#as a spider hobie is legally required to be a Dork so here he is being totally dead after a nice hot shower no thoughts only bed and cuddle

[paperwayne]

crash.

Pairing: Spiderverse!Hobie Brown | Spider-Punk x Reader / Spiderverse!Gwen Stacy & Reader Word Count: 1,957 words Warnings: None

It is two o’clock in the morning, and you’re lying upside-down on the stony couch that’s still lopsided despite your attempts to correct it with a stack of cut-up magazines underneath the broken leg when Hobie finally comes back, grimy, sweaty, and with an equally grimy and sweaty girl in tow.

Hobie casts you a glance and raises an eyebrow, unshouldering his guitar and kicking off his shoes as you swing your legs over to sit right-side up.

“Sirens again?” he says.

You shrug. “Yeah.”

“Should be used to them by now.”

“Should be used to a totalitarian regime by now,” you say.

Hobie’s mouth curls into a smirk. He turns to the girl trailing behind him and nods. “This’s Gwen. She’s crashing here for the night.”

“Hey,” says Gwen. She gives you a small smile that screams of exhaustion. “Nice to meet you …?”

You give Gwen your name and a perfunctory once-over. It’s impossible to ignore the unusual colors of her clothes, and the softness of her face looks like it’s due to more than just her age. She almost looks like a pastel painting, and against the sharp and peeling backdrop of Hobie’s bedsit, the difference in appearance is like night and day. She’s strange. Out of place.

You grin at her as Hobie takes the air mattress out from underneath his bed and starts to inflate it.

“You eaten yet, luv?” you ask over the sound of the air pump.

She blinks. “Oh. Uh, not really. But I’m not that hungry, actually –”

On cue, her stomach growls. She blushes.

You shake your head and stand up, slinging an arm around her shoulders to guide her to the kitchen.

“Rule number two of crashing at Hobie’s,” you start, throwing the fridge door open dramatically so the bottles inside knock and clink together, “don’t act like you’re a burden. You’re family here, not a guest. Cuppa?”

“Cu – oh. Tea. Sure?” Gwen takes the leftover box of curry from your outstretched hand and lingers as you go about setting up the kettle. “What’s the first rule?”

“Third rule,” you continue, smugly catching Hobie shake his head as you do so, “is reject the establishment. Fourth rule is don’t be a sellout. Fifth rule is to clean up after yourself.” You take the food back from Gwen to dump it onto a plate from the dish rack, then gesture for her to place it into the microwave. “And the first rule …”

“Yeah?”

“… is screw the rules,” Hobie finishes from his seat on the ground, “whenever they go against what you stand for.”

“And you seem the type to stand for cleaning up after yourself, yeah?” you add.

Gwen huffs out a little chuckle, and the microwave beeps behind her. You hand her a spoon after she takes the curry out, and when she scoops up a bit to taste it, her eyes widen. She hardly swallows before taking a full and proper bite.

“Holy crap. This is amazing.”

“Brought some back from Karl’s. Good friend of ours.” You lean against the counter, gaze falling on Hobie once more when he turns off the air pump and stands up, long and lanky frame unfurling to his full height. “Speaking of, I’ll catch you up on what you missed during tonight’s rehearsal.”

“Okay,” Hobie replies.

You stare at him pensively, then nod.

While he gathers some blankets and extra pillows, you make small talk with Gwen, who clears her plate and drains her cup of tea. She’s rather cagey about where she’s from, other than the obvious fact that she’s from America. More than once, she glances furtively at Hobie, as if wondering if she should say a certain thing to you or not. Makes the gears in your head turn.

You like Gwen, though. Got a good head on her shoulders. (And she’s a drummer, too. The band needs a drummer.)

Once Hobie shows her the bathroom so she can shower, you fix your full attention onto the man as he pours himself a cup of tea beside you.

“She’s in that Spider Society you joined a few months ago,” you guess.

Hobie takes a long sip. “She’s a new recruit,” he explains afterwards. “On the run from her own universe. Bad luck, innit?”

“Gwen Stacys must have bad luck in every universe.” You cross your arms and your ankles, feeling the warmth of his body as his arm brushes yours. “Ain’t much safer for her here.”

“I know.”

“I thought you were almost ready to quit the Society.”

“I was.”

You narrow your eyes.

“Was?”

Hobie rests his elbows on the counter behind him. “Gwen ought to have somebody on her side out there,” he mutters.

“And we need you on our side right here, Hobie,” you say sharply, something sour starting to bleed into your tone. “Your ‘one hundred percent’ – your words. You don’t need to play pawn in some authoritarian establishment. Neither does Gwen. She can stay here with us, can’t she?”

“Not without a watch to keep her intact.” Hobie looks at you out of the corner of his eye. “And I ain’t tellin’ her what to do, yeah?”

“I’m not saying you should, Hobie. But I –"

You clamp your mouth shut and bite your tongue before you say something you’ll regret saying and he’ll regret hearing.

“I’m – we’re not used to you not being here all the time,” you finish lamely. Both of you are equally stubborn, and you don’t want to argue over a part of Hobie’s life that you can never fully know. “I just worry, s’all.”

Hobie contemplates your words. He tilts his head back to drink the rest of his tea, and you watch his throat as he swallows, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

After a long moment, he sighs and scratches his jaw. “I know,” he replies plainly. “I’m quitting as soon as the opportunity arises. But Gwen should have an out too if she wants it.”

You nod your agreement, though you cross your arms more tightly, feeling the sharp pang of guilt that comes with being jealous. No reason to be, you reprimand the scared and angry little kid inside your head. This is who Hobie is. He looks after people who don’t have anyone else. Like Gwen. Like you, all those years ago.

There wasn’t a time when Hobie hadn’t been in your corner. And it wasn’t until your mid-teens that you realized he might not always be there, trusting you to be strong enough to fight and protect while he goes off to rescue people from monsters bigger than yours.

Hobie had always been the more responsible one out of the two of you.

(With great power comes great responsibility.)

It takes a moment before you realize that Hobie has moved.

“Oi.” His voice is soft, and so are his hands on your shoulders as you startle at him standing before you so suddenly. His dark gaze bores into yours. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

About you. Always about you.

You take a deep breath and close your eyes. “Sleeping. Spidey blokes like you are exhausting.”

Hobie regards you carefully, because he knows you well enough to see through all your deflecting jabs. But he just chuckles and releases your shoulders to pinch your cheek gently. “Comes with the bite, treacle. Mattress is all ready. I’ll join you on it after I clean up, yeah?”

“All right.”

The door creaks open, and the two of you turn your attention onto Gwen as she shuffles back into the room. Hobie pats your cheek and heads off to shower as promised.

“Bed’s all yours for the night,” you tell Gwen, going over to sit crisscross on the air mattress while she dries her hair.

“Are you sure? I’m fine with sleeping on the mattress. Or the couch.”

“Positive.”

“Okay. Well, thank you,” Gwen replies genuinely, sitting on the bed. “Seriously. It’s”—her voice cracks almost imperceptibly—“it’s been a while since … um. Well. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Any friend of Hobie’s is a friend of mine.”

She smiles, fiddling with the towel in her lap. “You must be real close, huh?”

“I’d kill for him, honestly,” you admit. “Probably wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for Hobes.”

“For someone who says he’s not a hero, he sure does a lot of saving.”

“That’s what I tell him. Drives him batty.” You fall onto your back, arms and legs spread out. Your grin fades. You wonder if you should say it, but then you do anyway. “He’s amazing. I wish I was as strong as him, you know? Can’t keep up with him sometimes.”

The words hardly leave your mouth before you feel that Gwen’s whole body has suddenly gone very still.

“… Gwen?” You prop yourself up. “You alright?”

“Don’t compare yourself to him,” she says quietly but fiercely. “You have your own strengths.”

You blink. “Of course I do,” you reply, surprised by her abruptness, “but the fact still stands. Normal people like me tend to drag people like you and Hobie down during the action, yeah?”

“No.” Gwen leans over, and you see her face again. Her expression is tight and her eyes blaze. “I know that you’ve never been a burden to him. You’ll always be more than enough.”

“… Oh.”

Her words make you feel almost embarrassed for even having those thoughts. But it’s also touching in its own way, and impressive, and you smile at her for being so kind.

“If that’s what you truly think, Gwen Stacy, then I’ll take your word for it,” you murmur.

She bites her lip and nods, sitting back.

A few minutes later, just as Gwen finishes brushing her teeth, Hobie comes back from his shower looking like the walking dead. You roll onto your side to watch him all but drag himself over to the sink to brush his teeth as well.

Gwen studies Hobie and then looks at you, and the confusion on her face causes you to cackle.

“What you laughin’ at?” Hobie mumbles around his toothbrush, eyes half-lidded as he squints at you.

“You, bested by a hot shower.”

He grunts and spits into the sink, rinsing out his mouth.

In true Hobie-fashion, he doggedly goes through the motions of his usual nighttime routine before making his way over to the air mattress. You help him put his hair up and into his bonnet because he’s already nodding off, and only then does he collapse face first into his pillow, grumbling something about being cream-crackered.

Gwen silently turns off the bedside lamp and gets comfortable on the bed. You wrestle the blankets out from underneath Hobie and lay them over the two of you, hoping that you’re not acting as flustered as you feel.

You try to think of how he might swing his arm into your face while you sleep (he might), or how his breathing might be too loud (it isn’t). You try to think about how the blankets tend to get all twisted up when he dreams because he moves around, and how annoyed you should be when morning comes and you’re tangled up in a mass of long limbs and coiled sheets.

But right now, the blankets are perfectly in place, and underneath them, Hobie curls an arm around you and tugs you close. He mumbles something – at least, you think he does – and all you think about is how warm he is.

As Hobie’s breaths even out against your neck, slow and deep, your throat itches with words you’ll never say aloud.

So you reach up, place your hand over his, and close your eyes instead.