Eddie was in New York City. His home town, born and raised and all that. He hasn’t been back since getting fired from the Daily Globe and moving to San Francisco with Anne.
So, Eddie, you are from this city?
“Yep,” said Eddie.
Does this mean I can meet your parents?
“Hell no, V, you’re not marrying my parents,” muttered Eddie, glancing around his subway car. Half full and no one paid him a second glance for talking to himself. This was New York, after all.
Are you ashamed of me, Eddie? taunted Venom.
“No, well, I just don’t really know how that conversation would go, hey mom here’s the aloe thing who lives in me. We eat people sometimes, but don’t worry about it?”
That one got a raised eyebrow from the girl sitting two seats down, but she returned to her phone with a shrug.
“Arriving at 39th St. Pier station,” chimed the automated voice.
Eddie stood up. “This is our stop.”
Where are we going?
Eddie stepped out onto the busy subway station. He ducked through the crowd and up onto the street. “We are going to check into the hotel I booked and not do anything until tomorrow.”
I thought we came here for a job?
“We did, that’s not until tomorrow,” said Eddie.
I’m hungry, Eddie.
“We just got here, you can’t eat anyone yet.”
Please.
“No.”
Please.
—
Such was how Eddie ended up in an interrogation room. There had been a mugging in the alley near his hotel and king story short a cop caught him half-venomed with begrudging intent to eat a human head.
Officer Mahoney, based on his name tag, seemed more confused than anything as he’d driven Eddie to the station. The man he’s been eating was let go, annoyingly, since his victim had fled when Venom showed up.
We need a lawyer, Eddie.
“How do you know what a lawyer is?”
We watched Suits, don’t you remember?
“Oh yeah.”
Then two men entered the interrogation room. One with longer blonde hair and the other with short dark hair and round red sunglasses, he carried a white cane.
“Who are you two?”
“We’re your lawyers,” said the blonde one.
“Nelson and Murdock,” said the dark haired one, pointing to his partner and then to himself, Murdock. “Officer Mahoney called us saying you might need legal assistance.”
"It was a misunderstanding,” said Eddie.
“So you weren’t,” Nelson glanced in his notebook. “Quite: part goo monster and definitely trying to eat a guy’s head.”
We are not a goo monster, fuck this guy.
“Shut up,” muttered Eddie.
“What was that?” asked Nelson.
“Tell us what happened,” asked Murdock.
“Look,” said Eddie. “I was just going for a walk and I heard a scream, someone was being mugged so I jumped in to help.”
We are the Lethal Protector!
Nelson wrote down what Eddie said, but Murdock seemed to be concentrating, his head tilted slightly to the side and his brow furrowed in confusion.
“And the goo?”
“It’s a long story,” said Eddie. “I’ve got a parasite, you see.”
Venom broke off from Eddie, his head emerging from his shoulder.
“Hey, I’m not a parasite.”
Nelson stumbled backwards, grabbing onto Murdock’s arm. even Murdock, who was blind, seemed thrown.
“Jesus Christ,” exclaimed Nelson. “Sorry Matt.”
Murdock, or Matt, waved it off. “Who is that?” he asked.
“This is Venom.”
“We are Venom.”
“Yeah.”
Nelson tried to compose himself, but his hand was still latched to Matt’s shoulder. “Follow up question: what is that?”
“An alien symbiote,” shrugged Eddie. “Did you not hear about them from San Francisco?”
“We mostly focus on local news,” said Matt.
“So you were trying to eat that man?” asked Nelson.
“He was bad. He had a gun.”
“He needs… brains to survive, I try to only let him eat bad people,” explained Eddie.
Nelson glanced at Matt who looked a little bewildered, but nodded. “Alright then, we can probably get this to blow over, just give me and my partner a moment to discuss.”
Venom dissipated back into Eddie.
Do you trust these guys?
“Let’s just hope they’re good at their job, okay?”
—
They were, in fact, good at their job and Eddie was released back into the world before midnight. New York at night was quite an experience and Venom wanted to see it.
“Fine, just no eating.”
Deal.
Venom wrapped around Eddie until they were one and jumped up onto the rooftop, and into the night.
From a rooftop not too far away, Daredevil, searching for a potential mugger with a gun, crouched and in silent confusion listened to them leaping from rooftop to rooftop.