Archive of Our Own

Eddie tapped his fingers impatiently on the hot metal of the car. He didn’t like being stuck on the side of the road, knowing there might be an alien threat around the corner. 

They’d driven down to New Mexico to investigate, as both a reporter and an alien vigilante, the spot where an unknown object from space had crashed two days ago. According to the local sheriff, there was nothing left but a crater, but Eddie was hopeful that they would find what the sheriff had missed or was covering up. Considering that the last time something crashed in New Mexico Earth had been visited by a Norse god, Eddie was ready for just about anything.

Well, anything but two flat tires. They were stranded at an abandoned gas station more than thirty miles from the nearest town, hoping to hitch a ride to a mechanic. They’d been hoping for over an hour.

Eddie was getting antsy, but Venom was surprisingly quiet, an uneasy kind of quiet that didn't feel like the calm before a hunt. For the thousandth time, Eddie felt their gaze drift away from the potholed road and decrepit gas station, towards the desert and the low mesa beyond. “You like this landscape?”

It is peaceful, Venom said, although his mental voice was tense. He seemed distant. Had ever since they left Albuquerque, actually. 

“Well, we’re not going anywhere fast.” Eddie glanced behind them at the beater, and then in front of them at the still empty road. “D’you want to take a walk?”

Yes.

So Eddie passed control to Venom and they headed out into the desert. 

—

Venom wasn't sure what he was doing.

He had meant to go straight towards the mesa, which was the only notable thing in the landscape, but found himself instead stopping to examine the spiny plants that they wove through. 

He pulled off a leaf and put it in their mouth. Eddie smiled when he spit it out.

What.

“You tried to eat a leaf.”

Venom shrugged their shoulders. I wanted to know what it would taste like.

“And?”

It tastes like an Earth leaf.

“As opposed to a space leaf?”

You know that there are other planets, right?

Eddie pressed their lips together. “Are you okay? You seem on edge.”

He wasn’t wrong. Venom tried to share the feeling with Eddie.

“Mm. Feels like a sneeze.”

No, it doesn’t.

“Like right before a sneeze,” Eddie insisted. “Or a word on the tip of your tongue. Sort of a tickle.”

Sure, Venom relented. It feels like a secret.

“Secret from who?”

Venom didn’t have an answer. He’d been hiding things all his life: from Kree hosts, from Riot and the other Klyntar, from human law enforcement. They were starting to blur together.

A faint breeze rose to pick up the sweat sitting on their skin. They were a bit dehydrated. Not dangerously so, but Venom wished they’d bought some water at their last stop.

As they neared the base of the mesa, the ground turned uneven and rocky. Venom clambered up a boulder and their soft human fingers slipped, scraping their palm. 

Venom healed the scratch as he reached for the next boulder and they were small, so small, and their fingers dug into a crevice in the rock, heedless of the little predators that might live there. Their hand closed on something prickly that pierced their skin, only to be stopped by the layer of Klyntar flesh that ran just beneath their surface. They drew back, skin resealing, and made longer fingers, pulling themselves up and peering through the prickly stalks for hints of soft red leaves.

“V?”

Venom flicked their eyes over the rough, brown stone in front of them, seeing no crevice, no thorny stalks, no red plants.

“Those the space leaves you were looking for?” Eddie spoke lightly, but Venom could feel his mind working, turning over the details of the vision.

Venom thought of the leaves and found perfect memories of them: fleshy and deep red and covered in fine velvety fuzz. They were bitter but full of nutrients and precious moisture.

“V?” Eddie asked again. “What was that?”

I think that was the secret.

“Seemed like a memory,” Eddie half-said, half-asked.

Yes. Venom twined a few tendrils around Eddie's arms and he wasn’t sure if it was out of defensiveness or just a need to ground himself.

“I know this sounds like a stupid question, but… Is it your memory? Because it seemed like you didn’t have it until just now.”

Venom hesitated. Yes. He tried to think how to explain it in words that Eddie would understand. It is one of the—

A shadow flashed over them, too brief and dark to be a cloud. They looked up and saw a human silhouette zoom through the sky.

Venom’s first thought was that it was Iron Man. His second thought, as he hurriedly drew his tendrils inside, was that Iron Man was dead. Besides, it didn’t look quite like Iron Man: it was more streamlined, it seemed to have a mohawk, and the energy that beamed from the hands and feet flickered chaotically. Had the figure come to investigate the same crater that Venom and Eddie were looking for? Or had it come from the crater?

Then the figure wheeled back around and Venom saw the eight-pointed star on its chest and felt like an electric shock had gone through them. His muddled thoughts sharpened.

Eddie recognized it a second later. “Kree,” he breathed.

Starforce. Any Kree presence on Earth was disastrous, but that starburst ranked below only the hammer of the Accusers on the list of insignia that Venom never wanted to see again. Play human, Venom hissed. 

Eddie stared at the Kree, convincingly frozen in shock.

It wheeled back towards them and hovered upright, looking Eddie up and down. “What are you doing out here?” She was a female, Venom noted, and from the skin he could see under her armor, she was one of the pink-skinned Kree. More surprisingly, the armor itself was blue and red, not the dark green Venom remembered. A sign of political shakeups on Hala? That could be good or bad.

“What are— you’re—” Eddie stuttered. 

Mistake her for Rescue, Venom prompted, thinking of his first impression. 

“Pepper Potts?” Eddie said on cue, squinting at the Kree. Venom could feel their heart hammering, but to Eddie's credit, he didn't let it show in his voice.

“No. What are you doing out here?” she asked again, sounding impatient.

Good. Impatient meant not taking time to scrutinize them.

“I just—I came to see the mesa. My car got two flats and my phone’s dead and I was gonna try to hitchhike into town to find a mechanic but it’s been hours and I figured what the hell, I’m in New Mexico, this is what I came here for—” he gestured broadly at the landscape “—well, that and my uncle who lives out in…”

Marville, Venom reminded him.

“...Marville. So I took a walk to get a look at the desert up close.”

“There’s a gas station right there.” 

“It’s closed down. Left my car there in the shade.” 

Venom pushed his mass to just under their skin, ready to cover Eddie at a second's notice if the Kree didn't buy their story.

“Okay. Well, I’m a little busy now, but I’ll be back by tonight and give you a lift if you’re still here.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Without another word, she shot off into the blue sky.

Venom was suddenly aware of the tension in their bodies. He had anchored himself too strongly to Eddie's skeleton, prepared to augment Eddie's strength, and he felt Eddie's relief as he released his grip. 

Venom sat them down in the shade of the boulder. He could feel Eddie breathing deliberately, probably suppressing panic.

She is just one, Venom said.

“If there’s one, there could be more.”

That depends on what she is looking for. If she is tracking a fugitive, then she will take her quarry and go. Venom considered the possibility that she was tracking him. It seemed unlikely. He’d been gone a long time, and he wasn't worth all that. If she is a scout… I do not think they will invade. Earth is not valuable to them.

“Can we take her?”

If we ambush her, maybe. But killing her guarantees more.

“I’m sorry, V.”

Venom shook off worries about the future. We are lucky she did not suspect us. But we need to be gone before she comes back.

“Then we better hope we find a ride out of here soon.”

—

The sun was just starting to tilt westward and the only two cars that had passed hadn’t stopped for their raised thumb. They were sitting on the pavement in front of the gas station, waiting for their next chance. They should probably move back into the shade, but they wanted a clear view of the road. 

They were running through stone arches at the center of the village—the symbiote and his little host—and the hot sun was beating down on their bare head, their hood flapping behind them. An elder, twice as tall as they were, put a hand out to stop them. Her fingers rested half on gray skin and half on liquid mass, but she didn’t seem to notice. She spoke to them in a language Eddie did not understand, her voice affectionate and sharp at the same time. They jerked their hood up perfunctorily and wriggled away, extending a thin tendril to hold it in place as they ran.

Eddie blinked away the vision. “What did she say?”

That we would get sunburned. Venom took over their body to move them into the shade. They sat on the ground in front of the door to the convenience store. I think she was the mother of my host, Venom said at last.

“Huh.” Eddie mulled over the memory. “Your host was a little kid?”

Yes. We were children. Thoughts didn’t have volume, but his words were soft. I think it was a memory from before the Kree.

“Fuck.” Eddie fished for the right question to ask, wanting to know everything, not wanting to pry into something painful. “How are you feeling?”

Not sure, Venom said simply. You can ask questions. Explaining might help me understand.

“Hm.” Eddie leaned back against the glass door, but even that was warm against their skin. “I guess… Why are these memories popping up now?”

The heat.

“Hm?” 

Venom often became laconic when he was upset; speech was not instinctive for him. Early on, Eddie had assumed he wanted to be left to his thoughts. These days he knew that Venom appreciated some prodding to guide him through a conversation. 

They come when— Venom paused as though collecting his thoughts. Klyntar have two kinds of memories, he backtracked.  One that is like yours, stored in our nervous system, which we can recall at any time. One that is long-term storage, which is stored in every… cell. Eddie got the feeling that “cell” was an approximate term. The second kind can be passed between generations. I think.  

Eddie frowned, sorting through the information. “So it’s like a genetic memory?” 

Sure. The strands that encode it are similar to the strands that encode our genes.

“Okay. Huh. So you can’t remember genetic memories whenever you want?”

Right. They are activated by difficulty or danger. They help us adapt and survive in new environments.

“So when we’re thirsty, you remember foraging for plants that store water,” Eddie realized. “And when the sun’s hot, you remember about avoiding sunburn.”

Yes. Eddie could sense that Venom was waiting for more guiding questions.

“We’re in danger all the time. Why don’t you remember things during fights or hunts?”

I do, Venom said, sounding surprised. You call them flashbacks.

But those memories weren’t of childhood or ancestors; they were of Kree training. 

They usually seemed more distracting than helpful. The goal of that training wasn’t to make the Klyntar stronger; it was to hobble them. The last thing Venom needed in the middle of a fight was a reminder to follow orders, to put the host’s safety before his own, to show off the power of the Kree army. 

And what about the flashbacks—the genetic memories—that arose in moments of quiet? When Venom coiled around their chest and the memories told him that the non-Kree was an enemy. When Eddie asked Venom what he wanted to eat and the memories told him that weapons didn’t have opinions. When Venom purred a morning greeting and the memories told him that communication was not allowed. Why would those memories arise in times of safety? Unless—Eddie tried to dismiss the thought—Venom found time alone with Eddie stressful somehow.

Eddie settled on asking, “So why are all your genetic memories about the Kree? Why don’t you have genetic memories of other Klyntar?”

After they captured us, they gave us a drug that destroyed our genetic memories. Then during training, they would dose us with something that increased the rate at which we created new ones. Venom sounded detached, but Eddie knew that this couldn’t be easy. In almost a year, Venom had rarely brought up the Kree and never described his time with them in detail. 

Their chest was tight, and Eddie wasn't sure which of them was causing it. “So they replaced all your memories? How did those two memories of home get through?”

They must have still been in my regular memory. When they forced us to form new genetic memories, some of my memories of home were stored as well. Then, when they burned us—

“They did what? ”

They set us on fire, Venom said calmly. 

One of the uses of our genetic memories is as a backup if our nervous system is destroyed. So they replaced our genetic memories with what they wanted, and then they set us on fire. When we regrew, the only things we knew were what they wanted us to know. 

“Shit. Fuck. I’m so sorry.”

Venom twined a tendril through Eddie’s fingers and Eddie gave it a squeeze. It was more acknowledgment than Eddie had expected. Venom usually retreated when Eddie expressed sympathy or anger on his behalf. 

I am not going to let them recapture me, Venom said after a moment.

What did Venom mean by that? Hiding, running, fighting, but what would he do if that failed? “You think they will if they get the chance?”

They might. They took only young Klyntar originally so that we would adapt to Kree biology. But I am already adapted.

“How would they know you were one of the escapees?”

They would recognize me on sight. Other Klyntar have many different shapes, depending on their host, their home planet, their… anything. 

“Work? Mood? Style?”

Probably. Eddie got the feeling Venom was speculating. He’d had no close contact with other Klyntar, apart from his fellow escapees. 

Shapeshifting requires creativity. Individuality. The Kree wanted uniforms, with squads distinguished by colors. They wanted violence and intimidation. In Venom’s thoughts, Eddie saw fangs and claws and exaggerated musculature. It is difficult to change, even now. Shapes have to be learned. And I think the genetic memories might have served as a... like a library of forms. 

Eddie had always assumed that Venom’s shape was inherent to his species. No wonder Venom seemed ambivalent about his own appearance.

I wonder if one of these new memories will show the shape I took when I was a child, Venom mused. Or the name I was called.

Fuck, there was another thing. Eddie had never questioned Venom's name, but the glimpse of that village in Venom’s memories seemed… Well, it didn’t seem like a place where children were named after ways of killing. 

You seem upset.

“Yeah, no kidding. It’s sorta maybe the worst thing I’ve ever heard, actually.” Eddie said, his voice pitching up slightly against his will. “Like, every single thing you said in the last twenty minutes is horrible.” 

There, there, Venom said helplessly. Eddie felt him searching for something else to say, but “It’s okay” and “Don’t worry” weren’t applicable.

Eddie took a few deep breaths. “You don’t need to reassure me. I— You’re— Fuck, I’m not gonna let that Kree find you.”

Let’s hope a car comes by soon.

“No. Screw it,” Eddie decided, standing and dusting grit off their palms. “We’ll fucking walk to town. We’re not gonna sit here and wait for her to come back.”

—

They took the last swig from their water bottle. Before they’d left, they'd broken into the bathrooms around back of the gas station and gotten water from the tap, but now that that was gone the walk was only going to get worse. The approaching sunset offered little relief from the heat, and they had no idea how much longer it would be before they found human habitation. They had at least twenty miles still to go before they reached Marville, but they were both hoping to spot a roadside store first. Or a car. Did no one come and go from this town?

There was a rushing noise behind them and they instinctively looked over their shoulder to see a trail of light like a comet shooting towards them, bright against the dimming sky. Shit. They glanced around for somewhere to hide, but the land around the road was flat. And she had probably spotted them already.

Eddie pretended to be relieved when she pulled up in front of them, even as their mouth was so dry Venom worried he wouldn't be able to speak.

“Hi. Don’t think I got your name.” Her voice was fake-friendly, sharp with suspicion.

Lie, Venom advised.

“I’m Tom,” Eddie said. “You?”

“Carol.” A human name, even though she was making no effort to blend in otherwise. Venom wondered what game she was playing.

“Carol” smiled thinly. “Where you goin’, Tom?”

“Somewhere with a phone and some water, I hope.” Venom didn't notice that he was swirling through their hands, ready to form claws, until Eddie surreptitiously pressed their palms against their legs.

“I told you I’d be back by. Seems crazy, walking thirty miles through the desert without water.”

Eddie shrugged. “You seemed busy. Wasn’t sure you’d be back.”

The Kree looked them up and down slowly, as if—shit, did she have some kind of scanner in that helmet? She brought her fist up to point at his face and when she spoke the pretense of politeness was gone. “What’s a Kree soldier doing on Earth?”

What?

“What?” Eddie’s confusion was genuine.

“Planet C-53,” she snapped. “Why are you here?”

“I know what Earth is; I’m from here,” Eddie insisted. Venom raised their hands in a pacifying gesture.

“You’ve got Kree tech.”

“The fuck I do! How do I know you’re not that…‘Kree,’” Eddie said, deliberately stumbling over the word.

“Hold out your arm,” the Kree commanded.

“No!”

The light around her fist glowed brighter. “Hold out your arm. I’m going to check the color of your blood.”

Do it, Venom urged. Kree bleed blue. Maybe it will throw her off.

“Fine. Fuck, fine.” Eddie offered his arm. 

"No sudden moves." 

She touched down in front of them and put a glowing finger on their skin. Venom fought the urge to either flinch away or tear her face off.

There was a sudden searing heat. 

“Agh!” Venom blocked the pain, so Eddie faked it. Through the scorched skin, red blood welled up.

“You’re really human.” She studied him. “Where’d you get that morph?”

Their chest ached at the word. “Morph?”

“Don’t play coy; I saw it on the scan. How does a human end up with Kree tech?”

Venom's resolve broke. “I am not your tech," he snarled, letting his own voice bleed through Eddie’s.

She tensed at the sound of his voice, but her own stayed even. “Okay.” Her helmet folded away. “I think we’ve got some mistaken identities here. I’m not a Kree; you’re not a morph. I’m human. What are you?”

“If you are not Kree, why are you wearing Starforce armor?” Venom challenged.

“Long story; not your problem.” She was cocky, Venom thought, but then if they could fly and shoot photon blasts they’d probably be cocky too.

Venom emerged, slowly so as not to startle her, and covered Eddie. “Earth is our home. If there are Kree here, it is our problem. It is everyone’s problem.”

Carol took in the Klyntar slowly. “You sure you’re not a morph? 'Cause you look a hell of a lot like one.”

“Long story; not your problem,” Venom shot back. They stared each other down. A part of Venom still itched to stab her through the neck. He was quick; he might kill her before she got a shot off. But if she was lying, he risked bringing the Kree army down on their heads. And if she was telling the truth… No knowing what that entailed.

The more he thought about it though, the more he was convinced that she wasn’t a Kree scout. It was her name; the blue and red of her armor; her offer to help a stranded human. Even her reference to the gas station spoke to a more casual familiarity with Earth than a Kree should have. Besides, Starforce heroes didn’t impersonate other species. It was beneath them.

He passed that thought to Eddie and felt him relax fractionally.

What do you think?

Eddie still struggled to communicate through their mental link, but Venom caught the echo of Carol saying “long story” through the background noise of Eddie’s thoughts.

Venom was in agreement. Whatever was going on, he’d rather have more information than less. “We will tell our story if you tell yours.”

“Deal. But first, let’s get you to town before you die of heatstroke.”

—

“Huh.” Carol took another sip of the Coke she’d gotten from the vending machine downstairs.  

She’d flown them out to Marville, which had been an awkward but brief trip. They’d touched down on the outskirts, walked to the Bluebird Motel, and each gotten a room there. Now Eddie and Venom were sitting on the bed in her room while she sprawled in the chair. 

“I guess we went pretty similar ways. Your brainwashing sounds even less fun than mine.”

“I did not know the Kree took other species captive,” Venom remarked. He had formed a separate head so that he and Eddie could both participate in the conversation, but Eddie had mostly kept quiet, watching both of them closely. " I know all of my hosts were real Kree,” Venom continued. “I wonder how many of the other soldiers were actually prisoners.”

“Almost none, if I had to guess,” Carol said. “I mean, they experimented a lot—genetic engineering, memory modification. They kept me away from it, for obvious reasons, but I got the impression most of it failed. Besides, apart from humans and Xandarians, most species couldn’t pass as Kree. Were all morphs actually Klyntar?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck. You know, I saw the morph squads around all the time. Never occurred to me to wonder if they were more than fancy biotech, even after I was free.”

“No one knew except the trainers. Even soldiers I was assigned to.”

Venom registered that Eddie’s face had done something only because Carol’s eyes flicked towards it. Not for the first time, Venom wondered how much of his human partner’s facial expressions he missed, even with almost a year of practice.

“I can’t imagine,” Eddie said. “Years without communicating with your host?"

Venom saw flickers of solitary confinement cells in Eddie’s mind. Humans were a social species; without interaction, their brains deteriorated. Klyntar were a symbiotic species—

Not that extreme, Venom answered silently. But yes, being cut off from a host is unnatural. In truth, Venom had no idea whether it had done physical damage to him, and if so how much. He was alive and functioning, so there was that.

“Are there any Klyntar left on Hala?” Carol asked. There was an underlying tightness in her voice which suggested that if there were, there soon wouldn’t be.

“Everyone in my division escaped or died, but there were other morph divisions. I do not know what happened to them.”

“Huh. I tangle with Kree pretty regularly and I haven’t seen a morph soldier in… at least a decade, Earth-time. I wonder where they all went.”

Venom wondered if the Kree had executed all the remaining Klyntar after the escape. We never went back for them, he told Eddie silently. He felt a rush of sadness and understanding from Eddie.

“What sector are Klyntar from?”

“The Klyntar homeworld is in galaxy M-31.”

“Andromeda? Damn, that’s right next door. Have you gone back?”

Venom shook their head. “Those of us corrupted by the Kree are not welcome back. Besides, most Klyntar have never seen the homeworld. They live in small colonies on other planets. I think I came from one of those.”

“Any idea where?”

Venom thought back on his reclaimed memories, turning over each detail: the desert, the red plants, the stone arches, the gray-skinned people with horned heads. “Torfa, probably.” It was a guess. He had never been there, with the Kree or since, but he had seen a few Torfans on other planets, and he'd seen an image of a Torfan temple once on a planetary registry. The architecture looked similar.

Carol set her Coke down on the table. “I’ve been there. One of my last missions with the Kree.”

“What was it like?”

She searched his face, probably judging how blunt she could be. “It was a ruin. Barely populated. The Kree bombed the hell out of them for harboring Skrulls. I’m sorry."

“Oh." Venom wondered if he should be hurt by the news. His village had been destroyed when he was taken. There had been no life waiting for him there regardless. So he hadn't lost anything, right? There was nothing there for him to miss. 

My host and I were going to be copilots, he recalled suddenly. Two of our teachers, a symbiotic pair, were retired cargo pilots, and they told us stories. We were going to fly cargo ships and see all the planets. Her parents thought it was cute. Funny, he wouldn't have thought missing someone was stress enough to trigger memories.

Eddie didn’t react in front of Carol, but he gave Venom a little scratch where his hand was resting on Venom's mass.

Carol grabbed a flyer sitting on the table and scribbled a number on the back. "If you ever need a lift off-world or something, let me know. This isn't my number," she added, handing it over, "because I'm not planetside too often. It'll go to my partner, and she has a communicator that'll reach me, or she can put you in touch with friends who can help."

"I owe you already," Venom said, accepting the number. "If you weakened the empire, you did more than I could."

"Plus you saved our asses out there," Eddie added with a smile. "If there's anything we can do for you…" 

Venom slid back inside and stood to leave, but Eddie held them back a second. "Hey, that crater south of town, that was you, right?"

Carol shook her head. "Reethans. They're dead."

"Oh, good. Well, guess we'll still need to go out there. Gotta give my editor something."

"I mean, I'm not opposed to doing an interview," Carol offered, shrugging one shoulder.

“Are you serious?”

"Sure.” Carol smirked. “The government already knows about me. And SHIELD's PR people can kiss my ass."

"You'll still be here tomorrow?" Eddie checked.

"I was thinking I'd head out around ten. Eight o'clock?"

Eddie grinned. "Eight."

—

They headed out and crossed the cracked parking lot towards their own room. 

She would probably like us less if she knew we eat people, Venom reflected. Good thing she is off-world so much. 

Eddie sucked air in through their teeth. "Yeah, don't think that'd go over well. We can be space pen-pals."

Not everything that happens in space is a space-whatever.

Eddie grinned. "You say that 'cause you're a space-whatever."

We could both be space-whatevers. We could take her offer.

"You could live out your childhood dream," Eddie said gently.

I have seen plenty of planets. I did not enjoy it. But I might like it better with you.

“Aw.” They let themselves into their motel room. Eddie found the light switch with their fingers. “V, I’ve been meaning to ask. Those memories you have of Kree training. Sometimes you have them when there isn’t any danger. When it’s just the two of us.”

Sometimes just the two of us is frightening, Venom said. Most of my life, it would have gotten me killed. 

He navigated them to the bathroom sink and refilled their water bottle from the tap. They’d had plenty of water since they got into town, but he wanted to be sure. 

I thought it would get better when I got used to Earth, when I felt safer. But all the time I have more to lose.

“We’ll be okay. Even if it had been Starforce today— Earth has fought off invasions before. And from what Carol said, the Kree are weaker now.”

Yes. Venom wrapped around their shoulders and squeezed. 

Eddie stroked their fingers over the exposed mass. “Another thing.”

Yes?

“Venom, did Riot give you your name or...?”

The Kree gave each morph a code name. Klyntar do not use names, or your name is just the thought of you. I think other Klyntar might have names in their hosts’ languages.

“Oh. I wish I was better at communicating mentally. I mean, I’m working on it.” Eddie leaned against the bathroom counter. “But in the meantime, should I call you something else?”

Venom is my name. Even if I remember my Torfan name, I will not change it. He reached into Eddie’s visual cortex and overlaid his own face on Eddie’s reflection in the bathroom mirror. And this is my form, now. I like that you — Venom tried to press on Eddie memories of Eddie saying Venom’s name with a smile, or smiling at seeing his face. It makes you happy. It makes me happy. I do not want that to change.

Eddie scratched gently at the mass on their shoulder. “Okay, V. Venom.”

V is good too, Venom said. V is ours. 

O