Spider-Man. The House Of Venom

As the warehouse came into view he sighed. That stupid sign of Tony’s was still there. Liv had managed to get him to shut it off most days, and it was only on when he was visiting. As he looked around the neighbourhood he realised that it wasn't the only thing to change.

The neighbourhood had exploded in a flurry of gentrification. Tony's museum, as well as the now-known home of Peter Parker, spawned countless copycats in the area. Sunset Park was now a hip place to live, with apartment buildings popping up where warehouses used to be. Trash cans were replaced by benches and trees, and the whole place was more suburban. At least Tony had a good influence somewhere.

The door to the warehouse swung open and Liv, Gwen, and Felicia sat at the breakfast table.

“You walked?” Liv asked as he slid off a jacket and hung it up. Stark's cellular disruptor highlighted that fake clothing wasn't entirely practical. Since then, they had all gotten back into the habit.

“It was a nice day, and you have it?” Peter asked as he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Felicia raised an eyebrow and got her own kiss. Gwen just shrugged and leaned over to kiss Felicia on the other side.

Liv tutted, “Of course, I've had one for years. I just needed to reprogram it.”

A gene scanner, capable of detecting the X-Gene was not a new technology. Trasks might have been nearly useless, but they still detected the gene. Liv had just taken it upon herself to make several different ones. Her scanner could detect the X-Gene, the Klyntar, and one for Enhanced and Gamma Enhanced. Of course, just to prove she was much better than some hack, she also came up with a countermeasure. It didn't disperse the energy, it just masked it. To any other sensor, the gene was inactive.

If Peter and the rest wished to be hidden, they would be. Even Scott had a dampner built into his contacts. He could still use his powers and pass any unwanted scans. A necessity as the past had proven that even if they didn't look for trouble, it still looked for them. On the table was a black device, a simple box, with a handle and slot in the top to accept a blood sample. "Not to brag, but it took my lunch hour."

Peter laughed, as he lifted it and turned it on. Of course, Liv was bragging. It was one of the pieces of paper. 'Invent something useful out of junk' and she had just won a prize. One she would be collecting later. “You added in fake lights?”

Liv frowned, “Please. The lights work perfectly well, and the machine sends the results to us, and we can then forward them to Phil. If you think that's wise.”

Peter nodded, “Only the Kree ones. Whatever the others are, we keep that to ourselves."

“Still think they’re hiding something?”

“Hell yeah, you don't build a hanger on the moon to be friendly, especially as they never said. Training facility and launchpad are two different things.”

Felicia leaned back in her chair, holding a cup between her hands. “Selene isn't happy either Pete. The Hellfire Club is pulling out of New York and she's set a dollar price for the Cats. The Augments are going to ground on Genosha, and rightly so.”

Peter slid a hand over his face. He would have to contact Charles and find out if Selene would be willing to trade. The Hellfire Club would cost them millions. “So they pissed them off anyway, great. I’ll warn Phil, and see what I can squeeze out of them.”

“Have fun, I guess you won't need us?”

Peter shook his head. “This is only because of,“ he made finger quotes, “diplomatic concessions.” As he grabbed other devices. “They want Wakanda and this smooths that over. Pepper should have contacted Shuri, and I’ll be back in a few, actually, I don't know. Maybe a few hours, how many people can they have to test?”

Which proved to be the entirely wrong thing to say.

The Asgardian troops numbered one hundred, but the Xandarians had much more. And most were either stationed around the globe or in orbit on the cruisers. There was also another issue.

The Asgardians were easy. Thor commanded them to muster in the embassy, where they would be scanned. The Xandarians, on the other hand, threw a massive roadblock in the plan.

Sitting in Coulson's office once more, Peter stared at the pink-skinned woman. One sat in her blue and gold uniform, the designated Nova Prime of Earth.

“And I don’t care, Director,” she said as she sipped her water. “Xandarian citizens have a right to privacy. And that scanner breaks that. I cannot allow any of my forces to be scanned without written permission. And as their commanding officer. I refuse.”

“Even though the Kree are breathing down your necks?” Coulson asked.

She raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t your people just have a massive war concerning this very right?” Coulson could only rub a hand over his eyes. “That's what I thought. If a soldier submits themselves to a scan, then I will permit it. Otherwise, no.” She stood and brushed down her uniform. “If that is all I will send out a missive to all regional commanders, if they wish to contact you, they will do so.” She gave the Nova Crop salute, a fist placed over the heart, and then left.

Peter shrugged, “She isn’t wrong, it still sucks, but we can't really argue.”

Coulson sighed, “It still leaves us with a huge problem.” Peter couldn't say anything to that, as she was right. Coulson flipped open a folder on his desk and smiled. “But as we can’t do anything about it, at least there is some good news. We have you to thank for Wakanda, but the amount is too low.”

“Well, a hundred tonnes a day isn't reasonable Phil. So unless you want to damage the planet, the Asgardians know that,” Peter explained, once again.

The Asgardians wanted an unreasonable amount of Vibranium. Even with the mine they 'liberated' in Sokovia, Vibranium was just so much more valuable. While Shuri had a good idea of how much ore there was, the damage done by mining would destroy Wakanda. While Asgard did understand, they were also more desperate than anyone realised. As Wakanda was the only country on the planet capable of dealing with Asgard, the matter was dropped.

“And she won't budge?” he asked.

Peter frowned, “Phil. You and I are going to fall out. No. And the next ship that ‘accidentally’ violates Wakandan airspace will be shot down. Shuri, and yeah me too, are getting sick of this ‘oh we didn't mean it’ crap. You already pissed off the Augments, don't piss off Wakanda as well.”

Phil nodded. “We tried to apologise for that, and we have moved the training facility onto another section of the moon. If the Augments want to reclaim their home, we’ll let them.” Phil said,

Peter snorted. “Let them? And that's the problem right there. Earth has no jurisdiction over the moon, and it was at gunpoint they were made to leave. Now you graciously give them their own home back?”

Phil raised a hand. “Okay, I worded that wrong. The Augments should have sovereign rights over their territory. Genosha is a hard no as it's part of the coastal US, but Avalon was theirs. While nobody was happy about a secret moon base, they realised why it was chosen. In fact, we have several other nations that are seeking out similar agreements.”

Peter sank back in his chair, “I can contact Charles, and see if they even want it back. Plus, you need to pay AIM first before I lift another finger to help you.”

Coulson frowned “pay?”

Peter laughed, “I’m a contractor Phil. The scanner, my time, the negotiations with Wakanda and the Augments. We billed you, and you didn’t pay.”

“Billing is done at the end of the month. I’m hurt Peter, that you wouldn't trust us,” Phil said with a small grin.

“Yeah, because so far Shield has been so great to me. I was an Agent Phil, I know how it works.

Phil laughed, “You didn’t get your certification. All that got lost when Malik wiped the servers. Technically you didn’t qualify to work for Shield.”

Peter laughed, "Yeah yeah. Tell that to Thor the next time you have a problem you can't solve by hitting it."

Coulson smirked and lifted the phone, "Yes, Coulson here. Get me finance."

Peter smiled and left him to it.

⁂

Several waystations had been set up, and each battalion had a date and time for their scan. They would take ten at a time so normal patrols wouldn't be disrupted. What was going to be an easy task soon turned into a logistical nightmare, hindered by one person. Thor.

Thor laughed as he pointed the device at a guard, let it beep, and then shook his head as he looked at it. “This is great and so simple.”

Peter was watching him, and shaking his head. “Uh, that's 'cause you're using it wrong. Taking one of the spares, he asked the guard for his hand. He clipped at the top of their finger and smeared the blood over the scanner, feeding it into the machine. As it beeped, the green light glowing, he nodded, patted the guard on the shoulder and moved to the next.

It was slow, not because there were roughly a hundred guards, but because Thor was treating it as a game.

“Come on, admit you're a Kree, let me punch you a few times, and then we’ll let you go,” he would joke with the pale-faced guards.

"No, just stick a finger here," Peter said for the fifteenth time before testing their blood.

“What, another one? Are you sure there are actually Kree spies, and this isn't just I dunno?” He shook the device, “broken, or just stupid.” but Peter took the machine, smeared a little of his own blood, and the light turned amber.

“See, human. They just aren't Kree,” he explained.

“Then this is boring,” Thor said as he stomped to the next guard. “Give me your hand,” he said huffily. As he stared, the detector flashed green, signifying that the guard was Asgardian. Thor roared in annoyance. “These machines are stupid.” 

He tossed the detector to Peter. “Prince Thor hereby grants Peter Parker the authority to seek out Kree spies on his behalf. There. You all heard that right? Good. I’m going to get a drink.” Thor brushed past him and the group all turned and watched as he stomped away.

Peter stared at the back of Thor as he stormed off. One soldier stepped forward, "Kree spies?"

Peter groaned out a sigh as Thor just blew the whole 'secret testing' part of the plan in one tantrum. “Uh, he said green spies. Green. Like the Skrulls. They’re green right?”

The soldiers looked at one another, uncertain.

“Thor’s powerful, but he’s an idiot. Or drunk…probably both.” Peter’s explanation was sufficient, or nobody wanted to argue with Thor, and the work continued without complaint.

Peter left once the job was done. A hundred blood samples didn't take long when it was done with military precision. Or, in this case, when Thor yelled until everyone lined up.

Peter was happy enough now that he’d been paid. Happier still that he’d taken a blood sample of every single Asgardian in the building. Once the results had been shuttled off to Liv, it had provided some very surprising results. That was for another day. Now it was time to go home, rest for at least five minutes and then stop the invasion of shape-changing aliens. 

Every single sample they had taken from the Asgardians had come back as one of two types. A strange alien strand of DNA, which they now knew was Asgardian and a set with two strands of DNA. One was obviously Asgardian, and the other was completely alien to it. It wasn’t even remotely similar. They hadn't found any Kree, but they had found what they were looking for.

On Earth species that evolved separately still had a similar base code of genes. Everything followed the same four basic proteins. It was only natural as all life evolved from a single organism.

In the case of the Asgardians, both males and females had been shown to have a single strand of DNA, or what was close to DNA. The alien sequence was not normal, and they had only found ten among the samples they had taken. Liv had discounted a third gender, used for reproduction. Both male and female Asgardians came back as more than alien.

The only explanation was an alien that used one strand for reproduction, and that was its basic form. The second strand allowed them to mimic any life they came in contact with. It would fool any scanner, as to a machine it would register the dominant DNA. It was only the ever-brilliant Liv who figured it out.

"Can we adapt a scanner to look for the second strand of DNA?" Peter asked. They needed to be careful not to show their hand too soon, so only he and Liv were in the warehouse.

“Well, Maybe,” Liv had said, “as I can’t really say it’ll work on a full-sized person. I only have blood to test, and not a lot at that.”

"Should we start testing people here?" Peter asked, but Liv shook her head.

"Funnily enough, we can't. Like the Kree random blood tests are frowned upon unless it's in the contract, and to be honest," Liv admitted. "We didn't think to add a ‘just in case you're a shape-changing alien’ clause."

Peter frowned, "But, we can still test everyone. We just need to task nicely. I mean, Only a shapeshifting alien infiltrator is going to say no right?"

"That won't work. Thor had the authority to order everyone as he was looking for Kree. If we find an infiltrator, we tip their hand that we're looking for something else," Liv explained. "We need to take this to Coulson and explain what we found. And then either kick alien arse or listen to why they are hiding. Not everyone hides as they're a spy. Sometimes you hide from something."

"A species hiding from the Kree, makes sense." Peter leaned forward and groaned, "and Asgard makes even more sense. They're the biggest army in the galaxy, so." He rested his head on the edge of the table. "Put the warehouse into lockdown, call a sick day for everyone, paid, and I'll go see Coulson."

Liv smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "Have fun. I'll head back to work and see if I can adapt a scanner. The second strand is well hidden though. We might still need a blood sample."

Peter lifted his arm and gave her a thumbs up. "I'll get right on Coulson," he said, muffled by the fact he still hadn't lifted his head. "Right after my headache goes away."

Liv laughed, "Oh, a headache am I? I know when I'm not wanted."

Peter sat bolt upright, "that's." He stopped when he saw the smirk on her face. "No more time with Gwen."

Liv laughed as she gathered her keys and slid them into her bag, "You're about ten years too late for that dear." Peter laughed. "Do be careful. If this is an invasion," she trailed off.

"When am I never careful?" Peter replied with a small grin.

Liv rolled her eyes and shook her head as she let herself out the main door.

"Love you!" Peter shouted at her as she turned, blew him a kiss, and then headed back to work.