Chapter Text
It all started really, when Eddie looked around his apartment one cold morning in the usually uncold city of San Francisco. Given it wasn’t as cold as New York, of course, the weather wasn’t what was getting him down. It was loneliness. (Well, pseudo loneliness.) He didn’t really know why, but the reporter had found himself off lately, staring off into space and thinking thoughts that he had never really thought about before.
If he had to take a guess for when it started, it most likely had done so when Anne had announced to him that Dan and her (who had married a year before with him as best man, Anne wouldn’t let him /not/ stand up there and make a fool of himself and his companion) were expecting a baby. Usually, things like that with Eddie being her ex, it shook him up a little (as originally, it was supposed to be him she was saying that to excitedly before he fucked up), but he quickly got over it as he normally did. Dan was a great guy and given he had watched them over their 3 year relationship, he was going to be a great dad.
After that, everything seemed fine, but internally, Eddie wasn’t sure what had happened. He suddenly felt a large weight of loneliness settled around him and it hadn’t left. Was it just because Anne was pregnant and starting a family like they were going to? Was it because even after everything with Drake, he still felt alone despite not being at all? Was it because when he got back into journalism, he seemed to end up in places with children and parents to investigate something and found himself staring into space again?
The questions in his head just made him sigh, him feeling a tug between his shoulders as an ink black head with pointed teeth and white eyes pulled out from it, coming to curl around his shoulder and stare, making him frown. “What?”
“You are sad, Eddie.”
Was it really that noticeable? Given that Venom saw into every nook and cranny of his body and brain, it wasn’t a far stretch. “I’m not sad, asshole, I’m just...I don’t know.”
“You are sad, Eddie. You are lonely.” Venom went on, unfazed. “Eddie wants human contact like Anne and Dan. Eddie wants a baby.”
“What! No! Where the hell did you get that from?!” Eddie startled, looking at the damned appendage off his body in horror. “Dude, do you even know what a baby is?”
“Yes, I observe your life from inside of you, Eddie. I see the way you look at the small humans, I see the way you look at Anne and Dan now they are reproducing. I see what you see and feel what you feel, I am connected to every part of you.” The white eyes of Venom slowly blinked as he said this. “Therefore, my conclusion with your feelings is correct. Eddie wants a baby.”
He honestly didn’t know what to say back to that, swallowing hard. It wasn’t like Eddie had ever not thought about being a father someday. Actually, when he was with Anne, but several other girlfriends, he could always picture himself with a kid, boy or girl, no matter the situation and could see himself being a Dad, somehow. There were nights he had stayed up late to write an article where he could picture himself, bottle in hand, bouncing a tiny baby on his shoulder or days where he had been on shoots of the Eddie Brock Report (before he switched back to writing) and could see himself reporting with a baby strapped to his chest as he walked around, giggling and bouncing as he took questions and him smiling proudly as they were cooed and awed over.
After Venom had come along and also before that, when Anne broke up with him, those dreams had gone on the back of the burning abyss that was his mind. Anne wouldn’t get back together with him and of course, justice was a much more worthy cause than silently looking over at a family and wishing you could be them.
If he had to guess where it had really started, he would have put it down mostly to his childhood and his own family. His sister, Mary, was long gone, having up and left as soon as she had found a way. He hadn't seen her in years. Dylan, his younger brother, also was long gone, having been killed in a car accident when he was in college. His Ma had died long before he had been able to remember her properly and his father, well he wasn’t the greatest man in the fucking world to have as one. In fact, he was pretty sure that he didn’t really give a shit he still existed, given he’d ceased all communication with him and disowned him after he moved from New York back to San Francisco with Anne, after berating him for getting fired from Daily Planet and telling him how much of a shit son he was and how stupid to think he’d learned anything from him and how disappointed his mother would have been after he threw his life away and- “Eddie, you are spirling again. Stop.”
Eddie broke out of his train of thought, seeing Venom directly in his face, staring. Huffing, Eddie hung his head, swallowing before speaking quietly. “Yeah, sorry, forgot.”
“Are you scared to give in to your desire, because you think you will be him?”
“Huh?” Eddie’s head snapped up again, confused. “What do you mean?”
“Are you scared to give in to your desire of wanting a baby-” Venom spoke again, a little annoyed due to his host’s unfounded ability not to listen. “-because you fear you will end up like your own maker? Your memories of them are...similar to what our species are exposed to when we are born. Cold and alone.”
Did he have to get it so on point? Sometimes he hated that the damn thing could see into his deepest cracks that he hid from others, even Anne didn't know everything he had been through, both in childhood and young adulthood before they’d met. He had to admit though, begrudgingly, that he was scared. He was scared of a lot of things. Heights, commitment, unjust reporting, wrongful justice. Being a Dad was on that list of things and since Anne had left, shacked up with Dan and he had been approaching 40 sooner than he thought he would, that fear had made it’s way up the list further than he would really have considered it would, hovering there when Anne left and backing down a little in the last few years, only to suddenly rocket back up into its former spot when Anne announced her pregnancy.
It wasn’t that he was scared of being a godparent (why in the hell did Anne choose him for that anyway!? He wasn’t material enough for himself, let alone a small child.), it was that he was scared that he wouldn’t have a child of his own due to his own fears and that had driven him to ignore it. Only he didn't seem to be any good at that either right now.
“We can help you, Eddie, if you wish to have a baby.”
What the fuck!? Eddie’s train must have derailed at this point he swore he heard Venom say that they could help him have a baby. “Sorry, what? I must have heard you wrong.”
“You did not hear us wrong, Eddie.” The black tendrils of Venom’s body sild around both his shoulders, wriggling as the symbiote spoke. “We can help you, Eddie, if you wish to have a child. Our species are compatible, should you wish to breed without a mate.”
Eddie, stunned, just sat there, mouth open before clicking closed. “You mean like...uh...like a surrogate sorta thing?”
“I do not know what a surrogate is.” Venom blinked.
“Ah...shit, okay...so…” Eddie tried to explain it as best he could. “A surrogate is a person who takes other people’s children and has them for them. Like, they take people’s eggs and sperm-” He tried not to let his cheeks get red while he spoke. “-and put it in someone else’s body, to carry until they have the baby.”
“Hmmm…” Venom’s tendrils tapped thoughtfully. “Well, Eddie, Venom has eggs. We have eggs, you have the fertilization material.”
“Sperm, it’s called sperm.” If Eddie said that in a much higher voice than usual, it was totally not his fault. Not at all. Fuck off.
“Yes, so we could make a baby if we wanted.” Venom finished, flicking their tongue over their sharp-angled teeth. “We give Eddie time to think about it.” They murmured before they slithered back into whatever hole in Eddie’s body they rested in, leaving him alone in his living room with only his mind racing at a hundred miles an hour.
Despite his journalism taking off since Drake was in the picture and a comfortable amount of money coming in for him and Venom to survive on, also having given him the freedom to move from his old (and still rather trashed) apartment building to another, slightly more spacious option, he didn’t know if he could afford to have a baby right now, but like Venom said, he had time to think...after he finished the one article on his laptop first.
Jack would kill him if he didn’t get it in on time, again.