Manipulation
“Y-You want me to what?” Peter Parker stuttered into the phone, he couldn’t believe he was even being called for this.
“We really need someone to watch Sleeper, everyone else is busy. Would you mind? Only for a few hours?” Eddie pleaded.
Eddie and Venom were not aware that he accidentally sort of neglected and almost starved their baby the last time he was left in his care- Flash and Andi agreed to keep it quiet since Sleeper did eventually get fed. But he really didn’t think they’d ever call him for this, they had so many better options! How could they all be busy?
“We’re taking the kids to a movie and Sleeper is too young.” Eddie continued to plead.
“Who’s that?” MJ asked from behind him.
“It’s just Eddie Brock. They need someone to watch the baby but I can’t-”
“Of course he can do it! He’ll meet you wherever you want!” MJ yelled into the phone before Peter could stop her.
“Thank you, Peter! We’ll meet you at the movie theater so you can pick him up.” Eddie said before hanging up.
“MJ why would you do that? That kid hates me!” Peter cried to her.
“He won’t hate you this time and you need more practice!” She pointed to the general area of her uterus.
They were having a baby in eight months and he did need the practice but his baby wouldn’t already be traumatized by him like Sleeper was. If Eddie and Venom found out how much Sleeper disliked him and why they’d probably kill him on the spot for making their youngest cry for hours while their other kids rampaged uncontrolled all night.
When Peter reluctantly got to the movie theater after being shoved out the door by Mary-Jane he spotted Eddie and Sleeper standing alone outside (well, not alone he supposed. Venom was certainly with them).
“Thanks so much for watching him, Peter. We’ll just be a few hours. The kids are already inside.” Eddie rushed through the thank you as he passed over the diaper bag which was stuffed with about a million things.
Sleeper made eye contact with him before his face flashed with recognition, he hissed and grabbed on tighter to his dad.
“That was weird, I’ve never seen him do that.” Eddie raised an eyebrow as Venom manifested a tendril to brush their son’s cheek.
“Uh, haha yeah. Weird.” Peter instinctively played dumb.
Eddie passed Sleeper over to him and the baby went completely and defiantly limp in Peter’s arms.
“Papaaaa.” He whined for Venom sounding betrayed.
“Aw its okay Sleeps, we’ll see you soon. Love you.” Eddie kissed Sleeper’s forehead.
“Oh yeah, he’s been biting lately so be careful.” Eddie said like it was no big deal at all and Sleeper reached after them sadly as they left.
Sleeper twisted around to look up at Peter who gave him back a nervous smile. Sleeper bared all his sharp teeth, his pointed tongue and his little growl making him look pretty much exactly like Venom.
“Come on little guy, give me another chance. This’ll be fun!” Peter tried to persuade the alien child but he looked about as unconvinced as an infant could.
“Okay.” He sighed “Because it was my biggest screw up last time I’m making sure you get fed. So let’s go find some food for me and some food for you.”
They ended up finding a little cafe- the kind of place MJ would love- where Peter got a coffee and a sandwich before setting up at a corner table by the windows. Sleeper sat in the cafe’s little wooden high chair and Peter may just be imagining it but it looked like he was eyeing the exit. Peter hoisted the ridiculously full diaper bag onto the table, did a baby really need all this stuff just for a couple of hours? Would his baby need this much stuff?
When he glanced up for a second Sleeper’s high chair was empty.
“Sleeper?” He asked.
“Sleeper where did you go?” He asked again.
Panic struck him like lightening- forgetting to feed their child he could keep a secret. Losing their child he would never be able to hide from Eddie and Venom because they were going to want him back eventually.
“Sleeper!”
He ducked under the table to check the floor, he’d have to be down there somewhere right? As his eyes searched they were grabbed by a shock of electric green. Sleeper was clinging to the underside of the table like an angry wad of gum.
“Come on, Sleeper. I’m sorry about last time!”
Peter peeled the growling little goo ball off the bottom of the table (which was probably filthy) and plopped him back into the high chair. He went back to the diaper bag and kept digging for what he was looking for, removing other items as he went. He had to dig through toys, rattles, teethers, bibs, wet wipes, pacifiers, hand sanitizer and two baby blankets before finally finding the food which had migrated all the way to the bottom of the bag. And there was a shit load of it. Four bottles, dried cereal, sliced fruit, apple sauce and chunks of raw meat which was disturbing but probably normal for this family. Among the bottles and baggies was a hastily handwritten note:
Give Sleeper a bottle and HALF of ONE baggie of ONE other snack when hungry. - Eddie + V
He didn’t understand what the aggressive emphasis of portion sizes was for but it was nice to have some instruction about this for once.
“Fah!” Sleeper piped up and pointed at the table.
“What?”
“Faaaah!!” He repeated impatiently.
He was pointing at one of the many, many toys Peter had pulled from the bag and set on the table to get to the food. Little tendrils like Venom’s stretched out of his arm but he still couldn’t quite reach what he wanted.
“You want this one, buddy?” Peter picked up one of the toys.
Sleeper squealed and made excited grabby hands- it was a plush toy of Flash. Well, not really Flash per se. Agent Anti-Venom. Sleeper eagerly took the black and white plush toy from him and squeezed it in a hug. Peter noticed somewhat offended that Sleeper didn’t even have any Spider-Man toys.
“Okay, you’ve got your toy, you’re happy. Good. What do you want to eat?”
Peter held up the baggie of raw meat chunks and Sleeper turned his head.
“Alright, that’s a no on the protein then.”
Next held up the applesauce and Sleeper hissed.
“Okay.”
Peter opened the baggie of sliced bananas and dumped them on a little plate. Sleeper stared at the slices for a long time before smooshing them with his hands and poking them with his claws. Apparently having much more fun playing with them than entertaining the idea of eating them. Peter scooped some of the now mushy fruit onto a spoon and pushed it towards Sleeper’s mouth.
“Aaaaah!” Peter tried but Sleeper turned his head away.
Then he moved the spoon where Sleeper turned his head and he turned the opposite direction in refusal.
“Come on, it’s good. Yum, yum, yum!” Peter encouraged.
“Mmmm!” Sleeper whined and tried to turn further away.
Peter nudged his mouth with the end of the spoon until he finally opened it to hiss and bare his teeth again and when he did Peter shoved the food into his mouth. Sleeper looked shocked that he’d been outsmarted and immediately spit the food back out into Peter’s face.
“You know, I don’t get why everyone says you’re so cute.” Peter grumbled wiping his face.
Peter decided to take a different approach, maybe Sleeper would feel more like having a snack after having a bottle? Eddie wrote it down in that order at least. During his brief time with the bananas Sleeper managed to cover almost his entire front in the sticky, yellow, goop- should have put a bib on him before they started this. Peter fastened a bib on him that had a little planet Saturn and little alien spaceship embroidered on it. Were Eddie and Venom being ironic when they bought this? Peter sat Sleeper in his lap, popped the clear plastic cap off the bottle and offered it to him. To call the baby eager would be a drastic understatement of just how exuberantly he downed the bottle.
Sleeper finished and held the empty bottle up to Peter with both hands, Peter took it from him and his hands were still outstretched waiting for something.
“Oh, now you want your snack?”
Peter picked up the dry Cheerios and dumped some out for him. Sleeper very carefully picked up one Cheerio and very slowly put in his mouth like he wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Then he picked up another and held it up to Peter.
“For me?” He asked as he accepted the gift.
Sleeper finished half the baggie and Peter pulled it out of his reach per the written instructions.
“Aaaah!” He protested.
“Sorry, that’s all your dads say you can have.”
The corners of his mouth wobbled and his eyes got watery. Peter never knew it before now but sad puppy dog eyes had absolutely nothing on sad Sleeper Brock eyes. He stretched and struggled and reached even harder for the snack Peter was holding out of his grasp but as his efforts failed, he started to cry. Other people in the cafe started to look over at them. The sadder Sleeper got, the more people looked and the hotter Peter’s face felt.
Soon every single person in the cafe was looking at him like he was committing a grievous sin.
“O-Okay, you can have a little bit more.” Peter relented.
Sleeper devoured the rest of the cereal, then the applesauce, then the meat and everything else one after another- Peter lost all control of the playing field. He realized too late that Sleeper was using his abilities to make the other cafe patrons as upset with Peter as he was and that’s why he felt so soul-crushingly judged enough to give in to Sleeper’s diabolical little demands.
Peter was no parenting expert but he was pretty sure good parents didn’t give their kids whatever they wanted every time they so much as got teary eyed. It wasn’t soon enough when it was time to return the tiny mastermind to his parents and as soon as Peter made eye contact with Eddie he could see the conversation sparking between the man and his other. It didn’t help that Sleeper was slumped sadly on Peter’s shoulder- not a great way to return a baby to its parents.
“He has a stomach ache.” Eddie stated.
“He...Um, he must have eaten too much.” Peter admitted.
“Did you see the note in the diaper bag?”
“...Yeah. Yeah I did.” Peter sighed.
“We wrote it for this reason.”
“I understand the purpose of the strong emphasis now.” Peter nodded.
“Your son is a little bit manipulative please don’t maim me for saying that.” He added.