Full-on spoiler alert for the mid-credit scene of Spider-Man: No Way Home. You’ve been warned (unlike some other publications, shots fired.)

There’s a lot of talk going on about Spider-Man: No Way Home and we’re pretty happy with the end result ourselves. But, as is the case with most Marvel Cinematic Universe spectacles, we must now shift our attention away from the main event and look towards the future. The mid-credit scene of No Way Home may seem a little random at first, but the ramifications could be huge for Peter.

At the end of the movie, Peter Parker orders Dr. Strange to complete a new spell that will make everyone forget about Peter Parker, thus severing the knowledge that he is also Spider-Man. The Spider-verse ceases to collide with the MCU, but all of Parker’s friends and colleagues forget about him completely. So his relationship with MJ is toast and he loses his best friend. Parker is ultimately a ghost and he accepts the responsibility of that, moving to Manhatten so he can be Spider-Man full time.

But the mid-credit scene could change that. In it, we see Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock making a cameo appearance in the MCU, before being warped back to the ‘Sonyverse’ via Dr. Strange’s spell. However, due to one too many margaritas, Venom was trying to bust loose and a bit of black goo was ultimately left behind in the MCU, opening the door for two Venoms to be running wild on the big screen. So why is this important for Peter Parker going forward?

Well, per the after-credit scene for Venom: Let There Be Carnage, we learn that the Venom symbiote has first-hand knowledge of the multiverse and that any information gathered from one reality to another is retained within the multiverse. Upon seeing Peter Parker unmasked as Spider-Man on the TV screen when he was whisked away into the MCU, that information is now forever downloaded into the memory bank of the symbiote. Per Venom’s reaction to seeing Spider-Man, it seems more than likely that the two have crossed paths before, such as during the showdown during the finale of Spider-Man 3.

So the little black goo is the only thing that will remember that Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is Spider-Man. And running with the comics, the likely candidate for the new Venom in the MCU is Parker’s “new best friend” for most of the runtime of No Way Home: Flash Thompson. While most of us know Eddie Brock as the standard for Venom, Flash has donned the symbiote costume and would eventually become known as Agent Venom in the comics (and later Anti-Venom and, wait for it, Agent Anti-Venom). While the origins of Agent Venom/Anti-Venom and Flash’s motivations for bonding with the symbiote will likely change for the MCU, the end result of Flash becoming one with the goo does seem inevitable.

Flash started the franchise as a pain in Peter’s life, bullying him and being an all-around tool. But he grew to become a huge Spider-Man fanboy and when Mysterio revealed Spider-Man’s identity, all Flash wanted to do was become Peter’s best friend, simply for the joy of knowing the famous Spider-Man personally. Heck, he even wrote a book on the whole ordeal, titled Flashpoint, and that detail can perhaps lead the stray goo to Thompson himself. So Flash, infected with the symbiote, can track down Peter and call him out by name. Peter, knowing Flash from high school, will be very confused as to how the spell didn’t work on him, which could be the inciting incident for the next trilogy of Spider-Man movies.

But what do you think? Could Flash become the new Venom in the MCU? Will Venom know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man? Let us know!