Chapter Text
"Eh. Not bad. I could get used to this place."
"Nooo! It’s very bad, Eddie. It's cold here and it smellsss."
"Yeah, well okay. You got me there."
"We should go back. Not too late."
"It is too late. We've rented an apartment, bud. Full-year lease!”
A shorter man in an orange construction vest timidly passed Eddie the door as they headed into the grocery. Eddie accepted it without second thought, nodding in thanks and quickly making his way towards the deli.
Talking to himself in public came easy to him now. People would always give him funny looks, but he wasn’t worried about that. It was a New Yorker’s nature to mind their own goddamn business so, odd looks or not, no one would ever confront him about it. That was the beauty of living in a big city and New York was a HUGE city. The perfect place for Venom. They had yet to really test the waters on how weird they could get in public here... Pff! Hell. Well, considering who was currently occupying his body, that was destined to be remedied.
“Hungry!”
“Alright, cool it.”
Venom was right about the weather though. It was cold. Since arriving, he'd added at least six more sweatshirts and coats to his wardrobe. None of them were enough to stop Eddie from feeling the bite of REAL winter on his skin and his roommate noticed. Venom knew what shivering was, had felt him shiver before, but it had mostly been from anxiety and fear. This type of shivering couldn't be soothed, at least not by Venom. The symbiote hated feeling helpless. When Eddie was cold, he was cold and there was nothing Venom could do about it. It was fine- or it would be fine. It all just took some getting used to, for the both of them. New York had a lot of new opportunities, a lot of papers and magazines that had NO connection to the Life Foundation, and he was going to make it work.
The move would also give him a healthy amount of space from other challenges in his life,
Like Anne.
She was getting married. Not to him- No, of course not. She was getting married to Dan, her knight in shining armor, who had so gallantly rescued her broken heart after Eddie's stupid mistakes. He wasn’t angry. It was a good thing (he kept telling himself). He was happy for her (sort of), but that didn’t mean it hurt any less to see her go. She'd made it clear that Dan was the one and Eddie would always be just her friend. The rejection tore him apart. He’d thought Anne was it, he didn't have anyone else. He had Venom, but that was different. Anne had been everything to him, the last remaining piece of who he was before the Life Foundation incident, his last weathered tie to normalcy. It choked him up to see her living the life they'd always wanted with someone else. It hurt to know that every step the new couple took forward would be towards some kind of happy end, while Eddie’s future got more and more muddy by the day.
Not that he regretted Venom. Hell no. The alien mess was a part of him now. They needed each other. If it took losing Anne for them to meet, Eddie would choose Venom every single time. It was just a shame he couldn’t have both.
"We would never regret us, Eddie."
That's right. Venom had given up a lot too- betrayed his own kind to protect Earth, to protect him.
And so he worked to get over it. Time had done the trick, soothed the burn, but then he received that wedding invitation in the mail. That had completely knocked him off his road to emotional recovery. Seeing it all in writing was too much and Eddie went into panic mode. Two weeks later, he was packed and on a plane headed for New York. Honestly, he was kind of surprised Venom had let him. Maybe his alien was so desperate to see Eddie rid of the pain, that at the end of the day he didn’t care where Eddie moved them to.
"Number 63?"
A pimpled teenage clerk called his number from the deli counter. Eddie shuffled his way through the group hovering near the Pick-Up and took the paper bag from the kid's hand. “Thanks-
"CHOCOLATE."
“Ah Fuck!" His entire body jolted backwards, earning an embarrassing glare from a rather pudgy-looking old lady behind him. "Y-Yeah. Alright. I know. Jesus."
Venom was a special kind of hungry today, he could feel it. A dull ache shooting up through his own nerves like the starts of a stomach flu. He'd have to let Venom out tonight, let the symbiote feast on whatever criminal they caught acting up out on the streets. The thought made him shudder- a reaction that didn't go unnoticed by his alien parasite.
"NOT a parasite. We are the good guys, Eddie."
And he knew they were, it's just that eating people wasn't something a guy simply gets used to. They were always asking for trouble when they did. Venom wasn’t the best judge. More people meant more situations and experiences. There were no text books on how to instill morals into your man-eating alien blob. It seemed like every time they'd go out on the hunt, there'd be another morality lesson for Venom and a heart-attack for Eddie. It was exhausting.
Buying the right food was one way to keep Venom's homicidal urges at bay, he'd learned. It took him a while to find the right place. Tater-tots, chocolate, and steak were on his list every visit and not every grocery store around him carried all three of those items. Chocolate was easy, but tater-tots and steak? His symbiote friend was getting pickier and pickier with each passing month. He'd finally found a place he could stick with after a few failed tries, and a very unhappy Venom. The little privately owned grocery was perfect. It had a frozen meal section AND a deli. It almost worried Eddie a little. Venom was getting spoiled about what he ate. Ridiculous, especially since the thing would never bat an eye at eating a very greasy looking murderer.
"We deserve nice thingsss." was the symbiote's answer to that mental train of thought. We deserve meaning Venom deserves nice things.
"You too, Eddie. Us."
Eddie rolled his eyes and did his best to wipe those thoughts from his mind. He wasn't going to start an argument in the middle of a small quiet grocery store. If they kicked him out for acting too crazy, he'd have to find another place.
Ugh. What a headache that would be.
"Ooookay.” Where had he gotten the chocolate last time? AH! Right by the baked goods.
"DONUTS."
"No."
"YES."
"Next time- shit” Eddie grit his teeth and winced as Venom howled out something unintelligible.
Yep. His parasite was definitely getting spoiled. How does one even begin to fix that? Maybe he should pick up a parenting book or something. "Keep it up, big guy. We'll leave here empty handed."
It was a silly sort of threat, but it seemed to do the trick. Eddie moseyed through the selection of chocolates in blissful silence after that, stepping over a "wet floor" sign and eyeing a package of Hershey bars on the shelf. It was a rare serene moment for the forty-year-old who stood bouncing on the balls of his feet, contemplating whether or not he should get two packages of chocolates or one, when a sudden shout and a flurry of movement at his back had him twisting around.
"WhAHH!"
His arms reacted before his mind could process what was happening. He reached out, wrapping his hands around the petite shoulders of a dark-haired women who was falling face-forward into his chest. In the milliseconds it took to catch her, Eddie held his breath, feeling Venom bubble up in alarm.
"Oh lord! sorry!" The woman's red nails scratched against his dark green sweatshirt, black kitten-heeled boots scrambling to find purchase on the slippery damp floor. By the time her feet had stopped moving, the poor woman’s face was pressed into Eddie's shoulder.
Venom was still swirling about in a frenzy beneath his skin, probably trying to decide if the human was a threat or not, but the nails against his shoulder and the gasping nervous laugh of the stranger's soft melodic voice was sending a new sort of feeling through Eddie's nerves, one that Venom must have felt too. A blush was already heating up his face when the woman finally looked up at him.
"Im so sorry!" She squeaked and pressed her forehead back into his sweatshirt, muffling a few more embarrassed chuckles into his chest. Eddie's mouth opened and closed like a fish. His experience with the average New Yorker had been stoic and cold up until this point. This reaction was certainly a surprise... and not a completely unwelcome one if he was being honest.
"God-" Her hand covered her mouth and then reached up to run messily through her straightened hair. "That was embarrassing. Nice save!"
Damn, she was pretty. Older, probably around his age, and gorgeous. Dark eyes and long dark hair. A small nose sat so delicately on her lovely face, right above a wide nervous smile full of perfect teeth. Eddie blinked at her, only realizing he'd forgotten to answer when Venom cut through his dumbstruck fog-
"SAY SOMETHING. YOU'RE EMBARRASSING US."
"Uh... uh..." What the hell was wrong with him! "No, yeah, no. It was nothing." He stuttered. His hand had dropped from around her shoulders, but the woman's manicured nails were still on his chest, her head bowed a little to let out a cute "phew" before she stepped back.
"Good. Ugh! Thank you for that! For a second there, I thought I was gonna end up in urgent care for the evening. I'm serious. Great reflexes."
"Oh-" Eddie snorted stupidly. "It was nothing, really. Are uhh- Are you okay?"
He was a mess. A MESS. Pull it together, Brock!
"Yes, thanks to you."
The comment had Eddie blushing all over again like some virgin teen on his way to prom. He and Venom had saved plenty of people lately, but he never got praise or recognition for it. Not a big deal, the anonymity kept them both safe, but it was nice hearing a "thank you" now and then.
Her hands finally fell away, moving to run through her hair again. "I mean it. You saved me from a trip to the ER " She grinned, somehow sensing the swell in his pride. The woman adjusted the strap on her purse and bit her lip. "Can I buy you a coffee? There's place right across the street,"
The question shocked Eddie and Venom both.
"Say no. We're busy." His symbiote growled.
Right. Busy.
They were too busy to take a hot damsel-in-distress up on her reward of coffee? Too busy to encourage the way she bit her lip when looking him over? Too busy to jump at the chance of making his first human friend in this city-
No. Wait, NO! He was not too busy. He lived his life day in and day out catering to Venom's demands. Well, not today.
"Yeah, sure. Coffees great. I mean- I could always go for coffee."
"WHAT?"
"Great! uhmm. Okay! Let's pay for our stuff and I'll meet you by the door?"
"Sounds good." He smiled, charm bleeding back into his bones like an old friend. "My name's Eddie Brock, by the way. You gotta name too, I assume."
"Mmhm. May Parker." she answered.
May Parker looked back at him twice before she left the isle. He had watched her go out of the corner of his eye, trying to play it cool and not sure if he was succeeding or not.
"We HATE coffee." Venom cursed, voice low and rumbling enough to send vibrations from his head to his shoes. It had no affect on the human this time. He hadn't felt this good about himself in ages.
"It's not about the coffee, buddy." Eddie smiled to himself, picking a package of chocolate off the shelf. "It's not about the coffee."