The steady ticking of a green line rhythmically tracing jagged shapes across the glass is the only indication that the prisoner strapped into the exam chair inside the room is still alive.
It's been nearly an hour since they'd gotten Brock back to the lab, and he still has yet to regain consciousness. Keller is watching from outside the room, eyes flitting from Brock slumped in the chair to the output from the vitals monitor embedded in the window, biting her lip every time Eddie's heartbeat stumbles and the EKG falters. She is not about to take the blame for losing the symbiote, dammit.
Treece, however, looks like he's managed to stay on Drake's good side. Gets to be inside the room, even, the Man In Charge while they wait for their captive to wake, and Keller feels a rush of resentment that Drake seems to value his thugs more than his scientists. Well. That was definitely true when it came to Dora.
She's just wondering if Treece is going to ask one of those scientists to inject Brock with a stimulant in his impatience when Eddie begins to stir on his own. He groans, eyelids fluttering, and tries to draw a breath. There's a strap across his chest binding him to the chair, and despite her utter indifference to Brock, Keller can't help but wince in sympathy at the pain he must be feeling in his ribs.
When he smashes his forehead against Treece's face, nor can she help the rush of satisfaction that twists a smile onto her lips.
(All the vitals on the monitor say he's still dying. The man's body is impressively resilient. She'd like to study it more.)
And then the Big Boss himself returns. This next part isn't going to be science, Keller knows, or anything that falls within the purview of the Life Foundation's mission objectives. It's just going to be the thugs in uniforms passing the baton to a thug in a suit.
Wrinkling her nose in distaste, Keller gets up and goes in search of some blood samples or post-mortem biopsies to analyse instead.
Eddie isn't sure if they plan on shooting him or just marching him into the woods at gunpoint until he drops dead of his own accord. The latter is really starting to seem not so unlikely. His chest feels tight, breathing strained, and every step sends another wave of dizziness through him that makes him feel ready to either throw up or pass out.
He hasn't felt right ever since waking up in that chair back at the lab. Since before then, even. He's felt sick ever Venom had first crawled its way inside him, worse when Venom had left, and worst of all after being dosed with whatever it was they'd used to sedate him and then interrogated by an insane, murderous billionaire with an equally murderous symbiote up his ass. Eddie doesn't even know how he's managing to walk straight. His limbs tremble; his heart races.
It occurs to him he ought to feel afraid. He's marching towards what he knows will be his own death, yet it seems his body's resources are so depleted it doesn't even have the energy to summon a fight-or-flight response anymore. His heart may flutter, but it does little to actually pump. His legs may shake, but there's no adrenaline to actually stir them to run. His mind says he's terrified, yet his body hasn't actually felt it yet.
And so Eddie walks on, one foot in front of the other like lead weights until Treece behind him finally decides they've gone far enough. Maybe it's that strange lack of fear that persuades him to actually try it when the thug shoves the gun in his face, and Eddie uses the last of the near-supernatural energy that's been keeping him upright to attempt to disarm him.
Of course it doesn't work. In normal circumstances, Eddie might actually have had a shot, but he's dying. The best it seems he can hope for is delaying the inevitable.
Delaying it for just a few seconds proves to be all he needs.
The shadow moves through the trees, silently dispatching the guards one by one until it emerges in a black, humanoid form that opens its toothy maw to bite Treece's head clean off. The security chief barely has chance to scream before he's swiftly decapitated and his body tossed away, then the symbiote's white paint-splatter eyes are back on him. Eddie has barely registered what's happening before he finds himself being pulled to his feet and that very same mouth crashes onto his.
For a moment, he swears his exhausted, failing body just gives into the sheer shock, and his heart stops. Then Venom catches it. Tendrils of black hook into his brain stem, his nervous system surrendering control, and instantly it feels like breaking the surface of deep, freezing water and coming up to breathe. Venom seeps through his skin, entwining with the fibers of his muscles and sinking deep into the marrow of his bones until Eddie's fatigue dissolves into a euphoric high.
What did they do to our ribs, Eddie? All this bruising...
The thought is an echo in his head. No sooner does he hear it than the persistent ache in his chest evaporates, and Eddie inhales deep.
And our heart. So careless. I promised I'd fix it.
The slick mass of the symbiote is warm and velvety around his organs, no longer a heavy weight but a healing presence pouring life back into him. Eddie feels his heart begin to beat steady again. Strength returns to his muscles. His lungs drink in oxygen and pour out carbon dioxide with vigor.
When he finally pulls away and Eddie sees that it's Anne standing there, he feels like himself again. Better than himself. He feels…
Like us, says Venom.