Cool
Venom was keeping Eddie somewhat focused as he sat slouched against the headboard of their bed. It was a very early three in the morning and right on schedule Sleeper was hungry so Venom had to pull Eddie out of the sweet embrace of sleep to feed him. Their infant son was evidently torn between eating and playing so getting him back to bed was taking a while. Suddenly all three of them were startled by a loud thud.
“What was that?” Eddie craned his neck to see out into the hall.
Another loud thump.
“Venom, I think there’s someone in the house.” Eddie whispered frantically.
“Good, I am starving.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Let’s just go down there and...see.”
The last thing Eddie wanted was for the kids to wake up to a bloodbath in the living room...maybe he could convince Venom to maim the intruders outside.
They put Sleeper back in the safety of the nursery and quietly made their way down the stairs. Venom sheathed Eddie’s skin making him blend seamlessly into the shadows of the house, at the bottom of the stairs they could see two men talking in hushed voices in the middle of their living room so they crouched down a bit and listened.
“There’s nothing valuable here! It’s just toys and kids stuff!” One of the men hissed from under his black ski mask.
“Come on, the TV is valuable! And they have a PlayStation! And there was a laptop in the kitchen!” The other masked man said.
“I don’t know who lives here but they don’t have any jewelry, any silver, any china or any gadgets besides the basics. No wonder there’s no security system! You said this place would be a score!”
“Hey! It's a nice house! I thought it would be! How was I supposed to know these people would be so boring?!”
“Did they just call us boring?” Eddie whispered a little bit offended.
“Well, we never have been materialistic. Almost everything we own is for the children.” Venom reasoned.
One of the intruders tried to cross to the other side of the living room but tripped over Phage’s toy monster truck that was sitting on the floor just as haphazardly as everything else. Their house wasn’t a total wreck but it was hard to keep the place pristine with six little monsters running around all the time. The intruder cursed loudly and then pulled himself back up- Eddie and Venom tensed, they didn’t want these idiots waking up the whole house.
“What’s that in the corner?” One of the men pointed to an obscure pile of shapes in the far corner of the room.
The man who tripped eagerly rushed over but stubbed his toe on the shadowy objects making him curse again even more loudly. The shadowy pile was Eddie’s weight set that lived in that corner. The now twice injured intruder was hissing and cursing up a storm.
Upstairs, Sleeper was quite unhappy with both his mealtime and his playtime being cut short only to be left alone in his room while something fun was clearly happening downstairs. So he started to cry for attention. He wanted to have fun too!
The two intruders froze as Sleeper’s little cries permeated the walls.
“There’s a baby here, we’re robbing a baby!” One of the intruders seemed to be panicking.
“We are not robbing a baby. We are robbing its parents.” The other (injured) intruder clarified.
“I think….I think these two are too stupid to slaughter, V.” Eddie admitted.
“They broke into our home, Eddie. Where our family lives. I am going to at least traumatize them.”
Eddie just sighed.
“Just try not to wake up the kids.” Was his concession.
Venom just snickered and swallowed him up and the two intruders froze solid at the sight of Venom’s massive form rising up out of the shadows on the walls, their eyes and teeth reflecting the silver moonlight from outside, their long tongue weaving side to side.
“What the fuck! What the fuck!” The uninjured of the two screeched out.
“Oh...no, no, no, no, no.” The other one chanted, probably realizing every single place he’s gone wrong in his life leading up to this moment.
“You’re bad at this.”
The blunt, matter of fact little voice came from Agony who was watching the pathetic scene from the top of the stairs. Her siblings were with her, also curiously watching what was going on in their living room, and in Carnage’s arms was Sleeper- no longer crying and very excited to be included. In the back of their mind Eddie groaned mournfully because there was no way any of them would be going back to bed now.
“Please don’t kill us!” The less brave of the two masked men begged.
“Do it, Dad!” Carnage cheered on their father.
“Papa go!” Sleeper enthusiastically repeated Carnage’s sentiment even if he didn’t totally get what he was cheering for.
Venom just growled and snarled, moving forward to loom over the two men. Venom snatched the bag from one of the men’s hands and inspected it- it was all the things they apparently deemed valuable enough to steal and there really wasn’t much. Eddie’s laptop, the PlayStation, a few silver picture frames with the pictures pulled out (they probably thought they were real silver- they weren’t) and a ceramic piggy bank with a few quarters jangling around in it.
“Hey that’s mine!” Phage pointed at the piggy bank.
Venom roared at the cowering men and grabbed them both, dragging them out the door. The children had been woken up so at the very least they could respect Eddie’s request of not in the house. The two men kicked and screamed like children as Venom dragged them across the damp lawn as their actual children pressed up to the windows, grinning and watching excitedly. Venom tossed the pair onto the grass, pulled off their ski masks and loomed over them as they continued to snivel and beg for their lives.
“A-Are those your children?” It was a dumb question posed by the injured intruder that had Venom seething even worse than before.
“If you show your face in this neighborhood ever again we will tear you limb from limb, is that understood?”
“Yessir!” They cried.
“If we find out you are robbing anyone we will rid you of your heads.”
“Yessir!”
“If you say another word about the children we will flay you both alive here and now.”
“Sorry, sir!”
“Get out of our sight.”
The two men scrambled to escape, screaming and slipping on the wet grass as they went.
When they turned around they were surprised to find the children bolting out of the house towards them. They slipped on the wet grass just like the robbers had and clumsily lost their humanoid forms, slithering in the grass like colorful but uncoordinated little snakes. Even Sleeper (who went down with Carnage) the smallest and most uncoordinated little snake. The group of squirmy little goos did make it to Venom and climbed all over them excitedly before regaining their forms in Venom’s arms. They were shouting at their parent in a jumbled mess of “Papa! Papa!” and “That was awesome!” and “Dad, you’re so cool!” and “I wanna be like you!”.
Venom noticed a curious warm, fuzzy feeling inside of them at their children’s awe and amazement. However, they casually shrugged it off because it was probably coming from Eddie.
At least, that’s what they’d tell themselves later.