Felicia didn't know what to expect when she heard the knock on her bedroom window, but she was glad to see that it was only Venom.
Only Venom. How many criminals got to say that with genuine relief?
"You're early." She unlatched the window so he could let himself in, returning to her dressing table where she sat before. As she continued brushing out her white tresses in the mirror, she saw the symbiote peeling back from Eddie as he climbed in.
"Came here straight from the meeting with Liz," he said, crossing his arms across his chest and leaning against her wall. Felicia couldn't decipher his expression in the mirror, though she could tell his stubble was growing in. And he seemed to have gotten used to seeing her out of her suit (though not in the way most men were used to it. Not yet, at least).
"How'd it go?" she asked.
"Didn't mention anything about a break-in last night, but security was a lot tighter than when we went in. If we tried to go back, I guarantee it'll be a lot harder a second time."
Just as she expected. It was why she'd wanted a look in at their records while she had the chance. "Anything else?"
Eddie was silent for a moment, looking at some indistinct point on the carpet. Maybe debating with Symby on how much to tell her. They reached an agreement eventually.
"...She said we're cured."
Felicia turned to face him, her brush still going through her hair. "Cured?"
"Completely. Whatever was making Symby go feral… it's gone now. Must have happened when your ex tried to steal it from me and wasted almost all of the medicine in the process."
Of course he was still pissed about that. He hadn't shut up about it the whole time they'd worked together against Price. Then again, Flash always had that effect of making every other guy his enemy somehow. She swore he hadn't been this much trouble when they were together...
"Well, at least something good came out of it," she said, setting the brush down and combing out the last knots with her fingers as she went behind her dressing screen. "Unless… you think Liz might be lying?"
"No, she showed us the proof just before she kicked us out. Something about having an interview to get ready for." Eddie's voice carried over the screen as she prepared to pull her suit on. "I know it's true, anyway. Symby… it's calmer now. Hasn't threatened to eat anyone's brains and meant it in days. Not just from the chocolate its been eating."
"So it doesn't need it anymore?" she asked, wriggling herself into the tight leather. Eddie spluttered in panic, or maybe that was the symbiote speaking through him.
"We never said that! That's still part of the deal!"
"I thought as much." Felicia was pulling up the zipper as she re-emerged, smiling to herself.
From her table drawer, she retrieved the last part of her outfit and a snack for Symby. The mask fit snugly into the curves of her face, secured by the special adhesive seeped into the leather, and she threw the candy bar over to Eddie. He caught it in one black-stained hand.
"Well. I'm happy for you both," she said. "So long as it means you two can still keep up the scary monster act."
"Of course. It's what we do best." Eddie must have taken her dressing as the cue to prepare to leave, as Venom now crouched on the building wall outside her window with pieces of candy wrapper stuck in his teeth. She was glad to see he was still eager, and she double-checked the grappling hooks in her fur cuffs before letting them carry her up to the roof of her building. Once she had a good vantage point, she pulled out her friend tracker.
"If my tracer's still going strong, Keith should be just a few blocks away." She recognised the place. It was a deserted overgrown park, just down the street from where she usually bought groceries. She'd have to try and keep the fighting away from there if she didn't want to find somewhere else that sold her brand of cereal. "Let's go see what he and Eel are up to."
Venom growled in agreement. "Lead the way."
She didn't need to look back to know he was close behind her, galloping across the roof after her. She expected to hear complaints from the top floor residents the following morning, but that wasn't anything new. As they neared the park, she slowed the pace until they were in front of the entrance. It was small enough, planted right in the middle of the neighbourhood,that she could have seen the whole thing from above if not for the trees blocking most of the view. It wasn't much of a problem for her, but with someone as big as Venom…
"How do you feel about climbing trees?" she asked, silently plotting a route from the roof down to the branches.
"Uncomfortable. Sticky. And not many can hold our weight." Venom's tongue licked back a string of drool as he growled.
"Then you stay hidden on the ground. I'll recon the situation from above and give you a signal if it needs stopped."
"What kind of signal?"
She thought for a moment, watching the surface of the symbiote swirl around his muscles. Then she figured it out. "Reach up part of the symbiote to me, and I'll pull on it."
"Very well. We can hide ourselves until then."
With the plan in place, Felicia leapt down from the roof to a tree branch overhanging the tall park fence. She braced herself against the trunk, tracing a way through the park via the lower branches. Venom's methods were predictably less elegant; he vaulted over the fence, and stalked through the grass below. Felicia could see it being crushed beneath him in his wake, and he seemed to blend effortlessly into the shifting shadows of the branches. Maybe he was better suited to this than she thought. She left him to it while she tried to scan for signs of life in the park. There were no working streetlights in the park, and she didn't want to risk the glow of her contact lenses giving her away, so she had to strain to see in the dark.
Keith would be obvious enough in his ring-studded suit, but she didn't know if Eel still had that tacky purple-blue look. Well, she'd know soon enough. If she kept pushing through, making enough noise-
"You hear something?"
She stopped, flattening herself against the tree trunk. That was definitely Keith's voice, somewhere to her left.
"Probably just a bird." And that was definitely Eel. "The recruiters aren't gonna sneak around, they got no reason to."
"And how do you know that?"
Felicia checked that Venom had stopped too before easing herself closer, until she saw the glint of the rings embedded in Keith's suit. She hoped he'd had a chance to get it washed since she last saw him.
"Cause I just do," Eel answered impatiently, glimmering purple and blue under his suit's thick slippery coating (that gave her chills just thinking about touching it). "Only thing I don't know is why the boss keeps giving you chances."
"He knows just how valuable I am."
Eel barked a harsh laugh that he only muffled to keep up some pretense of secrecy. "Valuable. Sure. Cause not just anyone can slap on frisbees all over them, noooo, you gotta be a professional to handle that line of work."
Keith scoffed. "Like I'm gonna be looked down on by a guy wearing a grease suit." As always, Felicia almost felt bad for him, but really what did he expect? At least Eel could just electrocute anyone who made fun of his outfit. "
"Just keep the metal away from me, and you might not get fried," Eel grunted. "And keep your mouth shut."
"Hey, talking is as much my job as it is yours!"
"Talking was your only job and you couldn't even do it right."
"Well I could do a hell of a better job than yo-!" Keith's hiss was cut off by a hand clamped over his mouth.
"Quiet. They're coming." Eel lowered his hand to let Keith splutter and gag and wipe away the grease left behind.
"Eww! Fine, fine, just keep that shit outta my mouth!" He was trying to scrub his chin clean as 'they' approached from the right of where Felicia perched. Though the dark made them little more than silhouettes, there was a glint of something that she recognised. Something that made what she already knew even more confusing. She crouched, turning so she was hanging under the branch by her legs. With her arms free and hair dangling, she tapped Venom on the shoulder.
"I know that uniform," she whispered to him. "Those are members of The Hood's gang."
"The Hood?" Venom's attempt at a whisper was like listening to knives caught in a meat grinder, but at least it was quiet.
"He and Diamondback were my two main rivals," she explained, with a weird sense of detachment. As if the Black Cat that had made enemies of them was a completely different person. "After Diamondback got taken out, Hood swooped in and took over his men," she went on. "And with me out of the picture, he's all but won the title of New York's Kingpin." That was what she'd pieced together, at least. The Hood made himself particularly hard to find, even if you worked for him, and she'd never been able to tell what he was really up to even when she was fighting against him. But from the looks of things, whatever business he was up to was booming.
Venom had a different view of the new kingpin. "Must not be that good at it if we've never heard of him," he huffed.
"Or it's because you've never heard of him that makes him so dangerous," Felicia pointed out. That was a lesson she'd learned the hard way.
"Hm. His lackeys don't look that dangerous, anyway." His shoulders tensed, hard as stone as she squeezed one of them in warning.
"Stay back for now. I'll go closer and see what this is all about. Send up a tendril after me so I can signal." She swung herself back up onto the branch, making her way higher up to the thicker ones to get closer than Venom could. Her new vantage gave her a good enough view of the meeting site, with Eel and Ringer on one side and the Hood agents facing her. As she crouched, curling her fingers tight around the branch, she felt something slide over her shoulder, something black like oil.
"Hey, Symby," she whispered. The symbiote hadn't spoken to her yet that night, but it gave a soft gurgle in acknowledgement. It probably couldn't see with its eyes over Eddie's, so Felicia would need to pay attention for both of them. She narrowed her eyes down at the scene below, as Hood's men stopped before the other two.
"Ringer and Eel… we've been told you wish to join our organisation." Their faces were all hidden beneath- what else?- hoods drawn over their heads, so she couldn't tell which one of them had spoken. Eel likely couldn't either, but that didn't impact his confidence as he answered.
"You've been told right. We think our services would be much more effective used towards a common goal." Felicia didn't remember Eel being so eloquent. Maybe Norman had written out a script for him.
"And what do you think our 'goal' is?" It was probably the same one that spoke before who asked it, but she couldn't tell for sure. Eel stepped in front of Keith, likely to stop him from answering first.
"Steal whatever isn't already yours and make New York your bitch?"
"Yes, that's a good way of putting it." So The Hood's employees had a sense of humour, at least.
"Can't sense any reinforcements." Felicia almost jumped when she heard Symby, gripping the branch beneath her for balance. She didn't know if it was speaking to her or Eddie, or maybe both of them, but she nodded in acknowledgement. Hood wouldn't waste too many men on a recruitment drive, especially not for D-listers like these two. Whatever happened next, at least they'd only have the five of them all to deal with. She'd missed some of the chatter from listening to Symby, but she returned focus just in time.
"Prove your worth to us, then." The middle man stepped back, with his companions following suit, and nodded between each of the villains. "One of you, kill the other. Whoever survives will have the honour of joining us."
Eel looked at Keith for a few seconds while the other man spluttered, then shrugged. "Alright."
"Wait, wait, wait! I-I never agreed to this!" Keith was frozen from the neck down, his head frantically swivelling between Eel and the men who just ordered his death. Eel was charging up his gloves, electricity crackling between his fingers, about to aim them at Keith-
"Now!" Felicia yanked on the symbiote, making it zip back down through the branches to follow the rest of it rippling around Eddie, as he leapt out from the bushes to ambush them all. They all flinched back, with Keith falling back flat on his ass, and Eel's pulse of electricity shot off into the air like a bolt of lightning.
"We're very disappointed in you, Keith," Venom scolded, while the poor guy cowered and scrambled across the ground.
"Oh god, oh god! Not again!"
Eel shook himself, the charge built up in his hands dying away as he glared at the intruder."Venom?! Don't you have some sewer rats to go eat or something?" He stepped back as he tried to force electricity back into his gauntlets.
"Too stringy." Venom didn't advance on him, not when he could easily disembowel both men with a hand. "We prefer street rats like you."
"D-do it, do it, eat him instead!" Keith stuttered, jabbing his finger at the one who was just seconds away from frying him. "He's the one that'll piss you off!"
"We're already pissed off. How much worse are you willing to make it?"
As Venom made Keith wet himself again, Felicia saw Hood's men slipping back into the shadows. Whatever they wanted the two guys for, it wasn't worth going against Venom. Eel noticed just a few seconds later, losing the weapon charge all over again along with his focus.
"Hey, wait, where're you going?! It'll only take like two minutes to take this guy out-!"
"They're leaving cause they don't wanna get fucking eaten!" Keith had resorted to trying to clamber up a tree trunk, using his rings to dig into the wood.
"Wise men," Venom huffed. "We'll get to them later. But you first." He turned to Eel while he was still trying to force his gauntlets to work, and pounced. He would have easily tackled him, pinning him under his claws… would have, if not for the slick oil that coated Eel's suit and let him slip right out of Venom's grip before it could crush him. Felicia cursed under her breath. She should have warned him about that...
"Eghh… what is this?" Venom snorted as he stared at his claws and the viscous clear oil dripping from them, gingerly flicking them to try and get it off.
"It's got a long name I can't remember," Eel grunted, having landed in a crouch a safe distance away, "and it keeps creeps like you off of me."
Venom shook his head, sending saliva flying as he growled. "Disgusting. At least our slime keeps to itself!"
There was a growing halo of light from Eel's gloves again. "Ring, shoot out something already!"
Keith hadn't made much progress in trying to flee into the tree. "B...b-but what if it breaks aga-?"
"NOW!"
Keith yelped, and let loose a barrage of rings while holding his eyes closed. They skimmed past Venom, just as Eel released the charge from his hands. The bolt arced, then shot out towards the rings to make the air in front of Venom crackle angrily. Venom snarled, bringing up an arm to shield himself from the heat, unable to move past it until it dissipated.
Oh shit. Eel was smarter than Felicia had thought. The metal in the rings was drawing his electric shots to wherever they hit, like homing beacons. If either of them got a clear shot at Venom, the symbiote would be fried… maybe even Eddie too. Even if they didn't hit him directly, if one of the trees caught fire then it would spread into an inferno and be even worse for the symbiote.
This was bad. Felicia hadn't planned this out well enough… but she could still save it. Though she had to stay hidden, she had one power that no one else did. Keith was relying on blind, literally blind, luck to make his shots. If she concentrated, willing the rings to curve just a little too far out, ricochet off of something...
One of them did. A hard patch of bark sent it flying right back to its sender, crashing into his face and knocking him backwards. He twitched, but didn't get back up.
"Maybe he should call himself The Boomerang instead," Venom suggested.
"Useless," Eel spat, rubbing his gloves together. "Gotta do everything myself…" Rather than build up a massive lightning bolt, he peppered the ground with smaller shocks that crackled in Venom's wake as he dodged them. The symbiote shied away from them, but they never hit close enough to cause it pain.
"Stand... still already!" Eel had to keep his shots closer and closer to himself to stop Venom coming after him, rapid fires of electricity aa he stumbled away from him. One of his gloves frizzled, sparking but not letting loose anything like what it was capable of. His suit was running out of fuel, and at this rate he'd soon have nothing to protect him from Venom.
"God dammit… next time, freak!" Eel turned heel and bolted, using the last of his energy to leave a trail of flashing heat behind him. Venom just hunched in place as he fled, gnashing his fangs. One he was out of sight, Felicia let out the sigh of relief she'd been struggling to hold in.
"Being called a freak by someone else covered in ooze. That hurts." Venom snorted, and turned to her when she leapt down to join him. "You have something to do with Ringer knocking himself out?"
"I might've." She knelt down by Keith, making sure he was out cold, wincing at the red bruise all over his face. "Something tells me he'll be handing in his resignation to Osborn tomorrow, so he's a dead end now."
"Better a dead end than just dead."
Felicia shrugged. "True. But with those Hood guys gone, now we don't have any more leads to follow."
Venom narrowed his eyes at the criminal left behind, scratching his chin with a talon. "Eel may have failed his initiation… but there could be others who passed it. Others already in with The Hood."
Felicia considered that. "Others that we haven't checked out yet. Might be… a shame we can't know which ones are also with Osborn, though."
"Like you said, we'll start small. Find the clues, then follow them wherever they lead." Venom pulled his claw back from his face, scowling at the residue still staining them. "For now, we'd like to get this grease off."
"Just as well you didn't shower before we left," Felicia said, taking the easy way out of the park and stepping over the slimy puddles Eel had left on the ground in his escape. Venom was right about one thing; and least he kept the slime to himself.