Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shiver Stop Shivering

“I’m just saying,” Madison drawls as she waves the onion from her cocktail through the air.  “It’s almost a year since your ex left, and six full months since you met Rafael, and he is so into you—”

“Oh my God,” Eddie groans.

“Super into you,” confirms Julio.  “It’s sickeningly sweet.  Even my má knows the saga of you two not really dating, and she’s never met either of you.  She says it’s better than a telenovela.”

“That’s how much we all yap about you lovebirds,” Tanya agrees.

Eddie presses his palms together in a pleading pose and begs, “Guys, please, no matchmaking.”

“At the very least, bone the guy.  The sexual tension is really starting to get unnerving.  You said it was two bad break-ups of long-terms in a row—so maybe try something less committed.”

He feels his good-humored smile slip.  “Yeah, nah, I’m…I’m not really wired that way.  I need long-term.”

“Okay, so long-term him!  Rafa likes all your dumb little quirks, and he’s a fan of your reporting, and he smiles like a fool when you start off on one of your righteous tangents.  Take a chance.  Use the Christmas break to plan the perfect first date, then completely scrap that, because it’s guaranteed to go adorably awry.”

“Fine.  Hard maybe.”

They laugh and jeer.  “That’s not a thing!” Tanya tells him, but they (mercifully) drop the subject.

An hour later, he’s walking home, enjoying the weather (light snow, not too cold or too humid) and thinking about Rafael, with his boy-next-door curls and his caramel skin and his twinkling eyes.  Rafa is the first person (of any gender) that his writer pals have shoved at him who isn’t at least ten years younger than Eddie, so that’s a plus.  He’s nice, and he’s smart, and when he edits Eddie’s shit, he’s gentle but firm.  Also, when he grew a beard in November, he was seriously rocking some big DILF energy.

So yeah, it’s tempting.  Real tempting.

But all he can think about is them getting somewhere good and stable, somewhere that makes him think it’s gonna last, and then getting dumped on his ass again for not being good enough.  Sometimes it’s genuinely because of something he consciously chose to do, like when he put being right (and the associated ego boost) before Anne’s privacy, but a lot of times it’s either a flimsy excuse or something he can’t (or doesn’t know how to) change about himself.

Before Anne, the standard reason had been that he’s too pushy and takes too many risks.  Against all odds, Venom fixed that; his writing team considers him shy and skittish.

It took them three tries to get him to come out drinking with them, but only two weekly hangouts to guess that he was recovering from the Worst Breakup Ever.  After that, well…he got a little drunk and weepy and told them about ‘V,’ who was big and brash and impulsive and selfish and immature and amazing.  He told them about rough starts and violent disagreements and two not-quite-breakups.  He told them how doting V could be, and how V accepted more of his failings than anyone else had, and how V knew him inside and out (he didn’t tell them it was literal, though).

He told them how V had always said Eddie was perfect for him, and that they were meant for each other, and that they belonged together.

He told them how V had taken one look at some sweet little college freshman and just fucking left without a word (he didn’t mention how the kid was Spider-Man, because that would’ve raised some really weird questions).

He didn’t have to tell them that it left him in pieces, because they’d met him in the midst of Scotch-taping himself back together.

Clean up your act, get a job, pretend you know what ‘the Blip’ is, pretend you’re not from another universe where you’re a killer vigilante and a wanted criminal, pretend you know someone—anyone at all—besides three nosy kids and the asshole alien who dumped you for one of them.

He’s honestly always liked his chances here better than back home.

He takes a long breath.  This version of New York is a little cleaner than the one he remembers, and a little safer thanks to all the metas running around.  Maybe it’s not smart to still be in the habit of wandering through high crime areas like he’ll eat anybody who tries to stab him…  But Hell’s Kitchen has sort of adopted him, and he did get saved by Daredevil the one time he got too drunk to defend himself (and boy, did Eddie’s bisexuality reassert itself very loudly when two gang members went flying and he was face-to-amazing-ass with the red-clad hero).  Point being:  maybe once a month, some kid will jump out and demand cash, then start stammering apologies when he sees it’s Eddie.  He gets a lot of ‘sorry, man’ and ‘big fan of your stuff’ and ‘thanks for that piece about water quality in June.’

Anyway, it’s half past seven, so it’s not like he’s out late.

He’s passing an alley that’s darker than most, when a rasping voice says, “Eddie.”

His heart skips, and he stops walking.  “Whattaya want, Parker?  Your girlfriend got another scoop for me?  Usually, she brings it herself, because she’s got the decency to—”

“Peter is asleep,” says the voice in the alley.  “We wanted to talk to you, Eddie, and Peter thinks that would be inappropriate.”

Eddie barrels into the darkness and spits out, “You’re goddamn fucking right, it’s inappropriate!  What the fuck could you ‘n I possibly have to talk about, huh?  You left.  All that shit about ‘we’ and ‘us’ and ‘perfect symbiosis,’ and you just fucking—”

“We—I am in love with Peter.”

Eddie makes a wounded sound before he can stop himself.  “And why the fuck would I wanna know that?” he asks in a tiny, trembling voice.  “You used to say you loved me, that we’d be together forever.”

“I do love you.  You are my friend, Eddie—my best friend.  And Peter doesn’t love us—me.”

So now Eddie feels put on the spot, like he fuckzoned somebody who was never into him.

Screw that noise—Venom was the one to turn their thing romantic, and Venom was the one to turn it sexual, too.

“Fuck.  This isn’t fair, V.  You can’t just show up after what you did and expect me to give—what, sympathy?  Advice?  I have a nice life now.  I have a shitty little apartment and a half-decent job where the things I write help people, and a big stupid cuddly cat, and friends who helped me get over you, because it fucking destroyed me when you left.  And you think you can just come back into my life like you didn’t completely wreck it, just because now we both know that I was in love with you and you weren’t in love with me, so somehow I’m supposed help you now that you’re in the same boat.  Fuck you, V.  I hope he keeps you for a nice, long time, so you can have all the fun of being right there and watching him not love you back.”

In the darkness, Venom hisses and says (rather sulkily), “You are a shitty friend, Eddie.”

Eddie feels like he just took a punch to the gut.  “Well,” he says, and he doesn’t really care about how wet his eyes are or how shaky his voice still is.  “You were a shitty, abusive boyfriend who abandoned me, so you don’t really deserve my friendship.  Goodbye, V.”

And he just leaves.  He’s not going to give Venom the satisfaction of a fight (he’d lose, even if he didn’t care whether he hurt Peter), and he’s sure as shit not going to be some shoulder to cry on.

He pulls out his phone and shoots a text to MJ.

tell ur bf his roommate has been joyriding while he’s asleep

As he approaches his building, he notices a crowd, and a strange light and—

Great.  The fucking building is on fire.

“Eddie!  Oh, che fortuna!”

The plump little nonna from the floor above waddles over with his stupid giant fluffy black cat.  The damn thing is almost as big as she is.

“Mrs. DiPazzi, what happened?”

“Those tracksuit ragazzi showed up and started throwing Molotov cocktails at the loft next door!  I thought they learned their lesson when Ronin was here after the Snap, but I guess they’ve forgotten what fear is.  I hope one of those nice superheroes comes to teach them some manners.  Here—Snowflake came to get me, grazie a Dio.  I might not have known anything was wrong until I was trapped, and meeting a fireman is not worth the risk at my age.”

Snowflake complacently drapes his furry bulk around Eddie’s shoulders like a thirty-pound purring scarf with very little encouragement from Mrs. DiPazzi.

“What would I even do with a big strapping fireman—eh, Snowflake?  Yes, such a good boy, saving my life like that…  Oh, bene, my son is finally here!  Take care of yourself, Eddie.”

“You too, Mrs. DiPazzi.”  His phone buzzes.

MJ
wow rude. did he do that 2 u 2?

He snorts.

prob
so my apartment is currently burning down

His phone actually rings.

MJ would like you to join a video call

He snorts and hits the ‘accept’ button.

~“Like, literally on fire or—oh, never mind, it’s on TV.”~  The girl looks vaguely impressed.  ~“Bummer.  Well, I’ll text you the address.”~

“Address for what?”

~“My place, weeb.  My dad’s out of town anyway, and your place is on fire.”~

“You have a dad?  I thought somebody used black magic on a QAnon post and it came to life.”

~“That’s fair.  But seriously, how many people do you actually know in our universe?  And how many of those would loan out their guest room, indefinitely, for free, to a scruffy guy who occasionally talks to somebody who can’t hear him anymore?”~

“Now you’re just bein’ hurtful.”

~“Also, I want to meet Snowflake in person—hiii, sweeetieeee, pwecious foofy dummy!”~

Snowflake yawns at the phone.

~“Awww, wookit all doze widdle fangies!”~

“Gawd, stop.  Thank you for offering me ‘n this big dumb furball a place to crash.  We’ll head over soon as we can get a ride.”

~“No worries, dude; it’s Christmas.  In fact, y’know, I’m gonna send Aunt May’s boyfriend to come pick you up; he’s gotta come get me for family ice skating anyway.”~

Thirty minutes later, he’s waiting at the corner when a nice black car pulls up.

“You Eddie?” the driver asks.

“That’s me.  Sorry I smell like a bar and look like I’ve been crying about my ex in an apartment fire—I was at a bar and then I was crying about my ex when I saw my damn building on fire.  This is Snowflake; I promise he’s harmless.”

“I’ve had worse passengers.  Hop in, and we’ll get you guys to MJ’s place.”

Which is in fucking Central Park East, eighteen floors up.

“Oh my glob, hewwo fwuffy-wuffy!” MJ coos as soon as she opens the door.  She squishes Snowflake’s face between her palms, to the cat’s extremely vocal approval.  “Whatta big purr, whatta big purr!”

“You done yet?” Eddie asks.

She’s back to her blank, aloof self in half a second.  “You look like shit.  When I get back from family skate night with the Parkers and the Starks, we’re eating a gallon of ice cream and not talking about your ex.  Lock the door, don’t answer for strangers from other dimensions, yadda yadda.  Wifi password is ‘MJ is the Queen of all existence and everyone else is her slave 1.’  Capital Q, no spaces.  Cat food and litter will be delivered in twenty minutes, no contact; just go down to the lobby and show them this—your new key card.”  It has his name and photo on it, and her apartment number.

“You, uh…you work pretty fast, huh?”

“Double-teamed it with Ned.  Benefits of having smart friends whose careers you don’t ruin with hacked emails.  I recommend posting the apartment fire on your Insta; I’ll setup a GoFundMe tomorrow.”

And she shoves him into the apartment.

Something catches Snowflake’s attention, and he launches off Eddie’s shoulder—and when a thirty-pound monster of a Maine Coon launches unexpectedly, even a guy like Eddie can end up knocked on his ass.

“Ow, you damn traitor!”

Snowflake has discovered the Christmas tree.  He’s just sitting at the bottom, staring up at it.

“Don’t even think about it,” Eddie warns.  “Nothin’ll get us kicked out faster than your dumb ass climbing up that tree and wrecking it.”

Snowflake expresses his opinion of the situation with a raucous sneeze, then prances off to lounge in front of the fake fire (because of course the place has a heater shaped like a fucking fireplace).

There’s a note on the coffee table (next to an array of ‘conversation starter’ literature).

Eddie-spaghetti
Guest room down the hall to the right, next door to guest bath.  Linens and towels are fresh.  Leftover vegan lasagna (shut up, I’m trying smthg) in fridge, pop the lid before heating.  This remote is for the TV, or you can just talk to Alexa.  Back by 10pm, we’ll talk then.
MJ

He watches the really depressing news report about the apartment fire.  He goes down to get Snowflake’s supplies (there’s even a pack of compostable litter trays, though the sheer size of the cat means it’s wisest to spread them out in a grid).  Then he stretches out on the couch and continues his efforts to understand this universe’s YouTube stars.  He ends up watching three videos about Victorian clothing, one critiquing the hypothetical efficacy of sexualized costume armor designs, one TikTok compilation about being the awkward oldest friend (it hits very close to home), two vids of humorously misheard lyrics, and has just started his second video of some soothing guy restoring old paintings when MJ gets home (Snowflake surfaces from his explorations to rub up against her knees).

“Julian Baumgartner,” she says approvingly.  “High quality ASMR.”

“How was skating?”

“It was okay.  Happy and Aunt May were sickeningly adorable.  Pepper and Morgan were great, mostly because Morgan is a lot better at skating than the rest of us—literally skated circles around us.  Peter was a little weird, even for him; seemed like the roommate was sulking.”

Snowflake seizes his usual spot, loafed on Eddie’s chest and purring (like Venom used to do, in fact).

“Yeah?” Eddie says in a petty tone.  “Who cares?  Fuck that guy.  Selfish asshole…”

She perches on the edge of the coffee table and leans toward him.  “Are you okay?  Because I kind of thought you were more ‘over him’ than this.  Didn’t I hear Julio saying just the other day how you and Rafael were totally on the brink of dating?”

Eddie focuses on petting his giant cat.  “I am—we are.  Just…when he hijacked Parker earlier, it was to come find me and tell me he’s in love with the kid.  And what am I s’posed to do with that, right?  ‘Hey, Eddie, I know you’re in love with me, but I’m in love with this other guy who’s younger, smarter, more ethical, and generally just better than you, but he doesn’t feel the same way, so I’m gonna cry to you about it since you’re my best friend.’  Can you believe that shit?  Had the fuckin’ nerve to call me his ‘best friend’ after all the shit he’s pulled, all the tantrums, all the times he broke my shit or broke my bones or fixed me up just so he could hurt me again…after he took one look at Parker and just left even though he said we’d be together forever.”

MJ holds out a box of tissues, and Eddie realizes he’s been crying.  He takes a handful and blows his nose, and his dumb cat puts a giant fuzzy paw on his face in a boop so epic it should be conveyed in all caps.

“You have kinda crappy taste in boyfriends,” says MJ.  “But you have pretty good taste in cats.  I’m gonna go get the ice cream and some spoons, and we’re gonna marathon some Nailed It International.  The Mexican version is especially wholesome.”

.End.

Chapter Text

Dripping With Alchemy

“Jesus,” Eddie marvels at his phone the next morning.  “You’re an evil genius.”

“I know,” MJ replies, taking a printout and sticking it to her rolling bulletin board.

Eddie’s GoFundMe is called ‘Don’t Let Snowflake Be Homeless For Christmas.’  It features a picture of Snowflake staring catnip-eyed at the Christmas tree and a news photo of their blackened apartment building.  It’s been up for two hours and is at three thousand bucks of its 10K goal.

“So!” says MJ, stepping back and gesturing at her ‘case board’ (her words; Eddie thinks ‘tinfoil hat board’ would be more accurate).  “Tracksuits burn the place next to yours after some dude in a Ronin costume gets spotted going in.  Day before, somebody in a Ronin costume is spotted at the scene of an explosion or crash or something at some charity thing full of creepy rich dudes on 68th.  Somewhere in between, one of the rich dudes who attended the party turns up dedzors with a stab-wound nobody seems to wanna talk about.  Is it a Ronin stab?  Was the dead Ritchie Rich a baddie?  Who the heck is the Tracksuit Mafia?  Who are they working for?  And why was there a guy who looks a lot like Hawkeye spotted fleeing the fire with a young girl?”

“Those all sound like great questions for the cops to answer, y’know, typical gang activi—”

“So I did some digging,” she goes on, ignoring him.  “I’m seventy percent certain there’s a conspiracy here between the Illuminati and the Tracksuit Mafia.”

“Or a conspiracy, sure.”

Snowflake has claimed a chair next to Eddie at the dining table (where MJ has relocated the printer because the lighting is better for her board, apparently).  He sniffs Eddie’s elbow, then the printer.

“I dunno, MJ,” Eddie goes on.  “If that guy really is Hawkeye, then those Avengers guys are already on the case, right?  So we can just—”

“The Avengers’ scientific division is down to a sus old white dude and a guy who’s spent the last year trying and failing to undo the science he did to himself to be popular.  They don’t have Stark’s tech genius, and they don’t have Black Widow’s investigative genius.”

“But don’t they have that princess?  The one who did Captain America’s new wings?”

“She’s more of a guest star than main cast.  But we’re journalists!  We’re the cream of the obstinately curious crop!  Superheroes think they can do it all by themselves—we can make their job much easier and more effective.  Because, for real, some of them are kinda dumb.”

Eddie rubs his eyes.  “Is this about Dr Strange again?”

“Actually, no, I was thinking about Darcy Lewis saving the day with science when Wanda Maximoff shanghaied a whole town and SWORD kept claiming they had it under control.  I definitely recommend following her on Twitter.”

“Darcy Lewis?” Eddie says, gaping.  “The quote-unquote ‘lazy physics intern baby sister’ of my awesome ex-girlfriend’s depressingly awesome medical doctor fiancé Dan Lewis?”

MJ tilts her head.  “Possible.  But considering the other drastic differences between our universes, it’s probably a coincidence.  Oh, hey—car chase.”

Sure enough, the television is showing a news bulletin featuring a shot-up sedan, a green moving truck, and a red Challenger.

And a giant arrow stabbing right through the Manhattan Bridge.

“Well,” says MJ.  “Definitely Hawkeye, and he definitely has some fancy science arrows from the sus old white dude.”

“You’re really not gonna let this go.”

“My certainty is rising.  I’m gonna call it seventy-two percent, just because of the confirmed presence and combat activity of an Avenger.  Last time something like this happened, I totally called it; Flag Smashers, super-drugs, Madripoor, corrupt imitation Cap.  We gotta figure out who lives in the apartment the Tracksuits attacked.”

“Just some college girl on the archery team; you can see her practice target from the sidewalk across the street.”

“Eddie.  You are an idiot.  Archery girl, archery superhero.  She’s clearly his new sidekick.  She’s the Speedy to his Green Arrow.  We need a name.”

“What do you think?” asks MJ.  “Montenegro, Jordan De La Rocca, or Kate Bishop?”

Eddie eyes the building directory.  Eight buzzers, two blank, the remaining three with overtly masculine names.  Up above, it looks like only two of the apartments sustained any real damage—and of course three apartments across the alley, one of which was his.  He’ll freely admit to his place being a fire hazard, but he also suspects the building isn’t exactly up to code.

MJ pokes the button for ‘Montenegro.’

~“Whattaya want?”~ grumbles a smoky voice.

“Sorry, wrong button,” says MJ, poking the next one.

~“Yeah?”~ asks an old man.

“Is Jordan De La Rocca present?”

~“That’s me.”~

MJ grimaces.  “Do…you…have time to take a survey?”

~“Oh, for Christ’s sake, you damn social workers are like cockroaches.  Will you take me off your list so I can grow old in peace?”~

“Yes sir, sorry sir, enjoy your day.”

~“Yeah, yeah—Merry Christmas, cockroach.”~

Eddie huffs.  “None of this is partic—”

But she’s already mashing the button for Kate so obnoxiously that anyone in the apartment would absolutely have answered by now to shut her up.

“That doesn’t—”

MJ pokes around on her phone and shows him a photo of ‘Security Titan Eleanor Bishop and Multi-Talented Daughter Kate.’

Eddie sighs.  “Yeah, that’s College Archery Girl.  Why didn’t you try Google to begin with?”

“Didn’t know what to look for yet, did I?  The plot thickens.  Maybe she’s being targeted because her mom is doing security for someone sinister?  Witnesses say the tracksuit bros who torched the place were mostly speaking Russian.  Could it be tied to rumors of the infamous Red Room and the Black Widow program?  Is she an escaped Widow?  Does her mother know too much?  Is she an unlucky rube who wandered into some big thing between Hawkeye and the Russians, who’ve probably had it out for him since he got Natasha Romanoff to defect?”

“Wow, you really like to ask questions that will get you killed or put in a padded cell,” Eddie grumbles.  “This is why you only have three friends.”

She smirks triumphantly at him.  “You just counted yourself, Grinch.”

“Nope, I was counting the cat.”

Eddie is idly half-working on the only proper work assignment he currently has (okay, it’s a fluff piece about family recipes and holiday traditions in Hell’s Kitchen) when MJ opens the door and Snowflake utters a brief growl.

And, of course, that gets Eddie’s attention…because his big dumb fluffball has only growled once before:  at a neighbor’s deadbeat abusive boyfriend.

His hunch about the identity of their visitors is confirmed when Ned exclaims, “Holy cow—is that a cat or a buffalo?”

“Isn’t he the cutest?” MJ says, grabbing one of Snowflake’s paws and squeezing gently to extend his claws.  “Lookit these king size murder mittens!”

“You so much as think too loudly about how my cat would taste, I’m gonna set your slimy ass on fire,” Eddie says cheerfully, pausing his typing to consider synonyms for ‘herbs.’

“I would never, never let him, Mr. Brock!” Peter promises.

“Yeah?” Eddie says, settling for ‘plant-based flavor components.’  “There’s not a lot of ‘letting’ or ‘not letting’ where that asshole is involved.  He just kind of does what he wants, or whines until you agree not to complain about him doing what he wants, or beats the shit outta you until you admit you can’t stop him doing what he wants.”

There’s an awkward silence from the kids.

“Or maybe I’m the only ‘symbiotic host’ that lying puddle of goo treats that way,” Eddie goes on.  “That’s what the word ‘love’ gets you from him.”

“So!” Ned says loudly (and a little too brightly).  “Turns out College Archery Girl’s mom is publicly engaged to a super-douchey mustache named Jacques Duquesne, a man in possession of not one but two pretentiously French silent esses.”

“We care why?” Eddie prompts, squinting at his laptop as he thinks about the taste and texture of Señora Ramos’ pasteles and how to describe the delicious agony of her salsa.

Ned approaches the case board (MJ slaps his hand away before he can touch anything).  “He runs Sloan Limited.  Did you know a sufficiently brilliant mind can modify a Deepfake program to do facial recognition?  And from there, the Internet can draw us some pretty suspicious connections between Sloan employees and organized crime, even vaguely hinting at associations with the infamous Kingpin.”

“Guys, we don’t know that,” Peter tries to say.  “Remember what Doctor Strange and Mrs. Stark both said about seeing conspir—”

“The Kingpin, of course!” MJ yells.  “That’s what our case was missing, Eddie!  So he wants something from that shady auction, and the guy in the Ronin suit thwarted him, but the suit leads to Kate Bishop, Hawkeye’s new sidekick, and these Russians must be working for Kingpin to get whatever he didn’t get before, meanwhile Kingpin’s sidekick honeypots Eleanor Bishop—don’t know if it’s related, since she’s in security, which is kind of a huge thing on its own—but Hawkeye has to either get or retrieve whatever they wanted before they do.  Alien tech?  Stark tech?  Secret spy stuff, which would link back to the Red Room and, natch, the Russians?”

“The Red Room’s a myth, isn’t it?” asks Ned.

MJ looks at him like he’s being intentionally obtuse.  “We went over this in spring, reviewing my findings from a year before the Blip, and I’ve yet to hear any worthwhile refutations of said findings.”

“Sorry.  Um, why would the involvement of Russians necessarily imply a Black Widow assassin or their super-secret training base which is definitely not mythical because it fell from the sky?”

MJ actually sags at that.  “Yeah, sorry, that was kind of a reach—I’m just super into Black Widows right now, and Hawkeye was BFFs with the most famous one of all.  But Kingpin is definitely with the Illuminati, so at least that part checks out.”

“Aren’t Maine Coon cats supposed to be super expensive?” Ned wonders as he cautiously pats Snowflake’s head.

Eddie shrugs.  “Not so expensive when some little Veruca Salt asshole finds out how big they get and throws a twelve-pound kitten out of their Infiniti at a red light.  Though, in fairness, he needs a catbox the size of a kid’s sandpit and once coughed up a hairball as big as my fist.”

“Humans are garbage,” MJ declares.  “Now, before we decide how to proceed with the case, and while I’ve got the whole Scooby gang gathered…”  She turns the board around.  “Side project:  getting Eddie and Rafael together.”

“Hey, V, you could probably find a way to eat her brain while Parker’s not looking,” Eddie says.

“Why was there such a long pause before you said that?” Peter hisses under his breath.  “We’ve been over this—heroes don’t eat people’s brains.  We got you a prescription, and we take it regularly, so no brains whatsoever!”

Ned gives Peter a look.  “Right.  Well.  Getting Eddie some Latin DILF action.  What kind of dossier have we got compiled?  Favorite foods or beverages?  Music?  Movies?”

“Oh my God, you guys,” Eddie growls.

“You said you liked Rafael!” Peter exclaims.  “Sorry, not you, Mr. Brock…  No, you can’t eat his brain, either, or I will definitely not be allowed to keep my internship.”

Eddie pauses, closes his laptop, and turns with an extremely smug smirk.  “You’re jealous.  That is fucking hilarious after you dropped me like a used condom.”

(“Ew,” says MJ, and, “Dude,” says Ned.)

Venom snakes his head out to yell, “I am not jealous of that boring soft-handed Hallmark movie reject!”

(Snowflake is growling again, fur rising along his back to make him look even bigger.)

“Yeah, basically your complete opposite, especially the part where he’s not a bossy narcissistic asshole who tears up my shit and breaks my nose when he gets his undies in a twist.”

“I only broke your nose eight times, and I always fixed it, eventually.”

“He drinks soy lattes, because lactose makes him embarrassingly gassy,” MJ says a bit desperately.

“Does that say ‘Sondheim’?” Ned prompts, making leading motions with his hands like some kindergarten teacher trying to get the class to participate in a field trip.

“Rafael likes pointed satire, especially if it’s slightly dark,” Peter obediently chimes in.

Eddie rubs his eyes in mild exasperation.  “What would you kids do without me around to toy with?”

They all look slightly somber at that.

“Wow.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah,” MJ says, narrowing her eyes at him.  “How weird would life be right now if you hadn’t come to New York, or if we hadn’t been able to cast that new spell that let you stay here without destabilizing a million universes?”

“You wouldn’t have been around to save Aunt May,” Peter agrees quietly.

“Or get us really awesome internships while MIT is being rebuilt from that whole weird Loki debacle.”

“Maybe we would’ve had to get, like, multiverse help,” says Ned.  “Like, other Spider-Mans.  Spider-Men.  Team Antagonist had at least two different Peters between them, right?  And maybe there’s even universes out there where Spider-Man isn’t Peter Parker.  Maybe MJ or me or even Flash ended up being Spider-Man in some alternate universe.  Maybe there’s other universes where the collision happened at a different time.  Maybe somewhere, MJ’s dad didn’t invest in stocks and the collision happened last year and Peter didn’t give us the ‘you don’t remember me’ speech!”

“My head’s kinda starting to hurt, thinking about alternate universes where we had different alternate universe collisions,” Peter grumbles.  “But…if nothing else, I’m so grateful, every single day, that you saved my aunt.”

Eddie’s getting well and truly embarrassed now.  “Jeez, it’s not like I went outta my way, and anybody in my position woulda done the same.”

“He couldn’t have saved her without me!  I saved Aunt May, not that sad sack of organs and depression!”

MJ rolls her eyes.  “Way to ruin the moment.  Anyway, Rafael is currently enrolled in a monthly ‘wine and watercolor’ at a local bar, distinctly impressionist in his color palettes, surprisingly savvy in his vintage selections.”

.End.

Chapter Text

Silver Over Everything

Eddie stares glumly at the remains of his apartment.  The fire safe protected three thumb drives of work in progress (and various kinds of blackmail), and of course he’d had his work laptop with him.  All his favorite clothes are covered in soot, smoke, and mildew.  His TV is a melted mess.  All Snowflake’s toys are charcoal.  Pretty damn depressing.  And then, just as the sun starts to set, he sees some chick climb into College Archery Girl’s broken window.

It’s easy enough to fall into old investigative habits, casing the place without really casing it.  The chick is blonde when she takes off her scarf; she waits around for a while before she starts cooking…pasta?  Smells like pasta.

He camps the pizza place.

Archery Girl goes in.

He finishes his slice and moves back outside, where he can just make out the sounds of conversation.  Cutlery—eating the pasta from earlier.  Slightly angrier tones, but still conversational volume.  He gets a profile shot of little miss Home Invader roping out the window as he takes a selfie with the burned apartments over his shoulder.

Perfectly timed, with her just barely in the shot.  Easy enough to crop her out of an Insta post.

“Hey, what are you doing?” she asks, right on cue.  Some people are so damn predictable…  She gets a little rough shoving him into the alley.  “Are you taking photos of people without their permission, perv?”

“Whattaya talkin’ about?” he grumbles, thickening his accent for effect.  “Lady, I lived right here, till some schmuck burnt the place down, and I’m just workin’ social media to pump my GoFundMe so I don’t end up homeless!  Look, look—that’s my cat.  Look at that face!  You want I should just let that cute little bastard freeze for Christmas?  Have a fuckin’ heart!  Here, take this, even—that’s the link to the fundraiser, give a buck, tell your friends, whatever.”

He holds out one of the QR cards Ned printed this morning.

She glares at him, but his post clearly only shows his face and the buildings.  “There are young women living alone around here,” she says.  “If anything bad were to happen to one of them, something much worse would happen to whoever did it.”

“You gonna take the card, or what?” he counters, stonefaced.  “I got cat toys to replace, including a Build-a-Bear, and them things ain’t cheap.”

She tries to play it tough, but he sees the moment she caves.  “It’s a really cute cat,” she admits, snatching up the card and stalking away.

He texts the uncropped pic to MJ and tells her to look for a facial match.  He also mentions that she’s Russian and likes cats.

MJ
honeypot theory wrong. data seems falsified, doesn’t hold up to deeper inspection. now suspect CAG’s mom to be gold digger.
also, Snowflake is beloved by all
ohsnap hold up

With a sigh, Eddie starts walking toward a nice, cheap bar nearby—too seedy for his work pals, but not enough that he’s afraid to get drunk there.

His phone buzzes.

MJ
ffffffffff
wtfwtfwtf

And she sends him a pic of Rafa with a guy who is definitely with the Tracksuits.  And they are definitely exchanging an envelope that looks like it’s full of money.

MJ
i was just doing recon
u know for the side project
he just took money from them
could write it off the other way
like maybe he’s using them for their ‘legit’ biz
but that’s them paying off a member of the press
that’s big K paying off a member of the press
sry i am panicking rly quite a lot rn and trying 2b quiet abt it so i don’t get found out & murdered 4 knowing 2 much
i have an ‘in case i get murdered’ kit in a fire safe in the floor of my closet, under the Versace heels (shut up they were a hand-me-down for prom) code 112835.

Eddie cusses under his breath.

Get somewhere public, call Parker.
Might be fine. Keep me updated.

He’s about to walk into the dive bar when Peter texts him next.

Parker
Safe so far, no sign of tails or threats. We’ll stick together for now. MJ says don’t stay out too late in bad neighborhoods.

Eddie chuckles.

u calling my neighborhood bad? ;)

With one last breath of crisp, clean-ish air, he goes in.

It’s just as wonderfully seedy as the last time he was in, all dimness and clinking glass and clacking billiards.  When he settles onto a stool, the bartender ambles over with brow up expectantly.

“Shot of tequila and a glass of Mick,” Eddie says, sliding a twenty across the bar.  If MJ could be in danger, that nixes getting drunk…buuut he can still loosen up a little.

Glassware slides back, and he downs his shot before sipping on the beer.

“Mm, Varvatos.”

Eddie blinks and glances at the guy on the next stool.  Hella cute, good build, long eyelashes, wearing a grey Columbia sweater and faded jeans.  “Oh,” says Eddie, both because he isn’t used to people recognizing his cologne and because whatever he was expecting to see was not this cute thing with great legs.

Cute Stranger grins a very nice grin at his beer.  “What’s a nice guy like you doing in a dive like this?”

“I’m.  Actually, I’m local—or I used to be, until my place caught fire this week.”  He gives a little laugh at the memory of Mrs. DiPazzi with his giant cat.

“Now you mention it, you do sound familiar.  I’m Matt.”

“Um.  Eddie,” he says after a little delay where he tries to figure out for sure whether he’s being flirted with.

“You’ve got a nice laugh, Eddie,” Matt says, turning his head to show twinkling green eyes.

Oh.  Definitely flirting.  Well…maybe Tanya and the gang are right, and a fling could knock him out of his depression.  “You keep saying stuff like that, you’re gonna see me blush.”

Matt chuckles.  “Ah, a couple decades late for that, sorry to say…”  He holds up a red-tipped traveling cane looped to his right wrist.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I had no idea—”

“You’re okay,” Matt assures him with another amazing grin.  “I’ll take it as a compliment, that you couldn’t tell right away.”

“That’s how you recognized my cologne.”

“Exactly.  The human body and brain are remarkably adaptable.  When I first lost my sight, my fingers were nowhere near sensitive enough to read Braille quickly—now, I can read faster than most of my sighted colleagues.”

“Yeah?  What’s your line of work?”

“Generally speaking, law.  More specifically, I tend to make very little money helping a lot of very poor people in Hell’s Kitchen, and I make a lot more money helping anyone affected by the Sokovia Accords…though, honestly, it’s still barely enough to cover rent.  My team used to say I’m too picky, and then they said I’m too reckless, and then they said, ‘fuck it, pick whatever cases you want.’  What about you?”

“Oh.  Um.  A way less impressive version of that.  I’m a reporter by trade, though I’m currently stuck as a writer.  I like to stick my nose into the business of powerful people until they stop taking advantage of powerless people.”

Matt’s brows rise.  “You’re Eddie Brock, the guy who nailed that corrupt landlord in August?”

“That’s me.”

Matt leans in a little.  “I think that’s pretty damn impressive, personally.”

Eddie’s pulse is rushing in his ears.  But he’s lonely, and Rafa might actually be a bad guy, and Matt really is just incredibly pretty when he’s being coquettish.  “Well.  Like I said, my place burned down, so…how would you feel about us getting some coffee at your place?”

One eyebrow quirks up, and a warm hand briefly squeezes his knee.  “I think we could arrange that.”

Matt is soft and warm and surprisingly cuddly—Eddie absolutely does not want to leave his comfortable doze answer his phone.

“Do me a favor?” Matt mumbles against his shoulder.  “Answer it or reject it.  It’s really loud.”

“Sorry, babe,” Eddie grunts, stretching to dig his phone out of his pants (discarded on the floor).

Incoming Call From
Parker

Well, shit.  One of that brat pack calling him in the middle of the night means they need a grown-up, and if it were normal shit, Peter would just call his aunt.

Eddie groans.  “I’m so sorry, I gotta take this.”

Matt just clings harder when he tries to extricate himself.  “Stay here—I’m too comfy.  I’ll get cold if you leave, and I’ll hear the conversation anywhere in the apartment.”

Eddie steals a kiss and answers his phone.  “What’s wrong, kid?”

~“Why would something be wrong?”~ Peter asks far too innocently.

“Because it’s two in the morning and you’re calling me instead of MJ or May.  Is it embarrassing?  Illegal?  Related to MJ’s Kingpin conspiracy theories about Hawkdude?”

~“Hawkeye.”~

Matt blearily raises his head to say, “Peter, as your legal counsel, I strongly advise you not to answer any of those questions over a phone.”

Eddie blinks.

~“Oh my gosh, Mr. Murdock, what are you—did you—oh my gosh, that’s none of our business, and I’m not going to ask, and I am so sorry for waking you or interrupting or—h-how did you know we know Mr. Brock?”~

“Completely a coincidence, Peter,” Matt assures him.  “Your friend was in a bar I like, and we’re both adults.  Does he know the thing other people have forgotten?”

~“Yes, sir.  And about the roommate.”~

“Good.  I’m assuming this can’t wait for daylight?”

~“No.  Sorry.”~

“Do you need me to come along?”

~“You think it’ll jinx us if I say no?  I think it’ll jinx us if I say no.  Maybe yes, just in case?”~

“Okay, then meet us at the Batcave.”

~“Yessir!”~

Eddie hangs up and heaves a sigh, soaking up a few more seconds of their lovely nap vibe.

Matt pats his belly and slides out of bed.  “C’mon, Spider-Man needs responsible adults.  And look on the bright side:  this is one less awkward conversation we need to have if there’s going to be any repeats of tonight.”

“I was kinda hoping for several repeats, yeah,” Eddie admits with a laugh.

They dress quickly, and Eddie books a cab.

“How do I look?” Matt asks as he slips into a hoodie.

Eddie squints in the meager glow of the streetlights outside, then gives up and uses his phone’s flashlight (not like he can blind the guy with it, right?).  “Like you spent the last few hours intermittently having really good sex and really good sleep,” he finally teases his new maybe-boyfriend.

Matt grins and grabs him by the hips.  “Really good, huh?”

“Yeah, where’d you buy this mattress?  It’s like sleeping on a cloud.”

He gets a very enthusiastic kiss for his trouble (and a swat to his ass).  “Taxi’s here,” Matt says, putting on his sunglasses and grabbing his cane.

Honestly, Eddie isn’t sure why Matt bothers to carry the cane when he barely uses it.

“Screen doors,” Matt suddenly says, startling the hell out of Eddie while he locks up.  “And shitty floors or sidewalks.  Unfamiliar buildings.  The metro.  You were wondering why I keep it with me if I don’t seem to use it, right?”

“I swear I can be subtle about some things.”

“I like your unsubtlety.  And your laugh.”

“You like my stupid laugh?”

“I really like your wonderful laugh,” Matt corrects, steering him toward the stairs.  “And you are extremely fun to kiss.”

“Eh, so I’ve been told,” Eddie admits.

“The ‘Batcave,’ huh?” says Eddie, digging out his keycard.

“She’s reasonably affluent and has an obsessively investigative streak,” Matt counters.  “All that’s missing is the butler—but she’s got Ned and Peter on short leashes, so I suppose that counts.”

When they open the door, MJ is poised with a Taser.  “They’re here!” she calls over her shoulder, and makes sure to bolt the door behind them.

“We don’t need them!” Venom fumes as soon as they come into view.  “They are squishy and useless, like Peter’s appendix!”

“Don’t eat my appendix!” Peter orders (Venom looks sheepish, like he’s been considering it).

“Useless is a hurtful word, Venom,” Matt says placidly.  “And, of the two of us, squishy is more aptly applied to you.”

“We should punch him.  A lot.  Very hard.  His usual smugness has intensified.”

“We’re not going to punch Mr. Murdock.  First of all, he’s our friend.  Second of all, it’s really hard for a superhero to find a lawyer.  Third, you can’t punch people just because they—they—”

“Bone your ex-boyfriend?” MJ suggests.

“I’m a little confused,” says Eddie.

“His natural state, if anyone wanted to know.”

Matt grins (it should really be illegal, to be so damn attractive with bad stubble and bedhead, and Eddie feels all swoony and nice at the thought of maybe being able to see it on a regular basis) and gestures at Peter.  “I got to teach Venom about lawyers, blind humans, and how four and a half kilohertz is a wonderful frequency for echolocation.”

“Nope, still confused.”

“There’s the back of the shirt,” Venom says snidely.

“He’s just mad ‘cause he got his ass beat by a blind dude,” scoffs MJ.

“What?  How is that a thing?”

“Mr. Murdock is a superhero,” Peter says gormlessly.  “He didn’t tell you that?”

“Not really first date material,” Matt retorts.  “Extenuating circumstances notwithstanding.  I had every intention of telling you, at least obliquely, by date three, Eddie.  This sort of thing has a way of redefining relationship timelines—you start to see patterns and adjust, it’s a whole thing.  But also, by the legal definitions outlined in the Sokovia Accords, I’m no more meta-human than, say, Hawkeye.”

“Right, hero but not super,” Peter teases with a mock-thoughtful expression on his face.  “Just some ordinary guy whose eyes don’t work anymore, who can hear and smell and sense microvibration so acutely that he seems prescient.  Just some ordinary guy who jumps off buildings and dodges bullets and beats up really expensive mercenaries.”

“Dude!” says Ned, pointing with both hands.  “He’s not a superhero; he’s a ninja!  Ninja Lawyer—oh, man, that would be a great show…”

“It would be a sucky show!  Anne is the only lawyer anyone likes, and indeed the only one worth liking.”

“Who’s Anne?” MJ asks.

“Oh, Anne is amazing.  Total fire.  Absolute kween.  Somehow, that idiot loser was engaged to her, but he fucked that up and she got engaged to some far-too-nice doctor who could afford a really big ring.”

“Oh, the hacked email thing and that ‘Dr. Dan’ Eddie mentioned!”

“Right.  Surprisingly helpful, when given proper instruction.  Unlike certain inconsiderate jackasses who can’t even remember chemical nutrients without which their amazing symbiotic boyfriend will literally die.”

“This is the same boyfriend who constantly belittled and physically assaulted the supposedly inconsiderate jackass?” MJ asks innocently.

Peter frowns at her.  “Wait, what do you—”

“Ugh, why is that such a sticking point?  I fixed it all, and I fixed everything his terrible lifestyle choices inflicted on his organs, and I always gave excellent advice—”

Eddie pinches the bridge of his nose.  “This really is just a barrel of laughs, but you didn’t call me in the middle of the night just to watch the parasite get huffy about my love life.”

“I AM NOT A PARASITE!”

“Mm, right, sure, ‘cause it was such a well balanced relationship, where you didn’t try to get us killed or imprisoned and definitely didn’t constantly try to convince me to murder people, and healing me up afterward completely negates any pain or trauma I experienced every time you beat the shit outta me to get your way.  Oh, and the insults and humiliation, that was great, too.  Loads of benefits for the guy you literally couldn’t breathe without.  Back to the case, because it’s possible MJ is in danger.”

Venom grumbles and withdraws into a sullen blob on Peter’s shoulder.

Ned flips open a laptop.  “With a little Grey Hat work, we were, unfortunately, able to find a pattern of big cash deposits on Rafael’s account, always within a week before or after MWS ran a piece on something that other outlets linked to organized crime but various Street writers blamed on police incompetence.  And…I didn’t wanna say anything, because he always seemed so nice, but like a week into our internships, I overheard Stan yelling at him in an empty conference room.  All I could really make out was something about ‘gutting the article,’ and a, uh, really rude implication about Rafa’s anatomy and that somebody with money was holding said feature.  And then I ran away, because I have zero chill and they would one hundred percent have known I was listening, but as they came out I heard Rafa say something like…‘that’s how the game is played, and you can quit anytime if you don’t like it.’”

Eddie only realizes he’s fidgeting when a warm hand closes over his.

Matt has a little frown on his face (it’s kind of adorable, like almost every expression Matt makes, and Eddie has a wild urge to either kiss the furrow between his eyebrows or boop his nose).  “You’re anxious.  What have I missed?”

“I was kinda gathering my courage to ask the guy out when MJ spotted him taking a bribe earlier today.  It’s kinda why I was moping around Toledo’s in the first place.”

Matt’s fingers run along rings, beads, bracelets—identifying the noises he heard before?  “Lucky me,” he says, and smiles.

“Jesus,” huffs Eddie, smiling back.  “You are just…seriously, unfairly cute.”

(“I am going to vomit,” Venom mutters, and gets a wad of paper thrown at his face by MJ.)

“So, to sum up:  Rafael is taking money from the Tracksuit Mafia,” says Peter.

“Who are chasing Hawkeye and College Archery Girl,” adds Ned.

“Whose mom is a security bigwig and whose late father—bombshell—was mysteriously able to bankroll a failing business with no loan documentation,” puts in MJ.

Matt’s face darkens with hatred, and Eddie even kinda loves that.  “The favorite tactic of a certain high-income brick-and-mortar ‘investor’ who likes to step on little people to make his fortune.”

“So,” Eddie says, looking around their little misfit group.  “The questions are:  What are the Tracksuits looking to retrieve for Kingpin?  What did they just pay Rafa to edit out of the Manhattan Word on the Street?  How the hell did an Avenger get tangled up in all this?  And what are we gonna do about it?”

“‘We’ being a teenage superhero, a ninja, an alien who can’t do anything without a host body, a social media dark sorceress, the guy in the chair, and the mascot,” Ned clarifies.

“Mascot!” Eddie protests, and gets more than one patronizing look.

“Eddie can be useful,” MJ says.

“Thank you!”

“Remember, he had perfect symbiosis with Venom, unlike Peter, so Eddie and Venom could do all kinds of things Peter and Venom can’t do.”

“I take it back,” Eddie snaps.  “Go die in a fire, and take the parasite with you.”

Venom lunges teeth first.  “I AM NOT A—OW, MY EYE!”

“Oops,” says Matt, cane still poised.  “Clumsy me, I meant to get the other eye.  Are you sure you want to resort to violence?”

Squinting his left eye, Venom just mutters and grumbles and hides in Peter’s collar like a pet snake.

“Personal shit aside,” MJ doggedly continues, “You two were a pretty badass team.  We could really use another superhero.”

“No,” says Eddie.  “Guys, back me up.  It’s a bad idea.”

Peter shrugs helplessly.  “I can barely do the claw-knife-stabby-thing, and I feel super-uncomfortable and guilty the whole time.  You guys fought two evil symbiotes and saved my aunt from getting stabbed by a pointy goblin glider thing.”

Ned looks at the floor and says, “I tacitly approve of basically every idea MJ has, on the basis that she is a ruthless strategist and can destroy me with a single tweet.”

“No,” Eddie says again.  “No, you know what I was like when he left.  You saw what it did to me.  I c—you can’t just expect me to forgive that.  I was a fuckin’ wreck—it fuckin’ tore me to itty bitty pieces.”

Matt pulls him into a hug.  “You don’t have to.  No matter what they say, you don’t have to forgive that, or forget it, or ever accept him back into your life again.  ‘Being the bigger man’ is a load of horseshit we feed people who are being inconvenient.  But you don’t owe this…to him, or them, or anyone.  Not to brag, but I’ve done pretty well on my own against Kingpin for years now.  If I team up with the Scooby-Doo squad over here, I like my chances of at least handling this particular caper with a minimum of civilian casualties, with zero need for a second superhero.”

Eddie bites his lips and takes a slow breath.  “Yeah, but I don’t wanna be useless.”

“Plenty of other ways to be useful,” Matt assures him, and kisses his cheek.

“Like what?”

“You knew where College Archery Girl lived,” says Ned.

“Because it’s next door and the fire spread to my place when the Tracksuits tried to burn hers down.”

“You got a pic of a Black Widow assassin,” says MJ.  “Yelena Belova, by the way, according to the data I borrowed from SHIELD with one of Pepper’s nifty doodads.”

“Because I was trying to see if any of my shit could be salvaged.”

“You could honeypot Rafa,” says Peter.

Everyone looks at him (even Matt, who’s raised an eyebrow).

“That’s a shit idea,” says Eddie.  “That’s a Venom idea.”

(“It’s a great idea!” squawks the one-eyed scarf around Peter’s neck, confirming that it was, in fact, a Venom idea.)

“It could work,” Matt says.  He straightens a rumpled part of Eddie’s sleeve.  “You’re very…charming, after all.”

“The hell does that mean?”

“Rafa already likes you,” Ned adds with a shrug.

“We’ve done the research,” MJ agrees.

“It’s just a thought,” says Matt.  His face is sweet, and his tone is cajoling.  His palm is warm and confident on the curve of Eddie’s waist, and his eyelashes are so long as he flutters them innocently, and…

“Ugh, fine!  Persuasive bastard.”

“I am a lawyer.”

.End.

Chapter Text

The River’s All Wet

In the end, they decide that MJ will have a superhero escort at all times, Ned will continue to collate data on the Tracksuits, and Eddie will lie back and think of England (so to speak).

He texts to see if Rafael has any plans.  He mentions that everybody else from the paper has gone home for the holidays, hinting very heavily that he has no family and is lonely.

Rafa
yeah, ikwym, it’s rough this time of yr. :/
my mom died on Christmas Eve during the Blip.

Yikes.  As conversational landmines go, that’s a pretty nasty one.

omg im so sorry :(

Rafa
thx. it’s not so bad, I guess, compared to how it could’ve been. just lonely. I know a great Colombian place in Queens…maybe we could get some dinner tonight or tomorrow? be lonely together? ;)

That line would’ve worked on Eddie even if he weren’t specifically trying to seduce the guy.

sounds amazing. how about tonight? or even lunch?
sry if im coming off desperate. my ex left around xmas last yr & id rly like to make better memories. :<

Rafa
it’s fine—we all remember what a dark place you were in when you signed on.  tyw, let’s go all out.  we’ll do lunch, i can get us tickets to Rogers, we can have some drinks after and…see where the night takes us?

that would be great Eddie texts, but an uneasy feeling has been creeping through him since he caved to the whole stupid plan.  Normally, he’d have zero issue seducing someone for information, and he’s been interested in Rafa for months.  It should feel win-win, but instead he feels like Rafa isn’t at all the guy Eddie thought he was.  He seems so nice, but it turns out he’s helping keep evil shit under wraps.  Has Rafa been letting Eddie publish about all the crap going on in Hell’s Kitchen out of guilt?  Or has he been using Eddie’s work to screen Kingpin’s dirty dealings?

If Eddie can just keep it together, he could find that shit out.  Deep breath.  Yeah, it feels kinda gross, but it’s important, and he wants to be more than a mascot.  Peter’s the only one with super powers, so why the hell is Eddie the only one who can’t seem to pull any weight?

Maybe he just needs another pep talk.

It takes Matt two rings to answer.  ~“Hey, handsome,”~ he says, and Eddie can hear his smile.  (Someone teases in the background and gets shushed.)

“Oh, I’m handsome, says the blind guy,” Eddie jokes.

~“Broad shoulders, big hands, rakish scruff…besides, MJ says you’re handsome, and I trust her taste.  How’s the job going?”~

“It’s going.”

~“Oof, that bad, huh?”~

“I just…didn’t expect it to feel gross.  Not what I’m doing, ‘cause I know it’s for a reason and I know it works.  Just…the idea of him smiling across the table without a care in the fuckin’ world while he…ugh.  Sorry, don’t mind me.  Just wanted to hear your voice, babe.”

~“I give excellent pep talks,”~ Matt says (whoever teased him earlier squawks an obvious refutation).  ~“You are a clever, resourceful, stubborn bastard, and your amazing giant cat loves you.  Clearly, this makes you peak humanity.”~

Eddie laughs.

~“Mm, there’s that gorgeous laugh.”~

“Fuck off,” Eddie chuckles.  “So, listen, I’m working the rest of the day and into the night, but…maybe I could call you after?”

~“Hey, no, don’t feel like the long hours or the holiday mean that you’re stuck with just a phone call.  I know it’s a tough time for you, and if you need to not be alone after work, you can absolutely come knock on my door.  Midnight, two, five, whenever.  Okay?”~

Eddie chews on his lips for a while.  “I’m sorry for the weird timing of all this shit.  I’d really have loved to date you properly.”

~“So far, I’m a big fan of our improper dating.  Neither of us is what you’d call ‘conventional.’  I mean it, Eddie—I would really like it if you showed up on my doorstep after you finish work for the night.”~

“You’re amazing.”

~“Your laugh is amazing.”~

“Sap.”

~“You love it.”~

He blushes right up to his ears.  “Yeah.”

~“You deserve it,”~ Matt adds.

“Listen, baby—I gotta go, but thanks for the pep talk.”

The musical was equal parts hilarious and excruciating.  The chick playing Black Widow was pretty hot.  The portrayal of the Snap was so comical that Eddie had to bite his knuckles to keep from laughing at a scene that was making everyone else in the theater cry (the characters had transforming costumes that turned grey and sent clouds of glitter and fake ash puffing into the air).

Fortunately, Rafa seems to mostly agree with Eddie’s assessment of the play as they sip their beers at a little hipster hangout near Broadway.

“But, y’know, some people deal best with trauma by taking away its teeth,” Rafael says.  “The Chitauri attack, both of Thanos’ attacks, all the economic and political restructuring, it’s all been just…fucking godawful, right?  So making it fun and funny, being able to laugh at a guy in a purple mask singing an evil song full of innuendo and bad puns, is a way to make some of the nightmares stop.”

“Sure, I guess.  Never really thought of it like that.  My usual defense mechanism is…like, anger and revenge.”

“And you couldn’t get revenge on V,” Rafael guesses.

Eddie peels at the label of his beer with intense focus.  “Not directly, but I wished for it.  Really hard.  Who does that?  Who sees somebody who used to be their friend, somebody they love, suffering and says, ‘you deserve it’?  This shitty guy sitting next to you.”

Rafa touches his hand gently.  “Sometimes anger is louder than love.  But it doesn’t last as long, and that’s when we feel shame or regret—if we really do love the person at whom we lashed out.”

“Huh.  Y’know, the interns keep saying I should try a support group.  For, uh…v-victims.  Of abuse.”  Eddie grimaces and takes a big gulp of his beer.

“Maybe you should think about it.  It’s less private than a therapist, but you’re also not alone.  You feel less like a bug under a microscope.”

The best lies are the ones people want to hear.  The second-best lies are ones that are true.

People want to hear that Eddie is traumatized (he is, a bit).  They want to hear that he’s as much of an airhead as he seems (he can be).  They want to hear that he’s too scared, too weak, too dumb, to stand up for himself if they back him into a corner.

He’s not, but it’s surprisingly easy to hide the fact he’s got a feral side.  They think a guy who walks, talks, and dresses like Eddie is all crow and no spurs.  They think he’ll cave when shit gets rough, but Eddie will chew his goddamn leg off to get out of a trap.

It was one of Venom’s favorite things about him.

So, to a guy who takes money from the mob, Eddie probably looks nice and safe.

The sex is decent.  Eddie manages to sneak a badass little Stark Tech remote hacking thingy to Rafa’s phone, and Ned pulls the easy, mostly-legal info—contacts and the times of incoming and outgoing calls and messages, all neatly collated.

Eddie uses Snowflake as an excuse to weasel out of staying the night; Rafa says he had a good time and would love to grab some dinner the next night.

It’s…nice to drag himself up the stairs to Matt’s place.  To drop all the masks.

When he knocks on the peeling paint of 6A and announces himself, he gets dragged through the door and into a kiss.

“Um.  Hi,” Eddie murmurs, sliding his palms over sleep-warm skin.

“Hi,” Matt says sweetly, beaming in the dark.  “I missed you.”

It’s been a long time since somebody missed Eddie (besides the cat), so he maybe gets a little weepy.

“You’re okay,” Matt assures him, stroking his hair and nuzzling his nose.  “It’s just us here.  What you did today was stressful, and I’m not gonna judge whatever way you need to express that.”

“Yeah?”

“I put on a costume and beat up lowlifes to manage my stress, which according to Jess is pretty lame.”

“What does ‘Jess’ do instead?”

“Abuses her liver and punches lowlifes without a costume.  It’s the costume she judges, not the violence.”

“As long as you’re not running around in bright red and blue spandex like somebody we know, I’m pretty sure the costume ain’t all that lame.”

Matt leans back a little to tip his head in a shrug.  “Well, I am blind, so it’s not like I know what color it is…I’m told it’s red, but not a gaudy sort of red.  I asked for ‘blood red,’ and my armor guy liked the theatricality.”

Something clicks in Eddie’s brain.  “Oh my sweet baby Jesus, you’re Daredevil.  That is just…so, really, very, extremely hot.”

“Thanks?” Matt says, giggling.  “I don’t usually get such a positive reaction…typically, my dates are horrified if they either find out or connect the dots.”

“My, uh, life experiences have somewhat skewed my reactions to this kinda thing.  People-eating alien brain-roommate, and all.”

Matt kisses his cheek.  “Feeling a little better now?”

“Yeah.  It’s just…the last person who missed me was V, after we got back together from a, uh…break…and what he actually said was ‘I missed us.’“

Matt nods.  “Well, I do like who I am around you, but I like you more.  So…  I. Missed. You.”

Eddie pulls him closer and kisses him hungrily.  “How do you feel about fucking on the couch?”

“Um,” Matt says, blinking.  “Honestly, it sounds a lot hotter than it is.  Last time I had sex on that couch, I got horrible friction burn from the leather, and it was just…not really worth it.  And the loveseat is a non-starter, total logistical nightmare.”

“Fair enough.  Bed it is, then.  It’s a really nice bed.”

Matt laughs and pulls him through the darkness to the bedroom.

Later, with Matt pressed along his side again, a thought flutters through his brain.

“You think it’s weird how easy this is?” Eddie asks.  “Like, how quick it’s going, and how much we trust each other even though we know next to nothin’ about each other?”

“I know you give really great oral,” Matt says with a coy smile.

“You’re a damn menace,” Eddie teases.

“I know three kids who don’t trust adults trust you,” Matt goes on more seriously.  “Including one whose life you could completely ruin with a single printed sentence.  I know you’ve written a slew of articles drawing attention to crime, inequity, and injustice in a part of town generally ignored.  I know you were in love with a brain-eating alien who is remarkably territorial about someone he very literally left.  I know you rescued a giant stupid cat who loves you very much.  And I know you don’t expect people to find you attractive.”

“I used to.  That…it changed…after V.  He never much cared how I looked on the outside, but he never shut up about how much of a loser I am, and I started feeling like everybody could just look at me and see it.”

Matt hums and raises his eyebrows.  “Wow, if this is what losing looks like for you, winning must be jaw-dropping.”

“So modest,” Eddie says dryly.

A gorgeous grin lets him know the joke landed.  “Just saying.  A strangely comfortable, fast-developing relationship with someone in whom you can confide really weird shit and with whom you can have really good sex?  Also, my amazing bed?”

“Point taken, babe.”

Matt raises up on his elbows so Eddie can see his face better.  “Hey,” he says softly, affectionately.  “I like you.  I like talking with you, I like how you are, I like your grumpiness and your determination.  I like how much you like the kids, and how clear it is that they like you.  I like the scars you’re growing over the places where he hurt you, and that you’re still willing to take a chance on a blind guy with a martyr-complex the size of Staten Island that’ll very probably get me killed someday.”

“I like you, too,” Eddie says, and it feels like a much bigger confession.  “I like who I am around you.  I like…who you see when you look at me—figuratively speaking.  It just…feels like it’s been a long, long time since I liked myself, and I owe that to you.”

Matt smiles at him, neon through the colored window panes casting pink and orange highlights along the contours of the expression.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” Eddie doesn’t mean to say aloud.

“You look beautiful to me, too,” Matt says, settling back down in that perfectly comfortable spot he found the night before.  “Sweet dreams, Eddie.”

“Yeah, sweet dreams, babe.”

He wakes tucked into an otherwise empty bed, to the smell of fresh coffee and fried eggs.  After a quick trip to the bathroom, he ardently seeks out that coffee.

Turns out his almost-boyfriend is cooking, half-dressed in slacks, shoes, and an undershirt.

“I’m not sure how I feel about a blind guy frying things,” Eddie teases.

“Anybody can smell when it’s about to burn,” Matt scoffs.  “I’ve gotta get to the office, but this is for you.  You like your eggs over and your coffee blond with two sugars, right?”

Eddie would be more impressed if he didn’t know three scheming teenagers determined to interfere in his love life.  “Did MJ tell you that?”

“I plead the fifth,” Matt says with a chuckle.

“I appreciate it, all the same,” Eddie says as he takes his first sip of coffee.  “You, uh…you take good care of me.”

Matt switches off the stove and slides the eggs onto a plate (perfectly over easy, plus buttered toast cut into quarters lengthwise).  “I like taking care of you.”

“Any chance I could get a kiss before you head out?”

He in fact gets pinned against the counter and kissed like Matt wants to devour his soul (the coffee is taken from him and set aside to prevent spills).

At which point the door opens, some guy shrieks (“Oh my God, Matt, my innocent eyes!”), and Matt pulls back to exclaim (“Foggy, you’re early!”).

There’s a guy in businesswear standing in the living room with a hand over his eyes.  “You left the door unlocked again, Matthew!”

Eddie can’t decide whether to laugh or die of embarrassment.

“You must be Eddie,” the stranger guesses.  “I’m Foggy, the straight best friend and stalwart business partner.  I apologize for Matt’s shitty pep talks, but that’s what you get with a bisexual Catholic.”

“My pep talks are great,” Matt protests, grabbing his shirt and tie off the back of a chair.  “And everybody’s decent, Foggy, we were just enjoying a good-morning kiss.  Eddie, eat your breakfast.  Call me later?”

“Definitely.  Uh, nice to meetcha, Foggy.”

Foggy takes his hand away and carefully peeks one eye open, then the other.  His eyebrows and eyelashes are that kind of blond that makes Eddie think his hair turns red in the summer.  “Sorry, I’m just used to seeing a lot of Matt’s girlfriends and boyfriends if I walk in.  Yeah, nice, uh, you too.  Also.  I promise I’m a lot less awkward when I haven’t just seen my college bestie making out.  I’m gonna go now, good talk, I’ll be outside.”  And he beats a hasty retreat.

“He seems nice.”

Matt steals another kiss while knotting his tie.  “He’s my rock.  The only part of my adult life he wasn’t there for me was my own fault, and it was for my own good, too.  Lesson learned.”

“That’s kinda relieving to hear.”

“How so?”

“Was starting to feel very much not good enough for you.”

Matt kisses him again, sweet and lingering.  “It’s only fair—I’ve been feeling that way since I met your cat.”

Another deflection, but Eddie’s starting to think Matt spends about half his waking hours evading deep conversations.  “What’s with you and my cat?” he teases, taking the bait.

“Cats are extremely good judges of character,” is all Matt says before grabbing his jacket, cane, and sunglasses.

After he’s gone, Eddie finds the keys to the apartment on the coffee table, next to a piece of paper and what must be a Braille typewriter.

He eyes the little bumps on the paper as he eats, runs the pad of his finger over them in consideration.

A note for him?  Or for Matt?  Even for a guy as capable as Matt, writing something with pen and paper would be awkward at best…he decides it’s a note for him from Matt, and slips it into his jacket.

.End.

Chapter Text

The Men Cry Out, The Girls Cry Out

The intel from Rafa’s phone shows calls from ‘Ivan’ days before each suspicious article, and just once a call from ‘K’ the day before an article (after a series of back-and-forth calls with ‘Ivan’).

“What do we do with this information?” Ned asks aloud as they all stare at the newly gathered data on the case board.

“Well, Ivan must be the contact within the Tracksuit Mafia,” MJ concludes.  “He must be the guy I saw handing Rafael money.  So then this ‘K’ dude must be someone higher up, somebody who had to get involved when Rafa was pushing back or wasn’t able to get a writer to fall in line.”

“None of which helps us find them,” Eddie concludes with a sigh.

“Maybe if you weren’t so busy with your defective toy, you could have gotten more info this morning,” Venom scoffs.

“Whoa!” they all yell.

“Not cool!” Peter tells the symbiote sternly.

“Only an ableist asshole whips out the D-word,” says MJ.

“Like, we get that you’re working this jealous-bitter-ex thing, but there’s such a thing as good taste,” adds Ned.

“I am not jealous,” Venom grumbles, sulking in a creepily bubbling mass in Peter’s collar.

MJ grabs Ned’s laptop.  “I’m gonna do some searching.  That Ivan guy got into the same kind of moving truck I saw in the chase footage on the news.  Some kind of dark green, with the attic-space extension over the cab.”

“I’m gonna go get us some donuts,” Ned says, tucking tail the way he usually does when suffering secondhand embarrassment.

“No,” Peter hisses to himself.  “No, I’m gonna tell him.  Because this whole thing between you is really becoming intolerable again and it’s your fault for not talking about it, so I’m gonna tell him!”

Eddie waits.

“Mr. Brock, Venom needs to tell yo—”

“Don’t you dare!” growls the symbiote, lashing out with a tendril that Peter easily dodges.  “Hold still so I can kick your skinny ass!”

At that point, they become a mess of flailing limbs and deflected strikes (and at one point an alarming amount of pointy teeth which then get mercilessly punched with a super-strong fist).

“Don’t break my shit, or I’ll set you on fire,” MJ threatens, eyes still locked on her Internet search.

“Venom feels really terrible for making you feel bad before and that’s why he keeps getting angry when people bring it back up,” Peter rushes to say before dodging another strike.  “Also, he’s really jealous of Mr. Murdock because he’s always wanted to make you smile like that.”

With a growled accusation of betrayal, Venom rips free of Peter and splashes into the enormous aquarium in the living room.  Peter shakes himself like a dog (Eddie remembers that awkward, ticklish, semi-naked feeling of having Venom leave).

“Don’t hurt my fish, either!” MJ yells.

And shit, now Eddie kind of wants to go sit by the fish and talk about their shit.  Therapeutic, or whatever.

But what the fuck good would that do?  Not like V’s learned a damn thing.  He ends up in a body he can’t bully, the kid outs his emotions, and his response is to go pout in a fish tank?

Unbidden, the memory of that botched breakfast surfaces.  Venom had tried to get Eddie and Anne back together to make Eddie happy, and when Eddie gave up, Venom tried to make breakfast to cheer him up…

Being shit at it doesn’t mean he’s not trying.

Stupid damn parasite isn’t gonna get better at being a friend if nobody shows him how.

So Eddie goes and sits next to the fish tank.

“Hey,” he says without looking.  “Not a fun feeling, is it?  When somebody you love—somebody you’re in love with—does things against your wishes and you can’t stop them.”

“if you’re here to gloat, you can fuck off,” says a tiny, soggy voice.

“Not gloating.  Just pointing out I know how it feels.  I also know how it feels for somebody you’re in love with to make you feel like you’re constantly fucking up.”

“i don’t feel like that.”

“Yes, you do.  And you made me feel like that, too.  There’s a lotta stuff I like about Matt, but that’s my favorite:  he goes outta his way to make sure I don’t feel like a fuckup.  I told him last night—I like who I am around him, and I haven’t liked myself in a long time.”

“…not even when we were together?”

“No, V.  When we were together, I liked us, and I loved you.  But I hated me.”

Venom is quiet for a long time.  “i was a shitty friend,” he decides.  “and a very shitty boyfriend.  but you loved me anyway.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“i’m sorry, eddie.  i am bad at being kind.  peter says i have unresolved trauma, and according to the internet, he’s right.  he has suggested we hug it out, but i am not a fan of hugs, as you know.”

Eddie looks over his shoulder and sees a jellyfish-like blob of blackness floating in the water.  “Okay, that’s progress.  You can’t exactly talk to a therapist or nothin’, but maybe you could talk to me?”

“my first host was a kree soldier,” Venom says in a slightly bigger voice.  “i was a weapon, regardless of my own wishes.  when riot and the others rebelled, i ran away with them.  riot said we could never trust a host, and we should kill them before we could be used again.  i didn’t kill my host; that is why i was a loser on that asteroid.  they called me weak and trusting.  naïve.  i hurt you because i wanted to feel strong, which dr. phil says is a classic expression of generational abuse cycles, but does not excuse bad behavior when we know it to be hurtful.”

Eddie is grudgingly impressed.  “Dr. Phil, huh?  So you really have been working on yourself?”

“peter and mj have forced me to.  but also i want to be better.  for him.  for you.  for whoever hosts me next.  i have to fix what the kree broke in me, or i’ll only keep hurting my hosts.  i have a lot of anger, but the people who deserve it are dead.”

Wow.  Venom definitely has a better handle on identifying his issues than Eddie ever has, which is kind of humbling.  Eddie clears his throat and nods.  “Good, uh…good for you, V.  And…apology accepted.”

“…he’s the one who makes me feel like a fuckup, not peter.  that’s why i don’t like him.”

Eddie frowns.  “Who, Matt?”

“it was so easy for him to make you smile, and he can’t even appreciate it.  you’re pretty when you’re happy.”

“I’m really not.”

“you are.  anne always thought so, too.”

Eddie clears his throat again, pretending not to be flattered and embarrassed.  “You want me to go get Parker?”

“i will stay here for a while.  the fish are relaxing.”

MJ’s (extremely thorough) search determines that the green trucks were at the underground auction, at the apartment fire, at the bridge chase, and at the scene of the bribe.  ‘Trust A Bro Moving Company,’ which is a part of Sloan, the company Eleanor Bishop spoofed onto her fiancé’s file.  Other Sloan businesses include Fat Man Used Cars and Fat Man Gym.  It’s like Kingpin gets his jollies from daring people to find his shadier dealings.

So, here’s the team mascot, the faithful Great Dane, poking around with the most harmless, airheaded persona he can.

“Hello?” Eddie calls as he sticks his head in the door (a bell jingles discordantly, several years past its prime).  There’s nobody in the front office, but he can hear talking in the next room.

A guy in a red tracksuit comes out with a fake-ass smile.  “Happy holidays!  What can a bro move for you, sir?”

“Yeah, sorry, I just saw one of your trucks in my neighborhood the other day,” Eddie says, waving his thumb at the green eyesore outside.  “My place just burned down, and I was wonderin’, do you guys haul junk and trash?  ‘Cause my landlord’s telling me I gotta spring for the cleanup if I want him to pay the repairs, and I looked in my rental agreement and the tightwad’s right.  I got a quote from some contractor guy who was staking the place out, but it’s a little rich for my stomach, if ya know what I mean.”

Mr. Customer Service gives a slightly more sincere smile.  “Sure, bro, we’ll haul anything.  Junk’s even easier, since you don’t care if it gets broken.”

“Great!  You got, like, a form for me to fill out?”

They do.  It asks for his name, phone number, address, estimated square footage, preferred pickup time, destination, and payment method.  The payment options listed are ‘Cash,’ ‘Traveler’s Check,’ and ‘Gift Card.’  Oy vey.  Why not just put ‘money launderers’ on the front window?

“Oh, good, you take cash,” Eddie says cheerfully.  “Everybody seems to want plastic these days, but who can afford all the fees, am I right?  Banks are just gangs of thieves in suits anyhow.  Wall Street bastards, overcharging honest folks into obliv—”

“Thank you very much, we will call you soon!” the guy interrupts, snatching up the form with gritted teeth.

Something suicidal in Eddie can’t resist snarking with, “I catch you at a bad time?  Bro?”

The guy visibly collects himself and huffs out a humorless laugh.  “Ah, yes, sorry.  I don’t mean to be rude, but my boss has really been on my back.  You know how it is, holiday rush…”

“Yeah, no, I get it.  The big guy’s riding you to get results.  Must be rough, being a slave to the Fat Man’s whims.”

Mr. Customer Service is no longer amused.  “What did you say?”

Eddie casually points to the jolly ceramic figure on a nearby desk.  “Y’know—Santa.”

“Ah.  Yes.”

“Happy holidays,” Eddie says with a smile, and walks out.

Outside in the cold, he shoves his hands in his pockets and curses himself.

“Great job, Eddie, always gotta poke the fuckin’ bear…  Trying to take down this evil bastard is what got you run outta town before.”

He pauses a step, then starts walking again.

What if some of what he knows carries over?  The presidents have been the same, the key senators are the same…  Yeah, there are people with super powers, and that’s a pretty big diff, but other shit seems real close.

He found five laundering businesses, two arms stockpiles, and a drug lab, all an instant too late to tie it to Fisk before shit got sanitized or scapegoats got trotted out.  What if even some of it’s the same?  Two of the laundering operations were on MJ’s list for Sloan.

“Heh, mascot, my ass,” he mutters.  “Get some Scooby Snacks ready, kids…”

He calls MJ just because she’s his usual point of contact, so it won’t look weird if Rafa or somebody gets his phone.  After a few rings, it goes to voicemail.

“Shit.  You guys better not be in trouble and need rescuing right now, or I’ll ground you all for life.  I’m chasing some old leads, hoping they’ll turn into new leads.  Once upon a time, there was a guy named Lopez who worked at a place called Fat Man Auto Repair, which happens to be on the same property as Fat Man Used Cars, and he was definitely in deep with organized crime near Hell’s Kitchen.”

And away he goes.

And really, the first warning should have been the boarded windows.

The second warning should have been the angry chick stomping off into the snow just as the sun came back out.

Red flag number three should have been all the Tracksuits lollygagging around the place.

But, hey, all that seemed to point to Eddie being right.  Deliciously, beautifully, vindicatingly right.

The bloom of hot pain just below his ribs seems to point to Eddie being a goddamn idiot.

The guy who pulled the trigger looks surprised for a moment, like maybe he never shot anybody before, but then he gets that mad dog look they sometimes do, and he pulls the trigger again, and a third time.

It’s not Eddie’s first time being shot, but the novelty hasn’t worn off yet.  It hurts, and he can’t catch his breath, and his hands are shaking too badly to put pressure on the wound.  Wounds.  And that’s problematic, since he doesn’t have an alien goo monster putting him back together.

So much for those Scooby Snacks…

Somebody is yelling—roaring.  There’s a fight going on somewhere, but Eddie’s trying to stay on his feet, but he can’t remember why…

It doesn’t hurt when he hits the ground.  It’s cold and wet and crunchy.  And red.

White sky, high up.

Can’t catch his breath.

His mouth tastes like pennies and warm milk.

There’s something heavy on his chest—in his chest?

Gloved fingers on his face, then bare skin.  His ears are filled with a low hiss and a high ringing.  Someone’s talking, far away.  More voices.  Crying out.  They sound sad.  More fingers, smaller.

MJ’s pinky ring stings like a bitch when she slaps him.  For a moment, the ringing clears.  “You’re going into shock,” she says loudly, firmly.  “Focus.  Squeeze Matt’s hand.  Peter’s—”

Her voice fades away under the ringing again, and he chokes for a moment before managing a cough.  But then he still can’t catch his breath.  Something liquid is sliding down or up, like accidentally swallowing pool water, or getting his sinuses irrigated when he had a bad infection…

White.

Cold.

And then nothing.

I got us.

Black.  Sliding between bone and tissue, eating the misplaced blood to use as raw material, growing holes closed, discarding three little lumps of lead.

Nestling back in the hollow space between stomach and heart where it belongs.

HOME

Whole.

Wet fingers squeezing his—theirs—a little too hard.

Matt

They squeeze back, and Eddie manages to open his eyes.  “Well, that coulda gone better,” he admits.

Matt laughs at him, but he’s crying, too—nose gone pink and hair mussed from the mask discarded next to him in the snow—and he’s so damn pretty.  “I’d yell, but Foggy would call me a hypocrite.”

“I thought the Devil only came out at night.”

“What, like a blind lawyer would have been a ton of help against those guys?”

“Coulda made cute faces at ‘em till they either adopted you or begged for mercy.”

Matt yanks him upright and into a hug.

Two other sets of hands touch his back.

“Had us worried, Scoob,” MJ teases, but Venom can taste the heat in her hands, hear them trembling ever so softly.

“Sorry,” says Peter.  “I’m sorry.  I know you said you didn’t want him, but I couldn’t think of anything else, and he didn’t want to do it against your will, but I made him do it, and it saved your life, so—”

“Parker.”

Venom curls away from Eddie’s heart for a moment, but settles right back.

“What I said was, it wrecked me when he left.”

STAYING

“Yeah, for how long?” Eddie retorts.

missed you love you. home. home not going not ever never neverneveragain.

“Said that last time.”

what if

He waits.

He can feel Venom curling through his thoughts, less obtrusive than the other times he’s done it.

we could keep Matt.  he can make me behave, and he can make you happy.

Eddie stares as Matt senses something and tilts his head with a little frown.

YES that settles it, i have decided we are KEEPING MATT.  you are welcome.

Eddie laughs and kisses Matt’s cheek.

“Is that good?” Matt asks.  “That seems good.”

“V says if he stays, we’re keeping you.”

You have something in your pocket.  Bumpy paper.  I read about it on the Internet!  It says…  Oh, that is SUPER-ROMANTIC, Eddie, you are being WOOED!

Aloud, the alien says, “MATT.  Eddie is an idiot who cannot read the bump-writing, but I can read his bird-brain mind, and since I am the most helpful friend-boyfriend ever, read this and become intolerably smug!”

A black tendril nudges Matt’s right hand and settles under his fingers.  After a moment, he looks confused, then stunned, then—as Venom predicted—smug.  “So, I hear you and Snowflake are in the market for a place to stay long-term?”

“Uh,” Eddie says with all the charm and eloquence of a squirrel that ate somebody’s reefer stash.

“We can discuss that later,” MJ says.  “Now that you’re not dead or dying, explain why the hell you thought it was a good idea to come here at all, let alone without backup.  And keep in mind that you’re lucky your boyfriend has really weird attachment issues and that Peter followed Hawkeye and found out he sent a note to meet somebody here tonight so we were already on our way check it out.”

“Oh.  Right.  One sec—”  He steals another kiss before handing Matt his mask.  “Okay, so in my universe—”

(“Wait, what?” Matt says.  “Shhhh,” says MJ.)

“—I had gathered up all kinds of great leads to taking down Kingpin, but I was just a tad too slow, and he got all his alibis and scapegoats and payoffs lined up.  Bastard got me blacklisted from every paper in the city, sent me running to the opposite side of the country.  I figured enough things were the same here that I might try to scope out my old leads.  Unfortunately, it paid off.  I still got more leads to follow up on, though, and with V aboard, I fix up good as new.”

“And I pay better attention.”

“Asshole.”

“It’s true!  Remember Kasady and his little map?”

“You’re not cute enough to be smug about one case,” Eddie declares.  “You’re gonna have to work your way up.”

“Tell you what, boys,” says Matt—well, the mask is back on and he’s just pulled on his gloves, so technically he’s Daredevil now.  “I know a private eye who works pretty cheap when good people are getting the short end of some rich guy’s stick, and she happens to have kept off Fisk’s radar.  Give me your list, and she and I can have a look.”

“No way, the Tracksuits are my scoop!” MJ growls.

“Also, two more superheroes, right here,” Peter adds, pointing to Eddie and himself.

Daredevil shakes his head.  “You’re a minor, Peter.”

“Super!  And a really good scientist-in-training!”

“Peter is objectively much more super and heroic than you are.”

“I will blast you out of my boyfriend and stuff you in a fish bowl,” Daredevil threatens.

“Kids, stop fighting or I will do all the heroics myself and probably end up dead again!” Eddie yells.  When the others have shut up, he goes on at a more reasonable volume, “Babe, invite your PI friend to the Batcave.  We’ll, uh, have a con-fab or whatever, divide the labor fairly, see about helping Hawkeye and nailing the Fat Man in time for Christmas.”

“How are we gonna pay her?” asks Peter.

Eddie heaves a sigh and pulls out his phone.  “Snowflake has currently raised us twenty-seven thou and counting, thanks to that viral marketing thingy Queen MJ pulled.”

“H-h-how—”

MJ shrugs.  “I tagged Flash and showed him that vid of you asleep in the suit with Snowflake on your lap.  Did you know he has three hundred thousand followers on Insta and over a million on Twitter?  He shared the GoFundMe link with the tag ‘give a buck for Spidey’s favorite kitty.’“

Peter looks slightly frightened.  “I love you so, so much.  Please never turn into a super-villain.”

“Now that’s out of the way,” MJ says, standing up and looking around the back lot of the auto shop.  “Whaaaaat are we gonna do about all these unconscious goons?  I think at least one probably needs a doctor.  Daredevil got a little enthusiastic.”

“Mm.  Sorry, not sorry.”

“Don’t worry—not judging.  They shot the dog, John Wick kicked their asses.”

.End.

Chapter Text

Heads Will Roll

MJ is putting Eddie’s new info in its own little corner of the board when Matt just opens the door.

“Ugh, you always let me get my finger on the damn doorbell,” their visitor complains.  (“Want you to feel like you’re accomplishing something,” Matt sasses.)

Eddie knows that grumpy voice…  “Jones?!”

She eyes him with her usual level of casual hostility.  “Have we met?”

Ah.  “Not in this universe, apparently,” Eddie admits.

“Explain, now.”

“Uh-uh,” says Matt.  “I call boyfriend privileges, I get first dibs on any explanations about alternate universes.”

“You’re such a trash fire, Murdock…”

“Love you, too, Jess.”

“You said you need an investigator to get something on Kingpin, so here I am.  What’s with all the twelve-year-olds?”

“Seventeen,” the kids all chorus with righteous indignation.

Oof, great start.

“Right,” says Eddie, rubbing his hands together.  “I’m Eddie Brock.  These three are interns at the Manhattan Word on the Street, where I’m currently a staff writer.  Peter, Ned, and MJ.  Please be nice, because this is MJ’s place, the whole weird Kingpin-versus-Hawkeye thing is her scoop, and she is an evil genius.  Also, be nice to my cat, because he’s the reason we have several thousand dollars with which to pay you for your time.  Gang, that’s Jessica Jones, former superhero, currently still super but too jaded to hero.  In my version of things, she ‘n I would trade info—I’d help her crack cases, she’d help me bust scumbags.  Investigative reporting dream team.  In fact, she’s the one who helped me pin down Fat Man Auto Repair.”

“Holy shit,” Jones says, looking ever-so-slightly impressed.  “How is this my life?  Murdock, Cage, Rand, that whole thing with the undead dragon, and now some guy from apparently another dimension who creepily knows me.”

“I’m still waiting on the explanation for the alternate universe thing,” Matt adds.

Eddie is acutely aware of the kids staring silently at his back.  “Uhhh…  Magic spell went boom last December, several alternate universes collided, Spider-Man saved the day.  My life wasn’t great where I came from, so I kinda got adopted into this universe.  Ta-da.”

“That explains nothing,” Jones says at the same time that Matt says, “That explains so much.”

“Uh,” Eddie says again, trying to think of a way to keep Peter’s hard-won secret and still satisfy Jones.  “Bad things went down, Spider-Man asked a wizard for help—”

“Sorcerer,” Ned corrects, and gets elbowed by MJ.  “What?  Dr. Strange doesn’t wear a hat, so he’s technically not a wizard!  The new Captain America said so on Colbert.”

“The spell got messed up,” Eddie goes on.  “I helped out, so as a favor I got to stay.”

You didn’t do shit; we helped.

“Shutup,” Eddie hisses under his breath.

Jones slowly nods.  “So.  Your new boyfriend’s insane, got it.”

“How are you such a skeptic after the dragon?” Matt demands.

“Scotch.  Sometimes vodka.  Let’s move on, since you’re paying.  What’s that crackpot tinfoil hat board?”

Eddie snorts with stifled laughter.

MJ glares at them both before going over the board.  “We now know the Tracksuit Mafia is one of Kingpin’s biggest groups of enforcers.”  Front and center, below a portrait of Fisk, the photos of Ivan and the enigmatic ‘K.’  “They showed at the scene of a charity gala, looking for something at a skeevy-rich-people secret auction there.  Somebody dressed like Ronin—who kicked their asses during the Blip—was also there.”  She taps the news still of Ronin saving a dog.  “Next we see of Ronin is at the apartment across the alley from Eddie’s, which belongs to Kate Bishop, Renaissance girl for the ages, whose security tycoon mom we’re pretty sure is working for Kingpin, covering up for his various ventures and their shell companies.”  A scan of the student ID and basic social media info under the heading ‘College Archery Girl.’

“Huh.  Always thought Bishop Security was a little too squeaky to be clean,” grunts Jones.

“Bishop’s apartment gets attacked by the Tracksuits shortly after she’s seen going there with Hawkeye—whole thing burns, along with four other apartments, including Eddie’s.”  News article on the fire, Snowflake’s picture and the GoFundMe link.  “Tracksuits have a hell of a car chase with the archers, giant arrow through the Manhattan Bridge.”  Another still from a news broadcast.  “Days later, Eddie spots a Black Widow at Bishop’s apartment at the same time I get pics of one of the Street’s senior editors taking money from a Tracksuit, leading to us using Eddie’s charms to hack the guy’s phone and find out he’s been taking money to cover up Kingpin’s shit since the end of the Blip.”  Mugshot of the blonde assassin (‘Yelena Belova - Black Widow!!’), incriminating photos and call log (‘Turns Out Rafa Sucks ☹️’).  “Eddie does some footwork, confirms several of the Tracksuit bigwigs and two of their laundering operations.  This stuff here by itself is from his old leads, back in his universe.”

Jones, bless her, is actually looking at the board seriously.  “So.  Kingpin and Hawkeye are after the same thing, but neither one has it yet, or the hostilities wouldn’t be so hot.  Kingpin has press and security both in his pocket, no surprise.  Little Bishop probably isn’t in on it, but might be, seeing as she had a chat with an assassin and lived.  Let’s not even touch the Avengers shit—just use whatever Hawkeye is doing as a distraction.  We might be able to get some real shit on Fisk, like Murdock did before.  We might even be able to make it stick this time, as long as he doesn’t see us coming.”

Matt nods.  “Especially since he gave me his word he would serve his time and wouldn’t hurt people.”

“What the hell?  In exchange for what?” Jones asks suspiciously.

“Not sending his wife to jail.”

“Heh.  Nice.”

Eddie’s phone buzzes.

Rafa
how do you feel abt Persian food?
like kebabs and buttered rice

Eddie prefers Greek, but he doesn’t say so.  “Sorry, honeypot duty beckons,” he says aloud.

sounds great! what time?

Rafa
my place, 6:30?

That is almost definitely a trap.  I think he is onto you.  You must not have been very convincing last night.

“Screw you, I was perfectly convincing, and I told you your dumb plan sucked.”

Matt liked my plan, Venom points out haughtily.

“Oh, no, you do not get to gang up on me just ‘cause you decided you like Matt now.”

MJ hisses urgently.

Eddie looks up from his phone and sees Jones eyeing him like he’s absolutely batshit.  The kids all look mortified.

Matt gives a little sigh.  “Well, I’m glad to hear you two getting along so well.  Venom, would you please introduce yourself to Jess before she decides we all belong in an asylum?”

“Yeah, sure, no point keeping a brain-eating alien a secret,” Eddie grumbles.

Venom apparently decides to be ingratiating.  He forms a cartoonish blob on Eddie’s shoulder with two big milky eyes, foregoing all the teeth.  “Hello, Jess!  I am V, and Eddie is my symbiotic host, but also my ex whom I have recently adopted as a sad loser pet like those ugly little dogs with the protuberous eyes, and Matt is our irritatingly smug boyfriend.”

Jones is still making an intensely skeptical face.  “An alien.  Who you bicker with like an old married couple.”

“That’s about the size of it,” MJ confirms.

Jones closes her eyes.  “How much money are we talking?”

“I’unno, twenty large?” Eddie proposes with feigned disinterest.  “Half in advance?”

“Hnnnnnghfine.  Fuck it.  Fine.”

“Also, V thinks dinner with Rafa is a trap.”

“Meeting up at his place or the venue?”

“His.”

Jones nods.  “Murdock can use his Superman hearing to tail you for a bit.  This Rafa guy doesn’t know me, so I can be waiting at the venue just in case.”

He looks good up there, Venom decides.

Eddie makes sure not to look.  He knows that up on a fire escape across the street, Daredevil is perched in shadow.  “Yes, he does,” Eddie mumbles under his breath, “but let’s please stay focused on not getting our asses kicked by the bad guys or the corrupt editor.  And, just because I know how conflicted you are about his smugness levels, I’m gonna tell him you said that.”

WAIT NO I TAKE IT BACK

“Babe, V says you look good.  I think it’s the perching that does it for him.”

ARGH, you traitor!  You are so lucky Rafa will be here any second, or—

“Hey, hi!” Rafael says as he comes out the front door of his condo and locks up.

“Hi!” Eddie says with a grin.  “So, where’re we headed?  I gotta tell ya, I know zilch about this part o’ town.  You said Persian is like kebabs ‘n stuff, right?  Kinda like Greek food, then?”

“Kinda like,” Rafa agrees.  “Their empires conquered a lotta the same ground.  Little spot called Kebab Palace—awful name, I know, but the food’s great.”  He gently but firmly grabs Eddie’s arm just above the elbow, steering him down the sidewalk and pressing close.

From a girl, it’d seem like a flirty, demure move.  Stretching ‘acceptable’ PDA as far as propriety allows.  From a sleaze-bag, it feels like a threat.

“Oh, hel-lo,” Eddie says with a chuckle.  “Wow, I haven’t had somebody do the romantic-arm-in-arm thing in a long while.  Before, uh…well, you know.”

“V didn’t go in for public displays, huh,” Rafa says pityingly.  “That must’ve been so hard for you, since you’re such a tactile guy.”

It was.  The ‘not in public’ part might be Eddie’s fault, but V wasn’t into physical affection of any kind, until he suddenly was, and Eddie had been essentially untouched except in violence for more than six months by then.  Eddie gives an uncomfortable shrug.  “It, uh…wasn’t no dream, that’s for sure.  But I came out the other side all right, yeah?  And here we are.  Only took me eleven months to get back on the bike, as the sayin’ goes.  I’ve read about some folks—other, um, ones like me, coming from bad situations—taking years to be able to try dating without, like, panic attacks.”

V grumbles quietly in the back of his mind, but pokes around until he finds the first time Eddie tried to date after landing here, and the humiliating moment of abject, unreasoning terror that had sent him running without even going into the restaurant.  Then he projects a sort of soft, contrite feeling.

“You’re doing great,” Rafa assures him with a little pat on his shoulder.

“It’s, uh, exciting,” Eddie says truthfully.  “Being able to be with somebody again.  Being around somebody, and having little intimacies, like hand-holding or bad jokes or whatever.”

Sleeping with Matt pressed against him (probably using his pulse as a kind of white noise generator, come to think of it…).  Breakfast.  Smiling just at the sound of his voice over the phone.

His phone buzzes.  MJ has sent a picture of Snowflake standing on his chair with his front paws on the table, staring fixedly at Ned’s laptop while the kid works.  It’s the signal that they know the restaurant and Jones is in position.

“What’s up?” Rafa asks.

“A little editorial oversight,” Eddie jokes, showing him the pic.

Rafa laughs.  “I better watch out, or Snowflake will take my job!”

They get to the restaurant, they sit, they order.

It goes like a decent date.

Then Rafa asks what he’s been working on.

There’s his way in.

“So, there’s these businesses—two I know for sure, maybe one more—that are definitely dirty.  Like, laundering money for somebody.  Potentially providing muscle, mob-style.  Fat Man Gym, which is closed for renovations, and Fat Man Auto Repair, which declared bankruptcy a couple years back.  Now, the auto place got raided by Ronin during the Blip, which is how it ended up on my radar.  Did some digging, and it’s owned by some, uh, whattayacallit, shell company.  Sloan Limited?  They also own a moving company called Trust a Bro, and one of their trucks was spotted at my apartment fire, and again during a big chase with Hawkeye.  Too stinky to be coincidence, y’know?  Two crooked businesses, another publicly fighting an Avenger?  I think we need to find out who’s behind Sloan.  Have you ever heard of the Tracksuit Mafia?”

MJ texts again.  This time, it’s a picture of her pressing one of Snowflake’s paws to extend his claws, and the caption ‘Dangerfuff McMurdermittens.’  The sign that Matt can hear Rafa getting nervous and it’s time to press.  He grins at the photo.

“Anyway!  So there’s talk of this gang that all wear matching tracksuits, and they definitely do enforcement for someone.  Ronin bashed his way through these guys, too.  Now, I couldn’t help but notice the employees at Trust a Bro all wear matching tracksuits…”  He spreads his hands like the whole thing is axiomatic.

“You’re aware you sound like MJ right now?  You’re not gonna start talking about 5G mind control, or reptilian overlords, or brain-butterflies, are you?”

The last two are real.

“Brain…butterflies?” says Eddie.

“Yeah, insect-like aliens that burrow into your skull and control your brain.  Folks who believe in those also believe Batman’s real.”

“What?  Why would we need Batman?”

“I’m just saying, that’s the popular—”

“We already got the Avengers for big stuff, or that Spider-Guy for more local stuff.  Or Daredevil, over where I live.  You know, one time, he saved me from getting mugged when I was walkin’ home drunk as a skunk?”

“Really?” says Rafa.  He looks like he’s trying to pretend he’s impressed, but Eddie has mastered the art of identifying intense annoyance in his conversation partners.  Another pressure point?

“Oh my God, Rafa, when I tell you this man’s ass is nice enough to one hundred percent reawaken anybody’s attraction to men…”  Eddie makes demonstrative squeezing gestures with both hands.  “Like, I know if my dumb drunk self had tried anything, he woulda punched my jaw outta alignment, but that kinda works for me, y’know?”

“Why are we talking about some psycho vigilante’s ass in the middle of our date?”

Bingo.

Eddie blinks innocently.  “I’unno, you’re the one who mentioned Batman.  Don’t tell me you feel threatened by a little celebrity crush…”

Rafa turns and signals a server.  “Can we get the check, please?”

“Oh, wow.  Okay,” Eddie says with a little chuckle.  “Duly noted.  Well, we had some fun, at least.”

“You’re breaking up with me over one bad date?”

Along his spine, Eddie feels Venom’s hackles rise.  Yeah, red flags multiplying.

“We’re not exactly ‘going steady,’ Rafael,” he points out.  “We been on two-and-a-half dates if you count lunch and the musical separately, and we had some above-average sex.  And I’m breaking up with you—if that’s what you wanna call it—over my trauma telling me I’m seeing some important red flags that I associate with getting slapped around.  Back on the professional side of things:  I know in my gut that Trust a Bro is a goldmine.  There’s this guy with a thin beard, and hair down to here-ish, and some kinda neck tattoo, walking and talking like he’s the hot shit.  I’m gonna see what I can dig up.”

Rafael slips some cash onto the check tray with a sigh.  “You’re right; I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean for my insecurities to make you uncomfortable.  You’re still recovering, and you hoped I could help with that, and instead I was a jerk.  Let me make it up to you.”

Jones puts a hand on the table between them.  “Hey, creepy, put it in reverse and back allll the way up.”

“Jess?” Eddie exclaims like they’re old friends.  “Holy shit, it’s been ages!  How are you?”

She smiles at him.  “Better than you, with this textbook narcissist trying to groom you.  Let’s get outta here.  I’ll even buy you a coffee and commiserate like a good wing-woman.”

“Excuse me,” says Rafa, puffing up.  “You can’t just—”

“Take away your potential victim?” counters Jones.  “Watch me, Fifty-Shades.”

“Now, now, let’s not—”

“Make a scene?  Oh, but I love scenes.  Selfish dicks like you rely on the threat of humiliation to keep your pets from ‘making scenes’ so nobody has a clue what you’re really like.”  She turns to the rest of the dining room and claps her hands.  (Eddie groans and hides his face as people turn to look, because she’s absolutely correct about the humiliation thing.)  “Hey, everybody, this hot Latino is actually a predator who picks up victims of domestic abuse and pretends to save them while he slowly turns them into his own victims.”

All but unnoticed, Eddie’s phone buzzes and shows him a pic of Snowflake curled up on Ned’s napping face, followed by three tombstone emojis.  Matt’s told them Rafa is on the verge of violence.

“I’m an upstanding member of the press,” Rafa says through clenched teeth.  “A pillar of the community.”

“And a whole bunch of Catholic priests molest little boys,” Jones counters.

“You’re going to regret playing with my reputation,” says Rafa.

She snarls and bites the air next to his face, making him flinch back.  “Pussy,” she scoffs.

“Oh my god, Jess, I gotta work with this guy,” Eddie points out, still shading one side of his face with his hand.

“All the more reason to make sure he knows there’ll be consequences if anything should happen to you,” she purrs, grabbing Rafa’s butter knife and effortlessly bending it into a heart while making heavy eye contact.  “I’ll be watching, chicken-shit.”

And she waits for Eddie to leave first.

“I make great bait, it’s a character flaw,” Eddie mutters as he waits for Jones to join him outside.  “Now he’s got no incentive to protect me and every reason to want revenge.  Any time now, he’ll tattle on me to K or Ivan or the Fat Man himself.”

“Come on,” says Jones.  “Danny’s favorite coffee place is just a block over, full of hipsters and entrepreneurs and probably a rich white boy who can punch holes in a tank.”

“We gonna need one of those?”

“Nah, but it’s as good a place to wait as any.  Murdock or the kids will let us know when it’s time for the next step.”

Eddie puts an earbud in so he can talk to Venom without looking completely bonkers.  “Thanks for stepping in, even though V had me covered.”

Always, my Eddie.

“You didn’t need your last abuser protecting you from your next one,” she grunts.

Venom wriggles with discomfort (or self-consciousness…though that would be a first), squeezing Eddie’s stomach a little and making him belch.

“Oof, ‘scuse me…  Who, uh…who told you about…”

“You’re real fuckin’ obvious, Brock.  But I was also eavesdropping at the restaurant.”

“V could feel him gearing up for something,” he notes.

He wanted to hurt you.  Could smell it.  He thought he owned you.

Eddie feels sick.

“You’re looking a little green.  Let’s change the subject:  tell me more about that giant cat.”

So he tells her the full tale of Snowflake’s adoption, when he was in the deepest throes of his depression.  He tells her how that’s what convinced Mrs. DiPazzi that he was a good person (who needed an adoptive granny to fuss and feed him).  He tells her how Snowflake can ingratiate himself with anyone, how he’s an excellent judge of character, how he likes walks and car rides.

They get a pair of coffees (black for her, foamy cold brew mocha for him) and settle by the window.  She scrolls through his Instagram and its treasure trove of cat videos.

Eddie’s phone rings.

Incoming Call From
Dat Ass

And only one person would have had access to his phone and the idiocy to use that access for something so immature.  “You been back less than a day, you’re already poking around in my damn phone?!” he hisses under his breath.

“Who, me?”

“Yes, you, asshole!”  Eddie hurriedly accepts the call.  “Hey, babe, what’s up?”

~“Wow.  Sorry, just, I love hearing your voice… He’s arranged a meet with K—short for Kazi, by the way—dangling the fact that you know him by sight.  It’ll be worth recording the meet, but even better if we can also get photographic evidence of an attempted attack or an extortion.  Play dumb for now, but make sure you give plenty of openings after the next signal.  Tell Jess to have her camera ready.”~

“Got it.  Be safe.”

~“Look who you’re talking to.”~

“Very funny.  Love you, bye.”  And he hangs up at exactly the same time that he realizes what he’s just said.

“Your face is so red!” Jones says with a shit-eating grin.

what is HAPPENING

Shut up.  Shut. UP.

He clears his throat.  “Rafa’s meeting K.  They got that covered, but I’m still playing bait.  When we get the signal, we gotta split up so that you can be ready with your camera.  And bear in mind, me ‘n V are a lot harder to kill than a regular human—maybe don’t intervene unless we tell you.”

“You sure?  On a scale of Murdock—who would die to a gunshot but can dodge bullets—to my sometimes-boyfriend—who can literally bounce bullets off his skin—where would you fall?”

“Uhhh…bullets hurt, but we can fix it?  Somewhere in that whole middle region.  But fire is a no-go.”

“Eddie!  We can breathe water and regenerate but are vulnerable to fire, and we have a black cat.  We are a witch!” Venom concludes with a disproportionate amount of pride.

“We’re not a witch—you hate magic.”

“Oh.  Hm.”

Jones eyes him.  “So…healy but not fireproof?  Like a troll?”

“What?”

“Y’know, D&D.  My friend is really into it, and I’ve kinda accidentally absorbed some of her knowledge.  Apparently, there’s a lot of hot celebrity guys who play.  And the trolls in it are really sturdy and regenerate, but they’re weak to fire.”

Eddie can’t quite figure out where his life went wrong enough to land him in this conversation.  “That’s some nerd-ass shit, right there.”

“Perhaps the guy whose self-image is currently hinged on the opinion of a blind man shouldn’t be so judgy about what people like,” Venom has the balls to point out.

“I am this close to letting him blast you outta me and stick you in a jar.”

MJ sends a picture of Snowflake stalking a catnip mouse.

“That’s our cue.”  Eddie gets to his feet, and Jones follows suit.

“It was good to see you again.  Hey, I mean it about the skeevy bad date—you tell me if he tries anything.  And if he fucks with your job over it, I’ll go find his car and fold it up like origami.”

“Thanks, Jess.  You’re a good friend.  I’ll seeya around.”

He heads out at a sedate pace.

She is following very discreetly.  She’s almost as good as the one in your memories.

He acts like he’s just enjoying the fresh air after a shitty date.  He figures he’ll hail a cab in a block or so, get out about a block from Matt’s place, look like an easy target, get a snack somewhere.

Turns out not to need all that; a white Caddy pulls up beside him while he’s walking, hands in pockets (keys in one, recorder in the other like any half-decent nightcrawler).  He can see a broad silhouette in the back seat.

“Eddie Brock, reporter?” the driver asks.

“Who’s askin’, tough guy?”

“Mr. Fisk has a business proposition for you.  Get in.”

“Oh, gosh,” Eddie prevaricates with his most charming smile, turning on the recorder in his pocket.  “That’s real flattering, but I got a full-time position at a paper already.”

“At the Manhattan Word on the Street?” the guy scoffs.  “A rinky-dink little hipster rag.  Mr. Fisk can offer ten times what they’re paying.  A wise man would hear him out.”

“I’m good where I am.  I like the team, and I like small papers.”

“That kinda thing’s fine until something goes wrong.  Like how your apartment burned down last week.  Damn shame.”

“I got that covered, thanks.”

“Staying with a minor without her parent’s knowledge?”

“I’m packing tonight to move somewhere else tomorrow.”

“Sometimes terrible things happen.  Mr. Fisk is a man with a lotta connections; he can make a lotta things easier.  And hey, what happens if your editor starts harassing you?  Doesn’t seem like a guy who takes no for an answer.  Word is, you and a friend made a public scene, and he wasn’t about it.”

Eddie squirms.  “And Fisk, he can do something about that?”

“Maybe.  If you’re working for Mr. Fisk, you don’t gotta worry about that creep no more.  So.  Get in the car.”

“Ah—I dunno, man.  My mom always told me not to get in cars with strangers.”

“I insist,” says the driver, casually resting his hand on a clumsily concealed pistol in his jacket.

If this Jones is anywhere near the caliber of the one in his universe, she’s got a gorgeous shot on a silver platter.

“Oh,” Eddie says faintly.  “Well, since you insist.”

The hulking shape in the back is indeed Fisk, and Eddie finds himself shoulder-to-shoulder with the man.

“Good evening, Mr. Brock,” the Kingpin rumbles.  It’s like listening to a mountain talk.  If a mountain wore good overpriced suits with bad overpriced tropical shirts.

“Oh.  Um.  You, uh, must be…”

“Wilson Fisk.  I’m a great supporter of independent journalism—a patron of the arts, you might say.”

Eddie fidgets.  Venom is slithering around his spine in a worrying way, and he tries to send stern feelings at the symbiote.

Don’t fuck this up with your temper or your possessive bullshit, he thinks as loudly as he can.  We’re bait.  Our job is to look harmless and maybe get our ass kicked.

Kingpin smiles.  “To be very blunt, Rafael asked me to…repay you for the embarrassment he suffered a few hours ago.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t think Rafael truly understands romantic love.  He seems to have approached the matter with limited patience and compassion…very disappointing.  Have you ever been in love, Mr. Brock?”

Eddie swallows.  “Coupla false alarms,” he says, thinking of Anne and Venom.  “But, uh, yeah.  Yeah, I think I’m in love with somebody.  The way your driver talked to me, I think maybe I shouldn’t go into detail.”

“Don’t mind Seth,” Fisk reassures him (in a very insincere way).  “I take it one of the false alarms was the one who beat you.”

“H-how’d you…yeah,” Eddie says quietly.

“Anyone—especially an artist—who suffered such a betrayal would necessarily be cautious in matters of the heart.  Rafael has a disappointing lack of empathy for trauma, it would seem.  I understand your pain, Mr. Brock.  No matter how close the friendship between myself and Rafael, I could never bring myself to punish you for protecting yourself.”

“S-so, you’re not gonna…like, bust my kneecaps or get me fired or something?”

The crook’s face of sad compassion is almost as disturbing as the reassurances.  “Such measures would be beyond repugnant.  If we can build a mutually beneficial relationship, it would never even cross my mind.”

“Wait, w-whattaya mean by ‘mutually beneficial’?”

“I’m a powerful, prominent figure, Mr. Brock.  A man in my position requires the utmost discretion from the press, especially with a history of so many little misunderstandings.  It’s so easy to twist good deeds to appear malicious, I find.  Rafael is, as aforementioned, somewhat lacking in subtlety.  You could fill a niche in my ecosystem, Mr. Brock.  And if you join my little family, any trouble with Rafael would of course be a thing of the past.”

Venom bubbles and writhes somewhere in the vicinity of Eddie’s appendix.

BAD GUY

I know, STOP IT.

“So…I don’t gotta kill anybody, or shake anybody down,” Eddie draws out, doing his best doe-eyed airhead impression.  “I just neglect to follow some leads, put a positive slant on stuff other papers use for smear, that kinda thing, and you’ll make sure Rafa doesn’t, like, wait for me in the parking lot with a baseball bat?”

“You’re a smart man, Mr. Brock,” Kingpin says with what’s probably supposed to be a fatherly smile.  “I have your number; for now, just wait to be contacted.  If no one calls you, just write your pieces like it’s business as usual.”

“Wow, thank you so much, Mr. Fisk, sir!”  He grabs Kingpin’s hand and starts shaking it enthusiastically.

The big man’s grip gets very, very tight.

“Ah—that’s a, uh, pretty strong grip, uh—”

“I trust you’ll remember how polite this conversation was, and that family don’t betray one another.”

“Oh—y-yes, sir, Mr. F—ow—Fisk.”

“Take care, Eddie.  And give my regards to young Michelle and her…scrappy little amateur detective friends.”

He DARES threaten MJ?  I will chew him like a gummy candy animal!

“I will, sir, thanks again.”

He scrambles out of the car and keeps taking the path he’d been on before.

I WANT TO SPREAD HIS BRAINS ON A BAGEL!

“Gross,” Eddie mumbles as he watches the Caddy pull into traffic.  He switches off his recorder as he walks.  His phone rings.

Incoming Call From
ID Blocked

Eddie grimaces but immediately answers.  “Eddie Brock speaking.”

~“Just checking, Mr. Brock,”~ the Kingpin rumbles at him.

“Oh, Mr. Fisk!  Should—how does this work?  Are you always gonna call me on this number, or should I just answer any unknown caller?”

~“I generally won’t be the one to call you, Mr. Brock.  Be ready to trust strangers who give you the following passphrase:  better the devil you know.”~

“I like it—literary, political, catchy…”

~“Goodbye, Mr. Brock.”~

Fisk hangs up on him, so he hails a cab.  They already know about MJ’s place; he might as well stick to the narrative.

They add a transcript of the recording to the Board.  Twenty minutes later, Jones shows up with some amazing photos of Kingpin’s driver clearly threatening Eddie, and Eddie subsequently getting into the car.

It only takes Ned thirty minutes to get a facial match on the driver, and then they add a mugshot to the Board.

Eddie’s phone rings just as Jones and Ned are heading home for the night.

Incoming Call From
Dat Ass

“Hey, babe,” he says as he heads to the guest room.

Matt makes a sulky groan.  ~“I miss you already.  My awesome bed is shaped wrong without my awesome human pillow.”~

“Spoiled,” Eddie accuses with a grin.  “We had some moderate success on our side tonight; how’d Team Red do?”

~“Well, I can’t exactly judge for myself, but I’m told Peter is an excellent photographer, and he says he got some gorgeous shots.  Foggy called—he wants to have lunch with you, which really means he wants to make sure you’re good enough for me even though he should probably be warning you of my laundry list of personality flaws.  I can tell him I’m a big boy till I’m blue in the face, but he’ll insist people can and will take advantage of me.”~

“Nah, it’s fine.  Totally understandable.  I know firsthand you’re far from helpless, but even I kinda wanna put you on a nice, safe shelf somewhere.  It’s that face of yours, baby—people just naturally wanna take care of you.  Honestly, I think you ‘n me are gonna be a damn trash fire for the first month or so of cohabitation, but you are so fuckin’ worth it.”

~“…yeah?”~ Matt asks, sounding coy again.

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

~“Has V told you what that note said?”~

“All he said was that it’s super-romantic and I’m being wooed—wooed, he literally used that word.”

Matt chuckles at him.  ~“Go find a Braille alphabet online somewhere and translate it.  Get some sleep.”~

“Yeah.  G’night.”

Peter can read Braille, Venom says loftily.

Eddie ignores him and hangs up the call.

.End.

Chapter Text

Looking Glass

Eddie and Venom manage to doodle a profiling sketch of the angry chick from Fat Man Auto Body.

Ned sends a match within half an hour, and Eddie and MJ huddle at the laptop with coffee while they read.

Maya Lopez, whose late father was the guy Eddie had lined up before Kingpin got him blacklisted across the boroughs.  Young-ish.  Award-winning martial artist, chess champion.  Deaf amputee who silenced every doubter.

“Oh shit, oh shit,” Eddie mutters, mind racing.  “So we know the Tracksuits had their numbers…cut down, shall we say…by Ronin.  I’m betting in this universe, her old man snuffed it and she, having grown up in the Outfit, decided to use organized crime to get revenge.  Hence the really disproportionate response to seeing somebody dressed as Ronin—seriously, burning down five apartments?  When I saw her, she must’ve been stomping off in a huff over not being able to get her mitts on Hawkeye or Ronin.”

Dat Ass
Ready to move your stuff?
Downstairs with a friend who doesn’t mind fur in the car. :)

And now Eddie’s picturing Matt dictating a smiley into a speech-to-text program.

“I may vomit purely from the saccharine look on your face,” MJ informs him.

“I feel like you haven’t seen the face you make when Peter does something sweet and clever.”

She narrows her eyes at him.  “Fair enough.  You need any help carrying your…abundance of material goods?” she asks, waving one slim brown hand at the duffel bag with his only change of clothes (and the giant cat asleep on it).

“I keep forgetting you guys are comedians,” he retorts.

He packs up his laptop, tosses Snowflake onto one shoulder like a napping child, grabs the duffel, and heads for the door.

“Keep the card, okay?” MJ says.  “I’m not saying things between you won’t go well, I obviously want them to go well, but, just…  Like, maybe you’ll get lonely, or maybe you’ll need to see the board, or maybe you’ll need a cat-sitter or an apocalypse shelter or whatever…”

“You’re a good friend,” he tells her (nearly calling her the dreaded K-word instead).  “V and Snow love ya to bits, okay?  So we’ll definitely visit.  Just…maybe with parental consent first.”

“Shut up, you’re so emotional,” she squeaks out with watery eyes.  “Keep me updated on the case, Scoob.  Me ‘n the gang’ll throw you a housewarming party this weekend.”

The ‘friend’ Matt brought turns out to be some hippie-looking guy with a Bronco (brown, and Eddie wants to laugh but also wants a ride across the island).

“Holy shit, I thought Jess was exaggerating,” the blond says.  “That cat’s almost big enough to ride.”

“He’s a big softy, like his pet human,” Matt scoffs, smacking Eddie’s ass with unerring aim.  “All aboard, boys.”

“Sorry, the cat just surprised me,” the stranger goes on, offering his right hand.  “I’m Danny, the only friend Matt has who bothers to have a car.”

“In a city where public transit can take you almost anywhere,” snipes Matt.

Eddie shakes Danny’s hand.  “I’m Eddie, this is Snowflake.  We’re the boyfriend and the asshole-detector, respectively.”

“Had a friend in fourth grade whose dog was like that,” Danny says with a nod.  “That dog would tolerate a lot of people, but he hated my best friend’s dad, who turned out to be a murderer and a creep, so…clearly an animal of refined taste.”

“Oof, that’s rough,” Eddie admits.  “Well, this is pretty much everything that survived the fire.  Just that this overgrown idiot scares off cabbies and Ubers.”  He slides into the backseat.

Matt gets in from the other side, and Snowflake rouses enough to abandon Eddie’s shoulder in favor of Matt’s before closing his eyes and resuming his nap.

“The fuff is mine,” Matt declares with a grin.  “MJ would be so jealous if she knew.”

When they arrive, Danny shakes Eddie’s hand again and says it was nice meeting him.

He smells weird, Venom grumbles as the truck pulls away.

“Yeah, well…so do you, Mr. Eggs, Chocolate, and Human Brains.”

At the top of the stairs, Matt grins at him again.  “Do the honors, since I’ve got the majestic beast?”

“Oh—that’s right, I’ve got your key…”

“You have your key to our apartment,” Matt corrects.

Eddie fumbles it, and it lands with an echoing metallic sound.

Matt’s grin fades a little.  “Uh-oh.  Is that good heartbeat-skipping or bad heartbeat-skipping?”

Eddie crouches, fingers clumsy as he tries to pick the damn thing back up.

“Eddie?  I can’t see your face, remember?  You’re gonna have to help me out, here…”

“N-no, babe, it’s fine,” Eddie babbles, blunt nails scraping until he manages to get an edge of the key lifted.  “It’s…good.  I just…the last two exes had me convinced that I’m definitely not easy to live with, and, uh…it’s hard.  To believe you actually wanted to, I mean.”

“Let’s get inside, and we can talk it through.  V, could you help get the door, please?”

Venom extends a tendril expectantly, and Eddie gives him the key, grateful that he didn’t just work Eddie’s hand like a marionette.  He feels like his skin is the wrong size, and that would probably make him freak out just now.

we are okay, Venom assures him quietly.  it was in the bump-writing.  he wants to keep you.

“Please shut up,” Eddie mutters, blushing so hard even his ears feel hot.

urgh, another worrying surface-temperature change…is this a defensive camouflage?

When they get the door open and step inside, the first thing he sees is the hall table on the left—with a big old-fashioned fishbowl on it.  There’s a bow and a gift tag that says ‘for V from Matt.’

He drops his duffel, sets his laptop bag on top of it, and manhandles his boyfriend the rest of the way inside so he can shut the door.

“I take it you saw—” Matt manages before Eddie kisses the smug look off his face.

Between them, Snowflake grumbles and wriggles free to survey his new domain.

“I figure everybody deserves their own space,” Matt finally manages.  “You’re part of his life, so you’re welcome here—as long as you behave yourself.  We can even get you some stuff to decorate it, if you want.  It’s the nitrogen you can’t breathe, right?  Peter was conjecturing—”

Eddie kisses him again, but it’s mostly Venom’s fault this time.

KEEPING HIM

“Well,” Matt huffs, hands broad and warm on Eddie’s back.  “Guess that means you guys like it.”

Venom gives a happy purr, and there’s a chilly, ticklish sensation in the skin under Matt’s fingers.

“Oh,” Matt says, blinking.  “That’s a thing?”

“Hey, are you passin’ secret notes to our boyfriend?” Eddie complains half-heartedly.

“Just making certain suggestions that have me thinking about the spiritual ramifications, because while I am intrigued, I am also Catholic.”

“Right, Foggy mentioned that.  I guess I figured, since we’re here, like this, instead of you throwing holy water at us or something…”

Matt shakes his head.  “My faith and my sexuality got sorted out years ago.  Bisexuality, attraction to men, romance with men, sex with men, all taken care of.  I’m even completely fine with you being what many people would term ‘possessed.’  It’s the idea of sex with a brain-eating tentacle-monster from outer space that’s giving me things to work through.”

“Fair.  I’m not completely sure where it falls, myself, morally speaking.  And I say that as someone who used to have quite a lot of sex with said brain-eating tentacle-monster from outer space.”

A lopsided smile twists its way across Matt’s mouth.  “I think there’s a pretty suspect level of lust and general sin involved.”

“And wrath is more your thing.”

“Hey, I went to confession for that yesterday,” Matt protests with a feigned pout.  “Though I think my priest still doesn’t think I’m physically capable of the things I confess.”

Something…proud…rumbles around the base of Eddie’s spine.  “You tell him the things we been gettin’ up to?  Outta wedlock, no less?”

Matt laughs and trails a hand up to hook at Eddie’s nape.  “No.  None of it’s felt like something I should feel guilty about—and I say that as someone who’s been accused of hoarding misplaced guilt.”

“Maybe I need to get more imaginative, then.”

In a whirl, he’s been spun around and had his back thumped firmly against the closed door.

Venom’s combined lust and hunger twist through Eddie’s gut.  Eddie abruptly remembers that brains make more of that chemical Venom likes when orgasms happen.

Tentacles to yourself, he thinks.  He said not yet.

Venom gives a sulky growl.

Matt turns the lock and runs his teeth over Eddie’s collarbone.  “Bed?” he suggests.

Eddie has to borrow a clean shirt for lunch (he maintains that it’s technically brunch, but Matt has ignored him the three times he’s said so).  There’s no way any of Matt’s pants will fit (except maybe sweats, which will not make a great impression with the very protective best friend who first met Eddie with Matt attached to his face), and the bright red tee-shirt makes Eddie a little self-conscious about his gut, but there’s not much helping it.

Your depression has left our body a mess.  I will fix our metabolism later.

“Stop—” Matt chides, grabbing his hands, “—fidgeting!  I like your belly.”

…perhaps I will only overhaul the organs, then.

Matt flashes a goofy grin.

“What?” Eddie asks, suspicious.

“I like the way you smell in my clothes.”

WE ARE OVERHEATING AGAIN!  Is this normal?!

“Yes, V, it’s perfectly normal when I’m blushing so hard I probably look like a tomato,” he mutters.

Laughing, Matt leans in and peppers his cheek with kisses.

“Stahhhhhp,” Eddie grumbles insincerely.

“Nuh-uh.  When my boyfriend is being adorable, I have a legal obligation to provide smooches.  Pretty sure I could be disbarred for failing to provide adequate smooching.”

“That’s a damn lie.”

“But it got you to relax,” Matt points out.

Snowflake demands food (which Matt and MJ somehow conspired to provide), so Eddie fills his bowl before they head out.

“Remember to lock up,” says Matt.  “I don’t really have anything worth stealing, but you’ve got your work computer.”

Foggy meets them in a diner two blocks down.  It’s a typical greasy spoon, the kind with cracking vinyl seat cushions and pull-style soda taps and a glass display case full of pies.

Foggy has picked a booth where Matt can put his back to a wall and keep his cane out from underfoot.

“Hi,” Eddie says, feeling awkward as he holds out his hand to shake.  At least the guy’s not wearing a suit this time…

Foggy has a firm grip.  “Nice to meet under better circumstances.  Foggy Nelson.”

“Eddie Brock.”

“Hm,” is all the redhead says, face suspiciously pleasant.  “He looks nervous.  Is that just his face?”

“Oh, gee, why would he be nervous?” Matt snarks.  “He’s just my boyfriend of four days who moved in with me this morning and is having lunch with my long-time best friend.”

“Brunch, technically.  Is that one of your shirts?”

“Yes, because his apartment burned down the night before we met.  Eddie, please sit down.  I promise Foggy’s bark is worse than his bite.”

“He’s making skeptical faces,” Foggy tattles.

“Eddie, get in the booth or I will publicly serenade you, Disney prince style.”

Eddie launches into the booth with his shoulders up around his ears.

“Gonna want to be sparing with that tactic,” Foggy warns.  “Guy looks like he might spontaneously combust.”

Is this a thing now?  The too-hot embarrassment?  It’s sticky; I don’t like it.

Matt slides into the booth and wraps himself around Eddie’s arm.  “He has self-esteem issues, so I’m working on positive embarrassment to overcome the fear of public shame.”

“Yuck,” says Foggy.  “You’re wearing matching lovey-dovey faces.”

The waitress looks like somebody’s grandma, complete with a bun full of hairpins and bifocals on a chain.  She greets Foggy and Matt by name and takes all three lunch orders with efficient little shorthand notes.

“I’m going to be excruciatingly honest,” says Foggy, once she’s gone.  “Matt has an eerie ability to find and date beautiful people who are neck-deep in trouble.”

“I’m flattered,” Eddie tries to joke, despite knowing that he looks like a hobo got a shave and a shower.

Shut up, we are beautiful.  Matt says so, and now his friend is saying so.

“And as such,” Foggy goes on, “I gotta say, you look like trouble.”

“Ooh, you look like trouble,” Matt says, wiggling his eyebrows.  “Sounds sexy, I like it.”

Foggy, on the other hand, is clearly unamused.  “You look like the kind of trouble who goes digging in stuff people want buried but writes for a paper of questionable local repute.  So.  How does a guy like you end up with a bullshit merchant like the Street?  You their token ‘gritty investigator’?  Or are you on the take?”

Eddie accidentally laughs.

“Well, there’s that laugh he likes so much.  Answer the question, please.”

“Well,” says Eddie.  “Um.  I mean, I dunno how safe it would be to—”

“He’s cleaning the place out, Foggy,” Matt says easily.  “One of the editors is dirty.  But Eddie makes great bait, to his own admission.  Jess and one of the interns have some lovely photographic evidence, I’m told.”

“That’s plenty to go on with,” Foggy says.  “Insert plausible deniability here.  I hear you went to the Street because the Bulletin wouldn’t take you.  No work history.”

Eddie starts twisting one of his rings.  “It’s a long story that I promise has nothing to do with organized crime or secret identities.”

“I know about all of that, Foggy,” Matt says mildly, and grabs Eddie’s hands to stop his fidgeting.

“Sorry,” Eddie mumbles, figuring it must be loud and annoying for somebody with super-hearing.

Matt just smiles at him and kisses his cheek.  “Foggy, stop being mean.  Peter and the kids really like him, and you know how MJ is.”

The guy scoffs.  “I am making a very incredulous face right now.  And I know she Tased me for not knowing ‘the password’ that time you got hit by a car doing stupid extra-curricular shenanigans.”

“I was helping a lovely little old lady get back her savings from a pyramid scheme,” Matt corrects sternly.  “It was well worth it.  Zero regrets.  And MJ doesn’t trust easily, that’s all.  Fulfill your best friend duties:  they tell me Eddie has tattoos?”

Foggy holds both hands up.  “I’m gonna nip that in the bud.  A guy with that much visible ink could have tattoos anywhere, and I’m not going to look at your naked boyfriend to tell you about them.”

“I don’t have that much!” Eddie protests.  “Just some coverage on the arms and chest.  That’s pretty boring.”

“Aw, you actually believe that,” says Matt.

Their food arrives, and Eddie seizes the excuse to shut up.

more syrup

No.

Yes!

You got a prescription now.  You don’t get to ruin food for me again!

His hand very much wants to grab the syrup, but he manages to get a grip on his wrist and shove his hands into his lap.

Foggy stares.  “Yeah, so he just did a weird thing like his hand was possessed, and now he looks petulant.”

Matt makes a thoughtful noise.  “Remember that nice fish bowl?  Remember that I actually have multiple ways to instigate fairly intense sound between four and six kilohertz?”

FINE don’t enjoy your hashed brown potato food correctly.

“Thanks, babe,” Eddie mutters under his breath, and goes back to avoiding the conversation.

“And I’m supposed to act like everything that just happened is normal,” notes Foggy.  “I can do normal.  How’d you two meet?”

“Bored and horny at Toledo’s,” they both answer.

Foggy puts a hand to his brow and closes his eyes.  “Not even Josie’s, but straight on down to the seediest dive bar in the Kitchen to cruise for a hookup.  Were you looking for gonorrhea?”

Eddie snorts his cheap coffee.

“Hey, anybody classy enough to wear Varvatos to a shithole like Toledo’s was definitely going to be into safe sex,” reasons Matt, and Eddie nods.  “Also, it took him three lines to actually understand I was flirting.”

“You don’t gotta tell him that,” Eddie hisses.

But Matt just traps him with a hand on the opposite side of his face and loudly kisses his cheek.

“Stop,” Eddie protests without any real force.

Matt snickers and kisses him some more, and then they’re giggling like teenagers and Foggy pointedly says, “No, really, stop.  Please, you’re giving me cavities.  It’s disgustingly cute.”

“Anyway,” says Matt, letting Eddie get back to his food.  “The kids needed a late-night favor, we found out they’re our single degree of separation, spent some more time together, et voilà.  Also, his cat is amazing.”

“Your bed is amazing,” Eddie retorts.  “Think it fixed the crick I always get in my lower back.”

“Okay, objectively, your boyfriend has a cute smile,” Foggy admits.  “Crooked teeth, though.”

“Oh, I know,” Matt says smugly.

“Ugh.  I should’ve made Karen suffer through this with me…”

“Wife?” Eddie asks, natural curiosity rearing its head.

Matt and Foggy laugh.

“No.  No, no, no.  Um.  Our law firm is Nelson—”  Foggy points to himself, then to Matt.  “—Murdock, and Page.  Karen is the Page part of that, and we’re all happy with that arrangement, despite Matt’s best attempts at matchmaking prior to my happy marriage.  Normally, I’d be wearing a lovely ring of which I am immensely proud, but I’m, er, losing some weight at the moment and had to get it resized.”  He frowns pointedly at his egg-white omelet and seasonal fruit.

“Just askin’,” Eddie excuses, hands up in apology.  “I think it’s a Catholic thing—we got a built-in need to marry off the singles in our lives.  We somehow can’t picture people bein’ happy and single.”

“You’re Catholic, too?” Matt pounces.

“Ouch, big flinch,” says Foggy as soon as the expression crosses Eddie’s face.

“Lapsed, babe,” Eddie says a little uncomfortably.  “Don’t consider myself especially devout these days…had some bad experiences.”

Matt tilts his head and puts an arm around Eddie’s shoulder.  “No, no, it’s okay—you’re okay.”

“You don’t need to soothe me, y’know,” Eddie says, staring at his food as he just moves his fork through it aimlessly.  His stomach is in knots, and his brain feels like it’s floating away.

“I do,” Matt replies gently.  “Maybe you didn’t notice, but you’re having a panic attack right now.”

Is that why his hands are shaking?  But he’s breathing fine, and he’s not crying or in hysterics…

“Don’t overthink it, or it’ll just get worse.  Can you hear the song playing over the speakers?”

Jailhouse Rock.

“Yeah,” Eddie says.

“Can you keep count of how many times Elvis says the word ‘the’?”

Eddie shakes his head.  The motion makes him dizzy, for some reason.  “I’m fine, I’m not panicking.”

Your heart is squishing too quickly.

“Panic attacks are all, like, hyperventilating and stuff,” Eddie insists.  But now it’s not just his hands shaking…

“Not for everybody,” Foggy says.  “Let’s put the fork down, huh?”

“Eddie, you’re not counting,” chides Matt, leaning close.  “Come on, that was a whole chorus just now—so that’s two.”

Sad Sack was sittin’ on a block of stone
Way over in the corner weepin’ all alone

“Three,” Eddie says, focusing on the words.  “Four.”

Chorus.

“Five.  Six.”

Last verse.  Nada.

Chorus.

“Seven.  Eight.  Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen.”

“Perfect,” Matt says, squeezing him slightly.  “See?  All better.  You’re safe with me.  No matter what happens, or where this goes for us, you’ll always be safe with me.”

Eddie nods, but doesn’t quite trust his voice.  He made a scene.  People are pretending not to look.

“You’re okay,” Matt assures him again.  “Go to the bathroom and wash your face.  When you get back, let me know if you want to finish your food or just go home.  Either way is absolutely perfect.  Okay?”

Slowly, Matt pulls him to his feet and nudges him in the right direction.

Fuck fuck fuck.  Great impression to make.  He told Venom he was better, had his shit together.  Clearly not.

No, those memories had nothing to do with me.  It’s a tall man with a belt.  We’re so small and weak.  He smells like old beer.  Always angry.

Eddie stumbles through the bathroom door and fumbles to turn on the cold water.

He can’t hurt us anymore.  I won’t let him.

“Yeah?” Eddie hisses under his breath.  “Who’s gonna stop you from hurting me?”

Matt.

Oh.

He stops.  He stares at himself in the mirror.  Pale, veins thrumming, eyes glassy.  He looks like he did back when Venom was still eating his organs.

Warmth in his spine.

We are okay, my Eddie.  All of us, together.

“Right up until I’m too high maintenance…”

He splashes water on his face and pats himself dry with some paper towels.  Time to lower that maintenance factor.  Go back out, smile, let everybody finish eating.

He hesitates at the bathroom door.  He can just barely hear them.

“—spoiling him way too much,” Foggy is saying.

“I’m spoiling a guy whose last boyfriend definitely abused him on multiple levels and who evidently was also abused either by his Catholic parents or his Catholic priest?” Matt retorts.

“Jesus.  Matt, the guy needs therapy, not some kind of whirlwind romance.  If you’re just looking for someone to fix, you’re gonna get hurt.”

“Even if I’m spoiling him, so what?  He deserves it.  And maybe, just once, being with me will actually make somebody’s life better.”

“Matt—”

“Foggy.  You know I believe God made me the way I am for a reason—if part of that reason is to fall head-over-fucking-heels in love with messy, broken, complicated Eddie Brock, then thank God.  I have never felt so…needed, and truly helpful, and good.  He gives me hope, Foggy.  When he looks at me, he doesn’t see my sins and my failures and all the blood on my hands.  All he sees is the cute guy who took a chance on him in a rundown bar when his week was going to shit.”

“Dammit, Matt,” Foggy says in a resigned tone.

A goopy black paw pokes Eddie’s nose, and he swats it away.

He said it out loud.  That’s what the bumpy-note said—he is in love with you and he believes it is something his God intended as his purpose.  You had no home, so his God made a home for you in his heart.

Eddie rushes back to the sink for more cold water.

Again with the overheating!  Your facial capillaries are malfunctioning with alarming frequency since I came back.

“Blushing,” Eddie mutters.  “I’m blushing.  Didn’t Parker ever blush while you were there?”

Peter’s body is strange, and it frequently generates more thermal energy than the meatsacks of inferior hosts.  Like when I fix your broken bones, but all the time.  Just slower.

A topic for some other time, when he doesn’t have an amazing boyfriend (and his slightly overprotective best friend) waiting on him.

Let’s go home and snuggle.  It will make him terribly smug.  Smuggle.  No, that is something else…

Eddie makes his way back to the booth.  “I’m.  Um, I’m okay now.  But maybe we could go home anyway?  Get settled in?”

“Go,” says Foggy.  “I’ll take care of the check and get your leftovers packed up.  Your boyfriend is currently pink-cheeked and making heart-eyes.”

“You’re the best, Foggy,” Matt tells him with a smile.  “Catch you later.”

“Never inflict your lovey-dovey on me solo again—if I’d known how gross and sweet you two were gonna be, I’d have found some way to trick Karen into taking my place.”

.End.

Chapter Text

Realize

“I love you,” Eddie announces as they step out of their shoes at home.

Matt beams and reels him in by his belt loops.  “I love you, too.”

“Yeah?”  He still feels hot and giddy from what they heard at the diner.  (just a tasssste?  i could show matt things his silly religion hasn’t even thought of…  He said not yet; and you said we’re just going to snuggle.)

“Mm.  My equivalent of love at first sight.  The smell of twice-worn clothes and cologne, the sound of your voice and your heartbeat…and then that laugh…”

Eddie steals a kiss or two.  “I love you so much, and I’m so grateful our paths crossed and we basically crashed into each other’s life.”

“Perfect.  We’re both feeling good about it, we’re in a positive place—now is the time to talk.  Before someone is upset, before anybody’s boundaries get crossed.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, a little disappointed.  “I mean, yeah.  You, uh, make a good point.”

Matt gently guides him to the couch, and they sit with their hands tangled and their knees bumping.

“I’ll try not to be too much,” Eddie says.  “I know it’s gotta be hard on you, always on the edge of sensory overload.”

“I’ll tell you when things are too much,” Matt replies easily.  “Don’t worry about that part.  The last person I lived with was Foggy, when we were in law school, and I know there’s a few things people don’t think of until they’re actually living with a blind guy.  Yes, I can sense where things are very well, but this is my home, and sometimes I’ll be sleepy, or hurt, or sick, and I won’t be paying attention.”

Eddie nods, then winces and says, “Sure, I’m with you so far.”

“Don’t move things without telling me.  We’ll get you set up with your own side of the bed and your own work space, and in those places you can leave stuff lying around, redecorate every day, whatever you like—everything else has to be where I expect it, so I don’t break anything, including myself.”

“Absolutely.  I’ll try to keep Snowflake’s toys under control.  Should be easy, since he leaves them on furniture instead of the floor.”

Matt smiles at him.  “See?  Look how easy this is when nobody’s sad or upset.  So that’s rule number one:  don’t move stuff without telling me.  Part of that is keeping kitchen knives clean so they don’t end up in the sink.  Another important part of that is always shutting the lid on the toilet—it’s no fun to go looking for something in the toilet because I knock it off the counter when I’m half-awake.”

“Heh, zero problems there.”  Eddie gestures at the purring menace sitting on the coffee table.  “That furry bastard plays in the water if you let him, so I keep it closed.”

“My only other rule is that we talk.  Especially when we get upset.  No yelling, only talking.  You can’t hear the other person when you’re yelling, and experience has taught me that storming off without talking first is a recipe for intense regret.  If that means we have to stop and take a breath and agree to take turns, that’s what we’ll do.  Okay?”

“Yes,” Eddie agrees easily.  “Promise.”

Matt nudges him again.  “So that’s what I need.  What do you need?”

“Uh.  You?”  He gives a sheepish little laugh.  “But really, you’ve been perfect.  Supportive, protective, kind.  Just keep being patient with me.  I’m working real hard on myself, trying to…not be what made people leave me, because I admit, the ego and the selfishness and the laziness were not good.  I wasn’t good.  I was okay.  I wanna be better than that, and I know I’m gonna fuck it up a lot, so, uh…  Yeah, just you, that’s what I need.  You, just like you’ve been, knowing what I need before I do, keeping V in line, being sweet and beautiful and the best thing in my life.”

Matt’s eyes are wide and wet, and when he grins again, it’s like everything about him glows.  “Yeah, no pressure,” he jokes, touching Eddie’s chin to find his mouth for a chaste kiss.  “I…haven’t been perfectly forthright, if that’s what you think of me.  I’m…intense.  Stubborn, passionate.  Historically, people who get close to me get hurt, so I have a tendency to push people away or shut them out.  I try to hide my problems and shoulder all the burden.  Please.  Please, don’t put me on a pedestal, or you’ll be so disappointed, and I can’t think of a lot of things in my life that I’ve wanted less than to disappoint you.”

There it is.  That’s what Matt’s been deflecting and avoiding.  They’re both afraid of being too much.

Eddie shakes his head.  “I wouldn’t worry about it; compared to the early examples, it’s pretty damn hard to disappoint me.”

“I’ve got a couple of hours before I gotta head into the office…wanna pick out a side of the bed?”

Eddie can take that kind of hint very, very well.  “Maybe you should come help me make up my mind.”

A couple of hours later, Eddie decides he likes watching Matt get dressed.  It’s oddly more fascinating than watching him get undressed.

“You’re being awfully quiet.”

“Just watching you,” Eddie admits.  “I’ll keep this side of the bed, I think.  Other side is closer to the door, so it’s better for you.”

Matt smiles and leans down for a kiss.  “I’m also doing some ‘extra-curricular’ stuff for Danny, so I might be back late—you guys don’t have to wait up if you don’t want to.  V, you want me to pick up anything for your bowl?  Sand?  Gravel?  River rocks?”

Venom forms a head just behind Eddie’s shoulder and purrs.  “Sand feels very nice.  And one of those little castles so I can be a dragon!”

“I’ll see what I can find.  Enjoy the rest of the day, gentlemen.”

He actually locks the front door when he goes.

“Tomorrow, we should go and buy new clothes with our Snowflake money.  None of Matt’s pants will fit this booty, or the belly he likes.  Unless you don’t want to keep the belly…?”

Eddie looks down at himself and pokes his middle.  “I mean, it’s kinda softer than I usually like, but it’s not awful…since he’s not into looks, obviously, I guess we can keep it if he likes it.  Prolly feels nice to cuddle.  Had an aunt like that, actually—great hugs, all big ‘n squishy like a giant teddy bear.”

“Then we shall keep it,” Venom says with audible satisfaction.

“Meanwhile,” says Eddie, grabbing his laptop, “I gotta finish that damn fluff piece by tomorrow morning so I don’t get fired before we can get MJ’s scoop out there.”

It’s still dark out when Eddie wakes with a boyfriend attached to his side and a cat pawing at his face.

I believe he is demanding food.

Eddie grumbles, rubbing a hand over the pleasant heat of Matt’s back.

“G’back sleep,” Matt says.

“Gotta feed the cat.”  He tries to slide out from under.

“Nooooo…stayyyy,” whines Matt.

“I’ll come right back.”

“Kiss first.”

Eddie’s heart feels distinctly gooey.  He obliges the demand for a kiss, and finally escapes to do Snowflake’s bidding.  While he’s up, he starts the coffeemaker.

“I love you!” Matt calls from the bedroom.

This was what he missed so much, what he craves when he’s single, what makes him mope and pine every time he gets dumped.

Sharing space.  Waking up together.  Making somebody’s day better just by scooping coffee grounds and hitting a button.  “I’m gonna get you a French press and an electric kettle on Snowflake’s dime.”

“I love you soooo much!”

Venom reaches a pair of mugs down from the cabinet.  “Teach me to make the coffee.”

“Absolutely not,” Eddie scoffs.  “You always think you can just get close enough, and everything will be fine—that’s not how food works for humans with functioning tastebuds.  You’re gonna have to watch a lot more Gordon Ramsay before I let you make anything.  We’ll start you on Master Chef Junior or some shit.”

A tiny, innocent-looking face with two big white eyes surfaces from the back of Eddie’s hand and says, “can i have my own tablet to watch on?  then i can learn to cook from my bowl!”

“Dunno if I trust you loose on the Internet…might haveta get you something with a child lock.”

The little face grows a few dozen fangs.  “rrrRR I AM NOT A CHILD.”

“You have almost zero self-control.  Didya think I wouldn’t notice you stealing bites outta my liver just ‘cause it grows back?  Or how about all the tantrums, huh?  Or all the times you hit me to get your way?”

Something bubbles and writhes behind Eddie’s left lung, and in a flail of glossy black, Venom jumps into the kitchen sink and turns on the tap.

“Yeah, that’s progress,” snorts Eddie.  “Only way you know how to deal when you get upset is hurting me or running away, juuust the same as ever.”

“Cut him a little slack,” Matt urges, walking through the living room (and deftly evading the giant cat weaving through his legs).  “Some people never learn how to do something if they never need to do it.”  He pauses at the front hall to retrieve Venom’s bowl, complete with a generous layer of pink sand and a castle (which takes up most of the bowl, actually).

Eddie pours the coffee and watches Matt easily navigate the kitchen.  Water in the bowl, bowl on the counter beside the sink.

“Wanna try it out, big guy?” Matt asks.

Venom keeps sulking in the sink for all of three seconds before jumping onto the fish bowl and slithering into it.  He wriggles into the sand like an octopus.

Matt turns off the water and takes a mug, reaching briefly into the fridge for some milk to stir in.

“How do you know how much—”

“I can smell the tannins,” Matt replies as he stirs.

“i want to cook.  make eddie get me a tablet with youtube.”

“Well, that’s up to Eddie and Snowflake,” Matt says.  “I’m perpetually broke, remember?  You just spent a year mocking me for it.”

Venom squeezes into his little fish castle and pulls up the little drawbridge.

Matt shrugs.  “Well, just don’t stay in there all day—I can’t imagine it would be good for your health in the long-term.”

“Listen, babe,” Eddie says after he’s let Matt take a nice long drink from his coffee.  “I dunno what you got planned today, but I need to get some new clothes, and I definitely need to replace Mr. Bearington soon.”

Matt almost spits his coffee.  “That would be Snowflake’s Build-a-Bear, I take it…”

“Hey, I didn’t name him—I put a poll on our Instagram.  The runners up were Beary Manilow and Beary McBearface, so that should tell you something about the people who look for pictures of giant black cats.”

“I like ‘Beary Manilow,’ personally,” Matt says with an ear-to-ear grin.

Obviously, Eddie has to kiss him.

“Mm, I’m not complaining, but what was that for?”

“You were being adorable, and I thought, ‘Y’know, turnabout’s fair play.’“

Matt retaliates with a kiss of his own and a gentle bite.  “I wish I could go with you, but Karen said I’m not allowed to bust Kingpin again if I don’t help with all the paperwork, and then MJ says Archery Girl’s mother is going to some fancy society thing tonight at the Top of the Rock that might draw out all the relevant players.  Gotta shave and get dressed soon so I can get to the office before all the excitement.”

“What if you didn’t shave?  I feel like you’d look real good in a proper beard.”

“While I would like almost nothing more than to please the man who sometimes likes to sit on my face, beards drive me nuts for the first week, and I used all my willpower in November.”

“I could give you a nice, close shave, then.”

Matt smiles.  “Sure.”

“And I’m getting some arnica while I’m out—you’re covered in bruises.  The scars are sexy, but the bruises just make me worry.”

“I’ll be sure to tell all the crooks that my boyfriend disapproves of them trying to kick my ass.”

“You do that.”

While they drink their coffee, Eddie makes a quick video eulogizing Mr. Bearington, the only victim of that tragic apartment fire, and prompting his followers to vote on the features of the next bear.

Eddie is trying on sweaters when his phone rings.

This one feels nice!  It is as soft as Snowflake.

Incoming Call From
Unknown Number

Huh.  Fisk played it all cool, but is he secretly concerned about the scoop Eddie pitched to Rafael at the failed date?

“Brock here,” he says as he picks up.

~“Better the devil you know.”~

“Okay, so you work for Mr. Fisk.  What’s up?”

Bad guys!

Hush!  We talked about this.  If you fuck up our case, you are definitely not getting a tablet.

~“Kazi—you know how he looks like, where he works?”~

“Yeah, I mean, the place kinda screams ‘money laundering.’  Or maybe a drug distribution center.  Definitely something to do with that Lopez guy at Fat Man Auto.  I’m thinking of replacing my holiday recipe editorial with a teaser of it in tomorrow’s print edition—Rafa seemed to be into it.”

~“Stop think about this.  Is doesn’t concern you, bro—you focus on local.  What about rent control on Peralta?  Is good story there.  Bend lease agreement until tenant must go, make new leases pay better, verrry corrupt.  Mr. Fisk encourages this story.  Must save poor old ladies on pension, yes?”~

“Well, I mean, I guess…  Doesn’t sound like Pulitzer material, compared to breaking up some kind of illicit base of nefarious operations, and I already did a corrupt landlord article this year, so I don’t think my boss will be too thrilled.”

~“You would not like to disappoint Mr. Fisk, bro.”~

“Oh!” says Eddie, feigning shock.  “Oh, all of that’s—that’s Mr. Fisk’s stuff, part of the, uh, family.  That’s what he was talking about when he said a ‘mutually beneficial arrangement.’“

~“Now you catching on, bro.”~

“Right, message received.  I don’t write about Lopez or Kazi, Mr. Fisk continues to make sure my editor doesn’t get creepy.”

~“Is also monetary compensation for loss of revenue.  Mr. Fisk is very fair, yeah?”~

“Yeah.  Yeah, sure, definitely.  Look, I gotta go, I’m in a changing room right now, trying on some stuff since all my clothes burned in a fire started by a bunch of guys wearing tracksuits.”

~“Well…I bet those guys are really sorry, because they were trying to burn down somebody else’s place instead.”~

Eddie hangs up.  He pauses his recorder and rewinds a little to check it.

~“—monetary compensation for—”~

Perfect.  He texts Jess to let her know he has it.

Still think they deserve to be eaten.  And brains taste good.  I am not the only one who says so, you know.

“Don’t gimme that.  I take a daily pill already, and I know you can eat orgasms—”

I eat the neurochemicals your brain overproduces when—

“—so shut up about eating brains, already.”

Two hours later, he has three big shopping bags for himself and one for Snowflake.  He camps out at a laundromat to wash his new stuff.  Jeans, shirts, a couple of sweaters.  Nothing fancy; ‘nice’ is as far as he needs to go, as a writer.

At home, he drops the bags on the floor next to his side of the bed and gets ready to head back out.

I WANT A NAP.

“Then I guess you’ll miss out on the chocolate ice cream I’m getting after I buy a French press for our boyfriend.”

Something bubbles in his gut.

you are not being fair.

He hesitates.  If Venom really is too tired or overstimulated or whatever, it’s pretty mean to try to bribe him like that.  “You’re right; I’m sorry.  I really was planning on ice cream, but I can get it another time, and you can stay home with Snowflake.”

…thankyou.

Progress.  Baby steps, on both sides.

Eddie goes to the kitchen and dips his fingers in the fishbowl, watching Venom slither out from under his skin and into the safety of the water.

“I’ll be back in a couple hours, and I promise to be careful.  Guard the house, all right?  Make sure it doesn’t burn down like the last one.”

The black blob blows some bubbles at him and waves a little tendril before retreating to the castle and pulling up the little drawbridge again.

The chick at the Samsung store is really nice to him.  It’s crowded with last-minute shoppers, but she ignores the ones who look grumpy or focused and goes straight to his dumb, lost self.

“What age are they?” she asks knowingly, and it goes on from there.

After a shockingly painless twenty minutes and five hundred bucks, he has a gift-wrapped tablet in a medium size with medium capabilities thanks to the miracle of clearance.  There’s even a kid’s tablet case, good for padding drops and propping it up for hands-free use.  When he expressed worry about water or spills, she assured him that it was modern enough to drop in a sink of dishes and be fine as long as it was retrieved within a minute or so.

For some godawful reason, Williams Sonoma is more of a madhouse than the place selling the country’s number one addiction (Tanya actually wrote an article in July about the rising attachment to mobile devices, and it was kinda creepy what she turned up).

Fortunately, all the coffee and tea shit is in one place, so he can get a swanky press and an electric kettle with really nice temperature settings without being crushed in the process.

Queen MJ
recording & photos are good enough to get the known locations raided, but we need proof of direct involvement. hoping to catch tonight with CAG as bait. managed to overhear—BW has contract on bird boy! Peter wants to intervene. thoughts?

Eddie scoffs as he moves to escape the store.

Peter has a death wish, if the BW are as awesome as you say.  You voted on the new bear yet?

Queen MJ
yes. I think we shouldn’t stray too far from what we know the big foof likes, but it feels wrong to make an exact copy of Mr. Bearington.

After a moment of thought, Eddie texts her one more time.

How’s that scoop of yours? Anything ready for print?

He ducks into a coffee shop (who names a place Hill of Beans?) and nabs a Kona with a couple of creamers before following his phone’s directions to Nelson, Murdock, & Page, LLC.

Queen MJ
it’s in my DropBox; you know the pw.
it’s not complete, but enough to whet some appetites, esp if we throw in a juicy pic or two.
fearless. you see an opening, put it out there. i can always craft follow-up as we get more.

The neighborhood is shitty, but nice-shitty, like a formerly gentrified neighborhood hosing off decades of graffiti.  The office itself is nice—big windows, frosted glass on the door with copperplate lettering.  Through an interior window, he sees Matt stand up mid-conversation with a shit-eating grin.  Foggy and a skinny blonde woman look put out until Foggy spots Eddie and rolls his eyes.

Matt pauses with a hand on Eddie’s waist.  “A pleasant surprise.  How’s the shopping going?”

“Going great, babe,” Eddie replies, and kisses Matt’s cheek because he can.  “I know you got a long evening ahead of you, so I brought coffee.”

Seizing the cup, Matt steals a few kisses.  “I love you so much.  You’re my favorite.”

“You two are disgusting,” Foggy calls from the door to the other room.  “My teeth are rotting just from being in proximity to all this sugary sweetness.  Karen, make them stop.  Tell Matt about how we don’t have dental yet.”

“Page, esquire, I presume,” Eddie says, offering his hand to shake.

“You presume mostly correctly,” the blonde replies with a cautious smile as she accepts the handshake.  “I’m still a paralegal, so not technically an esquire yet.  And you must be the legendary Eddie.  I’d never seen Matt gush about anyone or anything before you came along.”

“Oh,” says Eddie, scratching the day’s stubble awkwardly.  “Um.  Okay, wow.”

“My cuteness detector is going off,” Matt announces before reeling Eddie in to cover his cheek with kisses.

“Stahhhp,” Eddie mumbles, face hot with embarrassment.  (“He’s bright red right now,” Foggy tattles.)  “So, uh…nice place ya got here.”

“We started in Foggy’s brother’s meat shop, so…kind of a step up, even if it means we have to walk half a block for a decent ham on rye.”

“I’ll tell Theo you said that,” snorts Foggy.

Eddie chuckles and shakes his head.  “Her Majesty said you guys are tailing College Archery Girl tonight.  If that fails, the Fat Man’s gonna be pissed when he sees what I’m gonna sneak through to final print, so I can play bait again.”

“You do make excellent bait.”

“Anyhow, just wanted to bring the gift of caffeine.  Gotta get back home and make sure the cat and the octopus haven’t killed each other.”

Matt’s expression sharpens a little, and Eddie gets the feeling he doesn’t like hearing that Venom stayed home.  “Be careful getting home alone,” he says sternly.  “Kingpin may think you’re on his payroll, but that doesn’t mean he’s not watching you even now.”

“Baby,” Eddie says in his most reassuring tone.  “Before I was a writer, I was a nightcrawler—I know how to get into and outta trouble just fine.  But I will be careful going home.  Feelin’ fancy—think I’ll take a cab.  See?  Not even walking.  Nice meeting you, Ms. Page; good seeing you, Foggy.”

“Kiss,” Matt demands.

Eddie obeys with a grin.  “Seeya tonight, babe.  Love ya.”

Snowflake greets Eddie at the door by rearing up onto his hind paws like a dog.

“Don’t do it!” Eddie yelps, knowing it’s futile.

Paws the size of Eddie’s palms stretch out similarly enormous claws, and then he has thirty pounds of cat hanging off his arm and climbing up to his shoulders.

Eddie quickly dumps the expensive shopping onto the hall table and hoists his horse of a cat in an effort to avoid holes in his jacket.

Snowflake goes limp and starts to purr, enormous tail curling and uncurling to tickle Eddie’s face.

He still has the little drugstore bag looped around his wrist, so he heads for the kitchen.  It’s a matter of moments to open the bag of chocolate chips and sprinkle some into Venom’s fishbowl.

Black tendrils stretch out of the little ceramic castle and nab each morsel as it drifts down.

“You have a good nap?” Eddie asks politely, dipping his fingers into the water.

Venom jumps up and hurriedly settles into his favorite spot beside Eddie’s left lung.  Ahhh.  Much nicer in here.  But it’s quiet in my bowl…peaceful.

“I could see that.  Not often you get a chance to be…alone.”

alone isn’t safe

“But you can think whatever you want, as loud as you wanna think it.”

Hmm.  Easier to analyze my thoughts without yours there, when we disagree.  Too much emotion together, too irrational.

Eddie nods as much as he can with a cat wrapped around the back of his neck.  “Yeah, no, I get it.  I got a lot more honest with myself when you were with Parker.  When the only voice in my head was me, I didn’t have a lot of people to blame for…certain patterns of thought.  Anyway, I was getting a cream for Matt’s bruises and I saw the chocolate chips and I couldn’t shake the mental image of sprinkling them like fish food.”

Venom seems docile and affectionate, much like Snowflake.

“I’m planning some heroics later, but we could just chill on the couch for a while.  Maybe I’ll get in a nap of my own.”

Heroics?

“Breaking into the office to replace my Kingpin-approved article with one that’ll make him froth at the mouth, courtesy of MJ.  Gotta do it after eight, when the last staff leaves the building, but before the print run starts at ten.  We miss the deadline, we’ll have to sabotage the run instead, maybe by…I dunno, jamming the presses.  So we’ll start subtle and then smash shit only if necessary.”

He juggles his big dumb cat long enough to get out of his jacket and shoes, settles onto the couch, and tells Venom to wake him up at eight.

For his part, Snowflake settles on Eddie’s chest and immediately starts projecting mystical feline sleep vibes.

.End.

Chapter Text

The Glitter’s All Wet

TIME TO GO

Eddie jolts awake.

Snowflake stares at him for a moment, then hops off his chest to curl up on the couch.

Shoes, jacket, keys.

“Say, V…you can write in Braille, right?”

Yes?  I can leave Matt a note.

“Thanks.  Just want him to know what the cream is, so he can use it if he gets home while we’re gone.  Arnica, for treating bruises.”

I remember.

Venom tears a page from Eddie’s pocket notebook and squishes it between two tendrils for a few seconds before setting it and the little plastic tube on the coffee table.

Eddie pretends he’s just going out for a walk.  A few twists and turns, a few stops to ‘admire’ a window display here or ‘consider’ a restaurant menu through the glass there…

When he’s sure nobody is tailing him, he ducks into an alley.

It’s not even a conscious thought, manifesting Venom’s resilient flesh.  He doesn’t even notice anymore, the way his own body rearranges, albeit temporarily.  It’s their skeleton changing size, their muscles lengthening and thickening.  Their body is mutable, adaptable so long as they are together.  Eddie only becomes small and brittle when Venom becomes small and fluid.  Vulnerable, but safely disguised.  If even one part of Eddie is also part of Venom, they only look small.

The euphoria of this absolute freedom, of being fully together and fully themselves again, sends them pouncing up walls to the rooftops, laughing as they leap and bound toward their destination.

Existence becomes visceral concepts.

A small place in a bigger place.  The newspaper-cell in the human-hive.  The ink-machine isn’t running yet.  No jungle noise.  Good.  They remember the noise…growling and clacking and thudding.  Uncomfortable frequencies.

Stop.  Focus.

Have to get inside the place and touch…reprogram…change the layout.

They don’t understand why it’s hard to concentrate.  It wasn’t like this the first time, was it?

Oh.

Oh, no, it was.  But they—Venom was weaker, hungry from the asteroid and the awful labs, and its wants and instincts were quieter aside from the drive for food, and Eddie didn’t particularly care about them at the time.  Now is only different because Venom is strong and well fed, and because Eddie doesn’t mind listening to what it wants.  Back then, Venom had loved the sky and the lights, and the silly little humans.  Back then, Eddie had loved the strength, the speed, the sudden power to do whatever he wanted and the knowledge that it meant he couldn’t.

Ah.

Responsibility.

It’s sobering.  It lets them release that cathartic feeling of omnipotence.

Gotta sneak in, replace the layout, let it print the run.  Only one security guard, cameras on the stairs and elevators.  If they’re careful, they can scale the outside of the building to the right floor, pick the lock, and walk right in.  Slow.  But not boring, because not being seen is hard, and they—no, Peter and Venom—have been practicing.

They separate somewhat, so that their body becomes a human encasing the places where Eddie and Venom are still Eddie-and-Venom.

The separation leads to brief bickering.

Eddie has his lockpicks.  He’s good with them.

Venom is certain he can do the job faster.

So they thread a tendril into the lock and fidget until it’s the right shape.

The lock opens, and they didn’t do anything stupid and loud, so ha.

Eddie rolls his eyes.

Rafa’s password is tough; after two failed tries, Eddie crosses his fingers and rolls the dice on the security question.

City of birth.

“What a fucking newb,” Eddie whispers.

Bogotá.

They don’t have to keep it secret from Rafa forever, and it’s not like he’ll find out before morning.  Eddie changes the password to ‘password.’

The layout is still open, so Eddie ditches the fluff piece on holiday recipes and slots in MJ’s piece on Trust a Bro and the mysterious Kazi.

He stares at the words ‘by M. Jones.’

Hey, you sure you want your name on it?
Gonna draw dangerous attention. I can take all the heat, if you want. No sweat.

Queen MJ
journalistic integrity, Scoob! I’ll take my lumps like a big girl.

Big K will be out for your blood. Are. You. Sure?

Queen MJ
no jokes. yes.

He’s not gonna leave room for error—he sends it to the presses.

One floor down, he hears the machinery warming up.  It sets his teeth on edge.

They sneak back out to the balcony and lock the door behind them.

jumpjumpjumpjump

“Fuck, I hate heights,” Eddie growls, but does as he’s told.

They feel invincible as the wind whips by.  A kick to the wall behind them propels them across the street to another building, where they climb to the roof and make their way toward Rockefeller, where MJ had said the swanky party would be.

It’s too quiet.  There should be more people around, especially with a bunch of rich mooks throwing a party.  At the very least, there should be the ‘fashionably late’ crowd hoping to make a splashy entrance once everybody’s there to see it.

When they come around the corner, they catch sight of Hawkeye in the tree, the ice rink swarming with tracksuits.

Bad guys!

“Not our fight, big guy.  Taking that shit on ain’t gonna help us nail Kingpin, and we definitely don’t want any publicity.”

I thought it was supposed to be a partridge.

“Very funny.  That’s pear trees that are s’posed to have a partridge.”

THERE, THE FAT MAN!

Sure enough, a hulking shape is headed down the sidewalk toward 49th.

“He doing some last-minute shopping?”

crunchcrunchCRUNCH want to rip his meaty limbs off and DIP THEM IN QUESO

“Nuh-uh, high profile shit is the reason we didn’t have a home to go back to when Strange’s spell did the thing.  Besides, I’m absolutely positive that Matt would not approve of killing, dismembering, or eating anybody, and I am not letting you fuck up the best thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life.”

Venom’s presence retreats to a place near one of Eddie’s kidneys.  better than us?

“Matt has never tried to eat my organs, destroy my life, or get me killed.  Also?  Matt didn’t abandon me for some kid with big twinkly eyes.  Bonus points:  Matt doesn’t make me feel like a worthless piece of shit whose only use is as a glorified hazmat suit.”

better than us.

“The best, like I keep saying.  And if you do anything to fuck that up, I will set us both on fire.  Now, start thinking with your brain instead of your stomach—you see Jess anywhere?”

His head turns of its own volition.

The private eye is watching stealthily from across the street, not quite pacing Kingpin but never in danger of losing him.

“Kingpin likes to break the rules, and Matt wants to beat him by using the rules.  Got it?  If we do it right, we can confront him as just harmless Eddie Brock, and maybe he’ll get in a punch or two for Jess to get photos before she breaks his wrist.”

……But you will be hurt.

“Yeah, but we’ll finally beat the son of a bitch, and we’ll do it in a way that makes Matt proud.  And it ain’t like I’ve never been hurt before.”

Venom bubbles around unhappily.  If he hurts you too much, I will eat his brain and yell at Jess.

“Deal.  Let’s get down there.”

Venom swings them down relatively unobtrusively.

College Archery Girl seems to be duking it out with Kingpin inside FAO Schwarz (with a car crashed into the wall).

“He’s handing it to us on a silver platter,” Eddie says with great relish, and starts recording video with his phone.  “All right, guys, this is Eddie Brock—live from 49th at the Rock.  We’re looking at Manhattan real estate mogul Wilson Fisk and some unidentified girl.  At the moment, you know as much as I do.  Is it a LARP thing?  Is it a date gone wrong?  Is it some misguided vigilante taking a shot at Mr. Big Shot himself?  Even the infamous Punisher tried and failed.”

Judging by the crashing sounds, there’s a lot of property destruction going on in there.  Kind of impressive.

“Now, Mr. Fisk has a history of assault charges, only some of which managed to stick for any length of time, possibly because most of the plaintiffs vanished.  Is this chick trying to fight him with a bow and arrow?  She think she’s Hawkeye or somethin’?  Oh, shit—”

Eddie hastily dodges a flying shelf, and makes sure to get a good shot of the car it just smashed.  “That wasn’t very civic-minded, Mr. Fisk.”

A net of electricity covers the hole in the wall, blocking Eddie’s view, and he curses.  He creeps closer, angling around the car without crossing the street, and sees a literal fireball go off inside.

Cops coming, Eddie.  Important looking ones.

They pocket the phone and move away, toward the far end of the street.

Fat Man

Sure enough, Fisk is limping away with remarkable stealth and speed.

Jess is waiting ahead—can smell someone else, too…almost familiar…

“Bloodhound who can’t breathe air, heh.”

Fisk disappears around the corner; Jones steps out from a doorway.

“I hope you and the kids can piece this shit together, Scooby,” says Jones.  “Because I got no clue what’s going on here, other than the Bishop girl almost getting her head caved in.”

“Looked like Archery Girl’s mom came clean and they made up, but those detectives back there were definitely for her.  As for the Fat Man…”

A gunshot echoes through the streets.

They look at each other, and by unspoken agreement they start to run.

Maya Lopez, the Angry Chick with about a zillion black belts, is walking away, and Fisk is motionless on the ground.

“Huh,” says Jones.  “Convenient, if disappointing.”

Then Fisk stirs.

“Well, damn.”

Eddie whistles.  “This guy’s harder to kill than Harry fuckin’ Potter.  Good evening, Mr. Fisk!  Rough night?”

The big man gets to his feet and gives Eddie a wary stare.  “Mr. Brock.”

“Fancy meetin’ you here, sir.  C’mon, let’s get off the street before the boys in blue come snooping.”

Working together, they get Fisk well into a nearby alley before a cop arrives at the scene of the shooting.

“Oh, my, that gunshot looks nasty,” Eddie says with a sunny smile.  “And that arrowhead from earlier should prolly come out.  Stroke of good luck on the burns—mostly superficial.  Too bad about your reputation, though…  Oof, after that embarrassing FBI sting before the Blip, this is gonna be the humiliating icing on the cake.”

“What are you talking about?” Fisk growls.

“I’m talking about how all the Street’s readers are gonna learn about the last holdouts of your little shady dealings, how the Internet’s gonna lap up the footage of you destroying a toy store on Christmas Eve, and all the juicy shots of you stalking young women while your cronies bribe the press and extort me.”

The giant fist around his throat isn’t really a surprise.  Venom reinforces their windpipe, but doesn’t get in the way of the beautiful photos Jones immediately starts taking.

Good boy.

Still want to deep fry his fingers like popcorn shrimp.

“Oh, my,” says Jones.  “Very juicy.  I could retire off these.”

With a roar, the big guy reaches for her camera—she catches him by the wrist.

“Wow, hands off the camera, pal.  So rude.”

The look of confusion on his face is too much; Eddie starts laughing.

Jones gives a mocking pout.  “Aww, did ‘ums think only Captain Marvel could punch holes in buildings?  It’s pretty hilarious that—whatshisface, the editor creep—”

“Rafael,” Eddie supplies.

“—was too emasculated to mention he got threatened by somebody who casually mangled a butter knife with her bare hands.  I dunno, maybe I’m not as intimidating as I used to be…  Maybe I should’ve folded a chair into an airplane.”

“What do you want?” grunts Fisk, trying and failing to even budge her grip.

“Ask him; I’m just the hired help.”

Fisk fumes at Eddie.

Eddie smirks.  “I want you back in prison, where you said you would stay.  The Blip can’t get you outta the deals you cut, and the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen has a long memory.”

“Murdock dares—”

“I dare,” Eddie interrupts.  “I’m the one you should be worried about.”

wanna scare him, want him to screeeeam

Okay, but just scare him.

Eddie’s vision doubles awkwardly as their body rearranges to manifest thick muscle and pitch-dark skin.  The fangs make themselves known as Venom grins.

“What’s the matter, Fat Man?  Weren’t you about to threaten someone?”

Fisk’s face is a mask of warring terror and anger.  His grip falters, and he stumbles back.

“Now, run along and turn yourself in like a good boy, or we’ll make you disappear and tell Matt we never saw you.”

As soon as Jones lets go, Fisk beats feet.

“Yikes,” she says, eyeing all the teeth.  “So that’s what the alien looks like when he’s not pretending to be Flubber.”

Venom stands a little taller, like a cat noticing that it’s the center of attention.  “We have an impressive range, all the way from adorable to terrifying.  Eddie says my eating habits are uniquely perturbing.”

You wanted to dip his arms in queso.  That’s disgusting.

Queso is delicious.

“Let’s get back to the Batcave and develop these,” says Jones.

“Not a lot of cabs right now…can we offer you a lift?”

She eyes them with distrust.  “Like King Kong with Jessica Lange?”

Venom is stumped by that, so Eddie reminds him with a quick mental image.  “Hrm.  More like Yoda and Luke.”

After several seconds of staring, she rolls her eyes.  “I’m gonna fuckin’ regret this…  All right, let’s go, Padawan.”

Jones doesn’t shriek as much about heights as Eddie usually does, so Venom almost enjoys swinging her over to MJ’s.  Turns out Peter and Matt are still wrapping up, tidying away any stray Tracksuits and making sure Hawkeye’s nonsense doesn’t drag in any civilians.  MJ and Ned are watching Peter from a drone they slapped together earlier.

“Drone, huh?” Eddie says as Jones takes over the guest bathroom (apparently MJ already has everything to convert it to a darkroom and does so pretty frequently).

MJ shrugs.  “Yeah, we tried putting the camera on Peter, but…”

“She puked on the laptop,” Ned finishes.  “Cool, that looks like the last of ‘em.  Yep, that’s a thumbs-up from Peter…and thumbs-up from Big Red.”

Eddie nods.  “I’m gonna head home, then.  I bet they didn’t make Matt eat before he went out, so I gotta get my man fed.”

“Oh, hold up!” exclaims MJ, scampering down the Forbidden Hallway (where her room is).  She comes back with a little square box with a red bow on it.  “Present for Matt, as a thanks from the Scooby gang for taking care of our dog.”

“Ha ha,” Eddie says drily, but takes it.  “I, uh, didn’t get you guys anything.”

Ned gives him a Look.  “Dude.  You’re our friend, and you died for MJ’s scoop and had to be brought back to life by a space-alien.  Your presence is our present, man.”  And he stands up and hugs Eddie, and then MJ joins in.

oh

“Oh,” Eddie agrees.  “Wow.  Okay.”

“Merry Christmas, Eddie-spaghetti,” MJ says, smiling just for a moment before she elbows him and adds, “Go feed your man.”

“Do I spy the Grinch’s heart growing?”

“Tell anyone, and I will deny it.  And anyway, you’re the Grinch, Grinch.”

.End.

Chapter Text

Mirror Eyes

Eddie’s just about to put his key in the lock when the door opens.

“Jeez, babe, you let me get my key out and everything.”

Matt’s expression is not a happy one.  “Get inside,” he says, stepping back.

Eddie’s hands start to tingle, and his heart feels like a very enthusiastic hammer on a very unenthusiastic anvil.  He does as he’s told.

You are having the panic thing again.  I don’t like it.

Shut up.  I mean it.  Do not fuck this up.

The door shuts and locks.

Eddie leaves his shoes on, just in case.

In case this is him fucking up.

“This is rule two, Eddie,” Matt says.  “We’re going to talk.  I am…so angry with you right now I want to scream, but the rule is that we talk.”

“Me?  What the fuck did I do?”

“Let’s sit.”

“I’d rather not.”

Matt closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.  “Eddie, one of us needs to be calm, and I called dibs on panicking, so you get to wait your turn.  Please sit with me before your knees give out and you hit your head on something.”

Venom walks them to the couch.

“Traitor,” Eddie growls under his breath.

Matt sits next to them and takes their hands—his are shaking.  “Tell me you didn’t let her put her name on that article.”

Eddie feels panic making way for anger.  “They’re not toddlers, Matt.  They want responsibility, they want consequences.  It’s her scoop, always was—I just happened to have some inside knowledge.”

“She’s seventeen!  She lives with her father, she—she hasn’t even gotten to go to a full week of college!  What the hell does she know about the kind of consequences that come with angering a man like Wilson Fisk?  They still think they’re invincible, but that man demolishes the people who get in his way.  Fisk knows me, and Foggy, and Karen.  He’s threatened them before, and only the gravest and most personal counter-threat I could think of was enough to keep him away from them.  He knows you.  Rafael may have told him all three of their names, and from there it’s the work of minutes to get names and addresses of all their loved ones.  You’ve made him angry, which already put a target on her back, and now you’ve let her walk right into the crosshairs.”

Eddie fumes.  “You seriously think you’re the only one who knows how bad it can get?  Has MJ ever told you about her mom?”

Matt frowns.  “No.”

“She was from Queens, but all her family was from Harlem.  An uncle got in deep, under the thumb of a bad old Harlem legend, and she tried to do something about it.  Cottonmouth decided killing her would be a great way to get his granny’s approval, so he and some other punks gunned her down in broad daylight and nobody did shit about it.  And that was the end of Patricia Jones-Watson.”  Eddie shrugs.  “MJ was more afraid of being murdered by Tracksuits before she could get her story out than she’s ever been about publishing.  She wants to be brave, and you don’t want to let her…but Matt, she’s not a child, and you’re not her damn father.”

“Okay, let’s tell her father.”

“Only a shitty friend would undermine an act of courage by doing something like that.  I didn’t get them to trust me by pulling shit like that.  You’re fine with me putting myself on the line, but not her—what, because you don’t have any faith in her?”

“That’s not it.”

“Enlighten me.”

Matt’s shoulders slump, and he lifts their joined hands to press his forehead against them.  “Everyone who raised me is dead.  I’ve had to watch the two greatest loves of my life die in my arms—one of them twice, or so I thought.  Foggy and Karen have been kidnapped, held hostage, shot at.  All of it feels like my fault.  The thought of one of those kids getting hurt because I told myself it wasn’t my responsibility…”

“Me gettin’ dead was on me.”

“And if I hadn’t been an overprotective busybody, Peter and Venom would never have made it in time to save you.”

“You are, and they did.  And life in a bubble is no kinda life.  The way I hear it, you usually show up beat to shit and have had multiple brushes with death—Foggy and Karen never had anything to say about that?”

Matt sighs heavily.  “They tried to get me to stop.  Several times.  But pretending Daredevil wasn’t part of me…it felt hollow.  It made me feel like I was living half a life.”

Eddie gently bumps their shoulders together.  “That’s me and sticking my nose into corrupt shit people wanna keep hidden.  That’s Peter and Spider-Man, Jess and putting assholes in their place, Ned and helping his friends absolutely any way he can.  And hey—that’s MJ and writing, okay?  She loves it, and she’s good at it, and she’s got shit she wants to tell the world.  You love us, right?  So let us live.”

Matt’s hands have stopped shaking.  Slowly, he tips to the side and ends up leaning on Eddie’s shoulder, close to the place he rests his head when they share a bed.  “You’re right.  I’m sorry.  I can’t promise I won’t get absolutely livid about it again, but I’ll have this conversation to look back on.  She wants to be brave, and I want that for her.”

Eddie kisses Matt’s hair.  “Besides, you know V wouldn’t let anything happen to her—they’re evil cohorts.  Let me up, and I’ll cook us something.  Twenty bucks says you haven’t eaten since somebody at the office made you eat lunch.”

“Objection—leading the witness.”

“Overruled, babe.  I saw leftover carne asada and a bag of frozen veggies in there somewhere, and stir-fry is so easy, even V can do it.”

Fuck you!

Wriggling, Matt gets both arms wrapped around the nearest one of Eddie’s.  “Five more minutes.”

“Nope.  I will give you all the cuddles after you eat.”

“Such blatant bribery!”

“Says the guy who got my tentacle-monster a fish castle with a working drawbridge.”

“New evidence!” Matt protests, burying a laugh against Eddie’s throat.

“I love you, dammit, now let me feed you.”

“Badgering!”

Just take him with us.  As you so sweetly pointed out, I am perfectly capable of stir-frying.  There was a whole lesson on Test Kitchen.

So they hoist Matt over one shoulder in a storm of cathartic giggles from both men, and Venom hums some vapid pop single as his tentacles grab implements and ingredients.

Eddie.

Eddie frowns and rolls over; Matt grumbles at being dislodged and aggressively spoons.

Eddie, wake up, it is Christmas!

“Fffuck d’you care ‘bout Christmas?  I didn’ get you jack shit.  Go t’ sleep, asshole.”

He’s almost asleep again when his phone rings.

“Nooo, people suck,” whines Matt.

Eddie’s phone goes quiet.

And then Matt’s phone buzzes and calls out plaintively:  ~“Peter.  Peter.  Peter.”~

Matt grabs it in a hurry.  “What?  What’s wrong?”

Eddie can hear the tinny sound of laughter and voices.

“Mph.  Is it?  Sorry, I meant to be up earlier.”

More talking.

“Oh.  I mean, if that’s not awkward for you…I’m pretty sure our plans were to sleep, watch the parade, order takeout, and sleep some more.  Foggy is being passive aggressive, but I basically blackmailed him into spending the day with his wife, after five years of just us.”  Matt holds his phone out to Eddie.

“Whattaya want, Parker?” Eddie grumbles.  “Oughtta be some kinda crime, waking a man this early on a holiday.”

~“It’s eleven, Mr. Brock.  May wants you to come have lunch with us—she made a turkey and everything, and she seemed real excited to hear you’re dating Mr. Murdock.  Did you give him our present yet?”~

“What?  Oh.  Nah, we had some stuff to talk through, and then we ate a late supper and passed out like old people who had way too much excitement the past couple days.”

~“Well, MJ says you should make him open his present and then come to our place.  Happy and the Starks are coming, and MJ is bringing her dad, and Ned says he’ll come after his lola packs a bunch of food for him to bring—do you like Filipino food?  She does this barbecue-type-thing that—~

“Jesus, take a breath.  Sure, we’ll do as Queen MJ commands.”

~“Great!  Happy should be downstairs in forty minutes.  Bring your appetite!”~

Eddie hangs up.

“Dunno about you,” Matt mutters.  “I can be up and ready in ten minutes.”

“That sounds like twenty more minutes of sleep, to me,” Eddie agrees.  “That way I got time to give you your present.”

Matt flops onto him and shoves a cold foot up the leg of his pajamas.  “I like the way you think.”

Foggy, bless him, bought Matt an amazingly terrible Christmas sweater the year before, complete with drunk-looking dancing reindeer, pixelated elves, and fuzzy pompoms.  They lose at least two minutes to Eddie laughing hysterically and covering Matt’s face with kisses.

The present from the kids is a simple necklace with three charms on it.

“Are those… “

“Those are the bullets I got rid of.  They still smell like us.”

“Jeez, MJ and her memento mori obsession.”

Matt sniffles and presses the box into Eddie’s hands.  “Put it on me?”

Eddie feels a little left-of-center.  It’s just three little lumps of copper-jacketed lead.  If anything, it’s three insulting little middle fingers flown by some jackass in a green tracksuit who’d packed iron he never had to use before.  Even Venom is confused by the intensity of Matt’s reaction.

But it’s obviously important to Matt, so…

He takes the chain out of its box and unscrews the clasp—easier for a blind guy to navigate than a spring clasp, for sure, but it seems redundant when he looks at how long the chain is.  Start to finish, he absolutely doesn’t understand this present.  Still, he leans in and gets it around Matt’s neck and doesn’t say any of the minimizing shit that floats through his brain.

Because his boyfriend is in tears, and it’s Christmas, and even Eddie knows that now is not the time for dismissive, self-deprecating bullshit.

The bullets rest in a little row just under the hollow where Matt’s clavicles meet.

Matt wipes his eyes and smiles, fingers tracing over the rounded shapes.  “Near miss, huh?  Could’ve lost you when we barely knew how good this could be.”

It’s unusual for Eddie to feel guilty about something, and he’s definitely never felt guilty about almost dying, right up until this moment.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

“No,” Matt says gently, pulling him into a hug.  “Don’t be sorry.  It’s not your fault.  Like you said last night—if I love you, I’ve gotta let you live.”

“I don’t wanna make you sad.”

Matt laughs.  “Grief is an inevitable part of love, but don’t you worry about that.  Go feed Snowflake so we can hit the road.”

May answers the door wearing a saucy little Mrs. Claus dress that Eddie finds very distracting (hey, no harm looking).

“Eddie, Matt, we’re so glad you could make it!”  She drags each of them through the door in turn with a quick hug.  (Happy ducks around them to join the rest of the gathering.)  “Merry Christmas, boys!”

“MJ commanded,” Eddie says.  “Our plan was literally to sleep all day and order shitty takeout.”

“Not while I have a working kitchen!” she declares.  “The turkey’s resting right now; I’ll carve it in about ten minutes, we sit as soon as Ned gets here—his lola’s bulalo is to die for, and we still haven’t told Peter what pata is, so don’t ruin that for him.”

Where is the mute button?

“Have you boys met Morgan?  Peter was very close to Mr. Stark, one of her dads—we don’t bring up the dads first with her, always let her bring it up—Pepper is her mother, complicated poly-stuff, none of my business, they were very happy before the whole…um…”  May winces and gestures.  “But I digress.  You know, it’s such a relief that you boys are together, I was worried about you both, and now you can look out for each other.”

She is still talking?  Get out of the way of the food!

Stopit

“Worried about me?” Matt echoes incredulously.

“Well, a blind man all alone, and in frankly a pretty rough neighborhood?”

foodfoodfoodfood

“I’ve been blind a long time, May,” Matt assures her with a grin.  “I can take pretty good care of myself.  We should let you get back to your turkey—I promise we’ll mingle like good party guests.  Right, Eddie?”

“Yeah, yup, absolutely!” Eddie says, maybe a little too loudly in his efforts to ignore the stream of inanity from Venom.

Because Matt enjoys Eddie’s embarrassment far too much, he laughs and steers Eddie into the party.

It feels like too many people, even though he knows it’s just four more adults, two teens, and a little kid.

“This was a bad idea,” Eddie mutters through a frozen smile.

“Behave yourself, V,” Matt says quietly.

A redhead breaks away from a conversation with Peter to approach them.  “Mr. Murdock, great to see you again.  This must be Eddie.  Pepper Potts—well, technically Stark.”

Matt gestures between them.  “May was unaware of this, but my firm sorted out Morgan’s trust when the validity of her double-inheritance came into question after all the Thanos mess.”

“Yikes,” says Eddie.

“My fault, I’m afraid,” Pepper says.  “I should have had the whole thing set up and ironclad—if you’ll excuse the expression.  The government tried to claim she only had one father despite a long history of public dating.”

“Nah, yeah, polyamory is complicated, I definitely get that.”

Matt raises his eyebrows and says, “Our third is a symbiotic alien living in Eddie’s body.”

Pepper’s brows only knit slightly.  “That sounds like its own set of challenges.”

“Why do people keep talking about him in mixed company?” Eddie hisses.

Because I am awesome.

Pepper smiles sweetly and pats him on the cheek like a kid.  “Superhero family, sweetie.  My boys were Iron Man and Captain America.  I sometimes have business lunches with intergalactic peacekeepers, and during the Blip I helped put down a few authoritarian regimes.  I’m currently dating Victoria Hand, the head of SHIELD, as a point of interest.  So if anybody were to, say, break Matt’s heart…”

“I really don’t need a shovel talk,” Eddie groans.  “I already know how insanely lucky I am.”

“Good,” she says with another sweet smile.  “Peter was like a son to my boys, and he’s like a son to me, and he’s very fond of Matt.”

“Okay, that’s enough scaring the dog!” MJ yells, swooping in to grab Eddie’s arm and drag him into the dining room (Matt laughingly trails after them).

food smells, food smells

Will you stop?  It’s just empty calories for you!

It’s much quieter in the dining room, and MJ looks up at him like she’s searching for something in his expression.

So he goes out on a limb.  “Scared about having your name on the third page?”

He expects her to scoff, to wave a hand, to dismiss him or make a joke.

She frowns.  “My mom used to say…you can’t be brave if you don’t start out scared.”

He nods.  “She was right.  I’m a little scared every time I find a big story.  Scared how deep it might go, scared nothing will change, scared innocent people will keep getting hurt.  You have to experience fear at least once before you can know the power of discarding it.”

“This is what I can do,” she says quietly.  “Peter can do amazing things, and Ned’s been helping him the whole time, and now…this is the only way I can think of for me to be heroic.”

“Preaching to the choir, sweetheart,” he says, squeezing her hand on his bicep.

Behind her, Matt holds his hands up to surrender the argument once and for all.

She perks up to drag Eddie back toward the living room.  “Dad!”

MJ BRINGS US TO HER PROGENITOR

Do not embarrass us.

That’s my line, loser!  Stand up straight!

“Eddie, this is my dad, Randall Watson.  Dad, this is Eddie Brock, the guy who got me my awesome internship and stuck his neck out to get me on page three.”

Randall smiles and shakes Eddie’s hand.  “The patron saint of Hell’s Kitchen, I hear.  Sticking up for the average Joe.”

Eddie is very much aware that Randall lives in a very nice building in a very nice part of town because he bought and sold very important stocks at one point.

Awkward.  “That, uh…that’s me.”

“Oh—no, I’m a big fan!  Me, I just made a lucky investment, used the money as startup capital, and worked hard to build something honest in this crazy town.  But that honesty paid for itself in spades—when companies were getting their dirty laundry aired left and right, big names like Fisk and Roxxon and Rand, I still had my reputation.  Honest business.”  He smiles, and it makes him look like somebody’s Sunday School teacher.

“Great,” Eddie replies, still vaguely uncomfortable.  “I, uh, don’t think MJ ever mentioned what exactly…”  Belatedly, he sees MJ frantically shaking her head.

Randall laughs.  “No, I guess she wouldn’t.  She still pokes fun at me for how hands-off I am most of the time.  I bought a dying news company and completely overhauled it.  Maybe you know a little rag called the Daily Bugle?  I brought her up to speed, got good ol’ JJ out of his little conspiracy bunker and back in front of an audience.  Heck, we even revived paper copy in a carbon-friendly medium, since it was so popular with the oldsters and the—whattaya callem—off-the-grid types.  Preppers?  Is that the one I’m thinking of?”

Eddie freezes.  Randall is The Enemy.  Not just corporate, but corporate press, the greatest evil of all.

Eddie do not say it do not open your mouth I CAN SEE YOUR STUPID THOUGHTS DON’T YOU DARE

Matt delicately touches Eddie’s arm.  “I think I hear Ned out in the hall.  Eddie, why don’t you go help him carry food while MJ helps me find a seat at the table?”

“Of course, Mr. Murdock!” MJ says, darting between Eddie and Randall.  “Matt?  No, feels weird…  Right this way, Mr. Murdock.”

Eddie turns stiffly and makes for the door.

Honesty my ass!  Talk about a fuckin’ bullshit merchant!

Nothing makes sense.  I am shook.

Shutupshutupshutup.  Knew we shoulda stayed at home.  Fuck parties, and fuck meeting new people, and fuck all this awkward shit where I feel like I don’t know anything or anybody just like the rest of my fucking year stuck here in this shitty, confusing world.

“Hello.”

Eddie stops, and realizes his hands are shaking.

There’s a little girl standing in front of him.  Dark hair, long eyelashes.  “I get sad, too.  And lonely.  The world feels out-of-control sometimes, and strange, and scary, and you just wanna scream as loud as you can.  It can be overwhelming.”

He takes a slow breath.

“It helps if you find the thing you can do.  It can be anything.  Just something to do that you know you can do.  Daddy liked reciting the periodic table.  Papa didn’t care much for the periodic table, but he knew a trick for finding square roots.  This year, I like to count by sevens.  Seven, fourteen, twenty-one, twenty-eight, thirty-five…”

He stares at her, and she stares back.

“See?” she says with a little smile.  “Better already.  I’m Morgan.”

“I’m Eddie.”

“Don’t worry about Ned—Uncle Happy’s helping him.  Let’s go sit down.  Remember, don’t tell Peter about pata.  His stomach is weak about things like that.”  She holds out her tiny hand.

Eddie still kind of wants to scream and run away.

Morgan sighs and wraps her little fingers around his thumb.  “I’m seven—I’m pretty much a veteran at this kind of stuff.  I’ll take care of you.”  She pulls him along, past Happy and Pepper (chatting about some business thing or other).  “When Daddy would get too scared, he’d go sit with Papa and hold his hand and pretend to me that he wasn’t scared at all.”

Simple, straightforward, matter-of-fact.

She just steers him to the chair next to Matt and hops up on his other side.

“Do we need to go?” Matt asks quietly.

“V wants food,” Eddie says.

Matt takes his free hand.  “That’s not what I asked.  May would happily pack some up for us.  You’re upset—would it help to be home with Snowflake?”

“Can’t go now.  I just made a friend.”

Morgan waves.  “Hi, Matt!”

Matt smiles and kisses Eddie’s hand before letting him go.

Lunch passes in a blur of May asking prying maternal questions of everyone, Pepper asking the trio about work, Ned telling stories of Christmas morning with his family.

Eddie doesn’t even notice what he eats, but it gets him sideways looks from Happy and Randall.

foodfoodfood, Venom says cheerfully.

“Forty-nine,” Morgan casually interjects.  “Fifty-six.”

Sixty-three, seventy, seventy-seven…

So Eddie checks back out, because he thinks if he has to see Randall give one more condescending dad-laugh, he might flip the table.

He snaps out of his comforting reverie when Matt pinches his thigh hard.

He’s got a turkey bone in his mouth, and has a sneaking suspicion Venom was about to crunch right into it.

Ned is in full-on secondhand-embarrassment mode, eyes laser-focused on his plate as he takes a long drink of water.  Peter and MJ have their panicked faces on.  Randall and Happy are staring.

“Really good turkey, May,” Eddie says, putting the bone down on his plate.

nooo, marrowwww

don’tyoufuckingdare

“Rosemary,” May says faintly.  “And a good basting interval.”

Eddie wonders if Venom managed to eat a bone before Matt could stop them.

Randall laughs again (Eddie feels his eye twitch).  “I knew I’d like you, Eddie!  You remind me of my granddad—now there was a man with a healthy appetite.”

Everyone relaxes as he spins some strange anecdote about a Depression-era man who would cook and eat any part of a chicken.

Eddie sits there, unmoving, and realizes that he hates this.  He doesn’t want to spend Christmas around people who don’t know about Venom.  He doesn’t want to have to be under wraps on what should be a day off.  He doesn’t want to be here.

But the kids wanted to share this with him.

eddie

He’s being ungrateful.  It’s just one shitty guy, who happens to be MJ’s dad, so he can’t be all bad.

So why does he feel like he’s suffocating the longer Randall goes on?

It doesn’t make sense.

Does it have to make sense?  You are unhappy.  We should go.

No, we got invited, and May fed us.  It’d be rude.

Just as he’s about to get up and excuse himself to the bathroom, Matt takes his hand again.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt—I just remembered an important case I need to submit some papers for.  So, thank you so much for having us, but we really need to go.  May, the food was delicious.  Morgan, Mrs. Stark, great to see you both again.  Don’t get up, Happy; we’ll get a cab.  Enjoy the rest of the day, everyone.”

Randall stops talking, and Eddie feels like he can breathe again.  He stands and focuses on Matt.  “Here—this way, babe.”

And Matt could probably sprint through the place without running into or knocking down a single thing, but he plays the invalid, all but forcing Eddie to lead him through the living room.

“You’re okay,” Matt tells him softly.  “Five more steps.”

They make it out the door before Eddie starts shaking.

He doesn’t remember what number he was on, and it feels like a failure.

Matt just slowly, gently ushers him down the hall.  “I shouldn’t have let him talk us into coming.  The moment I heard there’d be strangers, I should’ve turned him down.”

Eddie shakes his head, but he can’t seem to decide what to say.

“There’s nothing wrong with feeling what you’re feeling right now, Eddie.  You’re embarrassed—in your eyes, you stood out in a bad way.  And you’re angry, because you hate everything Randall Watson stands for.  And you’re frustrated, because you can’t do anything about your anger, because that wouldn’t be fair to MJ.  But you’re having a panic attack because all of that reminds you of something that hurt you.  V and I would never let Randall hurt you, okay?  And MJ wouldn’t, either.  You’re okay,” Matt says again, hugging him in the stairwell.

All the tension leaves Eddie in a rush.

Just like that.  So simple, like a magic trick.

He takes a long, slow breath and lets it out.  “I just wanted to spend Christmas with my awesome boyfriend and my stupid cat.”

Matt kisses his cheek.  “I’m so sorry.  C’mon, let’s go home.”

.End.

Chapter Text

Take the Past

“New rule,” Matt says as he pushes Eddie onto the couch and kneels to take his shoes off for him.

“Mm?” Eddie asks, not quite up to conversation.

Matt rubs his calves in steady, soothing motions.  “Rule three:  if you’re having a panic attack and I can separate you from the trigger, I will.  No hoping for the best, no putting on a brave face.  I felt the need to check in with you—that should’ve been my cue to get you out of there.”

Eddie feels small, and ashamed, and he suddenly understands what set him off.  “It was like watching my old man out in public.  All smiles and stories and laughter.  Man’s man macho bullshit.  Everyone loved that old bastard…‘s how I knew they’d never believe he beat the shit outta me on the regular.  And even if they did, they’d agree with him—that it was my fault, for fucking something up or being too namby-pamby or killing my mom when I was born.  That I deserved it.”

“No, Eddie,” Matt says firmly.  “He was your father—you deserved to feel safe and loved by him.  What he did was evil.  No matter what outside observers might think, that is the immutable truth.  I don’t want you to ever feel unsafe, okay?  Especially when I’m right there.  Otherwise, what good am I?”

Eddie leans down and presses their foreheads together, memorizing every speckle of brown or gold hiding in the olive green of Matt’s eyes.  “The best,” he says.  “Absolute best thing in my whole life.”

Venom pokes around on Eddie’s phone until they find a decent livestream of the parade, then props it up while Matt fetches Snowflake from a nearby sunbeam.

Time loses meaning with his boyfriend nestled close and his cat lazily purring over the sound of vapid commentators and various marching bands.  Matt smells faintly of Wolfthorn, and Eddie would tease him, except that it reminds him pleasantly of gummy worms.  It’s relaxing—to have no tasks, no expectations, nothing more pressing for the moment than basking in the unequaled pleasures of a soft cat and a good cuddle.

Soon enough, Rafael will figure out what happened to the Christmas edition of the paper.  MJ will have to put together more articles.  Matt and Foggy will have to present a fresh case against Fisk, who may or may not cop a plea like a good boy.  Maya Lopez is still out there, along with Yelena the cat-loving Black Widow assassin.

But right now, it’s just them on their couch, in their apartment with a terrible view (which suits Eddie, since he’d rather look at Matt).

An ad comes on for Stouffer’s stuffing, and Eddie remembers the bags in the front hall.  “Mm.  Sorry, V, I forgot all about the present I got you.”

“You said you didn’t get me anything!”

“And I just said I forgot about it, asshole.  Bag by the front door—there’s the French press and the electric kettle for Matt, but then there’s a box for you.”

There’s a loud rustling of plastic near the door, then a flurry of torn wrapping paper raining down around them.

The ensuing pleased screech sets Eddie’s teeth on edge, but he doesn’t mention it.

“I am going to my bowl to learn about coffee!” the alien announces, and he rips free with the usual chilly shock (like being thrown into a swimming pool, come to think of it).

“He’s trying,” Matt says.

“I know he is; why ya think I got him the damn thing?”

Matt just hums and squeezes his knee.

Eddie stares at his phone.

Incoming Call From
Latin Asshole

Time to show off his acting chops.

“Hey, man, Merry Christmas!” Eddie says brightly.  “How’s page three look?  Pretty good for a fluff piece, huh?  I had to pry that arepa recipe away from—”

~“Cut the shit.  I know it was you.”~

“Rafa, my name’s on the article.  I spent a week eating stuff I couldn’t pronounce.  Of course it was me.”

~“You’re really gonna sit there and pretend you don’t know your article got swapped out.”~

“It what?!” Eddie yelps.  “No, no, no, I did not eat some weird unidentifiable Hainanese thing just to have my piece pulled!  Who okayed that?  Kramer was the one who gave me the damn assignment, so I’m pretty fucking sure it wasn’t an order from the top!”

~“Nope.  Somebody changed the layout from my computer at quarter to nine.”~

“So they snuck into the building and up to the office after hours, unlocked the office door, and logged into your computer?  They knew your password?  You leave that thing lying around on a Post-It or something?”

~“They changed my password.”~

“What?  How?  Did they hack your email?”

~“When I find out how you did it, I will end you.”~

“That kinda sounds like a threat.  Might wanna keep an eye on your car.  Meanwhile, Kramer’s gonna hear how you pulled my piece just because of a bad date and then tried to spin some wild story of me breaking into your work computer after hours to sabotage my own career.”

He hangs up on whatever arrogant insults are sure to follow.

“I’m supposed to be the smug one in this relationship,” Matt points out.

“Can we get an esperesso machine?” Venom calls from the kitchen.

“No,” Eddie vetoes immediately.  “Master the French press first, buddy.”

So he texts Jones about Rafa and leaves a voicemail for the Street’s Editor-In-Chief.  He refers to the call with Rafael as ‘an unhinged rant’ and says he has witnesses to Rafa getting creepy over a bad date.

Something buzzes.

“Phone,” Matt says, muffled slightly by the shoulder of Eddie’s sweater.

“Phone, shit, yes,” Eddie manages, snapping out of a doze and fumbling for his phone.

Incoming Call From
Queen MJ

“Fuck.”

“Mm-mm, no panicking,” says Matt.  “Give it to me.”

He gives in, partly because he knows Matt will literally fight him on this (and he strongly suspects Matt would hand him his own ass on a platter, even with Venom’s help).

“Eddie’s phone, Eddie’s overprotective boyfriend speaking,” Matt says.

MJ sounds upset when she replies, and Eddie winces.

“It’s nothing you did, I promise,” Matt tells her.  “You told me Happy and your father would be there; it was thoughtless of me to put Eddie and Venom in that situation.”

She says something else, volume starting to rise.

“In the situation of having to hide who they were on a day for family and love and acceptance.  But yes, I think it would be best to limit Eddie’s exposure to your father, and I think you know why.  But we really were happy to be invited, and it really was good to see May and Pepper and Morgan.  How’s your follow-up article coming along?”

This time, her voice is calm again.

“That’s good.  I’ll give you what information I can, but keep in touch with Jess—she’s got more legal wiggle-room.  Talk to you tomorrow, Merry Christmas from all of us.”

The phone is warm when Matt hands it back.

“I’m reasonably sure you didn’t get to actually taste any of the wonderful food May made; let’s go get something sugary, like cupcakes.”

“Hey, V—coming with or staying here?”

“I have found the YouTube coffee bean rabbithole.  I must learn more of this…kona plant.”

“We’ll bring a cupcake back for you,” Matt says, hoisting Eddie to his feet.

They’re locking up when Matt’s phone calls out, ~“Claire.  Claire.  Claire.”~

“Get us a cab, honey?”

Eddie pauses.

The last person to call Eddie ‘honey’ was Anne; Matt has only ever called him by name.

“Sure, baby,” he replies with a big dumb grin.

(“Hey, Claire, Merry Christmas!  Oh, wow, you’ve got everybody—hi, Luke; hi, Danny; hi, Colleen.  Great.  Really good.  No, uh…heh, I’m actually not at Foggy’s this year.  My boyfriend and I—oh my God, you’re all the worst—we had a rough morning, so we’re treating ourselves to cupcakes.”)

Eddie flags down a cab and pretends to help Matt into the back before getting in on the other side.  “Magnolia Bakery, please,” Eddie tells the driver.

(“Don’t give me a hard time—give Danny a hard time.  He helped us move a gigantic cat across Manhattan, so he absolutely knew I’ve been living in sin with an anxious writer and his enormous pet feline.  No, thank you—I’ve made him put up with too many strangers today already.  Maybe New Year’s?  We could talk Jess into it, make it a whole thing.”)

Detective Booze-hag
so about that money you said i’d get up front but haven’t seen

Eddie smirks.

Hey, you were there when everything started to fly off the rails.
Anyhow, lemme cash out the fundraiser, and I’ll Venmo you or whatever.

Detective Booze-hag
fundraiser what are you, bruce fucken wayne

I mean, if you don’t want the money…

Detective Booze-hag
fuck you, brock. your creepy editor’s shiny acura is now modern art, yw

You’re my second-favorite woman on the planet.❤

Detective Booze-hag
who’s first

Her Royal Majesty, Queen MJ, the greatest evil mastermind in the tri-state area.

Detective Booze-hag
an illustrious title for a 12yo

I hope she hasn’t hacked our phones and can see that.  You’d have to flee the country.

Detective Booze-hag
hey
so
tell murdock i said Merry Christmas
or whatever

“Jess says ‘Merry Christmas or whatever.’”

Matt smiles.  “She’s not fooling anyone.  She loves us.”

.End.

Chapter Text

We’re All Chrome

The day after Christmas, Eddie and MJ get to sit in an interrogation room with Matt and Foggy while a detective named Knight asks them questions about their articles and the evidence they’ve gathered in relation to Fisk’s laundering schemes.

Eddie can tell she’s seething—getting more and more frustrated as the minutes tick by.  She’s one of those who thinks it’s more important for her to know and be in control of everything than for the desired outcome to be achieved.  He’s more than used to mob interrogation, so an unofficial police interrogation is pretty mild; MJ, of course, is a Woke Teen, so she knows her rights without Foggy having to say a word.

“Look, Detective, we’re obviously on the side of good,” Eddie says in placation.  “That’s the whole reason we’re providing official evidence instead of just printing everything and letting the public do what they please.  But revealing sources can harm us financially in a major way, not to mention the possibility that you’ll spend taxpayer dollars putting away impoverished and unhoused folks for victimless crimes.  Nobody likes that kinda bad press—you don’t wanna look like a bully, and sad people don’t buy newspapers.  On the other hand, we’d love to write about you busting each and every one of these crooked businesses, because angry people buy a lot of newspapers.”

“We want to help,” MJ agrees.  “But we will not reveal our sources, and without substantial proof that our sources are endangering the public, we cannot be compelled to.  The evidence we’ve gathered should speak for itself.”

Knight frowns like she wants to punch all four of them.  “Murdock, just smile if I’m right,” she whispers.  “This is something you and your little superhero team pulled off.”

Matt smiles.  “I think we’re done here, Detective.  Our clients will gladly provide the fruits of their investigations, but not their informants.  I’m sure Eddie’s recordings, in particular, will prove extremely useful in pressing criminal charges.”

Knight heaves a sigh and opens the door.  “Thank you for your help—Mr. Brock, Miss Jones.  We’ll be in touch.”

Randall, who has been waiting outside, immediately starts shaking Foggy’s hand.  “Thank you so much—Jeri Hogarth spoke so highly of you, and I can see why—”

“Oh, no, sir, really,” Foggy says with a stiff smile.  “There was hardly anything for us to do here except look stern and official.  Mr. Brock knows his work very well, and he’s teaching your daughter all the right habits.”

“Now, whether or not she’ll learn them, hehe…” Randall jokes, slapping Eddie’s back.  “Ouch!  What on earth?”

No touchy!

“Hm?” Eddie asks innocently.

“Hit something pokey.”

“Izzat so?  Huh.  Must have a safety pin buried in my hoodie somewhere—thanks for the warning, Mr. Watson.”

“Uh, yeah, of course…”  He stares at the back of Eddie’s hoodie for a few more seconds before shaking his head and smiling at MJ.  “C’mon, sweetie, let’s get some ice cream to celebrate your first big scoop!”

In the cab to the law office, Matt says, “That wasn’t very nice of you, V.  Good boy.”

“I don’t wanna know,” says Foggy.

Eddie shrugs and says, “Let’s just say, if he wasn’t MJ’s dad, he’d be missing a hand right now.  Also—any word on the Fat Man turning himself in?  V’s got his scent now, so it ain’t like he can hide.”

“How does Claire not go insane?” Foggy wonders aloud.  “Every other word out of you hero-types is borderline nonsense.  Bulletproof guys, zombie ninjas, rich boys who punch holes in mountains with their glowing fists, women who throw cars around…now a guy with a split personality whose alter is part bloodhound.”

Back at the office, Karen has finished making copies of all their evidence—forensic accounting, deeds, all the info on Sloan, the associated info on Bishop Security, Eddie’s recordings, Jones’ photos (she’s got the negatives), MJ’s pics of Rafa taking the bribe.

“It’s enough to get a lot of warrants,” the blonde says happily.  “Tower is over the moon.  We’re gonna rip out the rest of the roots this time, and Miss Jones-Watson—”

“She doesn’t go by Watson,” Matt interjects.  “Knowing who her father is, it’s probably to escape any implications of nepotism.”

“—Miss Jones,” Karen corrects with a nod of understanding, “is going to have her pick of papers to work for—I recommend the Bulletin.”

“Good,” Eddie says, nodding.  “Great.  I mean, hopefully she’ll be off to school soon instead, and then maybe she’ll get a job with a science publication, but…”

“Deep breath,” Matt orders gently.  “She texts you twenty times a day and casually put you up in her guest room without even bothering to tell her father, let alone ask permission.  I guarantee you those kids will still be obsessed with meddling in your life while they’re in Boston.  And I’m not a terrible consolation prize.”

Eddie nods again.  “Eh, I guess you’re okay,” he jokes, earning himself a pinch to the ribs and a kiss on the lips.

“New Year’s won’t be like Christmas,” Matt assures him.  “Worst case scenario, they’ll all judge you for dating me and tell you at great length what a train wreck I am.  As for V, he’s hardly the strangest thing they’ve seen.”

“Sounds kinda nice.”

“Oh, yes,” Karen says, and there’s a little edge in her voice even though her smile is wistful.  Then the edge gets a little sharper, and the softness to her expression vanishes.  “Claire is much nicer than those three boys deserve.”

“Wow, fuck you,” Eddie says, feeling his hackles rise.  “It’s one thing to say it like you’re complimenting her, but that’s not how you meant it at all.  I don’t know this Luke guy, but Danny did us a favor he didn’t have to do, and Matt is a goddamn saint compared to half this city.  Keep your complexes to yourself, Miss Page.  Happy fucking holidays.  Let’s get outta here, baby.”

“Eddie, what the hell?” Matt hisses as Eddie drags him back out the door (or as he lets Eddie drag him, more likely).

“She doesn’t get to talk about you like that to me.  She can say whatever she wants when I’m not around, but I ain’t about to just sit and smile while she heavily implies that she thinks you and your friends—who might not think I’m a complete freak show—are pieces of shit.”

“Karen doesn’t think that.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t have to see the look on her face, like you betrayed her trust once and that’s all you’ll ever be to her.  That face she made is the same face I make when I’m talking about my old man, and I somehow doubt you used to slap her around.  But correct me if I’m wrong.”

Matt pulls him to a stop halfway to the elevator.  “Eddie…”

“Don’t,” Eddie says softly.  “I know you said you promised them you’d stop, but that’s a shitty thing to make someone promise.  Did they ever even accept that it’s part of you?  Or did they just kinda stop talking about it because they were glad you weren’t dead?  They set you up to fail, and now, years later, she’s still pissy about it?  Fuck that.  It’s not fair to you.”

“Life’s not fair to me, Eddie.”

“You and your—your fuckin’ double-standards!” Eddie growls.

rule two, eddie

All at once, the anger and tension just drain right out of him.  “Sorry.  I’m so sorry, babe.  Rule two.  Okay.  You want to make my life better, and I love that so much.  But you keep trying to stop me from making your life better, and that hurts.  I want good things for you.  Do you not trust me to give them to you?  Or do you really believe you don’t deserve them?”

Matt gives a long sigh.  “Those are inherently unfair questions.”

“If you don’t deserve good things, does that mean you don’t deserve me?”

“Our relationship is not about what I deserve.”

“It is, for me.”

They stand in silence for a moment, Matt’s eyebrows furrowed as he tilts his head.

“I love you.  I want to help make you happy.  I want to make your life easier, brighter, better.  I want you to be able to be somebody’s hero without getting scolded for it like a teenager who snuck out after curfew.  I think you deserve all of that and more.  You saved me, remember?  You gave me a home in your heart.  So right here and now, I’m making rule four:  if you get to make my life better, I get to do the same for you.”

Matt nods, then clears his throat.  Nevertheless, his voice is hoarse when he says, “Okay.  Fair enough.”  And he gives a little smirk.

Eddie pulls his stubborn boyfriend into a hug.  “Okay.  Let’s go home.”

Things get easier after that.

Fisk turns himself in, Knight gets to barge into every Sloan property, a tentative court date is set (and Eddie will no doubt be called upon to talk about attempted extortion), MJ proudly shows him a draft of her first follow-up article.

Rule four crops up a few times, and Matt tries to resist at first, but help comes from an unexpected quarter—Karen invites them to a nice café for lunch with Foggy and Marci, apologizes for the day after Christmas, and says that she’s glad Matt has someone so feisty looking out for him.

Eddie accepts her apology and explains their four rules, and Foggy is such a fan of the idea that he steals rule two and rule four to use in his own marriage (which prompts Marci to make silly lovestruck faces at him).

“It’s about goddamn time someone made you accept kindness that isn’t based on a livestock barter system,” Karen says.

“There’s definitely some kinda story behind that,” Eddie declares.

Foggy proudly tells a story about accepting chickens—live, flapping, clucking chickens—as payment for a case.

CHICKENS

Eddie refrains from rolling his eyes.  “You guys still get any chickens, from time to time?”

“Ah, not yet,” says Karen.  “But I’d never rule it out…we’re kind of known for being bleeding hearts.”

Also delicious!

Metaphor, V, she’s being metaphorical.

bah.

They go to Claire’s New Year’s Eve party over in Harlem.  Eddie and Venom are both introduced, and no one seems particularly put off (Colleen even starts asking a slew of questions about the existence of extra-terrestrial civilizations).  Jones shows up with a boatload of projected nonchalance, like a cat pretending not to want attention, and brings her friend, some semi-famous radio show host with a pretty smile.

A few drinks in, Trish is telling stories of Jones’ youthful misadventures and Danny is leaning heavily on Luke’s sturdy shoulder.  Venom and Colleen have moved on to favorite YouTube stars.  Matt and Claire are catching up on the state of various friends and family since the end of the Blip.  On the TV, the Times Square feed is on low volume.  Eddie just holds Matt’s hand and relaxes and lets it all wash over him.

Maybe having the Scooby gang go off to college won’t be so bad.

Danny has dozed off by the time the countdown starts, but he snaps awake in time to sleepily say, “Hap’ New Yer,” with Jones and Trish and Venom as Claire kisses Luke and Colleen takes a hilariously awkward photo (because Danny looks like a drunk third wheel hanging off his married best friend).  Eddie smiles into the kiss he’s sharing with Matt while fireworks thud through the sky downtown.

Yeah, having grown-up friends could be nice.

EDDIE.  Trish and Colleen say we should get an AIR FRYER.  It is not for frying air, despite its deceptive name.

I have much more interesting plans for tonight than shopping for an air fryer.

what could POSSIBLY rival FOOD COOKING APPARATA?

Eddie projects a few mental images.

oh.  well.  that is much more interesting than an air fryer, though i could contend that it still technically involves feeding me.  it won’t take all night, will it?

Eddie definitely means for it to take all night.

“We should get going,” Eddie says very unsubtly.  “Early to bed and early to rise, yadda yadda.”

“Early to bed, huh?” Luke teases with a wink.

“Well, take care, then,” Colleen says, elbowing the big man.

Trish waves.  “It was great meeting you, Eddie!”

“And nice finally seeing Matt again…” snorts Danny.

They share a round of mixed hugs and handshakes.

“Matt, you smell like gummy worms!” Claire says after kissing his cheek.

“I know, right?” Jones agrees.  “Happy New Year, trash babies.”

They laugh their way outside and down the hall.

“She loves us,” Eddie decides with a grin.

.End.