Eddie stood on the rooftop as the spider gang- so they stupidly had been calling themselves- went to do what they thought best and keep the kid, Miles, away from the fight.

"There is another, very round boy in that room. He is making me quite hungry."

Venom truly had no sense of timing…though talk about eating people never had an appropriate time, Eddie supposed.

"Let us find a robbing little plebian in this dimension huh?" Venom drawls. "I am absolutely starving."

"We are trying to get home!" To any outsider, Eddie would look like a madman talking to himself so loudly and with such disdain. But little did any outsider know that Eddie was bonded to an alien asshole.

Also, Eddie didn't particularly care for keeping up appearances in this hellscape of an alternate dimension. This uncanny city and its omnipresent billboards- advertising things like "Koka Kola" "NNC" and the "Red Man Group"- wouldn't let Eddie forget how far away he was from his San Francisco. You would have thought New York in his own world was bad enough…

But he would either get back soon or go back to the drawing board. This collider would work, or it wouldn't. There was no point in worrying about it now.

Quieting down, Eddie distracts himself with Venom's stupid comment. "And I have told you- we cannot just eat everyone, Venom. And you ate that whole fucking crate of canned tuna not even an hour ago."

"I hardly said 'everyone,' Eddie. I specified one robber. One single deviant who is not obeying the law and therefore has given up their right to life and taken up the right to be my snack."

Eddie sighs. A long sigh that has become a fundamental part of his new self- alongside Venom. Teaching the gray areas to a being that has only ever seen black and white was…something. Especially when Eddie himself was so inclined to such stark distinctions. The kid's uncle was the most recent, painful example of how stupidly complex everyone had to be.

"That is not justice, Venom."

The symbiote replies in a voice as condescending as ever. "So confusing, your little morals. And so woefully unsatisfying, that tuna."

After Eddie was rudely pulled from his dimension, he immediately started to hunt down the facts. You would think that after being bonded with a sentient alien symbiote, curbing said symbiote's will to destroy his species, needing to pair up with said symbiote to take down a different, more vengeful symbiote and save Earth from Bad Symbiote Domination- a guy could have a little rest.

But no. This was par for Eddie's ruinously chaotic course now. So, he got to work.

And finding the truth was Eddie's favorite work. Investigative journalism was Eddie's job. A calling he cherished and had risked and given up so much for. He was excellent at uncovering the facts, and whatever came after that had never really been his concern. The accountability that follows truth, and the insidious complexity of some truths, never used to bother him...

But the skills themselves never failed Eddie. And Kingpin relied too much on his money to protect him and didn't bother much with secrecy. So, Eddie discovered _ corporation and learned of the collider fairly quickly given the circumstances of, you know, being in an alternate dimension.

Eddie spotted the spider people on his third day of staking out Kingpin's lab. They would have been hard to miss, really. A woman with large mechanical tentacles was frantically chasing a dude in red and blue spandex and gray sweatpants. The guy was swinging from tree to tree from some sort of webbing coming from his wrists while a gangly teenager, in a similar red and blue getup, tried to follow on foot.

Eddie's original plan was to stay away from whatever strange fight he was witnessing. Maybe this was his in…Eddie's in to sneak in and get the collider during the chaos without any complications- but something caught his ear.

"I'm from another dimension…I mean another, another dimension."

Eddie whipped his head away from the lab and back toward the clearing where the fight had been happening. The voice came from a blonde teenage girl. She was dressed to the absolute nines in a superhero fit that made the other man's spandex/sweatpants combo all the more atrocious.

The tentacle lady had supposedly been fended off because the girl talked calmly about how she had been tracking the other two after being dropped in this dimension through some type of vortex…

Eddie realized he was not the only one. These weird web-shooting people were in the same fucking boat! While Eddie was not naturally one for group projects (or partnership… Anne could tell you about that), his new symbiote partner had changed his outlook on some things. Plus, Kingpin had too much goddamn money to put into security. Eddie needed help. Otherwise, he was going to have to do something he knew he would carry with him across dimensions.

It was a learning curve, Eddie believed. Someday they would get to a point where Venom's autonomous self-defense didn't exclusively mean death. Eddie was sure of it. Had to be sure of it. But was also sure that day was not yet here.

So, he followed the spider people to some old lady's house. Better now than later, he thought. Eddie had the advantage of choosing when to engage and this house gave him a good exit through the side alley if things went south.

"Alternatively, it could be a good trap," Venom purred. "I think super-powered humans would be a particular treat."

Eddie tensed a moment before Venom chuckled.

"I am only joking, dear Eddie. Whatever radioactivity that created their powers would probably be hazardous for us to consume. Ah, death without a meal…a shame, no?"

Eddie sighed.

Eddie expected that they would be on guard. Hell, if they weren't, they were complete dumbasses and he better find someone else to work with.

He did not expect to scare the living shit out of them, however.

Eddie quietly trailed the group through the unlocked door and to the yard behind the house. What he had to tell these people was best not shared in the middle of the street.

He watched as the trio from the lab and the old lady entered a run-down shack. Eddie waited for the group to come back out, but it seemed they had disappeared. The older man's comment that the shack was "pretentious" suddenly made more sense.

Obviously, there was something else down there and so Eddie waited longer.

When the trio finally returned, they were joined by three others. A guy dressed in all black with a flair for the dramatic that Eddie could sense from first glance, a young girl with an extremely high-tech spider robotic, and a…a…a talking pig.

"Where the hell am I?" Eddie exhaled.

He could deal with a lot. Had dealt with a lot. But a talking, spandex-wearing pig was pushing the limits of his sanity and provoked him to impulsively walk out from behind the porch column. He needed to get this show on the motherfucking road and get home. Also, Eddie simply couldn't hear any slick commentary Venom was sure to have on the anthropomorphic pig.

When he came into view, the spider crew immediately took up fighting stances and readied for attack.

The girl's freaky robotic spider was already halfway to Eddie before he was able to put both his hands up in the air.

"Woah, woah, woah. I am just here to talk." "About the collider and Kingpin," Eddie quickly added to halt any advances that might provoke Venom.

What followed was a long and tense negotiation between Eddie and these spider-heroes. Apparently, they all have the power to "sense" things happening around them. They can tell if danger is imminent or- as they had learned with all this collider business- if they were near one of their own kind.

Eddie still couldn't believe they called this rather cool premonition-power a fucking "spidey-sense."

Whatever they call it, Eddie and Venom can somehow evade it. This was why the group had met Eddie's arrival with looks of such pure astonishment- no one had ever gotten so close to any of them completely undetected.

The spider group rightly treated Eddie as highly suspicious. In a gesture of good will, Eddie offered them the honest-to-God truth about his interdimensional travel alongside the important intel he had gathered on Kingpin. Specifically, he mentioned the gala the mobster was hosting and how it was the best entry strategy any of them were going to find.

Really though, it was probably the spidey-sense blocking that paradoxically let the spider gang, following Peter's lead, trust what Eddie was saying.

Eddie and Venom were decidedly not like the spider people. Not in ability, general disposition, or costuming. (Indeed, Eddie had never thought to be grateful for Venom and the fact that he did not have to come up with his vigilante aesthetic…or wear spandex.)

But something had pulled them all through that portal and somehow Eddie, the symbiote, and the spider-powered people were all inextricably connected.

"We all make a strange web, one could say?" Venom interrupted.

Eddie sighed.

Most of the spider gang was now milling around dejectedly on the rooftop alongside Eddie. After the fight that just happened at that old lady's house (Eddie still wasn't clear on who she was) Peter had decided Miles needed to be protected, against his will. Eddie overhears as Peter literally webs Miles to the chair to stop him from getting into the trouble that is about to ensue.

"It's a leap of faith, Miles, that's all it is."

Everyone on the rooftop hears Peter's departing words to the kid and Eddie watches the annoying ass pig nod his head in sage agreement.

"I mean, who do these people…and, uh, pigs... think they are?" Eddie is annoyed enough to murmur to himself (but never just himself, of course). Peter called the other spider-man's lair pretentious? At least the suits and gadgets didn't spew vomit-inducing motivational platitudes. Pretentious? This was the heightof superhero bullshit.

"These people are temporary allies, according to you Eddie. If you are through with them, however, I will gladly take care of it." Venom's voice is unbothered and fucking annoying.

Eddie lets out a frustrated grunt. He doesn't actually completely despise the spider gang. He thought he would when he first met them in the old woman's yard. Hell, he still thinks they are all goody-two shoes who had shit rather easy in super-human department. Though Eddie does have to process the sob stories he overheard just now…

Still, he would have preferred an itty-bitty, radioactive spider bite to the excruciating near-death experience that was being bonded with Venom. And keeping your singular personhood on top of super-human powers? Sounded nice.

"Ah, Eddie. I am not so bad, no?" Venom's thoughts smoothly push against Eddie's. Sometimes they were a unitary force. But most of the time Eddie felt that they were fighting for space in his body. Not in a deep, superhero type of way, but kind-of like passive aggressive freshman year roommates.

"It's a leap of faith, Miles, that's all it is."

Peter's words keep tumbling around Eddie's head. He doesn't even bother to respond to Venom's jab, so caught up is he in the tangled thoughts and feelings those words have provoked.

Eddie thinks that it's some condescending bullshit Peter just gave the kid.

"'A leap of faith' what does that even mean?" Eddie asks, murmuring to himself again.

A leap of faith is doing what needs to be done, despite not feeling fully in control, right? The exact opposite of Peter leaving Miles behind because he could not control his invisibility or electricity.

If Eddie had waited until he was fully in control his world as he knew it would be gone. Yes, he had made mistakes and had a whole lot of regrets about what he felt he had needed to do with Venom. But he did it. It was done.

And Eddie's Earth was better for it.

A couple innocent lives in exchange for saving the whole planet from symbiote domination? That was right. It had to be right.

Remaining bound to Venom?

That was a more difficult question. Venom would die without a host, without Eddie. And Venom was perhaps the only symbiote who had even a shred of respect for human life.

Rationally, they needed each other. Venom could provide critical information on symbiotes in the future.

But Eddie knew, deep down, that he reveled in the power. Venom's will to destroy and the immense power they had was making Eddie more and more ruthless, despite his best efforts to keep Venom's punitive nature in check.

"A leap of faith."

A leap of faith into what exactly? Eddie's powers were not his own like the spider gang's. Eddie also knew that deep down, where even Venom couldn't reach, he was not like them. And that's what scared him the most.

Where the fuck was the bonded-with-a-symbiote-who-is-not-completely-against-the-human-race gang huh?

Eddie could use some advice. Some real advice from people who weren't so good.

He needed to get home.

He needed to get home and finish his research on the serial killer he had been tracking…Venom could only contain his hunger so long.

"Indeed, Eddie, indeed." Venom laughed as Eddie and the spider gang, sans the boy, went to get that goddamn collider.

The boy would find his way, at least Eddie knew that much.