without lungs, the sound he tried to make was horrifying as the sand of his body melted and fused into the core.

Unaware of what was happening Venom continued to pound at the struts. He only needed the far two and the whole thing would collapse and slide into the water. The thin worn down wall of the warehouse would be no match for several tonnes of steel framing.

Punching over and over the second strut began to deform. "Everybody off," he yelled. With one final strike the second strut buckled and the platform began to creak and fall.

Black Cat and Poison watched as the platform tipped and then slid into the wall. Electro's body disappeared first. Sandman had knocked it free, but now it was slipping into the water. With no way to get past the reactor, he was doomed.

As the reactor floor began its descent into the water. Venom noticed Sandman, glued to the hot marble and swung over to him.

Wrapping his hands in a web he tried to pry the man free, he had been an enemy but he didn't deserve to die like this,

"No," Sandman whispered, "you can't save me. Save her, save my daughter. Save Keemia," was all he could say as the water began to pool under their feet.

"No," Venom cried, "no." He was the tool of vengeance, the hammer that sought out the wrongs and fixed them. He didn't want to watch someone whose child depended on them die. He could save him, he had the power to save him.

The water level rose and the free particles of Sandman's body began to disperse. Venom tried to web him together, sending more and more tar to keep him stable. It was of no use. The tar only burned as it touched the reactor and Venom was doing nothing but prolonging the man's death.

"Thank you," was all he could say as Sandman slipped under the water.

As he shot out a line and made his way back to the ruined building, Poison and Black Cat stood stoically. The three watched the reactor sink under the waves. Moments later, the glass and metal rapidly cooled in the freezing cold water there was a whump and a spout of water.

Venom couldn't feel the thrumming anymore. He dived into the water to make sure the reactor was dead. He found it cold and cracked. Webbing it up he dragged the remains back to shore.

After unwrapping it there was no Sandman. nothing but a few grains of grit coating one piece of shattered glass. He shook his head, this wasn't right, this wasn't what he wanted.

Returning to the water, Venom collected the reactor.  As he examined the platform he found Max, glass-eyed and staring into nothing. He had either drowned or, as his normally dark skin was almost white, been drained by whatever Ock had done to him.

Shaking his head he moved him nearer the substructure. He lodged his remains under a pile of debris and constructed a small grave. He wouldn't leave him here, and he could hardly call Aleksei to let him know what had happened.

Grabbing the reactor he swam back to the surface where a pensive pair waited for him.

Black Cat stared as the pair collected pieces from the wreckage,

“I’ll be coming round later. You two have a lot to explain, and no bullshit either.” Black Cat looked Poison up and down. If that was Peter, it was obvious who this way. Her chest was way too small for MJ. “Gwenom.”

She launched her grapple gun and pulled herself up on the rooftops. She was ready to head home and deal with the revelations of the evening. This was not what she wanted, and she doubted it was what anyone did.

Poison huffed as she lifted the reactor, “I hate that name.”