tisfan

Venom couldn’t really read. Not really. He could use Eddie’s eyes and look at the words, and then, provided Eddie was thinking while he looked at the words -- and mostly he was, because he’d never tried to look at words and not read them -- then Venom understood.

Well, he understood as much as he ever was capable of understanding.

Venom was god only knew how old, but he was still childlike, when looking at things from Eddie’s world. A child. A very smart, sometimes excessively vicious child, but still.

“Hey sugah,” the waitress said, hand on one hip, giving Eddie an appreciative once-over. “What can I get for ya?”

Venom grabbed the eyes again and stared at the menu. CHEESY TOTS.

“Yeah, sure,” Eddie said, forgetting that he wasn’t supposed to talk outloud to Venom in public. Really, he needed to teach Vee about bluetooth headsets, and then Vee could pretend to be one, and people wouldn’t think Eddie was insane.

People might be wrong about that.

“Uh, I’d like an order of chee-- make that a double order of cheesy tots,” Eddie said. “And… uh… a chocolate milkshake.”

Thank christ for the symbiote, Eddie thought. Having his very own personal parasite/personal trainer meant that he didn’t have to go to the gym anymore to maintain -- well, he wasn’t ripped or anything, unless Venom was enclosing the body, but he did okay. Mostly.

Eddie poked his phone while they waited for the food; chocolate milkshake came up first, along with whipped cream and a shaker on the side that Vee didn’t even bother to look at before he was using their hands to grab for the glass.

“Easy big guy,” Eddie said under his breath. “It’ll still be here in thirty seconds. No one’s gonna take it away from you.”

That was mostly not a lie. Eddie did have a little bit of money. The problem with being a reporter -- aside from being shot at, fed to an alien parasite by accident, nearly incinerated, etc, was that it just didn’t pay well.

And Venom tended to be in too much of a hurry when he was eating bad guys to take their wallets first. Eddie wasn’t even sure if that would make them partially bad guys, that they were keeping bad guy money.

So they didn’t have much, really. Eddie had bills that he didn’t even want to think about. Even with Doctor Dan doing everything he could from the hospital’s end, it’s not like being a mostly-out-of-work video-blogger came with health insurance.

He was brooding enough about bills and life and his massive failure therein, not really paying attention to Vee, who was using the body to drink their milkshake.

Cheesy tots arrived; steaming hot and covered with cheese sauce and shreds and little bacon bits and a few jalapeno coins.

Teaching Vee to eat so that they didn’t attract horrific amounts of attention had been… difficult.

He still wasn’t really getting the idea, honestly.

Venom shoveled food into their mouths like a man after a ten day fast, chewing only when reminded, and swallowing whole lumps. That never went well for Eddie’s digestion and he was just trying to remind Vee to slow down--

EDDIE, WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME?

“Huh?”

MY MOUTH IS BURNING. IT’S FIRE, EDDIE. WHAT IS ON FIRE? WHAT IS WRONG?

For a few seconds, Eddie had absolutely no idea what Venom was talking about, and then--

“Oh, those are just the peppers, Vee,” Eddie said. “We’ve talked about that before. You know, condiments and stuff.”

NOTHING IS BURNING?

“You’re not on fire, big guy,” Eddie said. “It’s just capsicum. The plant makes it as pesticide.”

DOES PESTICIDE KILL PARASITES? Venom didn’t like being called a parasite, especially since he actually wasn’t. He and Eddie had -- to make a pun -- a symbiotic relationship, not a parasitical one.

“In your case, I expect not,” Eddie said. “Humans like spicy food.”

Venom pondered this for a while, still occasionally thinking red thoughts of pain and confusion in Eddie’s direction. WHY?

Eddie shrugged. “I dunno, makes us feel alive, I guess.”

THIS IS VERY STUPID.

Eddie picked up the milkshake and slurked some of it down, noticing as Venom went from full alert to soothed. “Milk helps, or bread. Never water, or soda.”

WE DON’T LIKE SODA. Venom didn’t like carbonation at all. New Year’s Eve was gonna be a blast this year, no champagne. Yay. THIS IS BETTER.

“Yeah, it’s okay. Not everyone likes spicy food. Some people are really wimpy about it.” Eddie picked up one of the jalapeno coins and went to pop it in his mouth. Venom grabbed the hand at the last second and tossed it aside.

WE DON’T LIKE SPICY FOOD.

Eddie paused a moment, then, because he couldn’t resist, “Pussy.”

Eddie, Eddie, wake up!

“I wazzn’t sleepin’,” Eddie protested, which was a lie and a damn lie.

He probably shouldn’t lie in church, even if he wasn’t a believer. It seemed rude. For that matter, sleeping in church was pretty rude, too. There were a lot of things that Eddie was and a lot of things that Eddie did that didn’t mesh well with the whole be on your best behavior for God schtick.

Not that, really, sleeping wasn’t part of Eddie’s best behaviors. If he was sleeping, then he wasn’t causing trouble, and God should probably give him extra credit for that.

Eddie, there is a bad man in the church, Venom told him.

Eddie scrunched further into the pew, putting his hands in his hoodie pockets. “How do we know he’s a bad man?” He could feel Venom inside him, giving him a little squeeze, like a hug. Keeping Eddie from sliding right down onto the floor, which was good, because Eddie’s legs were still completely off in slumberland, and scooching down in the pew almost dumped him off the damn thing entirely.

Shouldn’t swear in church, Eddie, Venom said, and there was that greenish tone in his voice that let Eddie know that Venom was amused. And we know he is a bad man because he is wearing a mask. You said--

“Yeah, I know, I said you could eat bad guys,” Eddie said, keeping his voice low. “Where’s the bad man?”

He went into one of the little wooden rooms.

“The bad guy went to confession?” Eddie hissed. He sat up straighter, twisted around in his seat, searching the church.

It was a huge church, but very empty. Even devout Catholics usually weren’t at church on Tuesday afternoons, Eddie guessed. He wouldn’t know, he wasn’t a devout anything. He’d managed to brush off the priest who came to see if he needed help about an hour ago, and since then, the church had been empty.

He was supposed to be meeting a contact here, a source. Information that was supposed to revive his flagging reporter career.

I don’t know what that means, Venom complained.

“Confession?” Eddie said. “It’s where people go to confess their sins, so they can be forgiven. There’s a little routine for it, the priest gives you pennance to do, and then everything’s all fresh and clean with God.” A dozen or more movie scenes flickered through his active memory, colored with Eddie’s mental go ahead, you can look.

They’d come to that agreement pretty soon after the whole incident with Anne. Eddie would answer any questions that Venom had; in exchange, Venom would stop rifling through his memory like it was an old fashioned card catalog.

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned, Venom said thoughtfully. I have eaten a whole fuckton of people. They were not all bad men. But they were all very tasty.

Okay, laughing in church was decidedly rude. Cackling like a madman probably the height of rudeness. Eddie bit down on his arm to stop the guffaws, and there were tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes. He was seriously going to need to pee if he didn’t get it under control sometime soon.

“Eddie Brock?”

Eddie looked up to see a young man, neat and professional, wearing red sunglasses and a suit. “Yeah?”

“I’m… here to talk to you about Wilson Fisk,” the man said. “My name’s Matt Murdock, attorney at law.”

Eddie. Eddie.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Murdock,” Eddie said.

What, Vee?

That’s the man in the mask.

The man’s hand clasped on his, dry, and calloused. “Nice to meet you, too, Eddie Brock.” There was a long, significant pause. “Venom.”

Eddie, can I eat him now?  

“How the hell do--”

“I think we have a lot to talk about, Mr. Brock,” Murdock said.

“I think we do, too,” Eddie said. Keeping the whole eating option on the table, Eddie thought. If he does anything--

I will not let anything happen to you. Even if we must go to confession after.

“Doll,” Bucky said, with infinite patience, curling Tony into his embrace and sneaking his hands under Tony’s arms, getting fingers on that warm skin, “I graduated -- barely -- from high school in 1935. Everyone I know’s dead, or thereabouts. We’ll have our reunion later.”

Hopefully, much later. The serum and cryofreeze had kept him alive well past his natural span. Even on the absolute outset, if he hadn’t died in the war, Bucky probably should be dead. He was pretty sure he was back to aging again, albeit a little slower than he thought maybe he should be. He didn’t want to be hanging on to life while he watched everyone and everything he loved die around him.

His classmates and peers from an earlier time, they were a different matter. There were a few hanging on, still, from the old days. But not many, and those that were, well, they were over a hundred years old. There weren’t enough people to have a class reunion, even if his old school still existed.

Which it didn’t.

Tony was more observant than he gave himself credit for, noting the shift in Bucky’s posture, the way he went stiff with Tony still squirming in his arms. “You okay, cupcake?”

“Yeah, I just think you should go,” Bucky said. “Don’t… don’t waste chances, being able to connect with people, you know.”

“I am connected--” Tony snorted, reminding him that Tony’s veins were full of Extremis, and that if Bucky was going to live an abnormally long life, Tony was probably going to do it with him “--with every soul that uses the internet. I think that’s plenty, sometimes.”

“So it won’t hurt you to connect a little extra with the people you knew when you were younger,” Bucky pointed out. Tony was relaxing again, leaning against Bucky’s side. His body language opening up.

“Is there some reason why you want me to?”

“Because it’s a normal, human thing to do, Tony,” Bucky said. “And you… you’re not so good with normal, sometimes. You need practice.”

“I do fine being a billionaire, philanthropist, playboy genius,” Tony said. “Well, not so much with the playboy anymore.” He made a show of flashing his wedding ring.

“Well, that, too,” Bucky said, nuzzling at Tony’s ear. “Like, don’t you wanna show off your shiny new husband to th’ guys who used to pick at you in high school?”

“You raise a fair point, shiny new husband,” Tony said. “Bargain? You blow me, we can go.”

“Blow you at the reunion? Okay.”

Tony startled, mouth dropping open to protest that that wasn’t what he meant, obviously reconsidered it, and planted a kiss on Bucky’s chin, which was all the could reach from how he was sitting. “Deal.”