“Excuse me, but you’re holding up the line.”

This was not how a trip to the grocery store was supposed to go, Henry’s intent found in picking up food, groceries, things he needed for his apartment so he didn’t turn into a starving degenerate in desperate need of shampoo, and not in keeping his eyes stuck to the updates pouring through local channels. He didn’t mean to be in anyone’s way though he had been and he definitely didn’t mean to be such a space case when he finally turned his attention over to the woman in black-framed glasses - she really did look like Kenny’s mom - with an airy sort of disposition that suggested he wasn’t paying attention.

“Oh, what? Sorry.”

Hell, he wasn’t even sure he was watching where he was going as he nearly collided with someone else in the line ahead of him, eager to move himself not only away from the woman with the glaring stare and imposing shopping cart that threatened to chew at his Achielle’s tendons, but something else that seemed to linger on his shoulders - a mass, some sort of weight, that seemed to twist and turn and curl itself about his very muscles, pulsing as if something had suddenly caused it to stir from a life-long slumber.

Granted, it hadn’t been that long since and Henry knew it, the hierarchical struggle of Limbo not quick to be forgotten once he had finally found a way out of the chaos and - well, back into more chaos as The Goblin Queen had brought the fight to the streets of San Francisco; but there had been one piece of the puzzle - one miniscule piece, cast in the pleather patent of extraterrestrial matter in small form - that Henry hadn’t considered until he was staring down the cashier who, eyes cast to the front-facing windows of the grocery store, was only staring at the chaos beyond thickened glass frames.

And here you’d think people had seen a symbiote before?

“Excuse me, sorry, sorry,” Henry said when his mind finally snapped into place, pushing himself beyond the customer who was still hoisting bags of groceries into his cart. “Just… I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to put that back. I know, inventory sucks. I do it all the time.” He wasn’t frantic, just struck with a sense of urgency as he raced out onto the sidewalk, his eyes following the trail of lights that paraded quickly down the street, other vehicles moving out of the way of what must have been an emergency; and, yeah, symbiotes were an emergency, but what struck Henry with more worry was just who might have been stuck with it.

“They’re going to hurt us.”

Confusing as it was, it had been compelling - that voice that had seemed to churn from parts unknown that seemd to associate with the creature terrorizing the streets, not belonging to the demonic elder god that was locked away, but something else that he could feel the presence of as readily as he could the skin on his arms. He waited a moment - only a moment - before he felt it again, that churning of dark mass which etched across his skin and extended from the thick black leather of his jacket, tendrils cast into the air as it reformed around his body like a suit of armor. It was one he had worn before - in Krakoa, in Limbo - but his familiarity with its presence had been sorely limited as anything more.

“And what do you expect me to do about it?”

“Stop them.”

It wasn’t like he hadn’t evaded the cops before though that had been for something as benign as sneaking on a golf course during closing hours, not what happened next, fingers grabbing the malleable armor to rip it apart and, in turn, sending an array of tentacle limbs towards the next police car that had come blazing by. No, he didn’t have super strength and it was all too likely that Henry could be ripped off his feet and dragged until the eldritch horrors decided to let go, but there was something more to it - something that kept his feet in place, a few imbalance stutters between him and some stability as the crawl of black ooze, whatever it was, spiraled about the limbs holding the cop car in place.

Honestly - what could possibly go wrong?

The tires spun, burning out against the pavement, Henry planting his feet further into the ground as one jerk to the left sent it barrelling into a nearby parked car - an accident, he suspected, they would attribute to the “black, possibly extraterrestrial, monster” that was terrorizing the streets and, truthfully, they wouldn’t have been wrong.

It would just be the wrong one.