Work Text:
“What the hell…?” Daryll, the current man on the night shift at the Damage Control Security center, muttered. The 27 year-old has been kicked back, peacefully completing a crossword puzzle, when a sudden flurry of movement appeared on one of the various pictures displayed upon the seemingly vast wall of holographic screens (a perk of collaborating with Tony Stark).
He slammed the newspaper from that morning down on the desk, and swiveled the chair over closer, adjusting his glasses as he did so. What he was was no short of odd. A rather short red and blue figure with a tan backpack stood in a defensive stance, masked face turning about sporadically, as if to identify any attackers from around.
Daryll’s straightened into a firm posture, reaching over to his right where a clear plastic cover was placed over a bright red panic button that would alert an on-call squadron of trained guards to neutralize any threats to the security of the deep storage vault holding shipping containers full of alien technology. However, what he saw made him double-take.
The small figure looked… confused. He watched as he turned around and settled his gaze on the bold black label on the inside of the vault. The figure placed his hands on his head in an exaggerated expression of shock. This brought a laugh out of Daryll, and he hesitated. This didn’t look like a threat. By the looks of the shipping container door, this wasn’t a planned break-in. Red and Blue looked just as confused as Daryll did. Against his better judgement, Daryll held off on the impulse to alert his superiors as he was trained. Instead he sought to watch how this played out. Maybe he was a bad employee, but he didn’t think this was worth the trouble of an entire swat team. Daryll slowly leaned back into his chair, and crossed his arms over his chest, attention now fully on the screen.
Judging by the obnoxiously bright, skin-tight suit, Daryll figured it was safe to assume that this guy, whoever he was, was some sort of superhero-avenger-wannabe. He also couldn’t help but know that he had seen this particular enigma before. But that didn’t stop Daryll’s eyebrows from raising when the guy jumped impossibly high for a normal person and stuck to the wall. Daryll had to admit, that was a new one. He’d seen people like Captain America with super strength on the news, but super-sticky powers were new. Red and Blue scampered all over the wall and attempted to pry the doors open from various positions. Daryll sighed with a small chuckle, knowing that even while enhanced, those doors were impenetrable with brute force. Only the time lock would open it.
Nevertheless, Red and Blue continued to try, becoming more and more visibly discouraged, animated by his body language. Daryll felt a pang of sympathy, almost wanting to root for the poor guy.
The way he literally bounced off of the walls reminded him of something… Like a… spider trapped under a glass… That’s why he seemed so familiar! He was the subject of various online articles his nephew had shoved under his nose. A spider-themed hero, Spider-Man, who helped senior citizens cross the street and returned lost wallets. A real Boy Scout type. His nephew, Liam, had been obsessed with superheroes ever since the Avengers saved Manhattan from the alien invasion, and had been keeping tabs on any hero he could ever since. His nephew, who resided in Queens with his sister and brother-in-law, had spoken about how he had spotted the hero around the city, foiling petty crime. It was admirable, really. Sticking up for the Little Guy, the ones the Avengers only see as a statistic in a vast population.
Breaking out of his thoughts, his attention fell onto a dejected Spider-Man, who seemed to accept his fate and resign to the vault lock. Daryll felt the urge to open the vault to let him out, but knew that he was only authorized to take action in case of dire emergencies. If he were to open the vault door, it would be recorded, his superiors would be alerted immediately, and Spider-Man would be detained. That wouldn’t be good for anyone, so the best Daryll could do would be to simply wait until morning and hope that he would be able to sneak out when the time lock expires.
He watched as Spider-Man slumped and shuffled his was in between two shipping containers and aimed his wrists at the walls, striking a strange position with his fingers, and shot out a white… substance that flew and immediately latched onto the containers, meeting in the middle and expanding to create a… hammock? Daryll couldn’t hold back an amused smirk at the sight of Spider-Man climbing up into a makeshift bed, swaying gently, and stretching out into a relaxed posture.
Daryll couldn’t blame him. The walls were too strong to move. Soon after, though, maybe after a few minutes, Spider-Man seemed to grow restless. It started as a shaking leg, then his arms changing position every few seconds, then the shifting of his back on the hammock. Daryll was reminded of Liam, during holiday meals, anxious to leave the dinner table to see what Santa had left him under their family tree. Maybe Spider-Man wasn’t quite the right name. Spider-Boy seemed more like it.
Spidey descended from his hammock and shot a web toward the ceiling a simply hung from it by one hand, posture falling limp and comically bored. Utilizing his momentum, he slumped to the side before shooting the web and repeating the process and falling on his backpack to the ground. Daryll took pity on the kid, he really did, but trying to help would only cause more trouble for Spidey and more paperwork for him.
A few minutes later somehow resulted in Daryll secretly timing on his cell phone how long Spidey could hang upside down, reading what looked like a textbook, without getting a head rush. The answer was a long time. Longer that what should be possible without being painful. Daryll got a headache just from watching.
Spidey retreated into the busted shipping unit briefly and retreated with a bright yellow jacket, as if his outfit needed another primary color. Though, he supposed, it couldn’t be too warm in there. He then began fiddling with the black wristbands that he earlier used to shoot out his webs, and different kinds of webs began to appear! He seemed to have access to advanced technology. Impressive for a kid. He let out a snort when he used his webbing as a jump rope.
That didn’t seem to entertain him for long either, as a few minutes later found Spidey laying atop another container, seemingly talking to himself. The security footage unfortunately did not provide an audio track, so Daryll was left to speculate. Spidey’s boredom mixed with his exhaustion from the graveyard shift ended up having Daryll ad-libbing the words coming from Spidey’s masked jawline. Sure, it was dumb, but the childish energy was infectious.
Boredom must have overcome the hero, as he suddenly jolted upright and executed an impressive sort of backflip onto the ground, then scampering into the shipping container once again, this time disappearing for a few moments. Daryll let out a deep breath, unable to contemplate the events of his shift. Never in a million years did he expect to play host to a superhero. Surprisingly enough, graveyard shifts don’t get much action.
When the small hero emerged, it was a new sense of panic and urgency. Spidey shot out two webs and slingshotted himself onto the still-closed vault door. He began to bang on the concrete with his fist, not even making a dent in the reinforced wall. Daryll began to worry. Did something happen? He supposed it didn’t matter, as he was still unable to help him in any way.
He watched as Spidey’s head snapped up, as if getting an idea, and he swiftly left and returned before Daryll could even seem to blink. Spidey was suddenly upside-down once again, hanging from a single strand of webbing holding a notebook and- was that a calculator? He watched as the gloved hands opened the control panel that powered the vault door and connected wires into his calculator. He then began rapidly pressing the buttons and scribbling in the notebook with a pencil.
Daryll knew he should be concerned, but he was more impressed than anything. As an employee and essentially the guardian of the facility during the hours of 10:00pm to 6:00am, Daryll knew that there was only one sequence of code that would be able to get that door open. He watched with bated breath as Spidey entered sequence after sequence with no signs of success. His fingers itched to manually open the vault, but he knew he couldn’t. His hands were tied. If he did, his superiors would see the footage of Spidey before he could wipe it and he would probably lose his job.
And so, he waited, and waited, and waited, and waited… watching all the while as sequence after sequence was attempted. No luck. Even while upside-down, it was easy to see the discouraged slump of Spidey’s shoulders as another failure was tallied. This went on for hours and hours. Daryll eventually picked up his crossword from the desk and hesitantly went back to his “work” from before his little buddy showed up. He occasionally stole a glance, but was met with the same scene.
Ironically enough, genius Spidey was able to crack the lock just minutes before it would have automatically opened for the work day.
Letting out an excited laugh, he silently cheered Spidey on as he gathered his things and erased his presence from ever having been there, except for the busted container door, and swung out of the slowly opening vault doors.
Daryll couldn’t help but stare intensely at the screens as Spidey moved from frame to frame, screen to screen, getting closer and closer to freedom. He was rooting for the little guy, he had a long night. Unable to keep himself from humming the Mission: Impossible theme song, he watched on as Spidey clung to another transport truck and hid from the guards in view. He held his breath as Spidey flattened on the top of the container as the truck left the front gates of the facility. Once he was clear, Daryll let out a brisk “Yes!” and pumped his fist, rejoicing that his little buddy had safely made it out of the facility.
Gathering his things to clock out, he also pulled up the records from the night, and promptly deleted them, erasing all evidence of his little friend’s presence. He would Probably be reprimanded for that, but system error could always be a valid excuse. Plus, it might get Stark back down there to add new tech to mess around with.
Daryll grabbed his coat and ID card and set out to leave. All the while, he contemplated how to subtly tip off his superiors that they should really improve security around here. He wished he could have gotten an autograph for his nephew.