Chapter Text
I was running out of breath and space to run. Weaving in between strangers I'd hope to lose them soon, but every time I looked back they'd be hot on my tail. I confused them a few times by making sharp turns or running across traffic, but sadly they weren't that stupid. In a final attempt to lose them, I skid into an alleyway, running and running even as my legs begged for me to stop, but I didn't. I could hear their booming voices mockingly telling me "You can run but you can't-"
"Blah blah blah!" I yell back in retort. I'm close to getting back to the main road. Until I trip over my shoelaces. I feel my heart drop with my body, landing in a not-so-dry concrete spot. I curse repeatedly under my breath, attempting to get back to running as soon as possible. But it's too late.
They finally caught up to me.
One keeps my face buried in a puddle of dirt and grime, and another steps on my legs as she tries to take my bag.
She complains "You're being a VERY difficult little bitch ain't ya?!" yanking once more before getting her grubby hands on my bag, and the important shit inside it.
"That isn't yours YOU CANT HAVE IT!" I scream.
"flip 'er over," says the woman, two of the men comply while keeping me immobile despite my angry attempts at breaking free. She goes digging through the bag, throwing out what little belongings I own to the dirt. And my anger only grows when they pocket the cash, simply because I know that's not what they're here to take .
She eventually takes out the camera, throwing the bag behind her smiling wickedly. 1 of the only 3 men not holding me down hung over me, wanting to speak -
"We know what photos you took" he says flatly getting straight to the point
"both bad and beneficial for us. So we need them." he lowers his face closer to me, eyes grey and almost lifeless.
"give us the password to your camera and everything will be-"
I spit in his face.
Grey eyes simply straigtens up without a reaction, but the woman who was once smirking now scowled at my gesture.
I turn and ask her "wheres your smirk now?".
That gains me a heeled boot to the face, blood gushing from my nose and throbbing lower lip.
"I have so much dirt of you and your 'business' on that camera" I begin, copper-tasting blood trailing down my tongue "But I know it's spider-man you want".
At the mention of the arachnid hero they stand still for my attention.
"Well sorry to disappoint you but any rumor of me having photos of the punks real face is a LIE. But. do you wanna know what IS on that camera?"
"what?" the man asks bluntly wiping spit off his face.
"where you take them. all of them. I've seen the trucks and I have photos of a few open windows with some not-so-nice views"
They're all silent, almost telepathically discussing with each other how they should go about things now.
"So destroy the damn thing, it could only benefit ya"
the boring guy gives the crazy gal a nod, and I watch as she unsheaths just a plain old metal pole from god knows where.
"ya gonna use that to trash my camera?"
"what's the password?" he says ignoring my question with his own.
I just stare at him, blank-faced.
The other two guys finally let me go right before the first hit. The woman takes that hunk of metal and slams it straight into my stomach. I can feel bile crawling up my throat, I swallow it back down. For such a flimsy-looking pole it packs a goddamn punch.
"WHAT'S THE PASSWORD?!" he demands, waving the camera.
"KISS MY ASS" I scream back.
The second hit, this time my left shin take the blow. Hunching forwards, tears well as I hold back a cry of pain.
"WHAT IS THE PASSWORD?!! I KNOW YOU HAVE SPIDERMANS REAL FACE ON HERE!! NOW TELL ME!!"
and I thought SHE was erratic.
I look up at them, "Fine, fine. I'll tell you" I say, waving my hands in defeat.
I shakily manage to stand, surrounded on all sides with no chance of running. Not that I could run.
"the password is 6-9-6-9"
He types it into the camera screen, the woman watching attentively.
I chuckle, once they realize that's not the password at all.
My laughter's interrupted by a shot to the face, a big fat hand leaving the indent of his knuckles of my cheekbone. Grey eyes has completely lost his composed demeanor, like a loser. I stumble but don't fall over, not even after another hit. And another. The bashing starts faster than I can think, my mind begins to slip away. I can only feel the sudden blunt force sending shocks of pain through my body.
And in the middle of it all, I look up through blurred vision and see her winding up her weapon aiming straight for my head. So I shut my eyes ready for impact.
A few seconds pass and I'm more surprised that there ISN'T a crowbar in my skull. I open my eyes to find they've reeled back the beating and to see she's fallen onto her ass, struggling with her hands stuck to the floor? and that piece of shit metal is out of site.
There's a thud behind me and then a back presses against mine.
I hear a whisper from behind me, "duck it".
I act instantly and crouch down putting my hands over my head
One chord lets out waves of roaring vibrations.
There was screaming followed by more loud noise. Still crouching staring at the ground I felt paralyzed. The adrenaline rush was subsiding and I could feel everything. I didn't know if I could manage the energy to get back up again.
But I could see someone crouching right next to me in my peripherals. Slowly I turned lowering my hands from my head, and once I realised who I was staring at I swear I could feel the weight of pain leaving my body.
"spider-man" I muttered in disbelief.
It was hard to make out the details with the shitty alleyway lighting and a possible concussion, but it's him alright.
"think this is yours" he says with a weirdly soothing voice for being British and all. He shows me my bag, full of all my belongings previously strewn about. The camera resting on top of it all without so much as a scratch.
"you're so... thank you". I can't construct any kind of strong sentence at the moment.
He slings my bag over his shoulder and helps me stand back up. I look around to see what happened to the irrelevants, they appear unconscious but could be dead. Either would be fine. Most are webbed to the sides of walls so they can't escape when they wake up.
I smile with blood-stained lips "good job" I tell him.
"too easy, for me at least" he replies keeping his eyes on me.
"I would usually ask for a photo, but I look quite shit" I say, turning to him and managing to stand upright myself, hobbling on my right foot.
"you're not wrong, might aswell get you fixed up, aye?" he ask.
"shore, wah nat", my words are beginning to slurry together. I definitely need a nap or something.
The punk then turns me around, sticking my bag to my back using his webs, and turns me back around. I can't see it but I sense a mischievous smirk under that mask. He then slings straight upwards, out of sight, as I'm trying to processing where he went I heard another thwip and a tug against my chest. I look down and see that familiar line of thread. Fuck.
I'm vaulted upwards, wind rushing through my blood covered hair and i'm almost 30 ft off the ground. Confusion turns to fear as I begin falling, then he appears again catching me by the waist and surging us forward with another shot from his webshooter.
I cling to his kneck and let my legs sway back and forth. My fear slowly melted away and I could feel myself breathe, my flaming pain numbed from the night air. I wondered if that's how spider-man recovers from notably hard battles, swinging through the night with the cold to ease the pain. And then I wondered if he had anybody, someone to help him after those battles. Someone to mend his especially bad wounds or to understand both sides of him.
We stopped swinging, ending up on the stoop of a brownish-red apartment complex. The streets were completely dead, nobody out at this time. Noises trilling from surrounding buildings and way off sirens wailed, but people were nowhere to be seen or heard.
"I'd expected a hospital," I said, slowly lowering myself to the ground
he steadied me like I was some old person "nah ain't no way. This here's my place".
I was shocked to say the least. I asked with confusion"why?", my head hanging low deprived of any energy I'd had earlier. Now I just want to sleep
He supported me up the first few steps of the stoop "I know you were running your mouth back there. I know you have pictures of my secret identity"
I felt embarrassed, not because he was right but because he knows I took photos of him in secret like some creep.
"sorry, I feels guilty bout it, but NOBODY was gonna geht those photos. Swear on it" some words slurrying together but managed to articulate well enough.
"I mean just look at mah face" I weakly gesture to my swollen face caked in blood.
Once we'd reached the top of the stairs to the entrance of the apartment building I felt his eyes on me. I didn't, couldn't, look back at him, I could only stare downwards at my still untied shoelaces.
"they were gonna kill you ya know?"
I nodded, too drained to respond vocally.
He sighs and whispers "You're something different mate" before heading inside the apartment complex.
Once he scooped me up, I began slipping in and out of consciousness. I wouldn't be able to make it up all those stairs without passing out and he knew it too, so without a word he yet again took me by the waist and I clung to his neck best I could. He shot a single web upwards through the gap of the forever spiraling stairwell and we began to rise, past floor 1 then 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7, and finally the top floor, floor 8.
I remember blacking out, then coming to with somebody clicking their fingers, yelling something incoherent. I'd been laid down on a couch, an alcohol-smelling torn-apart couch. But my god does it feel like a fucking cloud. There's now at least 3 more people with me, blurry-faced people all discussing different things. But where was he? His distinct red mask was nowhere to be seen among these faces. My consciousness wavered and I fell back asleep.
I don't dream often and that was one of those times, nothing but forgetful black space.
I woke with obscurity surrounding me, my senses were back to normal. My body not so much, achy and bruised from yesterday.
I didn't know what the time was but I know it was at least late in the evening. I stared at the ceiling before turning my gaze towards some stranger sitting in a chair within arms reach. The thick blanket someone had given me was pushed to the side once i'd sat up fully, I examined my body and there were a good amount of battle wounds. Some notable contusions on my shins and mild facial trauma , but it could've been alot worse.
I look back to the guy sitting in the chair, he's arms crossed asleep. I've seen him before.
I lean in closer to inspect his face, and seconds later I take a sharp breathe in as I realise. Memories of my photos suddenly surface in my mind. He's here. It's him. The real him. Not the web-swinging anarchist made out to be a villain that the media shows us, but the other side of him that looks almost angelically peaceful when he's sleeping. And the only thing I could think of was-
"way better in person".
But he frightens me slightly when he abruptly opens his eyes as if he'd never been asleep at all.
He smirks with relief and when he speaks there's benign concern "about time you woke up, thought you fell into a coma or something".
"i'm happy to see you too. You and your actual face" I say sinking back into the couch.
He stands "I look alot bettah than you right now".
I wince "that bad?"
He leans down to me, grazing the tips of his fingers across my bruised face.
"hard to say"
His touch didn't hurt, I felt more nervous and my stomach felt queasy. But it's either the closeness or the pole to the stomach I took yesterday. I felt it churn and I hunched over a bit.
He took his hands away and asked "pain giving you the collywobbles?".
"maybe but I'll be fine" I respond looking back up at him.
He faces away searching through things on the coffee table, turning back to me with a water bottle and 2 pills
"take this, ibuprofen".
I nod my head earnestly taking them and he slumps next to me on the couch.
With his head tilted upwards he states "Hobart 'Hobie' Brown. That's my real name"
I look at him and he looks at me.
Leaning back like him I respond "I'm 'y/n', nice to meet you, Hobie".
"glad to meet you too mate".
I feel his knee against mine, and although he smells like sweaty beer and cigarette ash I've definitely smelt worse. I can feel our fingers just an inch away from touching, making my stomach flutter again. I knew this feeling too well, and almost every time nothing good came of it, so I wasn't going to push it. Not yet. Not now.
We both stared up at the cracked ceiling, comfortably sitting in silence and just resting.
He deserves to rest. he's earnt it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXTRA!!??!!? :O
"how about spider-punk?"
"nah"
"hero of the system?"
"hate it"
"the camden crusader"
" no"
"okay, how about, Hobes"
"sure, best suggestion you've had in the last hour"
"did you really not like big brown?"
"you're properly different mate"
"in a good way"
"it's debatable"
(you two are talking about nicknames <3)