Some weeks later...
When Eddie wakes, the painful pounding in his head that feels like a pneumatic drill behind his eyelids immediately makes him wish he hadn't. He cracks his eyelids open and then regrets that too as a blinding white sears his retinas, making him twist away. Or twist as way as much as he's able. There's something binding his limbs.
If that wasn't enough alone to make him panic, the familiar weight of Venom trickling through his insides isn't there.
He squints, trying to look around as he comes to realise he's strapped down on what might be (shit, no, please god no…) an operating table, a surgical lamp shining in his face and the sharp smell of disinfectant thick in his nose. As his eyes focus, he realises there's a yellowish-brown fluid smeared over the bare skin of his chest, and off to his right, mostly in silhouette, someone is standing beside him.
Fear crashing over him like a wave, Eddie cries out and tries to struggle against the bonds.
The figure (more in focus now, female, dark-ish hair?) looks up from the clipboard she'd been writing on, and her eyes widen. "You weren't supposed to wake up."
Her voice is calm, strangely unthreatening, like she's just making an unexpected observation. Genuinely, she seems surprised. Eddie blinks, and begins to think the place he's in looks like one of the old labs from the Life Foundation. "What?"
"I tranqued you. Heavy dose. Guess with that symbiote in your system it wasn't enough. I'll have to make a note of that." There's the scratching of a pen on her clipboard.
Eddie tugs at his bonds again and glances down at his wrists. "If I wasn't supposed to wake up, why all this?"
"A precaution. Proved wise, too. I mean…" She chuckles softly. A little awkwardly. "Can you imagine if you woke up then in your panic got your hands on that?" Her eyes flit to a point by his head, and craning his neck, Eddie feels a renewed burst of fear as his gaze lands on the tray of surgical instruments.
This is the Life Foundation, he realises, recognising one of the logos. Please not one of Carlton Drake's crazy scientists...
"Alright, lady, what do you want with me?" he demands, suppressing the urge to struggle again. "And where's Venom?"
"In there, I hope," she replies, putting her clipboard down and nodding at his chest. "Otherwise this would all be rather pointless."
"Then why can't I feel him?"
"Like I said, I tranqued you. Dose fit for a symbiote. Though, I didn't exactly gear it towards humans so no wonder you woke up faster."
Eddie swallows, and shuts his eyes as a wave of nausea washes over him. "You're going to open me up, aren't you?"
"Well...yes." She says it bluntly. "You weren't exactly meant to know about it. Thought I could get a good look at what's going on in there while you were still under."
That makes his eyes fly open again, staring at her like she's crazy. She probably is. "Well, I'm not under. And I'm not okay with this."
"Didn't think you would be."
Eddie abandons his restraint and resumes trying to struggle, but the physical restraints don't fall away so easy. "You're fucking psycho."
"Eddie…" The woman heaves a sigh, leaning over him with a look halfway between annoyance and concern. In the light, her hair is red. "Please don't. You're aren't even going to feel it. I'll put you under, out like a light. No different to getting a root canal or an appendectomy, and I know you've had one of those." He feels her touch the scar low on his abdomen, and his skin crawls. "I'll take a look around, make a few notes, then I stitch you up, your symbiote does the rest of the work, and you wake up without so much as a scar. Is that really so bad?"
He stares up into her eyes: plain blue with nothing behind. "Yes."
She huffs. Even disgraced and failing as the Life Foundation is, he suddenly realises she's still wearing their labcoat, logo emblazoned above the breast pocket. There's even a name badge: Dr S. Keller. "Why? Which part of that is really so terrible?"
"The part where I don't consent to you slicing into me just to rummage around in my insides."
Narrow lips purse. She considers a moment, as if actually having doubts, then shakes her head. "Sorry, Eddie. You don't get a say."
"How do I not get a say?"
"Do you realise how much research we lost when the Life Foundation went under? That was all thanks to you. Without Drake, we had all these results that put us right on the very edge of a breakthrough, and now we're about to slide right back. You and your symbiote are the only lead remaining. So, the least you can do is let me finish my work."
Eddie glares, not even trying to make sense of the warped logic in that. "You are just as nuts as your old boss."
"How?" Her nose scrunches. "I'm not trying to start an alien invasion to conquer Earth. I'm just trying to get a better understanding of biology and what makes you so perfect."
Well, that was an unexpected compliment.
"The things you were able to survive in order to reach symbiosis, Eddie...it's beyond impressive. I have no idea how you're still alive. But I intend to find out."
Eddie watches with building apprehension as she reaches somewhere above his head for a piece of equipment, craning his neck to see, and then without warning he feels an oxygen mask being pressed tight over his nose and mouth. From the brief taste of the gas on his tongue, he can tell it isn't oxygen, and immediately holds his breath. He twists violently in his restraints in a vain effort to get away, but Keller tangles her fingers in his hair and grips tightly, holding him still. "Breathe, Eddie. I can wait."
She will. And he knows she'll win. He can't keep up the fight for long before his mouth opens and the gas floods his lungs.
Eddie…
Even as his own strength is failing, he hears the voice in some distant part of his mind. It sounds weak, and scared, and Eddie can't be sure it doesn't slip away again the same moment he does.
As Eddie's eyelids begin to droop, the last thing he sees is Keller standing over him with a perfectly blank, emotionless look in her eyes. "Go to sleep, Mr Brock. Tomorrow, this will be nothing more than a bad dream."