Tony watches as the black tentacle extends from Eddy’s back towards Clint’s mug before it knocks the mug off the counter. Clint whirls around but Venom is faster, making it back into Eddy’s body before anyone sees anything. It occurs to him that this should be a terrifying event given that Venom, more often than not, manifests in some kind of fucked up body horror fashion but by now he’s just used to it.
“What the fuck was that?” Clint asks, glaring at Eddy in particular thanks to his learning that if there’s a problem Venom is probably behind it.
Eddy frowns, “I don’t know, don’t drop your shit,” Eddy says and Tony snorts. The noise draws Clint’s attention like he’s some kind of zombie creature and Tony resists the urge to roll his eyes.
“What did you do?” he snaps.
“Nothing,” Tony tells him truthfully. He hands his mug to Eddy to put in the sink while Clint swears under his breath about Tony and Eddy, leaving his mess behind as he walks off. Eddy is about to put the cup in the sink when a black tentacle exits his chest, snatches the mug, and hurls it at Clint’s head.
He’s not in the habit of being impressed by Clint, but he makes an exception for Clint ducking fast before the mug hits him. He spins back around and glares at Tony and Eddy, “what the fuck was that?” he snaps.
“A mug,” Tony says agreeably.
“That you threw at my head,” Clint snarls.
“You watched him hand it over to me, why are you blaming him?” Eddy asks, frowning.
“Fine, than you did it,” he snaps.
Eddy shrugs, “maybe I did, maybe I didn’t, you have no proof.” Clint points at the cameras and Eddy looks up at them too- disguised mostly as pot lights, and laughs. “Think he can break into your systems to find the video of this?” he asks Tony.
Tony snorts, “a cat with dementia would be more likely to get into my systems than Clint,” he says.
Eddy turns back to Clint and gives him an apologetic shrug, “than I guess you have no proof.” Tony shakes his head- its not the first and he doesn’t think it’ll be the last time Eddy covers Venom’s ass but that’s pretty much because he doesn’t disagree with Venom’s actions. They disagree on plenty, but not on that. Tony has learned to let Venom be Venom.
*
“I’m just saying,” Eddy says as Tony tries with moderate success to back. Venom keeps trying to stick stuff back in the drawers but at least Eddy is mostly trying to put the stuff back. “It’s blatantly unethical for you to hoard all this wealth. And to add insult to injury you’re funding a bunch of super powered brats instead of buying poverty away since you can do that. Its rude,” Eddy tells him, hands crossed over his chest. Venom snakes around his shoulder, snatching a shirt from Tony’s suit case but when he tries to put it back in the drawer Eddy pulls it back and throws it back into the suit case. Tony is offended that his silk is being treated with such disrespect but Eddy has enough problems with his wealth without Tony giving him more reasons to call Tony’s problems out for being a problem for rich people.
He’s not wrong obviously, but Tony still doesn’t want to hear it. “You come up with a way for me to buy out poverty that doesn’t result in some greedy asshat such as myself stealing half of it and you can buy poverty away all you want,” he tells Eddy. Venom, who has managed to send a tentacle out from Eddy’s foot of all places, pauses in shock, clearly reacting to Eddy’s obvious shock.
“Seriously?” he asks.
Tony shrugs, “I don’t need the money.” But he’s never been very good at figuring out how to use it to help either. As Eddy pointed out the Avengers have gone tits up and frankly Tony knows too many people who steal funds from charities to trust them. Usually he sets up his own things- often for people in underprivileged areas to go to school, with a focus on the sciences. Its how he found Riri Williams and that kid is next level brilliant. She’s almost on par with him now and she’s only fifteen- by the time she’s his age she’ll have changed the world dozens of times over. He hopes he lives long enough to see it.
“Holy shit,” Eddy whispers to himself. The shock of the room is broken by the sound of Tony’s suitcase hitting the floor and Tony sighs.
“Tell Venom to stop that, my silk is going to get wrinkled,” he says.
Eddy makes a face, “‘my silk is going to get wrinkled,’” he says in a mocking tone, reminding Tony of that Sponge Bob meme Peter likes so much. “Some people don’t have silk,” he says.
“And I pity them. Tell Venom to stop wrinkling my silk.”
Venom chooses to make an appearance then, hovering over Eddy’s shoulder. “No,” he says, looking like a nightmare as usual.
Tony sighs, “god damn parasite,” he mumbles.
“Take that back!” Venom tells him, offended.
Tony turns to look said parasite in the eye. “No.”
*
Rhodey sighs, “how many times has he been arrested?” he asks Tony.
Tony lets out another long sigh too. “Look, lets just say that I love Eddy, but he’s a dumbass.”
“Is he at least keeping Venom to himself?” Rhodey asks.
If it’ll assist him in whatever story he’s trying to chase down, sure. Given that he called Tony to come get him out he figures there’s a good chance that he thinks he can find something at the police station for whatever he’s chasing down now. If not he probably would have just gone Venom and broke out.
But Rhodey doesn’t need a whole backstory on Eddy’s psychology, he just needs the facts. “Probably, yeah.”
Tony doesn’t really care when Rhodey insists on coming along with him to get Eddy, but he does know that Rhodey has something to say due to how much sighing he keeps doing. “Rhodes, just spit it out,” Tony tells him.
Rhodey lets out his fifty millionth sigh and turns to Tony. “You’re dating a guy who is possessed by an alien,” he says. “And I’m worried about you because of how you used to feel about aliens.”
Its actually sweet that Rhodey cares, especially considering his initial reactions to Tony’s PTSD. Granted he had basically told Tony to get over himself partially because he knows that Tony doesn’t react well to pity, but it had still been insensitive. It’s nice to see he’s gotten better with that. “Look, I get it, and it’s not something that I anticipated, but I actually like this relationship. And sad as it is Venom treats me better than any other person I’ve dated has,” he mumbles. He suspects if he ever actually ended up in a relationship with Pepper she would have been good to him obviously- they’ve always had a good dynamic even if he’s happy he didn’t throw romance at it now- but everyone else? He’s had a total of three good relationships ever, regardless of romance. Actually, all of them were friendships and two of them are people he employs.
Still though, doesn’t change that Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy are the only people in his life that haven’t mistreated him in some way or usually multiple ways. Then came Eddy, who hadn’t really thought highly of him to start with but learned that maybe he isn’t everything he is on TV, and then Venom, who’s surprisingly defensive and sweet in a way that’s usually not creepy. Or at least not creepy in an abusive sense- Venom is very much creepy in every other way.
Rhodey considers him for a long moment, “monster fucker,” he says with way too straight a face. Tony snorts and cracks up.
“Hey man, don’t knock it till you try it,” he says and Rhodey gags.
“Fuck no, that shit is the stuff of nightmares and you act like black goo coming out of your boyfriend is normal shit. You make no sense to me.”
They drive in silence for a long moment before Tony speaks, “Monica,” he says and Rhodey throws his hands up.
“It was one time!” he says, exasperated just like he always is when Tony brings this up.
Tony laughs, “one time for almost two years? Come on, you can’t judge and you know it.”
“She didn’t bring it up right away, man, and honestly I should have known better than to date a white woman,” he mumbles and Tony lets out a loud snort.
“Oh my god, that is so not why she was into necrophilia!” he says, laughing at the absolute absurdity of it.
Rhodey crosses his arms over his chest, “well black people would one hundred percent not be into that shit.”
“Says the guy who was into it until it got ‘too weird’ like being into playing dead during sex didn’t start there. You proved your own theory wrong,” Tony points out.
“Oh I was never into it thank you, I just thought ‘hey, little less work for you, why not give it a whirl?’ I admit I should have known better but still. I don’t prove my own theory wrong.”
Tony grins, “how do you feel knowing T’Challa, prince of Wakanda and black people’s shining jewel of black excellence now that we all know how advanced Wakanda is, is a furry?” he asks.
Rhodey gives him a hilariously unimpressed look. “I can’t believe you had to desecrate my community like that,” he says.
“All black people are furries now. Get some extra hair on Rhodes, you’re going to be a golden retriever,” Tony tells him, snickering at Rhodey’s utterly unimpressed facial expression.
He crosses his arms over his chest and glares out the window, “monster fucking piece of shit,” he mumbles at Tony.
He rolls his eyes, “look man, you don’t know sex until you have a symbiote rub your prostate, okay?”
Rhodey flies into action immediately. “Get me out of this vehicle!” he yells, trying to get the door open. In a panic Tony reaches over to pull the now open door shut, ignoring the way he swerves on the road until he nearly kills them both driving into the wrong lane.
“God damn it Rhodes, don’t do that again! Venom’s dexterity and usefulness in bed is not worth jumping out of a moving fucking vehicle oh my god!”
*
Eddy is giving Venom odd looks as he moves the furniture in the room a few inches to the left. Tony sighs, accepting that Venom will be Venom but Eddy chooses to question it. “What are you doing?” he asks the symbiote.
“Moving things to the left,” Venom says like that’s not obvious.
Eddy rolls his eyes. “Why?”
“Psychological torment,” Venom says, pushing a chair a few inches over.
Eddy squints at the quickly moving symbiote. “How the hell is this psychologically damaging?” he asks.
“Because,” Venom says, “when we deny this ever happened they’ll wonder if their memories are real.”
Tony lets out a long sigh. “Venom, stop gaslighting the Avengers. They all know their shit wasn’t where it used to be.”
“Actually they’re all questioning why their stuff keeps moving,” Eddy says. “But also I don’t approve,” he tells Venom.
Venom moves a night table slightly to the left and Tony gives Eddy a look. It’s his symbiote, he’s in charge of controlling it. “Stop that,” Eddy tells Venom.
“I could always eat their heads,” Venom suggests.
Eddy throws up his arms, “what kind of ultimatum is that? We’re not eating anyone’s heads!” They start in on an argument Tony knows will go nowhere and he sighs, deciding maybe they should find a better solution to their current problem.
*
Tony sits on the roof of the Stark Industries building with sunglasses perched on his nose when Eddy appears at his side. “You kicked the Avengers out?” he asks.
He shrugs, “can’t psychologically torment them if they don’t live here,” Tony points out. “Also I was only required to keep them for a month and that was three months ago.”
Eddy sits down beside him, “I almost miss having them around, Venom made good entertainment out of them.”
Yeah, he did, but Tony is tired of dealing with them, they’re probably just as tired of dealing with Tony, and he figures he’ll save them from Venom’s mind games in the meantime. “I like the peace and quiet,” he murmurs.
He knows Eddy has done something stupid immediately when he doesn’t reply right away. “So um, about that. Remember when I broke into that one guy’s house? Uh, I think he might be after me now,” he says.
Tony lets out a long sigh. “Venom is in charge of making sure you don’t die, I want my peace to last just a little fucking longer.”
“Sorry,” Eddy murmurs.
“You are not,” Venom says, outing Eddy’s true thoughts. Tony can’t help but laugh because he already knew Eddy wasn’t sorry, didn’t really expect him to be either. But it’s still hilarious to get confirmation of his lack of remorse from the symbiote of all places.
“You are so rude,” Eddy tells Venom. “Stay in my body and shut up.”
Tony sighs, “you’re going to regret that when he decides to leave you to fend for yourself when some randos show up here looking to shoot you because you were dumb enough to break into some hot shot politician’s house.”
Eddy wrinkles his nose but Venom appears between them, floating out of his body like some kind of goo ghost. “Don’t worry Eddy, I wouldn’t leave you to die,” he says. Eddy looks touched for a moment and Tony is too, because that’s sweet. “I need you to live,” Venom adds and Tony snorts. Oh okay, this is purely selfish motivation then. Well, probably not but Venom is kind of an asshole so it makes sense that he’d put some sting into his sweet words.
They remain silent for a long few moments. “Why does Rhodey have you as ‘monster fucker’ in his contacts?” Eddy asks.
Tony frowns, “how do you know- dude, don’t go through Rhodey’s phone.”
Eddy shrugs unapologetically, “you never know where you’ll find a story and he’s a high ranking military official, he might have some dirt I’m just saying.”
“You’re inheriting bad manners from Venom,” he says. “Stay out of Rhodey’s stuff.”
“He had those bad manners before I was here,” Venom says, “this isn’t my problem.”
“He’s actually right about that,” Eddy says and Tony lets out a yet another long sigh.
“Stay out of Rhodey’s phone. Also I don’t know if you noticed, but Venom very much counts as a monster. Hence monster fucker.”
“That’s offensive to my species,” Venom says and Eddy snorts.
“Pretty sure Rhodes doesn’t care about that.”