Chapter Text
“You know, you could probably, like, try out. For the, uhh… Hm.” Pete shrugs. “Maybe not the Avengers, but some kinda… Avengers intern thing? That’s not what they called it, but that’s basically what I was. Uh. I might still be that.”
“Yeah, well—thanks, Pete.” Eddie tears into his sub, finishing most of… all of it before he keeps talking. “Not sure they’re really gonna want a murdering…. Cannibalistic… half-alien freak of nature workin’ for ‘em.”
<Of course they would. We would make an invaluable asset. And if they say no, we’ll simply bite off their small extremities, one by one, until they change their minds.>
“No! Ha! No. We’re, uhh… We’re not doin’ that.” Eddie coughs into his hand, kind of hunching away from Peter. “Thanks, Pete. Real nice offer and all, but… Y-Yeah, I wouldn’t, uhh—I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.”
“Hey, that’s fine! I mean, I get it. Avengers. They’re intimidating.” Pete hops up, swinging his arms back and forth like the antsy kid he is. “Plus, all the rules, always feelin’ like you have to live up to some superhero… expectations.” He laughs, then gets real glum looking, like the realization just hit him a little too late. “… It’s like having ten parents.”
<How impractical. My species has a much more efficient means of reproduction, which completely eliminates the threat of overpopulation. You see, when the brood reaches a certain age—>
“Shh, shhh, shh—can I just—can I just have a conversation? With my friend? For one minute, please? Thank—Thank you.” Eddie shushes into his hand, then gives a twitchy sorta ‘sorry about that’ gesture in the Pete’s general direction. “Uhh, you too, Pete. Thank you. For the offer. And y’know, much as it sounds like… exactly the kind of thing that I’d love very much to do, I’m gonna have to refuse. Just for now.”
“Oh.” Yeah, kid looks like Eddie just sucker punched him. He was expecting that, and it still stings a little. “You still gonna help me out while you’re in town, right?”
“Sure, kid. Sure.” Eddie frowns, looking over his shoulder as this massive shadow passes above them. “Speaking of which, what the hell is that?”
“Y’know—“ Pete turns around, watching as the huge—hovercraft? Spaceship? Eddie’s not so sure, but that’s what it looks like—stops and starts lowering itself down a couple blocks away. “I have no idea.” He beckons at Eddie, hopping backwards. “What do you say we go find out?”
Next thing he knows, Eddie’s getting swallowed up in Venom’s oily skin. Once they’re all put together, they leer down at Pete. “We would love to.”
*
<Holy shit. Hoooly shit. Holy shit—>
“What a shame,” growls Venom. “And here, I thought he was one of the more durable fleshbags.”
<SHUT THE FUCK UP.> Eddie feels like his brain is rolling around behind his eyes, and his stomach keeps heaving up against the bottom of his lungs. <I-I think I’m gonna be sick. Oh my God.>
“I can sense your affection for him, Eddie. His demise is causing you extreme levels of grief and pain.”
<Yeah, no shit! P-Pete was like my kid brother! I’ve known ‘im since he was two, he can’t—he can’t be—> Eddie gags like his guts just turned inside out. <I’m gonna throw up.>
“Unacceptable.” Venom flings one of the guys they’re apparently still fighting halfway across the city block, then bashes the next one’s head against the concrete. “Eddie. You need to concentrate. I cannot do this alone.”
Eddie can’t even think—not enough to talk, anyway. He just screws his whole face up whenever he catches a glimpse of that scrawny body lying on the pavement. It’s like a million years have gone by when Venom starts snapping at him again.
“EDDIE.” He tears through the next wave of goons like he’s getting his second wind, and finally, they just stop coming. “Why must I do everything by myself?” Venom heaves a massive sigh; it’s so big that Eddie thinks like his body’s getting compressed underneath their second skin. “Very well. If you’re going to be such a pathetic, sniveling infant about it, I suppose we will have to revive him.”
<Wait, what?> Eddie’s heart jumps. <What the hell do you mean revive? He’s got two bullets through his chest, you can’t bring him back with fuckin’ CPR!>
“Yes, Eddie. I am aware.” They crouch down over Peter, and Eddie’s skin crawls a little when Venom sniffs a couple of times, like some kinda really fucked up dog. “But he can be restored.”
<Y-You can do that?> Eddie’s heart is about to slam straight out of his ribcage, he swears.
“No. But we can.” They bend even closer to the body—no, shit, it isn’t a body. It’s Pete. “It will take a great toll on us, which would be quite… inconvenient.”
<Inconvenient.> Eddie repeats it in a stupid daze. <Inconvenient. Who gives a shit about inconvenient? Jesus! What the hell are you waiting for? Do it already! DO IT.>
“For you, Eddie?” Eddie feels their jaw open as they bend even further, a thick rope of spit splattering down onto the pavement next to Peter’s head. “Anything.”
<Waitwaitwait—this isn’t gonna be some ‘Monkey’s Paw’ shit, right? He’s gonna be normal? Not some kinda zombie freak—>
Venom doesn’t answer.
<Venom?>
They lift Peter’s head into their jaw.
<… Shit.>
*
“Sir? Sir?”
Eddie jerks up. “Nnnbluh. Whuh? What?” The whole room’s spinning—wait. Is this a room? This is… not a room. Squinting, he looks around, even though there’s this crick in his neck that’s killing him, and… He’s on a plane, lying across the tops of two rows of seats. Okay. Why the fuck is he on a plane?
“How did you get in the cargo hold?” The stewardess, who must’ve woke him up, just keeps shaking his shoulder.
“Mm?” Eddie squints at her, then bats her hand away. “Yup—Yeah, Jesus, I hear you. ‘M up now, thanks. Thank you.” Wait. What’d she say?
“All right, buddy.” There’s an airport security guy now, shoving his way through the aisle, and the first thing he does is grab Eddie like a ragdoll and yank him onto his feet. “You’re comin’ with me.”
“Whuh—Why? What’d I—“ Eddie sputters as the guy starts shoving him along. “L-Listen, uhh, guy. Listen to me. For a second—I have no idea how I got here, on this plane—“
“What a coincidence! Neither do we.” The asshole grabs Eddie’s wrists and ohshit. Shit, those are handcuffs. “There’s no record of you boarding this plane, and nobody remembers seeing you get on. We’re going straight to security—“
<Not happening.>
Eddie feels himself get pale. “Look, before you start flingin’ people through the wall, can we just—can I get my bearings for a second?”
Venom’s answer is to flip the poor schmuck over his back when he leans down to try and cuff Eddie.
“Okay. Cool. Glad we had this discussion.” Everybody stares at him in horror for a split second before the other two guards, who just stepped into the plane, book it towards him. Okay, so, his little buddy might have a point here.
<LITTLE BUDDY!?> Throwing his arms around his head, Eddie cringes when Venom blasts that thought real loud. <I thought that was what you called your dick, Eddie.>
“No! No, it’s not—” Jumping onto the back of a chair, Eddie leaps over the first guard’s head as Venom tentacle-slams the other against the wall on his way out. He makes it to the end of the runway before he’s doubled over, panting like his lungs are gonna collapse. “Wh-What the hell? Why do I feel like I’m dyin’?”
<Because of the spawn. Most of our energy is going towards keeping it alive.>
“Yeahhh, okay. Sounds like a pl…” Eddie swallows the weird, sick feeling in the back of his throat. “Spawn? Why’d you—What’s that mean? Why’d you say spawn? Huh? What’s that, uhh, mean exactly?”
<You’ve got to be kidding me. Did you forget already?>
“Did I forget? Yeah! Yeah, you’re damn right, I forgot! Where the hell am I?” Raking a hand through his hair, Eddie fishes his phone out of his pocket. And it’s dead. Great. That’s a great sign. “How’d I get on that plane?” And how come Eddie can’t even remember the last thing he was doing before this? All he can get is his trip back to NYC, and—
“O-Oh shit.”
Pete.
That whole picture flashes into his mind again and Eddie hunches over, heaving a couple times and sending way too much bile spilling onto the asphalt.
<You really need to move past that. It was almost two weeks ago.>
“Two weeks?” Eddie gives this real scratchy whisper, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and oh shit. Yeah. That smells like two weeks. “Wh-What happened? Where’s Pete? What about—Where the fuck are we?”
<We?>
Eddie blinks a couple times, then cranes his head back, looking out and trying to read the skyline. It doesn’t even take half a second for everything to click into place.
<We are home.>
*
“Just, just…” Eddie cups his head in his hands, tapping his foot all super-fast and manic. He’s back in his place, which doesn’t look a whole lot different, even though he’s been away for a goddamn month. He showered, put on his pajamas, old tee shirt, sat on his bed, but that’s not doing a whole lot to stop the fucking heart attack he’s currently having. “R-Run me through it one more time. I’m not—I’m not gettin’ it. It’s not… sinkin’ in right.”
“I am beginning to lose patience, Eddie.” Venom slithers across his shoulder, forming his hollow-backed skull thing so they can talk face to face. “What is there to understand?” He starts bobbing his weird snake head as he lists things off, and for some reason, that makes Eddie want to puke again. He’s wanted to puke a whole fucking lot since he woke up on that plane. “Your little friend died, and you begged me to bring him back. So we did.”
“H-How,” rasps Eddie. “How did we—?”
“We devoured his entire body,” says Venom. “But we did not digest him. Instead, I altered some of your internal organs to house his components while we reconstitute his form within us.” He wraps himself around Eddie’s neck like a scarf, or maybe a noose, as he keeps talking. “This puts an immense strain on our bodies. For the first two weeks, we were extremely vulnerable. I could not afford to let anything endanger us in this state, so I put you…” Venom pauses, like he’s thinking real deeply, then he grins. “Well, I think you call it autopilot.”
“A-And Pete, he’s just gonna…” Eddie mimes like that scene in alien, then gives Venom this helpless look. “And when he’s… outta me, it’ll be just like… nothing ever happened?”
“Of course not. I’m not a fucking miracle worker,” Venom hisses. “He will not be the same as he was. He will be… different. Very small and young. When humans are weak and useless like that, I believe you call them… babies.”
Eddie wheezes. “Whuh?”
“Here’s what’s going to happen.” The face slithers back into Eddie’s hand, and then new webs of inky slime spread out across his stomach, throbbing like veins. <Your friend, who has been reduced to… raw material—will grow quickly inside your new organ. We will sustain him within us while he is put back together. This will demand most of our energy. And Eddie?> Eddie gulps. <We will be extremely hungry.> He does his best not to start hyperventilating as Venom casually sinks under his skin. <Also, don’t worry. He will not burst out of us like a ripe melon. I am in the process of creating a… Hm. Oh, yes. A pussy.>
Eddie jumps a fucking foot in the air. “What the fuck!? WHY?”
<I assumed you’d rather not let him grow until you explode,> Venom drawls.
“Shit! No, that’s disgusting. I don’t want a fucking—I don’t want one of those! Either. That’s… That’s not gonna work, that’s seriously not… Not okay. With me.” Pawing at his face over and over like he’s in a fucking padded cell, Eddie’s gotta tell himself not to start rocking back and forth in a fetal position. “I just figured we’d—I mean, seems like the obvious solution to this is, like… surgery? R-Right? Dan’s a surgeon, he’s not gonna rat on me, I don’t think. I could just go to him.”
<You want to go to a hospital? Get carved up like a melon and then turned into a lab rat for the rest of your race to fuck with?> Eddie swears his feels something turning around in his gut, and he sure fucking hopes it’s just regular symbiote shit. <Of course you don’t. Look on the bright side. When Pete has grown enough to survive outside our body—assuming the strain hasn’t killed you—you will begin the incredibly painful process of expelling him.>
“See, that is why I brought up the, uh, surgery idea, with the painkillers—why—why do I feel like you already made up your mind about this?” Eddie pulls the covers up, whole arm shaking, and kinda cocoons himself inside. “I’m gonna—I am gonna lie down. Lie down for a minute.”
<One last thing.>
Eddie clamps his hands over his face, muffling himself. “Please make it quick. Okay? Put it… gently, or something? I cannot handle this, I can not handle this.”
<Stop being a little bitch. You’re the one who asked for this.>
“Ohhh my God. Spit it out, okay? Just tell me already. Fuck.”
<Fine.> Reaching out, Eddie shuts off the light, curling up with a shiver. <Stay away from loud noises. If we separate, the strain of keeping your friend alive will kill you.>
Eddie stares out into the darkness.
<Sweet dreams, Eddie.>