A brief Intermission followed by Awful
__San Francisco , A Good While Later__
Natasha didn’t really have much of an issue with flying across the country for missions. If anything, being stuck on a jet for hours was only made unbearable at times by the presence of Clint Barton. She doesn’t hate him, not in the slightest, quite the opposite in fact. But like a younger sibling, sometimes you still want to punch their lights out when they get annoying.
This fact was only made bearable by how quickly her partner dropped the annoying little brother facade and started actually acting like the skilled agent she knows he is. Right now, they had one lead about what happened in San Francisco, and everything they’ve found on the guy places him in the right spots enough to be suspicious.
The only real problem was that Eddie Brock has apparently been gone for ‘some time’, he’s not got an official missing persons report. The apartment is even still in his name, but no one has seen him and no one can really remember the exact last time they saw him.
Natasha had done some diving on his history, and turns out the likely reason no one has thought to look for him is because Brock has done this quite a number of times in the past. The whole disappearing for weeks thing, Natasha made sure to give Clint a pointed look when she shared that information.
Clint says that in addition to him being gone for a while, the big monster vigilante that the locals have taken to calling the ‘San Francisco Demon’ had been gone for a while. They - who Clint and Natasha were now pretty sure was Brock - had been part of the reason for the decreasing crime rate in the city, only for the Demon to have returned without Brock being seen.
The problem was with the fact that it wouldn’t make any sense according to the supposed history of the Demon, to have killed those Shield agents. The agents were investigating a suspected arms trade, if anything the Demon should have been more likely to attack the arms dealers than the police disguised Shield agents.
That’s why Clint and Natasha were here now, breaking into the apartment of a missing man. Initially going to the door had given absolutely no response of any kind.
Clint got the fire escape window open, and Natasha slipped in after him, sliding the window shut with one hand.
“Seems like that window’s gotten a lot of use, I feel like those things are supposed to stick more.” Clint comments idly, hardly going for much stealth. Natasha shoots him a look in the dim lighting, and he shrugs.
“Don’t think anyone’s home…”
He’s right though, the floor creaks under their feet, but there’s absolutely no other noise, and the place doesn’t exactly smell fresh. Actually. Scratch that, Natasha raises her pistol towards the kitchenette in the corner of the main room, where there’s a repeated scratching, and… clucking, noises. As if something just woke up from their intrusion.
Clint looks at her, then to the corner, the most unbelievable look on his face. Natasha blinks very slowly, and presses her mouth into a thin line.
“Are you seriously telling me there is a chicken in here, and not our guy?” She says, cursing the fact that only on missions with Clint, ridiculous things like this happen. But Clint is already creeping around the island counter, and looks back at her with a smile.
“What if I told you there was a chicken that pecked a hole into a feed bag and has probably been living a very confusing past few weeks?”
Natasha ignores him, letting a breath out through her nose as she starts to actually do their job. The apartment is a mess, and she’s not sure how much that chicken over there has been doing to make it that way. The tire swing hanging from the ceiling is shredded like someone let a tiger at it, and there’s crumbs all over the place that have been poorly swept up.
It definitely doesn’t seem like anyone has been here for a while, and it certainly seems like someone has broken into the place. Papers skews about, and bulletin boards with paper scraps tacked to it complete with red string. She supposes it would make sense considering Brock was a reporter before his disappearance.
Idly, she sifts around the desk area, most of them are notes about the cases Brock had written about. Not a lot of it really makes that much sense to outside eyes, and Natasha finds herself internally nodding to the safety in such incomprehensible scribblings.
She’s taken out of it by the increased speed at which the clucking is coming from the corner, and Natasha doesn’t even spare a glance as she speaks.
“Clint, put the chicken down and do your job.”
“She’s being nice, who knows when Brock is gonna come back. Can you let her sit alone like that?”
—————
Once again, adding to the already too high total number of how many times this has happened in his life, Eddie woke up not knowing where he was. His head jerks up, waking suddenly rather than smoothly, also something he’s way too used to. It takes him a while to actually figure out where he is. Memories of what had recently happened, with the overhead speaker and that awful noise.
He sits up, albeit it takes him probably a full minute to do so, and starts to actually take note of what’s around him. He doesn’t feel quite as dead as before. That’s enough for Eddie to go into thinking mode.
Aside from the raised platform of their bed, in the room is nothing else but a toilet and sink. The kinds that you’d find in a prison, with like absolutely no backing or any easily removed parts. There was the outline of a door on the opposite side of the room to where he sat, no windows or handles anywhere. Eddie’s not even sure how well Venom could fit through the gap. There is a gentle squeeze around his middle as he thinks, and Eddie knows that Venom is present again.
There isn’t even a mirror, though Eddie figures having something easily breakable that someone could easily turn into a weapon isn’t exactly the priority of his captors. Eddie pauses at the thought, turning his attention towards the mysterious unknowns who have him locked up here. He mentally ticks through the things he knows they know.
One; They know about the Life Corporation incident, that’s fine he supposes. It’s not like you could really wipe that from the face of the planet or anything, and Eddie wouldn’t have wanted what happened to those other people to be made a secret.
Two; They know Venom exists, and to some degree depends on Eddie’s body.
Three; They know that sound is one of Venom’s weaknesses, probably guessed from the storm and then tested when Venom had been removed from Eddie while he was passed out. But that begs another question: Why would they not have just removed Venom, killed Eddie, and be on their way with a new symbiote?
Eddie recounts the conversation, about why they would have asked so much about what would make the symbiote comfortable and keep him from dying. Maybe they’re just trying to find out about how to care for him before they ultimately kill off Eddie.
“I will kill them before they kill you.”
Venom’s voice says in his ears, and Eddie can’t help but shake his head, he responds through their shared connection with a hint of sarcasm.
“Thank you, dear. I’m sure through the power of love we’ll be able to fend off however many people are out there.”
As much as it pains them to just sit and wait, it’s not like there’s much they can do just yet. They don’t even know if they’re underground or not, or how big of a facility they are in. Trying to escape now would be too big of a risk, not when the very ceiling above them is rigged to explode with sound at a moment’s notice. So they’re stuck, unless by some miracle, someone comes and finds them and breaks them out of scary-jail, and Eddie doesn’t exactly know of any people capable of such a thing.