"It's him! The idiot who keeps sneaking looks at you!"
Gwen Stacy's face instantly flushed.
"Shut up."
"His heart rate's gone up! It's even faster than when he was pinned under the bus! That means he-"
"I said shut up!"
Peter couldn't hear Venom's voice. He staggered up to Gwen Stacy and pressed a hand to her shoulder.
"You're burned."
"Worry about yourself first."
Gwen Stacy grabbed his side. The moment her fingers touched the red-and-blue Costume, she felt hot, wet blood.
Her expression darkened.
"You call this fine?"
"Technically, I might have hairline fractures in three ribs, bruising on the left side of my abdomen, and a shoulder joint that's threatening to dislocate. But I can still stand, which means the problem-"
"Peter."
Gwen Stacy looked up.
"Have you said a single true thing to me?"
Peter's voice caught.
The bus behind them collapsed with a crash. Its burning roof slammed into the street, sending sparks showering upward like rain falling in reverse. In the bank's portico, the paramedics dragged the last casualty back into the pink ring of light Yang Ming had just opened.
"Get inside!" Yang Ming held the stretcher steady. "Don't stop, and don't look back!"
Captain George stood beside the ring of light, looking across the blaze at the two figures standing side by side.
Spider-Man.
A black-and-white Costume.
One was his daughter's classmate. The other was the mysterious monster that had just appeared at the convenience store.
Their tones, their pauses, even Peter's instinctive move to shield Gwen Stacy despite his injuries-all of it was so familiar that his heart sank.
George didn't draw his gun.
He merely raised his megaphone and shouted to the officers on the street:
"Everyone fall back to the north side of the bank! Casualties first! No firing into