After being violently expelled from Spider-Man during the chaotic confrontation at Trinity Church's bell tower, Venom found itself alone and disoriented. The resonance of the church's massive bells had damaged its biological structure, scattering its cells and leaving it weakened and fragmented.
The separation had not just been physical—it was emotional. Despite the hatred Venom bore toward Peter Parker for rejecting it, there had been a deep bond during their time together. Spider-Man had been the perfect match—agile, strong, and emotionally raw. The unity they'd shared was rare. And now, it was gone.
For weeks, Venom wandered aimlessly through the alleys and sewers of New York, bonding with stray animals and desperate humans to survive. None of the hosts lasted. Some couldn't handle the physiological strain; others were mentally incompatible. Venom was starving, unstable, and alone.
Eventually, while hiding from a SHIELD reconnaissance drone in Queens, it slipped into the body of a stray black cat. Through the feline's heightened senses, it surveyed the street—and that's when it saw him.
Ethan Cole, riding a motorcycle, cutting through the night like a blade.
To anyone else, he was just another passerby. But to Venom, he was a blinding beacon of potential. Ethan radiated something few others did—a combination of massive latent spiritual energy and unwavering emotional resilience.
Driven by instinct and desperation, Venom pounced.
It leaped from the cat's body, merged with Ethan in a single breathless moment, and disappeared beneath his skin without a sound. It hid deep inside him, avoiding detection, suppressing its hunger and voice while it observed.
But the surprise didn't end there.
Once inside, Venom felt something it hadn't experienced since Peter Parker: a perfect match.
Ethan's body accepted the symbiote's cellular structure effortlessly. No internal rejection. No resistance. The bond formed almost instantly, and Venom believed—hoped—it had finally found a stable host.
However, as it attempted to feed, Venom encountered an even stranger anomaly.
Its usual method of siphoning adrenaline, glucose, and neurotransmitters was instantly halted. Ethan's body allowed just enough extraction for the symbiote to survive—and then shut everything down.
It wasn't a physical resistance. It was mental.
A psychic barrier, formed from Ethan's subconscious will, wrapped around the symbiote like an unbreakable cage. It was the first time Venom had ever encountered a host whose mind could suppress it so thoroughly.
No feeding. No talking. No leaving.
Venom was a prisoner.
It had possessed hundreds of hosts before. Weak ones would break in days. Strong ones would struggle, but always succumb to subtle manipulation. Even Peter Parker, in time, had been influenced.
But Ethan?
Ethan was different.
His mental defenses were instinctive, powerful, and utterly unyielding. Venom could do nothing but lie dormant, surviving on scraps of energy, isolated in a suffocating silence. The sensation was maddening—like starvation in solitary confinement.
And then came the accident.
When that speeding truck broke through the red light, bearing down on Ethan's car, the urgency of the moment allowed Venom to act. Mustering every ounce of its suppressed will, it broke through the mental prison and whispered into Ethan's mind:
"Be careful."
The impact of the crash was violent, but that brief psychic crack was all Venom needed. The trauma and overwhelming grief that followed created fractures in Ethan's mental barrier. For the first time, the symbiote's voice was heard.
When Ethan acknowledged it, Venom nearly wept from relief.
The bond had reawakened.
Once Ethan formally accepted its existence and allowed it to speak, the internal prison eased. Not completely—but enough. Venom could now communicate. It could move. It could breathe.
Even so, a key restriction remained. The host's subconscious protections still prevented any action that would harm his health. That included excessive energy absorption. Venom was still starving.
That's why, the moment Ethan's eyes opened after viewing Venom's memories, the creature was already stuffing its maw with everything edible in the room—fruit, protein bars, even unopened snack wrappers.
Venom's massive mouth was split open wide, serrated teeth crunching noisily through a sealed chocolate bar, its long red tongue lapping at the remains.
"Fortunately," it growled between gulps, "there was a piece of expired chocolate in this cabinet. Otherwise, I'd still be starving."
Ethan blinked in stunned silence, watching the monstrous figure consume food like a wild beast.
Despite its grotesque appearance—bulky black frame, pale, soulless eyes, and a maw filled with too many teeth—there was something oddly human about the way it spoke.
And for the first time since the tragedy, Ethan didn't feel alone.
After Ethan Cole opened his eyes, he fell silent in thought for a few moments, processing the vivid memories he had just absorbed from Venom. Then, his brows furrowed slightly as a new question surfaced.
"I remember from your memories that your personality was chaotic and violent—twisted by the hosts you previously bonded with. But now you seem… different. Calm. Rational. So what changed? Is this a temporary act just to gain my trust, or are you actually different now?"
Venom, who had just finished gorging itself on the remnants of expired chocolate and protein bars, returned from the countertop to stand beside Ethan. Its muscular form shifted seamlessly, and its white eyes narrowed with rare seriousness.
"This transformation is because of you," Venom said in a deep voice. "Your mental strength… it didn't just suppress me—it purged the chaos I had absorbed. Like washing dirty cloth clean, your mind scrubbed away the leftover madness from Deadpool's fractured psyche, the anger from Brock, and even the darkness from Parker's resentment."
"It was excruciating," the symbiote added with a shudder, "but necessary. I didn't expect it, but I've come out the other side… different. Better. More stable."
Venom stepped behind Ethan, draping part of its mass over his shoulder, like a living shadow. Its voice dropped into a more solemn tone.
"I know you still don't fully trust me. That's natural. But you don't have to keep treating me like a ticking time bomb. You've seen my memories. You know what a Klyntar symbiote is. And you know now—we are bonded. Your death means my death. I'm not a parasite anymore. I'm a partner."
"We're more connected than blood," Venom added. "I'm not just another organ inside you—I'm an organ that talks back."
Ethan remained quiet, his internal conflict slowly unraveling. Despite Venom's monstrous form and violent history, its words rang with genuine clarity. And based on everything he'd seen, the Klyntar truly had never fatally harmed a host. Even when emotions were amplified for energy, the bond had always been symbiotic—not predatory.
Especially now, Ethan thought, considering the biological restrictions his body enforced. Venom couldn't over-absorb, even if it wanted to.
Then a thought struck him.
"You keep going on about how 'special' my body is," Ethan said. "What exactly does that mean? Is it just the mental strength thing you mentioned earlier?"
Venom immediately let out a guttural laugh, shaking its head. "Stronger? Ethan, you underestimate yourself. Your mental power isn't just 'above average'—it's orders of magnitude beyond normal human limits."
"You don't understand because your body can't fully support it yet. That's the problem. Your mind is built for something far greater, but your physical condition can't match it."
"All the strange situations you've experienced inside your own body—like your subconscious suppressing my actions—were results of that imbalance," Venom explained. "Your spirit automatically guards your health, filters my influence, and restricts anything that would harm your equilibrium."
"That's why I couldn't communicate with you at first. Your spiritual firewall was too strong."
Venom's tone shifted with sudden excitement. "But… have you noticed? Your physical condition—it's improving. Rapidly."
Ethan blinked. Come to think of it, his endurance had risen, his reflexes had sharpened, and his strength seemed subtly enhanced. He'd chalked it up to adrenaline and post-trauma growth, but now…
"You're saying that's you?"
"Partly," Venom said with a grin in its voice. "But more accurately, it's us. This fusion is making you evolve. You're adapting to the bond. Bit by bit, you're unlocking the potential your body has been suppressing all this time."
Ethan frowned slightly, processing the implications.
Venom chuckled again. "Still think you're ordinary?"