Chapter Text
The day had started normal, or, as normal as it could when you’re New York’s acclaimed vigilante. Rumi had rolled out of the top bunk with about as much enthusiasm as one could muster at five a.m. on a Wednesday. Which was exactly none .
She could hear Jinu snoring softly in the bottom bunk, covered in about a trillion blankets –half of which were probably stolen from her own bed– and sprawled around him, crumpled bags of expired Cheetos. Rumi let out an exasperated groan and started kicking him while shooting a web for her toothbrush and paste.
A pitiful sound came from the blanket pile as Jinu half-heartedly shimmied away from her kicks. “Come on cowboy, up and at ‘em.” She slurred while brushing her teeth. God, she needed toothpaste that didn’t taste of chemical strawberry and crushed dreams. What was wrong with good old mint? Jinu was a beast for liking this.
“Ughhh, you can stop abusing me now, I’m awake.” Rumi got in one last kick, for good luck.
She entered the bathroom to spit out the disgusting pink foam, trying very hard not to make eye contact with the mirror. It was cracked and respectably dirty, or so Jinu claimed. Still, even after months, she had a hard time reconciling with her own reflection.
It wasn’t that she looked necessarily bad, a little frayed around the edges and she was definitely packing some eyebags. What was decidedly inhuman about her were the damned fangs . Ever since the bite, they’d become prominent. Enough so that people in the street stopped her if she opened her mouth too wide to ask where she’d gotten them done. She learned the arts and wonders of dressing blandly (see: facemasks) –or like she was about to rob a bank, if her roommate had any say in the matter– and blending into crowds a little after that.
Her thoughts were rudely interrupted by the aforementioned roommate, and childhood best friend. He looked dead on his feet, and if Rumi hadn’t been feeling the exact same, she’d be making fun of him for being such a mess in the mornings. Or, just a mess in general.
“You gonna keep gripping the sink like your pregnancy test just came out positive or are you gonna let me brush my own teeth?” He shoved at her shoulder and she shoved right back. Prick .
“I already have three children, Derpy, Sae and you .” Rumi washed her mouth, careful not to cut her own tongue more than she had lately, and made her way out of the bathroom, going to put food out for her pet magpie and the probable cat -because they just weren't quite sure if that was what he was- they often joked was more of a shared custody case.
Stepping around the myriad of discarded clothes, one of Jinu’s binders, more trash and–
“Hey! Is that my mask?! Jinu! How’d it make it to the floor?” She picked it up like it was radioactive, which was a real possibility, given it was right next to Jinu’s used socks. “This better not smell like your feet when I put it on!” She glared at him as he glared right back.
“Don’t blame me, Spidergirl ! If you don’t recall, it was you who tossed it wherever after you got back in the middle of the night and stumbled into bed like you were concussed– Wait, you’re not concussed, are you?” His tone shifted from accusing to worried at the flip of a coin. She waved him off, no longer irritated. Well, maybe a little.
“No, I’m not concussed, thank you for asking. Who knew you’d have manners…” Rumi said flatly, “And don’t call me that! You know I think the name is dumb.” She grumbled, arms crossed, pouting petulantly.
“I know, that’s exactly why I will never stop.” Jinu gave her a shit-eating grin and jingled the house keys as a signal they were about five minutes away from running late.
“I truly don’t know why I put up with you…” She exhaled through her nose and sneakily shot a sticky note that had ‘loser’ written on it with a thin web. It had been weeks, and he still hadn’t noticed. Small pleasures.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆🕸✶🕷✶🕸⋆｡˚✴︎⋆
Well, it had all gone to shit. Which is to say, two robberies, one runaway car, four attempts at petty crime, and a cat rescued from a tree later, The Honmoon –as she had decided to call her carefully laid out iridescent webs that ran throughout the city– quivered and she knew she’d have to make a run for it to get there in time. Her wrists were already tingling, a telltale sign of their overuse, but she could not find it in herself to care.
She had to be there, had to make up for all the times she wasn’t . The shame of everything she couldn’t be ate at her mind. (Of everything she could’ve been. Of all the lives lost because she wavered . Of the one she cut short. Of the love she had robbed Celine of, the one she could never quite give back in the way she had needed. She hopes –as if by daring to dream hard enough she could will it into reality– that her aunt could find it in herself to forgive Rumi for taking such a precious thing. She understands, now, why she had never been able to look at her.)
Rumi was panting by the time she got to the scene, her black and purple hooded suit sticking to her more than usual. The suit’s white eyes widened comically as she really took it in. A train, or at least one of its carriages, was hanging by thin cables, hopes and prayers. Yeesh.
Ignoring the burn, she flicked her wrists to encase it in webs and halt its one-way journey down. That being taken care of, she had to make sure everyone actually made it out in case her webs didn’t hold. She vaulted over to the opening in the metal exterior and very carefully lowered herself without touching down.
Jinu had been caught up in late night classes by the tech labs, so he couldn’t help her assess any weak points inside the carriage that should be avoided, so she was better safe than sorry. It wouldn’t do if the thing tipped over because of her carelessness.
“Everyone okay?” She asked the stunned passengers, who she started helping up one by one, since she was down an arm. A familiar pink head made its way over to her with an expression far too nonplussed to be on the face of someone who had nearly died in a freak train accident, but she could respect the nonchalant vibe.
“We really have to stop meeting like this.” The taller girl smirked, and Rumi, familiar with the bit, and with a cloth of anonymity in the form of spandex, responded in kind.
“Maybe your next hair color should be red so the problems start running away from you instead of towards you.” She snickered and helped her up, knowing the energetic girl in the space buns was right behind.
“Hi Spidergirl!” Said girl exclaimed, dragging the i’s. Speak of the devil and she shall appear.
“Hi.” Rumi repeated, perhaps a little too softly. Sue her, she was growing fond of those two. She’s also pretty sure she’d seen them around campus, but that was a problem for future Rumi, not hanging-from-a-web present Rumi. “You guys really have a knack for getting in these situations huh? It’s almost as if last week you were caught in the crossfire of a robbery. Oh, wait, that’s because you were .”
Space-bun girl, as Rumi had taken to calling her –she didn’t know their names and she was not about to ask, although, if they kept running into trouble, she might just have to– snorted and took the offered hand like she was a damsel in a tower being rescued by some cliche prince. “I have no idea what you’re talking about Spidergirl, but if I did , I’d say you must pay a lot of attention to the people you save to remember that very mundane, totally not terrifying Friday.”
Rumi had never been more grateful to be covered head to toe, because she was pretty sure those damn marks were glowing softly in her embarrassment. “Yeah, yeah, just try to give me a little less work, yeah? Gotta catch up on my beauty sleep.” She rolled her eyes, which the mask must’ve caught if the giggle behind her was anything to go by.
With all the passengers evacuated and her entire arms feeling like wet napkins, –save for the ever present burning near her wrists– she dusted herself and shot out a web to hopefully go crash in her and Jinu’s shitty apartment. And if she did a little flip and salute knowing the two girls were watching, that was between her and Manhattan’s polluted sky.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆🕸✶🕷✶🕸⋆｡˚✴︎⋆
Except it apparently hadn’t been, because her in-lens cameras were recording and Jinu, the little shit that he was, saved the recording with glee and utter malicious intent.
“Delete it!” She yelled at him as she shot web after web trying to catch her best friend.
“No way! Someone’s in looooove !” Jinu yelped as he tripped over his own scattered pair of shoes and fell unceremoniously. “Hey, you could’ve caught me!” He growled at Rumi, who was finally out of her suit, hair loose and wearing her most comfortable pijamas, of which Jinu had a matching set, not that he’d ever admit it.
“Sorry, all outta web.” She shrugged and took Jinu’s phone out of his hand while making sure that video stayed dead and buried.
Her ever so slightly pointed ear twitched when she heard Jinu mutter a quiet ‘bitch’ under his breath. She threw the phone directly at his forehead.