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All Pepito wants is for Pepito’s dad to start smiling again. Pepito knows that Apa Roier is a HUGE fan of Spider-Man, aka Quesadilla City’s most popular superhero, but he’s been real sad since Spider-Man stopped hero-ing a couple months ago when his rival and WORST ENEMY Black Cat disappeared. And Pepito just wants Roier to be happy, so Pepito’s just gotta find Spider-Man and make him a hero again! (And maybe Pepito can get his autograph, because Spider-Man is Pepito’s favorite hero too!!!)
[An au in which Roier retires as a hero when the man he was working up the nerve to ask out vanished into thin air in a factory explosion after a fight gone wrong. He never even got to find out Black Cat’s name, and now he never will…]
[And, an au in which Cellbit has been stuck in the hospital for months in a coma, and all he’s been dreaming of is the masked hero he’s in love with.]
Pepito and Roier are… distant. Because Roier’s still grieving the loss of his deceased son, and now he’s trying not to grieve the loss of his homoerotic villain rival who he may or may not be desperately in love with still. But Pepito is still trying because he loves his dad and Pepito just wants to see him smile again :(
And so Pepito starts sneaking out of the house at night when Roier is sleeping, which is when Spider-Man used to be more active with his nightly patrols.
And so we’ve got this tiny little child wandering the streets of Quesadilla City in pajamas and hand-me-down tennis shoes and a coat three sizes too big looking for Spider-Man and pretending not to be as scared as he is. But it’s fine! Because Pepito is strong!! Pepito is gonna make Apa Roier happy again!! (Maybe then, Roier will smile at Pepito…)
Pepito doesn’t have superpowers. Pepito is just a kid. Pepito is five years old, and Pepito doesn’t remember a lot from his life before being given to Roier. But he remembers seeing Spider-Man on the tv in the orphanage and thinking he’s the coolest guy ever.
And then Roier won Pepito a little plush popcorn box at a fair because the lady running the stand was trying to cheat Pepito out of all Pepito’s tickets, and then Pepito decided that Apa Roier is the coolest guy EVER!!
So Pepito sneaks out every night, and Pepito barely ever gets hurt!
…Except one night when Pepito accidentally finds some really bad men in an alley picking on a cat. Pepito is scared, but he knows that Apa Roier would save the cat, and he knows that Spider-Man would save the cat, and so Pepito picks up a rock off the street and throws it at the biggest scariest guy, and Pepito RUNS.
But Pepito is small. So the men catch up to him, and Pepito’s arm is already broken in three places when his screaming gets the attention of a nearby hero- Daredevil, but the French one replacing the usual one while the usual one is on vacation or something. But it should’ve been Spider-Man, where is he???
In the hospital, Pepito gets scared of waiting for Apa Roier to come and get Pepito (because he can be scary when he’s angry), so Pepito sneaks out of the room when the officers outside aren’t looking, and Pepito makes a run for it down the hall.
He ends up in a dark room with one single person in it: a man, asleep, in a bed with long hair and a scar across his face. He looks… lonely.
So Pepito climbs onto the chair next to the man’s bed, and Pepito swings Pepito’s legs and holds the man’s hand until the nurses and officers barge into the room and drag Pepito out and to his very disappointed, surprisingly worried father.
(“What the fuck were you thinking?” Roier demands once they’re in the car.
Pepito just shrugs. He looks down at his lap and tries not to cry; Apa Roier doesn’t like when Pepito cries…
Roier lets out a frustrated breath before sighing. He reaches over and ruffles Pepito’s hair, his hand lingering briefly before moving back to the steering wheel.
The ride home is quiet for a while, and then, softly, Pepito speaks:
“Why didn’t Spider-Man save me?” Pepito asks.
Roier hides a wince. “Spider-Man… is a busy guy, you know? He can’t always be there to help every silly little Pepitito getting into trouble.”
Pepito’s mouth wavers at the nickname, but Pepito still sniffs and argues, “But he’s Spider-Man!”
“Even Spider-Man needs to-”
“They were being mean to the cat!”
Roier’s breath hitches.
He sucks in a harsh, ragged breath and lets it out slowly.
“I think that Spider-Man might just be sick, Pepinho,” Roier eventually says, “so you don’t need to worry about him, okay?”
“So he’s at the hospital?”
“Maybe.”
“Then we need to visit him. I want him to sign my cast.”
“We’ll see. Maybe he’s in a coma and dying.”
“No!!”)
But Pepito is not to be deterred! Now that Roier has said that Spider-Man might be in the hospital, Pepito has decided that the next step in the Quest For Spider-Man is to search the hospital every day looking for him. Which is ridiculous, but Pepito is five. What else would you expect from a literal five year old.
…Also, Pepito felt sad for that sleeping guy :( Nobody was there for him, so Pepito will be!!
So Pepito starts trying to sneak out to the hospital, much to Roier’s annoyance. He… cares. He’s trying to care, anyway, and that’s what he’s telling himself. Not that he actually cares (which he does, let’s be clear), but yeah.
Pepito stops sneaking out at night because his broken arm makes it hard to climb down the fire escape, but Pepito then starts escaping from school, and that’s a problem. A big one.
So Roier says this:
“Stop running away from school, you’ll end up as stupid as your Apa Mariana. We’ll go look at the hospital after dinner, okay?”
Which was supposed to be a one-day thing to try and calm Pepito down, but, nope. Pepito decides it’s an Every Day Thing.
And so Roier, who is literally Spider-Man, starts getting dragged to the hospital daily by his five-year-old child to look for a sick Spider-Man. The nurses think it’s cute, but Roier doesn’t care about the nurses. He cares about his missing, possibly-probably dead, homoerotic villain rival.
…At the end of every day of searching, Pepito pulls Roier to a comatose John Doe’s room to sit for fifteen minutes while Pepito tells John Doe all about Pepito’s day and about Spider-Man and about Pepito’s favorite shows and about Pepito’s Dad and how cool he is (but he only talks about that when Pepito doesn’t think Roier is listening.)
Apparently, this John Doe is in a coma. Has been for a long time since an accident that left him with burn scars down the side of his face and one of his arms. Several months, and nobody’s come looking for him. Nobody’s visited. It’s just been him and the doctors and the nurses.
They say that comatose people can hear what’s going on around them.
Roier looks at his kid talking with John Doe as Pepito has been doing for a few weeks now, and he wonders how the hell Pepito is so nice considering who his dad is.
(“I don’t think Spider-Man is here,” Pepito admits one day when Roier is out of the room in the bathroom. “I don’t know where he is. Apa Roier says he’s sick, but I think Apa Roier is trying to make himself feel better.”
The man doesn’t respond. He’s sleeping.
“I miss Spider-Man,” Pepito continues. “But Apa Roier misses him more.”
Pepito hums. “Nobody knows who Spider-Man is, right? So maybe if I tell Apa Roier that you’re Spider-Man then he’ll be happy again ‘cause that’ll mean that he found his hero!”
He perks up briefly before sighing in that sad way little kids do when they realize something horrible about the world, like that sleeping people are just that. Asleep. Dead to the world, and not actually superheroes.
“When you wake up, you GOTTA sign my cast,” Pepito declares, cheering himself up. “But you can’t sign it as Spider-Man. That’s Spider-Man’s job.”
Roier lingers in the doorway, and he scrubs his face with one hand in frustration. Goddamnit.)
Six months ago, Black Cat and Spider-Man were doing one of their usual “fights” (aka them kinda just chasing each other and flirting) when they ended up in the middle of a fight between Kingpin’s men and the police. Spider-Man leapt in to help, and Black Cat stuck around fully intending on continuing the “fight” when the actual fight was done.
But then Black Cat realized that the warehouse they were in was full of natural gas tanks ready to be shipped out to stores. And one stray bullet could set the entire warehouse ablaze.
And one stray bullet would.
Black Cat just barely managed to get Spider-Man’s attention, but it was almost too late. But they were close enough to each other and to the door that Black Cat just pushed Spider-Man out of the warehouse. He was on his way after him when the place blew up, and he got caught in the blast.
And Spider-Man could only watch.
Cut to current day. Roier is sitting in an uncomfortable hospital chair scrolling through TikTok while Pepito is outside in the hallway trying to find a nurse to get John Doe a new blanket because his is old and dusty and gross after months of use.
“You know,” Roier hears himself say, “I think I know who you are.”
They say coma patients can hear what’s going on in the outside world, but Roier’s pretty sure that this dude is braindead by now. So… no harm no foul, right?
He pauses his TikTok to comment on it before continuing speaking:
“You’re one of Kingpin’s guys, right? Sucks, man.”
He sucks in a sympathetic breath through his teeth, shakes his head at the memory.
“You’re gonna be pissed if you wake up. No one survived but us. And your boss is probably gonna kill you for fucking up whatever you guys were doing, R-I-P.”
He continues scrolling, but he isn’t quite paying attention anymore. Distantly, he can hear Pepito talking with a nurse outside in the hallway. Good, Pepito’s busy; Pepito doesn’t need to be hearing any of this.
“Like, we should be happy we’re fine, right?” Roier asks, not expecting a response and not getting one. “That explosion was insane! We’re lucky, right? But it also kinda sucks, you know? Survivor’s guilt and shit. That’s what Jaiden says, anyway, but I’m the therapist here and I say I’m fine.”
(He’s actually a therapists’ office’s secretary, but this guy doesn’t need to know that.)
His grip on his phone tightens minutely. “Fucking Black Cat. I kinda wish he got out instead of you, you know?”
He winces.
“Sorry. You’re already basically dead. He’d be, too, probably.” (A heavy sigh.) “But at least he’d be here.”
The door to the room slams open as Pepito and a nurse come skipping inside with fresh blankets for poor John Doe.
“Pepiux!” Roier cheers, pausing his video politely. “You’re just in time! I was telling him about Spider-Man, but that’s your job, isn’t it? Why did I have to do it, eh?”
Pepito gasps and jumps in where he assumes Roier left off. It’s a story about the time Spider-Man saved a train from falling from its tracks over the city using his webs and his webs alone, and the story is wrong in so many ways, but Roier doesn’t correct Pepito. Nah. He lets Pepito keep believing that Spider-Man got away from that with only a few bruises and not a broken shoulder and rope burns from his own webs that Roier still wears long sleeves to cover up years later.
John Doe sleeps on, and Roier almost kinda hates him for it.
The very next day, Roier is out of the hospital room on a call and Pepito is next to John Doe’s bed telling him all about the time Roier son him his little popcorn plushie- the very one Pepito currently has in his lap.
And then Pepito goes quiet. Pepito looks down at the plush and its little stitched-on smile, and then Pepito looks up at John Doe.
“I used to have real bad dreams, but then Apa Roier got me this and the bad dreams stopped.”
A pause as Pepito runs Pepito’s hands over the plush’s face thoughtfully.
“Apa Roier says you’re gonna be asleep forever,” he continues. “He says that you’re dreaming.”
And then Pepito hops off of his chair and gets onto his toes to put his plushie on John Doe, right in the space between his arm and his torso.
“There. Now you won’t have any bad dreams.”
That night, Pepito shivers under Pepito’s covers as Pepito wakes up from a nightmare. And then, silent as a mouse, he slips from his bed and pads out into the main room of the apartment, where Roier lays asleep on the couch with the tv still on. He climbs on top of Roier and snuggles close with a sniffle, and he falls back asleep fitfully.
(But it’s fine, because Pepito did a good thing. Apa Roier rolled his eyes, but he said Pepito was very nice, if not a little stupid for giving up his Good Dream Giver to some random guy in the hospital. And Spider-Man would be proud, Pepito just knows it!!!)
[Across the city, a nurse startles as her coma patient’s hand twitches.]
And then it’s Pepito’s birthday. Roier ends up having to work late, so Pepito FaceTimes Awelo Foolish and Leo for a bit before going to bed. And Foolish thinks it’s a little weird that Pepito is going to bed at six pm on a Friday, but Pepito’s a weird kid! Who’s Foolish to judge?
Pepito gets some money out of Apa Roier’s Secret Money Hole beneath the couch, and he embarks on an epic quest to spend his birthday with one of his newest and bestest friends.
First, Pepito stops at a gas station and gets a popsicle. It looks like Spider-Man, so Pepito just kinda holds onto it like it’s a teddy bear until it starts to melt on the bus to the hospital. Then Pepito has to eat it quick, but he cries a little because he likes how the popsicle looks, not how it tastes :(
Upon getting to the hospital, Pepito is a little surprised to see John Doe’s room more busy than usual. Normally it’s just Pepito and Apa Roier and a nurse, but today there are two nurses!
The nurses smile at Pepito when Pepito pokes Pepito’s head into the room. They’re used to him by now, he’s been John Doe’s only real visitor this entire time.
Pepito is overjoyed to see that John Doe, still asleep, has had the popcorn plush tucked under his blanket with him. The nurses really are amazing!
Before too long, the nurses leave, their checkup done for the time being.
Pepito hops onto Pepito’s usual chair, and Pepito starts to talk.
“It’s my birthday,” Pepito says. “Apa Roier isn’t here, though. He’s working, but that’s fine. We’ll probably have cake tomorrow if he remembers to buy it.”
John Doe doesn’t respond. Of course he doesn’t, he’s asleep!
“I’m…” Pepito pauses to count on Pepito’s fingers. “…six today! Apa Roier says that that means I’m getting super old and that I’m gonna die soon just like his other son and his abuelo and his Tilin, but I’m not that old.”
Pepito looks at the white streaks in John Doe’s hair. He could’ve sworn than his hair was all brown, but maybe he’s getting older, too. (Do sleeping people age??)
Vaguely, Pepito recalls a picture of Black Cat that Apa Roier used to keep on their fridge and swear at. Black Cat’s hair is all white, but that’s probably because Black Cat was, like, super old.
“I’m only six,” Pepito says. “So Apa Roier says that I should stop caring about finding Spider-Man and grow up. But that doesn’t sound like fun. And who else is gonna look for him if I don’t? Nobody’s looking.”
Pepito thinks of Apa Roier’s heartbroken face when they watched the footage of Spider-Man’s last fight on the news. It was against Kingpin’s men, Pepito thinks, and then the building blew up.
He’s so caught up in his memories that he doesn’t notice John Doe’s eyes moving beneath his eyelids, nor does he notice the subtle shifting of his lips as he tries to speak for the first time in over half a year.
[Cellbit’s throat is hoarse and his body feels as heavy as an anchor, but…]
Pepito jumps as he hears someone cough.
Eyes widening, Pepito looks at John Doe just in time to hear him mumble a tired and slurred, “Spider-Man is missing?”
When the nurses run into the room, one comments that John Doe must be the luckiest man alive.
[Ironic, isn’t it?]
The last thing Cellbit remembers before the explosion was Spider-Man shouting that he was an asshole, which is true. Cellbit is an asshole. That’s why he deserved to be blown up and not Spider-Man.
Spider-Man is a hero. And Cellbit… isn’t. He’s a cat burglar, both literally and in the metaphorical sense. He steals mistreated cats and takes them to the vet. He breaks into people’s homes and steals every piece of jewelry he can find. Once upon a time, he was a killer.
That was back when he abused his luck, and now look at him: fresh out of a coma and too tired to even blink.
But he cracks his eyes open, anyway, just to catch a glimpse of the kid who’s been visiting him in the hospital for the past several months. It hurts, but it’s worth it because the kid is smiling.
It’s the kid’s birthday. Cellbit wishes he could tell them “Happy birthday! I think you saved my life by visiting me and keeping the doctors from pulling the plug!”
But all he manages is a groan as the nurses adjust more of his tubes. Ouch, who knew almost dying hurt so much?
The kid stays put through it all. Where’s their dad? Working, right?
Cellbit heard maybe 75% of what was told to him while he was in his coma. He remembers maybe 10% of that. He remembers… voices. One child, and one adult. One very familiar-sounding adult, but familiar from where?
“This is the best birthday ever!” the kid exclaims.
One of the nurses shushes them, but Cellbit just smiles.
(“You should help me find Spider-Man,” Pepito tells the man when most of the nurses are gone.
The man chuckles weakly, his head lolling to the side.
“What about your dad?” he croaks. “Isn’t he helping?”
“He says that Spider-Man is dead, but I don’t believe him because Spider-Man is Spider-Man! He can’t die!”
“You’re right,” the man agrees. His eyes are still shut, but Pepito thinks they’d be sharing right into Pepito’s soul if they were open.
“So you gotta help me! If we’re both looking, we’ve gotta find him!”
“I don’t think I can even walk.”
“I’ll just get Apa Roier to drive us. He’s a super good driver. Or the nurses can give you a wheelchair!”
The man hums. “Maybe.”
He musters his strength to clutch the popcorn plush closer, and then he lets out a quiet moan of pain once he’s done moving.
“Lucky for you, I’m a bit of a detective,” he groans, and Pepito’s eyes light up.
Perfect!!!)
But now Pepito is super grounded because Pepito did fully just scare the shit out of Roier and steal his money, and now Pepito isn’t allowed to leave the apartment at all except for school, and Roier stops letting Pepito walk and drives Pepito and he’s there to pick Pepito up and he’s there waiting an hour early even though he’s using his only break of the day to do so. He rearranges Pepito’s bedroom so that there’s something covering the window.
“You don’t need to look for Spider-Man,” Roier tells Pepito, “because Spider-Man is dead. I watched him die, Pepiniux, that’s why I’m sad.”
He wipes Pepito’s tears and hugs him and runs his hand through Pepito’s hair. (He tells himself that he doesn’t care, but he’s never been able to stand by while a child cries. That’s why he started hero-ing in the first place, not that Pepito or anybody else knows that.)
“You need to stop looking before you make yourself sad, okay?” Roier says. “If you cry too much, your face is going to get stuck like that and you’ll be ugly forever.”
Pepito immediately stops crying. Or, well, Pepito tries, but Pepito is also six. It’s very hard for six year olds to regulate their own emotions.
Apa Roier lets Pepito sleep in bed with him that night, but Pepito can’t sleep, because Pepito can’t stop thinking about the man in the hospital and how he and Pepito are supposed to find Spider-Man and now Pepito has to tell him that Spider-Man is dead!! He’ll be so sad he’ll fall back asleep again and he won’t wake up and it’ll be all Pepito's fault :(
Now, Pepito is super grounded and can’t go anywhere but school. But Pepito has to see John Doe and tell him the bad news before he finds out the hard way, so Pepito hatches a master plan.
At recess, Pepito flings himself off of the monkey bars and ‘accidentally’ hurts his arm to the point of having to go to the hospital. And it hurts, yeah, but it’s worth it because now John Doe can actually sign his cast! (His last broken arm healed before John Doe woke up, unfortunately.)
As soon as the cast is on and the nurse has left the room with the doctor to call Apa Roier, Pepito sneaks out of the room and runs to John Doe’s room. But the name on the chart outside isn’t John Doe anymore, it’s ‘Cellbit’. Is that his name? Or is it his disease, the one that made him sleep for a long time?
Pepito bursts into the room, startling a sleeping ‘Cellbit’ awake.
Cellbit looks confused, and then he sees the fresh cast on Pepito’s arm and he just looks sad.
“What happened?” he asks.
Pepito’s lip wobbles, and tears start to well up in his eyes, and ‘Cellbit’ has approximately three seconds to prepare before Pepito is sobbing uncontrollably in the middle of the room.
“S-Spider-Man’s dead!” Pepito wails, practically launching himself into Cellbit’s bed because Pepito is, after all, six years old. These are big emotions for someone so small.
“What?” Cellbit breathes. Mindful of the wires and tubes sticking out of him, he gently pulls Pepito into a hug. (No…)
Pepito nods frantically. “Apa Roier told me that he’s dead and he watched it and that’s why he’s sad so we can’t find him and- and he’s dead and that’s why nobody can find him and-”
As if on cue, both a nurse- worried about the sudden activity and noise- and an Apa Roier- worried about his son with the broken arm- run into the room.
Roier looks at Pepito.
Pepito looks at Cellbit.
Cellbit looks at Roier.
Roier looks at Cellbit.
“You actually woke up?” Roier asks, visibly shocked.
Cellbit nods mutely. He’s got a weird feeling in the back of his mind, something fuzzy and prickly and unfamiliar and not quite unwelcoming.
And then Pepito reaches his arms out for his dad and Roier rushes to scoop him up. So this is Pepito’s dad… the mysterious ‘Apa Roier’.
Cellbit has a hard time sitting up most days still, but he still asks the nurse for help sitting the bed up for him, supposedly so he can see the tv better. As she does so, he reaches into her pockets and swipes a notebook and pen, and he hides them until she’s gone. (He was a professional thief, after all.)
And once Roier and Pepito are gone, Cellbit starts doing what he does best.
He opens his new notebook, and he starts his investigation.
Roier wishes that this Cellbit guy was fucking dead. He deserves it, doesn’t he? He’s one of Kingpin’s men, he’s the reason why Black Cat is… is gone. Missing. (Dead.)
Something about Cellbit makes Roier’s skin crawl. His stomach twists, and his lungs ache, and he almost wonders if Cellbit is a metahuman without knowing it. Maybe his power is, like, poison. Or something.
But Pepito likes him, and so Roier finds himself awkwardly sitting in an uncomfortable chair on his phone as Pepito and Cellbit talk about Spider-Man. Because of course Cellbit is a Spider-Man fan, of course he is.
Every day, Roier sits in his chair, and he listens to the man responsible for Black Cat’s disappearance talk about how cool Spider-Man is. How powerful he is. Strong. Clever. Heroic.
Cellbit was supposed to die. He wasn’t supposed to wake up! That’s why Roier talked to him about the explosion all those weeks ago, and Roier doesn’t know if Cellbit remembers that conversation or not and it’s bugging the hell out of him because this one man could risk Roier’s secret identity and his safety and his son’s safety. Because Kingpin is going to realize that his missing guy is alive, and he is not going to be happy about the failed mission or the prolonged leave of absence.
So Roier leaves the talking to Pepito. Cellbit gives him the shivers, ugh.
But then Pepito has to run to use the bathroom one day, and Cellbit asks, “How did Spider-Man die?”
Roier doesn’t look up from his phone. TikTok, yay.
“He fell,” Roier replies. Because, well, he almost did. “His webs slipped.”
Cellbit hums as if he doesn’t believe him, which makes sense. The idea of Spider-Man falling to death is kinda insane (even if Roier does know the truth.)
“When?” Cellbit asks.
Roier shrugs and scrolls to the next video. “A while ago. I don’t like thinking about it.”
“I don’t blame you. That sounds…”
“Super traumatic? Yeah, I know. It’s why I didn’t tell Pepito. It’d break his heart, RIP.”
(And it did.)
“Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, he’s just a kid. Imagine telling a kid that their hero is dead, that’s horrible.”
“Tell me about it. All he did was cry all night.”
Roier groans and throws his head back, eyes slipping shut momentarily as he remembers Pepito curled into his chest and sobbing so hard Pepito was dry heaving. Poor kid nearly threw up, Jesus.
“But at least he didn’t have to watch it,” Roier continues. “Because he just… fell. Like a rock. What a fucking hero, ammiright?”
He cracks an eye open and glances at Cellbit, who has both of his eyes trained on his own hands in his lap.
“He was a hero,” Cellbit quietly says. “He saved my life. A couple times, actually. I owe him.”
Roier frowns. He doesn’t remember saving anyone like Cellbit, but he’s also been trying to forget his time as Spider-Man. Maybe Cellbit is one of the lucky ones to be forgotten.
“He was kind of a dick,” Roier says.
“So am I. Doesn’t mean he deserved to die.”
Roier blinks. He looks back down at his phone.
“I guess,” is all Roier says.
A week passes, and then Cellbit has some wonderful news for Pepito. Since he’s been awake for two weeks without, like, dying, the hospital is letting him go! All he has to do is show up for physical therapy twice a week for the next couple of weeks, and he’s free!
Pepito is SO HAPPY! Because now they can get to work finding Spider-Man’s killer!
(Cellbit let it slip one day that he was going to try and find whoever killed his favorite superhero, and Pepito wouldn’t stop begging, and Cellbit really needs to learn how to say no to this kid. He was bad enough with his own before…)
But, oh no! Cellbit was in a coma for so long that he doesn’t have anywhere to live! Or any food, or any money, or any clothes, or any friends…
“You can have my bed,” Pepito earnestly offers, never one to leave a friend in need (despite said friend being 20 years older than him.)
Cellbit smiles and ruffles Pepito’s hair. “That’s very nice of you, Pepito, but I don’t think I could fit in your bed.”
“Oh.” Pepito slumps briefly before perking back up with a smile. “You can have Apa Roier’s bed!”
“What?” Roier annoyedly asks, finally looking up from his phone. “Nuh-uh. It’s my bed, he can find his own.”
“But he doesn’t have any money!” Pepito argues.
And, now, Cellbit technically has options. He has his sister… who he isn’t on speaking terms with. And he has Pac… who he isn’t on speaking terms with. And he has Bad… who he isn’t on speaking terms with.
So Cellbit quietly excuses himself from his own hospital bed to start packing up the few things he has- mostly gifts from Pepito and Roier- in a plastic grocery bag.
It’s as he’s sneaking (read: limping, because he’s still relearning how to walk) out of his own hospital room that he’s grabbed by the back of his collar and gently tugged back into the room.
“You aren’t supposed to be walking yet, pendejo!” Roier snaps. He grabs Cellbit’s wheelchair- hospital provided- by the handle and pulls it over.
Cellbit sits, and he says, “You really don’t need to worry about me. I’m sure I can figure something out.”
“Apa,” Pepito begs, turning on the saddest puppy-eyes Roier’s ever seen on him, “please? He’s homeless.”
And then, in an act of desperation, Pepito adds, “Spider-Man would let him stay.”
“Spider-Man is dead,” Roier huffs, though, really, he knows he’s been beat. “But Cellbit can have the couch I guess.”
And thus Cellbit finds himself living in a complete stranger’s apartment and acting as a live-in babysitter. But, hey, it’s a roof over his head, even if Roier makes his head spin sometimes.
…But let it be said that Cellbit doesn’t end up on the couch. Because Roier took one look at this poor disheveled man in a wheelchair (that Cellbit somehow managed to steal from the hospital under the discharge nurse’s nose) and then he looked at his lumpy old couch, and he let out a sigh:
“You can have my bed.”
“What?” Cellbit asks. “No, I can’t. This is fine.”
He tries shifting over to the couch, but he’s stopped by Roier grabbing his shoulder and loosely forcing him to sit again.
“This couch is shit, man,” Roier says. “I can’t let you sleep on it, that’s a one-way ticket to Hell.”
Cellbit frowns. “Well, I’m not kicking you out of your bed. That’s a ticket to Hell.”
Roier shrugs. “Fine. We can share it.”
Cellbit’s words catch in his throat, and that’s how he manages to land himself a bed to sleep in… even if he is sharing it with someone he thinks kinda super hates him.
Could be worse. (Or it could be better. Cellbit could be sharing a bed with Spider-Man like he’d always dreamed of doing, but it seems to be a bit late for that now, doesn’t it?)
And things are… normal. Pepito gets Pepito’s popcorn plush back and Pepito’s nightmares FINALLY stop again, Cellbit gets to eat something that isn’t hospital food for the first time in weeks, and Roier gets to go to work and to sleep with the knowledge that his kid isn’t sneaking out of the apartment or out of school to visit some random guy in the hospital.
It’s nice having someone to help with chores, even if Cellbit is still trying to get his strength back after being in a coma for so long. But God it’s awkward having to share a bed with him, mostly because Roier had kinda always imagined sharing a bed with Black Cat, leather outfit and mask and fake tail and all. (But- and he won’t tell anybody this- sometimes it’s easy to pretend with all the white streaks in Cellbit’s hair.)
But what’s annoying is the way Cellbit sometimes seems to look straight through Roier sometimes, like he can see Roier’s ugly rotten little soul. But then he always blinks and shakes his head and goes back to his notebook, because he’s absolutely obsessed with Spider-Man. It’s kinda flattering? But, really, Roier is kinda just confused because this is one of Kingpen’s men… who wants to get revenge for Spider-Man’s death. (His “death”.)
(“He’ll get what he deserves,” Cellbit explains.
They’re doing the dishes after dinner… meaning that Roier is washing the dishes and Cellbit is drying them at the kitchen table because he can’t stand for too long. Pepito is on his iPad, dead to the world.
Roier snorts. “What, you think a woman couldn’t have killed Spider-Man?”
“No, women are usually better killers than men,” Cellbit replies, very matter-of-fact. “I’ve just been doing my research, that’s all.”
“Oh?”
Roier holds out a bowl for Cellbit to take; he takes it and starts drying it with a rag that Roier is 99% certain he stole from the Dollar Store the last time they went.
Cellbit nods. “The last time anybody saw Spider-Man, he was fighting Black Cat near the warehouse district.”
Roier’s shoulders hike minutely. He lets out a shaky breath and masks it with a yawn and a stretch.
“So you think Black Cat did it?” he asks. He shakes his head. “I told you, man. Spider-Man fell. He wasn’t killed.”
“Wasn’t he?” Cellbit mildly asks. He sets the bowl aside and extends a hand for the next dish, which Roier hands to him. “I just think it’s suspicious that he fell. He has super endurance and strength, not to mention his webs. If he fell to death, it’s because he was incapacitated beforehand, or it’s because he didn’t fall.”
He shoots Roier a look out of the corner of his eye.
Roier rolls his eyes. “I saw what I saw, man. I didn’t kill him, I just watched.”
“And I trust you. But, if he did fall, then somebody made him able to fall.”
“And you think it was Black Cat.”
Surprisingly, Cellbit shakes his head. “Black Cat isn’t a killer. He’s an asshole, but he wouldn’t kill the guy. I think it was somebody working with Kingpin.”
A shiver runs down Roier’s spine at the sheer amount of disgust in Cellbit’s voice.
A second shiver runs down Roier’s spine as he remembers the fact that nobody but him and Black Cat knows that the warehouse was full of Kingpin’s men specifically. Nobody even connected it with Spider-Man.
He turns his head to fully look at Cellbit with wide eyes. “How-”
“Like I said-” Cellbit reaches into his [read, Roier’s, all of Cellbit’s wardrobe at the moment is stuff Roier isn’t wearing] hoodie’s pocket and pulls out a cell phone that Roier vaguely remembers seeing a woman at the grocery store using earlier that morning when they were running errands. “-I’ve been doing research.”
“Is that stolen?”
Cellbit shrugs and pockets the phone. “I found it. Point is, I know that the guy that killed Spider-Man was a guy. And he’ll get what he deserves.”
And, somehow, despite knowing what actually happened to Spider-Man, Roier believes him.)
Meanwhile Pepito kinda just wants to get justice for his hero’s death. Death is new to Pepito in general, so murder hasn’t exactly crossed Pepito’s mind. But all Pepito wants is for the Bar Guy to Go To Jail.
How admirable! It’s a shame Cellbit is more likely to find the “killer” first.
(Why is he so smart??)
Eventually, Pepito manages to put his two brain cells together, and he thinks about the fact that Apa Roier and Señor Celbi are sharing a bed, and the fact that they grocery shop together and do the dishes and laundry together, and the fact that Roier drives Cellbit to physical therapy and cuts into his own break time from work to hang out with Cellbit at physical therapy and. And Pepito figures it out!
Apa Roier and Señor Celbi are married!
…Which makes Cellbit Pepito’s brand-new Apa Celbi!
Best realization ever!!
So Pepito starts talking about how his dad got married at school, and how he got married to the guy from the hospital that Pepito kept talking about earlier in the year- his new Apa Celbi, and, eventually, one very important person hears about this, and his name is Richarlyson, and he is ten years old, and he immediately punches Pepito in the face and calls him a liar, because his Pai Cellbit wouldn’t get married without him there!!!
Pepito doesn’t tell Roier any of this. Pepito doesn’t want to make Roier upset again, because he’s been happier since Cellbit moved in. He’s been smiling more, and he’s even started shaving again- the first time he’s really done so since adopting Pepito. He’s happy, and Pepito doesn’t wanna be the one to make him sad again, so Pepito says nothing about the Incident.
Pepito isn’t even angry. He’s mostly just confused, because he doesn’t know Richarlyson. He also doesn’t know how or why Richarlyson decided that Pepito’s Cellbit is the same as his dead dad, ‘cause everyone in the school knows that Richarlyson’s dad is super dead except for Richarlyson.
But who cares about Richarlyson? Pepito is just happy to have two whole (married!!!) dads to love. Pepito even thinks that they love him back!! That’s amazing!!!!!
(Yeah, but then a detective shows up at Roier’s job flashing her badge around and demanding he tell her the location of her brother, and Roier knows for a fact that Cellbit has never mentioned having a family, and he remembers him and Pepito being the only ones to visit Cellbit in the hospital, and this is how Roier decides that he can still be a hero to at least one person.
Roier talks to the cop, but, underneath his desk and hidden by the counter and window between the two of them, Roier texts his dad, the Chief of Police, Foolish, about there being a cop bothering him and misusing her badge for a personal Thing instead of anything official.
And thus Roier makes an enemy of Detective Bagi, who has decided that her brother’s kidnapper will be harder to deal with than she thought.
Doing things by the books has never been her style, anyway.)
And then:
Pepito arrives home from school to an empty apartment. Apa Celbi left a note on the table saying he and Apa Roier are at physical therapy, so Pepito just gets himself a snack and settles in on the couch to watch videos on his iPad. Pepito is sure to throw the note away, though, because Pepito knows that Apa Roier doesn’t like there being a mess in the kitchen (it distracts him when he’s cooking.)
But then:
Roier and Cellbit get home an hour later to an empty apartment and blood spattered across the carpet.
Pepito is gone.
At least Pepito sleeps through Pepito’s kidnapping.
Morbius is an expert hypnotist, after all. And he remembers Cellbit being a fighter, so it’s just easier for everyone involved for Morbius to send Cellbit to sleep before forcibly rescuing (not kidnapping!!!) him.
But then Morbius gets back to HQ- aka, Pac and Mike’s apartment- and Pac takes one look at the child in Morbius’ arms, and Pac lets out the longest, most tense breath imaginable.
“Bad,” he slowly says, one breath away from a panic attack. “That isn’t Cellbit.”
And Bad looks down at the kid, and he thinks that maybe his memory loss is getting ahead of him again.
“Whoops!” he cheerfully says.
This just means they kidnapped one of the kidnappers! It’s fine.
When Roier first… acquired Pepito, he didn’t think the “adoption” would last long. But it’s been almost a year, and the official adoption papers are sitting on the kitchen table waiting to be filled out. But they’re fucking useless now that Pepito is gone.
Coincidentally, it’s been almost a year since Black Cat’s disappearance. And now, instead of Spider-Man and Black Cat teaming up to take down the villain of the week, it’s Roier and Cellbit sitting on their couch staring at the wall and trying to figure out why somebody would want to kidnap Pepito.
Cellbit is leaned forward with his cane upright and held between his hands and knees. He rolls it idly in his palms, deep in thought. (His physical therapists have finally allowed him to move from his wheelchair to a cane, and he was kind enough to return the wheelchair to the hospital. That’s why he and Roier took so long getting home, and now Pepito is gone, and-)
Roier, though? His nerves are on fire. His son has been kidnapped, and he legitimately can’t think of why. Like. Pepito???
The blood isn’t normal, Roier can tell that, at least. There isn’t a lot of it, either. It’s oddly dark and thin and it’s only spattered across a small section of the carpet near the couch.
“Pepito bit them,” Cellbit muses, eyeing the blood. “Then they subdued him.”
Roier groans and slumps to the side, squeezing his eyes shut and hiding his face in Cellbit’s shoulder. “Please don’t say ‘subdued’. Bad vibes.”
“Sorry.” (Cellbit lightly pats Roier on the back; his hand lingers.) “They put him to sleep.”
Roier grumbles and smacks Cellbit’s arm. He sits up and stares down at the blood.
If he was Spider-Man, then he’d be able to swing all over the city looking. It’d take a couple hours, but he knows he’d find Pepito. Spidey Senses and stuff.
But he isn’t Spider-Man. Because Spider-Man died when Black Cat did, and it’s too late to bring him back now. Roier is rusty. He’s useless. (Couldn’t even save him before the explosion, couldn’t even save him before the kidnapping, couldn’t even save him before the roof fell in and crushed them before beneath it.)
Cellbit huffs out a dry laugh. “Sorry.”
“Nah, it’s fine.”
“I’m not sorry about the joke. I… I think I know who took Pepito.”
Roier looks at him.
Cellbit’s mouth is pulled into a thin line. The way his fingers are curled around his cane almost makes it look like he has claws, but that isn’t right. Can’t be.
“And I’m sorry because they look him because of me,” Cellbit says, and, somehow, Roier knows it to be true.
He puts a hand on Cellbit’s knee. “Hey, it’s fine. We’ll get him back. And we’ll beat their asses.”
Cellbit sighs and shakes and hangs his head. “No, we won’t. We can’t. He’s too strong, and you’re just a civilian, and-”
“Who’s too strong, what? Cellbo?”
“Morbius,” Cellbit snaps. He stands, then, eyes flashing with annoyance. “I pissed him and the others off, and they took your son, and- and I’m sorry.”
Morbius. Half-vampire vigilante, ugh. Roier hates that guy!
But what did Cellbit do to piss him off this bad? Since when did Morbius deal with Kingpin’s men?
“Dude,” Roier says, standing as well. He walks right up to Cellbit and grabs him by his upper arms and forces him to look him in the eyes. “It’s fine. We’ll get him back. We’ve got this!”
He tries a smile and even sorta succeeds.
Cellbit sighs and looks away, a hint of a smile on his face. “And I’m really sorry about this. I’ll pay you back, I promise.”
Uh oh, Spidey Senses are tingling.
Roier frowns, his grip on Cellbit tightening. “What the fuck, why? Cellbit?”
Cellbit lets out a breath, and then he looks up at the ceiling lights.
Roier flinches back in surprise as the lights explode, plunging the apartment into darkness. Shards of plastic and glass rain down upon him as he tries to pull Cellbit closer instinctively, but-
“For the window, sorry,” Cellbit replies, and then, with surprising agility considering how fucked his muscles still are after that coma, he neatly twirls out of Roier’s hold like a fish in the water.
His eyes seem to glow in the darkness as he winks.
Roier’s breath catches as he fucking recognizes that wink, and he lunges to grab Cellbit and hold him the fuck still, but it’s too late, just as it always has been with them.
Cellbit dodges out of the way and runs for the window. He smashes it open with the handle of his cane. No hesitation, and then? He jumps.
Roier shouts and runs for the window- (no not again not again)- but there’s no hint of Cellbit outside. It’s a ten-story drop, and there isn’t a fire escape. Not on this part of the building, it’s by Pepito’s room.
Roier breathes. And then he cracks a wet, teary smile, and he laughs. He’s fine. He’s fine!!! What the fuck!! He’s fine!!!!
After all. Cats always land on their feet.
[But, funnily enough, Cellbit doesn't get to Pepito first. He's still very badly hurt, so he finds himself moving across the city much slower than he wants.]
(But, funnily enough, it's a super-hero.)
Pepito wakes up slowly and with a headache building behind Pepito's eyes. The world is fuzzy around Pepito, and it's... cold. And it's loud- there's shouting and Pepito hears... Pepito hears...
It's quiet, suddenly. There's a thud as something hits the ground, and then it's quiet.
Pepito curls in on himself, arms folding around his head and covering his ears. The last thing Pepito remembers is Morbius coming in through the window and Pepito screaming and biting him and then... then...
Pepito sniffles, but Pepito has to be brave! Pepito will fight a million Morbiuseseseses if Pepito has to! Pepito isn't scared!
A hand brushes against Pepito's shoulder, and Pepito immediately screams and squirms away, limbs flailing. Because, after all, Pepito is only six years old.
"Hey!" Pepito hears, and Pepito knows that voice. "Hey, no! It's fine!"
"Apa..." Pepito whimpers.
"Shh, no, don't cry, your face will get stuck that way and you'll be as ugly as Cellbit forever."
This could be a trick, but.
Pepito hesitantly opens Pepito's eyes, but Pepito doesn't see Apa Roier.
No, Pepito sees Spider-Man.
Pepito's eyes widen and his mouth drops open in shock and then, to Roier's surprise, Pepito lunges forward and bursts into tears as Pepito wraps him up in a vice-like hug. Hesitantly, Roier returns it, his own eyes stinging.
"Spider-Man!" Pepito excitedly shouts, voice thick with tears. "I knew you were alive!"
He pauses, then he pulls out of the hug and asks, "Where's Apa Roier? I just heard him."
Roier frowns. "Pepito..."
Pepito shakes Pepito's head and wiggles out of the hug. He hops over the unconscious bodies on the floor and runs around the apartment shouting for his dad.
"Pepito," Spider-Man says, and Pepito stops to look at him.
Slowly, Spider-Man pulls his mask off, and he doesn't even get to finish doing so before getting tackled by the floor by a sobbing child.
Roier pulls his child up into his lap, and he holds him even as Pepito smacks him and says that Pepito hates him for lying but Pepito understands because being Spider-Man has to be scary and-
Roier looks around the apartment and notices, much to his horror, that Morbius isn't anywhere in sight. It's just his two... guys? The two guys.
"I pissed Morbius off," Cellbit had said.
Oh, shit.
[Cellbit collapses into his seat on the bus with a groan, his eyes squeezing shut from pain. His lungs are on fire, his legs are limp noodles, he can't fucking breathe-
The bus lurches as it hits something in the road.
Cellbit cracks an eye open just in time to watch Detective Bagi of the Quesadilla City Police Department storm on board the bus with her gun drawn. Through the front windshield, Cellbit can just barely make out Bad- in costume- arguing with the bus driver through said windshield.
Cellbit's eyes meet Bagi's. He swallows a lump in his throat, narrows his eyes at her.
And then the bus lurches back into motion in a sudden stroke of luck, running Morbius over and sending Bagi skittering backwards as she tries to collect herself.
Whoops.]
Ten months ago, Roier watched his best friend explode into a ball of flame right in front of him. He hung up his suit after that, because what the fuck is the point of being a superhero if you can’t even save one fucking person?
Six months later, Roier’s government-assigned son decided to get attached to some random nameless man in the hospital.
Black Cat was never dead. Roier knew that the whole time, because cats have nine lives. Or. Or something.
But, no, of course Black Cat was alive the whole time, and his name is Cellbit, apparently, and he snores and he likes red wine- but not white!- and he’s really bad at Mario Kart and he’s the stupidest man in the goddamn world. And, still, Roier is in love with him.
“Please don’t get a divorce,” Pepito begs, face hidden in Roier’s chest as Roier swings across the city. “I like having two dads!”
“What?” Roier asks. “We aren’t married.”
“Nuh-uh. Apa Celbi says you are.”
“What?!”
“Well, he said maybe, but that’s basically a yes!”
Roier rolls his eyes. “We’re gonna have to teach you what boundaries are.”
Because Black Cat and Spider-Man may have something going on, but Cellbit doesn’t know that Roier is Spider-Man. He’s probably still in love with him without knowing that he’s been literally sharing a bed with the love of his literal life for four months, the idiot.
“Can you teach me how to climb on walls too?” Pepito innocently asks.
“Ah,” says Roier, not knowing how he’s able to walk on walls, “maybe when you’re older.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a plume of black smoke rising from the road. A bus is out of control, and Roier’s just got that feeling. Not quite his Spidey Sense, but his Cellbit Sense.
“Hold on, Pepino, we’re going down,” Roier says, and that’s all the warning he gives before letting go of his web and dropping from the air.
Pepito screams out a laugh, holding Roier tight. Weird kid, what the fuck is wrong with him??
Roier lands on the top of the bus in the classic superhero pose if only to make sure Pepito keeps laughing in the face of what may in fact be the potential death of his new father figure at Roier’s hands.
The city gasps. Because here is Spider-Man returned from the dead after almost a year, and he… has a child stuck to him.
“We need to get inside…” Roier muses.
“You really don’t!” chimes in a very annoying voice.
Roier sighs. Great, Morbius. He’s crawled up onto the top of the bus… but he already looks like the bus had run him over. Which sucks, because Roier would pay to watch that happen.
He looks up at Morbius, bored already. “What the hell are you doing, man? Aren’t you supposed to be a good guy now?”
Morbius shrugs. “Technically, I’m working with the police on this one. So you can’t stop me.”
He grins, all teeth, the fucking liar. Roier’s dad is the literal chief of police, and he promised Roier that the city would leave Cellbit alone.
…or, well. He promised that that lady detective would leave Cellbit alone.
But Roier can’t say any of that. He isn’t Roier right now, he’s Spider-Man. He’s the good guy!
Distantly over the wind and the screams from inside the bus, Roier can hear Cellbit shouting in his native language. Portuguese, right? It’s what Black Cat used to speak when he wanted to flirt without letting Roier know he was flirting.
So Roier looks down at Pepito, who looks back up at him with a determined expression.
“Hey, Morbius!” Roier calls. “Catch!”
And he throws his child right at Morbius’ stupid idiot face.
Pepito squeals with joy as he latches onto Morbius around the head like a facehugger.
“Stay away from my dad!” Pepito shouts.
“Your what?!” Morbius screeches. He pulls at Pepito uselessly, staggering in a circle on the top of the bus. “Spider-Man!”
Roier shrugs. “Sorry, man, I’ve got a bus to save.”
With that, he drops onto the roof and starts crawling his way to the front of the bus by the windshield. There should be a window there… and, yep! There it is!
“Excuse me,” he tells the terrified, confused bus driver as he crawls inside.
The second Roier hops off the wall, the bus erupts into cheers and delighted screams.
“Spider-Man!” “Holy shit, it’s Spider-Man!” “He’s back!” “Spider-Man is alive!”
But Roier ignores all of that. He locks eyes with Cellbit, and he smiles under his mask through the anger and the pain.
Cellbit looks like shit. He’s covered in cuts from jumping out the window, and he’s paler than usual and he looks exhausted. He’s in the middle of a wrestling match wjrh the detective from earlier, but his eyes light up as he sees Spider-Man alive and well in front of him.
…And then his head is slammed into the window by the detective as the bus jolts her arm. His eyes flutter shut, and he slumps to the side.
She gasps and backs away, her hands flying to cover her mouth.
“Oh my God!” she exclaims, seemingly in disbelief.
She looks to the front of the bus and sees Roier.
Her face falls. “Oh my God.”
Roier narrows his eyes at her. “We are going to talk later.”
But that’s for later. For now, he has an entire bus full of people to save. Unfortunately, he was kind of depending on Cellbit’s characteristic good luck to come into play.
Thanks, Detective.
Roier turns to the driver. “Let me guess, you can’t stop the bus?”
The driver shakes his head. “Key broke in the ignition. Bad luck.”
Fucking Black Cat-
It’s fine. Roier can do this. He’s done this before, actually. It’ll be one hell of a way to get back on the scene after his absence; the papers are gonna love it!
Roier lets out a breath. “Hey, detective!”
She struggles her way up to the front of the bus. “Yes, Spider-Man?”
“You’re really bad at your job.”
He cracks his shoulders, and then he climbs out the window.
And, like he did with the train years ago, he braces himself against the front of the bus, and he hopes to God the bus runs out of gas sometime soon.
“Morbius!” he shouts. “You drop that kid, and I’ll kill your ass the rest of the way!”
And then he shoots his webs, and he thinks of his stupid unconscious Cellbit inside the bus, and he thinks of his stupid adorable child on top of the bus, and he screams.
Contrary to popular belief, Pepito’s hero isn’t Spider-Man. It’s Apa Roier. When Spider-Man was gone, Apa Roier was there to give Pepito a home and a bed and a popcorn toy to chase away his nightmares and a pair of glasses because it turns out that Pepito isn’t blind, actually, Pepito is just sort of blind!
So the second the bus stops, Pepito is scrambling out of Morbius’ arms and trying to jump off the top of the bus to get to Pepito’s dad.
“Spider-Man!” he cries. (He wants to call for his dad, but Pepito is a Brave Pepito and a Smart Pepito and Pepito knows that Spider-Man is a secret.)
As soon as the bus’ doors open, everybody on board runs out. The driver first, then everybody else, but Pepito doesn’t care about them! What about Apa Celbi?
“Whoah, hold on there,” Morbius says. He scoops Pepito back up easily. “Let’s go down safely, how about that?”
He’s a vampire (sorta), so he’s okay when he jumps off the top of the bus. He drops Pepito safely onto the ground by Spider-Man’s body, and then he clicks his tongue and disappears into the crowd. (What a mean, mean man.)
Pepito kneels next to Spider-Man and shakes his arm frantically, sobbing pathetically. That’s his dad!!!
Spider-Man looks dead. His suit is all ripped- but at least his mask is fine- and it’s all dirty and his gloves are completely gone and his hands are burned from his webs. But he’s breathing! He has to be!
And then Pepito hears a coughing. Not from Spider-Man, but from behind Pepito.
Pepito turns around to see Apa Celbi limping off the bus with one of his arms wrapped around the shoulders of a very tall woman.
Apa Celbi sees Pepito, and he immediately breaks away from the woman and staggers to Pepito’s side. He drops to his knees with an audible groan of pain, but he doesn’t seem to care. He pulls Pepito into a tight hug, hiding his face and crying.
“You’re okay,” he murmurs.
Pepito nods, hugging his dad back. “Spider-Man saved me.”
“He’s so cool, isn’t he?”
“He said you jumped out a window.”
Apa Celbi tenses. “He said what.”
Pepito nods again. “And now you’re gonna get divorced, but first he needs to wake up because he might be dead.”
“Divorced- what? Hold on.”
Apa Celbi lets go of Pepito and shuffles towards Spider-Man’s head. He takes it in his hands, his thumbs gently stroking the fabric beneath Spider-Man’s eyeholes.
And then he slaps the shit out of him.
“I know you’re awake, asshole!” Apa Celbi snaps.
To Pepito’s surprise, Spider-Man groans and sits up, his eyeholes narrowing annoyedly.
“Oh, yeah?” he challenges. “Shut the fuck up! I’m angry at you!”
And then he lays back down.
Apa Celbi rolls his eyes and lies down next to him.
“I saved your life! Don’t get angry at me for that, I’d do it again.”
“You broke my window!”
“That’s why you’re angry?!”
“No!” Spider-Man sits up just enough to smack Apa Celbi in the chest. “I thought you were dead!”
“I didn’t mean to get blown up-”
“Fuck you!”
Pepito’s eyes widen comically as Spider-Man pulls up his mask just enough for his mouth to be free. His secret identi- oh. Oh, they’re kissing. Yuck.
Pepito covers his eyes and scoots so he’s turned away. Pepito’s dads may be married, but he doesn’t need to see them be married!
Apa Celbi gasps for air. “I told you I’d pay for the window.”
“Six months!” Apa Roier snaps. “I’m gonna put you back in a coma, shut the fuck up!”
Pepito chances a look over, sees them kissing again, and turns away again. Ew!!
[When Roier gets home with Cellbit and Pepito, the first thing he does is shower. And then he helps Cellbit shower, because the dumbass broke all his bones again during his attempted rescue. Then he helps Pepito shower, and he answers every single question Pepito asks him… except the ones about the divorce.
Then, once he’s all nice and clean and exhausted, Roier collapses into bed and snuggles up with his idiot boyfriend and checks Twitter, and he sees that Spider-Man is trending, but not for the daring bus rescue.
No.
#SpiderManGay is number one on Quesadilla City’s trending tab.
Roier laughs so hard he drops his phone onto poor Cellbit’s head.
Pepito, unnoticed in the doorway, smiles.
He did it. He finally got his Apa Roier to smile.]