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Chapter Text

Eddie’s heart is torn out of his chest. The Spider saves the day and he is ruined, utterly. He goes to the church that night to repent for giving up the ghost, as it were, but it is inevitable. Surely, or perhaps, he will be forgiven. 

Eddie kneels at the altar of the empty, shadowy church. He does not cry, though he trembles in fear of a jealous God. He squeezes his eyes shut. They blow open wide at a caress on his cheek. He sees a living shadow and gives in, within the space of a breath, to a new Almighty.

Eddie, alone with the alien in his apartment, frowns. 

“You want me to-what?” 

The shadow twitches where it is curled up in a pool at his feet on the bed where he is reclined. It reaches up and elongates until it is hovering over him. 

Kill the spider, hisses the almost-voice Together, Brock. 

“You want me to bond with you,” Eddie says. “Permanently?” 

Together. 

Eddie takes this as a yes. They have yet to confront the spider- Parker- but they've shed nefarious blood already. Criminals, predators, deserve no more. 

“Why,” says Eddie. “Should I?”

He could be bluffing, for all he knows. In the years to come, Eddie will roll this moment over and over in his head until it is smooth as a gleaming, opalescent marble. 

The symbiote moves, pins him down all over. It ducks itself down. 

“ Together,” it hisses in his ear. “ Forever, Eddie.” 

Eddie tips his head back and pulls down the neckline of his tank, exposing his chest- his heart. 

“Do it,” he commands.

Eddie’s heart is ensconced in ice as the men tie him- because he feels alone now, like he hasn’t since the church- and load him into a glass and metal containment tube. It is meant to keep his passenger from escaping, but the guards need not worry.

The symbiote is docile, exhausted from the effort of abandoning Eddie for Parker. Like it promised it wouldn’t. 

But it had failed. At the last moment, though it had struggled valiantly, even its desperate, violent love for another couldn’t sever them. The guards shove Eddie and the symbiote inside him into a cell with two rows of bars and a pane of glass several inches thick. 

They leave them there, alone together.

Chapter Text

“I didn’t know you could lie to me,” Eddie says to the ceiling, one hand behind his head. They have been in this prison for three long weeks, and in that time they have not spoken to one another once. But for the fact that he never is, Eddie would think he was alone. 

The symbiote does not respond. 

Another week goes by.

Eddie eats the prison food alone in his cell, as he always is. While there are others trapped here, he has never met or seen them. He prefers it this way. If he needed others like him, he never would have bonded with the symbiote in the first place. They let him read a sleazy paperback sometimes, but they always make sure he gives it back. 

They’re afraid, says the symbiote’s voice in his head. 

Eddie slides the book back through the one return slot, gritting his teeth. The guard pushes through his dinner, 

“Does that surprise you?” Eddie asks. 

The guard looks at him, then leaves. The symbiote doesn’t respond, and Eddie feels rage surging up in him.

How dare it? How dare the symbiote take him over, and discard him without a backwards thought? How could it? 

Slam. 

The tray hits the far wall. Eddie flips the bed frame and starts ripping his flat mattress to shreds. 

“Fuck you,” he snarls and yelps as he destroys his current domicile. “Fuck you fuck you- Where are you, you fucking coward?!”

There is no pause between his screamed inquiry and its bellowed response, gargantuanly loud in his head. 

WITH YOU, EDDIE BROCK 

Eddie starts laughing, ripping his shirt from his body and tearing it with wild abandon. 

“You fucking abandoned me for that monster,” he says and, damn it, his blue eyes are clouding with furious tears. “And now you can say you’re with me?” 

In an instant, Eddie is compressed, every inch tight and coiled with alien fury. 

If I wanted it, you would be dead, promises the symbiote, low and almost sultry. 

Eddie squeezes his eyes closed. 

For a breath, then two, then three, the alien squeezes his airway closed. Then he is free, and he gasps in deep. He opens his eyes, and views his desolation. 

That night, he lays down to sleep on the hard floor of his cell. After a beat, the symbiote emerges for the first time since the beach, since Spider-Man. It forms itself into a thick, cushioning layer between Eddie and the ground.

They do not speak more over the next few days, but Eddie comes to the gnawing, inevitable conclusion all the same.

The guards cleaned and brought him a new bed the day after his outburst, while he sat fully shackled in a containment tube and watched. They had barely looked at him. 

Now, Eddie is sitting on the ground, leaning on his bunk. He looks down at his new entertainment, an abridged copy of David Copperfield. It makes him cringe in a familiar way. He’s used to longing for more. He squints at the sentence he’s read three times now, then closes the book with a sigh.

“Got anything to say?” he inquires, preparing for the silence to launch into his point. 

Yes.

“Oh.” 

We must kill the Spider, Brock. Together. 

Eddie, for the first time in ages, grins. 

“You read my mind.”

They escape, in time, because the universe wants them to more than kill the Spider- the cosmos wants him eviscerated. 

Chapter Text

Over a decade later,  Eddie, alone, rolls over in bed, He groans when he realizes why he’s awoken; a persistent knocking at his apartment door. He grunts, sitting up from where he fell asleep on his couch again. The knocking gets annoyingly louder. 

“‘m comin!” yells Eddie, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. 

“Now, Brock!” yells a familiar voice. 

Eddie stands. He is shirtless and barefoot, wearing only gray sweatpants that are riding up his left leg. He goes and opens the door to the handler and executing officer of the FBI’s Symbiote Containment Forces, Charles O’Flannery. He’s short, caucasian and dark haired, and he wouldn’t piss on Eddie if he was on fire. Eddie steps back to let him in with a grunt. 

“Coffee?” 

Charles looks around the apartment with disgust he does not bother to hide.

“You live like this?” he replies. 

Eddie groans and stretches. He scratches at his happy trail and sags his shoulders. 

“Whatever,” Charles says. He sits at Eddie’s dining room table that is overflowing with newspapers. 

Eddie starts to brew coffee, rubbing at his crusty eyes. 

“Creamer?” he asks, fetching down two chipped mugs. 

“Yeah.” 

When Eddie puts the coffee in front of him and sits down across the table, Charles glowers. Eddie takes a sip of his own and looks up. 

“You’re trash, Brock,” Charles informs him. “But you’re all I’ve got right now.”

The team- O’Flannery and three frowning agents- debriefs him on the way to the Earth to space transporter. 

“Armored ship on its way from a deep security facility to Earth,” says Carles mechanically. “Carrying a classified number of specimens. What we do know is that they have symbiotes up there, and two got loose.” 

The car hits a bump. 

Nobody is looking at him. 

“Which symbiotes?” Eddie asks. 

“We weren’t told,” O’Flannery says sharply, glancing at Eddie. Whether he’s lying or not, Eddie won’t get a better answer. 

“How’d they get loose?” 

“Classified. The ship is stalled out near the moon. We’re sending you up there to retrieve them. Keep tight-lipped with the crew. Don’t ask, don’t tell, Brock.” 

They arrive to a sparse crew of military personnel, all holding gigantic guns. The car speeds off as soon as Eddie, dressed in drab green, gets out. 

“What weaponry will we have?”
“Sound cannon, couple toys on top. And can this we shit, Brock. You’re going alone.”

Eddie straps a sound cannon to his back and hoists the duffel bag of guns over his other shoulder. He steps on the transporter. He looks around. 

“Don’t fuck it up, Eddie,” says O’Flannery. 

There is a light and an indescribable sound; he is gone and then he is there. There are two women waiting for him. One is wearing a lab coat. She has short hair and is watching him with her head tilted. The other looks younger than her, a slim white woman with a mass of wavy brown hair down her back. She is wearing a blue technician jumpsuit. Her hand is pressed to the glass. No one speaks. 

“Uh,” Eddie says. 

“Drop your items,” says the woman in the lab coat. “I am Dr. Masters. Thank you for coming.You understand that we must scan and decontaminate you before we allow you to travel to the compromised ship.”

Eddie drops the duffel but keeps the sound cannon. A white mist fills the chamber. He holds his breath as it quickly disperses. A ray of light shines over him. It beeps happily and the pane of glass between them starts to lift. 

The girl in the jumpsuit is a step behind Dr. Masters. 

“Welcome, Mr. Brock,” Dr. Masters shakes his hand. “My name is Marianna Masters.” 

“Eddie Brock,” he says, picking up his duffle. “Eddie is fine.” 

Chapter Text

In the many years since his life ended and his new one began, Eddie has grown used to people distrusting him. He’s used to people hating him too. The girl in the jumpsuit seems to fit in both categories. She glares at Eddie’s proffered hand before he wipes it on his pants awkwardly. She has her arms crossed over her chest, and she frowns at Dr. Masters.

“This is Crewman Jones,”  Masters says, and indicates for them to follow her. "I will give you what we have, then Jones will accompany you to the compromised ship. We have reason to believe there are survivors.” 

Eddie looks at Crewman Jones. She glares back. 

“I can do this alone,” he says.

“Do you know how to pilot a specialized military space car?” asks Masters, lightly.

They are walking through nearly empty hallways that remind Eddie of prison, but for some hurrying scientist types. 

“Yeah, actually,” says Eddie. 

He’s bullshitting a little, but he could probably figure it out. He’s made bigger bets on himself. 

“Jones was activated for this mission, Mr. Brock,” says Dr. Masters, scanning her badge and walking them into a pod bay. “It would be foolish not to use them.” 

“Activated?” Eddie says, peering into the small spaceship chamber. He looks back at the two of them. 

“Jones is an artificial, an android” Masters says simply. “Dispensable, efficient, and useful. Bring her.” 

Eddie looks at the robot, who is still glowering at him. 

“Why’s she hate me, then?” he asks lightly. 

“They have access to a vast, almost infinite oasis of information, Mr. Brock” says Dr. Masters. “Perhaps she read up on you.”

  The door closes and Jones pilots them out of the bay. It is heavily silent in the small spacecar, which doesn’t look much like a car at all. Eddie does not disturb the silence until they see the prison transport ship as more than a speck in the distance. The moon is close, gleaming and conquered by man. 

“I can do this alone,” he says. 

Jones makes no sound that she heard him. She continues to pilot them until they are just above the ship. Eddie readjusts his weapons. 

When they step out into free space, his stomach turns. Jones moves fluidly, and it is disconcerting to see her free floating with no space suit. If he didn’t believe she was a robot before, he does now. She moves like a diver and connects with the containment ship. Eddie floats there, pointless, until she grabs him by the upper arm and tugs him to land on the metal hull. 

Jones shoots him a glance. The sight of her, again, is jarring. She has brought them to an escape hatch. There is every chance that whatever is there, is waiting. Jones opens the hatch, starts to descend, then stops. She looks at him, inscrutable. Eddie raises his eyebrows. She continues her descent. 

Chapter Text

They are plunged into darkness when the hatch above them swings shut. Eddie stops abruptly. Below him, so does Jones. 

“What?” she demands. 

“Do you know what symbiotes got loose?” he asks. 

His palms are sweaty so he grips tight on the rungs with each in turn, wiping the other on the pants of his gray spacesuit. He lowers his faceguard and scrubs the cloth off his blond hair. 

“I couldn’t tell you.” says Jones, sounding annoyed. “Doesn’t matter, does it? Not to you.” 

Eddie is used to comments like this. They start again until light fills the tunnel. Jones, in a move that would be nigh-impossible were she human, flips upside down and peers into the entrance. There is a pause. 

“A corridor,” says Jones. “Clear.”

The robot drops soundlessly onto the metal walkway of the prison ship. Eddie looks down then drops as well, soundfully. Jones looks at him over her shoulder with undisguised scorn. Her hair, Eddie notes, was designed well. It looks pretty. 

“What now?” he says. 

“Thought you could do this alone, Brock,” Jones says coldly, looking around.

A thought strikes Eddie. He clears his throat. 

“What should I call you?” he asks. 

Jones looks at him again. Her expression is baffled. 

“Your,” Eddie blinks. “Pronouns?”

The lights go out. Something hard in his chest shoves Eddie backwards. He is activating the sound cannon and taking a knee before he knows what he is doing. 

“Jones,” he yells into the darkness. “Hit the deck!”
The screech of the sound cannon is familiar, in a bone-deep way. He remembers the pain that he does not feel. 

Something screams in harmony. 

There is a thump, then something warm and soft collapses against Eddie’s chest. He scoops Jones up. She is seemingly unconscious. Eddie spins, the light from his spacesuit barely illuminating the nearest room; a med bay. He barrels through the door. 

The lights come up, and the room is basic enough. He locks the door, then lays Jones carefully on the table. He has little knowledge of how robots work, save how to pull them apart in a fight. 

“Hello?” he says, shaking Jones’ shoulder.

There is no response. 

Eddie saw once, somewhere, that some robots have a pinhole reset.  He folds Jones right ear inward to look at the back, then repeats this with the left. When he sets their head down, he is startled by open eyes and an inscrutable expression on the robot’s realistic features.

“Oh,” he says, and lets go of Jones’ head.

She sits up, putting a hand to her forehead. 

“Fuck,” she says. 

Eddie raises his eyebrows. 

“What happened out there?”he asks. 

“Someone ran at me, you fired the sound cannon, we both dropped.”

A shiver goes through Eddie. 

“Did he have a symbiote?”

“No,” says Jones, squinting her eyes closed. “It was a robot.” 

“Oh,” Eddie says

“What were you doing with my ears?”

“Looking for a reset button.” 

They look at one another. 

“Like a laptop,” Eddie says. Jones looks unamused, so he says “A fancy one.” 

His hand ruffles his hair. Jones stands and shakes out her hair. She looks up at her. 

“They’re going to keep attacking us,”she says, then looks away. “Gender is nothing to me.” 

Eddie blinks at the abrupt change of topic. 

“Right,” he says. “We need to find the symbiotes. You can track them, I assume?” 

“I can.” 

“How far is your range?” 

“360 feet” 

“Great, a football field. Can you do it now?” 

Jones glares up at him again, without discernible reason. 

“I am still,” they say. “In reset mode.” 

So they wait. 

Eddie guards the door while Jones explores the medicine cabinets and shoves essentials into her satchel. After a time she goes over to Eddie. Her manufactured eyes are blue. 

“There’s a symbiote nearby,” Jones says, acid in her voice, still glaring at him.

“What?” Eddie says, taken aback from several angles. “Who? Is it- Where?”

“Two rooms down,” Jones says, lip twitching with seeming revulsion. “It is in stasis, it seems.”

“Let’s check it out.” 

“Why?”

“To narrow our suspects.”

Chapter Text

Eddie gazes at the containment tube. He feels something plummet in the pit of his stomach but, as always, shoves the feeling away without naming it. 

“It’s you,” he says, raising his eyebrows. 

The goo in the containment tube squishes and squibs , moving ever. Jones stands near the closed door, arms crossed under her chest. 

“Are you gonna tongue it, Brock?” she asks, snottily. This startles a laugh out of Eddie. 

“No,” he says, looking back at them over his shoulder. “But I do wanna talk to it. Can you make that happen?” 

“Why should I?” Jones argues. “It’s stuck in here, what can it know?” 

Eddie turns fully to her, hands raised imploringly. 

“Maybe not,” he says. “But it might know who else is imprisoned here.” 

Jones makes a derisive face, but approaches the chamber. The goo starts to slip and slide faster at her proximity. 

“Without a host, symbiotes cannot truly speak,” they say. “But the powerful like to communicate with their captives. As I’m sure you know, Brock.”

Eddie snorts. 

“So a system to give the inherently much a modicum of speech was created, to bypass the unpredictable risk of symbiosis. Among,” she looks at Eddie. “Other such technologies.” 

“So you can interface with it? This- communication method?” 

“Of course,” they say, witheringly. “Here.” 

Jones reaches down next to the button array and inserts her finger into a circular hole that looks like a car cigarette lighter. She looks at Eddie with an inscrutable expression. For a beat, he could swear, her eyes go opalescent black. 

“Are you-”

There is a whirring noise, several beeps, then static noises. A light turns on in the containment tube. The symbiote freezes, like a paused video. 

“What-” Eddie says, stepping forward. The symbiote is suspended like a cold lava lamp, and it looks wrong. “Is-”

“ Hhhhhhz, ” says the speaker.

“ Hzzz,” it says again. “ Hzzz hzzz hello grandfather .”  

Eddie blinks, then steps forward again. 

“Toxin,” he says. Jones steps back. “How did you get here?” 

“Bzzz bzzz betrayal.” 

Eddie huffs. 

“We’re together, there.” 

“Get to your point, Brock,” snaps Jones. 

“Right,” Eddie says. He closes his eyes. He recalls being with Toxin. They had not been- He opens his eyes. “We need your help. What other symbiotes are here on this ship?”

There is a pause. 

“Toxin, ol buddy ol pal?”

“ Zzzzzz” says the speaker. “Zz” 

Eddie looks back at Jones, but stops at the fury on her face. But, it seems, she’s not looking at him. Eddie frowns. 

“Try again,” he says. 

“Two,” buzzes the speaker. “His and zzzzz”

“His?” Eddie blinks.

“ Hzzzz and yzzzz.”

In a flash, Jones grabs Eddie.

“This is wasting time, Brock,” she snaps. “I’m not here to reunite you with old flings.”

“What did I ever do to you?” Eddie asks, blinking. 

They scoff, throwing their hair back over their shoulder. 

Remarkably life like, Eddie thinks.

They exit the room to the empty hallway. 

“Can you-” Eddie says, then squawks as he is grabbed from behind to hit the metal walkway on his stomach. Something starts running inhumanly fast, pulling Eddie behind them.  He fumbles for a gun, flipping onto his back. It is a man, fast and strong like a human cannot be. He does not look at Eddie as he pulls him by the leg. 

“Fuck,” Eddie shouts, struggling to aim. He kicks out without impact. 

Then there is the sound of pounding feet, and Jones tackles the man. He starts throwing blows immediately, but from the start it is not much of a fight. Straddling the man, Jones dodges his limbs, grabs hold of his head on both sides, and rips it off.

Eddie freezes. He sees the mass of wires hanging from what should be a human’s spinal cord, but it looks so much like a murder as to arise long dead feelings in him. They stay in the moment; Eddie on his back and Jones staring impassively into the android’s non functioning eyes. 

“What aren’t we looking for the crew?” asks Jones, looking at him after a moment. 

Eddie swallows.

Chapter Text

Eddie suggests they split up and start searching different floors for the remaining crew.
“Fuck off,” Jones tells him. 

“Alright,” Eddie replies. He looks at her. “Why do the robots keep attacking us?”

Jones tilts her head, blank-faced. 

“Because, Masters authorized us,” Eddie says. “I saw her.” 

Eddie has gotten used to lots of types of silences. 

External, internal. 

Soul-deep. 

He knows this type, too. 

Jones is hiding something. 

“Look,” Eddie says. “I can’t threaten you in any way that matters.” 

“Clearly.” 

“But you know,” Eddie weighs his options in a brief silence. “Which symbiotes escaped.” 

Jones blinks. Robots are designed to do that, the lifelike ones like her. But still, she doesn’t technically need to. 

“Tell me,” Eddie says. 

Silence, as they look at one another. She is glowering, but if he tries hard he can maybe see that she is possibly persuaded. 

“‘His’,” Jones says after a second. “Toxin said ‘His’ Think, Eddie. Who is He?” 

He’s been avoiding having the thought that swims first. 

“But,” he says, carding a hand through his hair and grimacing. “Kasady’s not here. He’s not here.” 

Crewman Jones does not blink. 

“ Jesus Christ he’s not here is he?!”

“No,” says Jones. 

Eddie lets out a sigh of measured relief. 

That they don’t need. 

“Ok,” he says. “Carnage and zzzz , Toxin said. Very helpful.”

Jones gives him a stink face. 

“Cmon,” says Eddie. “It’s honesty hour.” 

“His,” says a calm male voice from behind them. Eddie whips around and the man is taller than he is, wearing a crewman uniform but smacking of scientist. His hands are held up in surrender and he is alone. 

“His,” he says, looking directly at Eddie. “And yours, Mr. Brock.”

Chapter Text

It is years ago. 

Eddie has been sleeping on a cot in an abandoned subway tunnel, scheming every moment for the Spider. It is dark, and he sits up. 

Hungry. 

“I know.” 

But, for the moment, he does not move. Surrounding them are shelves filled with nonperishable foods, more than he could eat in a year. He has barely touched it. The want keeps them sharp. 

Eddie stands and the symbiote envelops his torso and lower body, imitating a leather jacket and jeans. On instinct, Eddie puts his hands where the pockets should be. He touches softness instead. The tunnels tend to have standing water, so they swing out. Eddie realizes, wincing at the afternoon sunlight, that they haven’t left their makeshift abode in days. 

They can take Parker, if they do this correctly. Eddie ducks his head and starts down the street. 

They tread until it is dark. They go to the government bridge and Eddie has an old inclination. While leaning far over the railing to stare down at the river, he raises two fingers to his lips. It is enough to remind him, but the memory does not satiate. 

Hungry. 

“Soon.” 

Eddie looks at his hands. He pictures Parker’s head between them, and clenches them together tightly. 

Soon. 

They go to the park, long after sundown. Eddie chooses an unoccupied bench, hands where pockets would be if he was wearing more than boxer briefs. He twiddles a bit of the symbiote between the first and second fingers of his right hand. 

You are concerned. 

Eddie shuffles down on the bench. 

“He’s slipped away before,” he says, evasively. 

That is not what concerns. 

“No.” 

His arms move without his volition, tucking his hands deeper into his pockets. The symbiote subsumes his hands, twisting around his fingers. 

Here.

They knock on the door of the small house. 

The old woman answers. 

“Yes?” she says. 

She looks kind, and they recall that she is. Eddie does not want to have to harm her. 

“Eddie,” he introduces himself, leaning on one hand on the bannister with the peeling paint. “Can Pete come out to play?” 

“Here,” she looks behind her. “Peter!”

Something tugs hard in Eddie’s stomach. And then he, the monster, Parker, is there. He’s lost some mass and his brunette hair is shaggy. His face changes almost imperceptibly and he takes May by the elbow. Eddie grins bigger. 

“Hey, buddy,” he says. 

Peter moves forward, bringing his aunt backwards. 

“I’ll be right back, May,” he says, passing Eddie, who claps him hard on the back faux-affably. 

Parker leads them to the backyard, where laundry is hanging on intersecting lines. Eddie comes at his own pace, waving goodbye to May. Peter spins on them. 

“You’re low, Brock,” he snarls. “Coming here, threatening my family.” 

“You wound us, sir,” Eddie says facetiously. “We would never harm such an innocent.”

Parker glowers. 

“What do you care about innocence?” he says. “THose guards, the ones you murdered at the Vault-”

“Necessary expenditures,” says Eddie, hackles raised. 

“Anything that gets in your way to me,” says Parker, maliciously. “You came for a fight, you got-” 

“No,” Eddie cuts him off, fishing a piece of paper out of his symbiote-pocket. “Here. A map to the abandoned subway tunnel where we live. This way, no collateral damage.” 

He turns away before Parker can answer. 

They can, and will, wait.

Chapter Text

Eddie freezes, sitting on his bunk in the subway tunnel. 

“‘ Come into my web,’” he calls into the darkness. “ ‘Said the spider’ to the Spider!”

Parker is wearing his ridiculous suit, so they cannot see his face change as they hear his breath hitch. Spider-Man enters their lair. 

“This shithole suits you, Brock,” he calls. 

Eddie sneers and stands. The symbiote covers him all over, and he feels comfort rush over him. 

Today, he dies. 

“Better than you know,” he says. “Monster.”

“Let’s just get this over with.” 

Eddie is one step ahead; he moves quickly with the tentacles he extruded, hidden by dark shadows, behind Parker’s back. The Spider evades them. He flips close enough to Venom that they catch him staggeringly hard in the jaw with a right hook. The bug staggers and they push their advantage, grabbing him by the neck. 

Yeeeeesssssss

They squeeze and-

REEEEEEEEEE

NO

They drop Parker and fall at the screech of a sound cannon from behind. 

“Shit!” says the Spider. “Styx and Stone!”

“ What?” Venom balks, off guard and disoriented as the cannon abruptly shuts off. 

There are two strangers in the doorway. The one holding the canon is a blond, shorter man wearing a white metal suit. The other is tall, lanky and dark- haired. He is dressed like a funeral director, and has spindly, reaching fingers that are inhumanly long. He is gleefully grinning at Venom and Spider-Man while his fingers grow impossibly longer. 

“Eddie!” snaps the bug. “Fucking- move!”

Venom leaps as the cannon sounds again. They dive for the man wielding it. 

“Enough!” they snarl. 

They topple him over with a loud bang! that reverberates throughout the shelter. Parker launches himself into the fray, swinging so his feet collide with the lanky man’s sternum to send him backwards into a large puddle. 

“Don’t let him touch you!” he calls to Venom. 

“We’ll slurp out your spinal fluid, bug,” they promise in response, throwing the blond across the chamber. They advance on Parker. 

“Oh, fuck you,” says Spider-Man in a disappointed way. 

They both spot the discarded sound cannon a few feet away and, together, they dive for it. Parker gets there first, reaching for the trigger. Venom tackles him. They grin as they feel his rib crack on impact. Spider-Man yells, dropping the cannon in pain. 

“Wait!” he says. They get their hands around his throat. 

Finally

“ Eddie!” gasps the Spider. “St-”

A hand with long, spindly, inhuman fingers reaches out from behind. 

Eddie screams. 

The symbiote slips to fall, dead, at his feet.