Shatter
“Eddie, wake up….Eddie.”
Nothing.
“Eddie!!”
“Hwha?! Wha? Sleeper’s gotta eat?” Eddie slurred jolting awake.
“Someone’s approaching the house.”
“But it’s like 2am.”
“I am aware, that’s why I woke you.”
He pushed the covers off and by the time they reached the stairs there was a fast knocking at the front door. They flung the door open and saw exactly who they were afraid it would be.
“Damn it Claire, what are you doing here?” He fumed grabbing her by the shoulder and moving her back several feet.
“Brock, calm down. Are your kids here?”
“It’s 2:00 in the goddamn morning, where the hell else would they be?”
“I was wrong, SHIELD followed their lead on you and they’re coming. I don’t know how they found you but they did. They have no idea about the kids though, just you. You have to go and you have to go now.”
Eddie was running back up the stairs before his mind caught up with his body, Agony was standing in the doorway of her bedroom.
“Wake up your siblings and get in the car now! Right now!”
She looked scared by his forcefulness but nodded and did as she was told anyways. Eddie swept the pictures of the kids off the mantle, any evidence of non-human children living in this house, threw them in a box and slammed them in the trunk of the car. Once everyone was in the car a helicarrier appeared overhead and unleashed a wave of sonic sound across the area. The windows rattled as Venom and their children writhed and screeched in pain. Sleeper instantly released pheromones reflecting his pain and intensifying everyone else’s. Eddie’s hands shook as he peeled out and sped in any direction his instinct told him to.
“What’s happening?” Lasher asked from the backseat.
“Everything’s gonna be okay.” Eddie answered looking at them through the rear view mirror.
“Eddie!” Venom snapped his attention back to the road and took over to slam on the brakes.
The otherwise empty street was blocked off by armored trucks, spike strips and masked agents. Behind them more armored vehicles moved to box them in. The agents lifted what looked like specialized guns with sonic emitters and pointed them at the car.
“Step out of the car Brock, we don’t want anyone getting hurt. Your symbiote too.”
He stepped out of the car and put his hands up.
“Get on your knees!” So he did that too.
Agents approached him and as they got closer he felt his other rumble under his skin, when they were a few feet away Venom erupted out of him and rampaged. Slashing and throwing bodies, tearing limbs apart and shattering bone. The onlooking personnel scrambled and engaged their sonic emitters as others closed them in with flamethrowers that had escaped their notice.
“They’re going for the car!” Venom jerked at his attention through the debilitating pain.
As they spun around to stop the advancement on the car the agents trained the flames on them effectively rendering them paralyzed as they burned. Unable to withstand the assault Venom disappeared back inside him as he fell to his knees. He was overtaken by agents forcing him onto the ground, slamming his face onto the street. They clasped a bulky metal collar around his neck and handcuffed him. He couldn’t hear anything beyond his own screams of protest and pleading tearing his throat raw as he watched masked men pull his children out of the car. The last thing he remembered before the collar rendered him unconscious was the look of fear on their faces.
When he came to again he was still wearing the collar and handcuffed but now his ankles were chained to a metal chair that was bolted to the floor. He was in an interrogation room and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t hear Venom at all, he could still feel them so they hadn’t been separated but that was only a small comfort. He saw himself in reflection the two-way mirror taking up the wall in front of him and there was a red welt taking up his cheekbone and a black eye and he was surprised it wasn’t worse, apparently no one had taken too much advantage of his unconscious state.
“V...talk to me, my love. Tell me you’re there.” He mumbled.
There was no verbal response but there was a faint ripple in his chest that came as a relief. He was pulled from his fog by the room’s thick metal door opening and Maria Hill walking in. He didn’t think they’d ever met face to face before but they definitely both knew of the other.
“Eddie Brock, it’s a pleasure. Been trying to catch you and your alien for years. Used to be because of your constant violent rampaging but now there’s something much more interesting and important on the table- those little rugrats of yours.” She started as she tossed a file on the table between them.
“Where are they? Please, I’ll do whatever you want just please don’t hurt them. They’re too young to understand.” He begged.
“They’re okay, they’re on another floor dedicated to our youngest visitors. You’d be surprised how many agents have to bring their kids to work sometimes.”
“What are you going to do to them?” It hurt to even ask.
“Well, that’s mostly up to you. We’re prepared to offer you a deal.”
He looked up at her, waiting.
“We want you to become a SHIELD agent. You’d get the standard pay and benefits, of course. Dependents included. We could use someone with your physical skill and knowledge of extraterrestrials.”
“That can’t be all.”
“Smart man. You’d also have to agree to an open line of communication between SHIELD and your family’s primary physician, we want to monitor their health and development as ethically and non-invasively as possible. Yours too. You have to understand that they’re the first of their kind and can unlock invaluable secrets about xenobiology and interspecies genetics.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Well, because of your outstanding record you’ll both be thrown into indefinite containment so fast your head will spin and the kids will become wards of SHIELD. It’d be a real shame for that baby to grow up not even remembering you.”
“So you’re blackmailing us.”
“You’re catching on.” She smiled.
“Why can’t I hear my other? What did you do to them?”
“Nothing, it’s the collar. It just quiets its voice and keeps it from making any guest appearances.”
She pressed a button on the cuff on her wrist.
“I’m here, Eddie. Tell her we want to see the children before we agree to anything.”
“We want to see our kids before we agree to anything.” He repeated Venom’s words to her.
She leaned back in her chair and thought about the request for a moment.
“Alright.” She finally said.
She kept the collar on him so Venom couldn’t manifest outside his body but brought them to the youth floor like she’d agreed. She lead them to another two-way mirror and through the glass was a playroom where Carnage, Agony, Lasher, Scream and Phage sat watching a movie on a large flat-screen tv.
“See? Perfectly safe and age appropriate. That Carnage is a bit of a hellion though.” Hill stated.
“Where’s the baby?” Eddie asked looking for him.
“He’s in the daycare. We’re going there next because we have to give him back to you anyways. We don’t exactly keep baby formula on hand here.”
She stepped towards the door and opened it for him. Upon seeing him the kids all raced over and jumped on them.
“Hey...Hey, you guys okay?” He asked as he hugged them tightly and gave them kisses.
They all nodded and seemed no worse for wear. He could feel Venom relax too.
“When are we going home?” Agony asked him.
“Soon baby, I promise but you have to tell us exactly what’s happened since you’ve been here.”
“We got chocolate milk and french fries and now we’re watching Wreck It Ralph!”
“Did they take anything from you? Or give you anything? Like a shot or a pill or anything like that?”
They all shook their heads.
“We don’t want to give them anything, introducing foreign substances could be more harmful than helpful. We just want to monitor them. We know a surprising amount about symbiote biology but nothing about hybrids.” Hill informed him.
“How long have we been here?” He asked realizing he had no idea.
“Almost three hours.”
The kids didn’t seem to understand the danger they’d been in and he couldn’t be more grateful. Next they saw Sleeper where Hill said he’d be and couldn’t stop themselves from picking him up and laying kisses on him too.
“Tell her we’re in.”
“You think so?”
“Don’t have a choice. Won’t become a prisoner again. Won’t risk our family.”
They were right and Eddie knew it, they had to play the game if they wanted their life to stay as it was.
“We agree.” He told her.
She smiled professionally and pressed another button releasing the collar.
“Good to hear, you’re making the right choice. Your orientation is Monday at 9:00am. Glad to have you and your...spouse? Is spouse the right word?”
He nodded.
“Glad to have you and your spouse aboard. I hope that you’ll find it’s not too bad here; Barton, Romanoff, Morse and Drew all seem to like it. These gentlemen will walk you all out, your car is waiting out front.”
She held out her hand and as he reached out to shake it Venom covered his hand and forearm as if to protect him from her touch. They shook it, unsure of what they’ve just done.