Left alone in confinement by the team of heroes who had so freely suggested torture as a way to get him to cooperate instead of trying something less aggressive, like persuasion, Eddie sat alone in his symbiote-proof cell. Well, not entirely alone. He still had his roomie, who was more than happy to keep him company from inside his head.
"Yo, bud," Eddie called out in a low voice that barely qualified as a whisper, speaking to the parasite taking up residence within his body. He knew perfectly well Venom could hear him, even though the symbiote had yet to give him any indication that he was listening.
"What exactly is that thing you called a Xeno…page?" Eddie asked, uncertainty creeping into his voice.
'A Xenophage,' Venom's voice echoed inside his head, correcting him.
"Yeah, that thing." Eddie nodded to himself before continuing. "What is it?"
'Think of it as a relentless lounge hunter created specifically to track us symbiotes,' Venom explained, sounding as though he had no intention of elaborating any further than necessary.
"Okay… That isn't freaky or anything."
Eddie couldn't help but feel a little uneasy as he stared around the empty cell. Venom had been acting strangely for the past couple of days, ever since the Xenophage had started chasing them. Normally, the symbiote was anything but quiet. Venom could talk for hours if given the opportunity, often filling Eddie's head with whatever random thought happened to cross his mind. But ever since Shazam and the others had started questioning them about Knull, Venom had become noticeably more withdrawn.
"Why is it after us?" Eddie asked, his earlier casualness beginning to fade. "And how would it even be able to sense us if we combine?"
For several seconds, there was no response. Then came a low, exasperated sound from Venom.
'Hmm.'
"Come on, bud. Say something." Eddie leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice even further. "I've got a lot of fucked-up shit going on right now. You might as well give me some answers. Why is it after you?"
'Us, Edd. It's after us.'
Venom's correction came immediately, but the symbiote conveniently ignored everything else Eddie had asked.
"Why!?" Eddie nearly yelled before catching himself. He quickly glanced toward the entrance of the cell, suddenly worried someone might have heard him practically talking to himself like a lunatic. After making sure no one was standing outside, his eyes moved around the room as he searched for cameras.
Finding none, Eddie relaxed slightly.
Venom, of course, had already noticed his concern.
'I can't say because I don't know, Edd.'
The answer was frustrating, but at least it was honest. Eddie drew in a long breath and slowly let it out, forcing himself to calm his increasingly erratic nerves before continuing.
"Okay. How about this Knull guy?" Eddie asked, settling back against the wall. "Who is he, and why is he sending those creatures after us? It's not like we picked a fight with him or anything."
He paused, his brow furrowing as a sudden thought occurred to him.
"We didn't… right?"
Eddie's stress and fatigue had reached such an extreme level that he was beginning to wonder if he was actually losing his memory. At this point, he wouldn't have been surprised if he'd forgotten his own name. After his conversation with his not-so-cooperative parasitic buddy, all he wanted was to curl up somewhere and enjoy a long, satisfying nap. Unfortunately, knowing his luck, that peaceful nap would probably have to wait until after the Avengers were done coming back to question him for the second time.
'I…am not sure,' Venom finally replied after a long pause. 'He isn't the type whose will or reasoning can be comprehended.'
"What, who the hell is this guy?" Eddie asked, his voice carrying a mixture of exhaustion and frustration. He was getting really tired of asking the same questions over and over again just to squeeze the tiniest pieces of information out of Venom. At the same time, his curiosity had only grown stronger. Whoever this person was, he had Venom so shaken that the normally talkative symbiote had practically shut down, while the Avengers were apparently desperate enough to interrogate them over him.
"Come on, bud. Help me out here. I'm losing my mind." Eddie rubbed his tired face as he pleaded with his partner. Venom had been with him through more than enough shitty situations over the past couple of days to know that most normal people would have completely broken down by now. Hell, considering everything they'd been through, Eddie himself wasn't entirely sure how he was still holding it together.
Hesitantly, Venom let out an exasperated sigh, the sound echoing inside Eddie's mind. It seemed as though the symbiote had finally decided to give him at least one useful piece of information, if only to satisfy some of his curiosity and hopefully reduce the frequency of his questions.
'He isn't a "guy".' Venom paused, clearly reluctant to continue. 'In Earth terms…he's my dad.'
"What!?" Eddie exclaimed aloud before immediately remembering where he was and lowering his voice. His eyes widened as the revelation finally registered. "Your dad?"
That somehow made the entire situation even weirder. Eddie had already been struggling to wrap his head around the existence of Knull, the Xenophage, and whatever secret Venom was apparently keeping from him. Now he was being told that this somewhat terrifying being responsible for all of this was Venom's father.
"What do you mean your dad?" Eddie asked in a hushed tone, leaning forward slightly as though lowering his voice would somehow make the answer less insane.
'That's all I can say at the moment,' Venom replied.
"Why would he send a monster like that to kill you?" Eddie pressed, his tired eyes narrowing. "Seriously, just who the hell is he?"
This time, however, Eddie received nothing but silence.
Venom completely withdrew into himself, refusing to answer another question. The silence became so complete that, for a brief moment, Eddie almost felt as though he were alone inside his own head again. The only thing reminding him that he wasn't was the crushing effects of his exhaustion and severe sleep deprivation.
Meanwhile, right outside the cell, Shazam and the other members of the Avengers stood gathered around a security monitor. A small camera hidden near the entrance had provided them with both video and audio of everything happening inside. Natasha watched the screen carefully while Steve, Clint, and the others listened to the conversation, all of them processing the information they'd just heard. Bruce was notably absent from the group.
Shazam was the first to break the silence. He looked toward Natasha before slowly sweeping his gaze across the others, a satisfied grin beginning to form on his face.
"Lady and gentlemen…" he said, sounding like a cop who had spent weeks staking out a suspect who had repeatedly pleaded the Fifth and refused to give them anything they could use. He gestured toward the screen with an almost ridiculous amount of satisfaction. "We've got 'em."
"But what do you think he meant by his dad?" Steve asked, still trying to make sense of the revelation.
"Surely he doesn't mean that primordial darkness guy with the cool-ass name Knull is his dad…right?" Clint asked, glancing between the others.
"Considering what the parasite and the red one look like…" Natasha began, only to trail off before finishing the thought.
She stared at the screen for another moment, seemingly unsure whether the conclusion forming in her mind was actually possible or simply too absurd to entertain.
Nobody immediately offered an answer.
Because, for once, they were all thinking the exact same thing.
"Hmm…" Shazam hummed, his expression becoming thoughtful for a brief moment as he stared at the security monitor. He seemed to get lost in his own thoughts, his mind briefly returning to the strange vision Solomon had shown him. Steve, who had recently started paying closer attention to Shazam in an effort to better understand their newest, youngest, and yet somehow strongest member, noticed the change immediately.
"What is it?" Steve asked, turning his attention toward him.
"Oh, it's nothing," Shazam replied, snapping out of his brief contemplation with a small smile. "It's just that among the visions Solomon showed me regarding Knull, there was something I didn't really understand at the time." He paused, his brow furrowing slightly as he tried to put the memory into words. Even now, he wasn't entirely sure what he'd actually seen. "There was this…massive body. It was so large that, at first glance, it could easily have passed for a planet."
"And?" Clint prompted, clearly wanting him to get to the point.
"It looked like a giant ball, except it was alive." Shazam gestured vaguely with his hands, struggling to describe something that had made very little sense even when he'd witnessed it. "It was made of this huge, slimy, writhing mass. And the weird part was that it had the exact same properties as Venom's gooeyness."
Steve's expression morphed as the pieces began falling into place. His lips parted as he prepared to voice the realization he'd just reached, but before he could say anything, another voice came from behind them.
"…And that's how you recognized our gooey alien friend as being related to this Knull guy who's apparently interested in wiping out our world."
The interruption earned Steve a brief flicker of annoyance. Tony had developed an increasingly irritating habit of cutting him off whenever he was in the middle of saying something, and Steve was beginning to suspect Tony did it simply because he enjoyed watching him get annoyed.
Everyone turned toward the hallway, where Tony was approaching with Bruce walking beside him. Each man carried a disc-shaped device in one hand, though Tony wore a kind of satisfied smirk that immediately made Shazam suspicious.
Tony continued as he approached. "A world which, as messed up as it is, I would very much prefer not to see destroyed by some geezer whose bizarre fetish is eternal darkness. Seriously, why can't he just stay up there in space and enjoy his darkness by himself? Hell, I'd even build him some kind of fancy tech to block out the sun from his view if that's what it takes to keep him happy. Just leave the planet alone and, preferably, don't go around destroying our sun while you're at it."
'Someone's awfully chatty tonight,' Shazam thought as Tony finally came to a stop in front of them. 'He must've had a really good date.'
The thought became even more amusing when Shazam noticed the satisfied smile on Tony's face, while Bruce beside him wore a similar expression, though his was considerably more subtle.
'Just what have these two cooked up?'
Shazam couldn't help but wonder as his eyes shifted toward the two disc-like devices in their hands. For Eddie and his parasitic buddy's sake, he almost found himself praying that whatever Tony and Bruce had prepared wasn't going to make their current situation even worse.
"What are those?" Steve finally asked, his attention fixed on the strange devices both men had brought with them.
With the near-comical smile of an insane inventor who was far too excited to try out his newest invention, Bruce wore an expression that was somehow even more daring than Tony's as he replied, "These are meant to simulate a sound frequency similar to the one described by Officer McCall in his letter."
"Officer McCall?" Natasha asked, glancing at Bruce with a questioning look. Clint, standing right beside her, cocked an eyebrow, clearly having the same thought. Even Steve wore a similar expression, while Shazam remained silent for a moment, going over the name in his head before something seemed to click.
"Among the creatures described in his letter, one of them matches Venom..." Bruce began explaining, only for Tony to cut in and finish the thought.
"...while the other matches nothing we've ever heard of. I mean, unless it's some kind of multidimensional being, that's the only explanation for the way he described it moving through space. Like it was moving through multiple frames instead of actually moving normally." Tony gestured as he spoke, apparently far too fascinated by the possibility.
'This bastard must really get off on interrupting people when they speak.' Steve thought, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly as he fought down a subtle expression of annoyance even though he wasn't the one interrupted this time around.
"Or he was just hallucinating because of whatever happened at the mall that night," Shazam offered, throwing his own theory into the discussion.
"And what would you know about science stuff?" Tony immediately turned his attention toward Shazam, giving him a skeptical look.
"When push comes to shove, quite a lot, I'd say," Shazam replied confidently.
"We'll see about that when your grades for the term come out." Tony dropped the statement with such a deadpan expression that Shazam froze for a brief moment, his confidence seemingly short-circuited by the reminder.
Then, as if deciding that the safest course of action was to simply change the subject, Shazam suddenly clapped his hands together. "Okay, folks, let's go get some answers." With that, he turned and began leading the way toward the door, leaving the others to follow after him with varying degrees of amusement.
For a hero capable of rivaling the strongest member of the Avengers, a being who was literally a god, to be visibly pressured by the prospect of his academic grades was not something anyone got to witness every other day. And judging by the amused expressions on the Avengers' faces, it was a sight they were going to enjoy for a while.
- - -
Author's Note:
I hope you noticed the sense of humor and mannerism I use for Hawkeye (Clint Barton) isn't same as that from the MCU, but from the animated series.