MARVEL: THE LAST THUNDER.

When the door finally opened and the Avengers filed back into the room, they found Eddie exactly where they'd left him. He looked exhausted, irritated, and perhaps a little embarrassed by the sheer absurdity of the situation. After all, he was essentially being interrogated on behalf of his own alien partner, who had apparently decided that keeping his mouth shut was the safest strategy.

Eddie looked up as they entered one after another, his eyes moving from one familiar face to the next. He recognized every one of them from tv and news reports, which somehow made the whole situation even more ridiculous.

"Here we go again," he muttered under his breath.

Strange stepped forward and took the lead this time. Unlike some of the others, he approached Eddie without any visible hostility, his expression calm as he deliberately kept his voice measured. If they were going to get any useful information out of Eddie, intimidation clearly wasn't going to help.

"Eddie Brock, we're not interested in hurting you."

Eddie stared at him for several seconds, wearing the tired, almost incredulous expression of a man who had heard something that sounded far more reassuring in theory than it did in practice. Eventually, he let out a subtle sigh.

"That's great," he replied dryly. "You should probably tell him that when we're outside the door, and not when we're being held hostage by you guys who are supposed to be heroes."

His eyes briefly shifted toward the others standing behind Strange before returning to the Sorcerer.

"Because from where I'm sitting, the whole 'we're not going to hurt you' thing sounds a lot less convincing when I'm locked in a room with the Avengers."

"He's talking about the parasite," Shazam chimed in, apparently believing he was doing Strange a favor by pointing out something the Sorcerer had somehow overlooked.

"Yeah, I figured that one out," Strange replied, barely sparing Billy a glance.

"But here you all are, playing good cop, bad cop with a somewhat innocent man who's severely sleep-deprived." Eddie hadn't even finished speaking when Venom's voice suddenly echoed through his mind.

‘Parasite!?’

Eddie immediately squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fingers against his temple, his face tightening as though a splitting migraine had suddenly struck him. The Avengers exchanged glances, their attention shifting toward him as they began to understand why he looked like he'd barely slept in days. They still had no idea, however, why he'd been kept awake for so long, or how much of it had actually been Venom's doing.

After that brief moment, Eddie finally opened his eyes and lowered his hand.

"He doesn't like being called that," he said.

"Why not?" Shazam asked, genuinely puzzled. "That's like calling a dog what it is and then having it get offended because you called it a dog."

"Captain Marvel," Natasha warned, giving Billy a pointed look that made it clear he was better off dropping the subject.

"But it's true, isn't it?" Shazam pressed, completely unfazed by the warning.

Clint immediately turned his head away, biting the inside of his cheek as he fought to keep his composure. The corners of his mouth twitched, and despite his best efforts, his shoulders began to shake slightly. He'd been holding back laughter since Billy's earlier comment, and he was quickly running out of willpower.

Since Billy's arrival at the Tower, the working environment had taken on a noticeably lighter atmosphere. The kid seemed to have a natural talent for making people laugh and easing the tension in a room, often without even trying. Whether it was one of his ridiculous comments, some unexpected joke, or simply the way he reacted to certain situations, Billy had a habit of bringing a little humor into even the most serious moments.

‘Did he just compare me to a dog!?’ Venom's outraged voice suddenly echoed inside Eddie's head.

Eddie winced and rubbed his temple again, closing his eyes for a moment as Venom's indignation only added to the pounding headache already brewing behind his eyes. Having the symbiote shouting inside his head while surrounded by the Avengers wasn't exactly helping his situation.

Strange cleared his throat, pulling everyone's attention back toward the matter at hand before the conversation could spiral any further.

"Tell us what you know about Knull and Klyntar, " he said, his tone becoming more serious as he finally brought the interrogation back to the reason they were there in the first place. They knew nothing about why Billy would mutter the word Klynter after getting struck by Solomon’s lightning spell that night. It could be related to Knull and this world ending apocalypse, and then again it could simply be from Billy's own home world and have nothing to do with their situation.

But it wouldn't hurt to ask about it in relation to this Primordial Darkness.

The moment those names were spoken, Eddie felt a noticeable shift inside him as Venom recoiled.

It wasn't the usual reaction Eddie had grown accustomed to—the occasional irritation, paranoia, or even anger that came with sharing his mind with another being. This was different. The moment Knull's name was mentioned, followed by Klyntar, Venom's entire presence seemed to pull inward as though the mere words had triggered something deeply buried.

Eddie immediately noticed a sense of fear from Venom's end.

Whatever those names meant, Venom was afraid of them. His expression grew more serious as he looked back at Strange.

"I don't have a freaking clue what either of those things even means," Eddie admitted honestly.

"We weren't asking you," Shazam pointed out. "That question was meant for the gooey guy roaming around in your head."

Eddie gave him a tired stare, clearly too exhausted to even argue with the description anymore.

"Not to ruin your parade or anything, Captain Thunder-pants. But you're going to have to ask somebody else."

‘Captain Thunder-pants?’ Shazam repeated the ridiculous nickname in his head, his expression remaining completely unchanged as though Eddie hadn't just taken a verbal shot at him.

He was quietly grateful that Tony wasn't around to hear it, because he could already imagine the endless teasing that would have followed. A quick glance around the room confirmed that most of the others hadn't seemed to pay much attention to the jab, which was a small mercy.

Clint, however, was another story. The archer had turned his head slightly, clearly struggling to keep himself from laughing at the absurd name Eddie had just thrown at Billy.

Strange raised an eyebrow, clearly preparing to ask Eddie what he meant with little to no regard of his jab at Shazam, but Steve spoke before he could get the question out.

"Then why don't you bring him out so we can ask him directly?"

Eddie's gaze dropped to his hands resting in his lap. For a moment, he simply sat there in silence, his fingers shifting slightly against each other as he considered how to explain something that was becoming increasingly difficult to put into words.

"Because he's not coming out."

"Then ask him about it," Clint pressed.

Eddie let out a tired sigh.

"He's refusing to tell me."

The room fell quiet for a moment.

That answer seemed to leave the Avengers with more questions than they'd started with.

The answer came with another exhausted sigh, and by now Eddie looked like a man who hadn't slept in days and was starting to question whether sleep was even a real thing anymore. The others couldn't help giving him increasingly suspicious looks, almost as if they were beginning to wonder whether he'd been taking something.

To be fair, he certainly looked the part. With the dark circles beneath his eyes and that permanently drained expression, he looked less like a man who had just survived an encounter with an alien symbiote and more like someone who belonged in an entirely different kind of interrogation room. And, technically, the whole voices in his head thing wasn't exactly helping his case.

"What's his name?" Shazam suddenly asked, tilting his head slightly. "Let me talk to him."

The casual way Billy said it made almost everyone in the room turn toward him at once. There was something about his wording that made it sound as though Eddie had brought along a troublesome pet that simply needed to be called out from wherever it was hiding. Eddie stared at him for a moment, looking far too tired to decide whether he should be offended or just let it go.

"He's not a pet," Eddie immediately said, giving Billy a look that mixed exhaustion with disbelief. "But he goes by Venom."

The name lingered in the room for a moment, and the brief silence that followed seemed almost deliberate. Venom. It was certainly an unusual name, especially considering the owner of it was an alien symbiote that had spent the better part of the day tearing through New York and attacking anything unfortunate enough to get in its way.

"Okay, so why is Venom refusing to come out and play?" Clint asked, folding his arms across his chest. "He didn't exactly have any problem running around the city like it was his personal playground a little while ago."

"Because of that thing that was chasing us earlier," Eddie replied, his exhaustion evident as he spoke.

"The oversized alien cat that chased you and your gooey friend down like your flesh has some kind of special sauce it can't find anywhere else?” Shazam supplied.

Once again, several heads turned toward Billy. A strange silence settled over the room as everyone seemed to process the mental image he'd just dropped into the conversation. Even Eddie looked as though he wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that description.

Captain America finally broke the silence, staring at the young hero with genuine bewilderment. "How does your mind even come up with imagery like that?"

Billy merely shrugged, completely unfazed by the bizarre comparison he'd just made. "I don't know. It's a gift."

Clint's lips twitched as he fought back another laugh, while Natasha simply shook her head, clearly wondering how Billy managed to say things like that with such a straight face. Even Strange paused for a moment, his expression suggesting he was seriously considering whether the comment deserved a response before ultimately deciding against it. Eddie, meanwhile, looked like he was rapidly approaching the point where none of this surprised him anymore.

"According to Venom, it was hunting us," Eddie continued, rubbing the side of his face as he tried to push through the exhaustion weighing on him. At this point, he just wanted the interrogation over with so he could get some actual sleep. "And Venom doesn't know if that thing was an isolated hunter or just one member of a larger group or pack. That's the problem. If Venom comes out, there's a chance whatever biological or supernatural mechanism it uses to track us could activate again."

That wiped away what little humor had been left in the room.

The Avengers exchanged uneasy looks as the implications sank in. The idea of dealing with one Xenophage had been bad enough. The thought of a second one showing up was worse, and the possibility that there could be an entire pack of them was something nobody particularly wanted to entertain. They had barely managed to put down the creature they'd encountered earlier, and that had taken practically everyone throwing everything they had at it. If there were more of them capable of tracking Venom, then the Tower could potentially become a very large dinner bell without anyone knowing it was ringing.

"What are they called?" Strange asked before Steve could get the question out.

His eyes remained fixed on Eddie with a thoughtful expression. Having a name at least gave him something to work with. If the creature had any connection to the supernatural, there was a chance the mystical records contained something about it. Even if they didn't, knowing what they were dealing with was better than continuing to call it "that thing."

"He calls it a Xenophage," Eddie replied, while Shazam's eyebrows rose.

"Great. He can give us an answer for that, but he refuses to tell us anything about the stuff we actually want to know."

Eddie slowly turned his head toward him.

He didn't even need to ask what Shazam was thinking. The look on the guy's face already told him this was about to get worse.

Shazam looked around the room at the assembled Avengers as though he were about to offer a completely reasonable solution to their current problem.

"Can we just get on with the torture now?" he asked. "I mean, whatever the host feels, our gooey friend probably feels too, right? Might help loosen his lips."

Silence.

Steve actually looked offended, like his opinion or thought on things wasn't even being regarded by Shazam. Natasha's expression barely changed, although with a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth.

Clint, meanwhile, did not give a reaction this time around for he was unsure how to react to Shazam suddenly spearheading the team at some point.

Bruce blinked several times, clearly wondering whether he'd somehow missed the part of the conversation where this had become an acceptable suggestion.

Even Strange gave Shazam a long, unreadable look.

Eddie simply stared at him. "Wait... what?"

Shazam looked back at him, completely unfazed.

"What?"

"You just suggested torturing Venom."

Shazam shrugged.

"Yeah."

Bruce slowly turned toward Steve.

"Is this the part where we explain the whole 'we don't torture people' thing, or should we let him figure it out naturally?"

"Definitely explain it," Steve replied.

"I vote for natural consequences," Clint muttered in a suggestion for them to let the kid do his thing as Steve shot him a look.

Clint immediately raised both hands. "What? I'm just saying."

Shazam looked between them, seemingly more confused by their reactions than by his own suggestion.

"Aren't you guys supposed to be the good guys?" The question was completely genuine, that somehow made it worse.

Eddie stared at Shazam for another moment before rubbing both hands over his face.

"You're seriously asking that after suggesting torture?"

"In order to save everyone, it'd be foolish and naive of us not to explore every possibility that is sure to yield significant results.” Shazam's seemed to give the others a realization that this seemingly nonchalant kid was taking this whole apocalypse stuff a lot more seriously that he let on.

"By torturing me?"

"Technically, I'd be torturing Venom."

Eddie slowly lowered his hands.

"That's not better."

"No, I think we've established that. But we don't have time to waste, we don't even know how much time we have left before we are faced with a fight we most likely aren't prepared for."

Steve, gave Shazam the kind of look normally reserved for children who had just said something profoundly concerning in front of their parents.

"We're not torturing anyone."

Shazam nodded slowly. "Okay."

A brief pause followed.

Then he added, "But if you change your mind—"

"No," Steve said immediately, as Shazam let out a defeated sigh.

"Fine."

Eddie couldn't help but stare at him.

For the first time since entering the room, he wasn't sure whether the Avengers were actually interrogating him or whether he'd somehow stumbled into the strangest support group in existence.

Until now, Eddie had actually started to see his captivity as the safest place he could have ended up. The Avengers had already proven that they could handle a Xenophage, and if staying inside their Tower meant keeping Venom out of sight from whatever else might be hunting them, then being their prisoner wasn't exactly the worst hand he'd been dealt. At least here, there were people who could put up a fight if another one of those things showed up.

But now?

Eddie wasn't so sure anymore.

His eyes slowly drifted back toward Shazam, lingering on the hero for a moment longer than necessary. There was something deeply unsettling about how casually Shazam had suggested torture, especially considering he had said it with the same expression someone might use while suggesting a different interrogation technique.

‘Of all the people in this room, why is the Captain Thunder-pants the one I'm starting to worry about?

Venom seemed to share the concern.

‘We do not like the lightning one.’

For once, Eddie couldn't find a single reason to disagree with him.

- - -

Want more chapters? Head over to my to read several chapters ahead.

Patrn/ Da_suprememaverick