Work Text:
All Marc knew was that suddenly there was a loud scream coming from the bathroom. Which led him to quickly get up and skip over there, after all, ‘UAE’s star rider injured’ didn’t seem like a headline all over the media that Marc wanted to deal with.
“Oh my god. Put it away. Put it away,” the door swung right open and revealed a frightened Tadej running into the main room and jumping onto his bed.
The younger one seemed fine, physically at least, so Marc watched things unfold for a moment before coming back to his senses and seeing what got the other all riled up. He took a small breath before entering the crime scene, preparing himself to find the worst.
However, as he began looking around the room, he found nothing. Okay, well there was a small spider there, but nothing out of the ordinary.
‘UAE’s star rider afraid of Catalunya’s smallest spider’ That’d make for a funny headline.
“Aquí arañita,” Marc said as he bent down to gently pick up the small creature and quickly enclosed it between his hands.
“I thought somebody died in here, but a spider, seriously Tadej? A spider?”
The moment the Slovianen seemed to realize that the intruder was actually in the other’s hands now, he tried scooting closer to the wall which was - considering he already sat as close to the wall as humanly possible - impossible.
As the Spaniard took another step closer, all be it unintentionally, he began begging for mercy, “Please, just put it away.”
“Fine,” Marc took off to the nearest open window laughing, and set the little spider free.
A few moments later Marc returned, still more than amused by the whole thing.
“You know that you are my hero now? Like you’re actually my Spiderman,” Tadej greeted him, the tension in the other’s body gone again.
“You’re worse than my son and he’s not even 2 years old,” Marc joked. “Plus I thought after the Col I was already your hero.”
Tadej looked at him unamused, “You know self-praise stinks right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I like you too, but if you want I can always get back that spider. No problem.”
Marc could see the younger one’s face drop a few stories, “Please don’t.”
“I’m not that cruel. Besides, how do you ride down descents at like 100km/h but draw the line at spiders?”
“That’s different.”
“How?” Marc couldn’t help but break out laughing even harder. “Also you have spiders in Monaco, don’t you? You just move out of your apartment every time you see a spider?”
Tadej finally cracked up at that, although be it a bit embarrassed, “Actually, Urška’s the one who takes care of that.”
“You’re such a kid, you know that?”
A few days had passed since the incident and the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya was drawing to a close, Tadej had gone on to win an impressive three stages, and knowing the guy he could make it an even four tomorrow.
Still, when Marc was scrolling through his Instagram going through and liking some of his teammates’ posts he couldn’t help but stumble upon Tadej’s.
Marc was glad Tadej couldn’t see him smiling like an idiot right now, luckily the other was back in the bathroom - hopefully undisturbed this time. But how couldn’t he?
‘This one is for you @solermarc93 aka SpideRmAn.’
He was a kid, but a good one.