translation
Aventurine doesn't like being understood, but he does like understanding other people. It is essential for manipulation, for scheming, for control. And he likes controlling you especially—for keeping you close but your heart a comfortable distance away, for opening your legs when he wants the pleasure of your body, for playing your emotions however he needs. And the day will come when that skill will be invaluable—the day when he must die without shattering you.
(Or: You are the only person in the universe who understands Aventurine in his mother tongue. He often regrets teaching it to you.)
5k words. gender neutral reader, established relationship, angst, non-graphic sex (reader bottoms, anatomy neutral), themes of cultural loss, references to slavery, aventurine’s canonically implied desire to die. MDNI.
Aventurine cannot lie in Avgin.
Deception does not come easily to him in his mother tongue. His command of it is too weak—and too kind. The universe was a different place in the days when his life was coloured by the warble of Avgin dialect. It felt simpler, partly because he was a child and partly because Sigonia was yet untouched by outsiders. There were no corporations, no casinos, no commodity codes. His entire world was sand, desert, mother, sister, father (or more often—ghost), goddess, tent, wagon, luck, sin, rain, blessing, Avgin.
Katican.
Aventurine is sure that he knew more than just those words. He was fluent as a child. He had conversations with his sister that were complex enough to make his heart hurt, though perhaps his heart was just constantly aching anyway. But the rest of his early words escapes him. He could maybe dredge them up if he thinks long enough, but he also isn't sure if his tongue and lips could form the shape of them anymore. Sometimes he still counts in Avgin, memorises phone numbers in it, but he doesn’t remember the last time he actually strung together a full sentence in the language.
When Aventurine was first stolen into slavery (a word that he had not known as a child, and still doesn't know in Avgin), he wasn’t given a Synesthesia Beacon. He had to rely on his ears and his wits, deciphering the harsh edges of the Katican dialect and then the strange garble of Interastral Standard Language. By the time he had a Beacon installed, it was already translating all speech into Standard—his dominant language.
Sometimes he feels a little aggrieved by it, but at least it wasn't Katican. He'd have blown out his brains if it were.
But it is easy to console himself: Avgin is not a useful language anyway. Dead languages have no value, and the Avgin dialect was killed along with its people. You can’t perform commerce in a dead language, can't negotiate contracts, can't enter a gambling den and use your silver tongue to rob people blind. You can't use a dead language to fell governments and extract resources; you can't use a dead language to bring an entire planet to its knees. You can’t use a dead language to gamble your life; you can't use it to save yourself from the gallows.
You cannot deceive people in a language that is defined by sand, sister, goddess, ghost.
Aventurine cannot lie in Avgin. His command of it is too weak, and there is no one left to which he can lie, anyway.
When you ask Aventurine to teach you his first language, he gives you an amused look.
“Why Avgin?” he asks. “No one speaks it anymore. I can teach you Common Sigonian if you’d like. Or we could learn Xianzhounese together. Maybe Intellitron code? I know a little.”
“You speak Avgin,” you argue.
“Not often,” he says. “And badly when I do.”
“But it's still your language. And I want to understand you.”
Aventurine has to stop himself from laughing. Understand him? He hates being understood. When people understand him, it makes him predictable. And unlikeable. Hardly a position from which he can manipulate people in.
You understand him well enough to know that.
“You'll have to give me a better reason than that,” he says neatly. “Make it worth my while. Reward me.”
You look at him as you ponder, your eyes lingering on his. Perhaps trying to read him, though he prefers to think you're just enjoying the sight of them.
“I’ll teach you my language as well?”
“You mean—you'll reward my hard labour with more work?” he says, lighthearted.
You frown at him despite the joke. “You don't want to understand me better than what a Synesthesia Beacon would allow?” He blinks, pausing. “It’ll be convenient too. We can talk shit about other people in public and no one will understand us.”
Aventurine considers you. He doesn't like being understood, but he does like understanding other people. It is essential for manipulation, for scheming, for control. And he likes controlling you especially—for keeping you close but your heart a comfortable distance away, for opening your legs when he wants the pleasure of your body, for playing your emotions however he needs. And the day will come when that skill will be invaluable—the day when he must die without shattering you.
He also likes the idea of talking shit in public.
“I'm listening,” he says, voice lilting. You lean in, smiling. Sweet. It makes his heart feel something he isn't used to. Something addictive. Something disgusting. He scrambles to cover it with one of the usual tools: humour or distraction or maybe just plain old lying—his most reliable weapon.
“I'll throw in a kiss?” you try.
He hums. “Just one?”
“One per day.”
“Three.”
“You drive a hard bargain.”
“Well, I am a businessman.”
You snort, but he knows you're endeared. You have very noticeable tells when you’re flustered.
“Okay,” you say. “Three kisses on days you teach me.”
“Deal.”
Aventurine remembers more Avgin than he thought he would.
It comes to him slowly, painstakingly. You aren't interested in structured lessons, and he wouldn't be able to provide them anyway. He has a nonexistent grasp of grammar aside from this sounds right and that sounds strange, and Avgin dialect is both so niche and so dead that no textbooks are available. The scholars have abandoned the language as much as the politicians abandoned its people. Aventurine only has you, his fragmented memory, and whatever questions come to mind as you live out your days with him.
Mostly, you ask him about basic vocabulary. Sometimes you ask him to repeat sentences from your conversations in Avgin, like he’s some kind of multilingual parrot. Each prompt forces him to wade through the fog in his mind, the one that’s been shrouding his childhood memories until now. He's startled at how naturally the old words roll off his tongue: One, two, three, four. Good morning. Good evening. Good night. Sweet dreams. Five, six, seven, eight. You're lying to me. Why do you always lie to me? I don't know what you're talking about. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Welcome home. Have you eaten? Have some bread. I made you stew. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty. That was dangerous. I thought you wouldn't make it back to me. Sometimes I think you want to die. One hundred, one thousand, one million, one billion. I'm sorry. Come here. Let me kiss you. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.
When you say, How do I ask you to let me hold you, he answers easily. He'd heard the words so often as a child: Let me hold you, Kakavasha. Let Mama hold you. His mouth forms the sounds without conscious thought.
He regrets it almost immediately.
When Aventurine hears it from you—stilted, halting, but no less gentle—he stops breathing. Let me hold you. You say it all the time in Standard, but it feels different in Avgin. More painful. A strange sense of panic closes in on him when he's wrapped up in you, thinking in Avgin, thinking sand, sister, goddess, ghost. He holds you tightly, like the rags cut from his father’s shirt, or his mother’s locket won back from the shell-slashers, or a bag of poker chips beneath a card table, clutched within his trembling grip.
“Aventurine, is something wrong?” you ask in Avgin, and he replies in Standard with his usual smile.
“Hm? No. What could be wrong if I have you here?”
Lying is one of his greatest tools. Sex is another one. So he says, “I think I'd like my reward now,” and he runs his lips along your jaw, your pulse, the spot over your heart (there's a word for that in Avgin but not Standard, he tells you), until you're laughing. I thought you wanted three kisses, you tease, and he replies, Who said I wanted to kiss you on the mouth?
But he coaxes open your thighs, and once he's inside you, he collects his payment properly. He kisses you, and kisses you, and kisses you—and you swallow his lies whole.
There are some things that Aventurine doesn't teach you. Mostly, they’re things that he can’t teach you.
There are countless gaps in his Avgin. His speech is painfully childish—probably more childish than it was when he actually stopped speaking it. He doesn't know how to swear (something that disappoints you) and he doesn't know how to flirt (something that devastates you). He doesn’t know any words that would be useful for work either: commercialization, governance, stakes, winnings, profit. When you ask him what his job title is in Avgin (“Was senior management even a thing in Avgin society?”), he laughs and gives you the word for gambler.
Then there are the words that he remembers—has remembered his whole life—but never says. Not to you, and not to himself. He doesn't teach you any prayers. He doesn't teach you any blessings. He doesn't teach you about Mama Fenge, or the Kakava Festival, or how the rain fell when he was born. When you ask him, What holidays did you celebrate when you were little? he shrugs and says, We didn't have any. Sigonia’s too bleak to do any partying.
Then you ask him one day, while your bodies are spent in the afterglow of sex, sticky with sweat and sweetness, how to say I love you. And he goes quiet.
Love is a cheap word in Interastral Standard. In the language of globalisation and trade, love has been commercialised, commodified, capitalised for power. You say it to him in many contexts: I love this, I love that, I love you. He hardly ever reacts, and he's never said it back. It would feel unnecessary and also cruel if he did: Aventurine has only ever said the words himself as either a joke or a manipulation.
But love feels different in Avgin than in Interastral Standard, doesn't sound like a thing that can be traded or bought. Kakavasha only ever said the word love to his mother, to his sister, to his father's grave. Love in his mother tongue feels priceless.
When Aventurine thinks about you saying it—I love you, Kakavasha, in clumsy, earnest Avgin—something so painful swells in his throat that he can hardly breathe.
“There is no word for love in my language,” he tells you.
You blink. “Okay, then what's an idiom for it?”
“There is none. There’s no word or phrase expressing love.”
You raise a brow. “That’s hard to believe.”
“Is it?” He smiles. “There’s no Avgin in the known universe who cares about love. Only scheming, thieving, and treachery—and you can't do those things when love is involved.”
You look at him in alarm. “Why are you saying that?” You're practically squirming in your discomfort. “I don't know why you think I'd believe such a racist stereotype.”
“It’s not a stereotype,” he says. “I'm not talking about the Avgin culture. I'm talking about myself.”
After all, he is the only Avgin left.
It is an unfair thing to say. A cruel thing to say. After all the laughing and kissing and crying and fucking, after all the tender eyes and gentle words from you—it is probably the worst pain imaginable: I don't give a shit about you. He waits for you to cry.
But you only stare at him calmly, studying him. You brush the hair out of his eyes, seeing them clearly.
“If you lie to me all the time,” you say in Avgin, “eventually I'll stop believing anything you say.”
Aventurine is speechless. His heart does that addictive, disgusting thing again. He thinks about leaving, but then you say, Let me hold you, and he can't do anything other than obey.
Avgin dialect was once included in the Synesthesia Beacon list of functions. The Intelligentsia Guild added it before the Second Katica-Avgin Extinction Event, when the IPC was trying to get a political foothold on Sigonia via the Avgin people. The language was alive then, with enough value to be included into the Synesthesia LLM by the linguists.
But since the Extinction Event—since Kakavasha ran away from home—the Synesthesia data on Avgin has been stagnant, a fossil. Aventurine knows because he's subscribed to software updates for certain languages (Avgin Sigonian, Common Sigonian, Interastral Standard, and now your mother tongue). He gets pinged every time there's a new addition for slang, for neologisms—but there hasn't been a ping for the Avgin dialect since he had the Beacon installed. The live translation function hasn't even been available since the previous Amber Era. When he checks its page on his Synesthesia app, it's very clear why—
SIGONIAN, AVGIN DIALECT
SPEAKERS: 0
STATUS: Extinct
END OF SERVICE: 2156 AE
The complete death of the language has led to an irritating dilemma for you and Aventurine. You keep running into words that he doesn't know—this time not because of his childlike speech, but because they never existed in his language to begin with. Ocean, tropical, rainforest. Starskiff, accelerator, space fleet. Stock market, shortselling, mutual funds. Black hole, event horizon, spaghettification. All things that never came up for Kakavasha, but now come up for Aventurine, and the language has not evolved to include it.
He always wants to switch to Standard to discuss these things, but you're insistent on speaking in Avgin as much as possible. He doesn't know why, but he doesn't mind humouring you—partly because he likes to indulge you, and partly because he’s grown used to hearing the honeyed timbre of Avgin dialect in your household. The place would feel strange without it.
So you start filling the gaps with other languages, filtering them through the lyricism of Avgin. Loanwords, he thinks they’re called. You take ocean, tropical, rainforest from Amazian; starskiff, accelerator, space fleet from Xianzhounese; stock market, shortselling, mutual funds from Interastral Standard. For the astrophysics terms, you try directly translating them—with limited success.
“Can't I literally just say ‘black hole’?” you ask in Avgin, and he nearly spits out his coffee.
“Please don't. That's a dirty word.” He can't bring himself to say what it means, but from the way you’re laughing, you can clearly guess.
“I thought you said you didn't know how to swear.”
“You've just reminded me how.”
“You're welcome.” You look on the verge of cackling. Aventurine finishes his coffee and wonders when you're going to surprise him with your newfound vulgarity.
“Let's just do the space terms based on Standard,” he says. Begs.
“No, that's so boring.”
“Then let's do your language.”
You open your mouth. Close it. Give him a blank look.
“You don't know how to say those words in your mother tongue either, do you,” he intuits.
“Well, ‘spaghettification’ doesn't really come up in everyday conversation, does it?”
“Then maybe we don't need it.” He smiles, senses an opportunity. Smells blood. “How about ‘love’? I'd much rather know how you say that. I bet it sounds beautiful.”
You give him a long look. Your eyes are vulnerable when you share it: Love. I love you. He’s fascinated by the sound of it. Your voice is never that fragile when you say it in Standard. It's never so earnest. He repeats it, staring at you, and your gaze falls to the ground. His mouth curls.
“I like it,” he says. “Let's use that. It'll sound nice in Avgin.”
You try to recover. “Sure. That works. But back to ‘black hole’—”
And the two of you continue like that for days, weeks, months. It feels like a complete bastardization of his mother tongue on some days, in some conversations. Almost unrecognisable. But it doesn't feel bad. It’s all he has, it's all you have, and when he walks into your home, he starts speaking it without thinking: your bastard, patchwork language. The Avgin dialect that exists only in your house. A tongue that can only be understood by a liar.
And then, one lazy Sunday morning, he gets a familiar ping. He expects it to be Interastral Standard, as usual. The language balloons with each planet that the IPC colonises.
But instead, he opens his screen and freezes.
SIGONIAN, AVGIN DIALECT
SPEAKERS: 2
STATUS: Endangered.
SERVICE RESUMED: 2157 AE
NEW UPDATES: 103 loanwords and 5 neologisms added.
He can't stop looking at the status. Endangered. Endangered, which means dying, but alive. The Avgin dialect is alive again. The Intelligentsia Guild determined it, so it must be true. But Aventurine can't agree: there are no Avgin speakers in the known universe other than the two of you, and what you speak isn't real Avgin. The Avgin spoken by his mother and father and sister is dead; the Avgin spoken by Kakavasha is dead. The festivals are gone; the deserts have been terraformed. There are no wagons; there are no dances; there are no prayers. There are no blessings, and he has no home—
As long as you are alive, the blood of the Avgin will never run dry.
His throat locks up.
“Aventurine?” you ask. Your voice is drowsy, but concerned. “Is something wrong?”
He looks at you from his phone, a polished smile on his face.
“No.” His syllables are plain and efficient in the noise of Interastral Standard: “Just looking at details for a new assignment. It’ll be a long one.”
“Oh.” You frown. “Will you be away from home for a long time, then?”
He stops himself from swallowing. “Yes, I'll be away from the house. For several months, probably.”
“Okay.” Your voice is small. “Take care of yourself, okay? I'll miss you.”
Each word you speak resonates with heartbreak. It always does in these conversations, even in Standard—but the sorrow is amplified in Avgin. His mother tongue has an inherently sad quality to it, he's noticed. His people have lost so much over their history—their language is one of loss. It's his language of loss. Kakavasha did all his grieving in Avgin; Aventurine has never felt sorrow in Standard. When the language died, so did Kakavasha—and all his regrets with it.
“You'll come home to me, right?” you ask. It's a beautiful sentence in Avgin. A heartrending one. He feels something that he hasn't known since he was a child.
It's a feeling he has to kill.
“Yes,” he says in Standard. “Of course I'll come back.”
This is not the first time that Aventurine has been mistaken for dead, but this is the longest time.
The latest world to join the IPC network was a tough acquisition. It had been ruled by a despot who wreaked havoc on both the people and the planet, and who was too stupid and reckless to resolve conflicts with his trade partners. He probably would have blown up the whole star system had he been left to his own devices. Aventurine had no qualms about bringing him to ruin, nor did he have qualms about nearly dying in the process.
If things had gone his way, he'd either be dead or missing. This would have been the perfect opportunity to do the latter, actually—to be freed from the IPC. Free to drift alone, speaking with strangers in strange, unfamiliar tongues. No connection to his past, to the cruel history of his luck, to his commodity code. No tether to his inherently unjust destiny. But instead he's back in your house, pockets heavy with his borrowed wealth, speaking to you in his bastardised, childish Avgin. I'm sorry. Come here. Let me kiss you. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.
Your Avgin is—shockingly fluent. He doesn't know how. He can't think about it right now. All he can process is the wounded animal noise of your speech as you yell at him, as you cry. Like an injured songbird, or a weeping child. Why did you leave, why did you lie, why do you always lie to me, why don't you give a shit about me, you spit. Why do you want to die, why do you want to die, why do you want to die, you keep saying. Sand, sister, goddess, ghost, he keeps hearing. Sand, sister, goddess, ghost. Don't leave me, big sister. People will die. Why do you have to go?
“I’m sorry,” he tries again, this time in your language. “I'm so sorry. Come here. Let me hold you.”
You collapse into your mother tongue. Aventurine is both relieved and horrified. Relieved that he doesn't need to hear the language of his grief—horrified that he needs to hear yours. He's never heard you cry like this. He's never heard you break like this. These must have been the words you used when the soldiers found you hiding in your closet, when they dragged you out of your home. You were just a child.
Aventurine doesn't know the words you are using—you've never taught them—but he still understands them.
You're very malleable when you’re sad; even more so when you're hysterical. Aventurine understands this about you, and he understands how to calm you—this time in your native tongue—and he understands how to kiss you. He understands that you need to feel close to him. He understands that there are ways to accomplish this other than sex. A normal person would talk it out, have an honest conversation, come to a mutual understanding, and maybe even stop trying to kill himself. They wouldn't fuck you into the mattress while your face is still wet with tears.
But Aventurine is not a normal person. He doesn't know how to have an honest conversation, and he doesn't want to be understood. Lying is his greatest weapon, and sex is a close second. So he kisses you until you’re too breathless to cry, fucks you until you can't think, and makes you come so hard that you’re in too much bliss to grieve. And maybe it's horrible of him, but he enjoys it. He enjoys the way your body takes him in so easily, the way your nails dig into his back, the way you tighten around him when you climax, so wet and needy for him. The way you beg for him in your language for liars as he spends himself inside you: I love you, Aventurine, I love you, I love you, I love you—
Only because it feels good. This is all only because he enjoys fucking you. This is all only because you enjoy fucking him. This is all it'll ever be, and it'll be this way until he gets to meet his end.
(Some months ago, Aventurine started dreaming in Avgin.
It surprised him when he first noticed it. The last time he remembers having a dream in his native tongue, he was twelve years old and still in chains. And even then, it had become a sporadic, strange thing. Awful to wake up from. One minute he was with his mother and sister on a cool, rainy day, speaking fluently in Avgin as he laughed and played—and the next minute, he was being shaken awake in his cage, hearing the cruel lash of Katican.
But ever since he's started speaking Avgin with you, he's been dreaming in it. Vividly. Sometimes he's a child in these dreams, and sometimes he's grown. He's always back in the Sigonian desert, among the tents and the campfires and his family wagons. His mother and sister are alive. Sometimes his father is too. The skies roar with thunder and the stellar winds are always harsh, but they always keep him cocooned up in their arms. He's always warm.
Sometimes Aventurine dreams of nicer days. Clear skies, warm sun, cool breeze—all blessings from the Mother Goddess. On these days, he tends to be an adult, and you tend to be there with him. Your Avgin is fluent but strange, filled with funny loanwords and peculiar slang. His father likes the neologisms and starts using them—but only in wrong ways. His sister finds it embarrassing and keeps apologising to you.
His mother loves you. She loves you so much it hurts. This is how I know you're blessed, Kakavasha, she says, glowing. You’re so lucky to have found such a kind person.
Kakavasha knows this. He knows he's lucky, and in his dreams, that isn't a bad thing. In his dreams, his luck means that his home is not violently excised from his heart: his father never dies; his mother never dies; his sister never dies. The tents are not burned; the wagons are not destroyed. He is never forced to forget his people's dishes, their songs, their language, their joy. And in his dreams, his luck means that he meets you anyway, without all the loss and the chains and the lying.
In his dreams, he is able to bring you to the desert. He is able to teach you the Avgin he spoke as a child, to cook all the meals his mother used to make, to share with you their coffee and their tea. He teaches you prayers. He teaches you blessings. He tells you about Mama Fenge, about how the rain fell when he was born. He takes you to the Kakava Festival, shows you how to dance, sings to you all the Avgin songs until you're singing back. He presses his palm to yours in prayer; he kisses you in devotion, not avoidance.
Sometimes the two of you still fight, the same fights that you have in real life, but he handles them with honesty. He listens to you. He apologises to you. He tells you that he’ll change, and he means it—because this world is a kind one, and he has no need to be so cruel to you.
In this kind world, when you lay in bed with his arms tight around you, you smile at him and say, I love you, Kakavasha. You say it in Avgin—real Avgin, not the dialect born from genocide and deceit—and when he responds, there's not even a little bit of insincerity in his voice. Because Kakavasha never became Aventurine in these dreams, so he has no Interastral Standard in which he can lie to you, no silver tongue with which he can manipulate you, no commodity code that inspires his fear of being controlled by you. Kakavasha only knows Avgin, and he only has his sand, his family, his goddess, his home.
And he has you. Finally, he has you.
He kisses you, and kisses you, and kisses you—and then he tells you the truth.)
.
.
.
Aventurine cannot lie in Avgin.
You noticed this very early on: whenever he lies to you, he always switches to Interastral Standard. Probably he wouldn't be able to do it in his mother tongue. His command of it is too weak, and the words he knows are all too kind. He speaks with the innocence of a child, and children cannot deceive people in the way that adults can. Children cannot perform commerce or negotiate contracts. They cannot use a silver tongue to rob people blind. They cannot save themselves from the gallows.
So Aventurine’s Avgin is defenceless. Vulnerable. So vulnerable it hurts. You are not so vulnerable in your first language because your captors spoke it on occasion, and you learned to lie in it to gain their pity. You told Aventurine that knowing it would help him understand you, but this was a deception. Aventurine’s mother tongue was a language of trust, but yours is a dialect of abuse.
The Avgin language died before Aventurine could be gutted by it; this is why it disarms him so completely. This is why he’s so indulgent and so warm when you use it with him, why he yields to all your requests. Not requests for money or gifts—you’re certain those are meaningless to him—but for affection. Let me hold you. Let me touch you. Let me kiss you. He can never say no.
This is also why he loves hearing you speak his mother tongue, you think—it makes him feel at home, it makes him feel safe. Maybe it even makes him feel loved. He never seems so at peace speaking any other language, so you try to use Avgin as much as possible. You like seeing him happy. You like it even if it means you need to teach him your own native language in exchange, even when it means you need to hear him say all the things your captors used to say. You don't mind it if it's him. You never mind the harm he inflicts on you, especially not when it brings you closer to him.
It is convenient that he cannot lie in Avgin. You only wanted to learn it in the first place because he talks in his sleep—mostly in Standard, but sometimes in his native tongue. And now that you know he cannot lie in Avgin, you also know he's always being honest in his dreams. Honest when he throws his arms around you in his sleep. Honest when he grabs you so tightly that you bruise. Honest when he buries his face into your neck and whispers prayers into your skin.
Most of the words he says are common ones, the earliest vocabulary that he taught you. But there are some things he's withheld from you—and to learn those things, you had to track down linguists from the Intelligentsia Guild, bribe them with your dirty money, have them give you all their deprecated, extinct data. It felt two-faced, and it was violating, but it was the only way. You already know that Aventurine would rather die than translate his feelings for you, would never want this part of himself understood.
I'm sorry for always leaving you.
I'm sorry for making you cry.
I can't bear the thought of losing you.
Freedom would be too lonely without you.
I don't want to hurt you anymore.
I don't want to lie to you anymore.
I missed you.
I want you.
I need you.
I love you.
end
afterword
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Being Miguel’s daughter and hosting Venom
[Platonic One-Shot]
c/w: major spoilers, angst, gender neutral terms and pronouns (they/them), suicidal thoughts, attempted suicide, no gendered terms used to describe reader, canon ignorance and inaccuracies, if you read the drabble you’ll know you originally just hosted Venom but this time I’m writing you as Spider-Venom
—
[Unedited]
The sun kissed the Western horizon as it slowly sunk beneath the surface. The gorgeous colors of the settling dusk bathing your New York in the luminous sheen of the golden glow that settles upon the city like a blanket.
You were just finishing up for the day, swinging from a tall skyscraper to tether a web to the very top of a clock tower. Pulling yourself up all the way to the top to perch on one of the very many gargoyle statues jutting out of the tower’s roof lip.
“Hungry.”
“That’s what the sandwiches are for bud.”
Venom settled inside when you tore the wrapping off the sandwich and took a big bite out of the end. Plenty of meat packed into the sandwich but also enough vegetables to sustain you too. Nutrients were vital in your symbiotic relationship with the alien and regardless of where they came from you both needed hundreds of them to keep yourselves alive and healthy.
“I hate the vegetables.”
“Well I like them. They taste better than people do.”
“You’ve never had another person before! You don’t let me eat people!”
“I’m not a cannibal.”
“Hmph.”
You rolled your eyes at the symbiote’s childish behavior, you’ve grown used to it but that didn’t mean you’d grown to like their attitude.
But you had grown to like them, ever since they had attached themself to you on your fourteenth birthday. The same day you very nearly took your own life.
Your life was far from perfect, as a matter of fact you can’t remember a time in your twenty long years of being alive that you’d actually been happy. Really, well and truly happy.
Your mother died when you were five and your father had abandoned you not too long after. About a year and half to be precise, and in his care and his care alone you’d learned that he was the furthest thing from what a proper father should be.
The first five years in which he parented you alongside your beloved mother he seemed guarded. Closed off, angry at the world and everyone surrounding him. And his own personal turmoil seemed to transcend into raising you— as he didn’t put an ounce of love or affection into bringing you up.
At the time, you hadn’t understood. What did you do wrong? Did you make him angry? Why wouldn’t he love you unconditionally? Your mother did.. was it so hard for him to treat you as his own? As if he loved you?
Apparently it was too hard for him, because he didn’t want to do it alone. And when your mother had died of cancer he had attempted to raise you in her honor but failed miserably and gave up within two years.
You were seven when you experienced your first heartbreak, in the years prior under his ‘care’ you had plenty share of devastation and let-downs from him. But none compared to this, no other feeling you had ever experienced before compared to this.
A searing ache in your chest born of self doubt, lack of self worth and value. Because you had believed it was entirely your fault that he was incapable of loving you fully and to the extent of his heart. And it festered in your years spent under different families, the issues regarding how you viewed yourself only darkening as you were let down over and over again.
Given up on— over and over again. And the ache continued to linger, growing in secret places— dark and hateful in your tired heart.
And slowly but surely it had given up on you too, shatter to pieces and cast to the wind to leave you broken and hurt. Vulnerable and fragile to the cold and bitter winds of this cruel and brutal life.
Eventually your mind followed suit, wishing for anything to escape this pain. Anything to leave it behind.
Your luck had a turn for the worst when you were bitten by a spider at twelve and gifted cursed with abilities and skills inhuman and otherworldly.
Enhanced senses, heightened sensitivities and awareness and phenomenal intelligence and strength.
Superhuman.
And for two years you lived with it, not utilizing the powers for any kind of purpose. The heightened healing property of your curse made it hard to give up on this life as you had so desperately wished to.
You tried and tried again— and each time you failed.
When you were fourteen is when you met Venom, you had tested buildings before but never the Golden Gate Brigde. And as you clambered over the rail to stand at the very edge of the bridge’s structure— it happened.
You remember the feel of their texture sliding across your skin, then the pressure you felt as they sunk beneath your skin to meld with your body—
“It wasn’t that bad. You’re overexaggerating.”
“I thought we agreed you’d stay out of my head.”
“I never agreed to that.”
“Venom,” you scolded lightly. Not reprimanding in a way that spat disappointment over ownership. But in a way that spoke volumes of the relationship you shared with the alien. Equals.
“I hate it when you think about that bastard.”
“I know, I’m sorry.. my thoughts get away from me.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. He made his choice, you are what he made you. And you’re more than worth it. You deserve love just as everybody else.”
They went silent after that and you didn’t bother trying to get them to keep up the conversation. Just smiled softly at their nature— overprotective and fond.
Venom had saved your life when you were at your lowest, the abilities you gained from your spider bite coupled well with their own. And upon latching themself to you they had promised they would make you see the value in life. And you had.. in them.
They were what kept you alive, and you couldn’t be more grateful for them coming to your aid when you needed it the most.
“You’re sweet, you like to act like you’re big and bad but on the inside you’re just a big softie.”
“I regret everything I said.”
“Oh come on, I was thanking you for what you said.”
“Funny how you didn’t actually say the words ‘thank you’ at all.”
You just laughed as they grumbled in your head, but you were swift to straighten and turn serious when your senses tingled. Like a cold rippled shucking down your back to warn you of incoming danger or threats.
Venom growled lowly alongside the tingle and you jumped up, spinning around to face the danger that caused your senses to ripple. And a glowing orange portal suddenly erupted to life just a few feet in front of you. Sliding your mask back on you separated your feet and steadied yourself, prepared and strong in stance.
Your senses tingled again— sharper this time and you stood there on tense silence and a brief moment of absolute stillness. A moment later something was shooting from the portal, something turned out to be someone and you recognized the green suit and grinning goblin mask as Green Goblin tackled you off the building.
You freed yourself from his grasp and shot a web to the corner of the building to your left before pulling yourself free from his grip and onto the side of the skyscraper.
Your jaw ticked as a flicker of annoyance sparked to life in your chest. The very last thing you wanted to deal with after a long day was an anomaly. You were honestly tempted to just call up Peter B. Parker and have him come here and take care of this himself.
Or maybe he could convince the leader he follows to come do it, not that you know his name or anything f about him but from what Peter says apparently he’s pretty damn good at his job.
“Seriously another one? Our dimension can’t be that exciting can it?”
“Right there with ya buddy, why did he have to come here after we already finished up our day too?”
“Honestly, like— a little fucking class wouldn’t hurt.”
You chuckled at their remark before your senses tingling had you swinging away from the spot you occupied previously just as a gas bomb erupted against the brick.
An irritated sigh left your lips behind the fabric of your mask as you perched yourself on a lamp post, the Goblin’s eerie hysterical laughter echoing loud and prominent in the desolate streets surrounding you. Everyone having long since turned in for the night leaving the area free of any civilians which made your job —and in turn Venom’s— easier at least.
The fight that had begun two minutes after Goblin had tried to surprise you with his fucking chemical bombs wasn’t all you had thought it would be. This Goblin was a whole lot weaker than your Goblin, not only that but the guy kept glitching every few minutes.
And you and Venom capitalized on the very golden opportunities that event opened up to you every time it occurred.
And finally taking him down without any damage to the buildings or street was just the icing on the cake, the fact that the whole fight didn’t endanger any innocent people was a plus too.
Things only went to shit when you went back to that portal with Goblin slung over your shoulder and found two different spider variants walking out of it.
“Well what the fuck took them so damn long? Sure, sure no worries we’ll protect our own universe and keep others out too. No fucking problem on our end.”
Again, you found yourself chuckling humorously at Venom’s attitude. Their clear lack of patience and respect for those in charge of keeping the multiverse under control amusing you. Sure, you both liked Peter enough to admire what it was he and the guy he followed did.. along with the other spider variants he works with. But still.. if you’re going to make this your entire career and you’re going to dedicate yourself to the security of the multiverse— at least be good at it.
“Think this asshole got lost, poor wee lamb.” You quipped as you landed on the rooftop the other were standing on. You carelessly threw Goblin off your shoulder and he grunted as he hit the concrete on his back. The sound of pain coming from him almost humanizing him a bit, and you curled your lip derisively as he broke out into a mad grin seconds later.
Whilst you were distracted staring at Norman, Miguel withheld his sudden and intense urge to upheave all the contents in his stomach. His heard felt like lead as it plummeted to his toes, knots in his stomach winding themselves up tightly at the sound of your voice.
“[Y/Name]?”
You looked up when the man of the two variants spoke, and there was a flicker of recognition in your stomach at the voice. Recognition that swiftly turned to course and fiery hot rage that flowed through your blood like magma.
“How dare he?!”
The man pulled his mask off his face and there he was, your father, Miguel O’hara.
“How dare he return here?!”
You took an instinctive step back from him when he revealed his face. And you flinched internally when you saw it, he looked miserable.. eyes bloodshot and brows downturned to put a deep and painful scowl on his face.
He looked broken.. hurt.
And the twisted and vengeful feelings inside you felt good at the prospect of him hurting. You liked that look on his face.. because he more than deserved whatever put it there.
Miguel watched as you stepped back, you didn’t remove your mask as he did. Just stood there frozen as you stared at him. Then the eyes of your mask narrowed and he could abruptly feel the heat of your glare searing into his skin. Angry and painful.
“Parker— that fucking bastard, we’ll kill him.”
“We?” The woman spoke and you looked from your father to her. She had darker skin and a styled afro, her mask was more or less goggles on her face and Venom snickered inside your head at the mental insult you made.
You decided to ignore her question, the passive aggressive tone she took not inclining you to be cooperative with her at all.
“As far as we know Osborne was the only one who got into this universe,” you informed choosing to look back to Miguel to address him instead of the woman. “So gather him and go home.”
“[Y/Name] wait!—”
“Don’t. You’re just here for him right?” You queried gesturing to Norman when you referred to him. Then you were facing Miguel again. “Take him and get out. We’re finished here.” You weren’t granted the chance to see his reaction— immediately doing what you thought was best for you and getting out of the uncomfortable spot his return had put you in.
And you swung away as you ignored the calls of your name he roared into the night. You didn’t want anything to do with him, and there was nothing you owed to that bastard. Not a damn thing.
And as you swung away from that rooftop you felt angry at the fact that you could feel your guarded heart hurt in deep and stinging agony once again— because of him.
And you felt a twitch of disgust in yourself twist itself into a knot within your chest, born at the expense you felt you were dishonoring Venom by being hurt you saw your father again.
After all, it was them that had healed you six years ago when they had first bonded with you. And it was them and them alone that had healed that ache in your heart.
“Kid.”
“Please Venom, not now.”
They went silent after that, and you stayed quiet too as you swung through the city. You just wanted to be at home, safe and comfortable in the warmth of your own space. Just so you could calm the roaring of your blood and thunderous heart in the security and peace that your home brought you.
You knew that now that he knows you’re still alive he’ll come back, and you’re not sure how the next time will go.. this time you just wanted out. The way your heart had picked up and the way your blood quickened had made you just want to be isolated and safe.
You’re not so sure which feeling will take more presence next time— but you could promise this; the rage you had briefly felt, that died behind the feeling of ache and hurt but still lingered, was strong. If it took province over every other feeling next time you could promise it wouldn’t end well.
Not for Miguel.
Not for you.
And not for the multiverse.. the same multiverse he had been so keen on protecting—
The multiverse he had chosen over you.
—
a/n: I did this during a tattoo on my ribs— and the wipe down continues to be my least favorite part of adding tattoos to my body, cause how can I sit through a tattoo just fine then get weak on the wipe down? 🥲🤌🏽
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