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Her hair is fried from bleach and dye, her eyes are red-rimmed from crying, and Hobie doesn’t need to be asked before he decides to take her in.
“This is Gwen. Gwen, this is Hobie Brown, one of our agents.”
Jess is the one to introduce them, and for all that she annoys Hobie, he would come to really appreciate her foresight to pair them together.
“Not your agent, I don’t follow orders.”
“Oh shut up, we need somewhere for her to stay and we thought you would… get along .”
She emphasizes the end of her sentence meaningfully, raising her eyebrows as if daring Hobie. He eyes Gwen up and down, notices the color scheme of her spidersuit, the way she holds herself, and nods in understanding.
“Right, let's get you settled then, yeah? Got any luggage?”
She runs a hand through her hair and looks at the ground. Hobie kinda feels bad for asking.
“Uh… no…” Gwen looks a bit miserable before Jess chimes in.
“We just picked her up from a situation , and she didn’t have time to get any of her stuff.”
“Well that’s alright mate, I’ve got a whole bin full of extra clothes I keep to make patches if you wanna come have a Butcher’s.”
“Um… Butcher’s?”
“Look, it means come have a look.”
“... How does that translate?”
Hobie feigns shock and horror, grabbing his chest and stepping backwards. Gwen smiles and tries to hide it behind her hair, but it’s a success to him, and Jess laughs as she begins fiddling with her watch. “You’ll get used to his nonsense.”
“Oh, come off it.”
A portal opens up, blinding and orange-gold. Where the light bounces off the other spiders, the assimilation of their bodies to the current universe fades away, and Hobie finds each person's true “design” fascinating. Gwen is a cacophony of pastel blues and pinks that Hobie finds rather familiar, the colors shifting about as if nervous.
“I’ll come back later to make sure Hobie hasn’t killed you, kid.” She smiles kindly at Gwen before turning to him and dropping the smile, “Hobie, don’t do anything stupid.”
He just shrugs and salutes her. She rolls her eyes, but he would dare to call it fond, and the portal closes with a snap. He has to jump over his sofa to catch a floating vase that begins to fall, filled with beautiful white and yellow flowers.
Gwen looks at him confused, as if wanting to ask why he has an ornate vase filled with delicate flowers in the middle of a house that could only be described as a mess. The answer is that they’re from Pavitr.
“Well then, let’s get a move on,” he starts walking towards his room and gestures for her to follow, “what sorta drag ya into?”
He can hear the footsteps behind him fall short, and when he turns to see why Gwen has stopped, she looks terrified. Hobie is confused as he runs the previous sentence back through his mind to find what he said wrong, an activity he has grown quite good at.
He realizes with a start and rushes to correct himself, “Err, clothes. Forgot that means something in America.”
Gwen still looks upset, but she follows him again when he carries on, and Hobie suddenly regrets the lack of pride flags on his walls or battle jacket. He doesn’t want to clock her outright, and he’s pressed for a subtle way to convey their shared experiences .
“So… got a style Gwendy?” He hopes the nickname will lighten the mood.
“I just want something comfortable right now.”
“Right,” he pushes open the door to his room and gestures, “you can rummage around in those bins over there, I’ll see about some of my old knickers.”
“Uhh, okay.”
After testosterone, he had put all of his old stuff in a series of boxes, and hidden it far back in his closet where he would never have to see it again. As he rummages through the clothes, he realizes the perfect way to let Gwen know she’s safe among her people.
“Oi, if you need it I found some old bras of mine.”
“Some of your old… OH! You’re, you’re—” Hobie’s pretty sure Gwen’s eyes literally have stars in them.
“Sure am mate.” He grins back at her, understanding the excitement of meeting another trans person.
“I uh, won’t need one.”
“Right.”
They work in silence for a while, searching for any clothes that might fit Gwen. When Hobie hears the shuffling of clothes stop on the other side of the room, he turns around to see her staring at his old kit, just visible from the door.
“Would you mind if I… like, played that sometimes?”
Now it’s Hobie’s turn to be excited. “You drum?”
“Yeah, I was in a band too but I uh, quit.”
“Good, you can join mine.”
“What kind of music—” Gwen glances around his room. “Actually, nevermind, it’s obvious. And yeah, I’ll join.”
“Well, show me what you got China.” Gwen looked at him confused and Hobie sighed. “Gwendy, if you’re gonna stay here you gotta learn rhyming slang.”
Gwen stared off into space thinking for a moment before making a very cliche light bulb expression. “China plate! And China plate rhymes with mate.”
“That's the spidey intellect!”
- - - - -
It’s been a week and a half since Gwen showed up, and Hobie has not woken up this early for this long since he was in primary. But, he wants to be a good role model, and after Gwen tried to make herself breakfast on the second day, they both agreed cooking would be Hobie’s job.
Despite how fun it is to hang around with Gwen, Hobie feels out of his depth. He had always been good with kids, often babysat before all the piercings and spikes, but he had never had to deal with a very sad teenager. Hell, he's a very sad teenager himself, so he's currently texting the only non-sad teenager he knew for non-sad teenager advice: Pavitr.
> shes talked about him once a day since she arrived
I don’t see the issue <
Just ask her dude <
> she always looks so down about it tho
So make her not sad <
I believe in you! <
He smiles before looking up from his phone to see Gwen in the middle of her many many rants about Miles Morales, this one particularly about his art. After Gwen had gotten some rest, she came even further out of her shell than Hobie had expected, and a rant like this became commonplace.
He decides to take Pav’s advice and engage. “So, Miles, interdimensional boyfriend eh?”
Gwen’s eyes widen and she seems off guard. Hobie can admit that was maybe a little too blunt. Despite that, she pulls herself together quickly and answers. “Um… we’re not together , but yeah, he’s from a different world than me.”
“Now that you have a watch, are you gonna visit him?”
She looks down at the table. Hobie only catches the edges of her expression and is unable to tell what it is, but when she looks back up her smile is mischievous. “Are you ever gonna visit yours?”
“Come out of it.”
Gwen leans forward in her chair, “Every time he texts you your face lights up. You’re so in love dude.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“Am not, and he comes round all the time.”
She wiggles her eyebrows up and down. “I bet.”
Hobie throws a piece of his toast at her.
“Hey! Illegal play!”
“I don’t follow rules.”
“Whatever. At least tell me something about him.” She perches her head on her hands, looking at him expectantly.
“Fine, his name is Pavitr Prabhakar and he’s from Earth Fifty One-Oh-One.”
Gwen stares at him a moment before throwing up her hands and leaning back in her chair. “Booooooring!”
“Oi, I told you something about him.”
“You’re so lame,” she crosses her arms in front of her, “tell me what he’s like, is he a punk, does he brood? I bet he broods.”
“Ay, you’re acting like I brood,”
“Well, you did when I stole your sneakers for a mission,” she uncrosses her arms and leans forward again, “and besides I’m just trying to gauge your type, what are you into?”
The fact that Gwen assumed Hobie would be into a moody punk objectively made sense, but the fact remains that Pavitr is maybe the furthest thing he could think of from that. The other fact that remains is that Hobie doesn’t know how to explain Pavitr’s blinding smile, and determination to save people, and soft soft hair, and beautiful eyes, and absolutely scathing wit in a way that won’t make him seem head over heels. Which he is. But he doesn’t want anyone to know, because then it would be real.
“You said you want to learn guitar eh?” He decides to deflect.
Gwen looks confused. “Yeah?”
“This is a great way to lose your teacher innit.”
“Unfair!” She crosses her arms again.
Hobie smiles and shrugs. “So is capitalism.”
Gwen groans.
- - - - -
Two days later Hobie's kitchen is covered in blinding orange light and both spiders skid into the kitchen, sensing it before it happens. Gwen with horrible bed head and a hairbrush in a death grip, Hobie with a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. But, all fears are assuaged when he hears a familiar voice shout his name.
“Hobie!”
He watches as Pavitr leaps headfirst through the portal, clearly about to attempt a cool entrance, but Hobie reaches out on instinct to catch him, and they end up tumbling to the floor.
“Oi Madlad!” Hobie laughs. “What are you doing here?”
“I finally had time off so I came to visit,” Hobie saw a realization dawn on him, “Ohhh, did I forget to tell you?”
“A tad.”
“Doesn’t matter now!” Pav jumps up and reaches down a hand to help Hobie up. He takes it and pulls Pav into a hug, before panicking and attempting to pass it off as one of those back-pat things that bros do. He catches Gwen’s raised eyebrows and smug look behind Pavitr’s back and glares at her. She sticks out her tongue.
Pav turns to Gwen, a smile still on his face. “And you’re Gwen!”
“Yep! And you’re Pavitr, I’ve heard a lot about you.” She looks at Hobie and grins wickedly.
“Oh! I’m honored!”
Gwen smiles again, this time at Pav. “So how long are you staying?”
“Only a day, Mumbattan still needs me of course.”
Gwen’s expression falters, a look of guilt on her face, but she quickly moves on.
They decide to have lunch together, and Pav gets along really well with Gwen, both more similar than Hobie initially thought. During lunch, (and to Hobie’s horror) Pav brings up the flowers he gave to Hobie, mentioning that he should get him more. They talk for a while after lunch, all three of them discussing the differences between their dimensions, all three still finding even the existence of them fascinating.
After a while, they gather around Hobie’s slightly fucked up TV, and sit down to watch telly. Hobie wraps his arm around the back of his patchwork couch, eventually allowing his arm to slip down and rest on Pav’s shoulders. Gwen gives him a look that lets him know she knows what he’s doing.
Pav leaves as the sun goes down, draped in one of Hobie’s jumpers, and walks through the brilliant portal after a hug that is a few seconds too long and a promise to be safe. The way Pav looks in the golden glow of the portal never fails to make Hobie’s heart flutter. The extravagant colors and the shine in Pav’s eyes, it’s beautiful, he’s beautiful.
The portal snaps closed, and Hobie stars a little too longingly at the empty space on his kitchen wall.
When he turns around, Gwen gives him a look that is a combination of pity and glee, and makes Hobie concerned for his future sanity.
“Soooo, that was Pavitr.”
“What of it?”
“I just didn’t expect you to be so into someone that different than you.”
“You’re just going to assume that I fancy him? Or men for that matter? Bit discriminatory innit?”
“I mean, you didn’t deny it earlier. Also, look at you dude.” They both laugh and she starts counting exaggerated on her fingers, “plus, he gave you flowers and is planning to give you more, you stared at him during all of lunch, you cuddled when we were watching TV– which was disgusting by the way– and you gave him a hoodie.”
She has five fingers up by the end of her little rant, and waves them around as if to prove the point.
“Right, fine.”
“Either way I think you guys are cute.”
“Cheers.”
“Cute for a couple of idiots.”
“Oi!”
- - - - -
You shoplift all the time <
How is this different? <
> im going into enemy territory pav!!!
Well do you want help getting Gwens stuff? <
> huh?
I can come and help <
If you want help <
> yeah
> thanks
And suddenly in a flash of brilliant orange light, Pav was standing in his kitchen for the second time in one week. Hobie could get used to this.
“I could get used to this.”
Hobie hugs Pav with an embarrassing amount of heat in his cheeks, and keeps one arm slung around him as he pulls his mask over his head.
“Hate to make you jump again mate, but we gotta motor.”
Pav hangs off Hobie dramatically. “I’m gonna have a headache.”
Hobie laughs and rummages in a drawer to find his Advil, and tosses it to Pavitr before fiddling with his watch and opening a portal. He walks past Pav and touches his shoulder in a way that he fears is a little too tender, but Pav smiles so he figures it's okay, and walks through.
- - - - -
Gwen’s universe is beautiful .
It’s all soft edges and bright colors, and while it’s not Hobie’s primary look, he likes the way it makes his clothes vibrant despite his heavy use of black.
“ Woah, dude.”
Pavitr looks even better than he does. While he usually has an unnatural vibrancy, at least in Hobie’s dimension, Gwen’s universe gives off a uniform glow, and Pav is golden.
“Innit.”
In tandem they run, leap off the roof they landed on, and begin swinging through the city. Hobie loves this part of missions, the rush of falling through the sky and then the flip of his stomach when he pulls himself sharply upwards. Swinging through Gwen’s city is even better, all the colors blurring together in a beautiful painting.
Despite the beautiful surroundings, Pav always draws his gaze eventually. While Hobie’s style is all sharp, explosive movements, Pavitr’s is smooth, each movement flowing into each other gracefully. He almost forgets to shout the directions Gwen gave him, with his attention torn between two beautiful sights.
- - - - -
It doesn’t take too long to find the window Gwen recommended they use, and he signals for Pav to stop.
They land poised on the roof across from the building, and Pav looks to him. “So, what’s your plan?”
“Dunno. Get in, get her stuff, get out?"
Hobie can feel Pavitr’s dead-pan through his mask. “That is not a good plan.”
“In-fighting is how the Man wins, Pav.”
He laughs, and Hobie is again thankful for his mask hiding his fond expression. Then they fall silent, Pav no doubt creating a plan, Hobie watching him.
It barely takes a minute for him to figure something out, “Okay, you steal a suit for me to wear and I pretend to be a salesman, because you’re not good at talking to people,” Hobie scoffs but lets him continue, “and that will lure him away from Gwen’s room so you have longer to get out if he hears you.”
“I can’t believe you would condone stealing!” His voice is faux and exaggerated as he says this and Pav laughs.
He dives off the roof and calls “It’s for the kids!” as he swings away. Hobie follows him, annoying butterflies caught in his throat.
- - - - -
The plan goes off without a hitch, and both spiders return to Hobie’s universe together. Gwen gives him a knowing look when they walk through the portal with Hobie’s arm slung around Pav, laughing together. She raises an eyebrow when he asks Pav to stay, so he throws the backpack of stuff at her.
They end up watching a movie, one of the many Gwen doesn’t have in her universe that he’s determined for her to watch. Pav falls asleep before the first thirty minutes of the movie though, and Hobie remembers the five hour time difference between their worlds.
When he looks over to see how Gwen is liking the movie, he also remembers the photo of her and a smiling boy with shining eyes hidden in the bass drum in her room. He didn’t want to mention it while Pav was here, but he’s asleep, so he decides to go for it.
“You keep a picture of Miles hidden in your bass drum?”
Gwen looks at him with barely restrained despair, and Hobie is horrified to see tears welling up in her eyes as he rushes to apologize “Shit! Sorry.”
She rubs her eyes and the blue in her sweater glows a bit brighter. “No it’s… I sent you there, it's not your fault for seeing it.”
“Er… I was more sorry for bringing it up…”
“No I need to talk about it, I just,” she rubs her eyes a little harder, “I just miss him and,” her voice breaks and Hobie opens his arms to offer a hug. She accepts almost immediately. Pav stirs, and Gwen pulls away, taking a moment before continuing.
“I just feel so guilty . I know how alone he feels, I felt it for so long and then when I found out there were others I was so relieved, and I got here and it’s so wonderful, and I know he would love it and I can’t go to him or bring him here or I’ll lose everything, and I’ll have to go home and I can’t go home and, and,” she breaks down and Hobie, forgetting to mind Pav sleeping next to him, surges forwards to hug her.
He thinks he’s connected the dots, and when she calms down he asks, “He’s from sixteen-ten isn’t he?”
Gwen just nods.
They were all given the sixteen-ten talk when Miguel recruited them. The original anomaly, dangerous, not to be contacted, blah blah blah. Hobie hadn’t paid any mind, too mesmerized by the entire situation. Now with hindsight, he couldn’t imagine what was so dangerous about that grinning teenager he saw in the photo.
After a while he asks about what he’s like, and lets Gwen ramble on about how wonderful he was. With every story, he grows more and more sure he will be following through with the plan forming in his mind.
When Gwen falls asleep, he gets to work.
- - - - -
Building his own watch is a little harder than he originally thought it would be. Of course he didn’t think it would be easy, but he was used to engineering coming easier to him, and it didn’t help that he could only work on it when Gwen was out of the flat or asleep. It’s not that he didn’t trust her, she would obviously be on board, but he had very quickly realized that none of Miguel’s watches could be around during the discussion or creation of his own watch. He could take his watch off, but Gwen would glitch.
This did give him a place to start though: a stabilizer.
When he thinks he figured it out, he tucks it into a pocket of his battle jacket, and calls to Gwen that he would be visiting Pav. She tells him to use protection and he flips her off, but smiles as he walks through the portal.
He arrives on Earth Fifty One-Oh-One just outside of Mumbattan so he won’t draw attention, and rips the watch off his wrist. He throws it to the ground and smashes it under his blue laced boot, knowing that Margo will be willing to fix it later with minimal questions asked.
He pulls out the stabilizer, a small metallic ring, slides it onto his finger, takes a running start, and swings off to find Pavitr.
- - - - -
Hobie finds Pav doing what looks like homework in his room with a conveniently open window behind him.
He hangs from the top of the window upside down, and tries to scare him when he yells, “Oi! Pavitr!”
It works, and Pav jumps three feet into the air shouting in Hindi. He doesn’t need to speak the language to know he’s cursing. Hobie laughs as he flips himself through the window and Pavitr rounds on him in English this time.
“What the hell! What’s going on!?”
“Just came round for a visit.”
“Well usually when people come to visit they don’t intentionally scare you! Usually they are courteous and at least knock first! How would you feel if I jumped through your window!?”
“My bad mate… wanna go for a walk?” He tilts his head and uses his best sorry look.
Pav scoffs before smiling and walking towards his door. “Of course.”
There’s no need for their suits when doing normal teenager things, so Hobie takes off his mask and knows his outfit will be passable as weird fashion, so he doesn’t bother borrowing anything.
He doesn’t want to broach the topic too quickly, so they walk around the city talking about whatever comes to mind. He feels weirdly naked without his mask to hide what he knows are horribly fond looks in Pav’s direction, but Pavitr either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, continuing to smile his beautiful smile back at Hobie.
Eventually, Pavitr leads them to a large building with ornate domes and towers. They do their best to not be seen as they climb to the base of a larger dome to watch what’s left of the sunset. They’ve done this a few times before, watching the sunset that is, and it’s one of the only times Hobie has seen Pav truly silent. He’s always still fidgeting though, wrapping and unwrapping web around his bracelet or yo-yoing it back and forth. Hobie smiles a small warm smile to himself.
As the final rays of light fade from the sky, he figures there’s no time like the present, so he turns to Pav who is already looking at him.
“You know Gwen’s still bummed about Miles.”
Pav frowns with genuine worry. “I wish there was something we could do, some way to help her out.”
“Are you wearing your watch?” He’s turning the second ring he brought with him in his pocket nervously.
The other spider looks confused but answers, “No.”
He nods, “Good,” and tosses Pavitr the ring.
Pav catches it smoothly, despite the surprise evident on his face, clearly confused and a little shocked.
“It’s a stabilizer. For other dimensions,” he holds up his hands to demonstrate the lack of a watch, and presence of a nearly identical ring on his left hand, “I’m… er… making an untraceable watch for Gwen so she can visit Miles.”
He could swear there were stars in Pavitr’s eyes as he looked at the ring, and if light pollution hadn’t wiped the stars from the sky, Hobie would be making a very apt comparison. Then, Pav looks up with a mischievous smile on his face. “Pretty romantic jewelry choice.”
Hobie blushes an embarrassingly bright shade but attempts to play along, slinging an arm around Pav and leaning into him, “Only the best.”
Pav laughs and turns his head towards Hobie, clearly about to retort, but they were so close, and Pav seems to get distracted by the way their noses brush against each other. Hobie takes a moment to memorize the color of Pav’s eyes and the shape of his face, and dares to imagine that Pavitr’s doing the same. He hasn’t been pushed away yet, so he allows himself to hope.
“Uhm… don’t talk about this around the watch, or take out the stabilizer around it.” He tries to whisper this in a soft tone, but the spell breaks anyways and Pav leans away.
Hobie is just glad he doesn’t shrug off his arm when he does.
“Also, could I get a hand on the watch? ‘Cuz I don’t have a Scooby on–”
“Yes!” He jumps up in celebration and looks back down at Hobie with a huge smile. “I was waiting for you to ask.” After a moment his smile slides into a calculating expression, and he pauses for a moment as if making a difficult decision. Then he sits back down, and for the first time in their friendship, Pav leans into Hobie first.
Hobie just grins and slings his arm back around Pavitr’s shoulders.