Chapter Text
Techno grumbled to himself as the keys of his computer clacked away, words spilling out onto the page and yet nothing at all seeming to be written. This essay was just not working out like how he'd envisioned it, and he strongly suspected that this was going to be a B if he was very lucky and maybe his Professor didn't read too much into the waffle and flowery language he was using to disguise the fact that he had no clue what he was doing anymore.
"Techno? I'm home!"
"I'm in the bedroom, Phil!" Techno hollered back across the small apartment as the front door slammed shut, trudging footsteps approaching their little bedroom before his roommate poked his head around the corner.
Phil looked exhausted, likely having been on his feet for most of his twelve hour shift at Osborne Laboratories, and Techno quickly saved the file he was working on and shut his computer down, crossing the room to pull him into a tight hug, knowing that that was exactly what Phil needed.
"Good day?" he murmured, feeling Phil melt against the embrace.
"Long." replied Phil, "You?"
"Only got yelled at twice, so I'm counting that as a win." Techno wrinkled his nose, sniffing slightly at Phil's hair, "You smell like smoke again. I thought you said you were gonna quit?"
"I did quit," said Phil, pulling back with a cheeky smile, "But non-smokers don't get to take smoke breaks, and I'd rather deal with the craving than stand around alone in the lab."
"You have a point, but you also stink. Go shower, I'll throw your clothes in the laundry and then make dinner."
"You're a star, mate, I'll see you in a bit. Now get out so I can change, I love you but not in that way."
"I'm hurt, Philza, we share a bed and everything!"
"Yeah cause we're dirt fucking poor, can't afford a two bedroom apartment, and also can't afford the medical bills from fucking up our backs on the couch."
Flipping his roommate off (Phil was more than a roommate, he was his best friend, his platonic soulmate, and the person Techno had kinda accepted he was going to spend the rest of his life with, but that was too long to say, so he said roommate instead), Techno grabbed the clothes that Phil tossed through a crack in the door, and headed down to the laundry room, which was literally a cupboard with a washing machine in it, and began turning out the pockets, because Phil was a lazy bastard and never remembered to.
He was scrabbling at the loose change in his trousers when he felt the thing move.
Wrist deep in a pocket, fishing for dimes, when what at first he'd assumed was perhaps some kind of strange candy pulsed, scuttled, and then sunk what felt like tiny needles into his finger.
Techno, not being the sort of white person who died first in horror movies, did the only sensible thing and screamed at the top of his lungs, hurling the trousers away from him. He scrabbled backwards down the hallway, having fallen flat on his ass, and that was where Phil found him thirty seconds later, soaking wet and clearly having run straight out of the shower.
"Techno?" he asked frantically, dropping to his knees beside him, "What happened? Did you fall? Did-"
"Phil." Techno's voice was calm and controlled, and only slightly higher than normal, "Did you by chance forget to tell me you were bringing a specimen home?"
Phil's blonde brows wrinkled in confusion, "What? No? I would've told- oh god."
"Yeah. Oh god."
They both stared together at the little creature perched on the waist band of Phil's trousers, it's fat body the size of Techno's thumbnail, glowing red and pulsing slightly in the dimness of the hallway. He got the strangest impression that the spider wanted them to see it. Which was ridiculous, of course, it was a spider-
(He ignored the fact that the spider was also radiating the most self-satisfied aura he'd ever seen on a living creature. He could deal with that when blood wasn't slowly trickling down his thumb)
"I- I should probably get it-"
Despite his words, Phil didn't move. Techno didn't blame him.
"You know, before it bites one of us or something."
"… bit late for that." Techno waggled his injured thumb, which was aching something awful, and seemed to be slowly spreading up his hand.
"… I have a sneaking suspicion I'm going to lose my job over this."
"You're probably right. Also- please put some pants on, if I die from this, I don't want the last thing I see to be your dick."
"If you do die, I'm putting that on your gravestone."
"I hate you. Get the spider."
-0-0-0-0-0-
Techno was in free fall.
Plummeting towards the ground, harsh pavement racing up to meet him, to shatter his bones, snap his spine, turn him into a bloody splat on the concrete.
Closer and closer, until time itself seemed to slow to allow him to witness his own death, every blade on every weed creeping through the cracks in the stones, the buzz of every wing of every fly on the strewn garbage that adorned every section of New York.
And then he was snapping back up, webs slinging out of his wrists to clamp onto the edge of a nearby building, grappling him back up into the sky, for an endless moment of weightlessness, just him alone in egg-shell blue before gravity claimed him once more.
Phil always nagged him about doing this - it wasn't good for his joints, his long-suffering husband-for-tax-benefits would complain, and one day Techno would miss that last second web and then who did he expect to scrape his splattered corpse off the ground?
Techno always laughed at him, and then brought up every time he could remember that Phil had face planted on flat, smooth surfaces, until he forgot what he'd been scolding him about in the first place.
Fifteen years of this, not a single missed jump (of his own accord, he didn't count being attacked as falling), and nor was he planning to any time in the near future.
(He ignored the part about his joints. Sure, everything ached most days, he was pretty sure his shoulders shouldn't click like that, and sometimes the pain was bad enough that he'd be in bed for hours after Phil left for work, fighting to keep his breathing steady as he went for the prescription pain meds Niki had gotten for him- look, that sounded bad, but it really wasn't, it was nothing Techno couldn't deal with, and you got aches and pains as you grew older, right? It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, just the standard wear and tear of vigilantism).
The sun was almost entirely gone now, even from his perch on the top of a building, and the chill was beginning to hit. It felt unfair that it was so cold in the autumn - winter wasn't supposed to start until December, and it was barely October. He'd have to get Phil to check the heaters in his suit, his teeth were threatening to chatter already, which wasn't a great look for the Spiderman.
Home time, Techno decided as the last rays of sun slipped over the edge of the horizon, pulling up his most frequented contact on the communicator thing-a-majig that Stark had sent him, the smug bastard.
"Hey mate!" came the slightly less cheerful than normal tones of his husband through the comm, as clear as if Phil was standing right behind him, "You on your way home? No trouble?"
"Nah, it's quiet out here tonight," Techno replied, sitting himself slowly on the ledge of the building, wincing as his back twinged, "Do you want me to pick up dinner from that Italian place you like? Or are you making something already?"
He could hear the smile in Phil's voice, but it was strained, "Italian sounds good. Travel back safe, yeah?"
Techno squinted at the comm, despite the fact Phil couldn't see him, "Is everything okay? You don't sound right."
The laugh Phil gave was most certainly fake, strangled and insincere. "Y-yeah, everything's fine, Techno- well, okay, it's not all fine, but it can wait until you're home."
"Phil? Are you safe? Did something happen? Is-"
Phil sighed heavily, "Tech, I'm fine, I promise, it's- I'll tell you when you're home."
"Tell me now," insisted Techno, "What happened?"
"… okay so you know the spiders-"
Techno gave a screeching groan, "Why is it always spiders! Answer me that, Philza! Why can't it be the- killer butterflies for once! Please don't tell me you got bitten, I know we joke we're a power couple but-"
"It's worse than that."
"Well now I want you to have been bitten. Cmon, spill it, what happened."
"Okay so- you know that every morning I milk the spiders of their venom?"
"I hate that word but yes."
"Well- this morning, one of the spiders didn't produce much. Which isn't usually that bad, except this one always produces a full dose, it makes venom practically faster than I can harvest."
"I thought you said you didn't get bit!"
"I didn't. And I'm the only one working with the spiders, so it won't have been another member of staff."
"Phil. If it wasn't the staff, and it wasn't you-"
"There…. may-have-been-a-tour-group-of-students-yesterday."
Phil spoke so fast that even Techno, with his advanced hearing, barely picked it up. He paused to take a deep, calming breath. He was calm, he was zen, he was doing the breathing techniques Niki had recommended when she'd gotten worried about his high blood pressure.
"THERE WAS WHAT?"
"Techno! Don't-"
"Don't what, Phil? You're telling me that we potentially have not just another mutant on our hands, not just a mutant with my powers, but a child mutant- okay you know what, I'm gonna get dinner, we're gonna eat, and then we can freak out over the small child with super powers."
"Technically it's a teenager, not-"
"That's so not the point."
"… don't forget the garlic bread."
"You, Philza Craft, are very lucky that I like you too much to kill you and claim the money. You're also lucky that everyone at your workplace is too scared of spiders to pay too close attention to what you're doing, because we'd be screwed if we lost your insurance. Alright, I'll see you in a bit with the food. There's no point panicking now, it'll take a few weeks to find the kid, probably. Not like they're going to swing through the city in an amateur Spiderman suit right in front of my-"
"… Techno? Are you okay?"
Techno paused again. It was incredibly stupid, but then again so was this entire situation, and he was an oppotunistic guy. "It's not like a million dollars is going to fall from the sky in a neatly packed briefcase."
"What?"
Techno sighed, "It was worth a shot. Right, dinner I'm afraid will have to wait, I have a teenaged vigilante to catch. You so owe me for this."