Chapter Text
Lab duty sucked ass. And lab clean-up duty in particular was a special brand of hell.
It always is. Every cadet dreads the day it's their turn to be on Lab clean-up. It didn’t matter where you got assigned, or if you were actually reporting to Hojo or not after, it was probably the worst place in the Tower that a cadet could get assigned a shift in. Cloud was unlucky enough to not only get stuck on lab duty, but to also get assigned to the cleaning detail. He’d spent all day working as a glorified janitor, cleaning out specimen tanks and suspicious messes, but, thankfully, he was on his last cell of the day. It was a particularly rank one - a large pile of viscous goop sitting on the floor in the center - but at least he didn’t have any bodies to dispose of like Knightly did in the one next door. Still, his body ached in memory of morning drills and he really did not want to find out whatever the fuck Hojo left behind in here. Seriously, the stuff could be toxic, or give him mega cancer, or even make him glow! Knowing Hojo, it might be a mix of all three, but, legitimately, he does not particularly care enough to become burdened with the knowledge. He just wanted to finish up, leave the stinking labs, and go pass out in his bunk.
He pulled on his heavy-duty gloves, made sure no skin was showing below his neck, secured his safety goggles and mask on his face, and picked up his mop.
Time to get to work.
The pile of goo looked like the hardest thing to clean in there, so Cloud started on the outskirts. He found what looked like the remains of several monsters behind the goop, which, ew, he really, really doesn’t want to know how those monsters ended up looking like they got turned inside out and exploded. Or what kinds of monster organs those giblets used to belong to. He pushes the mutilated remains with his mop into the disposal shoot and does his best not to gag on the smell of incinerating rotten flesh that wafts up from the disposal’s chamber. Next, he turns to the corner, where what probably used to be high-tech lab equipment that's worth more than his annual salary is in shredded pieces. The twisted shrapnel remains of the now-obliterated equipment are impaled into an unfortunate table that got shattered for the crime of being in this Gaia-forsaken lab. It takes a bit longer to dispose of that mess while avoiding getting turned into swiss cheese by all the sharp-edged metal shards and shattered glass.
When that’s done he fetches the mop and starts mopping up the various puddles of liquids he can't even begin to guess the identity of. He’d almost guess that the one in the left corner is mako, except that it's a mustard yellow of all things. And he really doesn’t want to know what that bubbling purple puddle is. Looking around the cell, all that's left is to deal with is the goop. Damn. He wants to complain, as he has to dig into the sludge with an actual snow shovel, but it could be worse. He could be Knightly, stuck dealing with the bodies of several eviscerated scientists and one obnoxiously large monster. Once he finally manages to scrape off all the goo and dump it into the incinerator, he fetches the wide mop one more time to wipe down the whole floor.
Cloud made an aborted move to wipe the sweat off his brow before thinking better of putting his monster gunk-covered hands anywhere near his face. He glanced around the lab, checking if he missed anything. It’s then that Cloud catches sight of something in the corner of his eye. He snaps his head to the side just in time to see a darting blur of bright color go under a cabinet.
Cloud freezes. He was told there wasn't anything alive in here. He's just supposed to clean up the definitely deadly chemical spills, mop off all the monster guts into the disposal that leads directly into an incinerator, and forget everything he's seen in here. There should not be anything running around in here.
Cloud takes a deep breath, counts back from ten, and meticulously puts a lid on his growing panic. It's probably just a bit of something that got hacked to pieces that he missed and then didn't notice when he’d kicked it. He probably only just managed to see it as it rolled under the cabinet. Yeah.
And that means it's his job to fetch and dispose of it.
Fuck.
A more sensible person might turn right around and ignore it. It's none of his business, truly. He should do his job and leave so he can go pass out in his bunk. Instead, Cloud finds himself slowly approaching the cabinet, mop in hand.
This is so dumb. This is the dumbest thing I've ever done. No, that belongs to leaving home to travel across the planet to come join ShinRa. This is the second dumbest thing I've ever done.
All too soon Cloud reaches the cabinet and steels his nerves before slowly crouching down to get a look under it. At first, all he sees are terrifyingly large dust bunnies. He squints, looking closer-
There's a bug.
Cloud lets out a relieved chuckle. All worked up over a bug. Still, the scientists would probably have a conniption over having a bug running around in the lab, 'contaminating' their precious experiments.
Cloud reaches in to snag the insect. At first, it dodges him, zipping back and forth in the blink of an eye.
"Come on, just, ugh, hold still- I'm sorry it's got to be like this but really you can't be in here, just- Ah ha! Gotcha!"
Cloud quickly retracts his arm and scoots back. Welp, now all he needs to do is toss the bug into the incinerator and then he can leave-
"MOTHER FUCKER!!”
Cloud tosses the tiny asshole of an insect away from himself as an intense stinging overtakes his hand. On pure instinct, Cloud slaps the handle of his mop down on the bug before it can skitter off. Then he frantically checks his hand for what could possibly be causing it to sting so much. Cloud is confronted with the sight of a small hole in the glove that definitely wasn’t there a few seconds ago.
Holy shit. Holy shit, it bit him! Through his glove! How the fuck, what kind of bug can bite through acid-proof gloves?!
Cloud drags his eyes away from the hole in his glove to look at the offending insect. Well, the squished remains of the insect.
Now that he's getting a closer look at it, he can see it was actually a spider. A pretty small one too, though he didn't know spiders could be so colorful. What's left of it is bright blue and orange.
"Huh. Weird. Damn, I hope you weren't venomous."
Cloud tentatively tugs the glove off to get a better look at the bite. The bite itself isn't all that big, just two tiny pinpricks on his palm. It's not changing any weird colors, and even though it's a bit inflamed the pain is actually going away. Hopefully, that means it wasn't venomous? Yeah, Cloud thinks, it's probably fine. No reason to go to the infirmary for a bug bite.
With that settled, Cloud nods to himself before slipping the glove back on. He snatches up the mop and goes about mopping the splattered insect juices and scattered spider legs off the floor before calling it a day.
He doesn't notice how the spider's internal fluids glowed green and blue. Nor does he realize that, when it was alive, it had incandescent green eyes. And he definitely didn't see the small, broken containment unit in the back room that cadets like himself are not allowed into.