Work Text:
To everyone else, it would seem that Kobra and Poison were as close as could be. The Venom Siblings. Inseparable. Two halves of a whole. Poison, the loud, charismatic leader, and Kobra, the quiet planner. Poison had their very soul plastered on their face, but never really said what they mean. While Kobra seemed to be made of stone but could always be trusted to give total, brutal honesty. They knew each other's moves, and Witch help whatever poor bastard met them in a fight, back to back and moving together in a lethal dance that would leave bodies strewn around them, with smoking guns and heaving chests and subtle glances that no one else could read.
They were opposites. They were the same. They were dangerous.
And they never, ever fought.
In public.
The image was important. The Venom Siblings, face of the Fabulous Four and the rebellion itself, were important. They mattered to people who they had never met and people they wouldn't ever see. It was important they were seen as One.
But as soon as the locks clicked on their doors and the masks were discarded, it would start. A small remark from Poison or a cold glance from Kobra, and the storm clouds would gather. Kobra was stubborn, and Poison didn't know when to stop. Glares would harden and words would sharpen until nothing was left but fury.
Kobra's ice cold exterior would be melted by the fires of many wounds not allowed to heal, and though his voice would crack and die, his hands would make his thoughts clear, whether by sign or by fist or by knife.
And all Poison's warmth would fade away as they slipped into a frozen shell they tried oh-so-hard to forget. But the past, especially one so near, has it's claws in deep.
Suddenly they weren't siblings, suddenly they become bitter enemies so evenly matched that neither could hope for victory, only mutually assured destruction.
Only a few people had ever seen these clashes, and even fewer still could assuage them.
Sandman would come, with his gentle words and tender touches, and temper the blaze in Kobra's soul, until he settled into a comfortable warmth that could be held without risk of burning.
Jet would push them far apart, presenting the good until it outweighed the bad, and kinder words could be spoken.
And Ghoul would stay, and bear witness to the carnage, and forgive.
They would continue their dance for eternity, running parallel for ages until they both hit a snag, when they'd be flung apart before ultimately reconnecting in a catastrophic collision.
One day it could go to far. One day it could get them all killed. One day wounds could be opened that will leave them both bleeding on the ground, still swinging at each other, with no one left to stop them. One day they're both going to die.