Earth's Mightiest
“Oh my God he’s the cutest!”
“Look at his little cheeks!”
“I need to take a picture.”
The group of three other sixteen year old girls were gathered around and fawning over Sleeper- all part of Andi’s ingenious, tried and true plan.
“Is he your little brother?” One of them asked.
“Actually, I’m his babysitter. I take care of him all the time. He pretty much loves me more than anybody.” Andi informed them with a coy shrug.
“Mama!” Sleeper got a glimpse of Eddie over Andi’s shoulder.
“C’mere Sleeps.” Eddie smiled and he and Venom took Sleeper from her without so much as a warning because, well, he was their child and he technically did belong to them.
“We better go, thanks for letting us come see him!” The girls waved goodbye and Andi could only watch as the very cute girls left.
“Andrea Benton do you use our son to pick up girls?” Venom inquired.
“I mean, not always. But you can’t blame me, look at him! He’s adorable! And just because everyone loves adorable half alien babies and by extension the really cool aunts holding them does not mean I’m doing anything wrong.” She rested her case.
“Andi, our baby is not to be used for hitting that.” Eddie said.
“Hey! I’m a commitment kinda gal, Eddie! And Flash did it all the time before he started dating Felicia again.”
“Traitor.” Flash narrowed his eyes at his daughter for her betrayal.
Andi smirked a little and nudged his foot with hers.
The coffee shop they’d met up at had the news playing on TV and Eddie was a little startled when Venom jerked his attention to it.
“Eddie!”
The news was showing live footage from a breaking story, a school bus teetering over the edge the Brooklyn Bridge.
“Oh no…”
“What?” Flash asked twisting around to see the TV.
“We know some of them! That’s the kids’ class!” Eddie’s face was already being taken over by Venom’s and Flash and Andi were following suit.
They were close enough but it was about ten minutes of sheer panic. Sleeper was riding along with Andi in what could only be described as a symbiote papoose and being a very young five months old he didn’t know the difference between a fun ride and an emergency so he shrieked and laughed the whole time. Coming up on the bridge the three of them swung up to the bridge’s center tower which was the highest vantage point to devise the best plan. In the seconds it took them to focus they found that they’d been (mercifully) beaten to the punch. Captain Marvel was lifting the school bus safely back on to the middle of the road. All the kids and the teacher on board were calmly being escorted away from the bus by Iron Man. To say that said kids were starstruck by the celebrity superhero team would be an understatement- most of all their own four kids Agony, Lasher, Phage and Scream who were on the now diverted first grade field trip to the zoo or the museum or something. They didn’t really read the permission slip very closely as Eddie hastily signed them this morning.
“You’re my favorite!!” Agony exclaimed very matter of factly to Black Widow who was there helping out too.
“Thank you, milaya moya. What is your name?” The spy smiled softly at the little girl.
“Agony!” She grinned widely, fangs gleaming.
“That is a unique name.” She complimented and smiled again.
Phage was tugging politely on Thor’s cape to which the Norse god looked curiously down at.
“If I stood on your shoulders could I see my house?” Phage asked him in all seriousness.
“I do not know...but let us see!” Thor tossed Phage up on his shoulders and Phage looked like every dream he ever had suddenly came true.
Lasher was waving at Captain Marvel who gladly floated over to him for an introduction. Scream on the other hand was standing toe-to-toe with Iron Man, staring up at him with her arms crossed.
“My dad says you’re really rich and I have demands!” She declared.
Okay time to intervene.
“Scream, that’s not polite.” Eddie put his hands on her shoulders to steer her away from Stark before he got repulsored into next week.
“Daddy, you don’t have to be polite when you’re really rich.” She wasn’t at all surprised to see them in the middle of this bridge and felt it very important to impart that lesson in morality to him.
“Well, she’s not wrong.” Stark flipped his face plate open to wink at her.
“No. No. Do not get any of your billionaire life lessons anywhere near my children.” Eddie was still steering Scream in the other direction.
“Aren’t you Venom? These tiny little mutant cuties are yours?” Stark raised his eyebrow.
“We are Venom.” Seriously, how many times did they have to say it?
“And they’re not mutants. But yes, they’re ours. SHIELD already knows so don’t bother calling ‘em.” He finished.
“Well I honestly didn’t think you two ever came out of the sewer long enough to have kids.”
“You’re a dick.” Eddie stated.
“Yeah, you’re a dick.” Scream agreed.
“Scream.”
“Scream.”
They both admonished her at the same time.
They ended up stuck on that bridge for another forty five minutes until the children had their fill of Avengers Q&A. Carnage spent the night grumbling that nothing exciting happened to them at school today.