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Flash Thompson had burst in through the doorway like some kind of knight in shining fucking armor.
It didn’t matter if his “armor” was a brown canvas jacket, jeans, and a red cotton t-shirt, he still had all the air of a gallant warrior come to save his beloved. The fluorescent lights outlined his figure, glinting off his prostheses; shining off his strawberry-blond hair. He looked good, and that very fact just made Eddie’s blood boil even hotter than it already was on this shitstorm of a night.
Even his words had sounded rehearsed: “Don’t worry - I’m here now, and nobody is going to harm that symbiote ever again.”
“Thompson!” Eddie scoffed; squared his shoulders and crossed his arms across his chest. Anything to make himself look bigger. Anything to ignore the barely-concealed glee his other was squealing in the back of his mind. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, soldier-boy… but the symbiote is back where it belongs. With me.”
Beside them, Dr. Steven had started backing off from the two men. Eddie barely heard when he muttered, “Think I’ll call security…” He couldn’t get over the fact that Flash fucking Thompson was here, with his stupid handsome face and waltzing in here like he knew, like he just knew they’d had a bad night and that they needed help. But Eddie wasn’t going to ask him for help. Not now.
Thompson scoffed and closed the distance between them to just a couple feet, paying no mind to the Alchemax scientist currently trying to get security on the line. “‘Where it belongs’? What a joke. You’ve done nothing but harm, Brock.” He set his stance. He looked like he was about to do a bad Rocky impression. “We’re going to do this again. Just like we always do. I’m going to fight you for it.”
“You’re- we’re- what? When have we ever-?”
“You heard me, Brock!” He grinned and started moving; getting limber; loosening up his muscles. “This is how we’re going to settle this. I’m going to knock you on your ass, and then I’m taking my partner and we’re going to get back to fighting the good fight.”
In the back of his mind, his other had gone from delight to concern and now fear. The symbiote gave off the very distinct impression of pleading-
“Eddie, Eddie no! Don’t fight!”
“This is stupid, we can take him, we-” When he tried to tap into their bond, though, nothing happened. Eddie stared at his hands. They looked completely human. He glanced between Flash, now starting to throw shadow-punches, and his own completely useless human arms. He worked out, sure, but fighting? “What the fuck? Where are you, why aren’t you-”
“My friend’s not gonna help you fight me, Brock! Come on! Get the hell over here and take me on!”
“Eddie, need to talk to him. Just talk to him. Doesn’t understand-”
“I’m- I’m not going to talk to him, just get out here and-”
“-not fighting him! Called me partner, called me friend.” He scowled at the affection which it said those words with. “Just talk to him, Eddie, please-”
“Fine, I’ll fight him myself,” he muttered, and tried to copy Thompson’s stance. Fucking hell. He didn’t know what he was doing.
“DO NOT FIGHT HIM,” it practically roared in the back of his mind, loud enough to make Eddie stop and press his hand to his temple. Thompson stopped and stared at them, bewildered.
Well, now this was just getting embarrassing.
Eddie glared at the other man but muttered through gritted teeth, “Then what do you want me to do? He’s going to keep at this until I give in!”
“Yeah, that’s right! I’ll fight for you, Venom! I’ll do it!”
It pushed an idea at him. He balked. “No.”
“Will keep him from fighting.”
“No!”
“Eddie, he will destroy you-” It spared no detail in a series of images of Flash rather impressively holding his own against a variety of enemies - without the symbiote’s assistance. It even provided a helpful depiction of Eddie himself crumpled on the ground, clutching at his shin and with a broken nose. Apparently the metal prostheses could leave some fairly significant bruises. “-for nothing.”
“This is a terrible idea.”
His would-be opponent was starting to appear more confused than angry. He narrowed his eyes as Eddie approached him, and put his arms up to guard. “Brock, you know I’ll lay you out-”
“Just shut up, Thompson,” he snarled, and smacked Flash’s hands away. “I’m not fighting you.” Before Flash could fix the stunned look on his face, Eddie grabbed his shirt, reached around to hold the back of his head still, and kissed him hard. Tendrils wrapped around Eddie's arms and hands, caressing his face as well, making claws that dug just enough pressure into Flash to hold him still.
Much to his surprise, Thompson did not immediately try to tear his face off. He froze at first, and then fisted Eddie’s shirt in turn, hauling him closer. He made a kind of noise when Eddie bit down on his lip a little, but his grip relaxed. When Eddie finally pulled away, he dared a glance at Dr. Steven, who was looking away a little embarrassedly, and then down to Flash, his lips still parted.
Finally, his green eyes fluttered open, and he gazed up the couple inches that separated him and Eddie. “I, uh-?”
“I said I wasn’t going to fight you.” He hoped his face wasn’t as red as it felt - or as Flash’s looked. Neither of them had moved. The symbiote colored his words. “Why are you here? Why are you looking for us now?”
“I… I need…” Something fell away from his face; all the bravado and pride vanished. “Andi’s hurt,” he blurted, “she’s hurt and she’s in the hospital and I let the symbiote down and now I’ve let Mania down too and-” Flash tightened his grip on Eddie’s shirt again, shaking him a little. “I need my partner! When I saw you walking up here, I didn’t know what to think, I mean I still am a little, um, confused-”
As Thompson spoke, his other had been feeding him context while it listened with growing alarm. They knew Mania from the world where they had fought the Poisons. It wrapped him in thicker strands, further giving them their collective appearance as Venom. “We will help you find what has happened to Mania,” they said. Eddie didn't need to think too much harder on that. “Where did she last-”
A loud SKRUNCH from the other side of the lab interrupted them. They both looked towards the other door, alarmed by Dr. Steven's forlorn, "Oh, no!" and the appearance of a red-and-blue clad vigilante. Venom snarled softly under their breath.
Please don't make me repeat that for him.
"Spider-Man!" Flash said excitedly. And then he seemed to realize he was still holding onto Venom. "Oh, shit, Spider-Man-"
"What the hell is going on here?!" the newcomer demanded to know. He had locked directly onto Venom. "I swear, if you've hurt Flash-"
"He hasn't! They haven't!" Flash turned around and put himself like a barrier between Spider-Man and Venom. He held his arms out like it was going to do anything to deter a man who could break steel beams with his bare hands.
"Out of the way, Flash, we'll-"
"No! Stop! We don't have to fight!"
"Flash," Spider-Man said, clearly holding himself back now, "I know you think that the alien is on your side, but as you can clearly see, it's not. Move. Now."
“Spidey, come on,” Flash pleaded, “you know me, right? You trust me, right? I came in here all ready to beat the shit out of Brock but then he, uh, did something… else.”
Behind the mask, Spider-Man seemed to narrow his eyes. “Something else?” When Flash didn’t immediately respond, he whipped around and pointed at Dr. Steven, who now looked like he was trying to weigh his options in an increasingly volatile situation. “You, second-smartest guy in the room-”
“That’s Doctor Steven to you,” he muttered. He appeared a little insulted at being assumed the second-smartest.
“Great. You must have seen what happened in here, right?”
“I couldn’t even begin to explain it.”
“Will you get out of here? We have no quarrel with you, Spider-Man, and much more pressing matters to attend to,” Venom said.
“Wait!” Flash took their arm in one hand and extended the other out to Venom’s longtime foe. “Spider-Man must’ve gotten my message from my buddy Pete! He’s here to help save Mania. Right?”
Spider-Man crossed his arms and scoffed. “With him?”
“...yes?”
“We already agreed to help find who hurt Flash’s protege. We don’t need you.”
“Anyone tell you how annoying it is when you overuse ‘we’?”
The comment had been directed at Venom, but Flash looked like he’d just been struck. “Wow, did you just completely forget about when my partner went through all that effort to try and reconcile with you?”
“I’m not-” Spider-Man stammered. “Look, my beef is with Brock!”
“Eddie’s just trying to help!”
“Oh, so he’s ‘Eddie’, now?”
Steven cleared his throat across the room. “If I might interject on this costume party… if there is another symbiote involved, it probably would be easiest to find it with… you know.” He gestured vaguely at Venom.
“Thank you.”
“I could’ve told you that,” Spider-Man said.
“Then come with us!” Flash looked up at Venom. “We can use all the help we can get, right? Just give me a lift and I’ll do anything I can.”
“Wait, wait,” Spider-Man interrupted, “you’re getting a lift from Venom?”
“Well, yeah,” Flash said, blushing faintly. “I mean, we’re both… connected to the symbiote, and kind of by proxy to Mania…”
“I can carry you.”
“I would hate to… uh… throw you off-balance.”
“Unbelievable.” He tossed his hands in the air. “You know a guy since he was sixteen…”
“Just admit,” they started, and then the symbiote faded away from Eddie’s face, “that you’re jealous.” He smirked at the vigilante.
Spider-Man pointed two fingers at him. “I’m watching you. Both of you.”
Eddie snorted and rolled his eyes. “We’re terrified.” Before Spider-Man could snap off any more half-hearted threats, they took Flash Thompson in arm and secured him to them before moving out of the lab and to the emergency exit. Flash clung to them tight as they swung off into the night, the symbiote focusing its energy on seeking its sibling even as they could sense Spider-Man close behind.
“So, uh,” Flash asked after checking to make sure his hero was probably out of earshot, “what, uh… whose idea was… all that?”
“Don’t you know? It’s about us. And we-”
Their swing took a deep arc, making Flash clutch to them tighter. Still, he was smiling broadly, and Eddie decided that maybe it wasn’t such a bad look on him after all.
“-are Venom.”
“Yeah,” he agreed breathlessly, “I guess we are. Let’s go kick some ass and be heroes, yeah?”
They grinned in return.
“Agreed.”