Chapter Text
She leaves Eddie’s apartment with urgency. As she closes the door and throw the keys at her tote bag, she's cursing under her breath. She had woken up late to go to work, and your boss— the editor of The Daily Bugle, would yell at her yet again.
As she runs through the busy streets of New York to catch the subway, she's praying nothing stupid but viral had happened. The least thing that she needed was to be sent to cover some bullshit story. Last time she was late, she had to cover some asshole that thought he had replicated Spider-man’s powers and went viral on TikTok.
She notices in the windows of the subway that her hair is a mess. Well, to be fair, all of her is. She tries to fix as much as she can before reaching the station where she has to go down. She also sent a message to Eddie asking for his whereabouts, it would had been helpful to have him around today, since they work at the same place.
As soon as she steps out of the subway, she races towards the building. When she reaches the elevator, she is breathless, having only a little time to recover on the way up. But as soon as she steps out of it, the one and only J. Jonah Jameson yells at her.
“You’re late!” He yells. A cup of coffee is in his right hand, as usual. Some of her coworkers, that were near the editor, turn to see her. “Get you ass back to that elevator and go straight to the East River. I want the story about the alien dude there. If you have to push a motherfucker into the river, you do it. We get the exclusive. Understood?” He says.
She just nods and turns around. The elevator opens and she leaves.
She grabs a taxi as soon as possible, cursing under her breath as she's checking social media on the way there. It seems like a weird looking man was swimming in the river. She thinks that it’s probably a protest for some environmental related stuff.
When she gets there, there aren't many people around yet. She runs to the side of the river where the man was seen. A bunch of teenagers that should probably be in class stay there, with their phones, pointing and giggling.
“I told you aliens existed,” one of the boys says. “Look at that thing.”
“Hey, shouldn’t you all be in class?” She asks and they laugh at her. “Assholes,” she mumbles under her breath.
She walks near the shore and that’s when she finally sees him: a man, with pointed ears and curious jewelry was looking at them from the river.
“Hey, dude, we stopped using straws for the turtles, now come out of that nasty river before you catch an infection. There are other ways to do this,” she yells, catching his eye.
The man looks at her and raises an eyebrow, he swims towards her, interested. After all, she's the first one to speak to him in this whole time.
“Who are you?” He asks.
She nods, taking her small notebook out of her tote bag. “The Daily Bugle. Tell me your name and the story so we can finish this soon.”
He smiles, confused at her. “Well, The Daily Bugle, my name is Namor. Where am I?”
She frowns. “Oh, you’re being funny. Right. No press, we suck. I get it.”
He's the one to frown now. “No, where am I? I was swimming in the Gulf of Mexico and now I’m…” He looks around, trying to decipher where he is now.
“In New York?” She asks, looking around too, not knowing how he couldn’t recognize one of the most iconic and touristic cities in the world.
“New York?” He repeats and turns around in the water confused. “How the hell am I here?”
“That’s a question I can’t answer,” she says, tilting her head. “Are you like an alien or something?”
Namor laughs. “An alien?” He repeats, not believing it. Why did everyone thought he was an outer space being?
“Yeah, the pointy ears and everything,” she says pointing at him with her pen.
“No… I’m a mutant,” he replies as if it were the most obvious thing.
She nods, not truly understanding but whatever, she just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Eddie and her were doing an article on something that truly mattered and this was taking too much time from it.
“Alright. You’re a drunk dude with a deformity. I’ll let my boss know,” she says, putting the notebook back in her tote bag.
“Wait, no. Something happened. I need help. I was swimming…” He repeats.
“In Mexico and you appeared here. Yeah, sounds like you are drunk.” She stares at him. “Why don’t you just get out of the water? Go back to Mexico?” You ask.
He nods, and she nods back, happy to had helped him in some way. And then he flies out of the water. She's so taken aback that she falls on her ass. The kids that were watching yell.
“He’s an alien!” One of them yells.
“You have superpowers” She screams, getting up and cleaning the dirt from her jeans. “Get the fuck down! Do you want the goverment to take you, you dumb idiot?” She tries to reach his feet. “Now you back to the water and play dumb. I’ll help you. No more funny stuff.”
“The government? I’d like to see them try,” he says, cockily.
“I have it on camera!” One of the kids screams and the two of them turn to him.
“Alright I’ll break the phone,” she says decided while walking towards the kid. But Namor is faster and more powerful, he flies and takes the phone from the kid’s hand to break it with his bare hands.
“You’re a monster!” The kid yells as he and his friends escaped. Namor has a crooked smile.
“It’s not the worst I’ve heard,” he says, shrugging.
When she turns around to make sure the kids were out of the way so she could take Namor somewhere, she sees journalists from the other newsmedia coming. The kids talking to them as they have mics and cameras on their faces lets you know everything you needed to know: they were going to have a field day with whatever that was on the river and was capable of scaring the kids like that.
“Fucking hell,” she yells. “Back to the water. No flying. No fighting.” She points at him. “Play dumb. I’ll bring some friends to save you. Alright?”
Namor nods, seeing that the woman is obviously mad at him and somehow worried lets him know that she's on his side and is going to help him.
She's pacing like a like a lion on a cage while making a call on her phone.
He finally picks up. “Where are you?” He asks. “I’m working on the article on my own.”
“I was sent to cover an alien on the East River. I was late today,” she replies. “It would’ve been nice to have my roommate wake me up”.
He laughs. “I was busy. If you’re on that, then why are you calling me? Finish that shit soon, I found some new info on Kingpin…”
“Well, you have an alien inside you, right?” She says and he sighs.
“We’ve told you not to say it like that, but yeah, what is it? Is it truly an alien? Does it look like Venom?” He asks casually. “Just don’t eat it, they eat your organs and you have to carry them out for the rest of your life.”
“This dude flies and breaks phones with his bare hands. I need you to come for him or send Peter because… He says he was swimming in Mexico and appeared in New York, something’s up!” She whisper-yells at him. “It’s like what happened to Peter when he met the other Peter. Remember?” She asks. “Maybe he’s from another dimension or something?”
“Why would I do that over a drunk’s guy story?”
“Dude you were drunk too when you visisted the other dimension that led you to Peter, didn’t you?” Eddie sighs. “Come on, Eddie. I have a feeling, don’t be an asshole,” she says.
When she goes back to where Namor is, there are already journalists from other newsmedia trying to talk to him. He keeps repeating the same thing about swimming in Mexico.
“Are you related to Spider-Man or Venom?” One of the reporters asks.
“What is that?” He replies.
The journalists are fighting to ask him questions about his superpowers and if he’s an alien. Namor is starting to look overwhelmed, so she pushes through the crowd.
“Please, I don’t know what you are talking about. I’m confused I just…” He says.
“But you’re an alien?” One of the women say, she knows her. Her name is Alex something. She’s an asshole and is always pissed at anyone from The Daily Bugle.
“He’s just a drunk dude, now leave him alone, I’ll call the cops,” she says, pushing her out of the way.
“Oh, shut up, you want the exclusive. Jameson won’t get it this time.”
“Don’t be mad because you don’t get any exclusives,” she says, pushing her a bit too harsh. The other woman pushes back.
Her phone rings and she leaves the crowd. "Yes?"
“Peter says is possible. He’s coming for him. Prepare the camera,” Eddie says. She could hear someone eating in a really nasty way in the background. Probably Venom.
“Tell him to come soon, they’re treating him like shit,” she says looking at the group of people.
Eddie laughs. “They’re journalists.”
“It’s not funny, Eddie.” She sighs.
“Sometimes I forget you actually have feelings. Remind me again why you’re on this field?” He asks and there's a burp. “Nasty. Real nasty. No more KFC for you bud.”
“But I was hungry. You have me working all night on some pimps and…” Venom's breathy voice says.
“I’m on the phone.” He sighs, interrupting the alien. “Do you realize you have to come back and write an amazing article about this shitshow?”
“Oh, I’ll write it on my way back to the building. Don’t worry, I won’t lose my job today.”
After she ends the call, she starts to work on the article. It wasn’t really hard to write, not because she's amazingly good, but because it's really formulaic to write for Jameson, especially when it came to Spider-man and the "danger" that he represents.
She saw the police arrive, not to help, but to make sure that nosy people are out of the way and just the annoying journalists can keep harassing the poor dude on the water.
Fifteen minutes later, Spider-Man appears and all the cameras turn to him. She exhales, happy to see the superhero. He quickly reaches for Namor and gets him out of the water and away from there, and she makes sure to take some photos from that moment.
She grabs a cab right to the building and present the article to Jameson, who’s pleased to say that the title SPIDER-MAN IS A MENACE: HE JUST STOLE AN ALIEN is right up with The Daily Bugle’s editorial.
After that, she's free for the day. So she goes straight to Eddie’s cubicle, giving him a slap in the back of the head. He turns around with a funny look in his eyes.
“Did you have a nice day reporting, my dear?” He asks, making kissing noises and being as annoying as he could be.
“Fuck you.”