Snow Day
It was Saturday, Eddie's most favorite day- no work, no school, no obligations to take away from crime fighting time, no obligations at all.
“Oh no...” Venom's voice filled his head but it didn't wake him up.
What did wake him up was the sudden impact of weight on his chest that squeezed the air out of him. He sucked in a breath trying to refill his lungs as Venom lifted the perpetrator off of him. Before his brain caught up to his surroundings his whole body was being jarred around by the unannounced appearance of four children jumping on the bed. Carnage being the one who landed on him was still wrapped up in Venom's grasp. It took a moment to realize that they were all saying basically the same thing:
“Wake up!” and “It's snowing!” with urgency.
Five of their children relaying the information to them as if it were the most exciting thing that ever has or ever would happen to any of them.
“Okay, stop jumping.” Venom instructed and they always listened to Venom.
They stopped jumping and sat down but still buzzed with excitement.
“Huh, it did snow.” Eddie looked out the window.
“Okay fine, go bundle up.” Eddie sat up and got out of bed to supervise the aforementioned bundling.
Unfortunately they didn't move fast enough to stop the kids from dumping every single thing out of the hallway closet to get to the winter wear. Carnage throwing anything that wasn't theirs out of the way and not paying attention to which of their siblings the items landed on. Coats, hats, gloves, scarves and boots all eventually found their rightful owners. Dressing Sleeper for the cold took considerably longer, starting with socks, a fleece onesie with footies and a hood, booties, mittens and quite possibly the world's smallest snowsuit.
“We're not going on an Arctic expedition here, Eddie.” Venom teased.
Sleeper's hood had little bear ears on it so Eddie took about a million pictures and sent them to Anne. He grabbed his own coat and boots as Venom formed gloves over his hands. Eddie opened the front door and Phage immediately slipped upon exiting the house and landed on his back. The little boy raised his arm with a thumbs up signalling that he was okay, his puffy coat having cushioned the fall. Lasher and Agony got to work on some snow angels while Scream, Phage and Carnage started building what he assumed was a fort. Eddie knelt down and scooped some snow onto his finger and touched Sleeper's cheek with it, the baby reacted with a startle and made an 'O' with his mouth.
“Sorry, too cold?” Eddie apologized and Sleeper responded with a “bah” sound.
Venom crept up his neck, over his mouth and extended their tongue to catch snowflakes, Sleeper poked his own tongue out in an attempt to imitate.
“Uncle Flash!” Carnage was suddenly launching themselves across the yard.
To his credit Flash Thompson had remarkable reflexes and was able to prevent a collision by catching Carnage and picking them up which is exactly what Carnage wanted. The other kids ran to the man as well, swarming him with their attention.
“Flash! I forgot you were coming today!” Eddie was embarrassed by his memory lapse because Flash had called a few days ago to let them know he'd be visiting.
“Hey Eddie, Ven. Miss me much?”
“Always do.” Eddie gave his friend a one armed hug while Venom reached out to grasp Flash's shoulders with warm familiarity.
“How are my favorite little monsters?” Flash looked down at the kids clinging to his legs.
They all responded at the same time, talking over each other making them impossible to understand as they spoke at length about everything they could think of to tell him and Flash smiled and nodded at the bits and pieces he could make out. Flash's gaze then landed on Sleeper and he lit up.
“Is that the little guy?” Flash pointed having heard about their newest from Eddie over the phone but never having actually seen him in person before.
“That's Sleeper, he's only little so you have to be nice.” Agony answered him.
“You wanna hold him?” Eddie asked.
“Geez, I don't know. I don't want to drop him or anything.” Flash said sheepishly.
Eddie resisted the urge to roll his eyes, as if someone like Flash could ever have such a severe lapse in judgement or motor skills. But their friend did get a little stiff when they placed Sleeper in his arms.
“Hi there, I'm your uncle Flash. I wanted to meet you sooner but I got deployed.” He introduced himself.
Sleeper reacted to the new face and voice with a wide smile, he didn't usually smile at strangers but it was impossible to not like Flash. It was a really sweet moment until Eddie was nailed in the back of the head with a snowball. Turning around he saw Carnage ready to hurl another one.
“Oh is that what you want?” Eddie asked packing own snowball in his hands.
“Uncle Flash is on my team!” Carnage yelled.
“Daddy's on my team!” Agony countered.
Venom decidedly didn't get to be on either team because that would be an enormous violation of snowball fight fairness so they sat out with Sleeper.
“If any of you hit your brother, you're grounded.” Eddie warned referring to Sleeper who was strictly off limits to snowballs of any kind.
Any trace of civility broke down rather quickly as the two teams (Agony, Phage and Eddie against Carnage, Lasher, Scream and Flash) declared war on each other. Eddie's hands were freezing as he had no gloves without Venom and it was really throwing him off his game. Flash took full advantage of this by throwing snowballs directly at his face mercilessly. Eddie and Flash throwing snowballs ruthlessly hard at each other but making sure to go easy on the kids. Carnage had managed to get behind him and grabbed the back of his coat, Lasher and Scream joining him in the tugging which sent Eddie toppling backwards into the snow. Flash approached menacingly not even a little bit slowed down by Agony and Phage clinging to his legs like koalas. Lasher and Scream held his arms so he lay there defenseless as Flash stood over him momentarily before smashing snow into Eddie's face with his hand. The kids, even the ones on his own team, laughed uncontrollably at their father laying motionless on the ground with his face covered in snow.
“Well I could use some hot chocolate after that humiliating defeat.” He said as Flash pulled him up.
Inside the warm house Eddie supplied the promised hot chocolate as the kids abandoned all their outerwear messily in the hallway. They all sat in the living room with their steaming mugs warming up their cold hands. Sleeper in Flash's lap reaching up and making grabby hands at him for attention.
“Sleeps has a middle name you know.” Eddie said nonchalantly.
“Oh yeah? What is it?” Flash replied not looking away from the infant.
“It's Flash. Sleeper Flash Brock.
Flash looked at them surprised.
"It was going to be Eugene but we didn't want the other kids to make fun of him.” Eddie added cheekily.
Flash turned a little red, cleared his throat with a cough and then hid his face behind his hand.
“It was an easy choice.” Venom stated.