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It was just a silly trope used in sci-fi movies and tv shows. People didn’t die and then come back wrong. But to be fair, that might in part be because usually when people die, they don’t come back at all.
Eddie wonders what that must be like - dying and staying dead. He’s never had much luck with it himself, but he also didn’t think he’d ever come back any worse off than he was to start with, so maybe it evened out.
The first time, he doesn’t remember, but he’s heard enough about it. A woman is in labor and something goes wrong. There’s a drop in blood pressure and bleeding they can’t seem to get under control. The woman dies, and the baby dies, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.
But then, a miracle. At least the hospital staff called it one.
They got the baby back. No one is quite sure how, but no one questions it too much, either. A little one is alive, and surely that’s all that matters.
To the father of the child, it wasn’t even close.
———-
The second time he remembers, but he didn’t really understand what happened until much later. He was maybe eight, and had done something wrong, though he’s long since forgotten what. His father hit a little too hard, a little too close to the top of the stairs. It was an accident, of course.
The look of disappointment on his father’s face when he woke up at the bottom of the steps is one that will be seared into his brain forever, no matter how much he’d like to forget it.
———-
The third time was also an accident, but this one was all his own. He was a stupid teenager, upset and coming off yet another argument with his father, and driving recklessly. Someone else was out there doing something similar, though they were drunk and having a blast, a kid a few years younger than him from a neighboring school.
Unsurprisingly, two distracted drivers are no good at avoiding a collision with one another.
Like the first time, he’s not the only one to die, but he’s the only one to come back.
———-
The fourth time was intentional.
There’s only so many times you can miraculously recover from a ‘near’ death experience before you start getting suspicious, and Eddie was more than suspicious by that point. He also didn’t particularly care too much if his suspicions were wrong.
So he tested it. Experimented. Took a whole bottle of sleeping pills and settled into a nice, warm bath.
When he wakes up, seven hours have passed, and he’s completely submerged in the now cold water. After that, he wants to try again, and again and again, but he doesn’t. He already knows what the outcome would be.
Miracles. More like bullshit.
———-
The fifth time he dies, whatever curse has been keeping him going this long doesn’t get the chance to act. Venom is faster, which is fine by him. Well, fine for about forty-five seconds, before Venom tries to sacrifice himself for Eddie’s dumbass.
He doesn’t know if this thing that keeps happening to him is transferable or not, but he hopes it is right before he hits the water and the world goes dark.
Later, when he comes to washed up on the beach, he’s genuinely not sure if he just died for a sixth time or not, but he doesn’t really care. He can feel now the little spark in him, a wiggling, symbiotic warmth, and for the first time, he thanks whatever force is responsible.
———-
Needless to say, Eddie is used to dying. It’s not something that even concerns him anymore. He pretends, as one must, that he’s afraid of death, but really he’s more afraid that he’ll never actually get to properly die.
So when Venom tells him about the codex, when he says that one of them has to die, Eddie knows he’s going to make sure it’s the right one.
He gets his chance at Area 51 of all places.
For all that he might want to think he is, Venom is not subtle. Eddie knows the symbiote plans to pull another “Goodbye Eddie” pile of crap, and he’s not going to allow it. But he can’t let Venom know that, either. So he plays along. He waits.
When the moment comes, when he can feel that Venom is about to try to push him out, he takes matters into his own hands. He pulls on a power shared between them that he doesn’t usually bother acknowledging he has, and he stops the action, freezes everything long enough for Strickland to drag himself up one more time, and then he is the one who pushes, not Venom. He gives it all the effort he’s got left, because it doesn’t matter what happens to him at this point.
Things get a little blurry from there.
He feels something disconnect, a shrinking, a falling. He hopes that he’s successfully ejected his symbiote, that Venom is far enough away to not be affected, because the next part comes quick. Rain and pain and heat and nothingness.
———-
Eddie wakes up again, because of course he does.
It feels like it’s been longer this time, and he can’t really pinpoint why until he starts taking in his surroundings. The former Area 51 is clean and clear, with no obvious indicators of the massive explosion that must have taken place. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help give him much of a timeline, considering the government could move pretty quickly when they had something to cover up. They’d swept up the evidence and abandoned the place.
So he’s more than a little surprised when a beat up old truck clunks into view. He doesn’t bother trying to hide. What’s the worst they could do, kill him?
Pulling up in front of him in a cloud of dust, he thinks the vehicle looks vaguely familiar. The woman that cracks open the door and gapes at him is even more familiar.
“Paine.”
“Eddie Brock.” She says, shaking her head. “He said you’d be here. I didn’t believe him.”
“You mean…”
“There’s a symbiote that’s going to be very happy to see you. And very angry.”
“That sounds about right.” He doesn’t wait for an invite to climb in, and she doesn’t offer one, just drives off after he’s shut the door.
After a couple of miles, face and voice carefully neutral, she asks, “Care to explain?”
“I’m bad at a lot of things. Dying is one of them.”
“Like a cockroach?”
He hums noncommittally. Cockroach isn’t the worst thing he’s been called, and it’s not entirely inaccurate, either.
Paine tells him that either herself or her colleague, Christmas, have been driving by every few hours for nearly three days at Venom’s insistence. He’d wanted to hang around 24/7, but they decided they had to draw the line somewhere. A line that was only upheld by…
“You’ve got a symbiote?” He asks, surprised. He knew there were more of them, obviously, but didn’t expect any of them to stick around. Certainly not with one of the people from the lab.
A tentacle pops out of her shoulder and waves at him before disappearing just as quickly. He’s not certain if it was more pink or more purple, but he supposes it doesn’t really matter too much. “Say hi to Agony.”
“Uh. Hi.”
———-
Before the truck’s even stopped, Christmas is storming up to them. Well, not really Christmas, Eddie knows that without needing to see the flickering eyes or hear the furious growl.
He’s still very happy when he does, though.
He’s not surprised or upset when a plethora of black tentacles start to whack at him as soon as he’s out of the vehicle. It’s only a few smacks though before the goop latches on and sinks in.
Venom’s anger and relief mingles with Eddie’s, their very own echo chamber of excessive emotion.
You are an asshole.
“Like you weren’t about to do the same exact thing. Besides…”
You assumed you would be fine, I know. And I don’t fucking care. You could’ve been wrong this ti–
Hold on.
“You knew? About the whole…” He waves a hand around, searching for the right word. “Respawning thing?”
Of course I knew.
He hadn’t really thought about it, which was a bit of a habit with him, but in hindsight…
How did he ever think that Venom wouldn’t know? He knew the symbiote had poked through his memories on several different occasions, but they’d never brought it up, so he just assumed it was somehow overlooked. It wasn’t something he was eager to discuss anyways, so it worked for him.
Until it didn’t. Because if Venom knew–
“Then what the hell were you doing?”
Apparently their communication hadn’t improved quite as much as he’d hoped it had.
Protecting you, you idiot. One of these times you might die for real.
There’s an edge there that he recognizes, the same one that they both have whenever the rocket comes up. It makes him ask the next part a little softer.
“You thought it was this time, didn’t you?”
Didn’t you? And he actually sounds sad, which is one of those feelings they usually try to hide from one another. Maybe they should stop that. It took three days, Eddie.
“No, I know.” He knows all too well. “I’m trying not to think about it, actually.”
Logistically, it made even less sense than any of the previous times. If it was ever going to take, surely this would’ve been it? He can’t say he’s ever melted before, but how does that even get fixed?
I had to think about it.
“I’m…”
Don’t say you’re sorry. You’re not.
“No, I’m not. Would you be?”
No. Venom’s still mad, but Eddie can feel when it stops being the dominant emotion. Don’t do it again.
“No promises.” He says automatically, immediately getting jabbed in a kidney. “Hey, be nice. I just got alive again.”
He needs to ask if their little codex problem is solved or not, but he can’t bring himself to. At the very least, it should’ve bought them some time. If it took a year for it to bite them in the ass the first time around, he guesses there should be at least that long before it becomes a problem again.
Or not, but whatever.
It might still be a problem, or it might not be. He might never die, or his luck might run out the next time his ticket gets punched. Agony might turn out to be the next Riot or Carnage, or a new ally, or someone they’ll never see again. Same for Paine and Christmas, even if–
Eddie.
“Yeah?” Probably best that Venom interrupts that train of thought anyway.
They need some kind of plan, afterall. He wasn’t sure if preventing an alien invasion that you were also sort of the cause of to start with gained any favor from the authorities. He’d promised New York, the Statue of Liberty, and he meant it, but it would be nice if they didn’t have to sneak there.
Eddie. You are brooding.
He snorts a laugh. “What am I, Batman?”
Even without manifesting, Venom’s smile is obvious. Too broke to be Batman.
“And who’s fault is that?”
Yours. You were a loser when I met you.
“Does that mean I’m not now?”
It’s a strange feeling to be snuggled from the inside, but Eddie’s gotten used to it. More than that, actually, he’s come to enjoy it. It’s a them thing, something that could never be replicated by anyone else. Well, maybe Paine and Agony - and wasn’t that a matching set if he’s ever heard one - but he doubted they were at that point yet. It had taken long enough for him to get there with Venom.
Almost too long.
We are losers together. It is better.
It is.
Eddie’s not certain of a lot of things, not even death. But there is at least one thing he’s come to be sure of.
They’re better together.