- T&B -

It was a longspun night. 

When two genius Ph.D. masters and a repurposed, cellular android get down to business regarding a minute timeframe and extraterrestrials, it was compelled to end in impeachment. Not a challenge that any of them was ready to shrink from since the life they were saving was very much close to their hearts. At least, two of them.

'This is a massive feat,' the humble doctor said, exhilarated. 'I mean, you're reducing the size of your already diminished reactor. That's gotta take a while - '

'Banner, look around. There's two of us and one Vision,' he said. 'We can definitely nail this in under a day.'

'We don't have a choice.'

Vision and Banner knew the schematics of this operation was like shaking an eight ball and praying to receive the best outcome - it was more of a chance option. Seeing Tony headstrong and ready to help seemed to boost their dispirited moods, ready to get their head in the game. 

They were hustling around, scrambling up numbers and conjuring up relatives, with scraps of metal fitting into their moldings and fixtures. Vision was especially helpful at that point of time, his core consciousness more intelligent than Tony had underestimated. He had different conjectures, concepts, and less time-consuming procedure ethics which annoyed and relieved him at the same time.

'Is it feasible for this strange element to be injected into her contrary bloodstream?'

Tony had a not-bothered expression, shrugging his arms. 'It runs within me. Either way, it's a do or die.'

Tony wanted to make as accessible and painless as possible. His arc reactor was a significant component of his physical self and he wouldn't be able to corporally insert into Laura's lobotomizing body without the necessary incisions that he had. With Vision's help, they had managed to break down core segments of the reactor to fuse into microreactors that could be easier to fuse into her body. The microreactors were like miniature arc-reactors, smaller than a thumb but harnessing more power than the actual engine. 

The energy would be hard to expel since the size had been reduced exponentially so the number of reactors that would have to be inserted would make a difference.

They had originally planned four, one on each limb to perform its energy-canceling functions smoothly but Tony took his chances. He premeditated eleven; two on the neck, two on each limb and one, if possible, near her heart. And they followed the precautionary measures, composing eleven segments to shot beneath her skin.

'The organism would've toughened her dermis,' Banner pondered. 'We're gonna need bigger incisions.'

'I got it covered,' Tony said not too long after, producing the chip-insertion gun that he'd used for himself to control the powered armors through the chip-scanners. Who'd never thought it would come of handy once again. 'Slip these bad boys inside and we can start the procedure.'

'Don't call it that,' Banner said with a small tweak of his lips. 'It sounds vaguely horrifying.'

'Would you rather call it insertion?' Tony said, trying to maintain a straight face but failing. He let out a chuckle at the number of sexual innuendos that entered his head.

'Alrighty. Who's going in to do the honors?' Tony said after the atmosphere died back to normal, waving the loaded chip gun in the air. Much to his dismay, everyone had pointed to Tony. 

'Really?' When no answer came in, he sighed with weariness. 'Fine. Let the mortal do the dirty work.'

Eddie was there in the holding room where they were containing Laura, his eyes heavy with sleep. He had a palm over the glass, contemplating his next moves. When Tony waved the chipping-gun in the air, his gaze lightened to surprise. He knew they'd found a way to remove it out of her.

'What're you gonna' do?'

'The most audacious move I've done in a while,' Tony returned. 'I'm going to shoot her with mini-mes.'

Eddie looked at Banner who followed up close behind him while sizing up Vision shortly. Vision shortly glanced at a silent Wanda, she followed the same motion and smiling while doing so. 

'Explain.'

'They're a compact sized arc-reactors made out of his first. It's to protect Laura from Vision's energy beam,' Banner revealed while walking past them to operate the keypad on the glass screen. He tapped a few keys, stabilizing her vitals and checking on her heart, continuing to speak. 'The stone could harm her so the chip is to cancel out the power of the rays.'

Eddie glanced at Vision dubiously. 'He's going to kill it?'

'He's gonna pop it out of her,' Tony piped up, waiting near the sliding doors to walk inside the containment chamber. He poked his thumb at a reticent Wanda beside Eddie, who blew into her cup of coffee. 'She's going to kill it.'

So he turned to Wanda this time. 'Can you?'

She shrugged indifferently, cradling the cup as she sipped it. 'You'd be amazed.'

Eddie seemed partially relieved with the answer. Tony shuffled backward, flanking Wanda's side and murmuring to her under his breath. He knew the superior witch knew how Laura was feeling and only one who was brave enough to ask.

'Is she,' he asked, 'doing okay?'

Wanda was hesitant to provide him with a reply. 'She's relatively quiet. It's plaguing her thoughts - she's disoriented and I think,' she tried to place the correct word. 'Scared.'

'It would be wrong if she weren't. Is she repulsing?'

Wanda couldn't tell. She seemed to be slumbering once again, but the organism was unpredictable. Every time she looked into Laura's subconscious, she visualized her graphic dreams and her still legible hold on reality. The symbiote was mentally acting at her with obstruction and she was fighting back. It was irking her happiest memories and when Wanda tried to look back at them, they appeared to be erased. 

'I don't even know if she's herself.'

'Essentially,' Tony said dryly. He patted her shoulder, meddling with the trigger of the gun while suavely walking in through the chamber doors, but on the inside, anything but. He rapped the flat side of the chip-gun over his palm in nervousness, taking contemplative steps to the unmoving girl. 

'Hey, JARVIS?' He tapped his ear to connect him to his AI. 'Is she conscious?'

'She's quiet, sir. But unfortunately, the symbiote is still alert.'

'Thanks, pal. We got this,' he huffed.

'Beginning implant protocol. Heartbeat detected; vitals normalizing. We're good to go, sir.'

 He neared the hospital bed, eyeing the grey tendrils that overlapped over one another over her chest. He gulped at the sight of the moving semi-liquid, moving swiftly as of noticing his presence. He felt the need to call in the iron armor over his body just in case. 

'Alright, JARVIS. Hit our best shot.'

'Left arm, two inches above the wrist and two inches up from the upper elbow.'

Tony grasped the freezing skin on Laura's arm, approximating two inches from her wrist. He could tell her skin had toughened, the usual smoothness of hers missing. Positioning the gun right where to hit her, he squeezed the trigger to release the pellet. He snapped his gaze to her wincing face, her cheek lolling back into the bed. He let out a huff when she soothed, once again stationing the gun over her forearm and shooting another one in.

'See? Easy peasy. Nine more to go,' he said to himself, taking in a relieved breath. He continued to obey his AI's consistent instructions, every now and then, mentioning if she were awake. Tony was flustered when he had to push up her pants to fuse a chip on the artery on the inner thigh, his hands heating up. Sure, he wasn't a prude but this definitely was a first. 

'And, our precautionary chip, sir,' JARVIS reminded him when he completed the positioning of the chips all over the major regions of her system. 'Three inches down from the collarbone. Near the most solidified core.'

He moved the collar of Laura's button-up shirt with two fingers, glimpsing underneath. When he saw her breasts sheathed with a thick sheen of glossy tendrils, he felt like he was going to hurl. 

'How am I going to embed the last one?' He hissed at the man in his ear, bringing him to an edge.

'This should be fairly arduous, sir.'

'You don't say,' he mocked, moving his fingers to the button line to rip up a few pins and examine the condition under. It was worsening and he watched as the tendrils combed through the navel region of her abdomen. 

'My scans can't predict any opening near her marrow. I'm afraid you're going to have to use your luck with this one.'

Tony rolled his eyes, shaking his shoulders to ready himself. 'Bite me.'

He lifted his wrist to position the gun right above her chest, his confidence increasing when he saw the symbiote remain unresponsive. He clamped a hand at the back to post it firmly, a tired finger compressing the trigger with intended force. When it was done, he heard his AI's voice speak up after a short bing!

'Implant process complete. Initiating reboot sequence in three. Two. One.'

'Implants aligned.'

Multiple relieved gasps ensued, his gaze slipping to the commotion behind. Eddie and Banner looked skeptical still, their eyes displaying vague senses of shortcoming. 

'Tony...'

He wasn't making things up. He heard it, as clear as day, a voice from behind him call out his name. Tony sharply turned to Laura, bracing his arm beside her cheek and leaning in close. To show that he was there, listening and accurate. Laura's almost purple hued lips barely moved with the words that he tried to decrypt. Her eyes were sunken in, so far that he could make out the shape of her eye-sockets. She was trying to speak, using the last bits of her stamina to convey her message.

'Hey, Sharp.'

'E- Eddie.'

He nodded gently, scrunching his face with remorse. He moved away to make her gaze visible to the glass beyond. 'Yeah, he's right there.'

She didn't look. She had her eyes on him, lips twitching as she managed to make words.

'I'm sorry,' she whispered brokenly, her dark eyes were like eerie holes looking into him. The crest of grey that resided on the edges of brown eyes had expanded with the takeover of the symbiote, her breath catching when a tear slid down her dry eyes.

'I d-didn't mean it.'

'It's not your fault, sweetcheeks. You're gonna be okay.'

Tony had felt broken many times. Giving up was not a word in his vocabulary, but seeing someone close to him do the same on life itself was gut-wrenching.

Her eyes were willing to be shut, but she forced it open. 'It hurts.'

'I know, you just hang in there - '

'I can't remember,' she dryly whispered, the crook of her neck moving with her tight swallow. 'I don't know if I can.'

'Stark! Let me in!'

He looked back at Eddie was savagely trying to break the glass, trying to get in. His hands were corded with dark symbiote material, the fiberglass already starting to move dangerously.

'JARVIS, startup the reactors. Call in Peter to hold down Brock and Vision to get ready.'

'On it, sir. Launching the startup sequence. Syncing reactors for suspension . . . '

- ♣ -

Eddie knew he'd her voice. She was in there, beneath the symbiote that was taking over her mind and body and she was fighting back. He knew it because he'd heard his name from her lips. Lost in the moment, he had his hands form fists to try and break through the sealed door to get to her. With the torment of his brain, his body had phased into his symbiote form and Venom completely in control.

A mysterious force had latched onto his neck, halting face first into the glass and further down. He saw flares of red in his vision, his anger igniting more with the restraint. Wanda's hands were launched mid-air, her fingers forming an airy fist to hold the fierce symbiote down.

Something's coming.

'What is?' He hissed, trying to fight off the restrictive force.

'Lay off, Eddie,' he heard the witch command instinctively, using more strength when he growled louder. All of them turned to the autonomous speakers overhead when they heard the usually reticent AI speak up.

'Sir, we've got a breach in the perimeter. An unidentified being has entered the premises.'

Behind them, Tony flipped out the glassy tablet from his pockets to analyze the commotion outside. On his screen displayed yet another symbiote, this one closely in resemblance to Eddie's Venom and very similar to the photograph on the newspaper. The symbiote was clawing its way up on the side of the building, smashing glass windows and letting out deafening screeches into the night.

'JARVIS, what the hell is that?'

'I'm running security scans in our database,' the AI responded swiftly. 'It appears some sort of a spectral organism. The mind is intellectual and I sense hunter instincts in its system.'

'Symbiote? Or Skrull?'

'Neither sir. Origin is unconfirmed.'

Tony turned to Eddie, who had caught his gaze. Tony nodded distinctly at both Wanda and Eddie, delivering the widely heard message from JARVIS.

'You know what you have to do, I got Laura. Wanda will get you an extra set of hands.'

'Got it.'

Meantime, Eddie couldn't feel Venom inside him anymore as he neared the exit of the building. When he tried to phase out once again, Venom refused to come out. Like what happened a few weeks ago at the grocery store when he tried to defend himself. The burnout was back.

'V?'

No answer. Like the symbiote had been ejected out of his body, it felt like he had no connection to the organism. He tried to shake his hands towards the wall to expel the symbiote but his hands remained the same.

'Venom, come on man. V!'

His heart started to beat faster with panic as he heard the creature screech once again, near the floor in which Laura was being contained. So he turned to resort to the one man who he had never thought to he would turn to for help.

'Stark, we have a problem.'

'Wrong timing,' Tony growled into the comms. 'We got a Vision situation.'

'I can't get Venom to come out,' Eddie said, sheepishness leaking into his tone. 'I don't know what happened.'

Tony sighed, waving him off. He couldn't blame the man, he'd been going through a tough time with his girlfriend at the brink of death. It was just a minor setback.

'Sit this one out, Brock. Parker's on his way to handle this one.'

Above and ahead, Eddie saw the suited hero arrive at their beck and call with a splat of web-liquid on the window and delivering a roundhouse kick onto the creature's face. The creature lost its balance, tumbling down a few floors and gripping a tight hand over the concrete to stop its descent. It growled loudly, looking at Spiderman dead in the eye, clawing a fist into the glass.

Oh, he had pissed it off.

'Oh my god, Mr. Stark, did you see that? That was epic!'

- ♣ -

With pulsing dread, the scientist duo watched on as Vision's energy beam focused on Laura's twitching body, her body going alight. The microreactors were charged and online, expelling out the force of the stone's energy away from her vital organs. The soft glare of blue was visible from the reactors, driving away the beam's energy and protecting her.

'It's working,' Banner said with a softened grin, his fingers moving the slides on the projector screen in front of them to check her reviving vitals. Her cranial scans were starting to fire up, her mind's primary consciousness starting to come into existence. 'The symbiote is loosening the connection.'

Vision had a mask of concentration as he thrust the beam's rays, allowing the symbiote to take on the full throttle of the force. Sparks erupted from the fringes of the housing unit of the stone, Vision starting to wince slightly.

Tony glanced at Laura's body where the symbiote's tendrils were starting to detract from her body and the symbiote's silent screech of pain making seen. He looked closely and saw that the force of the stone itself was starting to hurt the symbiote and beginning to eject itself from her.

'Wanda, come in,' he spoke into the comms, his eyes still set in the scene ahead. 'Back to containment in two.'

'On my way,' he heard her acceptance as soon as he delivered his command. The witch blast in through the east wall window, crashing it down to shards. She sent Tony an apologetic glance and faced the situation ahead with a heavy sigh.

'Is it out of her?' She asked, her hands forming red balls of energy between them. Wanda readied her stance as the doors slid open and the sudden heat fleeing to the outside.

'Almost,' Banner answered. 'Best to be on your mark.'

'Always,' she smirked at him, joining Vision by his side and watching as the doors snapped closed behind her. It looked like symbiote was putting up quite the fight as it continued to screech as Vision's rays focused on it's suffering, shapeless form. Finally, after what seemed like hours, the dying symbiote let out its final screech and ejected itself out of Laura's body and fell splat onto the flooring. Tony had already summoned his armor, the parts starting to link around his form and shooting a repulsor onto the glass to shatter it. He wasn't taking his chances.

'Fall back, Stark,' Wanda ordered, using her energy sphere to shove Tony away. 'I got this.'

'And I got you. And Sharp, just in case.'

Wanda's hand projected a surge of psionic force, forming an annular force around the teetering symbiote and reddish energy prodding it at every corner. Vision used his irregular beams to focus on the edges of the prismatic energy sphere formed around the symbiote.

'Tony, her heart rate's lowering,' Banner blast into his comms, the voice ringing in his ears. 'Her neuroelectric signals in her brain are unresponsive.'

'What?'

'She falling into a coma, Tony.'

'Bring her back, then! Don't let her - '

'It's not up to us. Her body is stabilizing and I'm sorry, I can't interfere.'

Tony wasn't buying it. He couldn't just let her go into lifeless sleep that they could never know when she would come out of. He wasn't going to let all their hard work go to waste.

'JARVIS, get me confinement 14B.'

'But, sir. We have strict protocols that we have to follow by according to the director - '

'And I've selected to disregard that bullshit it in a time of crisis, JARVIS, do it!'

'As you wish, sir. Releasing containment locks to 14B.'

- ♣ -

[ w/n:  gah, i just love fucking with your minds. what's in confinement - tony's little something-something? last one for the week, loves, i'm working on drafts! hope you have a great day ahead and happy reading! ]