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Black Sustenance	By : FamiraDamaris Category: zMisplaced Stories [ADMIN use only] > Spiderman Views: 15551 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Spiderman, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Black Sustenance
by Famira Damaris
Disclaimer: Naturally I don't own Spider-man.
Italics for thoughts/emphasis/symbiote
Archive: Sure, just ask.
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
Black Sustenance
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
(A Not-So-Secret Identity)
Tuesdays were the worst, in Peter Parker’s opinion. Just a day after Monday but not even at the halfway point of Wednesday, Tuesdays also meant homeroom. True, his friends were there – okay, so he only had two in all of Midtown High – but that also meant sharing a room for an hour with Kong and Flash. And while he liked Gwen, her being around also meant that he couldn’t tell Mary Jane right now about the weird feeling he had yesterday when he went out on a patrol.
Maybe he was going crazy, but he could swear someone was watching him patrol as Spider-man.
Yesterday it felt like someone’s eyes were on him. But when he turned or stopped webslinging, he couldn’t see anyone…it was seriously, seriously creepy. While he was used to stopping the conversation whenever he waltzed into a room or otherwise showed up and did his Spidey thing (being such a snappy dresser and all), he usually didn’t feel like he was being watched. Not like this. Not like someone was stalking him and taking notes.
Again, just creepy. And weird.
Peter returned to the trigonometry homework, glancing at Gwen and Mary Jane. The two girls had their heads bent together over the same homework, Gwen working on a problem and comparing her answers to her friend’s every now and then. Unlike him, they were focused on what everyone was supposed to be doing. A glance around showed that Flash was busy defacing one of the school’s books, Kong slouched in his chair and caught up in another of his comics (a muscle-bound idiot dressed as a bat of all things on the cover), with the rest of the class at least pretending to look like they were being productive. Staring down at his own trig work, which had just his name at the top of the page and nothing else, Peter frowned.
Why couldn’t he just sit still and do this? This was just simple math. He was good at math stuff. If he could look at his dad’s adhesive formulas and come up with his webbing solution at his age, then trig should be simple, a walk in the park…But the words and equations just seemed to lose all meaning when he stared at them and it was hard to concentrate on why the law of cosines was important in the first place.
It came back to the feeling of being watched and followed.
It was bad enough having the feeling that somehow, someday, Peter was going to pop a seam in a very uncomfortable spot in his costume. The thought that he was being stalked just made him feel dirty. It wasn’t like he had any solid proof though, aside from the feeling of eyes burning on his back. Maybe it’s Brock, Peter thought with a shiver. He’s loopy enough to think it’s funny.
By the time homeroom was over, he managed not only to date his trig homework but also write down the number of the first problem.
“Oooh, that’s a real start there, cowboy,” Gwen said, leaning over with a clink of her bracelets. “Better slow down before you get whiplash from all that hard work.”
Peter rolled his eyes, stuffing the paper into a folder as the other students filed out. “Ha ha. Cute.”
Mary Jane peered around Gwen. “You didn’t even start? We’re almost finished over here.”
“I was just thinking,” Peter said. Gwen opened her mouth to tease him but he ran over her before she could get a word out. “And yes, I do think every now and then about stuff other than math. Don’t look all surprised, Gwen.”
“Will you stop reading my mind?” the blonde girl grumped. “You take all the fun out of it.”
“Maybe we can work on it together later,” said Mary Jane, meaningfully quirking an eyebrow.
Gwen gathered up her books. “‘Work’. Yeah, this’s getting a bit too steamy for me, if you get my drift,” she slung her backpack over one shoulder and suddenly grinned mischievously. “Keep it PG, kids.”
And with that she reached around and gave MJ a friendly slap on the butt, winked, and left homeroom.
Mary Jane rubbed at her butt ruefully. “She enjoys that way too much.”
“I don’t know, I kinda thought it was ho – hey!” Peter dodged Mary Jane’s swat with her book.
With a sigh, the redhead stuffed the trig book back into her own backpack. They were one of the last to leave, with about a few minutes to go before the lunch period. All Peter knew was that he was probably going to spend a good amount of it checking to see how his shoulder was doing, but he still wanted to keep it under wraps. MJ still didn’t know and wouldn’t know he got injured, if he had any say on it.
“So what’s the deal?” Mary Jane suddenly switched subjects. “I mean, you usually finish your homework before homeroom’s even over and you didn’t even get started.”
Peter shrugged and suppressed a wince – not the best thing to do with a clawed up shoulder. “You’ll probably think I’m crazy,” he lowered his voice, “but I think someone’s been following me around since Monday. When I’m, uh, in my jammies.”
“Your what – oh.” Mary Jane suddenly realized what he was talking about and whispered back. “Well, they are kind of noticeable.”
Peter ducked his head. “It’s just this weird feeling during then. Not like before. It’s like…like someone’s been tracking me around but when I look around, I don’t see anyone.”
“Fan club?” Mary Jane quirked a half-grin.
“That’d be both cool and creepy, but no. I’m being serious. It’s really distracting.”
Mary Jane frowned. “Maybe you should keep low? Just for now.”
“Tempted to,” Peter still didn’t feel much better. He hadn’t felt the eyes on him today, but he was certain he’d at least been tracked to Queens. If anything, he’d have to steer clear of his house and Midtown High if he ever did go out on another patrol.
Or at least find out if it really was even Brock in the first place. Did seem like something he’d do, but Peter thought he’d also be able to get his kicks by actually showing his face when he did his stalking – let him know whose handiwork he was seeing. Seemed more his style, now that apparently being crazy was fashionable and this year’s new black. Still, that didn’t quite make sense. Why track him down as Spider-man? I mean, he knows where I live. And he claimed last time to have all my memories from the symbiote, so…Yeah. Brock probably knew the color of his underwear, nevermind just where he lived in the first place.
Did seem kinda pointless to stalk Spider-man instead of cutting to the chase.
After excusing himself and telling MJ he’d catch up later, Peter locked the door to the bathroom. The staff restroom here was basically a glorified handicap bathroom with one mirror and one toilet, but it had some privacy and without the resident school bullies trying their best to give their latest victim a swirly the next stall over. Setting down his backpack, Peter half-sat on the sink and gingerly peeled off his shirt, carefully doing the same with the gauze he’d taped over the wounds.
Yeah, that was going to sting in a bit.
Craning his neck, Peter tried to assess the damage. Thankfully he was a fast healer, but that didn’t change the fact it still hurt in the meantime. And every now and then it seemed to want to bleed this really crazy yellow discharge that was totally gross. Considering who was responsible, Peter supposed he was lucky the jagged, bloody claw marks were healing at all. He’d probably have a pretty good set of scars, but he was more concerned with trying to explain them to Aunt May than anything else.
Gritting his teeth, he leaned over the sink and began running some cold water, cupping some in his hand and dribbling it over his injured shoulder for a bit before he began cleaning at what he could with some spare gauze he snuck into his backpack. The chill of the water felt a lot better, but the fact he was poking around at the ragged edges of the clawed skin canceled out that relief. Peter wasn’t particularly surprised to see the gauze was stained pink and yellow when he finished, awkwardly reaching around to apply fresh bandages.
At least that was over.
Peter balanced himself on the sink, hands on both sides of it as he stared at the mirror. A wiry kid with dark spots under his eyes stared back, looking somehow tired even though he’d slept pretty well. Well enough, despite having run his shoulder through a meat grinder.
MJ had a point when she said to stay low. And he would, for a day or so.
But any longer just didn’t feel right. People out there still needed help and it didn’t matter to them whether he thought he was getting stalked or not.
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
(Wednesday)
“Hun, wake up. Were you here all night?”
Eddie groaned and raised his head from the keyboard, knowing he probably had an imprint of the keys on his cheek and not caring how stupid it looked. He gazed up blearily at the woman bending down over him; he still didn’t know everyone’s names, but he did at least know that the gossip columnist - a woman with at least a good decade over him that showed - offering him a cup of coffee was called Kat Farrell. Or Cathy. Close enough. He was pretty sure she was Cathy though.
“Yeah,” Eddie said, rubbing at his eyes, and gratefully accepted the coffee. “I guess I just got caught up in my work.”
Cathy glanced at his screen as the blond leaned back, working out the kinks from falling asleep with a keyboard for a pillow. “Trying to get the scoop on this Sandman guy, huh?”
Eddie sipped at the warm cup in his hands. It was straight up black coffee and had the characteristically unpleasant, bitter burn to it that served to wake him up further. The caffeine probably wouldn’t do anything, not with his Other’s distaste for foreign chemicals like that, but at least he wasn’t drooling all over the Daily Globe’s computers.
“I thought he was going to be old news, but I guess not,” Cathy shrugged, and gave Eddie a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “Maybe you should go home and get some rest, Brock. You look beat.”
He shook his head, forcing himself to take another sip of the coffee. “No, I’m okay now. I just lost track of the time. Workaholic,” he said, offering a tired grin over the rim of his cup. “You know how it is.”
“Don’t we all. Did you find anything that’ll help?”
“A bit, yeah,” Eddie said. “I’m just about done for today.”
There wasn’t too much on this Sandman, only that he’d been identified as “Flint Marko” (an alias, probably), was in his late thirties, and that he operated primarily in Manhattan, keeping a relatively low profile until that first run in with their Spider a few weeks ago. Eddie rubbed at his eyes again as Cathy wandered off, staring at the computer screen before him and willing it to stay in focus. The name Flint Marko had circulated around the underground for a bit and he’d finally traced it by now to some rich bastard called Wilson Fisk. That left the question of what next.
Fisk was high profile. If they went and killed him, they’d probably draw too much unwanted attention to themselves. The last thing they wanted was to get on S.H.I.E.L.D’s radar.
While they were powerful as Venom, they were still a fledgling host-symbiote pair. Enough numbers and weapons and they would go down.
Fisk’s off limits…for now. Eddie rested his chin in one hand, frowning at the craggy but overall normal face of Flint Marko on the screen. They still saw red when they remembered how Marko had been standing over their Spider and while they knew he was only doing it to bait them, it was still infuriating. Common sense dictated that Marko didn’t have any real claim on Parker, but the symbiote’s instinctual response – now also Eddie’s – said otherwise. On the most basic, gut level, they simply saw Marko as another competing male for the right to possess the Spider.
Incidentally, they weren’t too big on sharing.
Still, Marko would be tricky to deal with. How to kill a man made out of sand? They could probably absorb some of him, but Eddie wasn’t sure how much they could take or if that would even put much of a dent in the meddling fuck. Not to mention they had to keep their heads down after the incident at the Library, both from the cops, Marko and his crazyass girlfriend. So it looked like they were stuck playing errand boy for the Daily Globe until Marko made the mistake of showing himself again. Or, preferably, Silver Bitch did first: unlike Marko, she stood out. Too beautiful, that long platinum hair couldn’t hide in a crowd, and she didn’t bother to slouch or mingle with the “normals” like Marko probably did.
The way she carried herself, from what he remembered, would be a dead giveaway. She felt pride in herself and carried herself with her back ramrod straight.
Even in a crowd, he was sure they could pick her out. After then it was just a matter of strolling up and snapping her neck.
Yawning, Eddie pushed away from the desk and stood up to stretch, rubbing at an eye. Getting rest was probably a good idea, but it felt somehow wasteful, like he could be spending more time pouring over the online files and hard copies than trying to catch cat naps here and there. His new boss still expected him to show up to that retarded Fantastic Four science…whatever, some kind of demonstration Saturday night and he couldn’t blow it off without awkward questions being asked. At least all he had to do was take pictures. Cracking his back, Eddie stared out the window of the high-rise office and tried to focus.
That damn bruise on his forehead was almost gone.
They knew Peter Parker would be there: the Daily Bugle would be there and so would that boy, taking their former job, taking what was theirs and laughing at them the whole time because he was half their age and still coming out on top. Eddie seethed with fury and open, ugly jealousy. Parker might have thought he won, but he’d be singing a different tune once they dealt with Sandman. He’d be wishing that he’d never spurned them, rejected them! Eddie found his hands were clenched into fists, trembling with rage. It was the symbiote’s anger and yet it was his as well, like looking from two different eyes and knowing them to be both part of him.
This level of anger, of jealousy, wasn’t something Eddie had been used to, but now it felt natural. Good, even.
It was what kept them going even though the human part of him wanted to just curl in a corner and give up.
It was weakness. And the reason they were weak? Peter. Parker.
Sandman and his bitch were just obstacles to the real goal. While Eddie knew that his emotions weren’t as stable as they used to be, the combination of need and hatred for the Spider kept them driven.
The moment of intense rage passed, leaving Eddie wide awake and more than a little wired. Adrenaline was still pumping in his veins; he felt on edge, as if he was prepping for a nonexistent fight, and ready for anything, his heart rate increasing like he’d just run a marathon. This had been coming and going in the past, but he’d begun noticing that these rushes – for lack of a better name – seemed to come when he was feeling tired or particularly unmotivated. Something about it seemed a bit shady, but he supposed that so long as he could get his work done…It didn’t matter why it happened. Or how.
The only thing that mattered was their continued survival and Spider-man.
Maybe I missed something in the hard copies, Eddie thought. That was possible, he’d only skimmed them last night and all this morning without really registering what he read. It was a human failing to have productivity decrease the more fatigue increased – they were inversely proportional, his Other was learning. The symbiote seemed to absorb information like a sponge, especially where care of its human Host was involved.
Heading back to the desk, Eddie sat down and began pouring over the files before him. Not only was he wired, but he was also starting to get horny again. Fighting the urge to just shove a hand down his pants, the blond focused on the task ahead of him.
They still had work to do.
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
(Thursday)
There was not enough progress to make any real leads Tuesday, and while Silver Sable wasn’t actually worried yet, she kept in mind that the clock was ticking. Time wasn’t with them. It didn’t help matters when there hadn’t been any Spider-man sightings Wednesday either, leaving the mercenary to wonder if perhaps he’d figured out he was being followed and decided to lay low for a bit. Flint Marko hunkered down in the cramped van next to her, looking very much out of place and scowling. The man seemed to scowl a lot. Apparently that was his default expression for everything.
“You sure he’s from Queens?” Marko asked.
Silver Sable didn’t look up from the pistol she was cleaning, running a tiny wire brush through the barrel. “Not only have we tracked him there, but the media has also confirmed that he’s been seen in the vicinity of Midtown High School more than once. We just need to narrow down which student he is.”
“Yeah, he didn’t strike me as staff. Seemed kinda…immature.”
“We know his general height and body type as well as his voice,” Silver Sable said. “This could all be solved if we just grabbed him again, you know.”
“You got tranqs?”
“Not today.”
“Then no, we’re not grabbin’ him. You can’t jus’ go into a high school an’ start kidnappin’ kids anyway.”
Silver Sable rolled her eyes, cleaning out the pistol’s slide. For Marko’s tough guy act, he was surprisingly squeamish about certain things. Still, he did pull through, occasionally: he had gotten a pretty good description of the mutant’s “human” shape, and they could probably narrow his identity down once they had Spider-man’s. It would be a done deal. It was putting down this mutant that had Silver Sable concerned. Sedatives seemed to work, but they simply took too long to take effect. Tasers? They hadn’t tried electricity and while this mutant had a thick skin, an electroshock weapon might be something to use. Maybe a remote stun-belt.
No, it couldn’t just be that though. That would have to stun him long enough they could tranq him.
Assuming they even got to that point and could get the drop on him when he wasn’t a gigantic, slobbering beast.
Currently they were camped outside Midtown High. The van was dressed up as a moving van carrying desks for the school, but the insides had been gutted, and were now filled with power cords, assorted monitoring equipment, herself and Flint Marko looking like he’d rather be anywhere but sitting next to her. That suited her just fine – better to have a man who knew respect than trying coping in a feel just because she had a pair of breasts.
Silver Sable had finished with the pistol and begun reassembling it, wondering if Spider-man would be a no-show again, when one of the Wild Pack members dressed in her civvies phoned in:
“Got a visual, over.”
Marko leaned over, interested, as Silver Sable focused on the tinny voice on the other end. “What is it?”
“Spider-man sighted approaching the gym…moving…Group of students heading to the south track now. He’s probably changed out into civvies, but I believe he’s in the group. I’ll try to get some photos to transmit for you.”
Silver Sable looked up, lips pursed. “Remember we’ve got a general idea of his weight and height range. Don’t bother with the jocks.”
“Roger.”
The next few minutes seemed to crawl by. While not exactly prone to unwarranted optimism, Silver Sable was sure this was it. And while she wasn’t willing to risk running this kid’s face through the databases and attracting all kinds of unwanted attention (such as S.H.I.E.L.D), there were other ways to get a name to a face.
There was a reason Flint Marko had the Midtown High yearbook on his lap, looking just as out of place as he did.
Sometimes you had to resort to the painfully simple methods to get the same answers. It wasn’t quite as flashy or as technologically masturbatory as a face recognition scan, but it worked and didn’t leave tracks.
Her handheld beeped quietly as the plant, faithful and efficient as ever, began transmitting the data: she’d been so thoughtful as to include both stills and some video with limited audio. Marko leaned close, enough to be invading personal space, but she ignored it for the sake of the job as they concentrated on the handheld. Silver Sable flipped through the images before going to the video and audio files.
It was when a thin kid with a head of shaggy brown hair was on screen that Marko visibly reacted.
“That’s him!” Marko exclaimed. Silver Sable replayed the clip: “He’s got th’ same voice. Christ, he’s jus' a little runt.”
“You sure that’s him?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely,” Marko grunted. He began flipping open the yearbook in his lap and rifling through the pages, glancing up frequently to compare the photos of the students with the shot of this brunette. “What age do you think he is now?”
“I’d guess fifteen at least. Maybe seventeen, but that’s a stretch.”
“Sophomore. Or a junior, then,” he said, bending down to the task. He spent a good twenty minutes pouring over the yearbook dwarfed in his lap, examining each face carefully, before he came up with a result. Marko looked up. “Gotta match. Says he’s a ‘Peter Parker’.”
Silver Sable actually smiled. “Thank you, Marko. We can take it from here.”
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
(Saturday)
Maybe that whole I’m-being-stalked thing was in his imagination after all.
It wasn’t the first time Peter Parker had gotten paranoid. It’d felt so real, though. Maybe it was just that last encounter with Brock playing on his nerves, causing him to keep looking over his shoulder for who knew what and jumping at boogey men. While he was probably justified in that reaction, he couldn’t deny that he felt a bit lame about the whole thing. The thought that it was probably just paranoia was looking more and more likely especially since he hadn’t had that feeling of being followed and watched for a few days now.
And still no sign of Eddie Brock. Peter couldn’t understand it. What was the man up to? He’d scoured the news for anything out of place, half-expecting to come across some blazing headlines like EX-BUGLE JOURNALIST GOES ON RAMPAGE or CITY TERRORIZED BY ALIENS, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. There were those strings of murders – bodies turning up, at least a dozen people who’d been missing or homeless suddenly ending up dead – but he wasn’t sure if he could pin those on Brock or not. They seemed to be pretty spread out. Unfortunately, sources like the Bugle didn’t feel it too necessary to go into the details of what happened there (it wasn’t “big”, to use Jameson’s words, as homeless people died all the time).
Still, between these murders, Brock, and Sand Dude, he had his hands full. Peter simply didn’t have time to be paranoid.
It was probably safe to say that for once he didn’t feel very enthusiastic about tagging along on a beat this time: while he didn’t have anything against Ben Urich (cool guy), Peter just felt that he could be doing research instead of this. Maybe under other circumstances he would’ve felt more excited about seeing the Fantastic Four. But now all he could do was look down at the camera in his lap and toy half-heartedly with the lens, fiddling with the cap, and wonder what Brock was up to. It was almost a week since their last encounter, which hadn’t ended well, and it just didn’t seem like the man to sit there meekly while he had the symbiote with him.
“Don’t look so worried, Peter,” Urich said, glancing at him from the wheel. “This’ll be a cakewalk. You’ll do fine.”
It’s not this that I’m worried about. “I guess.”
“Buck up,” Urich flashed a grin, pushing up his glasses. “Just watch what I do. And make sure to get good pictures. Jameson’ll have my hide if you don’t bring back something worth the front page.”
Peter forced a small, tight smile of his own. “I’ll try.”
It was hard not to remember the last times he’d accompanied someone on a beat – those times had been with Brock, not Urich, and he remembered they’d grown increasingly awkward after a while, with Brock becoming more and more distant without any reason why. And then there was the day where it’d just gone plain wrong…Peter shook himself mentally. It’d been an accident, he hadn’t known that Brock felt upstaged by him until the day he got fired, and while it was probably his fault that Brock was now “Venom”, it wasn’t his fault that the man made the bad choices he did. It was tempting to heap all the blame on himself, but there was a line somewhere: you were responsible for your own actions, in the end.
And now it was a question of what Peter was responsible for. He hadn’t taken care of the symbiote, hadn’t tried taking it to Nick Fury or anyone else for that matter. This was his problem and he would have to clean it up.
But that could possibly mean he would have to make sure it was permanent…and he wasn’t sure he could kill the symbiote and not kill Eddie Brock. Maybe they weren’t bonded that far. It was a big maybe, but that was all he had; he didn’t want to think of having to kill people, even if they were psycho.
Peter tried to cheer up as they pulled into the parking lot of the demonstration building, noting with relief that it wasn’t the Lavits, instead flanked by two towering hotels and looking surprisingly modest. He didn’t have time to note more as Urich ushered him out of the car and hurried the two of them toward the crowd near the lobby. Despite the ‘incident’ that happened last time he’d been at a conference, Peter was feeling pretty good: no one would be brave – or stupid – enough to try anything with the Fantastic Four here…would they?
Okay, so it was Fantastic Two, technically, but he figured it was good enough. He had to stand on his tiptoes to see anything, but Peter managed to catch a glimpse of a blond woman mobbed by reporters with a tall man with glasses at her side as they exited from the hotel. The woman smiled prettily, her companion adjusting his glasses and facing off against the forest of microphones in his face as if he was used to that sort of thing, holding up a hand in greeting as lights flashed and cameras clicked. Peter didn’t need Urich bending down next to him to whisper to know they were Sue Storm and Reed Richards.
It was very tempting to jump into the reporters, push his way to the front, and ask for an autograph. Of course Peter would never admit being a fanboy to Mary Jane or Gwen, but what could he say? It was hard not to geek over the fact that he actually was seeing Reed Richards with his own two eyes and that he and his wife were right there, in the flesh, and that they were the kinds of geniuses that he could only hope to grow up to be. If he was lucky.
“Well, well,” drawled a voice behind him. “Isn’t that just cute? Thinking of getting an autograph? You should, you know: I’m sure they’ll do it for a kid.”
Peter stiffened, whirling at the voice. Urich shouldered him aside to stand between him and the man before them: Eddie Brock grinned at the two, dressed in black slacks and a dress shirt that Peter knew wasn’t just clothes. The blond looked much improved since the last time Peter had seen him, almost back to normal except for the shadows under his eyes, which were hard and cruel now. They didn’t match the innocent expression on Brock’s face, who looked positively wounded when Urich rounded on him with a scowl that stated he was clearly unwelcome:
“What are you doing here, Brock?”
Brock held up his camera. “Working. It’s what people do, y’know. I’m sure you heard I got hired again.”
“Congratulations,” Urich said through gritted teeth. “You must be so proud of yourself.”
“Why thank you and yes, I am,” said Brock. “So what’s old Jameson up to, Ben?” he smiled again, and Peter couldn’t miss the mild venom lacing his words this time. “Still got a stick up his ass? Abusing all our dear friends – excuse me, former friends – at the Bugle?” Brock addressed Urich, but his eyes were on the teenager next to him, following his every movement like a hawk. “Inquiring minds want to know.”
Peter felt Ulrich place a protective hand on his shoulder. “Everyone’s fine. And it’s not your business what happens at the Bugle anymore, you know that.”
“I can’t help being nostalgic. Good times,” Brock finally tore his eyes from Peter and glanced toward the center of the crowd’s attention, looking at Sue Storm and Reed Richards with disinterest. “I can’t imagine this being Jameson’s idea of good news; a bit too boring and technical for him. I bet he’s just hoping something’ll go wrong. Disasters always did sell.”
Urich rallied to defend his boss. “Obviously you don’t know him as well as I do.”
“Oh, I think I do. I’m sure he wouldn’t complain at all if his buddy Spider-man showed up.”
Brock leered meaningfully at Peter, as if it was all some big joke that only he was privy to. It hadn’t been so long ago that he saw that exact same face covered in a mask of blood and baring fangs at him, wanting nothing more than to tear him to pieces; the man had definitely cleaned up and it was amazing how well he was able to blend in and seem almost sane, in Peter’s opinion. Peter stared back, not saying anything.
“So what’s with the tagalong, Ben? I wasn’t aware Jameson ran the Baby-sitter’s Club,” Brock changed the subject, still looking and sounding just as friendly as ever. He ignored Peter now, as if he wasn’t worth his time.
“I’m training him.”
Brock’s smile twitched. Peter almost missed it. Urich didn’t seem to notice. “For my job, I take it.”
“No one could fill it,” Urich replied, terse. “He’s the best we got and Jameson needs a photographer.”
“Well, good for him!” Brock said cheerfully. He turned his eyes back to Peter, and the look in them was unsettling; Peter could make out hatred and…and something else, something he couldn’t place, couldn’t put a name to. “Don’t go doing anything stupid, Parker. Wouldn’t want to lose that cushy new job now, do we?”
Brock went to push past them to get closer for pictures, and then paused, thinking of something. He turned and made a point of clapping a reassuring hand on Peter’s shoulder, the bad one that he clawed up only days before.
“Oh, but I forgot to say. No hard feelings?” Brock smiled and casually squeezed, sinking his fingers in. Peter fought not to gasp out-loud as pain shot up from the healing injury, seeming to go straight into his shoulder blade. His eyes swam with the beginning of involuntary tears. “Just wanted to clear it up between us since we didn’t exactly leave on the best of terms. Without you, Peter, I wouldn’t have had the opportunities I have now. Thanks.”
Peter turned, blinking, and stared up at Brock, refusing to flinch: “You’re welcome,” he got out, and almost did gasp this time as Brock dug his fingers into his shoulder again with the same deliberate care, the friendly, I’m-a-good-guy look on his face unwavering.
“Take care,” Brock said. “Both of you.” The blond removed his hand, nodded to Urich, and smirked at Peter before disappearing into the crowd.
Wincing, Peter was glad he’d worn dark colors today; the spreading wetness on the back of his shoulder signaled that the wound was reopened after Brock’s manhandling. His legs felt a bit shaky after that, and he could swear he could still feel the phantoms of Brock’s fingers digging and twisting into his shoulder. Oblivious to what just happened, Urich sighed, deflating visibly.
“I’m sorry, Peter,” he said. “I should’ve realized he’d be here. At least he wasn’t angry with you.”
Peter almost snorted at this, trying to catch his breath. Yeah right!
“I’m not surprised he’s still bitter at Jameson though,” Urich went on. “But he’s taking it pretty well, all things considered.”
That was somehow hard to believe. Brock could lay on the charm thick and fool Urich, maybe, but Peter was determined to keep an eye on the blond and find out what he was really after. Was it just a “job”, like he claimed? Or was there some kind of motive behind it, something that he couldn’t begin to guess at? Sure Brock looked bored about the whole Fantastic Two deal, but he could very well just be faking it to throw him off guard.
Peter raised his camera, focusing the lens on the heads of the crowd, panning and zooming in until he found a familiar head of cropped, spiky blond hair right by the front of the mob of journalists and photographers, following Sue and Richard.
Brock, somehow sensing Peter’s eyes on him, turned, looked right at him, and mouthed something.
It looked almost like You’re mine, Spider-man.
Peter shivered, lowering the camera. He had a bad feeling that something was going to happen…and that Eddie Brock would probably be involved somehow.
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
Aside from messing around with Parker, Eddie Brock found himself bored out of his skull. There was only so much he could do with paparazzi type pictures and while Sue Storm had all the right curves (and one hell of an ass), it probably wasn’t going to be the shots his boss was looking for, although he was sure the man would probably keep those pictures for his"personal" use. Great to know that I’m only good for wank material, he thought sarcastically. Oh no, he wasn’t bitter at all.
But he was bored and bored didn’t sit well with him these days.
Eddie still wasn’t quite sure just what the Fantastic Four were showing here; he didn’t care, at any rate, and wasn’t willing to sit through the entire damn thing no matter how much they claimed it’d benefit mankind. That was the boredom talking, but only in part: he wasn’t entirely part of ‘mankind’, now, and what did it matter if a bunch of normal humans found world peace or something equally nauseating? They certainly weren’t his species. That thought was jarring, feeling as if he was looking in on a stranger, and yet he knew it to be true. It was the truth that he was gifted, they were not. Fact, even.
Unfortunately he was still capable of feeling the human trait of boredom. Eddie wasn’t sure if he could sit in the chair before the staging area much longer, listening to “Mr. Fantastic” (‘Fantastic’ my ass, he thought) ramble on, without starting to think it would be a damn good idea to start flipping some tables to stir things up.
That and the thought that Peter Parker was several rows behind him made them feel…antsy.
Giving him a reminder of pain had been enjoyable; it only seemed fair to Eddie that Parker get a taste of the pain he felt when he had to be serviced by the symbiote, when he ended up clawing himself up each and every time.
At least Eddie was sure he was set for now. Parker was close and the need to attempt to re-bond stronger than ever, but he wasn’t trying to jump the kid and that was a plus as far as he was concerned. Bored as fuck still. If he didn’t get some fresh air away from this sweltering mass of humanity grouped in one room – the stench of human was strong in their enhanced nose – he was probably going to get more than just bored.
Finally unable to take it anymore, Eddie got up, inching his way through the row of filled chairs until he was out in the aisle and heading toward the exit; he didn’t have to turn to see their Spider tracking them, no doubt wondering just what they were up to. Let him wonder. Eddie was all up for giving him a few more ulcers to worry about. Nothing would please him more than to make Parker torture himself with what ifs.
Walking out of the room, the double doors shutting behind him, Eddie paused in the lobby, and decided where to go. Getting something to drink seemed like an idea, but he hadn’t seen any soda machines around here. Then again, he hadn’t exactly been looking at them – hard to when you were checking out a certain Spider. Best bet was probably the hotels or something, linked for convenience's sake by halls to his left and right. Picking one, Eddie spent the next couple of minutes trying to locate a soda machine; the damned things were hiding on him and he had to wander his way up unto the seventh floor before he finally found a long row of vending machines.
He’d started to head toward one when he sensed someone behind him in the hall, a good several yards away.
“Eddie Brock?”
Eddie turned and froze. Flint Marko! It took all his control not to morph into Venom right there. Did he know about their identity? Or was this just some bizarre coincidence? “That’s me,” he said, wary. “Who’s asking?”
“I’m Flint Marko. And I’m thinkin’ we should have ourselves a little talk.”
Eddie frowned. “I don’t know who you are, but I’m busy. Leave me alone.”
He made to leave, but Marko barred his way with a well-muscled arm.
“You’re makin’ the mistake of thinkin’ you have a say in th’ matter, Mr. Brock,” he said. “You’ve got two options here: th’ nice way – my way – or th’ hard way. I’m tellin’ you now you don’t want th’ hard way.”
“I don’t understand,” Eddie said, playing it dumb for now and trying to stall. “What do you want with me?”
Marko leaned close, ignoring the question. “All black again, eh? Nice shirt.”
“Get out of my way,” Eddie gritted, feeling his teeth starting to lengthen into fang points.
“Hard way it is, then.”
Marko’s eyes flicked to a point behind Eddie right around the time when Parker’s spider-sense suddenly flared up inside their skull. Eddie was already starting to duck the attack from the front, eyes on Marko, when he suddenly became aware of the presence of a second person behind him; unlike Marko, this person was much more skilled at moving about unnoticed. Eddie spun around and found himself on the end of a sparking baton shoved into his stomach. Electricity coursed through them – not enough to incapacitate, but just enough that Eddie lost his balance for a second.
It only took a second for the Silver Bitch to slap on something around his neck.
Eddie had barely enough time to reach up, feel his fingers brush against some kind of thin collar and register the fact it was humming before another bolt of electricity hit him, this time through his neck.
Eddie cried out and staggered. But he didn’t go down.
In fact, they were now very angry, electric collar or not, and it wouldn’t matter if these two saw them transform: there wouldn’t be anything left to betray their secret. Eddie was already well in his way toward transforming, snarling, when Marko tried to grab him from behind, a needle in his hand and then suddenly jabbed in the side of Eddie’s exposed neck.
Venom roared at this and responded with an elbow backward into Marko’s face.
He got a delicious sort of pleasure watching the man stumble backward, half his caved-in cheek just a sandy mess and still trying to reform, his left eye sunken into the grains. That pleasure turned to pain, however, as that cursed collar delivered another powerful jolt, sending him stumbling and clawing madly at the thing. Spitting and snarling, they rounded on the Silver Bitch, eyes falling on the device she held in her other hand. So she was in control of the collar!
Venom lunged at the woman, pushing off the floor in a bound and closing the distance between them even as she triggered the collar again. He convulsed at the charge running through his neck, nearly tripped, and gave Sandman the opening he was looking for. The next thing Venom knew, he was flying to the side, the row of vending machines crunching under his weight as he slammed into them hard. Snarling, tongue lashing, Venom pushed off from the mangled, flattened wreck of a soda machine, eyes on Sandman as he circled to put the man between him and a nearby window, a claw reaching up to tear the infernal collar off. It seemed to refuse attempts to just stretch it off, expanding when they did only to snap back.
Another stabbing shock as he touched the metal of the collar. Venom howled, green blood starting to drip past his fangs as they struggled to keep their form together, the black surface of their skin starting to bubble and boil. The symbiote was weakening from the continued charges, and whatever Sandman injected them with was starting to work.
Venom kept an eye on the Silver Bitch keeping a respectful distance and also one on Sandman: Marko was up against the window now, his hands both massive clubs of sand. They were closer to him than the human female.
Feinting toward the Silver Bitch, Venom pounced and hit Sandman in a tackle, wrapping him in a bear hug as they impacted with the window behind him. Glass shattered outward under their combined weight. Free fall. Hissing, Venom snapped at whatever of Marko he could get within reach of, holding onto a shirt that seemed to give way and trying to grab for something to hold onto as they spun out into empty space several floors up from the parking lot.
Wind whistled past Venom’s face as he wrestled with Sandman, shooting a claw out at the striped shirt before him. It gave…only to solidify, trapping his fist in his stomach and not spilling strings of guts like he’d intended. Marko grimaced up at his opponent and swung a clumsy punch, sand swirling out from the blow. Venom’s head snapped back, seeing stars they shouldn’t even be seeing in the first place, and almost lost his grip, trapped claw flying free as he started to slip off.
The ground rushed at them. Forcing himself to focus and shake off the stars swimming in his vision, Venom extended a claw up and fired off a black line of webbing. It caught, held, and he came to a jarring stop in mid-fall, the web-line recoiling to bounce him up again in the air: he flipped backward onto the wall, watching Marko plummet the remaining floors to ground level. He hit the parking lot in an explosion of sand that set off several car alarms.
Perched on the wall and crawling his way down, Venom snarled to himself, all nice and worked up and ready to start killing things. They weren’t hungry and he doubted very much that they could have much use for a brain made out of sand, but that didn’t mean they had to deny themselves the pleasure of killing Flint Marko just because of a little problem like that. Leaping straight down for the last floor, Venom landed easily and stood up. The collar bothered him, humming against his flesh, and yet not with the same comforting sense of cold that he was used to. It was alien.
At least it wasn’t shocking him – they probably had a few minutes before it did, at best, before Silver Bitch covered those seven floors and got into range.
Ignoring it for now, Venom stalked across the parking lot, claws curled into fists. Already he could see Sandman reforming, leaning up against a parked SUV, face still a misshapen lump of grainy debris that was growing more and more detailed and lifelike. Rage fueled them, made them want to rip out Marko’s spinal cord and beat him to death with it (see how he liked that!), but was still left with the fact that it was looking impossible to get any real hits on him when he’d just slip through their claws like water.
Well. If they couldn’t go with Choice A of Spinal Cord Bludgeoning (his personal preference), then they would just have to go with Choice B: anything else. Venom turned toward the small car next to him – a Volkswagen, according to Eddie Brock’s memory – and grabbed it by the front, sinking his claws into metal and heaving it up with a grunt. The human part of them registered dizzy delight that they were now able to lift a goddamn car like it was made out of cardboard. It was rather unwieldy though, but would suit their purposes regardless. Fangs bared, and muscles bulging, Venom took a running step and then another to get some momentum, and released the Volkswagen into the air.
It was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen in his life.
The Volkswagen soared across the parking lot, its shadow looming over Flint Marko. The man had time to look up before the airborne car went crashing literally right on top of him, sand flying in every direction as the vehicle rolled once, twice, three times and then ploughed into a Jeep, glass tinkling as the front of the Jeep simply vanished with a deafening screech of metal on metal. The Volkswagen itself flipped over the Jeep only to flatten the convertible on the other side. No explosion, however, and that made them faintly sad: they supposed that car explosions were apparently not as common as the movies would have them seem.
The Volkswagen bought him some time to think; a minute, maybe, before Sandman could reform…or before the not-so-Fantastic Four were notified of a brawl going down on their home turf. There had to be a way to keep their enemy from reforming. Wracking their shared mind for what they knew about the property of sand – other than that it got everywhere – Venom came to the conclusion that he had to either scatter the sand so far that Marko couldn’t reshape himself or somehow cement him together so that he couldn’t just swirl away from their blows….
Their webbing. It wasn’t by any means permanent, but it was sticky enough to do the job.
Climbing over the mess of the Jeep, which still wasn’t on fire yet (disappointing), Venom vaulted down to the ground and headed straight for the man-shaped mound of sand. Marko was almost back to normal again, and looking suitably pissed off now that he’d been thrown out a seven story window and then had a car thrown at him.
“What was even the point of that?” Marko demanded, scowling. “Really, Mr. Brock, we’re just draggin’ this shit out when we don’t have to. If you jus’ came quietly with us like I asked, it’d be easier for everyone.”
Venom’s eyes narrowed to white slits, inching closer. “Why? So we can be your little guinea pig?”
“My boss would like a chat, is all. He’s interested t’know about yourself an’ your relationship with Spider-man.”
“We’ll pass,” Venom was within claw range now. He swung at Marko’s chest, making it the most glaringly obvious punch he could possibly make to an overconfident human who fancied himself invincible.
Marko took it in the chest as he had in the fall from the windows without flinching. He looked down at the trapped fist, and then at the fanged monster before him, raising an exasperated eyebrow in a not-this-again look.
The expression turned quickly to discomfort and finally to pain as Venom released all the webbing he could from his trapped hand. Realizing what he was up to, Marko released him, but it was too late: he was mostly solid now, and looking like he wanted to be violently sick, his tanned, craggy features pale. The hole in his chest was slower to close than earlier, leaking the same black discharge that was starting to dribble from the corners of the Sandman’s mouth. Marko gagged, having trouble breathing, and coughing up more of the black liquid sticking to his lips.
Reaching down casually to wrench free the concrete parking curb at his feet, Venom took a moment to savor in the human panic starting to dawn on Marko’s face as they locked eyes.
Marko most certainly didn’t want to die, not like this.
And that just made it all the better, didn’t it? Deliberately hefting the curb so that Marko had a good long look, Venom broke out into a malevolent, fang-filled smile:
“We did wonder if there was any way to hurt you, Man of Sand,” Venom glanced down at the curb. How to do this? They could easily knock Marko’s head right off his shoulders with this…or they could start with the limbs and work their way up. He rather liked that one. “And now we know!”
Venom swung the curb at Marko’s arm: the curb shattered on impact, but so did the arm, dissolving into thick flakes of solidified sand held together with the sticky black webbing.
“Aarrgh!”
“My, my, now you’ve gone all lop-sided. We can’t have that, can we?” Venom reached out and grabbed at the other arm, sneering, his tongue flicking out to snake in the air. “We’ll fix that for you right away!”
Marko, panting, glared up at Venom, miraculously still on his feet. “Y-y’might want to leave that.”
Venom tightened his claws around Marko’s flaking wrist and prepared to pull. “Tell me if this hurts – we’re counting that it will.”
“You’ll be the one hurting,” Marko gritted out. “You ugly fucker.”
Venom frowned and then realized that Marko wasn’t looking at him, but over his shoulder. Snarling, Venom spun around, claws ejected and reaching for the petite woman who’d snuck on him not once, but twice now. Instead of backing up, she stepped even closer, and shoved that sparking baton’s point at his exposed chest and actually stabbed the thing in him. Venom fell back with a pained roar, and reached up to bat the thing away, regaining his balance and looking up.
The Silver Bitch had that device out again…and she was cranking it even higher.
The collar around his neck erupted into life again. Electricity flooded their shared body, aided by whatever they’d been injected with, and the world flashed out of focus. Venom shrieked. On fire! Every part of them was in agony, twitching and falling more and more out of their control, spiraling as the shocks continued to pulse through the ring of spreading numbness that started from their neck. Venom convulsed under the continued assault, fresh green blood – now speckled with human blood – trickled down their jaws and staining their fangs. He took a tortured step toward the woman.
And that was as far as they got.
Their Other winked out of consciousness shortly after Eddie Brock did.
Silver Sable couldn’t help the sigh of relief as the black mutant finally went down for good this time. The black covering, like some kind of second skin, oozed out of sight in jerky spasms, leaving the human underneath to slump to the pavement in a naked heap. Best to be sure this time though, she thought. The collar was still active if he should act up again, but she didn’t want to kill him if she didn’t have to; it was a miracle he’d lasted this long already. Rolling Brock over with her boot, she toed him hard in the ribs. Unresponsive. Bending down, she checked his pulse, lifting a limp, clammy wrist between her fingers. Yes, he was still alive…just very, very out of it.
“That fucker,” Flint Marko panted behind her, voice sounding choked. “W-what did he do to me?”
The mercenary turned toward Marko and deftly stepped out of the way just as he vomited up a mess of black, sticky mud.
“I don’t know,” Silver Sable said. She hadn’t been able to get a good look at what the creature did to Marko, but it didn’t look good. “But maybe you should keep doing that.”
Wincing with the effort it took to lift his arm, Marko wiped at his mouth. “I n-need more sand,” he managed to get out before he bent over and began spitting up more black mud that was starting to look more like watery clay than anything else at this point. “Sand…and a tub of water. C-can’t believe that thing took off my arm.”
“When we get back to Fisk,” Silver Sable said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
She bent down to pick up the mutant at their feet.
“Can you manage that?”
Silver Sable shot Marko a withering look. “I can handle Brock fine. You just keep throwing up.”
Marko did just that, laboring after the woman once she got Brock arranged over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry, and leaving a trail of wet, inky clay behind him. All Marko could think about was how he’d like to give this Eddie Brock some payback next chance he got.
The only thought Silver Sable had was one of pure satisfaction. They had their prize.
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
Brock’s been gone an awfully long time.
Long enough that Peter Parker was starting to feel that his suspicion was more than a little justified. A simple trip to the bathroom or anything like that shouldn’t take this long, he thought, biting his lip and fidgeting in his seat. Peter couldn’t imagine what the blond could be up to, but it was time to find out. Excusing himself, and feeling bad for turning his back on the presentation just as the live demonstration was going to take place, Peter walked into the aisle and toward the exit.
Entering the lobby, Peter glanced around. The doors were thick, but it sounded like there was some kind of…alarm? It was faint, but he was sure he could hear something through the soundproofing.
Pushing open the lobby doors, Peter ground to a halt, instinctively clapping his hands to his ears. Several car alarms were going off, piercing the air – and there was also several wrecked cars, looking as if something had bulldozed into them. One was even flipped upside down. Fishing in his pocket and feeling the comforting touch of his mask, Peter squinted, taking a hesitant step forward as he stared across the parking lot. There were one – no, two people off in the distance near the street. One was missing an arm and seemed as if he was really sick from the way he was puking his guts up all over the place. The other was a lady, shining against the black pavement thanks to her white outfit and silver hair -
Silver. And a lady?
Wait a minute…
That had to be the woman Brock mentioned earlier! Peter broke into a jog, ducking between the cars and trying to stay out of sight, feeling the camera hanging around the neck cord banging against his chest and wishing he’d left it with Ben Urich. Kneeling behind the wreck of a Jeep, Peter peeped around the corner of the back bumper and felt his jaw drop.
There was Sand Dude – minus an arm – and there was the crazy lady just like Brock said! Silver Lady was bending down over something on the ground, hauling what looked almost like a naked person up onto her shoulders.
Peter narrowed his eyes, holding onto the Jeep’s steel bumper. Whoever he was, he didn’t look like he was objecting to being naked or being carted around like so much luggage. In fact, he didn’t even look like he was conscious, judging from the way he just seemed to flop. However, he did look familiar. Peter stared at the man’s head hanging down and realized with a sinking feeling that he already knew who it was.
Eddie Brock.
But how had they tracked him here? Peter was reasonably sure that Brock wasn’t stupid enough to just go waltzing around as Venom out in the open and yet here he was. They knew his real identity, Peter realized, eyes wide. But no one knows he’s Venom but me…
Oh my God.
Brock had even said to his face that these people knew there was some kind of link between Venom and Spider-man…and the only way to link Spider-man to Eddie Brock was to know who Spider-man was underneath the mask. Peter’s hands clenched, the metal of the bumper bending easily under his fingertips. So he had been followed for the past few week, it wasn’t just his imagination! His secret identity was not-so-secret any more, nevermind Brock’s.
Who were these people? And what did they want with Brock? What would they do now that they had their identities?
Peter wasn’t sure yet if he intended to try to mount a rescue for Brock but he did know that he was still his responsibility. And it wasn’t responsible to turn your back on a problem just because someone decided to take it off your hands.
There was no choice but to follow.
To be continued...
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
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Black Sustenance