Felicia kept her promise of arriving at the same time the next night, and wasn't surprised to see Venom already waiting for her on the rooftop. Even with his immense size, he was almost unnoticeable in the dark until you went up close and saw patches of the black shifting around, catching the moonlight. He wasn't really that much bigger than Eddie was normally, and it took a lot more than big muscles to scare her. In fact, they usually just did the exact opposite for her.
He eyed her as she vaulted up the building to stand before him, looming over here even when he was hunched over. She eyed him back, her gaze favouring his chest, and whether or not he noticed didn't make his growls any louder or softer.
"We've decided," he announced.
Felicia smiled, already knowing what his answer was. Venom dragged his tongue thickly over his fangs, coating them in a sheen of fresh saliva as he huffed. It wasn't quite a grin like hers, more like a grimace. Showing his teeth to the alpha.
"Whatever it is you're really up to," he said, "we'll get you to whoever you need to see. On two conditions." He held up his claws to count them off, the huge talons slicing through the air.
"One: no innocents harmed. If we find out these targets of yours haven't done anything-"
Felicia rolled her eyes, forever weary of the moral compass of every man she knew always pointing to 'boring'. "They're as far from innocent as you can get," she assured. "Don't treat me like I'm the psycho villain here, Eddie."
Venom growled, the white of one eye bulging as if an eyebrow was cocking under it. Drool oozed from one corner of his maw.
"Very well. As for two…" His mouth yawned wide, and for just a second Felicia thought it was about to clamp down on her head. But it didn't close again, it only fell back further until the teeth retracted into the black ooze and the throat simply vanished, replaced by a human head with black tendrils retreating through his hair. It was as if Venom had regurgitated Eddie, who now stood looking at her, his stern scowl severely undercut by his next demand.
"I get to use your shower," he said.
Felicia blinked, and blinked again. No, he was really serious. "What?!"
"You've seen my apartment, Cat," Eddie answered, only slightly embarrassed. "The bathroom barely fits in the toilet and sink."
"Then how the hell have you been bathing this whole time?!" Felicia was hissing to keep her voice down, before shaking her head in defeat and disgust. "Actually, I don't want to know. Fine. If it gets you onboard and stops me having to smell you."
She thought it was a fair enough deal, but Eddie looked like she'd just slapped him. "I don't smell!" he insisted, furrowing his eyebrows. "...Do I?"
Felicia hit him back with a similar look, deadpan dripping through her voice. "Honey, you hang out in the sewers."
Eddie looked like he was about to argue, before he looked away for a second and he pouted.
"...Point taken. Can I use it right now, then?"
"No. I have a lead." Felicia leapt down to the lower roof, forcing Eddie to vault after her just to keep up.
"Already?" he asked, the symbiote seizing his vocal cords as it flooded back over his head. Felicia looked back as she reached the edge of the unbroken line of rooftops, watching his white eyes settle back into place. It was almost entrancing, how such intricate details could just emerge out of the blank black slime, like they were bubbling up from a thick stew.
"I knew you'd say yes, so I've been tailing an old contact all day," Felicia said. "He'll be our starting point." She surveyed the landscape below them, the city intersection that still bustled and blared with traffic this late in the evening. She had arrived at his apartment from the same side of the street, but where they had to be was far on the other side.
'Dammit, Eddie, did you have to live in one of the busiest neighbourhoods in New York?' First kneeling down, she straightened up to try and judge the distance between where they both stood and the towering buildings across from them. If she was alone she might have risked leaping across the stoplights, or going a little higher to find a telephone line hanging over the road. But she had to accomodate for a much larger, much less stealthy partner now.
A partner who could shoot weblines. And, unlike with a certain spider, she wouldn't have to worry about slipping off.
"Think you can get us over to the Bowery without being seen?" Felicia asked Venom, who answered with a snort that rippled through his whole body.
"We don't think," he boomed out. "We know we can. Climb on."
Though she wasn't excited by the thought of sticking to the goo on his back, at least she wouldn't be straining herself to hold on. He knelt down so she could find purchase around his shoulders, pushing her feet off of his thighs for leverage. He was smoother than she was expecting, like black vinyl shimmering under her gloved hands. Almost like her own suit. It wasn't until her arms were wrapped tightly around his neck that the vinyl surged, latching onto her wrists to secure her properly to him. Her waist was also captured by thin black tendrils, lashing her to his back. Felicia shivered as she felt the symbiote squirming over her, trying not to remember what Lee Price's hold on her felt like.
"Just don't get any of it in my hair," she teased, throwing her head sideways so her white tresses wouldn't get caught in the ooze. She felt Venom rumble beneath her.
"We're sure that's a common worry for you," he said back. Before she had a chance to realise the joke, he anchored a webline high up and jumped from the roof, swinging them both high over the intersection.
It had been a long time since she'd last been on a web trip through the city… ever since Peter threw her aside. She'd almost forgotten the rush, the sensation of her whole body falling after her stomach as it dropped out from beneath her, the way her nerves jolted as she was hauled back upwards in an arc through the air… and how damn cold it was (just as well she'd padded the important parts of her suit).
With Venom, with Eddie carrying her, it was the exact same feeling… but different. Better, even. Though the symbiote covering him seemed to move like a thick, viscous mass, Felicia could feel his huge muscles flexing under her as if they were bare, just as distinctly as the cold wind blasting through her hair with each swing. She could feel the immense effort it took to carry himself across the city, but he barely broke a sweat. He wasn't even breathing hard. He wasn't breathing at all, save for some huffs of cold air that puffed in front of his fangs. Felicia was impressed, but she scolded herself at getting too distracted. From how the buildings flashing by them changed, she knew they were almost there.
"Little bit lower, big guy," she said in his ear, having to yell over the rush of air wailing around them. "We're getting close."
"Just who is this contact of yours?" Venom bellowed back, letting his weblines go longer so they slowly slipped closer to the ground.
"I'll tell you when we see him," she insisted. The last thing Felicia needed was Venom going charging after him before she laid out her plan. She'd learned a thing or two from the last time she had to work with him, back when Carnage turned New York into his personal slaughterhouse; only give him what he absolutely needed to know at that moment in time.
Venom just grunted, following her directions as his swings got slower and lower, until he landed them both on another flat roof directly across from an empty yard surrounded by taller buildings. Only one of them had a sign, labelling it as a jewelry store. The only way in and out was a narrow alleyway to the north. Once Felicia dismounted from Venom's back she pointed towards that alley, and just a few moments later a shape skulked out of its shadows. It was a fairly unremarkable silhouette, apart from the jagged circles sticking out of it.
"There he is," she whispered. "Real name is Keith Kraft, but he calls himself the Ringer." That wasn't entirely accurate: he only called himself that cause the guy whose gear he bought also called himself that. He only kept the name because he felt like he had to, and because he thought it gave him more street cred.
From how Venom had to fight not to laugh, this Ringer had clearly thought wrong. "Scary," he deadpanned through a toothy grin.
"When he was with me," she went on, "he used up over half of his takings on protection from other criminals." She watched her pitiful former partner slink against the wall towards the tiny jewelry store. "So, either he's found someone else to work for, or he's grown some balls and struck out on his own. You can tell which one I think is more likely."
Venom growled in agreement. "Just what are you expecting us to get out of him?" he asked, something rolling under the white patches of his eyes as the Ringer resorted to breaking the front door with a flat disk in his hand to get inside.
"Anything he knows," Felicia answered. "Just ask him who he's working for when he comes back out. Scare it out of him. I cut the alarm earlier, so his guard will be down."
"And what'll you be doing while we're grinding his face into the asphalt?"
She shrugged, sending up plumes of fluff from around her chest. "Keeping watch. Admiring the show. And I guess I'll tag in if he gives you any trouble…"
Venom creased his eyes, but his attention wasn't on her anymore. The Ringer had made his heist, and now he was trying to close the door behind him amidst the crunch of broken glass under his boots.
"Somehow we doubt that he will." Venom laughed behind his grin as he crawled down the wall, sticking to its shadows and almost dripping down to the ground. Felicia stuck around to see Venom creeping up behind the sad excuse for a thief, who didn't notice him at all as he snickered to himself. Then she retreated higher up by digging her claws into the brickwork, knowing the Ringer would hardly think to look anywhere but right in front of him.
"Things are really looking up for you now, Keith!" He was practically beaming with glee as he checked inside his haul bag, still not knowing who loomed behind him. "No alarm, no witnesses and no spiders for once!"
As hilarious as Felicia thought it all was, Venom must not have liked being ignored. "Don't be so sure about that."
Keith yelped so loud that it might as well have been an alarm going off, and almost sent his haul scattering across the ground as his arms spasmed. "Venom?! The hell, man? I-I was here first, I got dibs on this place!" He was trying to stand up to the beast before him, with very little success. Felicia almost felt bad for him. All it took was a saliva-laced growl to send him scurrying against the door at his back.
"Is that so?" Venom asked.
"Uh… y-yeah, so… s-so beat it! Or else I'll freeze that slime solid all around you!"
It was tragic. It truly was. Felicia was about to see an old friend get horribly murdered. She leaned in closer from her perch for a better look.
"A bold strategy," Venom praised. She could hear his teeth grinding from afar, in preparation for the meal. "How do you plan on doing that?"
"Like this!" Keith shot one of his hands out, a disk loaded into one of the contraptions around his wrist. Felicia had seen it many times before, used against bank guards and unwary clerks and the less 'super' of the heroes. Sometimes it even worked on them.
This was not one of those times. It backfired- literally, it shot the ring back in his own face as it broke right through the casing of his gauntlet. Felicia hissed, expecting to see his face crack apart under a cover of ice. But all the disk gave him was a bruise over his nose. Even when his weapons broke, they still didn't work right.
Venom cocked his head, watching Keith rub at his nose. "Is that all?"
"Uh… u-uh, I…" Keith hunched over, as if he'd just been overcome with cramps. Felicis recognised it as him trying to activate the mechanisms dotted all over his suit, but these ones refused to fire at all. Then he started jabbing at his other wrist, a trapped whine of terror and confusion slowly squeezing out of him.
"W-why aren't the others working?!" he pleaded to himself, doused in panic as well as slobber as Venom laughed at him.
"Not really much of a 'ringer' after all, are you, Keith?"
Keith gulped, falling to his knees and holding out his bag over his head. "T-take whatever you want, man, I-I was… I was j-just gonna pawn it all anyway…"
"Whatever we want?" Venom shoved Keith's meagre offering away with a single swipe of his huge claws. "Well, we were looking for a snack to tide us over… your lungs will do nicely."
"N-no, no, no! Please, I-I-I need those!"
"Not for much longer, I assure you. Unless you tell us why you're really here." Venom closed in on him, cornering him against the door. Felicia couldn't see him anymore, but she could hear his screams loud enough.
"NO! NO NO NO! I-I… p-please… d-don't…"
They trailed off, but there was no squish of his head being crushed between jaws, no splatter of blood. In fact, there was only silence for a few long seconds before Venom called out.
"Um… Felicia? Your friend seems to have passed out."
Felicia sighed. And she'd thought it was going so well… she jumped back down to join Venom in the yard, and saw Keith slumped in the doorway with glass shards scattered around his comatose body.
"Nice one, Eddie. He'll be real useful drooling all over the concrete."
"You said to scare him," Venom pointed out, crossing huge arms over an even larger chest. "Not our fault he's so attached to his organs."
Felicia rolled her eyes as she squatted to examine Keith while he was out. She started with the gauntlet on his left arm, the one that had backfired. The whole thing was ripped apart, the firing mechanism firmly jammed as she pressed a claw into it. The right was just as stiff, but intact and far more advanced than she remembered it being. From that, she could draw one obvious conclusion.
"Hm. He's definitely working for someone."
"What makes you so sure now?" Venom asked as she stood up again.
"His gear. It's been upgraded. He didn't have anything like this when he was on my payroll, and he couldn't have afforded it without robbing something a lot bigger than an jewelry store."
"If it's as fancy as you say, how come it literally blew up in his face?"
Felicia hummed to herself, then knelt down again to reach for the ring that had smacked into Keith's nose. It was heavier than it looked, and its surface was lined with mysterious grooves. She was sure that they interacted with the firing mechanisms somehow, but for now they only lay flat on the ring.
"I can't tell what all these electronics do," she confessed, "but if I had to guess what happened… say he got given this stuff by someone. An employer, maybe."
Venom huffed. "Okay. So what?"
"So you've got this volatile, unpredictable villain running around with your expensive toys. Surely you'll be tracking him somehow, to make sure he doesn't get carried away with them. And when he inevitably does, you flick the off switch so it doesn't get traced back to you."
Venom cocked his head, and nodded. "Clever. But if this employer is so smart, why'd they trust a clown like this with this stuff in the first place?"
"Cause they don't have to trust him. They just need someone who'll do anything for money." The Keith that Felicia knew certainly fit that bill.
"I assume you speak from experience." Venom didn't phrase it as a question that needed an answer, but Felicia gave one anyway through a proud smile.
"Of course." She looked back at Keith, now noticing with distaste and a severe scrunch of her nose that he'd soiled himself. "I think we should call it a night. Leave him here for the cops. We don't want whoever's hiring him to know someone's onto them."
Venom furrowed his eyes, glaring them at her as she pushed past. "Seriously? Only one criminal and you're saying that's good enough for one night?"
Felicia patted one of his biceps. "I like the enthusiasm, Eddie, but we need to start out slow. If we hit too many of them at once, they'll just go even deeper underground."
"Sounds like an excuse for laziness to us," Venom snarled.
Felicia gave an exaggerated shrug, spreading her claws out as she sauntered off without him. "Guess you don't want that shower, then," she called over her shoulder, just waiting to hear his heavy footsteps behind her.
"You're a cruel woman, Felicia," he told her as she returned to the safety of the rooftops.
She winked down at him. "I try to be."
