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Yuri Watanabe didn’t smoke. Not anymore, at least. Enough guys on the force gave her shit for it that she actually started taking their concerns to heart. It wasn’t easy, but she started cutting down on her daily rooftop smoke breaks. It took a few months of hard work and nagging from her precinct’s best cops, but eventually she’d worked her way down to nicotine gum a couple times a day. She no longer had to worry about keeping a lighter with her at all times, so she considered her mission a success.
But she still liked to take her smoke breaks. A couple times a day she’d make her way to the roof and pick a safety rail to lean against for a few minutes. Just long enough to release some tension. Yuri loved New York, wouldn’t have put so much blood, sweat and tears into it if she didn’t. But it wasn’t exactly a place abundant with personal space. The precinct’s rooftop was a nice spot to come and sit for a while. The breeze was always strong, and it was high enough from street level that some of the traffic and pedestrian noise faded to a sort of thumping background tune opposed to a constant collision of sounds.
Most everyone in the precinct knew about her metaphorical smoke breaks as well as when she took them, and they all knew better than to bother her during one unless it was for something urgent.
So she didn’t expect for her evening smoke break to be disrupted by the sound of something heavy hitting the rooftop.
She thought she’d imagined it, at first. Thought that maybe that meaty thud was some idiot trying to shoulder the rooftop door open without realizing she’d locked it from the outside. (It was that kind of day. Any break in her peace would have sent her over the edge.)
It was well past sunset, sky almost completely dark, casting the rooftop in shadow. The only light was residual shine from the windows of nearby skyscrapers. Yuri was across the roof from the access door, so when she glanced over her shoulder to see if the doorknob was wriggling she didn’t immediately notice anything out of place.
Until she heard something like a grunt, and then some shuffling, and eventually realized there was a person leaned up against the outer wall of the stairwell door vestibule.
Her hand immediately went to the gun at her belt, palm hovering above the handle but moving no further. “Announce yourself,” she said firmly. “Or this’ll get unpleasant.”
The person let loose a wet, choking cough. Yuri thought it might have been a laugh. “Nice t-to see you, too.”
Even beneath the grumble of a partially blocked airway, Yuri recognized the voice. After all, she’d never seen the man’s face. His voice was his identifying trait. Aside from the skintight suit he wore to swing around the city.
“Spider-Man?” Unease now replaced with a fierce concern, Yuri booked it to Spider-Man’s crumpled silhouette.
It looked as if the only thing holding him up was the wall behind his back. One leg was extended in front of him, the other folded like he’d landed on it wrong when he tumbled onto the roof and couldn’t stick it out any farther. His head was slumped forward, chin almost to his chest, but Yuri was relieved to see he was aware enough to face her as she approached. “Come h-here often?”
Yuri kneeled next to him. “You’re an idiot. Are you okay?”
He tried to point a lazy finger at his own chest but tired out halfway through. His limp hand dropped back to his side. “This idiot jus’ dropped a forklift on a lizard man.”
“A lizard man? Since when is there a lizard man?”
“You’ll be hearin’ about him soon. I kind of made a mess during that fight.”
“You always do. I’m surprised the city doesn’t have a budget set aside for Spider-Man related expenses.” She looked him over. Noticed the way his left arm was wrapped around his waist, hand putting pressure on some point on his right side. The dim lighting may have been fooling her, but she thought the glove of his suit might have been wet. “You didn’t answer my question.”
The suit lenses squinted at her. “W-what was it again?”
Spider-Man was usually much sharper than this. His whole gimmick was that he was quick on his toes, physically and verbally. “I asked if you were okay.”
“Oh.” He used his bent leg to try and push himself a little farther up the wall. His breath hitched with the movement. “I’m gonna go with a solid maybe.”
“So you’re not. What hurts?”
“Well, doc, a lady done me wrong—“
“I’m serious. What can I do to help?”
Spider-Man observed her for a moment. She felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny of his gaze and shuffled a little before getting off her knees and coming to fully sit beside him.
“M-might be an odd request.”
“Go for it.”
“Roll my mask up a bit? Just...Just under my nose. I’m used to breathing in this thing but right now it’s just not happening.”
Yuri huffed. “I didn’t even realize there was anything under there. I thought maybe you were just a phantom in full-body spandex.” Despite the jab at his costume and the fact that no one in NYC had ever seen what lie beneath it, Yuri reached forward. Spider-Man didn’t flinch as she grabbed the hem at the neck of his mask and prepared to pull. “You’re sure?”
He nodded. “I’d do it myself,” he broke into a small coughing fit, “but I think I dislocated my good shoulder when I hit the roof.”
She hooked a finger beneath the mask and started tugging. The fabric slid over his skin as it moved upward. “And you call that your good shoulder? What’s wrong with the bad shoulder?”
“It’s h-holding the potentially severe wound in my side closed at the moment.”
Yuri noticed two things at once. One, that Spider-Man had a surprisingly sharp jawline and a wide mouth. His top lip was a little smaller than the bottom, and both upper and lower were slightly cupid’s bowed in the middle. It was a unique shape, not one she’d seen before.
The second thing she noticed was that the gloved hand he had wrapped around his waist had looked wet before because it was. With blood, apparently.
“Oh my god, Spider-Man, what the hell?” She stepped over him to have access to his other side, then switched on her phone flashlight to better see the injury. She pried his hand away from his waist, and with his mask raised above his mouth, Yuri could see the way Spider-Man’s lips pinched and hear his breath stall as, without the pressure of his hand, his wound started to bleed freely again. “Jesus. Did you get impaled?”
Spider-Man replaced his hand. “Lizard dude had some crazy claws.”
“You’re going to the hospital.”
“Now Yuri, you know I don’t—“
“You’ve been stabbed! This is serious!”
“N-not the first time. It’s nothing new.”
Yuri took a brief moment to think about the fact that Spider-Man had been stabbed so many times he was no longer frightened by it. “You’re slurring your speech.”
“Probably the concussion.”
“You have a concussion?”
Spider-Man’s lips quirked. It was a funny smile; sort of crooked, but welcoming. “You’re a little blurry around the edges.”
“That’s it, I’m calling an ambulance—“
“Yuri.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. His voice was more steady than it had been since he first landed on the roof, like he was using all of his unbroken ribs to force it out. “No hospitals.”
His breath was coming out in quick pants, chest rising and falling too fast to be healthy. “Fine,” she conceded. “But I can’t just leave you bleeding on the roof of the precinct, and I don’t have the first aid equipment here to help you.”
Spider-Man didn’t speak for a moment, mask lenses trained somewhere over Yuri’s shoulder. “I’ve got the supplies.”
“Uh, where? I don’t imagine that suit has pockets.”
“At my apartment.”
Yuri paused. “At your apartment.”
Spider-Man nodded.
“You want me to call you a cab?”
“No, I think...Can you take me there?”
It took Yuri a full ten seconds to process the request. “You want me. The police captain of the city that hates you—“
“Hey, not everyone hates me—“
“—to know where you live.”
“Not particularly, n-no.” He choked on the last word and broke into a coughing fit. What Yury could see of his cheeks went white with the pain of jostling his injured torso. “B-but I don’t have much of a choice.”
“Yes, you do. I’m sure we could find medical staff that would respect the identity stuff.”
“It’s not just that, I...I’m a little different, medically.”
Yuri raised an eyebrow. “Meaning?”
“I heal fast. Like, really fast. As long as I close up the wound right I’ll probably be good to go in a couple days. In my experience, when people realize that they ask a lot of uncomfortable questions. Wanna do tests and stuff. Not pleasant.”
Yuri herself wanted to ask those questions. He could heal from a stab wound in a matter of days? But the idea of him being afraid to seek help because of humanity’s morbid fascination with the unknown made her sick to her stomach. He’d probably had a bad experience, and now a man who needed medical attention more often than most was afraid to get it.
“I also don’t have health insurance.”
That was almost more surprising than the super-healing. “Spider-Man, who gets thrown into buildings and stabbed and crushed almost daily, doesn’t have health insurance?”
“It’s a cruel world, Yuri. Being Spidey doesn’t exactly come with benefits.” His hand tightened over his waist. “C-could we go now? I really don’t want this to heal wrong.”
Wearing a spare NYPD sweatshirt and sweatpants Yuri had in her cruiser over his suit, hood drawn high, Spider-Man almost looked like a normal guy trying to stave off the chill of a fall evening in New York. It was crazy to imagine him as a person beneath all the webbed fabric, but there it was; the shape of a young man beneath layers of wiry muscle and thick cotton.
But then Yuri heard him wheeze where she was pressed against his side, and remembered that it was a superhero she was lugging up to his apartment in Chinatown.
He had an arm slung over her shoulder for support as the two of them trudged up six flights of stairs. The building was a modest ten story brown brick structure near lower Manhattan. Yuri wasn’t super familiar with the area, the precinct and her own home were a few neighborhoods away, but she’d expected Spider-Man to live somewhere a little more...well, nice. The neighborhood was lively and full of character, but Spider-Man’s particular corner was in a state of disrepair. Shop windows boarded, street dirty. Spider-Man saw Yuri looking around on their way in and said, “I got the place for a steal. Rhino basically obliterated the entire street and half the residents tried to move out.”
After a grueling trek that left both Yuri and Spider-Man out of breath, they were at his front door.
“I’m so glad we didn’t run into anyone on the way up here,” Yuri said, still trying to control her breathing. Spider-Man was heavier than he looked.
“Don’t jinx it,” he said. Then, “Shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ve got pictures on the walls. Of myself. With family and friends.”
“Just tell me where they are before we go in, I won’t look.”
“It’s not really the kind of place you can avoid it, Yuri. You can see every wall from the front door.”
“Oh. I could just go, then?”
“I sort of...I think I’m gonna need your help with this one,” he said, dipping his chin toward his right side where the still-open stab wound was bleeding through her borrowed sweatshirt. “But you’ve already taken me this far and know more about me than you should. I’d understand if you don’t want to go any farther.”
He was right. Yuri had been comfortable in her and Spider-Man’s professional relationship. She told him where the crime was, he got her information and took out bad guys her men couldn’t, and in return she didn’t arrest him for his vigilantism. It was a relationship built on mutual understanding and necessity.
She was piercing that veil of necessity, now, and was crossing into dangerously personal territory. She knew where he lived. Had seen half of his face. Was about to see his whole face. Might even find out his name, if she wasn’t careful.
“Yeah, no, I can tell you’re freaking out.” Spider-Man pulled his arm from around her shoulder and moved to slump against his doorframe. “You can go, Yuri. Really. You’ve done enough.” He looked down at himself and her now bloodstained tracksuit. “I’ll wash the clothes.”
“I can’t just leave you here.”
“You can. Knowing who I really am isn’t just a liability for me, Yuri. I know how much trouble that could cause you.”
“I took an oath to protect and serve. I don’t feel like I’m protecting or serving if I leave NYC’s most dedicated hero bleeding on his doorstep.”
Spider-Man shrugged. “I’ve had worse dates. And you think I’m dedicated? Aw, Yuri, that’s sweet of you.”
“Things were so smooth without the witty banter.”
“Sorry, it’s kind of my thing.”
“I know it is.”
“It’s also a defense mechanism.”
“I know that too.”
“Right.” He was silent for a moment. “S-Seriously. I’m not holding you to anything. You can go. But if you’re gonna leave you should do it soon so I can go inside. Probably shouldn’t be standing in the hallway wearing my suit and a blood stained sweatshirt. Also, your pants are way too short on me. You and your tiny legs.”
“I’m coming inside.”
He stared at her. “You’re sure? No takesies-backsies after this.”
Yuri wasn’t sure. Not about knowing Spider-Man’s identity. She was about to make herself an intimate acquaintance of NYC’s Public Enemy Number One. But she was sure she couldn’t leave Spider-Man to tend to an injury like this on his own. “I’m sure.”
“Alright then. I need you to do me a favor.”
“Damn, you’re already asking for favors?”
“My key is in a hidden sole compartment near my heel. I c-can’t really bend down right now.”
“Which foot?”
“Left.”
Spider-Man carefully balanced himself on his injured right leg, using the doorframe for support as he brought his left boot off the floor. True to his word, there was a small compartment in the shoe sole attached to the foot of the suit. Yuri pulled the key and went to unlock the front door.
“I usually just crawl through the window,” Spider-Man explained as Yuri pushed the door open, “but obviously that wasn’t going to work this time.”
Yuri took a step inside and immediately kicked something across the floor. Whatever it was slid away and knocked into the metal leg of the bed, which was pushed up against the wall nearby.
It was a studio apartment, as small and bare bones as any other inexpensive New York housing. A kitchenette took up almost the entire wall to Yuri’s left, the bed and a dresser on the wall to the right. There was a wall with a single window caddy corner to the kitchenette. The front door and another closed door that presumably led to the bathroom were behind her.
The only decor in the place was a scattered assortment of photos. Many were scenic shots taken with evident skill at impossible angles, photos only someone like Spider-Man could ever get. The other photos, Yuri quickly realized, were of friends and family. And Spider-Man himself.
There were several pictures of an older woman with graying hair and a gentle smile. A pretty redhead that looked suspiciously like that Daily Bugle journalist Mary Jane Watson also seemed to be popular. A few less common figures popped in here and there; Yuri was surprised to see Norman Osborn’s only son, Harry, grinning at the camera in a couple shots.
Most striking to Yuri was the one figure present in every photo; a tall brunette young man with a very familiar wide smile. If she squinted just right, she could see the lean muscle he hid beneath flannel shirts and blue jeans and remembered how it looked beneath his webbed suit.
His eyes were hazel. Spider-Man had hazel eyes.
What confused Yuri the most, though, was how young he looked. Horrifically young. Barely-out-of-college young. In his mid-twenties at the oldest.
“Shit. Sorry for the mess. I’m not exactly in here often, so cleaning doesn’t tend to be a priority.”
Spider-Man was too busy lazily shoving the rumpled clothes on the floor aside to realize Yuri was having a mild mental crisis. “You’re a kid.”
“Wha—? Oh.” He noticed where her attention was directed. “I wouldn’t say a kid. A respectable young adult, maybe.”
“Twenty seven?”
“You’ve seen my face, you sure you want my age too?”
She just stared at him.
He took a deep breath and winced when it pulled at his side. “Twenty three.”
Yuri’s mouth went dry. “Holy shit. Ho-lee-shit. I’ve been enabling a twenty-three year old kid that swings around the city in a unitard and fights crime.”
“Yuri, this really isn’t the time for this conversation.”
“Do your parents know?”
Something in Spider-Man’s demeanor changed like a switch being flipped and Yuri knew she’d said the wrong thing. “I’m still bleeding. That’s not good. Usually it would have clotted by now. We gotta get moving. Can you pull my mask off? And open the bathroom door?”
She wanted to keep staring at him and telling herself how stupid and careless she’d been, but Spider-Man was right. They had more pressing issues.
She did as he asked and tugged his mask completely off, still surprised by the youthful face and head of messy brown hair she found beneath it. They ended up having to cut the sweatshirt off thanks to Spider-Man’s dislocated shoulder, but she didn’t think she’d have kept it anyways. Not after knowing a child almost bled out while wearing it. The pants were less of an issue but were still soaked in blood at the waistband and immediately going in the trash. Yuri helped him roll his suit down to his waist and tie the sleeves like a belt so she could have access to the wound on his side. His right shoulder was mottled and purple and definitely swollen where it connected to his torso, but the dislocation would have to get fixed later.
Yuri helped Spider-Man sit down on the closed lid of the toilet. She took up residence on the bathtub ledge with the oddly well stocked first-aid kit he had under the sink. “What’s first?”
“The stab wound. There’s a suture kit and antiseptic in there. Y-you ever sewn before?”
“In high school home-ec class.”
“Great. You’ll be a natural.”
“Do you have any pain killers?”
“Nah. They don’t work.”
She accidentally pressed too hard as she was cleaning the wound and Spider-Man flinched. She apologized and lightened her touch. “None of them help? You get hurt this often and can’t take anything for the pain?”
“Narcotics work sometimes. But I have to take a lot of them at once. Usually it’s not even worth it to track them down. I heal fast enough that I don’t suffer too long.”
Wound cleaned but still dripping blood, Yuri tried not to outwardly cringe as she threaded the needle with medical-grade suturing materials. “I don’t envy you, Spider-Man. You ready for this?”
“Do your worst, Captain Watanabe.”
She did do her worst. Spider-Man’s eyes stayed shut tight for the entirety of the procedure, head leaned back to rest on the bathroom wall. He didn’t bother with quips or jokes this time. His lips were pursed together so tight they went white in the middle. By the end of it Spider-Man had a sloppy row of not-so-great stitches in his side that would probably leave a nasty scar if his healing didn’t take care of it, but for the moment he wasn’t bleeding and had no gaping wounds, so Yuri called it a win.
She re-cleaned and bandaged the area. “Part one complete. What’s next?”
Spider-Man still hadn’t opened his eyes. “Well, aren't you a trooper? Maybe you should attend to all of my first aid needs.”
“That would be a full time job in itself. I’ll pass.”
“Fair enough. Now we gotta fix the shoulder.”
“We’re not gonna do it like they do in the movies where I put my foot on your shoulder and pull your hand, right?”
“That’s exactly how we’re doing it.”
“I shouldn’t have asked.”
“You’re delaying the inevitable. C’mon, Yuri, you’re not the only one dreading this.”
That was a fair point. For every thing she was afraid to do, he was afraid to feel the result of it. Spider-Man’s eyes still hadn’t opened; he was probably savoring every moment of peace he could get. Yuri took a moment to look at him. Really look at him.
He was tall. He’d look lanky without all the muscle; the muscle that gave him a six pack and a set of biceps that Yuri would probably be a lot more interested in if he wasn’t twenty-three. Whether the muscle mass came from the physical strain of being Spider-Man or was a result of his powers, Yuri didn’t know. It was likely a combination of both.
Underneath the strength and agility and skill that one develops from fighting the scum of New York City for years, there was a boy (alright, a young man) who was just trying his best. Despite the verbal and physical assaults thrown at him, despite the frequent injuries and late weeknights spent giving himself stitches in the bathroom of his Chinatown apartment, he still laid down his life for his city and did it without complaint.
The second she realized it, Yuri knew she was gone. There was no way she was ever letting this kid deal with it all alone.
Spider-Man opened one eye. “You’re being awfully quiet.”
“I’m brooding, there’s a difference.” She stepped forward and held a hand out. He placed his palm in hers and sat up so she could settle her foot in the junction of his shoulder and torso. “I’ll count to three.”
“On three or after three?“
“Three.” She pushed and pulled simultaneously. Something audibly popped.
“Shit!”
Twenty minutes later, Yuri had Spider-Man showered (she just stood outside the bathroom to make sure he didn’t slip and die or something) and in bed with about seven homemade ice packs.
“This really isn’t necessary,” he told her after she handed him another baggie of ice cubes for a bruise she saw on his shin. “I told you I heal fast. The bruises will be gone by morning.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t have something to help you out right now.”
Spider-Man ran a careful finger along one of the bandages over his stitched wound. “You helping me out today, it...It means a lot.”
Yuri shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable under the weight of his appreciation. “Just don’t make it a habit, okay? There’s only so much shoulder relocating a woman can take.”
Spider-Man laughed and Yuri could create a perfect mental image of what he looked like when he laughed in the suit. Anyone who’d seen both Spider-Man and this guy in their lifetime could have placed it. It was uniquely and totally him.
“Fair enough. I’ll try to keep traumatic injuries to a minimum.”
Yuri turned to walk toward the door but paused when her boot knocked into something; the same something she’d kicked when she walked in earlier.
It was a stack of mail, and though she couldn’t read to whom it was addressed from its place on the floor, she could see the large Final Notice and Past Due warnings stamped on each one.
“Hey Spidey?”
“Hey Yuri?”
“Earlier you said being Spider-Man doesn’t exactly come with benefits.”
Spider-Man blinked at her. “I did. Are you gonna tell me I’m wrong?”
Yuri ignored the joke. “You said it like Spider-Man was the only thing you do.”
Spider-Man pulled the bed covers up to his chin, using the wall at the head of the bed as support so he wouldn’t have to put pressure on his bad arm. “I, uh...I lost my job a few weeks ago. I’ve sort of been drowning out the pain of potential eviction with Spidey patrols.”
“Spider-Man, I—“
“Don’t. It’s...It’s not ideal. But I’ve got a pulse and the city needs saving so I’m just gonna figure it out later. Right now I’d really like to sleep for about thirteen hours.”
Yuri pushed the mail away again. The thought of Spider-Man being homeless , going out and getting the shit beat out of him and not having a place to come back to; it was almost too much for her to bear. “Fair enough. I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Just as Yuri was about to step out the front door, she heard a falsely grizzled voice say, “A little puncture wound and a dash of joint dislocation. Nothing Spider Cop can’t handle.”
“Dammit, Spider-Man, you were doing so well.”