Chapter Text
There was such a thing as dank alley etiquette. The stereotype went that you met shady types in alleys, but to tell the truth, most of the people you met there were either homeless people looking for a bit of quiet, or fellow pedestrians taking a shortcut. Even when you met criminals, the majority of them wouldn't mug you; they'd be small time dealers, waiting for their customers with no desire to attract attention by involving innocents. They wouldn't be happy to see you come close, but they'd just frown and wait until you went away.
Now, the setting was still uncomfortable. Alleys were often worrisomely narrow and shadowy, the sun never shining all the way to the ground left it always damp, and any trash left on it rotted in a specially smelly way. And there was trash. The wind would blow papers and bags around until they reached those spots where the air was too still to pick them up again, people would see the piles of trash and just drop their own there if the street didn't have a public bin, and of course the tenants of the buildings framing the alley would leave their garbage out there until collection day. Crates, pallets, building materials and other bulky objects not too tempting to steal would often be stored there, creating a hiding spot rich environment. The safest little dank alley could still make the bravest trespasser nervous.
So it was the job of a big guy like Eddie not to walk too close or stare too insistingly at the smaller woman coming from the opposite end. Brief eye contact, little acknowledgment nod, say hi if they seem to expect it, then gaze forward and walk past. You could seriously spook people, if you weren't careful.
Invisible, but always there, Eddie's companion was paying attention to his careful body language management. Every species had aggression versus appeasement signals, but only a few would use the latter to comfort the weak, instead of avoiding a losing fight. Humans were interesting like that. Now, appeasement wasn't exactly Venom's style. They enjoyed being their large scary selves, and watching bystanders struggle between fright and curiosity at their presence was an undying source of amusement. To tell the truth, their best course of action when wanting to look unthreatening was to stay hidden and let Eddie handle it. The man was good at looking harmless; this might not sound like high praise, but they did appreciate a skill they definitely didn't share.
The stranger passed, they set out to resume their conversation. Single cell thick strands, their ends wrapped around synapses, started firing up their chemical pulses again. But something went wrong. The neurotransmitters only leaked out, failing to bring words to life within the brain. Had they slipped, somehow? The alien tightened their synaptic connexions, but still couldn't get a tight bond. The still living neurons shriveled up, slipping out of their grasp again. They couldn't feel Eddie's mind, only the bitterness of inexplicably dying cells' cytokines.
They reached deeper, looking for surviving tissue, but life slipped away faster than they could chase it. Soon, their tendrils only found one another, grasping through a matter that was losing all organic flavour and taking the alkaline bite of ashes. They briefly kept the shape of their bond, fine tendrils branching into each organ like a black cast of a human circulatory system, but without support, gravity soon won, and they splashed onto the pavement, formless, confused, and distressed.
Eddie?
The sight wasn't prettier from the outside. Darline was only a few feet away when she heard the stranger gasp. She turned around to see him clutching his chest, panting, and the urges to help him and to run away fought inside her. To her embarrassment, neither won, and she pathetically froze while the man collapsed. He didn't fall to his knees nor flop all the way onto his face, he literally broke apart, dust detaching from him, leaving a dark, liquid core that was certainly not what human entrails were meant to look like, which rained down on the ground. A slimy looking puddle was all there was left of him. She was no doctor, but was certain no disease could do that!
It was her turn to gasp when the puddle began stretching a pseudopod in her direction, much faster than it could have by merely trickling down the weak slope. She stepped out of its way, and pulled her cellphone out of her pocket to dial 9-1-1.
While it rang, she saw the ooze had moved in her direction, this time going against the slope, and had almost reached her foot. She kicked at it reflectively, which turned out not to be effective, as it stuck to her leg and began wrapping around it. She dropped her phone and screamed, trying to shake the thing off her body. A man had just died from some horrible liquefying disease in front of her eyes, and now she was going to be infected and die too!
What little parts of her mind had not given in to panic yet advised her to stay in the alley. Pick up the phone, call an ambulance, tell them about the mystery disease, don't pass it on to innocent people who couldn't do anything if she ran at them crying for help anyway.
She was sitting on an emergency exit's steps, crying softly, when a vision struck her. She relived the previous scene, the stranger's unlikely demise, with an unusual precision, down to details her brain should have dismissed, like how her clothes shifted on her body as she moved, or the exact traffic sounds that came at the moment, as if someone had found her mind's rewind button and was replaying the whole content of her short term memory. Is this how trauma works?
“What happened?”
“I don't know, I'm not sure! There was this man, and he looked sick all at once, and...”
“I know that! But what happened? Where is Eddie?”
She realised those weren't the questions the 9-1-1 operator should be asking. In fact, the phone was still ringing, no one had picked it up. Was hallucinating part of the trauma, or part of the disease?
“I am not a disease. I would never hurt Eddie. But he is gone! Where is he?”
“That...” she pointed at the empty area where the man had last stood “that's Eddie? I don't know, I think he's dead!”
Something contracted inside her, not like any cramp she ever had but just as painful, and she felt a wave of anger, barely riding on top of terror and sadness. That was it, she had gone mad. The thing calmed down, or at least, stopped hurting her.
“Humans don't just disappear. We must find out what happened, and bring him back. Lets call Dan, he's a doctor, he'll know what to do.”
She didn't know any Dan, but the voice seemed confident about his ability to help, so she indulged it and ended the fruitless 9-1-1 call. Before she did anything else, her hand moved on its own and scrolled through her address book.
“Why isn't Dan's contact here? Is he gone too?”
“I don't know him, why should he be in my phone? Did you use my hand just like that? Who even are you?”
Venom was in no mood to make small talk, understandably. They knew that taking a host by force was bad manners, to say the least, but they were helpless without once, and this was not a situation where helplessness was any tolerable. It was not a bad host. A healthy body, a generally cooperative personality, enough smarts and knowledge to work with, and not so poorly compatible that they couldn't use those assets without damaging them. A few minute's use should have been enough to take Eddie out of whatever dumb situation he'd gotten himself into.
But the human's perspective only confirmed the most paranoid interpretation of their sudden separation. Eddie was gone. They were not ready to believe he was dead, though, if only because their natural inclination to action rejected the possibility that nothing could be done. But it would obviously take more time than a mere physical rescue, they already pictured having to hop hosts like their former captain had done through a complicated and dangerous quest.
But unlike Riot, they were adverse to harming hosts, and hijacking their body for more than a few minutes would hurt them. They'd have to talk them into helping, and ugh! they were NOT feeling social right now. To make things worse, they had just embarrassed themselves assuming that, if Eddie always taken finding his friends' number in his phone fir granted, they'd just find them in any phone. Talk about first impressions! The human half thought they were an infectious disease, half thought they were an idiot. Well, time to begin fixing that:
“Sorry for the intrusion. My name is...”
Venom stopped themselves suddenly. If they were trying to convince someone that they were not some illness causing substance, telling them their name might not be the wisest plan. Quick, they tried to think of another name, and their attention stopped onto one of the discarded cups rolling in the breeze.
“Starbucks. My name is Starbucks. I need your help.”
Darline felt her tension drop suddenly. She still had no idea what had gotten into her, but the clumsily improvised lie told her that whatever else it was, it was a dumbass.
“Okay, Starbucks, I just saw a man die. You think you can save him anyway? I'll go along if you have a plan that makes any sense, I'm not letting a life be ended if I can help it. I'll look up your friend's phone number, to start. It's Dan who?”
The directory didn't have Dan's number, but it did have Anne's, a lawyer he was living with.
“So what do I tell her? I have a hunch that 'Starbucks wants to talk' won't do.”
“Just bear with me a minute.”
She was actually more surprised when her visitor took control of her arm this time, to dial the number and hold the phone up to her ear. Now that the horror from Eddie's disappearance wasn't as vivid in her mind, she could think more clearly, and became more aware of the utter weirdness of it. No one picked up the phone, this was becoming a pattern, but she heard her own voice leave a message:
“Anne, this is Venom. Something happened to Eddie, something bad. We'll fix this, but we don't know how yet, we could use you and Dan's help. Please call back.”
Darline felt that her body was under her control again. She ended the call and tucked the phone safely away.
“Venom? Why the hell would you bother with a fake name if you'll let the real one slip five minutes later? And why did you think something obviously made up would sound better than, I don't know, a name everybody around here knows?”
“We're not that well known, we kept a low profile.”
“YOU DID NOT!”
She shouted that. Many unbelievable things had happened today, but that the local monster/superhero could believe one second that they went unnoticed topped them all.
“You show up in public, you let anyone film you, you even pose for them sometimes, you could run for president and wouldn't be any less low profile!” She caught her breath a few seconds. “So I guess it's true that when you disappear you're hiding in a regular guy. Are the other rumors true? Do you eat bad guys and do strange sexual things?”
“We do eat bad guys. We don't do as many sexual things as you're thinking of.”
“Well you're not doing any of this around me!”
“We'll need to eat, but regular food will do... for a while. I hope you have lunch money, we have a very fast metabolism.”
“Can you feed off fat then? I could use to lose a few kilos... Kidding, I'm not trusting an alien with an Extreme Makeover deal.”
She actually laughed at a thought, which she didn't wait to voice:
“Mom will be so jealous when she learns I've hanged out with a celebrity all day!”
“She may object to having one in your body, though.”
“She wants Harrison Ford inside her, she's in no place to judge.”
“He is a human he doesn't have the ability to... oh you're talking about sex again.”
By now, Darline felt confident enough that she was not infected with a new plague to exit the alley and mingle with the crowd again. To her surprise, there was no crowd, but when it went it left chaos behind. The usual traffic had turned into a tangle, cars only moderately damaged by the low speed collisions, but intricately crowded together into immovable trails of sheet metal and polymer. Most passengers had left, but some were stuck behind jammed doors. A small building was burning on the left, a fire truck was failing to find a way through the traffic on the right. People walked around, some helping others out of crashed cars, some using their phones, many just crying helplessly. She stopped one of those.
“What happened to all the cars? Where's everyone? Why is this building on fire?”
The teenager she selected needed a minute to answer, uncontrollable sobs breaking her first attempts.
“We were going to McDonald's and then Jess started crying and then she was... she like... turned into dust, and she's dead! And... lots of people, I was just looking at Jess but the others too... And then the cars started crashing because drivers were dead too. And everybody's freaking out and nobody can tell me what happened. Jess is my baby sister, what am I going to tell mom?”
Darline hugged the young girl, for whatever comfort it could bring.
“Go home for now. The roads aren't safe today. They'll tell what's going on when they know, so watch the TV and do what they say, ok?”
The girl clung to her a bit longer, then took her advice and headed home. Darline took in the scene of devastation around her. She had first aid training, but this looked more than she could handle. Even the firefighters were pretty useless, their gear trapped behind the accident, and they were trained for crises! A sense of helplessness was beginning to take hold of her heart.
The now familiar voice intruded in her thoughts:
“You're not familiar with the concept of symbiosis, are you?”
“Please, I'm a botanist, I hold nitrogen fixers and mycorhizes close to obsession level.”
“Good. Then you'll understand I'm not just feeding off your nutrients in here? I have things to share too. Powers. Want to let that man out of that wedged car over there? Go on, rip that car roof out.”
At this point she wasn't going to disbelieve it. She walked over the tangle of vehicles to reach the victim in question. The man didn't look badly injured, but did look dazed, maybe concussed, and just stared ahead with a puzzled frown. The sun was beginning to heat up the stalled cars, and those who couldn't open or break a window were probably starting to feel it. It took some climbing, but she reached the target. Her fingers only found poor handholds at the windshield's edge, but her effort to grasp it was rewarded with the crunch of breaking glass as her fingers poked right through it, sheet metal crumpled in her fists, detached from its mountings, yielded like cardboard. She felt the strain in her muscles, but they weren't pulling alone, she had help. Soon, the roof was flipped entirely off, and she was undoing the man's seatbelt.
“We could have pulled the windshield off without destroying the whole car,” she remarked.
“There is such a thing as style.”
The alien had a point: their feat had been noticed, and a group of bystanders was walking to meet them. A tall man took the victim off her hands and helped him sit down, someone else crouched next to him; they were willing to take over his immediate care. The others crowded around Darline, clinging to the sliver of hope a hero's appearance always carried. They did have a lot of help to ask for, but among the mixed pleadings, she understood that children from the burning block had not showed up, and it was impossible to tell whether they had disappeared too, or were trapped by the fire.
“Lets save them!”
She started running towards the blaze.
“We can't do that.”
She didn't slow. Give a human near unlimited power, and they think they can just do anything!
“We have no power against fire, it'll hurt us worse than it'd hurt you alone.”
“Then I'll go in alone.”
“This is irrational. The others didn't go in for a reason.”
She had reached the wall now. The whole second floor was burning, and smoke came out of the third's windows. Any trapped survivor would be on the third. Anyone on the first would have left on their own, and anyone left on the second could only be dead.
“Help me reach the third floor, then hide inside and I'll do the rest.”
She ignored their protests and tried to will the powers to come to her. If the creature was able to use her arm and her voice to make a phonecall without her participation, there surely was a way for this to work in the other direction. She had seen videos of Venom in action, she knew what they could do. A battle of willpower took place in her head, and the host was winning this round: black ooze extruded from her hands, reluctantly coiling around her fingers, growing denser around the tips to form strong, sharp claws, that dug soundly into the brick of the wall.
She climbed awkwardly, but she did climb, most likely to her death; to both their death.
“Listen, I have a better plan. One where we don't die.”
She didn't listen. But just like she was forcing the symbiote to help her grasp the masonry, they forced her muscles to spasm and throw her off balance. She fell gracelessly, but they made sure the landing didn't hurt.
“You'll have to trust me. To trust us. We can't use our full power while I stay hidden, so... are you ready for an alien Extreme Makeover?”
She had seen that in action too, and if the prospect of dying in a fire hadn't frozen her with fear, that did. She croaked a few unintelligible syllables and did the sign of the cross. No, no she wasn't ready for that!
But... she had run into danger the moment she felt like she could handle it, and now people relied on her, and maybe the only way not to fail them was to
let
that
happen.
“Fine! Do your thing!”
She covered her eyes and tried hard to believe it would be alright.
The human couldn't panic, not when the other's sensations dominated. Now things felt right, they were strong, they were unstoppable. They felt a familiar thrill as faces turned towards them, pale with fright. Backwards steps were taken. Venom turned towards them, mouth open in a sharp grin, legs bent into a predatory half crouch, as if ready to leap, claws displayed. But recognition took over fear in the many witnessing minds. Whimpers made way to cheers. This monster was on their side, things would finally go right. They wielded both fear and hope, delivered whichever they wanted. The host finally understood the alien's optimism: this was what power truly felt like, how could anything be impossible?
There was little time to bask in the crowd's admiration, though, so they got to work. The solution was obvious, now that it wasn't looked at by a woman who couldn't even lift a car over her head. The fire truck was just one block away, and it was a quick job to grab immobilised vehicles and move them out of the lane. A quick look inside: is it empty? Yes? On the pile it goes! In under two minutes, the fire truck was moving again, and actually qualified people got their suitable equipment close enough to carry a rescue efficiently. Venom helped deploy the gear at first: that truck had a staff of four, but one was gone; rescuers had not been spared by the ambient disaster. But soon they had the situation under control, and it just wasn't a superhero's job anymore.
A firefighter found a moment to thank them, but hesitated to call them by name: they did look different with a different host. Smaller, for one thing, and definitely more feminine, though still heavy set. Being asked if there were two of them amused them: there were always two of them. But this wasn't what the question meant, and they had a funnier response than playing dumb:
“Yes, we are... Starbucks.”
They walked away. A few shocked civilians had snapped out of their trauma induced daze and pulled out their phone to film the scene. Venom deliberately swaggered almost straight at one of them on their way out, letting their tongue hang out of their mouth and drip sticky drool on their path, eyes focused on the device's lens. The woman had accused them of posing for indiscreet cameras, well... how could they be blamed? If the monster's image was going to be shared all over the Internet, you better believe it'd be a handsome monster.
They turned into a backstreet to get out of sight and seeped back into their host. The expended energy made them hungry, but it could still wait a little. They could sense the anxiety spilling over from Darline's mind, that probably needed addressing right now.
“How large is the affected area, you think? I live just one mile from here, I have three kids, could any of them have disappeared too?”
“If they did, we will bring them back too.”
She pulled her phone out again. The Facebook app flashed her multiple notifications. A good place to start.
Facebook Safety Check
|►
The Snap
Today
13 friends are marked safe
45 friends are not marked safe yet
She expanded the list. Only her oldest kid was on it, but that meant nothing, the other two were too young to have their own Facebook. Her mom wasn't, and she was a social media addict, that was a bigger concern. Her old professor Edmond was on it, and an unkind thought made her feel like a 97 years old man being spared over someone who had all life ahead of them was just unfair.
She called her mother first, but no one answered. Heart pounding, she called her daughter next. For a change, someone answered:
“Mom?”
“Renee! Thank God you're safe! Where are your brothers?”
“I don't know, they were playing outside but I can't see them. What happened mom? The TV is talking about people missing everywhere. Are you coming home? It's scary!”
“Yes, I'm coming right now! Stay home, I'll look for the boys.”
She started walking, browsing official announcements describing what little was known about the disaster so far. The government, army, FEMA, United Nations, even the Avengers had their word to say about it, but no one sounded like a solution was coming any time soon.
“Avengers. Eddie scoffs at them, but this sounds like something they would be dealing with. Lets contact them.”
“I doubt they'll be taking civilian calls right now, they'll be too busy. But that professor I talked about? He used to work for NASA, I know they cooperate with Avengers in some of their operations, some of his contacts might be of use. He knows his way around.”
“Contacts are worthless when half of them are probably missing. Lets pick him up and go pay them a visit.”
Darline fell silent for a moment and clenched her jaw. This wouldn't do.
“Can you move into someone else? I have to go home. My family needs me. Whatever's left of it.”
That was a setback, and to tell the truth, Venom struggled to accept being pushed back, even if their rational mind told them moving on was the sensible option. They'd probably have to go through many hosts before finding Eddie again.
They agreed to check out anyone they met to at least leave the symbiote with someone both willing and capable of helping on the next stretch of road, moving on towards Darline's house. It wasn't, fortunately, too hard to find someone who was excited by the idea of wielding Venom's infamous powers, in exchange for a ride to the address she wrote down on a piece of cardboard. It was skinny man, probably in his thirties but aged by too many cigarettes, barely better dressed than Eddie. He snickered quietly when she asked for a moment to say goodbye, before parting with the alien, but let them have their quiet moment.
“Can you... wrap me up one last time before you leave?”
“Weren't you terrified the last time?”
“Last time went fine, didn't it? But I know you'll find a way to bring everyone back, you have to, don't you? That's how you'll get Eddie back, there's no way you'll let go, right? And when they're back, mom won't forgive me if I don't do one thing.”
They understood her intentions. They were silly, in a way, but they sprung from the same desperate hope they both clung to. She held out her camera and started filming in selfie mode.
“Mom, guess who I met today, you'll never believe it! Check this out! Say hello please!”
On cue, black goo emerged and wrapped her body, quickly forming Venom's figure. The camera shook a little during the shift, but stabilised after.
“Hello Miss Pointdujour, we saved lives today with your daughter. You should be proud and jealous.”
“That's overdoing it!” she protested as they were saving the video. To tell the truth, that fit exactly with the boasts she wasn't shameless enough to deliver herself.
“I guess this is where we say goodbye. I put my phone number on that note, keep me updated please!”
She faced she new volunteer host, who obviously thought the last selfie together was highly amusing, and couldn't hold back tears when she found herself alone again. She half walked, half ran the rest of the way home. It was harder to hang on to hope without the alien's frantic optimism rubbing off on her, but she still trusted them that if everything could be fixed, they'd do it. Until then, her children needed her. More than one, with a little luck.