One Kind Act
‘Hey Google? How do I stop being such a lonely loser?’
In his largest grey hoodie, Eddie slumps over the kitchen table, staring intensely at the small white machine. Anne had bought it for him when they were still an item, claiming it would help him to ‘order his life’ or some other sappy nonsense. He’d never opened the box until the day she left.
‘Playing ‘Lonely Loserrs’ by Braxton Knight. Enjoy’.
‘No. No! That’s not what I meant!’ Eddie cries out.
This is what you get for talking to that stupid machine, Eddie.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ he mutters, feeling Venom pulse in his chest with amusement, ‘At least it doesn’t make me look crazy. When I talk to you people cross to the other side of the street’.
Venom pulses with laughter again and Eddie lets out a dramatic sigh, finally picking himself off of the table and grimacing at the crook in his spine. Standing slowly, he navigates over to his coffee pot and pours himself his fifth mug today. Is it bad for him to consume this much caffeine? Probably. But lately, if he’s going to die from anything it won’t be from caffeine overdose.
The first sip of coffee he can feel his body shaking off some of his residual tiredness from running around all night chasing a group of muggers who tried to rob Mrs Chen’s store. The old lady hadn’t even screamed when the first gun was drawn, and simply muttered to herself in mandarin before going to the storeroom to give Eddie room to work.
With a guttural sigh of relief, he ambles to lean against the window frame and watch the snow falling as he drinks.
It’s early December and cold has gripped the city in her icy fingers. The street below is full of people shuffling in assorted scarves and coats, leaning forward against the icy wind, expressions full of discomfort. Eddie pitties them. His apartment might not be a palace but he’s at least warm and dry.
Venom seems to have retreated deep inside him, curled up to stay warm like a cat. If only Eddie could do the same. Just hitch himself to someone and relax while they did all the work.
All the work? Really Eddie. We are partners.
Reluctant partners.
The banter is familiar, but both know that he hasn’t held that belief in a long time.
Even as he smiles into his cup his gaze is drawn to the only figure not rushing to escape the falling snow. At the entrance to the apartment complex is the small figure of a child, a boy, covered head to toe in Winter clothing. He’s sitting scrunched into himself, feet idly tapping on the steps, as though he’s waiting for something.
Or someone.
Maybe he knows someone in their apartment complex or has gotten locked out? Either way, even his selfish heart sympathises with a child freezing.
He won’t freeze.
He could.
He won’t.
Well, how do you know? Did you suddenly gain the ability to see the future?
Yes.
What the hell?
At least when it comes to you. I know the child won’t freeze because your heart is pathetically weak and you’ll help him before that happens.
Eddie’s…at a loss.
Shut up, he projects instead, heart fluttering oddly in his chest at just how much they understand one another. Sure, they share a body, but this side of Venom, the side that knew Eddie better than he knew himself, was still in its infancy. They’d only explored a closer relationship recently. It felt…nice to be understood.
Well, are you going to do anything about it?
Shaken from his thoughts by Venom’s growling tones, Eddie reluctantly places down his coffee and heads for the pair of slides he keeps by the door for when he doesn’t feel like bothering with regular shoes. He knows they’re impractical for Winter, but he doesn’t plan to be out long.
He makes quick work of the stairs (because the elevator is out again. Honestly, Venom is one step away from getting rid of their building supervisor), and shuffles towards the entrance. He can see the steps now, but is puzzled to find them unoccupied.
I had my eyes off him for like, one second. Where did he go?
Great, Venom sarcastically mutters, you dragged us out here for nothing.
Shut up.
Shuffling out of the entrance and cursing as the cold freeze whips right through his layers, he scans the immediate area for the boy. There’s a clear patch on the steps where the boy had been sitting that the snow hasn’t yet covered. The boy must have just left.
He’s about to shrug it off and go back inside when a sound reaches his ears.
Slap. Thud. A child’s cry.
Eddie’s quick to move to the mouth of the alley beside his building. He knows nothing should be there except a fire escape and some bins, but his instincts tell him he’ll find more today.
Sure enough, there’s the boy on his back on the filthy concrete, a hand raised to cradle the side of his face where a blow had obviously been struck. Standing over him are two older boys, both bulky and adorned in football jerseys beneath their overcoats.
Self-entitled jocks. Of course.
‘Aww, you gonna cry, you baby? Looks like mummy’s new job can’t save you now!’
Eddie has always hated bullies. No matter their age.
Hang back V, I don’t think you’ll be needed for this one.
As if I’d waste my time on such rats.
Just knowing that these basic bullies have no idea what a menace has just happened upon them makes a savage grin perch itself on his lips. If only he had this kind of power when he was in middle school. Things would have turned out a lot differently.
‘Hey boys,’ he drawls, ‘You should scram. The residents of this building don’t tolerate bullying’.
The two bullies give him twin glares at the interruption, their expressions shifting to sneers as they take in his dishevelled form.
‘It’s you who should scram,’ one sniffs, ‘or we’ll beat you’.
Eddie can’t help it, he laughs.
The thought of these prepubescent idiots even touching him is ridiculous. He literally eats hardened criminals for breakfast.
When his fit of laughter calms he finds the boys tense, clearly uncomfortable with how unhinged he just seemed.
‘Scram,’ Eddie hisses, levelling his best glare, ‘I won’t give you a second chance’.
It takes a moment, but the boys finally glance at each other, decide he’s nuts, and make a mutual decision to save their own asses. They leg it.
Eddie takes a moment to relish in their fear before calling out a tentative,
‘You okay kid?’
The crumpled form on the ground hasn’t moved much since Eddie’s arrival, but now that his attackers are gone, he shifts into a crouch and glances up under fluffy black bangs to register his saviour. Eddie’s met with a pair of vibrant green eyes and a smattering of light freckles bridging the boy’s nose. A nose with blood smeared beneath from the force of the blow.
‘Hello,’ he greets, sounding softer than he has in a long time.
‘Hello,’ the boy echoes, his voice meek and quiet, ‘Thank you for your help, sir’.
Well. Miracles do happen. Children can be tolerable.
‘Do you need help getting up? Anything broken?’
‘No,’ the boy says, slowly rising to his feet. At this angle the boy’s bangs don’t cover half his face and Eddie winces at the beginnings of a bruise over the boy’s eye. It’ll be nasty by morning.
He hasn’t had such awful bruises in a long time, not with Venom’s protection.
‘Well that’s good,’ Eddie mutters, beginning to feel awkward. He doesn’t have a gift with children. Becoming an antihero certainly hasn’t helped.
‘Are you crazy?’ the boy suddenly blurts, shuffling in his place.
Eddie snorts in surprise and shakes his head with a laugh. ‘No, kid. No more than the average person’.
‘Oh,’ the boy murmurs, ‘It’s just that not many people would stand up for a kid they don’t even know. No one ever has before’.
You earthlings are pathetic as always.
Eddie can’t help but agree. The world hadn’t changed since he was a kid getting picked on by the boys at school because he could write better than any of the girls. Being brilliant is a perfect way to get beat.
‘Yeah, I suppose not. But as long as I’m around, I won’t stand for it’. How different he’s become since fighting crime. Old Eddie wouldn’t have had the guts. ‘Why are you out here in the cold anyway?’
The boy shuffles some more before gesturing out towards the street with a painfully thin arm.
‘I was waiting for my mum to come home. She doesn’t like me out in the cold but I like to meet her when she comes up the street. I guess I didn’t expect Carl and Junior to know where I lived’.
Ah, that makes more sense. It’s dangerous, but cute.
‘Well, it’s probably a good idea to get some ice on that eye before it swells shut. You want to come inside?’
The kid hesitates a moment before he nods, a small smile breaking out on his lips.
Eddie’s somewhat surprised that any kid in the city would accept an offer from a stranger that easily, but he shrugs it off. Maybe this boy’s just ultra-trusting?
A dangerous trait.
As they move to the stairs, a huff causes Eddie to glance beside him to see the boy giving the stairs a rather adorable glare.
‘What’d those stairs do to you?’ Eddie jokes.
The boy shoots him an incredulous stare, ‘Are you kidding? Stairs are the worst! They insult me simply by existing’.
Eddie can’t help it, he laughs. It loosens something in his chest he didn’t even know was there.
‘Oh,’ he chuckles, ‘Is that all?’
Clearly the kid doesn’t pick up on his sarcasm because as they begin ascending the boy lets out a derisive sniff. ‘Didn’t we invent elevators to avoid taking the stairs? I bet that other people don’t have to take the stairs, their supervisors actually do something when things break’.
Eddie chuckles once more, shaking his head as he recalls thinking the same thing only minutes before. This kid is one sharp tack.
‘And besides,’ the kid continues, ‘It’s hard for my mum to climb the stairs every night when she works so hard all day. She deserves to ride an elevator’.
That is surprisingly cute. Eddie can’t believe he’s even thinking these thoughts. When was the last time he thought anything was cute or adorable? This kid is special.
‘Well it must make it easier for her having you to walk with.’
Neither says anything for a while, both seemingly mulling over their own thoughts, until Eddie reaches his floor and gestures to his apartment door.
‘That’s me’.
‘No way!’ the kid laughs brightly, ‘We’re neighbours!’
Well, technically they’re not neighbours. Their directly across from one another, but if neighbours are counted on four corners then Eddie guesses it could count. He had been hearing a lot of shifting and grunting across from him last Sunday but he hadn’t been bothered snooping to find out the source.
‘Did you just move here?’
‘Yeah,’ the kid chirps, looking brighter now he’s made a connection between them, ‘Mum got a promotion so we had to move closer to her workplace.’
Eddie quickly notes that the boy never mentions a father or siblings. But he does remember one of the bullies mentioning something about his mum’s promotion.
‘Well, it’s a small world,’ he comments as he unlocks his apartment and gestures the kid inside.
The boy skips inside without fear despite the fact that he’s in a stranger’s home. Eddie honestly worries a bit about his survival instincts, but at least he’s not forcing medical care on an unwilling patient.
‘I’ll get the ice,’ he says, ‘feel free to sit wherever you like’.
He assumes the kid will slump on the old couch but the boy levers himself up on the stool he’d planted in front of the kitchen counter. With his chin resting on laced fingers the boy eagerly watches Eddie bustle to the freezer and drag out a bag of frozen Tater Tots. It should be embarrassing that this is what he has stocked his freezer with but the boy clearly doesn’t care, and proceeds to stick the bag against his blossoming bruise gratefully.
‘Thanks, sir’.
The term ‘sir’ grates on his ears. Years of having to suck up to puffed up chairmen and CEOs to get a scoop have made him hate the word.
‘Just call me Eddie, kid’.
‘Well, if I’m going to call you Eddie then you should probably call me Dante’.
Eddie has to twist and face the kid, his eyebrow raised in incredulity.
‘Your name is Dante? Do people still name people that? Isn’t Dante from like, the renaissance’.
The boy has the audacity to shout.
‘Hey, don’t make fun of my name. I like it!’
You won’t in twenty years.
‘Sure kid, whatever you say. I -’
Anything else he’s about to say is drowned out by a truly unearthly shriek.
‘WHERE THE HELL IS MY KID?’
‘Oh,’ Dante chirps calmly, ‘Mum’s home’.
‘What?’ Eddie hisses, ‘That was your mother?’
‘Yeah,’ Dante huffs, jumping down from his stool while still cradling the packet of frozen potatoes, ‘She’s a little overprotective’.
A little? A little? The audacity of this kid.
Eddie has a moment to desperately try and think of a way to swing this so he doesn’t look like a kidnapper before there’s a rapid knock on his door.
You’re about to get beat up by a woman.
Seriously? What happens to me happens to you, so shut it!
In his moment of inner crises Dante has skipped over to the door and is throwing it open with a happy, ‘Hi mum!’
Eddie sees the moment that the woman sees her son’s injury, registers the strange apartment, and the buff, shady looking guy who lives there.
A pair of truly murderous golden-brown eyes are trained on Eddie’s hoodie, clad form.
‘Who the hell are you and why do you have my kid?’
If only Google had an answer for this situation.