Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“So.” Eddie began from their hiding place nestled amongst the support beams under the deck of one of San Francisco’s many piers. “What the hell was that?”

What was what?

“Don’t be coy, V. You know I’m not that strong.”

He thought of the mad escape they’d just made from some group of men-in-black mystery motherfuckers. The men-in-black had been inordinately prepared with flares and some kind of directional sound cannons that they’d used to herd Venom exactly where the assholes had wanted them to be. At least they had until Eddie’d been forced to take over or else risk separation. He’d been as surprised as the assholes had been when he’d literally torn through the chain link fence that blocked escape from the alley they’d pinned Eddie and V in.

It had gotten less surprising as Eddie had ran (at a rather alarming speed for the average human he now realized), launching himself over fences and around corners, knocking over food carts, and shoving small cars out of the way. He’d gone to the bay after losing most of his pursuers and had lost the rest of them by swimming a few piers down.

Eddie wasn’t even that winded.

I told you, we are better together.

“Yeah, together, like...” Eddie sent a memory of the two of them racing along the streets of San Francisco as Venom, fully masked as they chased down a member of a human trafficking ring.

There was a feeling of an exaggerated sigh from the part of his mind where the symbiote rested as they recovered from the chase.

Stupid Eddie, we are one, we are always together.

“So when we...” blurred memories of their first hurried escape from the LIFE foundation, springing over guard’s heads and leaving a dent in the wall as they did, knocking a security door off of its hinges, tearing open a fence, and plowing through a small tree. “That was me?”

No, that was us, an image of them masked, our bond was too new for us to be anything else.

“Okay so if this is more recent, why haven’t I been, I don’t know, crushing doorknobs and breaking glasses?”

You still know how hard to hold things, that did not change, just now you can do more than you could when you were alone.

He got the idea from V that he has the best possible strength for a human of his body type plus a little extra from the symbiote's body woven into the fibers of his muscles, tendons, and bones.

They sat in silence for a while and V went back to recovering themself, before Eddie reached out and grabbed the tree-thick pier that they’d been leaning on. He gripped it hard, as hard as he thought he could, and there was no change in the heavy wood. It wasn’t until he closed his eyes and focused that the wood started to splinter under his fingers.

He stopped before he did any real structural damage.

“How do I make you stronger, V?” Eddie wondered. Other than a refuge from the atmosphere he couldn’t think of anything. He didn’t want to feel like a (ha!) parasite taking from his symbiote and not giving anything back.

We reflect each other. V said as a thin tendril emerged from Eddie’s collarbone and wrapped loosely around his neck several times. Together we are stronger and together we do not burn in Earth’s stupid air.

Before Eddie had a chance to think that he was right and he was just a hiding place, V led his mind down through their link and into their body. They showed him the part of themself that was looped around his neck, how there was a thin layer of epithelial cells covering it and protecting them. Some of the cells were Eddie’s but others were theirs, cells that they were able to make only because they had Eddie to pattern themselves off of..

“Oh.” Eddie breathed dumbly as his mind surfaced in his body.

What we have is new, Eddie, we are more us every day.

Eddie caught the under current in the symbiote’s words.

“You think there’ll be more changes?”

Maybe. A beat of silence. Probably.

“Let’s just try not to be too obvious about them, then, I guess.”

Chapter Text

“So what’s, like, a normal high temperature for a regular human being?” Eddie asked, for once actually using the bluetooth earpiece to talk to someone who wasn’t literally inside his head as he stood at the railing of the pier he’d hidden under a few weeks ago.

There was a sigh on the other end of the line, and for a moment Eddie thought maybe he shouldn’t have called Dan, before Dan answered.

“How high is your temperature, Eddie?”

“Ehhh.. like maybe 106 or... 107-ish…”

“Okay, anyone else that is a medical emergency, I’m assuming you feel fine? No dizziness, headache, nausea, or vomiting?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, not having any of that.”

“Well, then normal high, depending on what textbook you go by, is around 99.5 fahrenheit. The highest recorded temperature that a person survived to my knowledge was 115 in a patient with heat stroke.”

“Huh…” Eddie trailed off. He was glad that he’d only kept V a secret for a few weeks after they’d returned, just long enough for his other to recover their strength (and for him to be sure they were really there and not desperate, wishful thinking), otherwise he’d have been stuck figuring this out with only his basic knowledge hampering V’s ability to explain to him. They would have figured it out eventually, but it was good, Eddie thought, to have support. It was something he’d done without for most of his life and he was only now learning to appreciate it.

“Could you ask your… friend, if this is normal? Is 106 fahrenheit supposed to be your new baseline?”

Eddie mentally nudged V, who’d been looking at the sea lions darting through the water with Eddie’s eyes, and replayed Dan’s question.

It’s where our internal thermostat is set now, we’ve got the energy and your immune system works better. I don’t see any reason to change it.

You just don’t want to catch another cold, do you?

Eddie sucked at being sick normally, but with V it had been twice as bad. They’d had a terrible three days of the two of them wallowing in their shared misery followed by another three days of V’s constant bitching about their too slow recovery.

Yes, but I didn’t do this. This is--

An Us thing, I get it. Can you tell him yourself, you know it better.

A put upon huff. Fine.

“I changed our set-point, our immune system works better.” V said with Eddie’s mouth, somehow managing to make his voice almost as deep as it sounded in Eddie’s head.

(But you just--He won’t understand Us things, Eddie. Not sure I agree, but fine)

“Oh! Hey!” Eddie hadn’t realized Dan’s voice could go that high, “Hello Venom, So I’ll just make sure to keep that in mind if you guys ever need me…” Dan trailed off awkwardly.

“Won’t,” V said bluntly, annoyed by the misnaming (they were Venom together), but he continued once Eddie prodded him (be nice.). “But it is... appreciated.”

“Anyway,” Eddie butted back in. “Thanks for answering my stupid question, Dan. I’ll see you around?”

“Sure, actually, Anne and I were wondering if you had time to come over for dinner?” Dan sounded a little subdued, but Eddie thought he was doing a pretty good job of keeping up.

“Sure, I’ll text ya.” Eddie said and after a few more pleasantries they hung up.

(He thought that if anyone would at least try to understand his and V’s ‘Us things’ it would be Dan and Anne.)

He wondered idly when he would have noticed his temperature if it hadn’t been for Mrs. Chen’s commenting on him getting sick again after their hands brushed when he paid for their groceries. It was what amounted to a hot summer, for San Francisco at least, and he hadn’t noticed that he was any sweatier than he normally was.

You didn’t notice because it’s our normal now.

Just like I didn’t realize how strong I was.

Yes. Can we go to that chocolate store? V drew their eyes towards said store.

“Yeah, sure,” Eddie said then checked his wallet. “We’ve got a fifty dollar budget, though”

I’ll manage. V said, sounding as if that would be the hardest thing they did all day. Probably.

Chapter Text

Anne was the one who noticed the next change.

They were all watching a post-dinner movie at Anne and Dan’s place when she glanced over at them and gasped.

“Eddie, your eyes.”

“Hwhaa?” Eddie asked eloquently, his mouth full of popcorn, from his position on the recliner.

She paused the move (something bright and full of action, cars, and explosions in a desert) and handed Eddie her phone, already opened to the front-facing camera.

It was obvious what Anne meant when he got a look at his eyes. His pupils were so small that they were pinpricks and his irises had paled drastically from their usual grey-green. V, who had been a fist sized head resting on his shoulder, abruptly disappeared with a twist of something uncomfortable that Eddie felt in his gut.

“Well,” Eddie said, swallowing his food. “That’s definitely new.”

“Eddie,” Anne was visibly tense. “What do you mean by that?”

“Ah… Dan didn’t tell you about my crazy temperature thing...?” Eddie was trying not to shrink away from Anne’s concern for his health. He wasn’t doing a very good job of it, though.

Eddie looked away into the dim room, the lights had been turned off for the movie, and he noted that it wasn’t anywhere near as dark as it should have been, especially since he’d been staring at a bright TV screen for the past hour. What he was seeing was desaturated, but there was no detail lost otherwise.

“He did, but Eddie this seems like it’s a little more involved than that.”

Anne was worried, and Eddie had to concede her point. Neither Eddie nor V were sure exactly where their symbiosis was going, but they trusted each other. That was enough to soothe any unease that Eddie felt about the whole thing.

“They did it again.” Dan spoke up. He was leaning forward, caught between the remains of his anxiety, medical curiosity, and respect for their boundaries. Eddie was pretty sure the only reason Dan hadn’t run off to get his penlight and done an eye exam on him was because he was a guest.

Anne’s phone was still unlocked and on its screen Eddie could see that his pupils were dilated wide to catch every bit of light to allow him to see into the dark room. His irises were a darker shade of green now, almost black, as though the pigment had been bunched up instead of stretched thin like earlier.

There was a frisson of anxiety coming from V, and Eddie gave them a mental nudge. Instead of answering directly, his other sent him a bundle of thoughts and feelings.

They’ve learned that humans don’t like different things (through TV, documentaries, Eddie’s memories of his old show, and their guilty recollections of Maria’s own experiences) and that humans generally sought to get rid of things that were too different (which is something that they and Eddie most definitely are). They know that Eddie trusts Anne and they know that Anne trusts Dan, and for the most part they trust that Eddie’s trust isn’t misplaced (He knows Anne and he knows people well enough, they’re pretty sure). But still...

But still.

But still there was anxiety. Humans didn’t like different things and, despite Eddie’s trust, Anne and Dan are very human. And they were painfully aware that the two humans knew how to separate them.

They wouldn’t. Eddie sent, then corrected himself because he knows Anne better than that. At least not without a very good reason. They want to make sure you’re not causing any (mental/physical/painful) harm to me.

Would never.

I know, just help me explain.

Okay. And then there was a bubble of knowledge pushed to Eddie. It was mostly stuff he already knew intuitively put into more solid terms, but there were new things too, not anything truly important, but still things that were good to know.

“It is and it isn’t.” Eddie said after what was probably a significant pause from Anne and Dan’s point of view. He leaned forward and set Anne’s phone on the table before staring resolutely ahead.

“V’s people,” (Klyntar) the new term rose to his mind, and it was nice to know the name. “They’re meant to adapt to wherever they land. Take the best traits and then move on.

“It’s normally a one way street. They don’t…” He hesitated and glanced momentarily to Anne. “They don’t normally form a bond like we have. Our’s is two way, V benefits and... so do I.”

“So this isn’t a…”Anne fumbled uncharacteristically for a word, “It isn’t a surprise for you, you’re okay?”

“They told me the first time I noticed something. They weren’t sure if this kind of thing would happen before then, but either humans are just that adaptable or we’re just that compatible.” Eddie shrugged. “I’m kinda playing it by ear, but right now I’m okay.”

“Okay.”

“Hey, can I check something really quickly?” Dan asked, breaking the tension from across the dim living room before it could even start to shift from tense to awkward. He was holding his phone half raised in front of his chest.

“Sure?” Eddie agreed hesitantly.

“Cool.” Dan said, and quickly snapped a picture with the flash on, blinding Eddie for an instant and leaving spots in his eyes afterwards.

“Rude!” V hissed through Eddie’s mouth, but Dan barely hesitated, crossing the living room with deliberate movements to show Eddie the picture.

It was a fairly normal, shitty candid phone picture until you looked at Eddie’s face which was nearly impossible to see beyond the two bright white-green lights that had taken the place of his eyes.

“You have tapetum lucidum, Eddie,” Dan said. “Like Mr. Belvedere.”

“Neat. Dan. Really. Neat.” Eddie gritted out. “Please don’t do that again…”

The other man had the decency to look chagrined. “I won’t, I just... got a little ahead of myself.”

“It’s fine, just, let’s finish the movie okay?”

And that was what they did. Everyone settled back down, V re-emerged and thought quietly to themself that maybe Eddie was right and everything would probably be okay.

Chapter Text

“V, remember when I said we shouldn’t be too obvious about any changes?”

There was a sense of sleepy confusion coming from the vicinity of Eddie’s left kidney as he stood in front of his bathroom mirror.

Yeeeessss?

“Care to explain why my mouth looks like a low rent wolfman’s?”

The confusion was replaced by embarrassment, of all goddamn things.

May have gotten carried away… V trailed off as they emerged from Eddie’s left shoulder blade to peek around him and into the mirror that he was currently grimacing at.

“No shit, I thought you were just growing back the tooth that got knocked out?”

(They had broken up a bar fight at last night’s dinner date with Anne and Dan, but not before taking a sucker punch to the mouth. Eddie hadn’t let V fix them (not in public, V) until after they had gotten home and had stretched out on their bed, already half asleep. The drunk had gotten away with only a badly broken hand because, despite the symbiote’s urging, being drunk and stupid was not enough to fall into bad guy territory.)

Was going to. They said defensively. It grew back like that.

“Still doesn’t explain the rest of my mouth.”

You looked stupid with only one good tooth, Eddie, really really stupid.

A mental image of Eddie asleep a single sharp canine tooth poking out from his upper lip with a trail of drool running down to his pillow.

Eddie sighed. “Fair enough.”

He leaned in towards the mirror and bared his teeth again. Really it was only the slightly enlarged and more pointed canines that were noticeable. His incisors felt sharper but looked mostly the same. His molars were also sharper and more pointed, but, hidden away in the back of his mouth, they wouldn’t be noticed. He drew his lips into a tight thin smile and none of his teeth stuck out past them.

The weirdest part though was that his mouth didn’t feel any different.

Was careful. Don’t want you biting yourself.

“Okay.” He grinned experimentally. He could tell his teeth were different, but maybe a stranger wouldn’t notice? Or maybe they would notice, but not say anything? Humans were really good at ignoring small things so long as you acted like they expected you to. So really it was the acting like people expected him to that would be difficult.

Welp, there was one way to tell.

Eddie pulled his phone out of his sweatpant’s pocket and opened up the group text between him, Anne, and Dan.

‘Despite evidence to the contrary, I had a good time last night’

‘Wanna meet up for dinner there again sometime?’

There was no immediate response as his friends were both busy, professional adults with jobs, but they would get back to him sooner or later.

Eddie wandered out of his bathroom and into the rest of his apartment, running his tongue over his teeth. As weird as they didn’t feel there was one thing that stood out about his upper canines and molars.

“V, why do I have grooves on the backs of my teeth?”

To keep you safe. V responded and then hesitated. Probably.

“Is this another--”

Us thing, yes.

Then it would probably be fine. Probably.

Chapter Text

“So you think this whole becoming us thing is slowing down now?” Eddie asked as he walked down one of San Francisco’s many hills on a cool Friday evening.

Almost. V responded after a moment of consideration from his position wrapped around Eddie’s neck doing a fantastic impression of a scarf.

“Any idea what’s next? Or is it a surprise?”

Guess. V said, retreating into Eddie (quickly enough that probably no one saw) and shifting their mental self in an invitation for Eddie to examine the point where they joined. I will make sure you keep walking.

Eddie didn’t get much from their bond, a sense of anticipation and attention at the same time as stillness and resistance. He had no idea what the hell any of it was supposed to mean, but it was interesting to explore and it was nice to feel his other’s quiet joy over how well they’d managed to bond with each other. Even if it meant that V was probably paying more attention to him than they were to walking.

They were so caught up in themselves that they didn't notice the man hiding in the alleyway until he grabbed them and hauled them into said alleyway with an arm around Eddie’s neck.

“You’re a surprisingly hard man to track down, Mr. Brock.” The guy said, and Eddie had to think through his adrenaline for a moment before he remembered the men-in-black mystery assholes who had chased them under the pier over two and a half months ago.

“Not my fault you guys fucking suck at your jobs.” Eddie observed, mainly because it was true. They hadn’t left him anything to go off of after their chase but he’d assumed that they’d make another attempt in a more timely fashion. Eddie’d eventually gotten so caught up in other things that he had figured that they’d given up.

The MIB asshole tightened his arm around his neck and Eddie felt V moving towards his spine to mask him. V, no, not right now.

Why not? Eddie got the impression that while the symbiote didn’t exactly need it right now, they could do with a good meal.

Information gathering.

Fine. They grumbled and settled underneath the back of Eddie’s neck and along his shoulders.

“Quiet!” The asshole hissed in his ear. “Mr. Schmidt is offering a lot of money for you alive, so don’t struggle with me and I won’t have to use this nice little noisemaker.”

Eddie grabbed onto the name first and the threat second. Schmidt was one of a few billionaires that had bought up portions of the LIFE foundations assets when they had shut down their space division following the whole Drake fiasco. Eddie had done cursory investigations into as many people involved as he could, but hadn’t been able to turn up anything more than a few social scandals on anyone of importance. Which either meant fantastic PR control or there really was nothing to see. There was now the implication that Schmidt had, of all fucking things, a bounty put out on them, and Eddie supposed that explained why there hadn’t been a consistent hunt for them. Why bother with shitty pay when your target could literally eat you?

The ‘noisemaker’ meant that Eddie was probably going to have to deal with most of this himself which was not something he wanted to do, but which wasn’t anywhere near as daunting of a thought as it would have been three months ago.

Bite him Eddie.

That would work, sure, the only other thing he could think of was a headbutt and he didn’t really have the leverage for that. Should probably at least look into self defense later so he’d have more of a base to work off of.

It was only when he broke skin on the man’s forearm that Eddie recalled his new teeth.

Well, shit.

And then, for some reason, he kept biting. It was a reflex that mostly (but not entirely) came from the place in their shared body where V became Eddie and Eddie became V.

Suddenly, there was a sour taste in Eddie’s mouth, which was good because it drowned out the coppery taste of blood (and Eddie didn’t want to think too hard about the fact that someone else’s blood in his mouth was not a bad taste per se), but bad because he had no idea what it was or where it was coming from. He was also getting steadily more concerned that he couldn’t seem to get his jaw to unclench and stop biting.

It’s venom.

What.

You’re venomous, Eddie.

“What.” The new information (not entirely out of nowhere) was enough to get Eddie’s jaws to unclench and allow the MIB-for-hire-asshole to fall to the ground, clutching his arm and screaming.

Don’t worry about it, can we eat this guy ?

“I guess! But--” I think me suddenly being venomous is something I’d kinda like to worry about! Eddie finished as V masked them and before he sank down into their shared consciousness. In the beginning, Venom had been nearly all V, but now over half a year later it was a more even mix.

“It’s not sudden, it happened two weeks ago.” They said in between bites.

And we didn’t mention this because why? In their shared body singular pronouns were so difficult as to be almost impossible. Also don’t eat his phone, we want to check it out.

Venom paused long enough to pluck the man’s burner phone (a brick of a trac-phone) from their teeth and tuck it into their self near where Eddie’s body was.

“We said it would keep us safe. Besides, we can’t hurt ourselves, and we need specific circumstances if we want to bite someone else.” (adrenaline, tenseness of their jaw muscles, urge-to-hurt)

Where had that even come from? The other changes Eddie had gone through were at least improvements of things they’d already had, but they were pretty fucking sure that humans couldn’t produce literal venom.

“We reflect ourselves.”

So we’re…?

“Yes.” Then there was a familiar new sensation as they finished off the merc-in-black of tenseness followed by a rich sour taste. “Never needed it, hunting is so easy here.” And it went without saying that their venom would have been as good as useless against Riot’s bladed weapons.

The part of them that was Eddie wasn’t entirely satisfied with their explanation and the part that is V didn’t understand the relevance (I want to know what’s going on in my body, you don’t always know though you don’t know how each of your heartbeats feel, but still). Together they decided to move on, leaping over the panel van that the MIB jerk had probably meant to transport them in, and disappeared into the night.

Chapter Text

“Eddie, We’re done.” V said aloud from their spot on Eddie's collarbone almost a week later as Eddie was getting ready to go to sleep. “I want to go for a run.”

Eddie sighed and started putting his jeans back on. V was excited enough that he wasn’t gonna win this argument, so he didn’t even bother starting it. It wasn’t incredibly late (only 11:23 at night) and Eddie’d been settling in for the night mainly for lack of anything else to do. Any articles were written and had either been turned in or were being edited, and any leads he had on what exactly Schmidt wanted with them would keep until Eddie could follow up on them over the next couple days.

Then his brain caught up to what V had said.

? He sent the impression of a question, the mental equivalent of an inquisitive noise.

“I want to show you something, Eddie.” V nudged at his chin.

“Okay, let’s go then.”

In his mind Eddie stepped back and V took over as they dove under his skin. They casually walked his body to their apartment's roof access and it wasn’t like being piloted so much as it was like being in the passenger seat of a car. When they reached the roof V masked Eddie's body with their own, and stayed in control as they launched off of the roof.

A feeling of unease rippled through Venom's mind. Unlike their usual, even split, this time V maintained the majority of control over Venom's form like they had in the beginning.

We want it to be a surprise, Eddie. And if they merged evenly then they'd each know everything the other was thinking.

We understand. Eddie murmured. In this shape, even as one-sided as it was, they were close enough that singular was difficult to wrap their head around.

Eddie sunk into their bond as Venom raced joyously across San Francisco on all fours. It was a slightly uncomfortable feeling. Because of the distance V had enforced between Eddie and Venom, Eddie could still feel his body under the symbiote's mass, moving in sync with their leaping gait. There were times when Eddie’s joints and limbs were subsumed and twisted out of shape to prevent damage as Venom contorted wildly. It didn’t hurt but there was an unpleasant awareness of exactly what was happening to Eddie’s body inside Venom’s form.

It was still good though, the feeling of two-in-one beings almost as close to each other as they could possibly be.

V drew Eddie out of their bond once they reached their destination, a relatively small platform on the top of the Golden Gate Bridge's southern tower. They were sure there was some amount of humor in their huge form towering over the guardrails meant to keep humans safe. The part of them that was Eddie followed the thought, and there was a huff of laughter across their bond before they realized precisely how high up they were.

The drop in Eddie’s stomach and tingling in Eddie’s limbs were more habit than actual fear response to the height they were at. Wrapped in themselves as they were though, the shadow of Eddie’s fear had no bite.

Wanted to show us something?

“Don’t worry about seeing.” Venom rumbled, their pale eyes narrowing to slits. “Hard to explain, follow us.”

V led Eddie into their shared sensory cortex and cautiously hooked him into it. This was a part of Venom that V had always interpreted for Eddie. They claimed it would overwhelm his wimpy human brain, but that apparently wasn’t the case now.

The contrast was immediately noticeable. The world always seemed sharper and brighter and more intense to Eddie when they were Venom even though there was a disconnect between the part-that-was-him and their senses. Now they could feel everything all at once and were very grateful that they had thought to close their eyes.

They had a perfect awareness of their body. There was an utter certainty to the positioning of their limbs and the part that was Eddie realized that they could move however they wanted whenever they wanted with the barest hint of intention. They felt Eddie’s body tucked safely underneath Venom’s mass, it was solid and stable at that moment but that could also change with the barest thought.

There was even more when they allowed their senses to extend beyond themselves.

Slight vibrations traveled up the bridge to their legs and they could feel the cars drive by on the deck below them easily. Deeper than that though, they could feel the hum of the bridge itself as the bay breeze wove between the trusses and suspension cables. It was easy to understand why they were so sensitive to sound when they felt the vibrations in the very air around them. There was also more than just the sound of the world around them in the air, the air brought an innate knowledge of the world beyond themselves. It was a strange combined sense of pressure and movement, an instinctive knowledge of up and down that could never be confused, and the tug of the ground beneath them.

It was no wonder Eddie’s fear of heights seemed silly to them.

“Hold on to this feeling.”

They did, even as V retreated back into Eddie’s body and left him standing in the chill wind seven hundred and fifty feet above sea level. He sucked in a breath and braced for a panic that didn't come.

Instead the same certainty Venom had felt had settled in Eddie’s body. He stood steady against the wind and the shifting of the bridge beneath his feet. He would have assumed V was using tendrils to brace him, except he could very definitely feel that they were doing no such thing. Which was also a new feeling now that he thought of it.

“Told you it was hard to explain.” V suddenly emerged from Eddie’s right shoulder, and instead of having his balance thrown off, Eddie compensated almost immediately.

“Still not sure I get it, bud.” Even though he was pretty sure he would only fall off the bridge if he wanted to (Ha ha ha, nope), Eddie still felt nervous. Mainly because his stupid brain didn’t seem to like having its acrophobia seemingly dealt with at the root, so why not settle for a little generalized anxiety instead?

“Perfect awareness of our bodies. It is why I did not understand your fear of heights until you explained it to me.”

Eddie nodded distractedly, it wasn’t awful up here now that he was utterly sure he wouldn’t accidentally overbalance and fall to his death. There was a soft, pulsing contentment radiating from V that felt almost like instinct.

“You like it up here?” Eddie reached up to scratch the side of V’s head and his other leaned into his hand.

“Yesssss… We like heights, they’re safer.”

“We? Like… Klyntar?” He probably hadn’t mangled the name of V’s species.

A sense of satisfied confirmation. “Harder to be surprised up high.”

“Sorry I kept you from it, then.” And before Eddie could feel guilty V reassured him.

“You’re mine, would never choose different.”

And what could Eddie do in response to that but settle down? They were both content to sit and watch the city lights across the bay, satisfaction and companionship and love feeding back and forth between them.

Whatever else happened, Eddie was pretty sure it’d be okay.

Chapter Text

They ended up spending nearly an hour on top of the Golden Gate Bridge before setting out for home. They unmasked halfway there because Eddie wanted to take his time getting used to his new sense of…

What did you say it was called again, V?

Proprioception.

Yeah, that. It wasn’t too different so long as he was moving, but if he was still the potential his body had for motion really stood out. So he took the slow way home, pausing every so often to take in the scenery and accustom himself to the way he felt like he could just start moving and never stop.

It was past one in the morning by the time they reached the block that held their apartment building, and V nudged Eddie’s mind before they could get any closer.

There are bad men inside our apartment, Eddie.

“What kind?” Eddie stopped at the curb.

Men-In-Black Assholes, three of them, armed.

“Well, shit.” So much for going to sleep in their own bed now.

They could technically go to Anne’s for the night, but Eddie really didn’t want to bring their trouble to her doorstep. He also really didn’t want to let these dicks drive him out of his own home even if just for one night. But the assholes were obviously well prepared. The last two times they’d run into Schmidt’s hired goons they had been equipped to face them and they were adjusting tactics. If a large group didn’t work, send a single well prepared guy against your target, and if that didn’t work send a small group to your target's home. They were dialing in tactics and the longer Eddie and V allowed their opponent to chase them the higher chance Schmidt had of actually catching them.

Want to do something dumb, Eddie?

“Not really.”

Edddieeee…

“Why would I knowingly agree to a plan you’ve said is dumb?”

Because you trust us?

“With my life, but V--”

We are an ambush predator, Eddie, let me show you.

That drew Eddie up short. He’d thought of himself as many things over his lifetime (a victim of circumstance, the best damn reporter in San Francisco, and an utter fuckup) but never a predator in any sense of the word.

But that’s what you do Eddie, you sneak up on people and trap them with their own words. It is part of why we have bonded so well.

And dammit, V wasn’t entirely wrong.

But still, Eddie couldn’t help but think of the noisemaker they’d been threatened with. He knew sound hurt V and he’d felt the reflection of that pain multiple times. Now, after feeling how attuned to the world around them they were as Venom, he couldn’t imagine willingly going to face something like that.

Want to protect our home, Eddie, besides we reflect ourselves remember?

“Yeah, yeah…” He remembered the hours they’d spent under the pier, V revealing one of the more intimate facets of their bond. It had been a quiet wonder to discover the effects they had on each other, even if Eddie seemed to be the one on the receiving end of most of said effects.

Noisemaker won’t be a problem, Eddie, figured out a trick.

“Y’sure?”

Yessss, so let’s go. Eddie’s muscles trembled with V’s desire to deal with the threat, but they held themselves back with an undercurrent of together-or-not-at-all.

“Alright, let’s do something stupid.” If everything went to shit they could probably fight their way out. Besides, V’s territorialism was starting to rub off on Eddie.

It was V who pushed them forward, resting eagerly just below Eddie’s skin, but it was Eddie who continued until they were climbing the stairs up to his apartment bolstered by V’s confidence. V gave him a glimpse of the three merc’s positions through their sense of the world, only slightly muffled by Eddie’s flesh. There was one on either side of the front door and the third was more distant, probably behind the couch.

They entered casually, Eddie following along with V’s quiet urgings, and took care to turn around completely to lock the door behind them instead of just lightly kicking it shut like they normally would have. It was an opportunity that the MIB mercs were all too eager to take advantage of, and Eddie was suddenly aware of the guns that the two flanking the door had aimed at them. The third was fumbling around with something directly behind him.

“You guys know it is astoundingly rude to point guns at a guy in his own home?” Because even if Eddie was concerned for their shared safety, he couldn’t not snark at men pointing guns at him.

“Man, shut up.” The merc behind them said, and then, after a light click, Eddie heard one of the worst sounds he’s ever heard in his life.

The sound drilled almost immediately into the center of his head.

It was composed of multiple tones and frequencies, like whoever designed it wasn’t sure what would work and decided to just throw shit at a wall and see what stuck, but all of them would have been unpleasant for a normal person much less the conjoined being that Eddie and V had become. For them it was worse, dissonant sounds building and shifting and piling on top of each other until Eddie was sure he was going to vomit.

One thing struck him as his legs buckled and he fell to his knees, sure this sound is bad, but it wasn’t the ripping pain of the MRI or speaker feedback. None of the frequencies were quite right and the volume was nowhere near enough to do anything on its own. Something wasn’t quite right but Eddies couldn’t determine what.

Eddie collapsed, tugged to the floor as he felt the full added weight of V in his body doing nothing to support them. The symbiote almost seemed like they were losing cohesion, bleeding through Eddie’s skin in rough, rippling patches.

“Wha…?” Eddie was barely able to groan much less form a thought.

A spike of pain straight into his temporal lobes was soothed away as quickly as it appeared.

shhhhh… eddie… quiet… stopping the bad sounds… can’t do anything else… no talking… no moving…

V gave Eddie the basics, this was step one of their dumb plan: feign weakness and get caught. They were maintaining a careful balance spread as wide throughout Eddie as they could be and as stiff as they could manage anchoring themselves into the stillness of Eddie’s bones. They were being the worst conductor of sound they knew how to be and so far it was working. They muffled everything including the tones from the Merc’s noisemaker. There was also the sense that they could get better at this if they had a chance to practice.

now what? Eddie wondered, the thought barely strong enough for V to notice.

they take us to their den… we strike… we eat... go home…

ok… gonna rest… He might as well recover some while V followed through with their dumb plan, whatever they were doing to deaden the noise was expending a surprising amount of energy.

got us…Then they fell limp.

Chapter Text

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…!

…?

…!

When Eddie woke they were masked and stalking the perimeter of some lab eerily reminiscent of the LIFE Foundation with fluorescent light and stainless steel and touch screens projected onto panes of glass everywhere. There were some differences, there were no holding cells, the sense of desperation was more academic than sterile and hungry, but there were still things that chilled their limbs and made their heart stutter. Still images of the people killed at the hands of Carlton Drake were displayed, stellar maps which charted the path of the asteroid that the Klyntar had sent their scouting party from as it moved out of the solar system, and an airtight tank which stood in the center of the room was just slightly too small for a man.

Venom’s body was larger than normal, their tissue spongy and full of air and dead space. Instead of smooth curves of dense not-quite-muscle they’ve formed planes and angles. It has changed their posture somewhat, they leaned forward almost on all fours prowling among abandoned workstations like the predator they were. At some point it seemed V had figured out that if they lowered their density, increased their volume, and altered their shape the terrible sounds would be incapable of penetrating their body and shaking them apart at the seam where they were welded to their Eddie.

An alarm was sounding, but Venom only knew that because when they started to relax pain would start to creep into their core. Otherwise the only things they heard were their footsteps and the steady beat of their heart.

What have we been doing? They murmured after coming to full awareness, both halves awake and in complete contact.

Broke containment, figured out how to deal with this-- a mental gesture that indicated the repetitive pulsing of the alarm they couldn’t hear but could feel washing over them --ate some bad men, been exploring…

So, we’ve been having a good time then?

Yesss… They grinned so wide they nearly squinted their eyes shut, savoring the memories together now.

Anything left?

One thing left, we needed to be all here for it. We’re not sure what to do, and we don’t want to upset ourself. Venom looked across the lab to where a man (Schmidt, they recognized now that they weren’t half asleep) had locked himself in an office walled with thick, sealed, glass panes. Schmidt was sitting stiffly at his desk with the grey look of a man who had been watching his certain death pacing before him for the last ten minutes.

Hasn’t shot at us, hasn’t threatened us. This is his fault but he’s important and we’re not supposed to eat important people… They trailed off uncertainly. It would have been harder had Venom not had their fill of mercenary, but still now that they were fully awake they were very pleased with their restraint.

“Why did you hunt us, Mr. Schmidt?” They growled as one, coming to a stop outside the man’s office.

“Because,” He swallowed, “You’re a dangerous creature that shouldn’t be allowed to run free…”

They couldn’t help the low hiss that emerged from deep in their chest.

“And as… misguided… as Carlton was,” Schmidt continued after a steadying breath, “I believe he was right in studying the creatures.”

“DRAKE WAS A MONSTER!” Venom’s fist slammed against the glass, hairline cracks running out from the point of impact. “He killed dozens! Humans and Symbiote! Whatever he thought he would gain WAS NOT WORTH IT!”

“And you haven’t killed anyone?” This was a man who expected to die.

“We won’t deny that. But they’ve all come for us or were as monstrous as Drake.”

They leaned into the glass further spreading the cracks, and a thought occurred to them.

He wants to protect people?

From us…

Like Anne wants to make sure we are not hurting Eddie?

Yes, similar.

“But we won’t kill you.”

“Wh-why?” Schmidt stuttered out, as they sat back on their haunches.

“Because we’re not stupid. It would be noticed if you went missing and what you’re trying to do here is not bad.” Schmidt’s San Francisco lab was well known for its research on various genetic conditions. “So use whatever data you bought off of LIFE, but leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone.”

With one last growl they turned and left, following their senses up and out. There had been multiple doors barring their way, but even with Venom’s strength limited by their shape, they crashed through them easily. Once Venom reached the roof and could no longer feel the steady pulsing of the building’s alarm, they condensed their body back to its usual shape and launched themselves into the air.

V’s knowledge told them their position relative to the fading morning stars and they took off north towards their apartment. It only took them fifteen minutes and they spent it in silence, thoughts churning.

Was that smart, Eddie? V wondered internally after they unmasked and retreated inside their apartment, Eddie carefully shutting the door behind them with his foot this time.

“Probably not.” Eddie threw himself onto the couch, exhausted. “But you had your dumb idea and I had mine.”

Fair enough.

What if he still comes after us? V asked with a narrow stream of anxiety coming through their bond. Eddie followed it for a moment because surely V couldn’t be worried about them after all that, and he discovered their anxiety stemmed from concern for Anne and Dan.

“Didn’t seem like that kind of guy, probably was just throwing money at a problem. Thought we were indiscriminate when we have to eat and wanted to protect people from us.”

We’re not.

“Exactly.” Eddie stretched luxuriously on his couch, basking in the stillness. There was still some concern though, so he added, “I’ll see about getting a guy to keep an eye on them, shouldn’t be hard.”

It was only fair since Eddie was pretty sure Schmidt would be monitoring them.

“So that sound deadening thing, you figure that out on your own or is it an Us Thing?” Eddie offered the question as an obvious distraction from V’s concern.

Both. Saw your memories of recording studios. A series of still memories of the various sound studios Eddie had done voiceover and narration work in. Thought we could be like the foam and kill sound, but it was hard. Had to anchor in your bones to keep the noise from our bond. Easier when we are Venom.

Would be impossible if we weren’t so close.

Even though adapting to their environment was literally what V was born to do, Eddie was still in awe of how quickly they were able to adapt. He knew from their time together as Venom that the skill V came up with had limits. They couldn't do it if they were taken by surprise, if they were Eddie-and-V they wouldn’t be able to move or speak and it uses so much more energy, and Venom was weaker and slower using it. But still…

“You’re kind of amazing, y’know?”

Of course. They sent smugly, but there was also an overwhelming sense of awe-wonder-joy-love-more that Eddie took in and then returned in kind.

V’s head emerged from the center of Eddie’s chest with a small rumble and Eddie covered the top of their head lightly with his hand, rubbing small circles on their forehead with his thumb.

“Anyway, let’s get some rest, okay?”

“Okay.”

And together they dozed off, complete and comfortable with each other’s presence and their body. Whatever happened, they would deal with it together and it didn’t matter in this moment anyway.