Chapter 2
There's a moment when you realize you've haven't been eaten.
You slowly pull your arms away from your face, which you didn't realize you had crossed over yourself in some kind of final attempt at protection, and risk a look up. You're met with it's- with Venom’s smiling face, and it's deep breathing rumbling from its chest, vibrating into yours and you're suddenly very aware that it's just holding you, flush against it, in front of all the cameras no less! You can already see the front pages now:
Spider-Woman Cuddling Up With Monster During Bank Heist!
You'd groan, but you wouldn't want to risk it being heard or felt by anyone.
Something stirred inside you, from your wildly beating heart, to the adrenaline pumping through your veins, the camera flashes, and the more aware you became of what exactly was going on around you: you have just survived what could have been your final moments, with the world watching, and people depending on you and cheering you on all at the same time. You’re chest to chest to what could be a real life Villain! You had the most selfish, and most exhilarating thought you could possible have from this entire situation:
‘I'm excited. This is exciting!’
“Venom, was it?” you managed to breath out. You looked to the crowd, watching your every move from the outside, wondering if they could see behind your mask and see your terrible excitement. You gesture between what little space his hold gives you, “Now what are we gonna do about those rumors?” When you wave your arms out in a dramatic fashion and sputter in mock exasperation to emphasize your question, you realize that the pen and paper were still in your hands, albeit crumpled and crushed from your trip into your current position, but still useable on both ends. You tried not to think about it too much when you smoothed the paper on Venom's chest and started writing. “Tell me, I feel like it’s rude of me to call you an it, but I don’t know you or what you are or what you prefer, so you gotta tell me.”
“We don’t care.”
“Uh-huh. And can I ask about the whole ‘we’ thing?” A small portion of its face peeled back and opened up, revealing a blue, human eye, wide and staring right at you. You gasped and just like that it was gone, and Venom’s face was whole again.
“That was our host. He thinks we should listen to you and leave the criminals to you and the police, but he doesn't always get to control us, and you never will, bug.” It leans in close to you, and your faces are almost touching. “You can take the innocents and leave, and we'll take what we came for.”
Your face twitched into a frown, and it seemed like your morals were slowly coming back from vacation. “Your snack?”
It chuckles. “Our snack.”
You look up at the two robbers stuck to the ceiling, then to the one on the floor, clutching himself in pain, then back up to the ‘innocents’.
Every eye in the room was on you.
You took a look at the paper you've been writing on.
‘Get a ladder. Right side of the building.’
You balled it up, and sent it flying out the door, praying someone would open it up. You turned back to Venom, who was watching you intently, at least letting you think about your answer. You wrap your arms around its neck, pulling yourself up to be face-to-face with it, and you feel its arm tighten around you ever so slightly, eyes narrowing and its mouth opening enough to slither out a small portion of its tongue between its teeth.
You lean back and smash your forehead into its eyes.
It drops you to clutch at its face, hissing and growling in anger and pain, and you're immediately back to the ceiling, bringing the robber on the floor with you to join his friends in some web, jumping to the exit window and looking out, where some officers were finally getting the ladder you requested.
One of them spotted you. “We've got you covered, Spider-Woman! Just start sending people down.” You sent them a thumbs-up then bounced back out of the way of a black tendril that looked too sharp for your liking. You tried to get to whoever you could, one at a time and quickly as possible, including the robbers. To your relief, it kept its word and didn't risk trying to harm you when you were getting hostages, but whenever you strayed from the robbers, it would turn its attention to them and you'd have to defend them and then yourself. You launch yourself at it, flipping in the air and positioning yourself to go for another stomp on its face, but it catches you by your ankles and in an instant you’re slammed into the ground, your own repressed grunts of pain being drowned from the terrified screams of the people on the ceiling. Venom leans in close to your face, holding you down to the floor with one of its hands, and growls in your ear,
“It’s nothing personal, but we don’t particularly like heros; always getting in the way. Just let us take the criminals, and we'll be done.”
“You can't tell me you eat every single criminal you get into contact with.”
It smiles again. “We try. We don’t want to hurt you, Spider, but you're definitely making an enemy of us.Stay down. We're hungry.”
Your eyes flicker towards the ceiling. You lock eyes with one of the robbers and you can see tears welling up in his eyes. You shake your head, returning your gaze to Venom. “I-I can’t. Maybe your friend in there can understand but it's not that damn easy sometimes-” you're cut off by your own pained scream as it presses its hand into your already bruised and most likely broken body. Your arms are still free and you try to pry it off of you before it breaks a rib or further damages one. “If you're trying to be a hero yourself, you're not doing that great of a job of it!” You spit this out through gritted teeth, flailing under its hold in an attempt to break yourself free. “Is this because you're really that hellbent on killing them, or did I just piss you off that much?”
“Maybe both.” It finally lets go of you and you immediately clutch at your abdomend. The spider that bit you made you stronger in every way, so this either proves how strong this thing is, or how weak you really are. Still, you’re not down and out yet, you just need a plan.
You attach a web to its back as it turns away from you and yank yourself onto it, wrapping your arms around its neck again.
Stalling can be counted as a plan, I guess.
“Venom, baby, we’ve both said and done things we regret in our time together.”
“Have we now?”
“I know I definitely have, on account of my bruised rib cage. You probably don’t regret bruising it, but I can look past that.” You scan the bank for anything, absolutely anything that could help you. Venom doesn’t seem eager to throw you off yet, but you know one can only bare your jokes and quips for so long before you've passed their tolerance for annoyance. You crawled to its front, one arm wrapping around your torso in an attempt to nurse your pains, back in a position similar to the hold it had you in earlier, expect this time, Venom didn't move to support you. “What, now you don't wanna hold me? Have I lost my feminine charm already- am I not pretty to you anymore?”
Maybe you really are lonely. Here you are, playing sad wife in an attempt to what, joke until he decides your acting is enough to not eat anyone?
It wretches you off and goes to drop you, but you immediately shoot yet another web up at the ceiling and position yourself upside down in front of it. “Hows about a kiss to get things right between us?” You immediately make a sound in the back of your throat grimacing and thinking to yourself, ‘I'm sorry for everyone who has ever had to interact with me.’ You open your eyes that you had squeezes shut in your cringe to find yourself presented with a very, very long tongue, and your jaw drops (the top half, that is, since you're upside down).
‘Oh sweet Jesus, that would be a riveting game of tonsil hockey.’ Your hand instinctively goes to your throat and you swallow hard. “Ho-honestly, you go for tongue and you haven't even asked me to dinner yet.”
“Get out of our way and you can join us for lunch.”
You're about to shoot something back when the high-pitched sound of a megaphone rings out from the outside. You flinch, but the beast in front of you covers its head, hissing.
“We have the building surrounded and will be entering in two minutes! We have snipers at the ready, and will open fire at will! We want the hostages out of the crossfire, Spider-Woman! Whatever is going on in there, end it quick or get the hostages out before we take matters into our own hands! Two minutes!”
“What's more important to you, honestly, the innocent people, or you biting a few heads off?”
It stared out the bank doors, growling as more and more officers set themselves up for a fight. “You'd better hurry.We won't make any promises,” it turns to you, “but we'll try the hero gamefor now.” You're back on the ceiling the moment it stops talking, and the thump that shortly follows you tells you that it's right behind you. Every fearful scream has you snapping your head back at it, and every time you see it grabbing people two at a time and guiding them out the window as gently as it could with them screaming and struggling.. You could only get one person at a time yourself, and you focused on getting the robbers out before it could get any funny ideas. You were finished in a little less than a minute, which left time for you and Venom to stare at each other on the ceiling.
“Thank you.” It smiles, yet again. “You're visiting, right? Let's say this time you got away, and I'll get you arrested next time I run into you this week, deal?” You extend your hand out to it, and you expect to be snubbed. It stares at your hand, and the call of “One minute,” from the officer outside makes it move, grabbing your hand, but making no moves to shake it.
“It's a date. We won't go so easy so easy on you next time, little bug.”
“Be still my throbbing rib cage.”
With that, it yanks you off of the ceiling and hurls you to the ground. You brace yourself as much as you can, and the last thing you see before hitting the floor is Venom, swinging- no, web-slinging out of the bank.
‘That's my thing..’
You black out when your back makes contact with the floor.