Chapter Text
When Tubbo goes home after hanging out at Tommy’s place, he takes the subway. The distance is too far to walk, and the streets aren’t the safest. Besides, he’s already paying for that expensive-ass subway monthly pass — might as well use it.
Tommy lives in one of those gigantic apartments only the really well-off can afford, full of rich art and space to roam. Tubbo has always found the place to be quite a bit claustrophobic, honestly, despite it being anything but. He thinks it’s the fact it always looks and sounds so vacant, even though it isn’t. It’s so big that it feels small, unlived in.
One would think that the incident from two months ago would have discouraged him from visiting his best friend’s residence again, but Tommy whined so much about his three-day absence that Tubbo changed his mind. Either way, not showing his face at Tommy’s house anymore would be suspicious, to say the least — and caution never killed anybody. At least he’s putting his subway pass to good use, going back and forth from school to Tommy’s to work to his own place.
The first thing Tubbo sees when he opens the door to the two-bedroom apartment he’s called home for a year and a half is Quackity, sprawled over the couch. There are books all over the kitchen counter and around the coffee table, and neither of them are sure which of them belong to which person. A random children’s cartoon plays on the cheap TV, the terrible audio quality tingling Tubbo’s ears.
“You’re home early,” he points out, letting his backpack fall to the ground by the entrance as he walks further inside.
Quackity groans tiredly, not taking his eyes away from the TV, his dark hair a ruffled mess against his forehead. “Yeah, mandatory rest day or whatever. Couldn’t get a one-day job to do instead in time, so came here straight from class.” He shoots Tubbo a quick glance, looking him over in that attentive way he always does. “Were you at Tommy’s?”
He nods in response. “He wanted help with homework, as usual.” The boy pauses before adding, affection coating his every word, “Also, Tommy’s just clingy.”
The scoff Quackity gives is just as fond. “He really is.” The young man yawns, back to staring at the cartoon. “Do you have work today?”
Tubbo nods again, directing himself towards the fridge. “Double shift, and I’ve got the closing one. I’ll probably be home really late again.”
There are a total of four different rooms in the apartment — two bedrooms, the living-kitchen-dining-room, and the bathroom. Standing next to the counters, Tubbo can still see the top of the other’s head, not shifting one inch from its position against the cushions.
“Again? That’s fucked up. Why does a cafe close at 2 AM anyway? You should sue them.”
“I’m not gonna sue them, Q. I’m gonna stay really quiet, smile really nicely at all customers, and get lots of tips from people who feel bad that a teenager is working at 1 AM.”
Quackity rolls his eyes with a grin on his face, moving from his comfortable spot on the couch to throw a pillow at his flatmate from the other side of the room. He laughs when Tubbo clumsily catches it before it can hit him, the exhaustion that seeps from his every pore dissipating for a moment as they glare playfully at each other.
“Sure, you little billionaire,” he teases, giggling when the other throws the pillow back and it hits him square in the chest. Quackity lets out a tired but happy sigh and then lays back down on the cheap couch that has never failed to welcome his strained muscles. His tone is lighthearted, familiar. “Don’t forget to take your keys, I’ll probably be asleep when you get back and I don’t want you waking me up because you got yourself locked outside again.”
“Oh, come on, that was just once!”
“Three times, Tubbo. I’ve been keeping count.”
Tubbo mumbles in fake annoyance, failing to hold back his own smile. “You suck.”
“Get fucked. Do you wanna watch this bullshit with me before you have to get ready to leave?”
He smiles.
“Of course.”
The truth is that whenever he’s in an anxiety-inducing or potentially dangerous situation, Tubbo likes to mentally take note of his biggest priorities during that exact moment. It helps him calm down, breathe easier, and assess his possible options in a quick, efficient, and disciplined manner. His mom taught him that what feels like a thousand years ago, when he was still small and jumpy and didn’t like movies that had swords because the possibility of violence made him nervous.
A lot of things have changed since then. He isn’t scared of the lost boys from Peter Pan anymore, and he believes himself to have grown up enough to get over most of his other senseless childhood fears. Even then, the “priorities listing mechanism”, like his mother used to call it, proves itself to still be very much useful in calming him down when dealing with more than Peter Pan.
While he holds onto a single string of web that stops him from a freefall of at least twenty feet, his brain comes up with the following list:
1. He’s holding onto a single string of web that stops him from a freefall of at least twenty feet;
2. He’s bleeding. From somewhere. He’s not sure of where that is, exactly (something that, when you really think about it, is a whole problem in and of itself);
3. The guy he was going after still has a knife, and is still very much free and not trying to balance themselves twenty feet above the ground, which immediately gives them some sort of sick and totally unfair advantage;
4. He forgot where he left his backpack, and Quackity’s gonna fucking kill him if he loses another one;
5. He has homework due tomorrow that he didn’t finish because he was too busy at the cafe after coming back from Tommy’s, and, as it frequently happens, the only thing he actually got done while at his best friend’s place was that one level in their video game they had taken way too long to beat.
To put it simply, Tubbo isn’t having the best of times.
This whole Spider-Man bullshit has been blowing up a lot more than he expected it to. At first, it was just him running around his neighborhood and punching some creeps, but it all evolved quite quickly after he started developing his spider webs. They allowed him to move faster and to patrol a lot more spots within the city than just his neighborhood — it took him almost an entire month to be able to make a web fluid strong enough to not drop him face first into concrete, and making the device that released them in the first place was just as hard.
If he could tell Quackity about it, the man would be ecstatic over his resourcefulness. He would even ignore the amount of materials stolen from the school lab to make it possible.
Now there are websites dedicated to marking down his every move, podcasts discussing his actions and how they are slowly but surely lowering the crime rates all over L’Manburg, the most crime-ridden city in the entire country. It’s an impressive feat, apparently.
The media attention is a recent development. Not that that makes it any less terrifying, of course — he hates the feeling of eyes on his skin, tracking him down and shaking him to his very core. It’s almost as if the newfound Spider-Man enthusiasts are waiting for him to fuck up so they can tear him to shreds.
It’s safe to say Tubbo doesn’t sleep well at night.
One of the reasons for that is, obviously, the fact that he gets stabbed every once in a while and bleeds all over the place, like he is right now, as he holds onto a single string of web that stops him from a freefall of at least twenty feet. Another reason is that he runs out of web fluid in the worst fucking moments in the realms of possibility.
Tubbo has two options, at the moment: letting go of the string he’s been holding onto and pray for either a quick death or a smooth landing, or just standing there trying to think of other solutions while the fucking asshole that shoved that knife in him disappears into the night.
Spider-Man thinks he’ll take his chances with the freefall.
And he lands surprisingly well, if you ignore the twist of his right ankle that makes him groan loudly whenever his foot touches the ground. The pain is so overwhelming that, for a second, the stab wound is forgotten. That changes when he starts running in the direction the culprit left — he can pinpoint where he got injured, and he knows for sure he’ll have to stitch himself up with the medical supplies he keeps in his room.
He’s done it once before. It was terribly painful, and he had to bite into a shirt to stop himself from screaming bloody murder and waking the entire building up. Even then, he thanked all the gods he could think of for begrudgingly letting his mom teach him basic sewing, when she was still alive. The movements were easily translated onto his skin, trembling fingers creating messy stitches that would leave the kind woman gasping in horror if she were to ever see them.
It’s better than bleeding out, Tubbo tells himself. It’s better than having to wake up Quackity and ask him to take him to the hospital, better than subjecting himself to all the questions and concerns and worries and scolding. Maybe he should actually pick up sewing as a hobby. After all, it seems like a good skill to have when getting stabbed isn’t that improbable. In addition to that, the ugly dark red hoodie and the even uglier yellow pants he’s been using as his little superhero uniform are full of rips and holes that he keeps procrastinating on dealing with.
One side of his hoodie is soaked with blood as he dashes through the dark streets of L’Manburg, ears and eyes attentive to his surroundings. He catches up somewhat quickly, blessed with speed a little faster than normal ever since his powers first showed up. When he’s close enough for the man to start tightening his hold on the bloodied knife again, Tubbo jumps towards him.
His fist hits them straight in the temple, knocking the man out immediately. Tubbo squats to take the criminal’s phone from his pocket and call the police with the address of their location. Then, he pauses.
There’s a moment when the far-away sounds of cars and Spider-Man’s ragged breathing are the only things to be heard in that dimly lit patch of the city. He leans his hands on his knees, still standing on his hurt ankle, catching his breath before getting back to moving.
Tubbo is tired tonight. He stopped two robberies earlier and this stupid chase should not have taken this long. He can feel the blood sticking to his clothes, and he slowly walks back to the alleyway he hopes his backpack is in, limping slightly. There is barely any more activity at this hour, probably nearing three in the morning. His feet drag against the concrete and there’s a pounding feeling in his head.
The backpack is there, at last, a messy lump standing by a pile of garbage. Spider-Man opens it almost hungrily, holding back a noise of absolute triumph when he finds the extra web fluid he left in it. His hands move as fast as they can to insert the web fluid in the empty web shooters, a soft smile appearing under the makeshift mask that covers his entire face, only leaving out his eyes.
A sense of freedom belongs to swinging his way home, the cold breeze taking the weight and pressure out of his injuries. It’s a lot better than the subway, he believes. If he wasn’t so keen on keeping this whole vigilante thing a secret, Tubbo thinks he would swing everywhere. That would be his only means of transport. Just by that thought, he can hear Quackity’s voice telling him off for being unsafe in his head.
Oh, if Quackity knew. He would lose his mind, probably. Both of them would.
Four windows below, five above. That’s how Spider-Man figures out what window on his building he’s supposed to swing through to land inside his own room, where he can get cleaned up and tidy some things in advance for school the following day.
Four windows below, five above. He always leaves his window open to make sure he’s going through the right one. It’s not even that necessary, it’s more of a precaution — his counting never fails him. Four windows below, five above, and the one between those leads him to the place he’s learned to call his. There’s blood on his side, and his ankle is throbbing, and he’s got a migraine forming, and he feels like he’s about to collapse. Four windows below, five above. He’s so close, he’s so close to peace and rest and healing. So close.
He swings through the open window easily, letting out a disgruntled groan when his feet touch the floor and he has to actively shift his weight so his ankle doesn’t give out . He squirms in the darkness of his bedroom, lights still out. One of his hands touches the stab wound over the hoodie, and Tubbo hisses in pain.
Then the lights are turned on, making his eyes sting with the sudden brightness before they adjust. There is a tense moment of silence in which he and the person by the doorway study each other, one clearly confused and the other too exhausted and pained to process the fact this room isn’t his at all.
Tubbo blinks up at this random concerned citizen wearily, brain fuzzy. Four windows below, five above. Except he can’t fucking count, apparently, because now he’s sure he is on the sixth floor of his apartment building, not on the fifth. Tubbo blinks again. He’s thankful he hasn’t ripped off his mask as soon as he landed inside the room as he sometimes does, which means that, as awkward as this situation is, his identity is still somehow protected.
A shaky breath escapes his lips, and the other watches him, shell-shocked. Tubbo looks around for a second before looking back at this guy whose apartment he has broken into.
“You shouldn’t leave your window open. Anyone can just— anyone can just come in.”
The expression on the other’s face turns from shock and confusion to scorn.
“We’re on the sixth floor.”
“So? You never know. Maybe some robber somewhere has a really tall ladder and one day they see your open window and decide it’s time to put their freak ladder to use.”
“I—,” they shake their head in disbelief, “what?”
“I’m Spider-Man,” Tubbo offers, still pressing his hands tightly to his side through his clothes, trying to convey that he absolutely meant to just swing through his new neighbor’s window, and that he didn’t just fuck up a count of fucking five.
“I— I’m Ranboo?” The stranger furrows his eyebrows, looking him up and down. “What are you doing in my bedroom?”
A wave of dizziness takes over Tubbo’s senses, and he only manages to chuckle and smile dumbly under his mask before feeling something thick and warm drip down his skin.
He watches Ranboo’s eyes widen comically as the boy finally catches sight of the growing stain on his hoodie. Spider-Man chuckles again.
“I’m bleeding on your carpet,” he answers simply, as if that explains it.
The whole world seems to spin on its axis faster than it’s supposed to, and Tubbo blacks out.