Symbiotic Infection

Prologue

The Avengers Compound was buzzing with traffic in and out. Between the avengers themselves, police, investigators, SHEILD, and Tony’s workers there was never a dull moment.

“I don’t care how long it’s been! I know they’re not dead.” Tony’s voice travelled through the halls and Ms. Marvel and Spiderman stopped their conversation to listen in.

“Sir, it’s been several months. Even a superhero can’t possibly last that long without any-”

“Get out!” The two of them watched the very nervous officer basically run out of the compound before watching a very, very sleep deprived Tony walk out of the room.

“Mr. Stark, I think you should get some rest.” Peter was always worried about the Avengers even though he wasn’t officially one.

“I’ll get some when we find them.” He left them alone again going into one of the many other rooms.

It had been nearly five months since Hawkeye and Captain America were taken. They were sure it was Hydra, but they couldn’t find them. Any tracker they could possibly have on them lead to dead ends and there was no sign of any Hydra goon.

Other people started going missing then, which had brought the police to the compound. They had kept it secret for a month, until an anonymous source revealed the two Avengers had gone missing. Since then, it was basically chaos.

The Avengers took turns looking for the missing people and Tony stayed in the compound on his computers or talking to the officers who visited.

That night though, everyone was home. Kamala roamed the halls having moved in shortly after her eighteenth birthday. She decided to get some midnight snack, though it was dropped when the alarm started blaring.

She ran to the front doors to catch the person only to see a very beat up Clint Barton being held by someone she didn’t know.

“Who are you?!” She got ready to attack, but a hand on her shoulder had her relaxing. Natasha was frowning, but didn’t seem ready for a fight. That was a good sign right?

“Yasha, what are you doing here?” She walked forward then and the man, Yasha seemed to relax seeing her. He was bloody, though Kamala couldn’t tell if it was his own blood or not.

“I brought you a gift. I think you’ll like it.” His tone was joking as he took Hawkeye to place him on the couch as the others showed up.

“What is he doing here?” Sam seemed mad at the man. Yasha sighed and looked at him. God, he looked exhausted.

“I’m just bringing him back to you.” His voice was gruff and the way he watched the team made Kamala feel hunted. It didn’t help that she had never heard of the man before.

“Well, you did that. Go.” Sam didn’t seem too happy about him being here even if he had saved Clint, which meant something had happened between the two? Kamala wasn’t sure though.

“Wait. Yasha, tell us where you found him.” Natasha, now standing between the two boys, looked at Yasha. He relaxed just a little when she did and looked down at Clint.

“Hydra took him. I was looking for something in the base and found him. I figured you’d want him back, thought they did something to him…” He trailed off and Tony was the first to actually move closer to the couch looking down at Clint.

“He’s alive, but doesn’t look real good. Kamala, can you get him to the infirmary? You, come with me.” He pointed to Yasha as Kamala took Clint away.

The others followed Tony to the office and Yasha leaned on the wall crossing his arms. He looked at Tony as he sat on the edge of his desk his hand covering half his face in thought.

“He has an alien in him.” Yasha spoke up before the questions started.

“An alien? In him?” Scott didn’t believe it, though who would?

“Yes. It’s some kind of symbiote. Hydra got ahold of them from somewhere and they started doing experiments on people. I don’t know where the others are, they were in the middle of moving and Clint just happen to be the only one left alive. I think they’re doing the same thing to Steve too.”

“And you have no idea where they are?” Sam was glaring at him and half the team still didn’t even know who the man was.

“What you think I’m lying?”

“Well, wouldn’t be the first time. You were with Hydra until a few years ago.” Sam’s words seem to annoy Yasha a bit and he stood up then.

“Listen, I don’t need this. I’m leaving and I’m going to find him. I don’t need any of your help.”

They let him leave that night, though they were sure they’d run into him again. The new members tried asking about him the next few days, though they couldn’t get an answer from any member.

***

“I can’t deal with this!” Clint stomped into the kitchen. It was well past midnight, but Scream wouldn’t let him sleep again. She had done this almost every night after he recovered from the bonding, but she eventually slowed it down to a few times a week.

He decided he would just deal with it and grabbed some of the cookies they had and a glass of milk. Maybe if he did some drills she’d shut up? The voices were active again too apparently. He couldn’t hear them, though Scream said that might change, which wasn’t something he was looking forward too.

He walked into the living room to see Natasha curled up on the oversized chair looking at her laptop’s screen. She glanced up at him only for a second and he took that has an invitation to sit next to her using her thigh as a table for the plate of cookies.

“Have enough there?” She snagged one off the plate and moved to fit them better, though they were still squished. He leaned his head on her shoulder to see the articles of symbiote appearances throughout the states.

They started a month after he was rescued, which made sense. It had taken him long to fully understand and handle the new powers of the alien. They had started popping up shortly after that and wrecking havoc.

The team was worried that one of them was Steve, though it was impossible to figure out. Even Tony and T’challa couldn’t make tech to figure out who was inside the suit. Clint looked around before he leaned even closer to her.

“Any words from Bucky?” He whispered it and she sighed before shaking her head. He had been updating her when he found something, but when he was going for a big lead two weeks before he had stopped. She hadn’t heard from him since.

“I’m worried he found the place.” She heard a ping on her computer then and straightened up. “It’s Friday.”

They were all crowded in the meeting room then, Tony at the head with the screen open for all of them to see.

“Friday has found new symbiotes. Apparently, two of them are fighting against the other symbiotes. I think we should find them and figure out what’s going on. This one is close by and was recently seen among the city. Let’s start searching.”

The symbiote was black with inky webbing surrounding it. It shouldn’t be hard to find, though they had already been looking for an hour. Natasha and Clint were on a rooftop with Clint trying to ‘sense’ the other.

“Are you sure this is how it works?” Natasha was watching him as he looked around the city.

“Honestly? I have no idea. I’m pretty sure I got a crazy one of these, so she could be talking out her ass for all I know.” He got screaming in response and sighed. “She knows what’s she’s doing apparently.”

Another hour passed before Clint perked up. He pointed to an alleyway close by and dropped down to the street in time to see a man emerge onto the street pulling up his hoodie.

“Hey, sir, wait up!” Clint hurried faster than Natasha now. The man looked at him surprised and he could see the black veins already framing his face. “Wow, wow, I’m not here to fight. We were actually wanting to get your help with something.”

“What’s that?” He looked between Clint and Natasha before relaxing a bit. Not like that would change his ability to attack though.

“We’re looking for the symbiotes. Or the people creating them. We know you have one too and from the looks of it you seem to know my friend here has one too. We just want to ask some questions about how you got yours.”

“Oh, you want to learn about the foundation then.” He looked around to the people on the street. “Take me somewhere secure and I’ll spill.” They nodded and soon they were on the way to the compound.

“So, this is the black one right?” Sam was looking at the very sick looking man. Maybe very tired? Both?

“I’m Eddie Brock and the ‘black one’ is Venom. He’s actually Scream’s dad, kinda? That’s why you could find me.” He leaned back in his chair as Clint made a very unamused face. “Anyway, you guys are looking for the foundation.”

“The foundation?” Tony thought for a moment before looking very, very annoyed. “You mean the Life Foundation?” Eddie nodded.

“Someone want to explain what that is?” Scott looked at the two then and Tony pulled up some information he had on them.

“The Life Foundation was one of my competitors, before they went bankrupt a little over a year ago. They were found out to be testing on the homeless and the owner, Carlton Drake, was rumored to be dead.”

“He’s alive. He’s somewhere working with Hydra. I saw him when me and Steve were taken. He was interested in Venom, though I didn’t know what he was talking about. I personally thought it was actually venom he was looking for.” Clint shrugged and looked at Eddie. “Never saw you there.”

“He kept me away from the others. Drake has his own symbiote, though he got weaker after our fight. He’s strong though, stronger than me and stronger than Scream.”

“You know a lot about this.” Sam looked at Clint then, who looked tired rather than annoyed. He was very much annoyed though. Eddie shrugged a bit.

“Well, I have a good connection with Venom. I’m sure it’ll happen with you. I’ve had mine longer though, plus he’s a lot more stable from what I’ve heard of Scream.” He took a moment before continuing. “After this maybe we can help you?”

“That’s not important right now. We need to know what we are dealing with involving this Life Foundation.” T’challa brought the talk back to the main topic.

“Right, right. So, um, I don’t actually think they have a lot of others. There are four made from Venom, Riot, Carnage, then I think he has two ‘children’ also. I was kinda out of it when they were telling me.

“Toxin and Scorn. I remember because they were talking about it thinking I couldn’t hear them. Perks I guess.” He hit his hearing aid then. “Scream can hear better than me and she relayed the information. Toxin had a host before I was rescued, but I think Scorn was different.”

“Alright, so we have to fight seven of these things? One is stronger than both of you and-”

“Carnage is stronger too. In fact, there is no way we can defeat both of them.” Eddie was looking at the screen as he spoke, the other freed symbiote on it.

“So, we team up and get Steve back.” Thor smiled as he was as eager as always to start a fight, though the others not so much.

“We need a plan, Thor.” Tony rubbed at his face before looking at the screen. “We need to figure out where this place is and figure out how we can win. We have the advantage of having two symbiotes though.”

“We also have one more advantage.” Natasha stood up then. “If you can detect your family we can figure out where they are. You don’t have to get close, but with that I can easily break in and see what’s going on. We need to figure out how to find that other symbiote too.” She looked at the team. “I saw we make two teams and go searching.”

“Um, anyone going to ask me if I’m up for this?” Eddie raised his hand then and the team looked at him.

“Well, are you?” Clint tilted his head and Eddie smiled.

“Not really, but the other guy is.”