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❄️ Chapter 17 — Shadows in the Web
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Nick Fury's POV
The video looped for the fourth time.
A black-suited figure swung between rooftops, arcs of white webbing slicing through New York's snowy skyline. The movements were clean, sharp, efficient. Too efficient.
Nick Fury leaned forward, one hand tapping against the polished table in his office. He had watched Spider-Man enough times to know this wasn't the original. The style was the same, but there was something colder in the rhythm. Less play, more precision.
"Another damn spider," Fury muttered under his breath.
The reports were pouring in now. Witnesses swore they'd seen Spider-Man capturing thugs at night, dropping them webbed to lampposts before vanishing into the dark. Others claimed the black one saved a bus full of kids from tipping off a bridge. A better spiderman everyone say.
To the public? A new hero.
To Fury? A problem.
He turned away from the screen, staring at the wall where Phase Two's blueprints were pinned. Weapons. Tesseract-based technology. The only path forward if the world wanted to survive gods, aliens, and whatever came next.
But to move forward, he needed clarity. Was this black Spider-Man an ally to recruit—or a threat to neutralize?
He clicked the intercom. "Hill. Get me the Defenders."
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Defenders' POV — Briefing Room
Snow drifted outside the SHIELD outpost's reinforced windows. Inside, the Defenders sat around a holographic table, the atmosphere heavy.
Peter Parker hunched over, hoodie up, sniffling into a tissue. "Achoo! Fury, you dragged us here in a blizzard while I'm dying of the flu? This better be good."
"Always whining," Sam Alexander (Nova) muttered, arms crossed.
Luke Cage cracked a grin. " if you can't handle the sniffles, what're you gonna do when real trouble hits?"
Danny Rand ignored the banter, his calm eyes fixed on the hologram floating above the table: the black-suited figure in mid-swing. "That's what this is about."
Fury walked in then, trench coat trailing, presence cutting the chatter short. "You're damn right. That—" he jabbed a finger at the image—"isn't the Spider-Man we know. Question is he friend or foe?"
Peter groaned, shoving the tissue into his pocket. "It's not me. Obviously. And it's not a 'friend.' That thing is venom an imposter. Copying my style, making me look bad. If it keeps up, people won't even trust me anymore."
Danny tilted his head. "I'm not sure it's that simple."
Peter shot him a look. "You saying I don't know my enemy ?"
"I'm saying Venom enhances the host," Danny said evenly. "It doesn't copy powers. If this thing was Venom, bonded to Nova like last time, we'd see energy blasts. Flight. Something different. Instead, it's exactly like you—every swing, every strike."
Sam stiffened at the reminder of his brief possession. He clenched his fists. "Yeah. If that was Venom it will use my power over spidey anytime and it'd look a lot different. Trust me."
Danny continued, voice calm but edged. "So my theory? This isn't Venom at all. It's someone else. Someone with abilities very close to Spider-Man's. Maybe tech. Maybe something else. But they're wearing the black suit ."
Luke frowned. "So you're saying some random guy out there just woke up one day and decided to be Spider-Man 2.0?"
"Stranger things have happened," Danny replied.
Peter muttered under his breath, "I'm telling you—it's not just a copycat it's venom. Nothing more."
Fury didn't correct them. He knew the truth SHIELD kept locked away: venom is most likely made by a experimented using Parker's blood, that the Venom symbiote had spider-DNA woven into its very cells. so it could possibly replicate Spider-Man perfectly, and that now it had found a new host.
But they didn't need that truth. Not yet.
"Your job," Fury said, his tone steel, "is to make contact. See where this black spider stands. If he's on our side, we bring him in. If he's not…" His eye hardened. "Then you stop him."
The silence was heavy.
Peter swallowed, staring at the frozen hologram. His stomach knotted. Whoever the imposter was, they were walking around with his face, his name. He wasn't going to let them ruin what little trust he'd built with this city.
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Adrian's POV
Adrian closed the newsfeed on his laptop.
The black spider was everywhere. Headlines screamed "Dark Spider-Man in the City!" Footage spread across social media. Midtown's hallways buzzed with gossip.
He didn't need gossip. He knew who it was.
Harry.
The memory of the glass container in Harry's room—housing that faintly pulsing fragment—was all the confirmation Adrian needed. Now the fragment wasn't in glass. It was walking rooftops, swinging through the city.
But Adrian didn't intend to step in. Not yet. This was Peter's problem. Peter's story.
Adrian had his own.
His desk was a storm of blueprints, spell diagrams, and hardware. Wires snaked across talismans. A laptop hummed beside enchanted charms. The Bunny Miraculous shimmered faintly on the table.
He whispered the phrase. The Miraculous pulsed, and a narrow flicker of temporal glass shimmered open—a peek into Stark Industries' servers. Adrian scanned the ghost of a schematic: J.A.R.V.I.S.
Elegant. Sophisticated. But flawed.
"Too centralized," Adrian murmured, scribbling notes. "Too predictable. If it can't think outside the box , it's vulnerable."
He shut the portal, the blueprint already burned into his mind. His AI would be sharper, fused with runes, coded to read intent as much as command. A partner, not a servant. A system that could stand when everything else fell.
But there was another threat: trackers.
SHIELD eyes were everywhere. Satellites pinged. Drones swept. All it would take was one tracker to compromise his base. Portal-hopping wasn't enough.
So he started planning the decoy.
A hidden chamber beneath the city. Wards woven into its stone, designed to strip trackers from his skin. EMP bursts to fry electronics. Illusions to mask its presence. A place to vanish, to purge, to remain untouchable.
His hands moved fast, binding charms to circuits, sparks flying. The air filled with incense and static.
Plagg drifted lazily nearby. "Kid, you ever think about sleeping?"
Adrian didn't look up. "Not until this is done."
Tikki's voice was gentler. "Conviction is good. But conviction doesn't mean carrying the whole world on your back alone."
Adrian ignored the ache in his hands. He couldn't afford to rest. Not when Loki's invasion loomed. Not when the city would soon burn in alien fire. Not when people he cared about could be lost.
Not again.
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Harry's POV
The penthouse was dark, curtains drawn, the city lights bleeding faintly through the glass.
Harry Osborn stood before his mirror, chest rising and falling, the black suit clinging like a second skin. The symbiote rippled across his shoulders, alive, breathing with him.
He flexed his hand. The power coiled tight, sharp, intoxicating. His reflection wasn't Harry anymore. It was something greater.
He remembered the fear at the party. The helplessness. Watching everyone scatter, watching Peter vanish, watching his friends nearly die while he stood useless. Always the weak one. Always in Peter's shadow.
Not anymore.
The symbiote whispered promises, low and seductive. Power. Control. No more being left behind. No more fear.
Harry raised his mask slowly, the black eyes gleaming as they slid over his face. His reflection grinned back at him, alien and perfect.
"They'll see," he whispered. "They'll see I can be the hero. Better than spiderman. Better than anyone."
The symbiote purred in agreement, feeding his conviction.
Outside, the snow fell silently over New York, covering the scars of yesterday's battles. But under the blanket of white, shadows were moving.
Nick Fury arming for war.
The Defenders preparing to confront the imposter.
Adrian building in secret.
And Harry, reborn in black, stepping deeper into power.
The web was tightening.
And when it snapped, the city would bleed.
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