Found
Claire Dixon.
It was a name neither of them had heard or even thought about in a long time, years in fact. She was a high-ranking member of the Anti-Symbiote Task Force that had been assembled by the FBI to take care of him and his other back when they were in the throes of their regrettable and violent past. They’d slipped under the radar and escaped their knowledge after Venom returned to him from Flash. The Task Force had assumed the symbiote was killed by Flash’s transformation into Anti-Venom. But right now she was on their doorstep with no warning at all. Venom was keeping their cool but Eddie was frozen, struggling to speak through the panic.
“Its alright Eddie, I will protect our family.”
But he didn’t know if that promise could be kept if she had anti-symbiote equipment.
“Hello, Eddie. It's been a while.” Claire held her hand out to him professionally but he didn’t shake it.
“How did you find us?” Was his first question.
“It wasn’t easy, you’ve hidden your tracks pretty well. But I was able to trace an old paycheck to this address. I didn’t even know if it would really be you here.”
“You have no right to be here, Claire. We’ve been on the straight and narrow for years now, things are different.”
“A symbiote is a symbiote, Eddie. No matter how good they are they’re still a barely understood extraterrestrial species with the ability hijack other living things.They can’t be allowed to run around unsupervised.”
“We’re doing just fine without supervision, go ask Spider-Man if you want to.”
“We prefer to stay away from the politics of big time heroes.”
“Yeah it makes it harder to capture and torture innocents.” He raised his chin a little.
“After tracking down this address I had a hunch. So I broke into the networks of every school in a 50 mile radius and found a small elementary school with five students who have bizarre first names, all with the last name Brock.”
Eddie felt Venom clench around his heart, maybe to keep it beating right or maybe because the anxiety was hitting them now too.
“I considered the frankly odd nature of your relationship with the symbiote and realized of course you two are fucking. At first I thought there was no way because pregnancy is a rather specific ability but it makes sense that the symbiote could alter your biology at a cellular level. You two have procreated and assuming from the fact that they attend elementary school means they’re at least half human. You have five hybrid children that you’ve desperately been hiding from the government.” She concluded.
“There aren’t any others, it's just us.” He lied.
“Oh please, Eddie. Carnage, seven years old? Agony, Lasher, Scream and Phage all six years old?”
“And a baby, apparently. Unless you’re into some really kinky shit.” She pointed at his shirt where some telltale wetness had seeped through, he hadn’t really noticed because it was just a part of his life for the last two months now and luck really was never on his side. God, that’s embarrassing even on a regular day. Venom formed a new shirt around him but it was a little late.
"Wow, so you actually were pregnant and gave birth and everything? Did it hurt? The pregnancy thing was really just a guess, I realistically thought they might have just split off the symbiote or something. That's kind of freaky."
"Okay I get it. It's unusual." Eddie glared.
“Plus you have that permanently exhausted because you have a new baby face but you did kind of look like that before too.”
“So six. Six hybrid children that you've been desperately hiding from the government. Of course, I can just wait around here until you inevitably have to retrieve them and then I can see the little kiddos for myself.”
Eddie fumed, they were backed into a corner. They always knew there was the ever present threat of the government, SHIELD and others who would want to get their hands on some young and mostly defenseless alien hybrids.Their existence alone was a valuable scientific anomaly. There was a reason they didn’t have any of them at an actual hospital despite being close friends with one of the best surgeons in the city and his never claiming them on his taxes. Some other heroes knew about them but they were all so used to weirdness that it wasn’t even worth bringing up and it was a respectful practice of established heroes to stay out of each others personal lives. It was fine for neighborhood strangers to see their little ones because they wouldn’t care enough to contact anyone about their existence, not even the more awful mothers at school would go that far and their friends would never betray them, not like this.
“It also explains why you live in an actual house now and not some gross, code-violating, tiny apartment. I bet this place even has its own shower. Decent neighborhood too, bet there’s lots of families.”
“What do you want, Claire.” He growled.
“I don’t have any equipment, I promise I’m clean.” She raised her hands up.
“They why are you here?”
“I’m here to tell you that you now owe me at least one favor.”
“What does that mean?”
“SHIELD was suspicious, now they’re not.” She shrugged.
Eddie ground his teeth and weighed his options, if she was telling the truth they might be able to trust her but if she wasn’t they’d be putting their kids in harm’s way.
“Eddie...I promise. I know you don’t trust me but little kids are strictly off limits. For God’s sake I’m not a monster.” She stressed.
Eddie sized her up for a several minutes before he reluctantly moved aside and allowed her to come in. She walked around more casually than she had the right to and took time to look at the many framed family pictures on the mantle as she stepped over strewn about toys.
“Oh, look at them. I don’t know what I was expecting but they’re actually pretty cute. But holy shit look at those teeth and claws, just like Venom I guess.” She said observantly.
She stopped at a picture of their newest addition.
“Is the baby a boy or a girl...or something else?” He didn’t answer, he didn’t want her knowing anything else about them.
“How old?” She tried again.
“Okaaaay, you’re not really coming around here so I’ll just start with the details.”
“SHIELD saw you the other night at that human trafficking bust with Spider-Man. They connected some dots and figured that you wouldn’t be there if you didn’t have some kind of symbiote even if its not Venom.”
“I went ahead and erased your children from their school’s electronic system but they’re still there on paper, makes it almost impossible to track them down without knowing exactly which school they go to. SHIELD won’t waste the time staking out random schools if they don’t suspect that there are hybrid kids. Which they don’t by the way. Their intel says that symbiotes reproduce asexually and only once in a long while, they haven’t ventured to suspect anything else and I doubt they will.”
Eddie let down his guard a little and Venom uncoiled a bit too.
“You covered up that we have kids?” He asked.
“Well yeah, the school’s system was the only way I could have found out about them so I just got rid of that information in the system. I had no idea about the newest one until I saw you and your unfortunately timed bodily function. I would also change the address in your employee file to a P.O, box just in case.”
“Why would you do that for us? It wasn’t too long ago that you hated symbiotes...and me.”
“Because you’re doing good work, Eddie. Whether SHIELD or the FBI wants to admit it, it is a good thing to have someone like you two on the streets and on our side and when I found out there were kids involved I just didn’t have enough good reasons to haul you in. Why the sudden change of heart with you?”
“Being a parent changes you.” He answered honestly as he looked to the pictures on the mantle.
“Well, I wouldn’t know but I trust that you do. I also trust this whole family man thing will keep your morals straight and keep you both in line.”
“But you said you won't leave a symbiote unsupervised.”
“I won't. I’ll be supervising you. I’ll be coming by now and then and keeping an ear to the ground to make sure you stay on track.”
“And if we agree to that arrangement you’ll use your connections to keep our secret away from the government?”
“Of course. Believe it or not I don’t actually want to ruin your life. But if you become murderous, out of control and start giving into every violent whim again, I won’t have a choice. If you go back to your old ways you’ll be too dangerous to everyone, including your children.”
“We’d never let that happen, our life now is too important. It’s not just ours anymore.”
They established some boundaries like no showing up to the house in the middle of the night, no introductions to the kids until they said so (if they ever said so), no checking up on friends who have nothing to do with their work life and no even hinting to anyone about alien/human reproduction of any sort no matter what kind of scientific breakthrough it was. As she stood at the door ready to leave she turned to them.
”I’ll see you two around. Keep up your good streak.”
”Yeah. Thanks again for what you did for us, Claire.”
”You’re welcome, I can tell you’re both working hard for this new life of yours. I do believe in second chances after all.”