The Healing Touch

Once upon a time, in the great and busy city of New York, there lived a hero who was not famous for fighting at all.

He was famous for healing.

His name was Eddie Brock, and he was Anti-Venom. Now, most superheroes, dear one, are known for how hard they can hit, or how high they can jump, or how fast they can fly. But Eddie was known for something far, far rarer. He was known for how gently he could make people well.

Would you like to know how it worked? Then snuggle in close, and I will tell you.

Deep inside the white symbiote swirled millions of tiny helpers called antibodies. Now, antibodies are very real, and very wonderful. They are the little helpers that live inside your own body right this very moment, working quietly to keep you healthy and strong. And Anti-Venom's antibodies were extraordinarily, marvelously powerful.

When Eddie laid his big glowing white hands upon a person, those antibodies flowed into them like warm light filling a room. And then they went hunting. They could wash away a bad illness. They could draw poison out of the blood, the way a magnet gently pulls iron filings across a table. They could chase off disease and leave a person cleaner, and calmer, and healthier than they had been before.

It was, in a way, the very same gift that kind Martin Li had once given to Eddie. And now Eddie carried it forward, passing it along, hand to gentle hand.

But here is the loveliest part of all, dear one.

Eddie did not save this precious gift for big, loud, dramatic battles. Oh no. He used it in the quietest corners of the city, in the places where no cameras were watching and no crowds were cheering.

In a small, rundown shelter, he found a woman who was very sick and could not afford to see a doctor. Eddie pressed his palm softly to her warm forehead. And by the time morning came, her fever had melted away like frost in the sunshine.

In a dark and lonely alley, he found a man who had swallowed something poisonous and could barely breathe. Eddie's white light drew the poison up and out, slow and steady. The man coughed, and blinked, and sat up straight, amazed and grateful to be well again.

Soon, all through the poorest parts of New York, people began to whisper about the mysterious white healer who came in the night. Some of them were frightened at first, for Eddie was very big, with enormous white eyes. But those who let him help never, ever forgot it.

And Eddie discovered something surprising about himself.

Healing one ordinary person — someone the whole world had forgotten — felt even better than defeating a mighty villain. There were no headlines. There were no cheering crowds. There was only a person who had been hurting, and then, softly, was not hurting anymore. And that, Eddie found, was the best feeling in all the world.

But every gift, dear one, has its limit. And Eddie learned his the hard way.

The healing was not endless.

Each time Eddie cured someone, a little bit of his power drained away, like water poured slowly from a pitcher. Glug, glug, glug. And if he healed too many people, too quickly, the warm white glow would begin to flicker and grow dim, and Eddie would have to stop and rest before he could help anyone else.

So every single healing became a choice. And because it was a choice, every one of them mattered.

Isn't that a wonderful thing to think about?

The big, strong hero with the giant white eyes and the black spider on his chest — the one who had once been feared all across the city — had become something New York had never quite seen before.

He had become a hero whose greatest weapon was mercy. A hero whose strongest power was the simple, patient, loving act of making people well.

And so, night after night, Eddie walked the quiet streets, laying his gentle hands wherever they were needed, giving away his light one person at a time.

So close your eyes now, little one, and rest easy. Your own tiny helpers are inside you right now, keeping you safe and sound while you sleep. And somewhere out in the great city, a kind white hero is doing the very same thing for someone who needs him.

Goodnight, Eddie. Goodnight, gentle healer. Sleep well.