Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Leaving Celine’s office wasn’t as easy as Rumi thought.

Sure, jumping out of a window is child’s play when you’re literally Spider Woman. She’d done it so many times she could probably do it blindfolded, upside down, and still stick the landing if she wanted to.

But that isn’t the problem.

The problem is exactly that: If she wanted to.

Rumi didn’t want to leave. Not really. Not this time. Not ever, to be honest. Not after everything that went down two months ago. Not after everything she has lost.

She didn’t want to leave Celine behind. She wanted to stay, even if just a little longer, even though their conversation had been tense, brittle, like glass on the verge of shattering. But the truth is... Rumi missed her. Rumi miss her.

But her mother doesn't miss her back.

That thought alone is enough to make her legs move. Enough to push her toward the window, to let instinct take over where emotion faltered.

The window creaks slightly under her weight. It had been left open, obviously. After all, that’s how she’d gotten into Celine’s office in the first place.

Now, the night air pours in, sharp and cold, carrying the breath of the city: smog, smoke, the low electric hum of neon signs flickering somewhere below.

Rumi doesn't hesitate. She never has done it, right? She always does what has to be done. Even when it hurts. 

She doesn't risk a final glance.

Rumi knows better than to look back. She can’t afford to feel more than she already has, can’t afford the weight of one more memory, one more flicker of regret. Her chest is already tight, her thoughts already loud. Turning around would only make it worse.

So she doesn't turn back.

Instead, she raises her arm, aims without hesitation, and fires a web toward the nearest rooftop. It latches with a satisfying snap, taut and ready. And then she jumps.

No pause. No breath. No goodbye. Because it's better this way. 

The wind swallows her whole as she swings into the night, the city rushing past in streaks of light and shadow. 

The wind caught her braid, whipping the long violet strands like a comet’s tail against the silver glow of the streetlights. For the briefest moment, her body suspends, weightless, poised between gravity and freedom. The web snaps from her wrist with a practiced flick, latching onto the steel bones of the building across the street. 

Each arc between buildings drags the weight in her bones a little lower, a little deeper. Her momentum falters, not from lack of skill — never from lack of skill, she's very skilled, thank you very much —, but from the exhaustion that clings to her like a second skin. The bruises from past battles still bloomed beneath her flesh, dark and tender. Cuts tugged at her every movement, reminders of fights survived but never truly escaped.

It had been months since everything. Since the chaos, the loss, the unraveling. And yet, she hadn’t rested. Not really. Not in the way that matters.

But none of it compares to the hollow in her chest.

The physical pain is almost comforting in its honesty. It had shape, color, edges. Pain she could name. Pain means something.

But the other thing, the ache that lived in silence, that pressed against her ribs without ever bruising, is harder. It doesn’t bleed. It doesn’t scream. It just sit there, quiet and constant, like a shadow stitched into her heart.

Because no one remembers.

Not Mira’s fiery eyes, not Zoey’s laugh that used to pull her back from the edge, not even Celine’s conflicted embrace of discipline and care. They were all intact, alive, breathing, but the thread that tied them to her had been severed.

She was the only one left clutching the broken ends. No. Worse. Not just clutching, but crying over them. The only one mourning this bitter ending. The only one who hasn’t moved on, hasn’t buried the past beneath silence and survival.

Rumi has never thought of herself as jealous. That emotion always felt petty, beneath her. But after these last two months, she knows it intimately. She knows the sharp, irritating sting of envy, the kind that creeps in late at night, whispering cruel truths.

She just envies those who had forgotten, and essentially envies those who had died.

Sometimes, in the quiet between battles, she wonders if it would’ve been easier to fall in the final fight against Gwi-ma. To vanish in fire and fury, instead of being spared by Honmoon’s mercy… Or was it cruelty? Because she thinks that mercy should at least offer her some kind of  peace. But this? Holy shit, this is survival without purpose. 

She’s alive, yes. But she left hollow. Left entirely in her own hands. Left alone.

The city rushes past in smears of glass and light, alive with people who would never know her name, with people who have forgotten her name. The world sees Spider-Woman, the masked savior, the shadow that swings between buildings and bleeds in the dark. They praise her, whisper her name in awe, left offerings of gratitude in graffiti and candles. But what about Rumi? The girl behind the mask? The daughter, the friend, the lover?

She had gone to Celine’s office with something foolish still hidden inside her: a hope. A fragile, trembling hope that Celene would see her, would recognize her, would say something other than duty-bound words. That maybe the shape of her braid, the cadence of her broken voice would spark a memory. But Celine hadn’t. Not even the smallest flicker. She had stood in front of Celine, the closest thing she ever had to a mother, and the woman had looked at her as if she were just another masked vigilante. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Rumi is erased.

Her breath hitches as she swings higher, the line pulling taut and hurling her into another arc. For a heartbeat she almost let go, almost give herself to the dizzying drop below, but her body betrays her with instinct. The web snaps again, saving her even when she isn’t sure she wants to be saved. The emptiness is too much, a weight pressing down harder than any blade had ever cut her. She had fought demons her whole life, inside and out, but this? This is the cruelest one.

Memory.

Memory burns hotter than any wound would. 

She alone carries the story of who she is — or the correct is saying who she was? Because she was the girl that Mira held her trembling body on her darkest nights, the warmth of Zoey’s hands on her face; the warmth of their touches, their kisses. Also had Celine’s quiet care, the kind that never asked questions but always knew the answers…

And then there was Jinu.

That strange, chaotic dynamic they shared. She is still not sure of what it was, the closest she has to an answer for that is it was a sort of rivalry and friendship, threaded with banter and tension. Even after his betrayal, even after everything he’d done, Rumi still wants to see him again.

God, she just wants to see a familiar face. A familiar face that would remember her. And if that face happened to be Jinu? Oh, well, that's fine. Honestly, she’d welcome the chance. It would be perfect: kicking him square in the balls, landing a few well-earned punches, and then reminding him that he still owed her dinner. No apologies. No excuses. Just pain, payback, and a lot of kimpap.

This feels like a dream, actually. A good dream. Something she hadn’t tasted in months, not anymore.

Anyway, It all lives inside her, burning bright and unbearable. But no one else knows. No one else would ever know. She is swinging through a world that had cut her out of its tapestry, leaving her the lone keeper of a story no one else could ever read.

Her swinging quickens, though her body screams at her for the effort. She needs air, space, anything to outrun the gnawing truth. The city stretches endless and glittering, alive in its oblivion. People move, laugh, curse, exist and not one of them has any idea of the girl standing broken on the steps.

She perches on the lip of a rooftop, chest heaving, the mask heavy in her face. Her fingers trembled as they tugged at the edge of her mask, pulling it slightly up from her neck, not enough to remove it, just enough to feel the air against her skin. As if the fabric had been choking her. As if loosening it might somehow loosen the weight in her chest.

For some reason, ever since what happened, she started to struggle to control her breathing. Maybe it is just exhaustion, or maybe her body has simply stopped knowing what to do with itself. It wouldn’t let her die, but it wouldn’t let her live properly either. If it could just make up its mind, maybe she’d be okay. Maybe she’d be able to stand here without feeling like she was unraveling.

Even now, with the mask lifted slightly, the air brushing against her skin, nothing changed. The pressure doesn't ease. The ache doesn't fade. She isn’t surprised, not at all. Though a little disappointed. 

In the end, It is just fabric. Just a symbol. Just a barrier. A disguise.

A lie. 

It hides what she truly is: a demon, a mistake, an anomaly, a monster. She has been since the day she was born. 

She knows that she is something that shouldn’t still be alive.

Sometimes, she remembers the last conversations she had with Zoey and Mira. The way their voices softened when they spoke to her. The way they said they loved her. Said she wasn’t a mistake. Said she was good. They meant it. She knows they did, but knowing doesn't make believing any easier. Because how could she be good when everything around her is falling apart? When the people who believed in her don't even remember they have known each other? When the only thing she could count on is the silence that followed her wherever she went?

The mask doesn't protect her. It just kept the world from seeing what she really is.

And maybe that is the point. Maybe the world doesn't wanna know. Maybe the curse Gwi-ma cast after his defeat wasn’t a punishment at all, maybe it was always meant to happen. Maybe it was written into Rumi from the moment of her unfortunate birth. Maybe what Gwi-ma did wasn’t a curse. Maybe it is a mercy.

Because, obviously, the real curse… is Rumi herself.

Sometimes she wonders if her entire life has been a waste. Maybe she was never meant to be remembered. Maybe she was never worth remembering, since the world doesn’t care about Rumi. The world doesn’t see her. Not anymore. She’s not mourned. She’s not missed. She’s not even noticed.

The world loves Spider-Woman. Needs Spider-Woman. But Rumi? Rumi is the one suffocating beneath the suit.

And no one could care less.

Her vision blurred as tears welled, unbidden. They spilled hot against her cheeks, soaking into the inside of her mask. The fabric clung damp against her skin, absorbing every drop like it was trying to hold the grief for her, but it didn’t help. It only made her more aware of it. The wetness. The weakness. And now, with no Mira and Zoey to brush the tears away, to smile and tell her she was enough, no Celine to lecture her into stillness. With no one to stop her… that only made her feel worse than she already is. 

The silence doesn’t soothe, it amplifies everything. Like it's laughing at her face.

She has always hated crying. It made her feel exposed, raw, weak. But now, with no one watching, it felt even more unbearable. Because the tears weren’t just falling… they were being wasted.

Wasted on a rooftop. Wasted on a world that dont give a damn about who the fuck is Rumi. Oh, my bad, let me try again: dont give a damn about who the fuck was Rumi. Now this is what it sounds like.

And since there is no one to wash away her tears. And since it is just her. Just the mask. Just the weight… The sensation of the soaked fabric against her face doesn't go away. Actually, it just made her flinch. It felt too intimate, too exposed, even if no one could see her. 

With a shaky breath, she reached up and tugged the mask back down into place, sealing herself in again. Not to hide, but to control, to conceal, to not feel, to not let anyone know.

Maybe if she looked like Spider-Woman again, she could feel like her. Maybe if she stopped the tears, she could stop unraveling. But the ache doesn't seem to care. It presses on, quiet and constant, beneath the suit.

She sank down on the stone steps, arms folding over her knees, head bowed low. The city roared around her, alive with light and noise, but she is a ghost in it. Forgotten by the very people she had bled to save.

A laugh broke from her chest, sharp and cracked, more sob than sound. It echoed faintly in the empty street, a reminder that she’s still here, still breathing, still cursed with the painful truth: Spider-Woman was a hero. Spider-Woman is a hero.

But Rumi?

Pff, don't make the poor girl laugh. Rumi is nothing. 

And maybe she was never meant to be more.

You know, she used to believe she was becoming something, becoming someone. That all the pain, all the sacrifice, all the loss would shape her into something meaningful. But now? Now it feels like she’s been circling the same truth all along.

So, yeah, It had been two months since the sacrifice. Two months since she’d torn herself out of the fabric of the world and stitched Spider-Woman in her place. And just guess what it cost her? Bingo. Everything.

She pressed her hands against her mask, smothering a sob she couldn’t contain. No matter how far she swings, no matter how many criminals she drags into the light, nothing fills the silence that follows her.

Sometimes, against her better judgment, she goes back to campus. She would stand in the shadows of the gates or perch on the steel beams above, watching students laugh, complain, run to class with their coffee cups and books. And sometimes, she caught sight of her… lovers — she’s still too much of a coward to even admit to herself that they’re her former lovers. Mira, with her sharp voice; Zoey, with her messy notebooks and unfiltered laugh, essentially when she was talking about turtles.

They looked happy enough when she saw them. Or maybe not happy, but whole. Whole in a way that stabbed her. Because they didn’t look like something was missing. They didn’t look like they felt her absence.

Because for them, there is no absence, she reminded herself bitterly. There was never a Rumi.

Yet there were moments that unsettled her. Times when she saw Mira sitting alone, her shoulders shaking in the dim light of her room. Times when Zoey disappeared into herself, shutting her notebooks, eyes red from tears she thought no one could see. And sometimes, Rumi witnessed them together, clinging to each other in silence, arms wrapped tight, their grief spilling out in a way that made her chest ache.

She never knew why. Her hearing was sharp, sharper than most, but she always lingered too far to catch the words. All she could do was watch as their tears fell, as sadness carved lines into their faces. And in the cruelest, darkest corner of her ugly soul, she wanted — selfishly — for it to be about her. She wanted them to cry because some buried part of them knew something was wrong, knew something was missing. That even if they felt whole, they weren’t. Because what was missing was her. Rumi.

The thought flickered bright, poisonous, and then her humanity dragged it back into the dirt. She isn't worthy of that kind of grief. She isn't someone whose absence could carve wounds deep enough to make Mira or Zoey cry. Why would they? They didn’t even remember her. No one mourns a ghost they never knew.

It is nonsense, and she knows it. Dangerous, desperate nonsense. Maybe she is just unraveling. Maybe she is finally going mad.

But the worst part of all this? The worst part of all this isn't that they don’t remember her. It is that she remembers them. Every look, every word, every stolen touch, every time Mira had kissed her to shut the world out, every time Zoey had fussed over her wounds like she was worth something. Those memories lives in her like scars, and she carries them alone.

Her life as Rumi is gone. She couldn’t walk into a classroom, couldn’t apply for exams, couldn’t even sit in the library pretending she’s still an engineering student. Her name had been stripped from the records, her birth erased from every system, her face unrecognizable except behind a mask.

Though she is trying, in her own way, to salvage something from the wreckage. To claw her way back into a semblance of the life she had lost. But everything is harder when you are truly on your own, with no resources, no safety net, no one to lend a hand. Survival is not just about endurance — it’s logistics, constant improvisation, and endless hunger.

Two months into this curse, only in the last few days that she had managed to steal Wi-Fi, either leeching off neighbors wealthy enough not to notice or, more often, siphoning it from outright villains. Nothing about it is simple, especially considering she first had to resurrect a half-dead computer she’d salvaged from a dumpster just to have something capable of hacking into a signal. Everything required effort, from scavenging materials just to build a signal booster, to jury-rigging old electronics into something barely functional, to rerouting power without drawing attention.

For Ryu Rumi, the former so-called prodigy, all of it should have been easy. Hacking, rebuilding, bending machines to her will, it was sort of her second nature. But under these conditions? When she could barely secure food, when her body staggered from exhaustion, when rest was a luxury she could no longer afford? Genius is useless when your stomach is empty.

And now she has turned to the question of money. How to actually earn it, when no system in the world recognizes she even exists. The thought alone is enough to make her lips twist in something between bitterness and amusement. The paths open to her were the kind Celine would have scolded her for… lectured her until the words carved trenches in her conscience. But Celine doesn't remember her. There is no lecture waiting, no disappointment weighing her down.

And now, more than ever, Rumi wanted Celine to scold her. She had never longed for it so deeply in her entire life.

The thing is, she had always been the kind of girl who tried her best to please her guardian,  not out of fear — not entirely, at least —, but because she knew it made Celine happy. And Rumi loved seeing her happy. That was enough. That had always been enough. But now, with the monster she is becoming, all that she wants is for Celine to yell at her. To tell her this is wrong. That she is committing crimes. That desperation wasn’t an excuse. That she had to find another way to survive.

Because if Celine said those things… It would mean she remembers her. It would mean Rumi mattered. 

And… Oh. Wow. She’d spiraled again.

Ahem, coming back here… So instead of mourning that absence for too long, Rumi forced herself to see the advantage in it. No ties, no guilt. Just opportunity. She has Wi-Fi now, after all. And with Wi-Fi came doors she could force open. Forged government documents, falsified diplomas. Basically, an entire digital identity she could piece together from shadows. If she could convince the right systems, she could already be an engineering graduate. She could apply for jobs, build a cover, carve out a place in the world again.

And maybe then she wouldn’t be starving. Maybe then she could finally stop living like a ghost.

With a trembling sigh, she wipes her face with the back of her hand, hoping the mask would absorb her tears quickly, and forces herself to stand. Her knees wobbles.  The city stretches beneath her, but all she feels is the typical dizzy emptiness rising in her chest. For a second, she wonders what she is supposed to do now.

It's kinda confusing and frustrating, because the rooftops had always given her direction, always demanded something of her: a scream in the alley, a break-in across the street, a demonic rift tearing through the pavement. There was always noise, always urgency, always something to throw herself into. But lately? Silence.

It is wrong.

Yes, there were still demon sightings, though they had become rare, ever since she made the Golden Honmoon. The barrier held. Not a single tear had ripped through to let the hordes spill into the human world. The ones that did appear, she had concluded, were demons that had managed to survive after the Honmoon was made, probably trapped in the human world…. Or this is their awesome idea of getting some souls to eat. You never know. 

So, basically, demon sightings had plummeted. The streets were calmer. Though, petty crimes still happen, and villains still show up from time to time, but this is just the usual for Spider-Woman. 

Before all this, she might have cried with relief. But now? Now it felt like torture. 

Rumi had always been a workaholic, the kind of person who could throw herself into blood and chaos just to drown out the sound of her own thoughts. But with nothing left to fight with the same energy and frequency as before, she is forced to sit inside the silence of her own exile. No matter how many times she told herself Spider-Woman was enough, she couldn’t escape the echo that followed her everywhere: Rumi doesn’t exist.

Her hand curled into a fist, nails biting into her palm.

The curse doesn't just strip her from the memories of others, it curses her life itself, peeling away every tether she could have clung to. It was too perfect, too cruel, too deliberate to be coincidence.

For a few seconds after turning Honmoon gold, Rumi thought everything could be normal, could be better, even after witnessing the moment Gwi-ma casted the curse. She believed the Golden Honmoon would protect her.

How wrong she was.

But can you blame her?

Can you blame someone who had since childhood carried one unshakable hope: that when  the Honmoon would turn gold, in that brilliance all her problems would vanish? 

That was the promise whispered around her, repeated so often it carved itself into her bones. When the Honmoon finally turned golden, everything demoniac would disappear. Celine had told her: Even your patterns.

It had been her guiding star, the thought that steadied her through sleepless nights and endless hiding, the reason she covered her body so no one could glimpse the markings that betrayed her blood. She had believed, with the fierce devotion of a child desperate for absolution, that if she worked hard enough, if she endured long enough, she would be rewarded with freedom. With love. With wholeness.

But, apparently, the golden Honmoon just made things worse than it should be. Not salvation. Not peace. Only silence and absence.

She couldn’t help the anger that coils in her chest whenever she thought of Celine’s words. How could she have lied to her so easily? How could she have let Rumi believe, let her strain and struggle, let her sacrifice every fragment of a normal life, all for the golden promise that never came true?

Was it worth her entire life?

Rumi had imagined the golden Honmoon as the pinnacle of her existence. The moment everything would change. She thought she would finally have time to live as she wished, to relax without fear, to rest without vigilance. She thought she would be free to be herself at last, to be loved wholly: not in fragments, not in hesitation, but completely, by those she cherished most. By Zoey and Mira.

Sometimes she tries to reason why the golden Honmoon hadn’t been the panacea everyone promised. And, yes, she knows that it's stupid, that she's just being foolish for doing it, but she can't help it.  Because… Maybe Gwi-ma’s curse had twisted the mechanics of the miracle itself rerouting what should have been relief into something cruelly hollow. 

The Honmoon had spared her life, yes, but it hadn’t spared her existence. It hadn’t erased the marks. Instead, it had taken out her name from the rolls, it had given her a place to sleep that was cardboard in an old and dirty warehouse. It made her end up a scavenger of signals and a forger of papers, a vigilante whose list of petty crimes was slowly, stubbornly growing. The math did not add up the way the stories had said it would.

At night, when the city’s hum thinned into small and distant noises, she let herself imagine the look on the police chiefs’ faces if they ever learned that Spider-Woman did more than being a vigilant they already hate. The absurdity of it made her grin once, because she's aware that would be a sharp, ugly thing. 

How would they handle the discovery that she is also an unseen thief of Wi-Fi and trying to be a clumsy forger of diplomas? They would freak out? They would try to kill her instead of chasing to arrest her? Or would they be the total contrast of what she thinks? Well, she's not sure, but one thing she knows is that they would lose their composure. Maybe they even denounce her on the evening news; they would rally men in uniforms and paperwork until it drowned whatever good she had ever done. 

Stopping to think about it now, she knows it isn't really funny. Not at all, but give the girl some slack, she is starving for any spark of dopamine, even black humor.

Besides the obvious sadness she feels, anger also became an unwelcome companion in these months. Whether or not Gwi-ma’s curse had warped the Honmoon, Rumi couldn’t help but feel incandescently furious that the Honmoon had failed on the one thing she’d believed in the most. It had kept the demons out, true, but what use was a shield that left the person behind it erased? She had bled for that golden promise, hidden her marks, trained, rebuilt a relic of myth, and for what? A hollow victory? A life still in pieces and turning to be more broken as before?

But, well, maybe… Maybe she deserves this, since a demon with no feelings doesn't deserve to live. It's so obvious when she stops to think about it. Because maybe the Honmoon had done precisely what it was meant to do and she had simply read the lines wrongly, as if it owed her mercy.

The idea stung less like truth and more like something she wanted to believe, not because it eased the pain, but because if she deserved it, then the injustice of it would be, perversely, explainable.

Whatever the case, with a long sigh, she get up from the floor, and her body sways with another wave of dizziness. She gasps, instinctively firing a web to the nearest concrete wall. The line pulled taut, catching her just before her feet slipped off the edge. Her chest heaved as she reeled herself back to safety, staggering two careful steps away from the drop. 

Her breath came shaky, shallow. She closed her eyes, whispering a soundless thank-you to the reflex that had saved her again.

These dizzy spells had been coming more and more often, and she knows why. Sleep had become a battlefield. She avoids it whenever she could, too afraid of the nightmares that claws at her the moment she closes her eyes. Afraid of waking up in an empty space, with no warmth beside her, no Zoey and Mira calling her name, or even Celine calling in the morning wanting to know how Rumi is doing.

She hates sleeping. She hates waking up. She hates being forced to exist inside a body that still demands things she can’t give it. She hates living in a world all alone. 

The truth is brutal: she no longer has a home. No bed. No possessions. No proof of life. She is a ghost trapped in flesh, condemned to keep breathing when everything else about her has been erased. And ghosts don't need food or warmth or touch, but she does.

Her stomach clenched as the thought drags her deeper. Hunger is constant now. In a twisted way, she can even say hunger is her very best friend. Always with her, always at her worst moment.... Which means, theyre together all the fucking time.

It had been two months since she’d had a real meal. Without documents, without money, without even a name to claim, there is no way to earn anything, though she is trying now to turn things around. But the truth is that the Rumi who studied engineering, who took exams and paid for textbooks, is gone. She couldn’t even pretend to walk back into that world.

She could steal, of course. With her powers, it would be laughably easy. Food, clothes, cash registers full of bills,  all of it is within reach. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She doesn't want to go deeper in her crimes. 

So she survives on scraps.

Sometimes, after pulling someone out of a mugging or dragging a gang out of an alley, a hand would press a paper bag into hers. A sandwich. A leftover box. Once, a steaming bowl of noodles that she ate crouched in the dark between dumpsters, tears stinging her eyes with every bite.

She accepted each offering with a quiet, desperate gratitude. They thought they were thanking Spider-Woman, the untouchable hero of the city. Little do they know that they were feeding a half-demon who lives nowhere, who has no one, who is starving beneath the mask in every way imaginable. 

And then there’s Bobby.

She still talks to him, somehow. Against all odds, against her own better judgment, she lets him linger at the edges of her life. He’s become the closest thing she has to… real human contact since everything went to hell. She could call him a friend, she knows she could. The word sits there, but it never feels right on her tongue, because the truth underneath it is ugly as her. She only ever seeks him out when the hunger gnaws too deep, when she has nothing left to barter, and her own desperate ingenuity comes up short.

She hates herself for it. For showing up in his orbit already knowing what she’s doing, already rehearsing the little half-smile and the casual shrug that will stretch the conversation long enough for him to notice her edges fraying. For banking on the fact that Bobby is kind, and good, and stubborn in a way that makes him incapable of letting her walk away empty-handed.

Sometimes she shows up and lets the Spider-Woman mask do the talking, pretending it’s just another strained check-in, a vigilante brushing shoulders with the one cop in the city who doesn’t immediately pull a gun or cuffs, or spit her name like a curse. But underneath the mask, her body is trembling from low blood sugar, from days of rationing scraps, and she knows — she knows— he’ll eventually cave, offer her something warm and edible, something that feels like mercy.

She tells herself she’s careful. That she doesn’t go to him every day, even though the thought tempts her like the smell of bread from an open bakery door. That if she spaces out the visits, keeps them rare enough not to drain him, not to draw suspicion, not to tip the fragile balance of whatever this is. Because the last thing she wants is to make Bobby into a resource instead of a person. He deserves better than that. He deserves to be seen as more than a meal ticket. He deserves to be as far away as possible from someone as selfish, manipulative, and fake as she is. 

She’s nothing good for Bobby, and she's painfully aware of it.

Rumi leans her weight against the ledge, the wind tugging at her braid, and wonders again if letting go would be easier than surviving like this.

Well, she tries not to think much about it and just lets her web-line snap taut with a satisfying thwip as she launches herself from the ledge. One building, then the next, then another, her body moved on instinct, her mind mercifully empty for the briefest of moments.

She isn’t heading anywhere in particular. There is nowhere to go. Nowhere that is really hers.

Two months had passed, and she had learned the strange geography of her own exile. Rooftops she lingered on because no one ever looked up. Fire escapes she crouched upon until dawn painted the horizon. A quiet bell tower, where one specific pigeon and a cat seems to tolerate her presence better than people ever had. 

There were the underpasses, damp with the smell of gasoline and rain, where the rumble of traffic above disguised her breathing. And always the former university roof she used to study, where she could watch the light glowing through the windows below and almost imagine she still belonged to the students inside… Where she could imagine that she was going to meet Mira and Zoey soon. 

She is nothing more than just a fool, isn't she?

In any case, back to the matter at hand… that’s only considering the places she risks visiting in her Spider Woman suit, because there are others where wearing it would simply summon unwanted eyes. In those spaces, she goes as Rumi, the forgotten girl who slips through alleys wearing clothes scavenged from bins and sidewalks, garments too frayed for their former owners but still intact enough to cling to her body. They smell faintly of mildew and city grime, but they serve their purpose. After all, it’s not as if the world cares about one more beggar. 

It’s not as if anyone truly knows who Rumi is.

In a way, being forgotten has its own twisted kind of mercy. It grants her the gift of invisibility, the freedom to step into certain places without setting off alarms. For instance, she has learned the schedules of subway stations, memorizing which ones close their gates and which keep their underground arteries open through the night. Down there, the stale heat from the tunnels clings to her skin like a blanket, the echo of trains masking the sound of her own restless breaths. She can wash her hands in the public sinks, splash cold water across her face, and disappear back into the crowd before anyone dares to ask her questions.

Sometimes she wanders into public park restrooms. At night, they’re empty but for the buzz of a dying fluorescent bulb. The sinks run freely, and though there’s no shower, she’s perfected the ritual: filling plastic bottles, wetting a rag, scrubbing herself down in hurried fragments of hygiene. It’s not cleansing, not really, but it’s enough to feel almost human again.

Other nights she haunts the corner of twenty-four-hour convenience stores, pretending to be just another restless insomniac when in truth she’s there for the harsh neon light and the chance to swipe a few tissues, napkins, or cheap soap from the bathroom. Once, she even slipped into a jjimjilbang lobby, head bowed low, moving as though she belonged. She didn’t dare stay long, didn’t dare test how long the mask of “ordinary girl” could hold. But the stolen moment of warmth, the scent of clean steam escaping through the doors, had been enough to keep her awake the rest of the night, trembling with longing

She also goes to laundromats. Rumi slips inside when her day is too cruel, curling up in a plastic chair as if she were just another customer waiting for her load to finish. The hum of machines, the rhythm of spinning drums, it’s almost a lullaby. Sometimes she presses her hands close to the hot metal of a dryer door, and she dares to think that she’s back in the warmth she always felt with Zoey and Mira. For a few seconds, she can almost imagine holding their hands again, the way she used to.

Just the thought makes her want to cry. But she forces herself to swallow hard, again and again, steadying the ache before it spills.

Well, on colder nights, she has discovered that shopping malls with late-night cinemas leave certain hallways open until dawn. She drifts through them like smoke, never staying long enough to draw suspicion. The polished floors reflect her like a warped mirror, a reminder of who she used to be and who she is now. 

Temples, too, have become strange sanctuaries. In the quieter districts, she sometimes finds their courtyards open, lanterns swaying gently in the breeze. She does not pray, not in any way that would be recognized, but she sits in the silence, breathing incense and imagining the stone lions guarding her rather than judging her.

They weren’t hers, nothing is hers anymore, but she thinks that she is allowed to pretend, for a night or two, that they belonged to her. Temporary shelters for a life that isn’t supposed to exist.

Her arms pull, release, and pull again as the wind whips against her face. Her braid slaps against her shoulder. The mask clung damp against her skin. She had kept it on almost constantly since the sacrifice, her attire now as much a part of her as the cursed blood in her veins. She only ever lifted it enough to eat: a quick tug up over her mouth, a bite of bread or a handful of fries pressed into her hand by a stranger she’d saved. And sometimes, when she feels safe enough in a place abandoned by everything and everyone, she dares to take off her mask and stay in the Spider-Woman suit, too worn out to change to her scavenged clothes. But later she would go back down again, covering her face, hiding the girl who no longer existed. 

The girl named Rumi.

Yes, yes, there are those moments that she has to take off her mask,when she has to be the stray girl she truly is, just to salvage a shred of dignity in her disgusting life, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, sometimes she wonders what the mask is really protecting. The truth? Or the world from seeing what the truth had turned her into?

She doesn't need a mirror to know. Her body tells her enough. Her muscles are thinner, her joints sharper. Hunger gnaws at her every day. She feels hollow, her cheeks sunken, her eyes rimmed with bruised circles of sleeplessness. She knows she must look the sheer ugly thing that she is, the monster that she is. Nothing like the girl who once studied engineering, nothing like the one who laughed with Mira, who sparred with Zoey, who kissed them as if the future might forgive them all.

All of that is gone. 

She is gone.

Even the simplest human rituals had slipped away. Baths, showers, the warmth of water on her skin, luxuries she can't afford anymore. She caught her own scent sometimes under the mask, sharp and sour with sweat and grime. The rushed, improvised showers she manages to take in public places don’t come close to what a real bath should be, one that actually makes someone feel clean.

She curled in on herself, ashamed. 

What kind of superhero stank of rot and exhaustion? What kind of heroine couldn’t even keep herself clean?

The kind that doesn't exist. The kind erased from the world.

Her stomach tightens, twisting with hunger, but she ignores it. She ignores everything: the dirt under her nails, the stickiness of her suit, the emptiness gnawing at her ribs. She just swings higher, faster, as though momentum could carry her out of her body, out of the city, out of the curse itself.

But no matter how far she flies, no matter how high she rises, the mask pressed against her face reminds her. She is Spider-Woman now.

And Spider-Woman is no way home. 

And yet, she notices too late that she ends up back in the place that once was.

Without planning it, without even wanting to admit it, she finds her hands shooting webs into the dark sky, carrying her toward the one part of the city that she keeps telling to herself that she needs to stop coming back: the apartment she used to share with Zoey and Mira.

The rational part of her screamed not to do this, not to make herself suffer more than she already does. But there is nothing rational about that infuriating ache in her chest. She needs to see them. Even if it destroyed her every single time. Even if it meant reopening a wound that would never close, but she needs to do it. To at least see with her own eyes that they are safe. 

The webs snaps taut above her as she swings lower, closer, until she can already see the faint glow of familiar windows. Zoey and Mira’s apartment. No. Their apartment. Once. Not anymore.

There had been a night, early on, when she couldn’t stand the silence of her own emptiness and dared to slip inside. The window lock had been laughably easy to bypass, her fingers remembering the way almost without thought. She only wanted to breathe the air of a place that once felt like hers. She had gone straight to her room, only to find it stripped bare. Walls blank. Floor clean. Not even a shadow left of her. The bed gone, the sheets gone, the smell gone. As if no one had ever lived there. As if Rumi had never laughed herself breathless with them, never collapsed onto that mattress after training, never fallen asleep with Zoey pressed against her shoulder, never argued over stupid things with Mira until all three were grinning too hard to stay mad. As if Rumi had never kissed them.

The curse is merciless. Too merciless.

Now, from the outside, she clung to the side of a building across the street, crouched like some feral creature hiding in the shadows, and stared into the window.

Zoey and Mira were in the living room tonight. From here, Rumi could see their faces lit by the warm lamplight, their expressions softened by the kind of comfort only a shared home could offer. 

Her breath fogs faintly against the edge of her mask as she sighed. Still, she doesn’t move away. She stays, eyes locked on them through the glass. Maybe it is creepy. Maybe it makes her a stalker. But what else does she have left? Watching them from a distance is the only tether she has to the life she lost.

And then she saw it again, the thing that always twists the knife deeper. Zoey has her phone out, animated as always. She’s showing Mira something between photos or maybe videos, her voice rising with excitement. Mira doesn't have her own phone out; she just listens. From where Rumi stood, she can’t make out Mira’s face, can’t read her expression. But Zoey’s is easy: bright, eager, lit up the way she always got when Spider-Woman or anything that she's hyperfixated was the subject.

Rumi froze where she crouched, the pit in her stomach opening wider and wider until she thought she might fall straight through it.

It’s not the first time Rumi’s come to watch them and found that same scene playing out—Zoey and Mira talking about Spider-Woman like obsessed fans. Well, mostly Zoey. She’s always the one animated, gesturing, showing off photos and theories. Mira just listens, quiet, reserved in a way that Rumi still doesn’t understand. It wasn’t like that before the curse, before they found out she was the Spider Woman. Back then, Mira had opinions, laughter, heat. Almost the same energy as Zoey. But now? Now she just absorbs Zoey’s excitement like it’s something distant. And Rumi keeps wondering what changed.

She remembers how it used to be before they knew, before everything twisted, before everything changed. They had tried to catch glimpses of Spider-Woman in blurry photos, laughing, whispering, chasing mystery like it was a game. And now they’re doing it again — or at least Zoey is —, as if the history in between them had been erased. 

Technically, yeah, It is erased, she knows it. It's just… seeing this now makes the things too real. Too irreversible.

Her throat tightens. She wants to rip the mask off, bang on the glass, scream until they remember. Until they see. But what would be the point? The curse is absolute. 

Still, the thought burns through her: What if? What if she reveals herself? What if she forced her way back into their lives, demanded the curse be broken by sheer will alone? Could it work? Could she shatter the lie and claw her way back to them?

She don't know. Gosh, she doesn't know anything.

But she is trying. In her own fractured way, in stolen hours between fights, she searches. She dug for answers, for loopholes, for cracks in the magic that chains her. And though every attempt so far had collapsed into nothing, it was all she can do.

Because without Zoey and Mira, without the chance of being seen again, she isn’t sure what is left of her. So she stays on that ledge, mask half-shadowed, watching them, since Spider-Woman is a stranger now and Rumi is too much of a monster to get any closer again.

Rumi stays there longer than she should have, her body folded tight against the cold concrete ledge, her eyes fixed on the warm glow of the apartment across the street. It’s  too easy to imagine walking through that door, too easy to remember how it felt to belong in that space, to feel their eyes on her and know she mattered.

But she doesn't belong anymore. And she would never matter to them again.

When Zoey lifted her phone for another blurred snapshot of Spider-Woman, Rumi’s stomach lurched. That is enough. Too much. She tore her gaze away, forcing herself to stand. A shaky breath slips from behind the mask, muffled, but sharp enough to sting her throat.

They’re safe, she thinks, as though it could anchor her. They’re safe, and that’s all that matters.

She turns her back to the window.

There is no point staying. Better to keep moving. Better to bury herself in distractions until the night bled into morning.

After all, that has become her routine in these endless weeks: exhaustion disguised as purpose.

She swings away from the apartment complex, the webs slicing across the dark skyline, carrying her further and further from the warm light and into the shadows where she belongs. 

Her nights had become a cycle of survival. When she wasn’t fighting, she was training, pushing her body past limits that no longer existed. Bruises bloomed, muscles screamed, bones ached, but she doesn’t care. Pain is better than silence.

And when training isn’t enough, when her body sagged but her mind refused to shut down, she turned to the other obsessions that kept her sane: research and scraps. She hunted libraries, archives, whispers of forgotten magic, clawing through myth and rumor for any thread that could unravel the curse. Nothing yet. Nothing solid. But she refused to stop.

And when even that failed, when her thoughts circled too dangerously around what she had lost, she scavenged. Junkyards, alleyways, dumpsters, anywhere she could dig her hands into the trash of the city and pull out fragments of wire, broken circuits, bent metal. The current projects that she is doing are all she has to remind herself that she’s more than the mask, more than the demon. Even if every invention is half-finished, even if her tools were rusted and her workspace is nothing but an old wood table and shadows, the act of creating helps her to keep going even though most of time she asks herself why she keeps living.

But well, now that she’s managed to get Wi-Fi, she just needs to find a way to make an old, half-broken phone work that she found on the streets. She misses spending hours scrolling through social media, even though she was never the kind of person who liked staring at a screen for too long. But now, she’s desperate for anything that makes her feel normal. Not like Spider-Woman. And definitely not like the homeless girl she’s become. She just needs something that reminds her of how things used to be. And if that means performing a miracle on a dying phone, then so be it.

And so she swings toward the place she reluctantly calls her shelter. Not a home. Never a home. But close enough. 

It is an abandoned maintenance warehouse wedged beneath an overpass, half-hidden by layers of graffiti and rusting fences. To the city, it is forgotten, a place no one looked twice at. To her, it was the closest thing to a roof she had left. The place where she kept the fragments of her life.

Her feet touched down lightly outside the broken doorway, the webs retracting into her wrists. She pushed the warped door open and stepped into the darkness, greeted by the faint smell of metal, oil, and damp concrete.

Here, her world waited: piles of scavenged machinery, a cracked laptop that she repaired, and scattered plans: some half-remembered from her university days, others scribbled in haste, born from necessity. There were notes on her hijacking Wi-Fi, sketches for reviving the dying phone, and the beginnings of forging her own identity. And for the last, there are the blades and weapons she had rebalanced and sharpened until her hands bled lay beside it all, silent proof of how far she’d already gone.

Tucked behind the mess, she kept a few bottles of cheap liquor, stale beer, whatever she’d found abandoned in alleyways or forgotten fridges. She doesn't drink often. Only when she needs to forget everything fast. Or when sleep feels too dangerous, too vulnerable, and she needs something to blur the edges, to keep the nightmares at bay. And yet, ironically, it wouldn’t take much. Rumi, despite being half-demon and having survived a radioactive spider bite that should’ve make her invincible, was laughably weak when it come to alcohol. A single bottle could send her spiraling.

It isn’t much. It isn't even healthy, but it is hers, in any case. 

She pulled the mask off her face to let out a tired sigh, tasting the air that clung to this place. Not comfort, but familiarity. Enough to trick her into believing, for a few hours, that she isn’t completely lost.

In the first days after becoming the Golden Honmoon, Rumi was afraid to take off her mask completely, even in the hidden corners she’d found on the streets, even after she discovered the warehouse. But now, after months of breathing its dust and silence, she’s used to it. She knows no one comes here. So she allows herself a moment. Just enough to breathe.

She rubs the heel of her palm over her tired eyes, forcing her thoughts away from the apartment, away from Mira and Zoey’s laughter. Focus. Distraction. Always a distraction. She can’t afford to drift. If she drifts, she’d remember. And remembering is unbearable.

So she set her shoulders, stepped deeper into the shadows of her so-called shelter, and began the long ritual of trying to keep herself alive.

The silence of the warehouse presses heavily, broken only by the distant hum of cars above the overpass. Rumi lingers in that silence for a moment, the mask still in one of her hands, her fingers absently grazing the faint cracks in the concrete wall. She is exhausted, her legs trembling from hours of swinging, her body demanding rest. But rest is the last thing she’d allow herself. Sleep is a battlefield she has no interest in entering. The moment her eyes closed, the curse tightens its grip. The dreams came fast: memories twisted, voices distorted, Mira and Zoey reaching out for her but never touching. She always woke up gasping, always woken up alone.

So, tonight she would not sleep. Actually, she always does not sleep to avoid… problems.

Then again, she would pour herself into something that demanded her hands, her focus, anything to keep her from drifting. The computer had been proof enough that she could drag a dead thing back to life, no matter how corroded or forgotten. But this time, she wants something smaller. Portable. Useful. Something that tethers her to the world outside these walls.

Her gaze slid to the cracked phone she’d scavenged earlier, half-buried under wires and screws on the table she’d claimed as her workspace. The thought had been circling her mind for days now, hovering like a shadow.

She crossed the room, her every step dragging against the concrete, and picked the phone up with one hand, studying it. The weight of it steadied her, anchored her. The night wouldn’t swallow her whole if she filled it with purpose.

She doesn’t sit. Not anymore. Instead, she stands in front of her makeshift workstation, legs trembling, spine locked in defiance. It’s a tactic she learned the hard way. If she sits, she’ll sleep. And sleep means… Well, you already know. 

These days, Rumi only sleeps when she passes out, whether drowned in alcohol, drained by blood, or hollowed out by hunger and exhaustion. The last one It’s been happening more often in the past two months, but she doesn’t mind. Passing out is better than sleeping. Because when she blacks out, she doesn’t dream. And if she doesn’t dream, she doesn’t have to relive the nightmares. So, yeah, it's a winning situation, if you ask her.

Anyway, she spreads out her scavenged tools across the table: scavenged screwdrivers, scraps of wire stripped from abandoned lamps, a bent paperclip she’s already reshaped into something that might serve as a pin puller. Each object feels like a weapon against the heaviness pressing down on her. She breathes in slow, steadying herself, and forces her mind into the rhythm she knows.

The back cover of the phone comes off with a reluctant snap. Inside, dust clings to every edge, the battery swollen and useless. Her focus sharpens. This she understands. This, she can fix. It’s broken, yes, but it makes sense. Unlike her.

She wipes the grit away with her sleeve, her hands trembling not from fear but from sheer fatigue and hunger. She decides to pretend it’s excitement instead, and reminds herself that she likes this, that she always has. Machines don’t lie. They break, and you fix them, and that’s it. No betrayal, no unreachable arms in a dream. Just parts, just problems waiting for answers… 

She tries not to think much that she is also a problem that needs answers. 

Her knee buckles under her own weight, a sharp tremor shooting up her leg. She catches herself against the edge of the table, breath hitching. No. Not yet. 

She steadies her stance and forces her hands back to work, pulling the battery free, prying apart connections, lining them neatly in rows as though order itself can hold her upright.

The silence is absolute now, save for the faint scrape of metal on plastic, the soft catch of her breathing. Each motion becomes a thread keeping her tethered to the waking world. She will not sleep. Not until she makes this damn thing come back to life.

Her fingers hesitate for a fraction of a second before finding the next wire, the next screw, the next connection to pry loose. The motions are familiar, but tonight they feel heavier, as though every piece weighs double in her hands. She blinks again, hard, her eyelids dragging like lead, but forces them open. If she stops, even for a moment, she knows she won’t start again.

She sets the old battery aside, its bloated frame rolling lazily across the table until it bumps into the corner of a rusted wrench. She exhales through her teeth, steadying herself, and reaches for the scavenged replacement she dug out days ago. It isn’t perfect, it isn’t even designed for this model, but she’s already mapped out how to make it fit. She just needs focus. Just need time.

The hunger presses in sharper now, a twisting ache that distracts her hands and makes her grip falter. Her stomach answers with another growl, loud in the stillness. She grits her teeth, shoving the sensation down like she’s done a hundred times before. Food can wait. Everything can wait. The work cannot.

She bends over the table, her shoulders rounded, eyes narrowing as she strips a wire with the edge of a blade dulled from too much use. The first cut slips, biting her fingertip. A bead of red wells up, bright against her pale skin. She stares at it for a second, the sting pulling her back from the haze of sleep, almost welcome in its clarity. 

In a way, she wonders if she does it on purpose, since It’s not the first time she’s cut herself “accidentally” while working on one of her projects. If Mira were here, maybe she’d have a better explanation, maybe she would say something about Rumi’s unconscious clawing its way into awareness, desperate to surface because she’s always repressing something. And when you repress that much, the unconscious becomes more chaotic than it already is. Mira would also probably say Rumi’s death drive is so high it keeps manifesting in these little injuries, even when she doesn’t mean to. But Mira isn’t here. So Rumi just thanks her own unconscious for the slip and wipes the blood off on her Spider-Woman attire without a second thought, then keeps working.

Minutes stretch, though they feel like hours. Her vision blurs when she leans too close to the table lamp, shadows doubling across the cracked work surface. She shakes her head hard, fighting off the fog. Somewhere deep down, a small voice tells her she’s pushing too far, that one mistake in this state could ruin the whole project. She silences it with the steady twist of a screwdriver, the click of a panel snapping into place.

Her hands pause over the phone’s open casing, the faint tremor of exhaustion still running through her fingers, when a sound cuts across the warehouse. Sharp. Out of place. The scrape of something against concrete.

Her body reacts before her mind can catch up. 

The screwdriver drops soundlessly to the table, and she’s already moving, reaching for the mask. Reflex, pure survival. In one fluid motion, she pulls it up, the fabric stretching tight over her face, hiding everything. Heart hammering, muscles coiled, she scans the darkness.

The last thing she needs is someone walking in here. Someone seeing her like this: weak and unmasked. It’s bad enough if they find Spider-Woman crouched in an abandoned warehouse. Worse if they discover the truth behind the mask.

But the figure that finally stirs in the shadows is no intruder.

A flutter of wings breaks the silence, the sound almost comically small against the tension gripping her chest. Her eyes land on a familiar shape perched just above the doorway, a pigeon, cocking its head as if amused by her paranoia. And not just any pigeon. This one wears a hat.

A tiny, ridiculous, perfectly fitted hat, slightly tilted on its head like some crooked crown. She doesn’t know who put it there, or why, or how the bird has kept it this long. But she knows it’s the same pigeon she sees whenever she lingers near that old bell tower. Always the same one.

She exhales, a shaky sound behind the mask, relief mixing with disbelief at herself. Her instincts had her ready to fight shadows. Turns out it was this bird with a tiny cute hat.

She doesn’t even have time to open her mouth and greet the pigeon before another sound reaches her ears. This one softer: the pad of paws across broken concrete. She turns just in time to see a large, striped figure slip through the doorway.

Her heart eases instantly, and then she takes off her mask again, letting it fall to the floor.

Of all the impossible things in her life, a Maine Coon surviving the streets of Seoul is one she’ll never understand. Too big, too elegant, too domesticated a creature to belong out here in the ruins of forgotten places. Yet here he is, as if summoned by Sussie’s arrival. He always is.

Her lips twitch upward into something dangerously close to a smile: fragile, but real. One of the rarest things she has left.

She pushes back from the table, legs shaky, but manages to crouch without toppling, hand reaching out. 

“Hi, Derpy…” she whispers, voice thin but warmer than it’s been in days.

The cat presses against her legs immediately, a low rumble of a purr vibrating through his thick fur. Her smile grows, unsteady but deeper now, as she scratches behind his ears. The pigeon flaps once, then glides down with practiced ease, landing right on her workbench. It lets out a sharp, almost indignant coo, as if demanding attention as well.

Rumi laughs. Yet soft, cracked at the edges, but genuine, saying afterwards:

‘’Well, hello to you too, Sussie.’’

Yes, those were the names she had given them. Derpy and Sussie. Hardly inspired, hardly clever, but she is too tired to care. Names were only labels, after all, and these fit in their own crooked way.

Derpy, because… well, just look at him. The cat is absurdly clumsy for something so large, half the time he seems to trip over his own fur, blinking at her with those wide, vacant eyes that made him look more like a confused plush toy than some kind of predator. Derpy. Simple. Honest. True.

Sussie is sharper, sassier, literally. The pigeon strutted more than she walked, head cocked with an attitude that seems far too human for feathers and wings. Rumi could’ve called her “Sassy” outright, but that felt too lazy, too on the nose. She had already done that with the poor Derpy, so she tried harder with the bird… since Sussie probably would beat her up if she didn't give her a good name at least. So Sussie stuck, a name with just enough edge to fit.

She knows the names weren’t good. The names weren’t clever, but she kind of liked it, since naming them felt like a small act of claiming something. Something alive. Something hers.

The sound of her own laughter startles her, as if she’s not used to hearing it anymore, which is the truth, but right now, with Derpy curling against her side and Sussie eyeing her tools like her owns the place, Rumi doesn’t question it. She doesn’t question the absurdity of it all. She’s too tired for questions, and too starved for moments like this to let them slip away.

“Where have you been these past few days, hm?” she murmured, still crouched, fingers buried in the striped fur.

Of course, no answer came. She didn’t expect one, anyway. That isn’t the point. What matters is the warmth under her hand, the steady thrum of a heartbeat against her palm, the weight of his presence. With Derpy and Sussie around, she could almost pretend she is being heard, even if silence, or a meow and squawk, is all she ever received in return.

And maybe it is better this way. If either of them ever did respond, she figures it would mean she had finally lost what little grip she still has on sanity.

A tired sigh escapes her lips. She give the cat one last stroke before forcing herself upright, her body protesting the motion with a dull ache. Her joints cracked faintly, the kind of sound that spoke not of age but of relentless strain. She stretches her arms above her head, working the stiffness out, trying to ease not only the ache of crouching but the constant, background pain that had etched itself into her muscles long ago.

“I’m trying to get a phone working,” she said, glancing down at him with a crooked, weary smile. “Wanna help?”

Derpy’s only response was a half-hearted meow before he padded toward the shadows, slipping out through the same gap in the wall he always come through.

Rumi exhaled through her nose, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh, and shrugged. She should have been used to it by now, his appearances, his vanishing acts. Yet a small, stupid piece of her still wilted with disappointment. After being gone for days, was this really all he had for her? A brief purr, a brush of fur, and then nothing?

She knows that she doesn't mean much to anyone anymore, but she had hoped, just a little, that maybe to them she still did. 

Apparently, she is wrong. 

Actually, she is wrong about everything she has ever believed, but she tries to brush it off. 

Her hand drags down her face, as if she could scrape the feeling away. 

Don’t be ridiculous, she scolds herself. Don’t get sad over a cat walking out. You’re better than this. Our flaws and fears must never be seen.

It is a line she kept on the tip of her tongue like a talisman, one of Celine’s phrases, repeated in her childhood that it had settled into the hollow places of her mind. When she was small she mouthed it without understanding, convinced that if she said the words loud enough she could make the world behave: hide the marks, fold herself flat, become the obedient little girl everyone expected. 

Back then it had sounded practical, almost sensible, but growing made the sentence grow teeth. Years later the motto read differently: less a useful rule, more a verdict. Don’t let them see you. Don’t let them know the thing that makes you a mistake. Don’t expose the defect. It settled on her like a second skin, a law etched into bone

She understands now that Celine hadn’t just been instructing, hadn’t just given some ‘’mother’s advice’’. She knows that Celine was just trying to protect her on her own way, making sure no one would see the patterns and hurt her for what unfortunately she is, even so… Rumi can't help it but feel like those phrases condemned her.

Because, somehow, the phrase never stopped cutting, since she was old enough to fully understand what ‘’flaws’’ really meant. Each time she repeats it she feels the truth of it like a bruise: that she is the flaw meant to be hidden, the shard of wrongness other people could never seen. And when she thought of Mira or Zoey laughing in classrooms where she could not enter, of Celine’s soft, infuriating certainty about the Honmoon, that phrase turned from shield to shackle. 

Damn it.

To distract herself, she turns toward the pigeon perched proudly at her workstation.

“Guess it’s just you and me, then,” she says, her tone almost teasing. Almost. Because she still feels everything. She always does, unfortunately. 

Sussie answers with a sharp, indignant coo, tilting her head as if passing judgment, and somehow, that helps Rumi stop overthinking. It is enough, for now. Enough to anchor her in the moment. 

Still, as Rumi met that dark little bird’s stare, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she is being judged. Maybe it is paranoia. Or maybe it was the truth.

She doesn't know, but maybe she just started overthinking again. Oh, Gosh, this is exhausting. 

With another sigh, she goes to her worktable, improvised from a warped piece of wood balanced on stacked crates — and stays standing, leaning over it as her hands return to the half-dismantled phone she’d abandoned earlier to fuss over the two animals. The device sits there, stubborn and lifeless, as if mocking her for daring to hope.

Her fingers tremble so badly that even guiding the screwdriver toward the tiny screw becomes a battle. The tools she scavenged aren’t meant for this precise work; the tip slips, scratches metal, refuses to catch where it should. To make matters worse, her vision keeps swimming in and out of focus, her lashes lowering heavily before she blinks furiously, trying to clear the blur.

One particularly fiddly piece resists every attempt to fit it back into place. Her grip slips, the screw skitters sideways, and a muttered curse slips out between clenched teeth. She freezes, jaw tight, then drags in a shaky breath, forcing herself not to slam the whole thing against the wall. Lifting her head, she finds herself locking eyes with Sussie.

The pigeon stares at her from her perch with the kind of intensity that feels almost deliberate, as if she really is inspecting every move.

Rumi makes a face.

 “What?” she mutters, irritation roughening her tone. “You got some secret knowledge of circuitry you’ve been hiding from me?”

Sussie blinks. Once. Twice. Slowly, like a recognition. 

Rumi rolls her eyes. 

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” 

She picks up the tool again, leaning back over the phone, trying to ignore how heavy her arms feel. But she doesn’t get far, because Sussie lets out a sharp, indignant squawk, wings ruffling like she’s protesting the insult.

Rumi freezes mid-motion, then lifts her brows, lips twitching. 

“Oh, what, did I lie?” she shoots back, her voice laced with mock challenge.

Another harsh croak answers her, louder this time, like the pigeon is doubling down.

And this is when the absurdity really strikes her, not as something funny, but as something undeniable. Here she is, standing in a broken-down warehouse, her body half-starved and trembling, arguing with a pigeon as if it were a coworker correcting her technique. It should feel pathetic. It should make her shut up and refocus. Instead, it anchors her, because in those ridiculous exchanges — yes, this isn't the first time that shes arguing with Sussie, and she just knows this won't be the last —, with Sussie scolding from above like an overzealous boss, she feels something she hasn’t felt in too long, something almost… human.

Or maybe she really is losing it. You never know.

Anyway, she leans in, eyes narrowing, voice dropping as though she’s genuinely negotiating: 

“Alright then, Miss Supervisor, if you’re so sure you know better, why don’t you do it by yourself?”

Sussie answers with another sharp noise, wings lifting in a shiver of feathers.

“Oh, of course,” Rumi replies dryly, setting her tool down to gesture at the bird with exaggerated sarcasm. “Suddenly it’s my responsibility again. Typical management.”

Sussie croaks again, sharp and accusing, and Rumi parts her lips to fire back, but no sound leaves her throat. Because this time, another sound cuts through: the faint, deliberate pad of paws against the warehouse floor.

Her head turns toward the door instinctively, though her sharpened senses already tell her what she’ll find. 

Derpy. 

She can recognize him by gait alone, every uneven footfall etched into her awareness, which is surprising, at least. She had already resigned herself to waiting two days before he wandered back into her orbit.

But the real shock? He isn’t empty-handed. Well, empty-pawed. Or… no, not that either. Empty-mouthed? Urgh, Whatever. The point is: the cat is carrying something clenched between his jaws.

Rumi doesn’t even need her eyes to know what it is. Her nose betrays her first, a wave of roasted meat cutting through the dust and stale air of the warehouse. Her stomach growls before her mind can even process the scent, the sound embarrassingly loud in the silence.

She abandons her makeshift worktable in an instant, crossing the room in quick strides until she’s kneeling before him as he finally slinks into her little corner of claimed territory. Her eyes are wide, disbelief pulling her voice tight as she whispers:

“You… you brought this for me?”

Derpy drops the food on her knees: a half-eaten piece of roasted chicken, bone still attached, skin torn and glistening with leftover grease. And then he sits back on his haunches, tail curling around him, releasing a single, matter-of-fact meow.

It takes every ounce of her self-control not to cry. Not from hunger, not from exhaustion, but from the aching tenderness of it, the unbearable sweetness of the gesture. From the way it crashes into her like a reminder of everything she has lost, everything she is starved of: connection, care, the smallest act of kindness. She clamps her lips shut, fighting the sting behind her eyes.

Her stomach growls again, louder this time, snapping her back. She lowers her head quickly, snatching up the food and devouring it in sharp, hurried bites. Not just because the hollow burn of hunger is chewing at her insides, but also to finish before Sussie gets any clever ideas about swooping down and stealing her share. That pigeon has form.

It isn’t even the first time Derpy has delivered food like this, which — if she’s being honest with herself — is worrying. Just how pitiful must she look, for a stray cat to decide she needs feeding?

The thought tries to burrow into her mind, sour and sharp, but she shoves it away, refusing to let it take root. Better not to dwell. Better to just chew, swallow, and let herself revel in the fact that food fills her mouth, no matter how many times it might have hit the floor on its way here. Because we are talking about Derpy, and Derpy is… Derpy. 

Her body can handle the germs. She’s stronger than any scrap of filth this city can throw at her. Also, this isn’t the first time that she eats something that was on the floor. 

And, by the way, the taste is enough. 

Rumi finishes the half-eaten piece of roasted chicken faster than she would have liked, bones stripped bare in minutes. The taste lingers faintly on her tongue, but the relief is fleeting. The hunger is not gone. Of course it isn’t. How could it be, when scraps are all she ever manages to get her hands on? 

And being half-demon only makes it worse, her appetite is an endless pit, her body always demanding more, as though mocking her with cravings she cannot hope to satisfy. A cruel joke of her bloodline. Hilarious, really. Absolutely hilarious.

Still, the burn eases a little. Instead of devouring itself, her stomach now finally has something to wrestle with, however meager. The dull ache sharpens into something bearable. Her head clears slightly, her limbs feel a fraction less heavy, and the faint trembling in her hands subsides. Even this pitiful meal manages to take the edge off, just enough to make existing a little less unbearable.

A long, shaky sigh escapes her, a blend of relief and disappointment. Relief that the fire inside her belly has quieted a little, if only for now; disappointment that there wasn’t more. Never enough. Never even close, but it's definitely better than nothing.

She lowers her gaze to Derpy, who still sits patiently at her front, yellow eyes fixed on her like he’s waiting for her to say something. She lets her hand drift to his thick fur, fingers burying in the warmth of it, stroking gently. The words come out barely above a whisper, but sincere all the same.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, a smile tugging faintly at her lips.

And maybe — just maybe — he understands, because Derpy leans forward, pressing his head against her leg in quiet affirmation, purring deep in his chest. The sound vibrates through her bones, and she almost melts under the weight of it, undone by the simple affection of a creature who owes her nothing.

Rumi lets her fingers linger in Derpy’s fur for another moment before pulling back, a tired smile ghosting her lips. 

“So,” she says softly, still kneeling in front of him, “Are you going to ‘help’ me now?”

Derpy answers with a simple, unhurried meow, the kind that sounds more like a statement than a question. He makes no move toward the shadows or the doorway, none of his usual vanishing acts. He stays.

That, somehow, is enough. Rumi allows herself a fuller smile — small, but real — and rises unsteadily to her feet. Her joints creak their complaints again, her body sluggish with fatigue, but she ignores it. She crosses back to her makeshift worktable, and lays her hands on the mess of wires and components waiting for her.

Behind her, she hears the soft thud of paws on concrete, then the heavier sound of Derpy launching upward. A moment later, his weight settles on the table beside her scattered tools. His landing is less graceful than he seems to believe; the impact topples a half-filled bottle of her salvaged water, sending it clattering to the floor.

Rumi chuckles under her breath, crouching to scoop it back up. 

“Careful, big guy,” she mutters, setting it in place again.

Her warning barely has time to settle before the bottle wobbles once more. Derpy’s massive paw nudges it as he tries to reposition himself, and it falls on the table. This time he seems almost offended by the accident, because he immediately leans down and attempts — somehow, impossibly — to nudge the bottle upright with his nose. It nearly works, until his paw slips, and the thing crashes down to the floor again.

Rumi forgets her tools. Forget the phone. Forget the endless weight of exhaustion dragging at her bones. She’s transfixed, watching the cat’s stubborn determination as he also goes to the floor and repeats the process: paw, nose, almost upright, then clatter. Over and over.

A soft laugh bubbles out of her, fragile, but genuine. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, since Derpy always seems to find a way to knock things over, and then gets obsessed with trying to fix them, which she finds it very funny.

But Derpy doesn’t seem discouraged. If anything, he redoubles his efforts, tail twitching with concentration as though this one battered bottle is the most important puzzle of his life.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rumi catches Sussie, perched on the edge of the table like a silent overseer. The pigeon tilts her head, watching the entire ordeal with unmistakable disdain. When Derpy fumbles yet again and the bottle topples for the ninth time, Sussie lets out a sharp coo, and Rumi sees the exact moment that Sussie rolls her eyes. 

Rumi snorts. She didn’t even know pigeons could roll their eyes until she met Sussie, but here they are.

Rumi lets out one last laugh with that iconic scene and then makes the decision to focus on what she must do. She knows from experience that if she keeps bending down to rescue the bottle, Derpy will somehow knock it over again, not out of malice but because that's his graceless rhythm. So she leaves it. Let him have his little campaign; telling him to stop never really worked anyway.

She returns to the phone. The warmth of the food still lingers somewhere under her ribs, and it steadies her hands just enough. The work flows with grudging cooperation; screws catch, wires align, a stubborn connector finally slips into place after three tries. But the sleep that pulls at her is a living thing, less a need of the body than a weight that has settled into her chest. It is a thing that hunger and movement cannot chase away. It lives in her bones, in her jaw, in the slow, dragging rhythm of her limbs.

Still she does not surrender. 

Her fingers move over the cracked glass and grimy frame with a practiced patience. She hums nothing, just the small noises of a person refusing to be emptied by their own despair: the rasp of a screwdriver, the whisper of wire being stripped, the soft click that comes when a tiny mechanism finally yields. Under Sussie’s impatient oversight and Derpy’s clumsy devotion, the world manages, for a sliver of time, to hold.

And of course the questions come, as they always do, sliding up through the floorboards of her resolve.

Should she keep going? Keep trying?

Does it even make sense to insist when the easier path yells at her all the fucking time. The temptation is constant: to fall into nothing and let whatever comes follow.  To stop trying to find some kind of way that maybe can break the curse, and just let herself to sleep and not wake up the next morning, to stop pretending at heroics, to stop inventing identities in a city that has already erased her. 

She feels the pull. God, she feels it all the time. The thought of letting go glints like a promise in the dark.

But she is here. Unfortunately, she's still here.

She returns her attention to the task at hand, forcing herself not to drift too far into the familiar fog of distraction. She knows how easily she slips, how quickly her mind can spiral into the old habits, the ones she carried long before everything fell apart, and the newer ones she picked up when the weight of feeling became too much to bear. When the ache in her chest grows sharp and unmanageable, when the silence starts to scream, all she wants is to disappear. To erase herself. To stop feeling.

She doesn’t want to cut until her body collapses from blood loss. She doesn’t want to drink until her veins hum with poison and her brain shuts down in a haze of alcohol-induced oblivion… Okay, maybe that’s not entirely accurate. The truth is, Rumi does want to do those things. She kind of wants to do them frequently, but she doesn’t. Because doing them would mean giving up. And Rumi, for all her mess and madness, hates giving up. She clings to her stubborn pride like a lifeline, even when it’s frayed and choking her.

And now, she has Derpy and Sussie. These two strange, chaotic little creatures who’ve somehow become her responsibility. She can't help but see them as children. Actually, how could she not see them as children? When they just keep watching her with their wide eyes that don’t yet understand the full weight of the world… Although, she has some doubts about Sussie, but anyway. The point is that she can’t let them see her bleed out on the floor. She can’t let them find her unconscious in an alley, reeking of cheap liquor. She can’t, she just can't.

Rumi exhales slowly, pressing her fingers into the tense muscles at the back of her neck. The pain is dull, persistent, like some of the countless warnings she’s learned to ignore. She rubs the ache away as best she can, then leans back over the half-dismantled phone in front of her.

She doesn’t know if she’ll ever get it working again. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever get herself working again. But she knows one thing: she can’t afford to stop. So she keeps going: saving lifes, working, training, researching until the sky turns pale and the world forgets to sleep. It’s not exactly healing, but it’s the healthiest thing she knows how to do.

Because staying busy means staying numb. And staying numb means not feeling everything she’s terrified to feel.

And this is how she keeps going.

Even though she doesn't know if she should keep going from here. 

Chapter Text

Celine had never really thought of Spider-Woman as strange until the moment they actually spoke. 

Okay, the conversation had lasted less than three minutes, but it was, without question, the longest and most civil exchange they’d ever managed without it devolving into shouts, attempted arrests, or bullets flying in the vigilante’s direction.

And yet, even in that fleeting moment a couple hours ago, something about her still unsettle Celine.

It wasn’t the strangeness of her costume, or the fact that she is a wanted vigilante sitting there as if this were some kind of normal meeting. It is something subtler than that. Maybe it was the way her words carried a gravity that didn’t fit the nonsense they were strung into. Maybe It was the way her eyes lingered, sharp and weary all at once, like she was holding on to secrets that weren’t meant to be shared but slipped out anyway. 

Celine can't help it, but think back to the last time she had truly come face-to-face with Spider-Woman — that last time before this meeting in Celine's office —, and the memory is… fractured, to say the least. Confusing, but it seems that everything about Spider-Woman is confusing, if Celine’s honest with herself. 

The only thing she remembers from back then is raising her weapon, issuing the standard command for surrender — the typical textbook move when cops got a fugitive cornered and blah blah blah. She remembers Spider-Woman’s voice, strangely desperate, pleading in a way that doesn’t fit the woman’s reputation. She remembers squeezing off a warning shot, and then…

And then nothing.

The rest is smeared in her mind, leaving only fragments that refuse to form a coherent whole. She can’t say if Spider-Woman attacked her, or fled, or simply vanished. She can’t even reconstruct how the fuck the scene ended. What she’s left with instead is a void, an absence so total it gnaws at her whenever she tries to probe it.

But the worst part isn’t the missing memory, though that really sucks, obviously. The worst part is the weight she feels in her chest every time Spider-Woman’s name and face crosses her mind: a dull, inexplicable ache, as though grief has been stitched into her ribs one more time. 

Grief is sort of something that she is already used to. This grief, however, is new; it almost feels like it has evolved, taken on a sharper, crueler edge. She isn’t grieving her lover anymore, not exactly. She is grieving some part of her, and part of herself. As crazy as its sounds, she feels like is grieving a child. A daughter. 

The weight of it presses down on Celine’s chest, so heavy she thinks it might crush her. But it makes no sense. She has never had a daughter. She knew she hasn’t. And yet the ache is still there, raw and real, as if she had really lost someone flesh and blood.

Maybe it is Ryu’s death still gnawing at her, still playing tricks on her mind, carving illusions into the empty spaces her grief can’t fill. Maybe this phantom child that she has never had is nothing but another cruel invention of sorrow, a hallucination stitched together by a heart that can no longer bear to accept the silence.

At the same time, deep down, she can’t shake the feeling that this grief isn’t invented at all. That she is mourning someone real. Someone she should remember. Someone she should never be allowed to forget.

But what does any of this have to do with Spider-Woman?

Why does every thread of her unease, every crack in her thoughts, always seem to circle back to that stupid masked woman? Why does all of her problems — the confusion, the inexplicable grief, the maddening sense of something missing — feel tied, in some impossible way, to Spider-Woman’s existence?

Who is that woman, anyway? Why does nothing about her ever make sense? 

I mean, every time Celine tries to put her in a box — vigilante, outlaw, nuisance — something insists in slipping out of place, some detail contradicts the rest, leaving her with a puzzle that apparently can never be solved.

And this supposed daughter, this phantom child that damn grief keeps insisting she lost. How can Spider-Woman have anything to do with that? It is absurd. Utterly absurd. If Celine had ever had a daughter, she would remember. She just knows she would, because this isn’t the kind of thing you misplace like a set of keys or forget like a passing face in a crowd. A child would mean everything. A child would have been the living proof of what she and Ryu once shared. 

And yet here she is, drowning in sorrow for someone she knows that has never existed, while Spider-Woman’s shadow looms in the back of her mind, like a name she can’t quite say, a memory she can’t quite reach.

She already tried to find some logic in this. She thought this strange feeling is some sort of déjà vu, but… how can you feel it when there’s no memory to spark? When all you have is a blank space where the truth should be?

It doesn’t add up. Spider-Woman is supposed to be nothing more than a problem: a criminal, a headache, a nuisance. Even so, Celine can’t shake the sense that she’s missing something crucial, that Spider-Woman did something to her the day Celine almost shot her. That Spider Woman did something wrong. Something that left her with this inexplicable sorrow, this hollow echo she doesn’t understand.

Maybe Spider-Woman had poisoned her that day: some kind of venom slipped into her veins so she would black out and forget everything. Maybe this is why her body reacts the way it does every time she sees her: not fear, not anger, not grieving, but something deeper, a reflex carved into muscle and bone. Trauma disguised as instinct.

And really, isn’t that possible? Like, she is Spider-Woman, after all. It wouldn’t be surprising if she had more tricks hidden up her sleeve than just shooting those stupid webs that clung to half the city like gray glue and reminds everyone how gravity seems to hate her.

Fine, maybe it doesn’t make much sense. But what about Spider-Woman does make sense? Nothing about her line up: not the way she looked that night Celine raised her gun and saw something desperate in her eyes, not the way she’d seemed smaller and more exhausted in her office just hours ago, not the impossible fact that she had stood against Gwi-ma and somehow won.

And the Honmoon. God, the Honmoon. Golden. Still golden.

How?

None of it add up. None of it can.

Seriously, why does this reckless, good-for-nothing nuisance keep showing up? What does she even want? Why does she keep throwing herself into the city’s problems as if she were the only one meant to solve them? She's not, the cops are here for that. That is their job, thank you very much. 

But then came again that day that Celine almost shot her, and for one awful, fleeting second, Celine had even considered the possibility that Spider-Woman had been working with Gwi-ma, that her presence near him that day wasn’t coincidence at all. Until, Spider-Woman had gone and done the impossible. She defeated Gwi-ma. And with that single act, every prior suspicion Celine had been holding onto collapsed like a house of cards.

Unless, of course, Spider-Woman had been working with Gwi-ma all along and, in the end, decided to betray him.

Why?

If they really had been allies, what reason would she have to turn against him? Did she finally realize he was a monster? Did she grow a conscience and decided to be the hero that she always pretends to be? Or was it something far darker? A calculated betrayal because another demon, another so-called king, had whispered promises of even greater power in her ear?

Celine would almost laugh if the thought didn’t sit so uncomfortably. Because really, who can say Gwi-ma is the only one? 

You know, she had never truly believed the threat of demons would vanish someday. She's aware enough to know that kind of evil doesn’t just disappear. It lingers, waits, reshapes itself. So when Spider-Woman defeated Gwi-ma and managed to stop the soul-stealing, blood-soaked nightmare in a single simple act… it doesn’t feel like relief. 

Honestly, It feels like a trap.

All those years of fear, of watching her people die, of preparing for the worst, and now it’s over? Just like that? No war, no reckoning, no cost? That’s not how these things end. That’s not how grief works. And if it is, then something is really wrong. Something is missing. Like, if one masked stranger can erase centuries of terror, maybe the terror isn’t what she thought it was. Maybe the real danger is still out there. Or worse, maybe it’s already inside.

And no, she isn’t talking about the stray demons that still linger post-Honmoon. This is something else entirely. Something worse. Something that she knows that shouldn’t exist.

If anything, she would bet her badge there were other demon kings — shadows lurking, waiting for their moment. And maybe, just maybe, Spider-Woman had chosen a side none of them even knows exist yet.

As her imagination spun out into wild theories, Celine pressher palms against her temples and forces herself to breathe. She is overthinking. Probably.

She is sitting slouched at her desk, staring at the cold dregs of what is probably her thousandth coffee of the day, and tries not to let it get under her skin. She wanted to say that she’d tossed out the intel Spider-Woman had handed her, wanted to tell herself she hadn’t even hesitated before calling it trash, but… no. The papers had stayed on her desk, staring at her like a dare.

And just an hour after Spider-Woman had vanished into the night, Celine had broken. She had read them.

And now, hours later, she is still reading them. Over and over, checking, cross-checking, hunting for the trap. There has to be one. There always is. Nevertheless, the sickening truth is that the information seems to be right. Correct. Spot-on.

The folder on the drug ring alone was enough to make her blood run cold: names, locations, routes, even dates scrawled in handwriting she refused to admit she recognized. It isn’t just a lucky guess or a rumor picked up on the street, it is detailed, precise, like someone had been living inside the cartel’s veins for months, watching every move. No holes. No gaps. Just the kind of intel cops like her spent years trying and failing to put together.

And then there were the files on her own people. A list of corrupt officers, not just vague accusations but receipts: bank transfers, calls logged at odd hours, photographs taken at angles that should have been impossible. There is no way a civilian, even one with Spider-Woman’s reckless knack for getting in places she doesn’t belong, should’ve been able to dig this deep.

Each time Celine flipped a page, she braced for the reveal, for the ridiculous mistake that would expose the whole thing as a fabrication. Unfortunately, the reveal never came. Every line, every number, every hidden connection checked out against what she already knows and against things that she doesn't know at all, things she verified through her own channels only to realize against her will that Spider-Woman has been ahead of her by weeks.

It is… too much. Too accurate.

Which only makes less sense.

Why? Why give her anything useful? Why would Spider Woman trust her? Yes, a few hours ago Spider-Woman might have said, “You’re not the only one I bring these to.’’ But that doesn't easily change the fact that none of it makes sense.

Why does she keep saving people when that isn't even her job? Why put herself in the line of fire again and again? Why did she defeat Gwi-ma? Why leave the Honmoon glowing gold? 

And most of all: why not just give up? Why not surrender, just once, and make Celine’s life easier?

There is no logic, no trail of clues to explain why Spider-Woman does what she does. No neat box to put her in. Vigilantes were supposed to crave attention, power, and revenge. Something simple, something primal. They weren’t supposed to hand over entire case files tied up with a bow, files that could end careers, ruin reputations, topple networks that had been rotting the city from the inside for decades. They weren’t supposed to look at a cop — someone who had tried, repeatedly, to put them in cuffs — and say, “Do with this what you will.” 

And yet, here they were.

Celine rubs her temple again, feeling the dull ache pulsing deeper. The logic refuses to appear. Spider-Woman fights like a criminal, vanishes like a criminal, ducks the law at every opportunity. But criminals don’t save lives. She worked too long as a cop and now as captain to know it. To know that they don’t risk everything just to give ammunition to the very system that wants to lock them up.

It is a contradiction she can’t resolve. It gnaws at her.

And that’s not even mentioning the strangest thing of all about Spider-Woman. The thing that keeps circling in her thoughts like a vulture, refusing to leave her in peace, repeating itself until she almost heard the words aloud again.

“I am nothing but my mother’s daughter. I do nothing but grieve. I made a promise that I will keep.”

The most illogical thing Celine had ever heard a living soul utter. What in hell was that supposed to mean? Some cryptic code? A confession? Or was it nothing more than the deranged poetry of someone who lost her grip on reality?

She knows that she should have dismissed it, shoved it into the same box where she shoves every strange confession criminals spat in desperation, but she couldn’t. She can't.  Because, when Celine replays it in her mind, when she recalls the slight tremor in Spider-Woman’s hands as she said it, it unsettled and still unsettles her in a way she hates. It had sounded too raw, too close to something real. Which only made it worse and somehow harder to explain.

Although, let's be real, what else could she have expected? This is Spider-Woman. Nothing about her ever makes sense. Every word she speaks comes dressed in riddles or jokes, every gesture dripping with some kind of obscure symbolism, as though the woman’s entire life is a performance for an audience no one else can see. A puzzle-box logic that, the more Celine examines it, the more she suspects it is built on nothing at all.

The longer she thinks about it, the more one conclusion seems unavoidable: Spider-Woman is totally insane. How can she not be? Like, who in their right mind would choose to live like this? Would choose to have endless fights, hiding in shadows, this absurd cat-and-mouse with the police and villains, for what? Grief? Promises?

Or maybe that strange phrase was just a fancy way for Spider Woman saying that she just likes to play superhero with her stupid little powers like it is some kind of twisted hobby.

Celine can't help, but let out a sharp, bitter snort, half amusement, half disgust. 

Maybe Spider-Woman doesn't care about justifying anything. Maybe all this nonsense is deliberate. Maybe she wants Celine off balance. Wants her doubting, second-guessing, seeing in her not just a lawbreaker who needs to be caught, but something else entirely.

And the worst part? It is working.

This isn’t how it is supposed to be. Criminals don’t get to live rent-free in her thoughts. They don’t get to plant riddles and promises and watch from the shadows while she trips over them again and again. They were supposed to be caught, cuffed, written into case files and locked away. Done. Finished.

But Spider-Woman refuses to stay in the box Celine needs her to be in, and this refusal burns. It is infuriating, humiliating even, because it makes Celine feel like she is already losing a fight she hasn’t agreed to.

The anger coils tighter in her chest. This isn’t justice. This isn’t duty. This is personal now, whether she wants it to be or not. Spider-Woman isn’t just a problem on the streets now: she is in Celine’s mind more than ever, in her nerves, in her damn bloodstream.

So she makes a decision. Not the kind she can put in a report or admit out loud to anyone, but a vow she whispers only to herself: she would find out who this fucking woman really is. Every mask slips eventually. Every ghost left a trail if you knew where to dig. And Celine is definitely going to dig.

Because, beneath that vow, the rot of something darker stirred. Each unanswered question lodges deeper like splinters under her skin. It isn’t just about the case anymore, It isn't about doing her duty of arresting her. No, not anymore. 

Now, It's about control.

It's about reclaiming her own head from the phantom grief that Spider-Woman seems to carry with her like a contagion.

And she will chase her through every shadow of this city until the damn truth is carved clean.

Chapter Text

Zoey can’t quite explain how it has started, or why. She doesn’t even know where she has picked up this sudden, consuming fixation with photography.

But maybe she shouldn’t overthink it. After all, when had her obsessions ever needed a reason? 

They never came with logic or warning; they simply arrive, as natural and inevitable as breathing. All it ever takes is Zoey to like something too much, to let it spark inside her, until she can't stop circling it in her mind. She would dive headlong into the subject, researching, experimenting, doing everything she can to immerse herself in this new, glittering corner of the world that has captured her attention.

It has always been this way with Zoey. Her heart seems to know no moderation, when it stumbles upon something that delights her, something that shimmers with possibility, she doesn’t merely like it. She consumes it, inhales it, devours every scrap of knowledge and every experience until her thoughts are saturated. Her obsessions never requires an origin story or a rational justification. They simply appear, and she follows.

That was how the inexplicable love for marine life had begun. At first, she had only wanted to know why sea turtles migrated thousands of miles or how coral reefs thrived with such delicate balance, but curiosity became fascination, fascination became passion, and soon the ocean was the only thing she wanted to talk. She enrolled in marine biology, telling herself that maybe this was the way to live forever near the waves, even if only through data and research papers.

And she loved it. Oh, she loved it more than she ever thought possible. Every lecture about ecosystems, every late night poring over articles about endangered species filled her with awe, like little sparks catching in her chest. Even so, the reality of academia often weighs her down. Group projects felt like a cage of mismatched energies, the looming presence of exams claws at her nerves, and the chatter of classmates during lectures, essentially when all she wants is to hear the professor, left her restless and tired. Sometimes she wishes she could simply download the information straight into her brain, bypassing the noise and the stress, absorbing only the beauty of knowledge. In this dream, studying what she likes would never feel exhausting, only endlessly exhilarating.

Maybe that was why she felt the pull toward something new. Maybe it was her subconscious begging for a breath of air outside the tides of marine biology. Because no matter how much she adores the ocean, she couldn’t spend every waking hour submerged in it. She needed another rhythm, another outlet, something that wasn’t just research or TikTok videos of baby turtles going to the sea for the first time, or the questionable comfort of reading late-night forbidden fanfics on AO3, or the hours lost in video games and watching animes, or even the constant clingy affection she lavishes on her girlfriend.

Those things are sweet, yes, but they weren’t enough. They filled the hours, but they didn’t anchor her. She wanted something that made her feel more alive, something that gave shape to the in-between spaces of her life.

And maybe this is why she found herself turning toward photography.

Or maybe it is age creeping up on her. Like, not in the weary, gray-haired way people always imagine, but in subtler, quieter shifts. She caught herself thinking about how adults — real adults, older than her, thank you very much — always seem to find joy in taking pictures of the most ordinary things. Flowers blooming by the sidewalk, their pets rolling belly-up in the sun, a plate of steaming food before anyone touched it, the sunlight spilling across the living room floor. They weren’t professional photographers, not even close. They just wanted the comfort of knowing that later, when the day had already slipped away, they could revisit that one fragile moment and admire it again. 

Maybe that is where Zoey had landed without even realizing it. Photography, for her, had begun the same way: pure pleasure.

She used it during lectures at her university, when her professors brought out preserved specimens, skeletons, or silicone molds of marine animals. There was something oddly soothing about framing the curve of a shell, the symmetry of a fin, the sharp detail of a beak. It gave her the sense of holding the ocean in her hands, even inside on her own cellphone.

When extracurricular events were announced as field trips to aquariums, guided visits to marine rescue centers, opportunities to see real living creatures up close, Zoey’s excitement doubled. She snapped picture after picture, storing them like treasures in her gallery. It wasn’t just about studying anymore; it was about keeping them, capturing their fleeting movements and colors. 

But Zoey was never the type to stop at the beginning of something. Once she saw what her phone could do, she began noticing what it couldn’t. Blurry shots, flat lighting, clumsy compositions, etc. So, naturally, she did what she always does when a new obsession takes root: she doves headfirst. She binge-watched hundreds of YouTube tutorials, scrolled endlessly through TikTok guides, inhaled every tip and trick she could find until her photos didn’t just record what she’d seen; they elevated it. They proved something. They proved her. Basically, all of her hyperfixations prove that even though she's too much, if she tries too hard, maybe she can be enough. 

And maybe, just maybe, part of her thrill comes from showing them off. Especially to Mira.

She would thrust her phone under Mira’s nose with zero warning, her words spilling faster than she could control:

“Look, look at this one I took! Incredible, right?! Yeah, yeah, okay, the original was kind of flat, but I’ve been learning to edit, too! Doesn’t the result look amazing? Want me to show you how I did it? Oh, you do? Great, I’ll show you! Just hang on a minute, let me open the app…”

Zoey didn’t stop there. Her curiosity and drive weren’t satisfied with the casual snaps she had been taking on her phone. No, she wanted more. She wanted clarity. She wanted precision. She wanted a lens that could catch the world the way she sees it, sharp and full of life. So, using her own savings, she bought a professional camera. The moment it arrived, she tore the box open like a child on Christmas morning, hands trembling, heart racing. But when she loaded her first few shots onto the computer, her stomach dropped. Every single picture was dark, murky, unusable.

Her breath hitched. 

“No… no, no, no,” she muttered, staring at the images like they had personally betrayed her. She nearly sank to the floor in despair, the thought of wasting her money piercing deeper than she expected.

And then Mira simply came in. Calm, collected, knowing, like she always seems to be. One glance, one tilt of the head, one soft word: 

“Zoey… you do know the lens cap’s still on, right?”

Zoey froze, blinked, then reached up and realized the tiny, mocking plastic circle had been blocking the lens the whole time. Relief flooded through her so hard she thought she might cry again, but at least this time would be for joy. Mira only smiled, shaking her head, and from that day onward, Mira never misses a chance to tease her about it, making Zoey blush every time.

But, ahem, that embarrassment isn’t the point. The point is that the camera worked. It worked, and it opened a door Zoey hadn’t even realized she’d been waiting to step through.

Which led her, naturally, to her next brilliant idea: training her photography skills by trying to capture Spider-Woman.

At first glance, maybe it sounds ridiculous. But to Zoey, it makes perfect sense. Every photo anyone has ever managed of Spider-Woman is the same: blurred, shaky, or snapped from so far away you can’t even prove it is her. Nothing good. Nothing sharp. Nothing worth keeping.

So what if Zoey becomes the first? The first to snap a clear, striking shot of the city’s most elusive vigilante? That would mean she isn’t just improving, she would be the best photographer in the world! Or maybe the luckiest, but well… let's not deep too much in details. 

She knew it is probably impossible. Spider-Woman is always in motion, always a blur of webs and impossible acrobatics, and logic says the pictures will never come out right. Neverthelss, logic has never been strong enough to stop her once she latches onto something. The challenge only pushes her harder, makes her chase it more fiercely, camera always at the ready, hoping this time she’d get it.

And maybe that is when she finally admitted it, at least to herself: she’d stumbled into a new obsession. Or is it an addiction? A hyperfocus? She isn’t sure which label fits, only that her camera roll was drowning in failed attempts, her notebooks were cluttered with plans and angles, and her browser history was a graveyard of every possible scrap of information about Spider-Woman she can get her hands on.

It isn’t just photography anymore. It is Spider-Woman, and Zoey can’t stop.

Zoey knows. She knows, and she can’t help the flicker of guilt that came with it: that creeping awareness that what she is doing, what she is feeling, isn’t exactly… normal. Sometimes, when the thought presses too hard against her conscience, she compares herself to these obsessive stalkers of K-pop idols she reads about online, the ones who follows their favorites into airports or lurked outside dorms. She cringes at the comparison, but isn’t it a little too close for her situation?

Because the truth is, every time she catches sight of Spider-Woman, something in her lights up, something sharp and insistent. A need. She can’t explain it, can’t reason it away. She just feels this uncontrollable urge to take a picture, to document her, to know more, to be near her. Saying it out loud, even in the safe corners of her own mind, makes it sound disturbing, like the kind of thing she’d judge someone else for. And yet, she swears to herself it isn’t like that. 

After all, it isn’t as though she goes around scheming to get close to Spider-Woman. This is impossible. Nobody manages that: that woman is too quick, too restless, too much like smoke slipping through fingers. 

So she settles for the scraps she can get: shaky pictures, fleeting glimpses, hours spent on rooftops and half-forgotten alleys where rumor said Spider-Woman might appear. Every blur of motion, every silhouette half-caught against the neon glow of Seoul’s skyline became precious to her, even when her chest aches with that confusing pull, a tightness she can’t name.

It is strange how her heartbeat kicks into this same restless rhythm whether she is watching Spider-Woman swing past or diving into another late-night rabbit hole of research about her. Attraction? Obsession? Something nameless and unshaped? Zoey doesn’t know. She only knows that, no matter how often she promises herself she’d stop, she keeps climbing those rooftops again and again.

And after weeks of chasing, she’d mapped it out: Spider-Woman’s shadow lingered most often over the heart of Seoul. The center of the city pulses with her presence, and Zoey keeps going back, as though one more try would finally give her the picture she is desperate to capture.

With all that being said, now you have the context for this moment: the reason why, as soon as her classes for the day is over, Zoey bolts for the door of the apartment after arriving home and stashing away her college stuff. She doesn’t forget to press a quick kiss to Mira's lips on her way out, breathlessly tossing something about “going out to practice photography” over her shoulder.

Mira knows exactly what that means. She doesn’t even get the chance to complain, because Zoey’s already halfway out the door, sneakers slapping against the hallway floor. Her skateboard is snatched up from its usual spot by the entryway, and the camera is already looped securely around her neck — something Zoey has learned the hard way is far more efficient than fumbling with zippers. She still remembers, with sharp frustration, the time she had been this close to capturing the perfect shot of Spider-Woman… only for the heroine to catch her presence before Zoey even managed to wrestle the camera out of her backpack.

Not again. Never again.

So now the camera stays where it belongs, always ready, bumping lightly against her chest as she takes off into the Seoul evening.

Behind her, Mira lets out a long, weary sigh, already bracing herself for the inevitable. She knows, without a doubt, that when Zoey comes back she’ll unload every chaotic detail of her adventure, every shaky photograph, every near miss, in a torrent of words Mira will have no choice but to weather.

Zoey doesn’t slow until she hits the ground floor of the apartment complex, the glass doors sliding shut behind her as she bursts into the open air. Only then she drops her board onto the pavement, the sharp clack of wheels hitting concrete echoing in the quiet courtyard. In a single practiced motion, she hopped on and let gravity and momentum carry her forward, weaving smoothly into the current of Seoul’s streets.

The familiar rush of skating fills her veins, the kind of freedom she never quite finds in classrooms or cramped dorms. For once, she silently thanks her past self, the version of Zoey who, back in the U.S., had spent hours with scraped knees and stubborn bruises until she could balance, push, and carve like second nature. That stubborn girl had no idea how much those hours would save her now.

Seoul is sprawling and relentless, but a skateboard makes the city feel almost manageable. Fast enough to cut through the crush of evening commuters, nimble enough to slip between alleys and shortcuts. For a student living off loans — a foreign student, at that — a car is totally out of the question. Not that she particularly wants one anyway, and Mira practically broke into a cold sweat every time Zoey mentions driving, which she thought is unfair. Ok, sure, she has this tendency to lose focus and maybe a slight habit of zoning out mid-sentence, but that doesn't mean she’d be a terrible driver. Right?

Still, she has to admit: skating fits her better. It is faster, cheaper, cleaner. More importantly, it makes her feel ready. Because really, what is she going to do if she doesn't have a car, take a random bus and just hope it follows the path the superhero takes? Chase Spider-Woman on foot through the city? 

Zoey may have decent stamina, sure, but she’s still human. There’s no way she can outrun someone who swings effortlessly from rooftop to rooftop like Seoul is her playground. At least with a board beneath her feet, she can pretend that has a chance of keeping up.

And after all these years living in Seoul — and these last few months chasing a single woman through it — the Korean American girl considers herself a certified expert in downhill survival. The city is a maze of slopes and inclines, a topographical challenge she hadn’t anticipated when she first arrived. Of course, Burbank had hills. She remembers the ones near the Verdugo Mountains, the occasional steep street that made her cautious on her board. But Seoul? Seoul is relentless. It’s a city built on layers, stacked and slanted, where even the sidewalks feel like they’re testing your balance.

Skating here had been a disaster at first. She’d taken more spills than she could count; scraped knees, bruised elbows, twisted ankles. Mira already had countless heart attacks every time Zoey limped through the door, bleeding or limping or both. But over time, she adapted. Her body learned the rhythm of the city’s terrain, the way the pavement curved and dipped. Now, she can glide down the steepest alleyways without flinching.

Not that she expects she’d ever be ready for the possibility of Spider-Woman suddenly dropping out of the sky right in front of her while she was flying downhill. That would leave Zoey with the kind of impossible choice no skater — or sane person — would want to make: protect her body, or risk snapping every bone in it just to capture the perfect shot of the woman who haunted her every waking thought… and she knows herself well enough to know what she would choose. 

Today, though, the route is merciful. She weaves through the city on her board, sticking to sidewalks and bike lanes where she can, watching for traffic when she’s forced onto the road. The place she’s heading isn’t particularly dangerous, not in terms of skating, anyway. And she’s not bragging, but after weeks of obsession, of basically chasing shadows, Zoey knows exactly where to go.

The tallest building in the city center. 

Okay, maybe not the tallest, but it’s the tallest one Zoey can reach without committing more than a few crimes. Trespassing, maybe. Nothing she hasn’t done before. The 63 Building, also known as KLI 63, stands just far enough from Seoul’s true center to feel detached, but close enough to still catch the pulse of everything that a true center has like crime, chaos, and the remnants of whatever darkness used to haunt the city. The demons that once roamed freely seem to avoid the area now, as if they understand: this is Spider Woman territory. Her hunting ground. The police still patrol, of course, but Zoey doesn’t care about them. They’re background noise.

She’s here for the woman who moves like smoke. The one who never stays long enough to explain herself. The one who, for reasons Zoey still can’t name, feels like someone she just can’t ignore.

Therefore, she walks into the building with that same cynical smile she wears every day, just enough to pass the front desk without questions. She doesn’t make eye contact with the guards. Doesn’t slow down. Just blends into the flow of office workers and tourists, slipping past the reception like a shadow with a name badge no one bothers to check.

She heads toward the elevators like she belongs there, and maybe she really does, given how many times she’s already done this. Of course, the main elevator doesn’t go all the way up. Not to the roof, but Zoey knows the layout by now. She slips into a maintenance corridor, finds the locked access door, and picks it open with quiet efficiency. No alarms. No hesitation.

The stairwell is narrow and industrial, lined with rust-stained pipes and the hum of old machinery. She climbs quickly, boots echoing against metal, until she reaches the final hatch. It opens with a groan, and the rooftop greets her with the wind. 

She doesn’t go near the edge, she doesn't trust herself that much. Instead, she leans into the shadowed corner, crouched low, steady. The city sprawls beneath her and she pulls out her camera, adjusts the zoom, and scans the skyline. Searching. Always searching.

However, after more than thirty minutes of watching the city from her perch, with her eyes darting across streets, alleys, and rooftops for even the faintest flicker of movement, Zoey has to admit defeat. No sign of the telltale arc of a web. No shadow cutting across the skyline. No Spider-Woman.

So, naturally, she goes after her intel, which means reaching for her phone. Twitter. 

Okay, she knows the app isn’t called that anymore, it’s X now, but seriously? What a bland name, and considering she never met a single person who actually calls it X… Yeah, thanks but no thanks. She’s gonna keep calling it Twitter.

Ahem, coming back to what matters… Twitter has always been her platform of choice, the place where she could lurk, scroll endlessly, and stumble across information faster than any news outlet could hope to provide. Yet recently, TikTok had been vying for her attention, almost threatening to overthrow the crown. At first, she’d been drawn to it for harmless reasons, like short clips of animals doing ridiculous things, cats pawing at shadows, dogs tripping over their own legs, turtles being turtles. But then, somewhere along the way, Zoey had stumbled into a far more dangerous rabbit hole: Spider Woman edits.

And Gosh, they are intoxicating.

She doesn’t know how these anonymous strangers manage to do it; how they could take a two-second clip of the heroine flipping across a rooftop, or landing with predatory grace in the middle of a fight, and transform it into something so devastatingly sensual. 

Maybe it is the way they slow down her movements until every flick of her wrist and shift of her hips feels deliberate, charged with meaning. Maybe it is the music; pulsing, dirty beats layered with lyrics that left little to the imagination, or worse, tracks that slips in breathy moans and half-hidden gasps, making Zoey’s stomach tighten with heat.

Whatever the trick is, the result is always the same: these edits make Spider Woman seem more alluring, more magnetic, than Zoey can ever have imagine on her own. The mask, the mystery, the way her body moves like liquid steel… it is enough to make Zoey’s thoughts spiral into places they probably shouldn’t.

And yet, she didn’t fight it. If anything, she welcomed it, because with every new video, with every rewatch that left her chewing on her lip and clenching her thighs, the conviction only grew stronger inside her: Spider Woman isn’t just beautiful, she isn’t just untouchable: she is the hottest woman alive!

…And Zoey just prays Mira isn’t secretly telepathic, like Anya Forger or something — Like, both of them have pink hair, so who knows? Ok, it's not the exact color, but… Whatever, you got it. Because if Mira ever caught wind of the thoughts Zoey has, especially the ones that came uninvited, especially the ones that involve Spider-Woman’s hips and the way her suit clung to her like a second skin… she’d be so, so screwed.

Mira can be jealous in ways that genuinely scares her. Not possessive, exactly. Just… intense, frightening even, the kind that snapped out of her in quick, cutting tones that left Zoey feeling both guilty and, frustratingly, a little thrilled.

Though… hadn’t they once had a conversation about making their relationship open? Zoey frowns, trying to remember.

It is fuzzy, like a half-remembered dream, details slipping through her fingers no matter how tightly she tries to grip them. Normally, couples only talk about this sort of thing when there is already someone else tugging at one of their hearts, right? Some other crush or desire that makes the boundaries feel suffocating, but… who had it been for? Who had she or Mira been thinking about?

She can’t remember. Like, at all.

Which is strange, totally. Because Zoey remembers most of her arguments with Mira in sharp, painful clarity. But this? This supposed conversation? It is like smoke, there one second, gone the next.

Maybe it had never happened. Maybe it had been one of those bizarre dream-thoughts. 

She remembered Mira once explaining something about the unconscious mind, how it’s basically a chaotic pit of desires and symbols, but with its own twisted logic. Especially in dreams.

And if that is the case, if that “conversation” was just a dream, then what does it mean that Zoey keeps circling back to it? That she is slotting Spider-Woman into this hazy, third-person role in her mind, like she is the unnamed “someone else” her brain had conjured? Well, as crazy it might sound, it feels like that. 

Damn.

Her obsession is definitely getting worse.

Details aside, Zoey eventually finds herself diving into Twitter, scrolling with restless fingers in search of any scrap of useful information about Spider Woman’s current whereabouts. Unsurprisingly, there is nothing concrete, only the usual stream of outlandish theories, wild conjectures spun by strangers across the globe. Still, some of them made just enough sense to unsettle her, to make her wonder if she was being more easily manipulated by the chaos of the internet than she cared to admit.

Either way, it doesn’t take long for her to get distracted. Not that it’s surprising. She doesn’t even mind anymore. There is something oddly comforting in watching the flood of photos, shaky videos, and over-edited clips fans manage to capture. She loves reading the commentary, the endless speculation, the breathless admiration. But most of all, she loves chiming in. She loves adding her own voice to the noise.

Yes, Zoey has a thread. A massive one. Titled: “Posting every day until I get a decent photo of Spider-Woman or come face-to-face with her: The Infinite Thread?”

It’s part diary, part obsession log. She updates it religiously, summarizing her daily misadventures, uploading whatever half-decent shots she manage to take, and replying to her followers with chaotic enthusiasm. She likes talking to them. It makes her feel less alone in her madness. Less like the only person in Seoul who’s completely fixated on a woman in a mask. 

And yet, deep down, Zoey fears that maybe she is the only one who feels this gnawing ache for Spider Woman. This hollow pull in her chest. This mix of longing and something darker. Something messier.

Even so, of course, sometimes this ache blurs into something else entirely. Desire. Want. Hunger. Especially when she stumbles across those bold, reckless edits people make, where Spider Woman’s body is framed in ways no heroic montage has any business highlighting.

Okay, fine. Maybe Zoey is just horny. That is a problem she can deal with Mira later.

Anyway, she barely has time to finish typing her latest update on Twitter; another note to her followers about how she is already stationed at her usual spot, biding her time, when the corner of her eye catches a movement so unmistakable it sends a jolt down her spine. A swift, pendulum-like arc, slicing through the skyline. The rhythm is one she can recognize anywhere: someone swinging from webs.

The girl’s phone slips from her fingers, forgotten. Her hand flies to the camera slung around her neck, fingers fumbling with the lens cap — Mira would be so proud now —, already lifting it toward the skyline. She doesn’t think; she just shoots, her finger pressing the shutter with a desperation that borders on ridiculous. Her heart is pounding. Her breath is shallow. Her grip is shaky.

It’s always like this.

She spends the entire walk to her lookout spot telling herself she’ll be calm this time. Focused. She’ll wait patiently, adjust the settings, frame the shot, capture something worthy, but Spider-Woman never plays by the rules. She appears like a glitch in reality: sudden, fast, and always when Zoey’s guard is down. Usually when she’s scrolling through social media, convincing herself that the hero will delay to show up.

And then it’s chaos. This chaos.

No time to think. No time to breathe. Just the blur of motion and the ache of missed opportunity.

But that’s why she keeps coming back, isn’t it? To practice, to sharpen, to chase perfection. One day she would be ready. One day she’d capture Spider Woman clearly, vividly and undeniably.

So Zoey does her best: half-panicked, half-determined to track the web-slinger’s movements through her camera lens, snapping furiously while trying not to lose sight of her or repeat that thing where she runs too close to the edge and nearly dies. Again. Because apparently she never learns. 

In the middle of her frantic attempt, though, she manages to catch a detail. Spider Woman had showed up around a corner that Zoey knows very well. The local police station.

Wow, that is bold.

Not just bold, but totally reckless. The kind of move that says I dare you without needing words. Who swings past a precinct like it’s just another alleyway? Who glides over surveillance cameras and badge-heavy sidewalks like she’s untouchable?

Spider-Woman, apparently.

And Zoey’s brain, already short-circuiting from adrenaline and caffeine and the sheer velocity of her… Well, being her, supplies the only word that feels appropriate.

Hottie.

Everyone knows the police are after Spider Woman. The whole city buzzes with it, news headlines running like clockwork about sightings, near-captures, or wild speculations about what crime she’d supposedly committed this time besides being a vigilante. And to Zoey, it is unfair.

Because isn’t this the same woman who had defeated Gwi-ma? Who had made the Hommon gold? Who had stood on the frontlines when Seoul was on the brink of becoming a demon’s feast, fighting when the police were utterly useless against the invasion?

Zoey remembers those photos, ones that still resurfaces online no matter how much time passes: Spider Woman bruised, bloodied, her skin shredded by bite marks, her mask stained red. Images that looked more like tragedy than victory. And every time, Zoey’s chest aches at the thought of how close she must have come to dying, but she hadn’t. Somehow, she had endured.

This survival, this relentless strength, and for reasons she can’t explain, this fact fills Zoey with something dangerously close to pride. Pride that this stranger survived. That she fought the Gwi-ma and lived. That she’s still here, still swinging, still refusing to disappear.

It’s irrational. Zoey knows that. She doesn’t know the woman behind the mask. Doesn’t know her name, her voice, her story. But sometimes… she strangely feels like she does. Like she’s allowed to feel this way. Like she’s earned it.

Yeah. She’s definitely going mad.

Zoey let out a low curse under her breath, frustration bubbling as another opportunity for the perfect shot slipped right through her fingers. She has been so close. The angle has been good, the light decent, the timing nearly divine, but the fucking Spider-Woman has already vanished between buildings, her silhouette swallowed by the skyline.

Zoey lowers the camera, exasperated, and tries something ridiculous. She calls out, half-joking, half-serious: 

“I brought food!”

No response. Obviously.

Her shoulders slump in defeat.

Not that she thinks Spider-Woman is some kind of stray animal you can lure with snacks. It’s just… Well, the internet is a dangerous place for someone like Zoey. She’d seen the clips, the viral little stunts where strangers offer food after being saved, or even people who hadn’t been in danger at all, shamelessly staging encounters just to see if the masked heroine would take the bait. And more often than not, Spider Woman does it. She often accepts the food so quickly it almost seems urgent, then vanishes to some rooftop to devour it in private, as though she needs to put as much distance as possible between herself and the city before eating.

It was enough to plant a seed in Zoey’s mind, a half-formed strategy: always pack something to eat whenever she left for her “photography lessons.” Who knows? Maybe one day the promise of a snack would buy her a few seconds face-to-face with Seoul’s most elusive woman.

Though, if she is honest with herself, she doubts it can work. There is something in the way Spider Woman snatches food, something raw and unsettling. Zoey remembers the rare videos that people somehow managed to catch from odd rooftop angles; grainy, shaky footage that shows the heroine crouched and scarfing down her meal like someone who is starving, eating so fast it looks painful. The memory of it lingers, worrying in a way Zoey tries not to dwell on.

Because Spider Woman has to burn through calories like wildfire, right? 

The Korean American girl can’t blame her. If she spent her days swinging across Seoul, dodging cops and demons, villains, criminals,  and god knows what else, she’d probably eat like a starving animal too.

Hell, Zoey is hungry most of the time and she barely moves. Yet, she thinks about food all the time. So, if Spider-Woman eats like her — or worse — it makes sense. It is understandable. Justified. Unlike Zoey, who is practically a sedentary in comparison. A girl with a camera and a crush, chasing shadows and using her ADHD as an excuse.

Which means, no, it isn’t alarming. It is normal. Understandable. Maybe even reassuring, in a strange way. Still, the thought that Spider Woman might be quietly starving herself somewhere in the city tugs at something in Zoey’s chest, something she doesn't know and is definitely not ready to name.

Zoey forces herself to breathe. Deeply. Slowly. The kind of breath that’s supposed to reset your nervous system or whatever Mira’s tells from her psychology textbooks. She closes her eyes for a moment, trying to center herself, trying not to scream at the sky like a feral rooftop gremlin.

Maybe the solution is simpler than she’s been making it. Maybe she should just start bringing the food in her hands instead of wasting precious seconds digging through her backpack like a panicked raccoon. Honestly, why does she even bother with the backpack anymore? Her camera hung permanently at her neck like some oversized pendant, and now it seems her snacks might have to follow the same fate: like a necklace, but make it granola bars. Very practical. Very stylish.

The vision of it in her head makes her laugh under her breath, and with this tiny break in her mood, she finally dares to scroll through the shots she just took. Maybe by some miracle she managed to capture something usable.

Nope.

Not a single one.

She has to physically restrain herself from hurling the camera off the edge of the building. Every shot is the same as before: Spider-Woman looks like a streak of motion, too fast, too busy, too far removed from the rooftop girl with a camera, wasting memory space on failure after failure.

And the worst part? Zoey has already lost sight of her. The masked figure is gone, swallowed up by the sprawl of the city, leaving not even a hint of which direction she’d gone, which means she doesn’t even have the option of chasing after her like she had on more reckless days.

Fuck.

It is, quite plainly, a complete disaster. A familiar one, of course, but still a disaster.

To vent her frustration before it bubbles over and explodes on the walk back to the apartment — where Mira will inevitably get the full rant anyway — Zoey does what she always does: she reopens Twitter. 

Time to update the thread. Her thread. The chronicle of her entire spiral.

But first things first. She taps her phone, flicks on Bluetooth, and syncs it with her camera. Might as well transfer the latest batch of failures before drafting the post. A ritual at this point.

She knows that most of her followers had probably grown numb to these updates by now. Sixty-four days straight is a lot to ask of anyone’s attention span, but there are still the loyal ones, the diehards who like, comment, encourage her, or at the very least laugh with her at the absurdity of it all. 

Zoey clings to this thought as she opens the text box and began typing:

@turtles4everrr:
Day 64 – 

Hey folks!!!! 

Yeah… didn’t get the shot today either 😭 But I did get more photos! They’re down below. Theyre not amazing, but maybe someday I’ll get there, right?

Nevermind, Spider-Woman seemed in a hurry today, but then again, when isn’t she? Aparently she passed right in front of the police station, which probably explains the speed. Maybe she was trying not to get spotted?

But then again… that doesn’t totally make sense, does it? She probably knows this city better than anyone. So maybe it was on purpose???????

Anyway, she was definitely too busy to notice me yelling that I had food 😩 

I didn’t film it, but I swear I shouted it! Like, full volume: “I HAVE FOOD!” And I honestly don’t know if she heard me and ignored me or just didn’t hear me at all :(

This sucks! I just want one good photo. ONE! Is that too much to ask???

Zoey hit “post” with a dramatic sigh, watching the spinning circle confirm her words and her humiliation had been launched into the internet.

After posting, she gathers her things, slips back through the hatch, and heads down the same stairwell, the same silence. She blends into the crowd near the observatory, and catches the elevator to the ground floor. Before stepping outside, she checks her phone. Just in case. Because yes, Zoey has issues. Leave her alone.

And sure enough, someone’s already replied, but not just anyone. Mira.

@n4palm_era:
Oh, beautiful love, gracing us with your presence today? You left without eating AGAIN.

Zoey can’t help but smile, rolling her eyes with affection. Mira is almost always the first to respond to her thread updates, and Zoey secretly loves how she manages to say the same thing in a slightly different way every single day. 

Zoey types back, fingers flying:

@turtles4everrr:
You just miss me and don’t know how to say it✨✨✨

The reply comes back almost instantly. 

@n4palm_era:
🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕

Zoey laughs genuinely. 

@turtles4everrr:
Ow, love you too!!!! I’m on my way ;)

No further response. Just a like on her last comment, and that’s enough. That’s Mira’s version of a kiss on the forehead or a slap on her arm.

Sliding the phone back into her bag, she pushes through the glass doors of the building and steps into the Seoul evening. She kicks her board down onto the pavement, hop on, and let the wheels carry her back toward the apartment.

( . . . )

By the time Zoey reaches her home, the sky has deepened into a velvet blue, and the city hums beneath her wheels. She kicks up her board at the entrance, slings it under one arm, and climbs the stairs two at a time, heart still buzzing from the rooftop adrenaline and the lingering ache of disappointment.

She unlocks the door quietly, slipping inside like a ninja cat. 

Mira’s voice floats from the kitchen:

“You didn’t eat.”

Zoey smirks a little, already bracing for it. She’d expected this line. Mira is nothing if not consistent. And tonight, Zoey feels just reckless enough to tease.

“Oh wow, is that how you greet someone who just got home?” she calls out, toeing off her shoes.

“You didn’t seem to care about greetings when you came back from class and went straight after Spider-Woman,” Mira replies, voice cool but not cold.

The youngest winces, stepping into the kitchen. 

“Not fair. I gave you a kiss before I left, ok?”

“So what? You didn’t eat,” Mira repeats, firmer this time.

“Technically, I brought food–”

“And did you eat it, by any chance?”

Zoey hesitates a bit, afraid of what her response might do to her partner.

‘’...No.’’

‘’Figures.’’

Zoey rounds the corner and finds Mira barefoot in front of the stove. There’s rice steaming in the pot and something sizzling in the pan that smells like comfort and home.

The shortest drops her backpack with a thud and leans against the counter, arms crossed, saying:

“Well, in my defense, I was too busy chasing a woman who swings between buildings. You know. Priorities.”

Mira turns and gives her typical serious and steady look, the kind that makes Zoey’s body short-circuit between attraction and fear, retorting:

“You’re going to pass out one day and I don't know if I would like to drag your damn unconscious body off a rooftop.”

“Hey, don’t say it like you’d just leave me passed out like a sack of potatoes on some sad rooftop. I know you’d scoop me up in bridal style immediately’’

“Oh, shut up’’ Mira murmurs, starting by placing her girlfriend's food on the plate before putting it on the table for her. “Now sit.”

Zoey slides into the chair without complaints, watching her. Then, talking with her tone already more excited:

 “Are you going to let me tell you all about my adventure today?”

Mira just start putting the food on her own plate, responding:

“I don't think It’s like I have a choice.”

She never sounds particularly thrilled when the topic is Spider-Woman. And Zoey doesn’t quite understand why. Is Mira just tired of hearing about her every day? Or is it something else?

“Eat first,” The tallest woman finishes her sentence, sitting across from the other woman with her own plate.

Zoey finds her reaction a little confusing, but in the end she bumps her shoulder playfully, a soft smile tugging at her lips. Just being able to talk to Mira — even if it’s not right now, even if it’s not about Spider-Woman — is enough.

“Only because you asked nicely,” she says it sheepishly, already digging into the food. “And because I’m actually starving. I could’ve stopped to eat the snacks I brought, but I kind of… forgot.” 

Mira doesn’t bother to respond, just focuses on her food. She knows herself well enough to know that if she opens her mouth, she’ll spend more energy than she has trying to reason with her partner.

At any rate, Zoey stays quiet for the first few bites, which — given her speed — isn’t saying much. She usually eats fast, her fork moves with the same urgency as her thoughts, which are currently spiraling in a dozen directions.

Can she talk now?

Mira hadn’t forbidden it. She’d just said, “Eat first.” But what does that mean, exactly? Eat a few bites? Eat the whole plate? Eat before talking about Spider-Woman specifically, or eat before talking at all?

Because if it’s just the Spider-Woman part, then technically Zoey could talk about anything else. Right?

Or maybe not.

She’s halfway through constructing a mental loophole when…

“Zo.”

The single syllable cuts through her frantic thoughts. Zoey’s head snaps up, her wide eyes meet Mira’s calm, steady gaze. She braces for a reprimand, already imagining Mira’s sigh, the sharp line of disappointment etched across her face.

Instead, Mira smiles.

It isn’t a mocking smile, not one of these sarcastic smirks Zoey sometimes gets from strangers when she talks too much. It is a soft, patient, warm enough to make Zoey blink in confusion. She hasn’t expected kindness. 

Mira tilts her head, still watching her, asking:

“How was college today?”

Oh. Conversation. Mira actually wants to talk.

Relief flutters through Zoey’s chest, loosening her shoulders. She takes three more rapid bites, chewing and swallowing so quickly it is almost comical, before answering:

“Pretty normal… Well, normal for someone studying marine biology. We had this whole lecture on migratory patterns and how certain species navigate complex environments using instinct and environmental cues. Which I think is really cool even if the professor talks like he’s narrating a sleep podcast.” She pauses, eyes flicking upward like she’s chasing a thought across the ceiling. “And it got me thinking… Spider Woman kind of does the same thing, right? Like, she moves through the city with this insane spatial awareness, adapting to obstacles, reacting to stimuli. She’s basically a top-tier urban predator. If she were aquatic, she’d be a manta ray. Or maybe a barracuda. Sleek, fast, terrifyingly efficient.”

Mira closes her eyes for a brief second, pinching the bridge of her nose as though she could physically press down her irritation before it spills over. She shouldn’t be surprised. She really shouldn’t. Zoey has this supernatural ability to twist any conversation until it lands squarely in the orbit of her countless hyperfocus. Classes, dinner, television, politics, even grocery shopping. Everything eventually circles back to one of them. And lately, that means the masked heroine.

And then, obviously, because this is the millionth time her girlfriend does that, Mira’s patience frays around the edges. 

“Zoey…” she says slowly, drawing out the name like a warning.

“What?” The youngest asks, genuinely confused. “I’m applying concepts. That’s academic engagement.”

“Zoey.” This time Mira’s tone is sharper, though her expression stays calm.

The Korean American girl slumps back in her chair, fork clattering against the plate.

“Okay, okay. Fine. I’ll drop it… For now.”

“For now?” Mira arches a brow, unimpressed.

Zoey grins, shrugging and then answering:

“I mean, come on, you know it’s going to come up again eventually. Don’t look at me like that: it’s not my fault she’s basically everywhere. She’s like… like gravity! You can’t escape her.”

Mira sighs, shaking her head, though her lips twitch as if she is fighting a smile. She wants to stay annoyed, but there is something disarming about the way Zoey speaks, so earnest in her obsession that it almost sounds like devotion.

“Just eat your dinner,” the pink-haired one murmurs at last, returning her attention to her own plate.

The shortest let a faint smile creep across her lips as she bent back over her plate, deciding it is safer to focus on the food than risk poking at Mira’s temper… if that is even what this is.

The thing is, Zoey can’t quite tell. Mira doesn’t exactly look angry, but there is a tension here, a subtle shift that doesn't fit the easy rhythm they usually have. Normally, Mira handles Zoey’s obsessions with practiced patience, even amusement, or even making questions. She had listened through endless tangents about turtles, sharks, the time Zoey got lost in a three-week rabbit hole about deep-sea vents. Mira had survived it all with eye-rolls and soft smiles, never seeming too bothered.

So why does it feel different now? Why does Spider-Woman seem to press a button that the others don’t?

It isn’t like this is the first time Zoey has derailed a conversation with one of her interests. She’d done it a thousand times before and Mira had endured all of it with quiet grace. So… Why does Zoey feel like she is crossing a line she can’t see?

Oh,shit. 

What if Mira really can read minds and just found out how insanely hot Zoey thinks Spider-Woman is? Holy hell—

The girl with freckles stabs at the rice on her plate, frustration knotting with curiosity. Is it boredom? Annoyance? Or something else she can’t name? Whatever it is, she hates the way it makes her second-guess herself, and feel like a burden to the other woman. She knows she’s too much for everyone, and even though she’s too much, she’s still not enough. She never was, and she’s trying to accept the truth that she never will be.

To avoid her growing despair becoming even worse, Zoey forces herself to clear her throat, the sound rough in her chest as she swallows the last of her food a little too quickly. Her fork scrapes against the plate, buying her a few seconds while she tries to assemble anything that wouldn’t get her kicked out into the cold night. She is already half-convinced that Mira secretly hates her now, that any second she’d be kicked out onto the curb with nothing but her skateboard and her camera. 

As a result of all this mess, in the spirit of damage control, she forces her lips into something that resembles a casual grin and steers the conversation toward safer waters. Safer, at least, if she can manage not to say the S-word:

“So… uh… how were your classes today? Did you finally figure out why people are insane? Or are they still torturing you with that old guy’s theories?”

The corner of Mira’s mouth twitches, and then a laugh escapes her before she can stop it. The sound lands like a lifeline, loosening the knot in Zoey’s chest in an instant. 

Okay. Crisis averted. Apparently, she still has a home to come back to, and a Mira to hold, to tease, to kiss later if the mood was right.

The tallest one shooks her head, her lips curving into that small, knowing smile Zoey loves.

 “I’ve already told you, people being insane is… multifactorial. There isn’t one neat little reason that explains it all.”

The youngest leans forward across the table, chin resting in her hand, eyes sparkling as if her lover had just opened the door to a mystery novel. 

“Multifactorial,” she echoes dramatically, as though savoring the word. “You say that like it’s some kind of spell. Like, bam, multifactorial, and poof! People are officially crazy.”

Mira rolls her eyes, though she can’t hide the little smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, replying:

“That’s not how science works.”

“Oh, no. That’s exactly how science works!,” Zoey counters quickly. “Fancy words, dead serious face, everyone nods like they get it. I could be a real scientist too if I wanted to, you know? Just give me a lab coat and a clipboard and I’d be unstoppable.”

“Unstoppable at what?” The oldest says, a sly smile tugging at one corner of her mouth as she sips slowly from her glass she brought earlier. “You can’t even do math properly.”

Zoey lets it out a scandalized gasp, one hand pressing to her chest, retorting:

“Excuse me?! What does that even have to do with—”

“Everything,” Mira interrupts, amusement plain in her voice. “I mean, the very least for a scientist is knowing your fundamentals. Math is fundamentals.”

Zoey’s cheeks flushes as she tries to scramble for a defense. Her words tumbled out too fast.

“I protest! I can totally manage! I’m not that bad. You’re just, what’s the word… defaming me! Yeah, that's it!”

“Hm.” Mira’s single sound is indulgent, then her mischievous smile widens. “Okay. What’s 6 times 7?”

Zoey blinks, disbelieving. 

“What?” Her brain, suddenly cottony, blanks in a way that makes her want to sink into the table. “You’re asking me now? Really?”

The pink-haired girl repeats it, slow and patient as if explaining a concept to a distracted child: 

“Six times seven.”

“Uh…” the fan of turtles stammers, the room narrowing to the two of them and this fucking math problem. “I…”

“Zoey.” Mira can’t hold back a laugh this time; it bubbles out, soft and warm and entirely merciless. 

The shortest face heats a degree hotter.

“That’s not fair! You asked me the one thing I don’t remember!” She protests.

“All right, smarty pants.” Mira’s tone turns conspiratorial. “How about eight times six?”

“Ugh—” Zoey’s eyes roll toward the ceiling. “You’re just picking numbers with six in them!”

Mira blows air through her nose, amused. 

“So what? Is this your best excuse you can give me?”

“Hey! It’s not an excuse, I just… Urgh! Numbers with six are cursed in my head!” She snaps, which only makes her girlfriend laugh louder.

When the psychologist student manages to control her breath, she continues:

“Fine. Four times nine.’’

Zoey hesitates. 

“…Forty-nine?”

Mira burst out laughing. Again. 

“Oh, my god, no! Where did you even get that?”

“Well, four and nine… forty-nine. It makes sense, okay?! Math is the one making things complicated!”

“That’s not how any of this works!”

“Well, maybe it should be! Why don’t you ask me something easier? Like two times one?”

“I’m pretty sure you’d say twenty-one.”

Zoey looks genuinely offended, her eyebrows shooting up as if Mira had just insulted her entire bloodline. Her mouth opens, then closes, then opens again; like she’s trying to decide whether to argue or stage a walkout.

And, eventually, after long seconds like this, she manages to reply:

“What kind of psychologist are you, humiliating me like this? No, no. Actually, how did we even get here? I was just trying to show interest in your day, and this is how you repay me? Emotional violence?”

“Just because I study psychology doesn’t mean I’m obligated to coddle you,” Mira says, arching an eyebrow. “That’s not even what psychology is for. I was addressing your denial about not being ‘that bad’ at math.”

“Oh, you little…’’ she has to sigh to control herself. ‘’You’re my girlfriend! You’re supposed to coddle me!”

“Nah,” Mira replies not bothered at all, flashing a wicked grin and winking to the other. “Not in the mood.”

The youngest stares at her, torn between indignation and attraction. She settled on attraction.

“My therapist is going to hear about you,” she mutters.

Mira blinks, caught off guard. 

“Wait, are you actually going to therapy? Since when?”

Zoey scoffs, dramatic as ever. 

“Since never. It’s just a threat I made up two seconds ago and I’m going to keep it in my back pocket for the day you finally break me with all this emotional abuse.’’

Mira rolls her eyes, but the soft smile on her lips don’t waver.

“Right. Emotional abuse. I’m clearly the villain here.”

Zoey just looks at her as if saying without words ‘’yes, you are’’.

‘’Anyway,” The oldest continues, shifting gears as she notices how her partner seems a little too inclined to keep discussing just how villainous she might be, “to answer your very polite question about my classes… I didn’t have ‘old guys and their outdated theories’ today. Just neuroscience.”

Zoey tiltes her head, eyes narrowing with curiosity, she doesn't seem to realize that the change of subject was intentional. Good.

 “Oh, that’s the brain class, right? Brains and nerves and all the little wires that make people tick?”

Mira let out a quiet laugh at the comparison. 

“Something like that.”

“That sounds cool,” The girl with freckles says, already leaning forward with renewed energy. “Speaking of which, do you think Spider-Woman ever gets ticklish or uncomfortable from shooting webs out of her wrists? Like, does it itch? Or sting? Or maybe it’s like sneezing, but with silk?”

Mira doesn’t even get the chance to respond, because Zoey’s eyes lit up, her fork clattering against the empty plate as she pushes back from the table, saying:

“We’re done eating, which means I can finally tell you about my rooftop adventure today!”

And again, before Mira can at least think about protest, her girlfriend is already at her side, grabbing her by the arm with surprising strength. Mira barely has time to steady herself before she is being dragged toward the couch, Zoey’s phone clutched in her other hand like a sacred artifact.

“Come on, come on!” The shortest urges, practically bouncing. “You’re gonna love hearing this one!”

Yes, Zoey had held it in for as long as humanly possible, but now she is far too absorbed in her own obsession to worry if it might make Mira throw her out onto the street or not, since somewhere beneath her typical fears and paranoia, she trusts Mira, and since she hasn’t voiced a single protest, not even a halfhearted quip, Zoey take this as permission to unravel.

The only response Mira gives is a long, quiet sigh, the kind that slips past your lips like a release valve. The youngest doesn’t seem to notice. They are both curled on the couch now, knees brushing, and Zoey is already bend over her phone, thumbing furiously through her gallery. She mutters to herself about angles and lighting, about almost catching the perfect shot, and this gives the poor Mira a few precious seconds to brace herself mentally for the minimum of three hours of Zoey narrating and re-narrating every possible detail of the city’s masked heroine she knows will follow. 

And it doesn't take long. Within just a few seconds, Zoey is already filling the room with tangents and theories with her voice animated. 

The pink-haired one leans back into the cushions, chin propped on her hand, the posture of someone listening. And, no, she is not pretending, she is really paying attention.

After all, listening is a second nature for her now. Studying psychology has drilled it into her: be attentive, know when to interject, when silence is more valuable than speech. Also, years of living with Zoey has honed it further, basically trained her to ride the waves of her girlfriend’s passions, no matter how intense.

And yet… this is different.

Marine biology? Fine. Mira doesn't really understand the deep love Zoey carries for turtles and sharks and strange bioluminescent creatures, but she has accepted it. People has different tastes; they find beauty in different corners of the world. This is easy enough to respect.

But Spider Woman? Really?  

The oldest can’t make peace with this one, and she’s not thrilled about the idea of someday having to admit out loud that this name itself leaves something sharp in her chest whenever Zoey says it.

It isn’t only Zoey’s fixation — though this part alone is alarming — it is the woman herself. And even despite the fact that almost everyone loves her…  Mira can’t help but bristle at it.

It wasn’t that she denies the heroine’s skill. On the contrary: watching her fight, move through the air with impossible grace, is objectively impressive. She is powerful. Untouchable. Beautiful and awe-inspiring, even. Mira can see why people idolize her.

But still, something about her scrapes the wrong way.

While Zoey’s fascination blooms like wildfire, Mira’s feelings tighten like a knot. The more her girlfriend gushes, the more Mira wonders if she is the only one unwilling to be enchanted. If maybe, underneath her training and patience, she simply… doesn’t like that woman at all.

Maybe it’s time to talk about it. 

Mira watches Zoey from the corner of her eye, her girlfriend curled up on the couch, phone in hand, eyes glowing with this familiar, obsessive light. She’s talking fast, flipping through photos, recounting every rooftop detail like it’s her sacred scripture… And Mira continues listening, because the truth is: they feel very differently about one fucking woman. About one masked stranger who’s somehow become the gravitational center of Zoey’s world, and Mira doesn’t need a psychology degree — she’s still on her way to one, but you get the idea —  to know that when two people orbit opposite suns, eventually something breaks.

And maybe it’s already breaking.

Yeah, she tries to be patient. Tries to be understanding, but it’s getting… harder. Every day, Zoey runs off chasing Spider-Woman. Every day, she forgets to eat, stays up too late, loses herself in theories and edits and shaky footage. And every day, Mira sits through the same breathless monologue, nodding, smiling, pretending it doesn’t wear her down.

If the Korean American girl were still obsessing over turtles, Mira could handle it. That was easier, even if she still had to remind Zoey to sleep, to hydrate, to take breaks from her research, but this? This feels heavier. This feels too much personal, and too much… confusing. Strange. 

And Mira is tired.

She’s tired of watching Zoey disappear into someone else’s story. Tired of feeling like she’s competing with a ghost in a mask. Tired of pretending it doesn’t bother her when it clearly does.

She knows enough to understand that you can’t fix anything if you never face it. So, maybe it’s time to face it.

The pink-haired girl keeps watching Zoey with quiet intensity, her fingers curled loosely around the edge of the couch cushion. She is mid-sentence, halfway through describing the angle Spider-Woman took. 

The tallest inhales slowly, then exhales through her nose. She waits for a pause that doesn’t come.

“Zo,” she says, gently.

Zoey glances up, still smiling, still caught in the momentum of her story. 

“Yeah?”

Mira hesitates. The words are there, pressing against the back of her throat, but they somehow feel dangerous.

“I’ve been thinking,” she starts, slow and careful, ''It’s just… Zoey, we need to talk.’’

This phrase is enough to make Zoey stiffen instantly, even her phone slips a little in her hand, thumb hovering over the screen as though she is frozen mid-motion. 

“Oh, Gosh,” she mutters. “That sounds terrifying. You’re not… You’re not breaking up with me or putting me to sleep on the streets, right…?”

Mira’s lips twitch, though it isn’t quite a smile. 

“No, I’m not breaking up with you. I am just… worried.”

Zoey blinks, trying to understand.

“Worried? About what?”

Mira hesitates again. She almost wants to retreat, to wave it off and tell Zoey not to mind her, that it is just stress from classes or any bullshit like that, but any of it would change anything. 

So, she keeps going:

“About this. About how much time you spend thinking and talking about her.”

It takes Zoey a second to catch up. Then she exhaled, realizing, and wanting to make sure:

“Spider Woman?”

Mira nods slowly.

“Yeah. That woman.”

Zoey set the phone down on her lap, a small but deliberate gesture. 

Fuck. 

Mira knows it all, Mira is Anya Forger, she knows that she finds Spider Woman damn attractive and her partner is definitely about to give her the kind of disappointed lecture that already makes Zoey want to melt into the floor.

“Okay… and what about her?” She asks, after mentally slapping her thoughts into something vaguely coherent. The defensive edge in her voice made Mira’s heart pinch, but she forced herself to keep going. 

“It’s not that I don’t get hyperfixations, I know you, Zoey, better than anyone. I’ve seen turtles, sharks, oceans, a dozen other things light up your brain like fireworks. And it’s always been… well, it’s you. I love this about you.” She swallows. “But this feels… different.’’

For the first time, Mira falters. Both of them seem equally horrified by the pause that follows. She doesn’t know how to develop her thoughts further, and doesn't know how to shape this strange feeling into words. This was never part of the script. Mira was supposed to be the one who understood herself, who could name her emotions, pick them apart, arrange them neatly, but now the words refuse to come. How is she supposed to explain this without making Zoey — or herself — spiral?

“Different how?” Zoey asks hesitantly, her voice small, as though she already dreads the answer. In her head, she is convinced that Mira is only drawing out the mystery because she doesn’t want to say the obvious: that she is growing to hate her, suffocated by all the endless Spider Woman talk. The thought lodges like a stone in her chest, heavy and cruel.

But the truth is quite the opposite.

“I… don’t know,” Mira confesses at last, and the admission left a bitter taste on her tongue.

Zoey’s brow furrows, her expression somewhere between disbelief and worry. 

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” she presses slowly, carefully, as if her partner had just said something completely uncharacteristic. And in a way, she had. Mira usually understands her feelings with surgical precision. For her to not know, it is unsettling. “Like… how is it different? I can’t be acting that different from how I always am with my other obsessions… right?” Her voice wavers toward the end, thinning with doubt, and the way her shoulders drew inward makes Mira’s chest ache with pity.

“You’re right,” the pink-haired one says gently. “In a lot of ways, you’re still the same, but with Spider-Woman… it’s more intense. And it’s not just that. It’s her. She gives me a… strange feeling, and ’m worried about you, Zo. You go out every day chasing her. You forget everything else, and I don’t think she’s trustworthy. I don't like her.”

Zoey blinks, stunned. Her expression shifts; hurt, confused, a little indignant. 

“You… you don’t like her?”

Mira nodded slowly, sensing how much her actions is going to weigh heavily on Zoey, but she can’t afford to soften the truth anymore. She has to be honest with her and, essentially, with herself.

“No. I don’t.”

A long silence settles between them. 

Zoey looks like she’s using every last neuron trying to find a good reason for this, until the moment she seems to come up empty. She closes her eyes, shakes her head, and asks, her voice urgent and broken, a mix of shock and betrayal: 

“But why? She’s Spider Woman! What’s not to like?” She rushes on, voice gaining a desperate edge. “What, are you siding with the cops now? The ones who want her in handcuffs just because she breaks a few laws? Sure, yeah, technically being a vigilante is illegal, but come on… she’s done way more good than harm! She’s saved people, Mira! She is trustworthy, I know it! I can feel it!”

“You only think she’s trustworthy because you’ve already decided in your head that she is,” The oldest counters, her voice firm but not cruel. “No one knows anything about her. That woman lives behind a fucking stupid mask, Zoey. In the videos you’ve shown me, she hides even to eat. For fuck’s sake, who does that? This says a lot about someone, you know? People who live like that are hiding for a reason, and I don’t think it’s safe to put that much faith in someone who’s built their entire existence on secrecy.”

Zoey doesn't answer right away, even though she wants to insist that Mira is wrong, that Spider-Woman must have her reasons, must have a story that justifies all the secrecy, the solitude, the rooftop meal, but the words snags in her throat. She can’t help but see the logic and sincerity buried in Mira’s tone… and Zoey hates fighting. 

Sure, sometimes they snap at each other, little arguments sparking up like static between them, but she always works hard to smooth things over. She hates conflict, hates being the reason someone sits her down with one look, and a angry or crushed tone. With Mira, with friends, with strangers… it doesn’t matter. She hates this feeling of letting someone’s expectations of her down. She’d rather shrink into silence than be the subject of quiet disappointment.

That's why she says what she says:

“I’m sorry,” Her voice is far softer than her usual quick, bright chatter. It carries a tremble, like it isn’t used to sounding so subdued. “I’ll… I’ll stop talking about Spider Woman. I won’t go chasing after her anymore…”

Mira closes her eyes for a moment, pressing her lips together. Damn it. This isn’t where she wanted this conversation to go at all. This wasn’t supposed to end with Zoey apologizing for being herself. 

She draws in a breath, recalibrating, then speaks gently:

“Zoey.”

The younger girl lifts her head, eyes wide and solemn, her expression so weighed down with sadness it makes Mira feel hurt for her. For a second, the tallest  has to fight the instinct to pull her into her arms, to make it all go away with touch alone. But no, she has to finish this.

“Listen,” She continues, steady but kind. “I’m not mad at you. I mean what I said before—I’m worried. That’s all. But me being worried doesn’t mean I want you to just stop doing what you love. I just need you to… balance things better. Take care of yourself. Be more careful.”

The Korean American girl’s lip quivers, whispering with her voice trembling on the edge of breaking:

 “But you said you don’t like her…”

The sound nearly undoes Mira. She knows how sensitive Zoey can be, how easily the girl’s heart bruises when it comes to people she cares about. Knowing it, however, doesn't mean she’d grown immune to it. It still cuts deep every time. Mira can already feel the sting of tears rising in Zoey’s eyes, and the realization presses down on her: if Zoey starts crying, if she cracks now, this conversation will never find its end. 

So, before she continues, the tallest shifts closer, her hand hesitating in the air before she finally lets her fingers brush against Zoey’s. It isn’t dramatic, not like all those K-dramas Zoey’s usually forces her to sit through. It's just a small, human gesture, grounding and tender. 

The girl with freckles lets her hand be taken, her thumb nervously rubbing against Mira’s knuckles, as if the texture of her skin could anchor her to something real in all this mess of feelings.

And that’s how Mira finds the nerve to keep talking:

“I don’t like her, because… Well, have you ever felt like you lost something important? I mean, really important?”

“What?” The shortest asks carefully, her brows knitting together.

The sudden shift in Zoey’s face could be almost comical if the moment weren’t so serious. Her expression melted from grief-stricken, on the edge of tears, to confused and startled. Under other circumstances, Mira could have laughed at how dramatic the transition was, but not now with all this tension thrumming in her chest.

“You know how lately… we just start crying for no reason?” Mira presses

“Uuuh… yeah…?” She tilts her head, already remembering. “Like that one time we just hugged and ended up crying for, like, forever?”

“That.”

“And that other time when you suddenly started crying while you were cooking? Or when I cried just because I walked into that empty room? Oh, and that time when we were watching Rapunzel, and literally at the beginning we—”

“Yes, Zoey, exactly that,” Mira interrupts, cutting her off with a faint, shaky laugh, knowing her girlfriend would ramble herself into a spiral if left unchecked.

The youngest laughs too, though hers came out awkward and tinged with embarrassment, saying: 

“Okay, okay. I get it.”

“But did you notice,” The psychology student goes on, her voice low, “that it only started happening after Gwi-ma was defeated?”

Zoey frozen. She opens her mouth, then closes it again, processing. 

“…Well, I hadn’t noticed until you said it now, but… yeah. That’s true.” Her frown deepens, remaining puzzled. “ I'm sorry, but is this your idea of clearing things up? Because I still don’t see how any of this explains why you don’t like Spider-Woman.’’

Mira swallows first, then squeezes Zoey’s hand as if to prepare her for the blow, explaining slowly:

“I think we lost something important that day. Something big. And… I think—” her throat works, her words trembling as though they might fall apart in the air. “Ok, you can call me crazy, but I think we had a polyamorous relationship with someone else, Zo.”

The Korean American girl’s eyes widen, not because of how truly insane the idea sounded rolling off Mira’s tongue, but because she's glad that isn’t the only one thinking it.

“Wait, wait, hold on.” Zoey leans forward, her voice a rush of disbelief and relief tangled together. “We had a poly relationship…? So you’re actually saying I’m not losing my mind when I remember us talking about opening our relationship?”

“Uh… no. You weren’t losing your mind,” Mira responds without really knowing how to feel about it. “I remember that conversation too.” 

Zoey’s whole face lights up in something like triumph. 

“Yay! I knew it!-- Oh, but…” Her excitement falters, replaced by a troubled frown. “I can’t remember who it was we were talking about.”

“…Neither can I,” Mira admits, her voice small. 

The admission hungs in the air like smoke, curling into the silence until it almost chokes them both.

“…Guess we’re both losing our minds, then,” Zoey mutters at last, breaking the stillness with a nervous laugh at her own words.

Mira lets out a breathy sound through her nose — half laugh, half sigh — somewhere between agreement and denial. 

“Maybe we are. But… Zo, doesn’t it feel strange? Like, vividly strange? As if we really had someone else with us? As if we shared something real, and it’s just been… I don't know, erased?”

The youngest hesitates, then nods slowly, her heart thumping unevenly.

 “It does. It feels too real to be just… imagination.”

Mira’s eyes darken as she gives voice to the thought that has been gnawing at her:

“And since it all started the day Gwi-ma was defeated… I can only reach one conclusion.” Her grip on Zoey’s hand tightens, her words dropping to a whisper. “Our lover was killed that day. Somehow, they vanished when Gwi-ma fell, and the only person who knows what really happened in that fight is Spider-Woman, which means…” Mira’s voice becomes angry with the weight of all of it, “…Spider-Woman and Gwi-ma killed the person we loved.”

Zoey’s breath practically stops, and she stares into Mira’s eyes. For a moment, neither speaks; two hearts straining under the weight of grief that has no name, no body, no proof. Just the unshakable, burning ache that they had lost someone, and this is totally stolen from their memory.

“…Hold on,” The shortest talks first, her brain still trying to catch up with it all, so her words comes out carefully,. “I think you’re jumping from one extreme to the other too fast. Like… I do understand this weird feeling that something is taken from us. I really do, and, okay, I may never stopped to think that maybe we actually had another lover, but…” she hesitates, her voice breaking between reason and unease, “Spider-Woman? Killing them? Mir, come on. The one thing she’s known for is saving people. Rescuing. Fighting criminals, demons, whatever shows up. That’s her.”

Mira’s eyes, however, doesn't waver. They gleam in the dim light, filled with a haunted certainty. She already had an idea that Zoey would react this way, and she is very confident in her own convictions to even have time to reconsider or hesitate in responding:

 “And who can prove that’s all she does?” 

The girl with freckles stiffens. Her hand, still trapped in her partner’s, twitches as though wanting to pull away, but she doesn't do that.

“Mir…” She starts, almost pleading.

“No,” The pink-haired girl interrupts, her grip tightening. “Think about it, Zo. How many times have we seen her disappear and heard rumors of her showing up somewhere no one expected? She’s  too powerful for anyone to keep track of, and every story we have of her is always… from someone else. From bystanders, from the news, from whoever decides to talk. Not from her. We don’t know her. We never have.”

The Korean American opens her mouth, then closes it again, frustration rippling across her features, retorting:

“Ok, I get it, but this doesn’t mean she killed someone. Doesn’t mean she killed… them.  Whoever they were.” The word them tastes strange on her tongue, like she is betraying someone she can’t even picture.

The tallest reacts with her voice becoming urgent, trembling not from only anger but from sheer grief: 

“Then tell me why it feels so real. Tell me why every time I cry without knowing the reason, I feel like I’m mourning someone. Tell me why your arms around me in those moments feel like we’re trying to hold onto a fucking ghost. Tell me, Zoey, why does it feel like my heart remembers someone my mind can’t?”

Zoey’s throat tightens, her eyes blurring with tears she still tries to hold back. 

“I don’t know, Mir…’’ She needs to swallow hard to be able to continue. ‘’I feel the same way, and I wish that I know all the answers, but… none of it means Spider-Woman killed them. She’s not a murderer.”

Mira lets out a laugh, and it comes sharp and bitter, though it broke halfway, betraying her fragility. 

“Oh, yeah? Not a murderer? Zo, she’s fought demons, monsters, criminals, villains… Things that bleed, things that die. She’s killed before, whether people want to admit it or not. Heroes always say they don’t, but how could she not? And if she can kill, then why not them?”

“Because she saves people!” Zoey practically shouts, louder than she meant to. Her voice cracks on the last word, and she clutches Mira’s hand tighter, almost desperately. She’s closer to tears than ever. “Because, whether you like it or not, she saved us, Mira. If she hadn’t managed to defeat Gwi-ma and turn the Honmoon golden, we could both be dead right now! She--” Her words break off, her chest heaving. 

Mira studies her in silence, the fire in her eyes dimming but not extinguished. She reaches out with her free hand, brushing her knuckles against Zoey’s damp cheek, some tears had fallen. Her touch is soft, grounding, just enough to stop Zoey from breaking more.

“I know. I know that, in a way, she saved us,” she whispers. “But sometimes the people who save us are also the ones who hurt us the most, maybe not on purpose, maybe not even by choice, but it doesn’t change the pain and the truth.”

The silence that follows is thick and trembling. The Korean American wants to argue, to deny it, to cling to the image of Spider-Woman as a flawless savior, but in her heart, in that quiet place where the grief lives, she can’t shake the possibility that Mira can be right.

“I…” Zoey’s voice broke before she steady it, her gaze falling to their joined hands. Her thumb rubbed against Mira’s skin, restless, as though the motion could ground her thoughts. “I still like her, Mira. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop feeling this way about her.”

“Zoey—” The tallest tone is half warning, half plea, but Zoey rushes forward, the words tumbling out as though they’d been caged inside her chest too long.

“You can tell me what you think, and I’ll listen, but what I think is that Spider-Woman… She really is what she shows. I don’t know how else to explain it, but in the same way you feel…” her throat tightens again, but she pushes through, “that she supposedly killed the person we lost, I feel just as strongly that she’s good. Truly good.”

Mira’s breath catches, and she looks at Zoey with something between exasperation and heartache. 

“Zo, that’s faith. That’s you believing without proof.”

The youngest jaw tightens, her shoulders stiffening as if bracing for impact. 

“Well, you’re believing without proof too,” she says, quieter but no less firm. “And I haven’t said anything until now.”

The pink-haired one scoffs, eyes rolling before she can stop herself.

“Oh, please. That’s different. People are more likely to be cruel than kind.”

Zoey recoils slightly, blinking like she’s been slapped. 

“Okay, wow. That’s a lot, even for you.” Her voice sharpens, brittle with disbelief. “Ever thought about quitting psych and actually dealing with your own shit?”

The oldest expression twists, fury and pain colliding in her chest, retorting:

“Oh, fuck off! I don’t want to hear that from you– and stop changing the subject!” Her voice cracks, but she doesn’t back down. “Whether I’m also believing with or without proof, you sound way more like a kid clinging to a bedtime story.”

Zoey doesn’t flinch this time. Her eyes shine, not just with tears, but with something deeper, something breaking. 

“You just don’t get it,” she whispers. “When I look at her… No. When I think about her, it’s like something in me refuses to doubt her. Like… if I stop believing in her, something inside me will… break even more.”

The oldest stares at her, and for once, words don’t come easily. She sees the trembling in Zoey’s shoulders, the way her eyes are with unshed tears, her whole being stretches between hope and despair… Maybe that is why she hesitates in what saying now. 

“Mir,” The shortest is the one who talks, the sound so fragile it almost didn’t reach. “When I picture Spider-Woman, I don’t see someone hiding lies or carrying secrets. I see someone fighting, every day, just to protect people who can’t protect themselves. She’s… she’s light, you know? And if I lose this belief, what do I have left? Just… grief. Just this hole I can’t fill.”

Mira closes her eyes, as though the words themselves were too heavy to bear. She wanted to shake Zoey, to tell her that light could be a trick, that goodness could be a mask, but when she opens her eyes again, all she sees is her girlfriend; young, vulnerable, desperate to hold onto something that can give her some sort of hope.

This is the reason her voice softens despite herself.

“Zo… you don’t have to give up what you feel. I’m not asking you to rip it out of your chest. I just…” She paused, swallowed hard, then pressed on. “I think i just need you to promise me you’ll be careful. Promise me you’ll remember that anyone knows that woman, and you can’t give your whole heart to a stranger like her. It isn't safe.”

Zoey hesitates, her lip trembling as she tries to form words. Finally, she nods slowly.

“I promise,” she whispers, though the promise sounds as fragile as glass. For a few heartbeats, her expression remains weighed down. Then, almost shyly, light returned to her features. Her mouth curved into a tentative smile, her voice rising with a flicker of determination. “But starting now, I’m going to look for proof that Spider-Woman is really good!”

Mira has to summon every ounce of restraint not to roll her eyes straight into the back of her head. Instead, she let out a sharp breath.

“Urgh, no, thank you very much.”

Zoey’s brows knit in confusion.

“Why not? There’s nothing to lose, literally. I’ll be happy chasing after her, and if it turns out she’s not what I think, well… at least you’ll get to say you were right all along.”

“That would almost be a fair deal,” The pink-haired one says dryly, “if I didn’t already know that you’ll cling to any little thing Spider-Woman does and call it proof.”

“Hey!” Zoey protests, her cheeks puffing slightly with indignation.

“What? It’s true.” Mira’s smirk is faint, but it is there, sharp enough to sting. “The only real solution is if I come with you.”

Zoey blinks. 

Then blinks again. 

She sits back against the couch cushion as if Mira had just suggested they go jump off a bridge together. 

“Wait. What?”

“You heard me.” She answers, crossing her arms, trying to look steadier than she felt. “I’ll start going with you. See with my own eyes what you think is so amazing about her, and hopefully finally prove to you that I was right all along. Plus…” she adds pointedly, “at least then I’ll know you’re not out there skating across rooftops and chasing masked vigilantes with nothing but your camera and old backpack as protection.”

The shortest one mouth falls open. She stares at her girlfriend like she was trying to solve an impossible riddle, then claps both hands to her chest in an overly dramatic gesture of shock. 

“You-- you’re serious? You’d actually come with me? Mira, do you have any idea what this means?”

“It means I’m probably signing up for endless headaches,” The pink-haired one mutters under her breath, but Zoey is already leaning toward her, eyes shimmering with excitement.

“This means you’ll see! You’ll actually see how incredible she is! How fast, how brave, how selfless… Mir, you’ll get it! And then we’ll finally be on the same page about Spider-Woman, and it’ll be like the happiest day of my life!”

The tallest pinches the bridge of her nose, torn between laughing and groaning. 

“Zoey, you are missing the point.”

“No, you are missing the point!” She shot back, though her tone carries no real edge, only breathless delight. “This is perfect. Absolutely perfect. Think about it: we’ll be together, we’ll stay safe, and… Okay, fine, you’ll get to nag me every time you think I’m exaggerating. Doesn’t that sound like your dream come true?”

Mira arches an eyebrow, retorting without hesitation:

“My dream come true would be you acept that I am right about that woman, deciding to stay home, eat a proper dinner, and not risk our necks chasing after someone in spandex, but apparently, it seems like the ship has sailed.”

Zoey laughs, bright and musical, a sound that fills the apartment as though it can chase away every shadow clinging to them. 

She can’t help it; everything about this whole conversation feels so bizarre, so heavy and tangled, that the only thing left for her to do is laugh. Of course Mira’s reasons for coming along aren't as romantic as she had hoped for. Her partner’s theory about Spider-Woman is borderline outrageous. ‘’Spider-Woman killed our third lover.’’ It sounds like the sort of ridiculous theory Zoey finds on her Twitter, but then again, this is Mira. Her girlfriend with her sharp eyes and restless mind, who always doves straight into the dark, searches for answers no one else dares to put words to. 

The youngest laughter softens into a chuckle as she leans in closer, mischief sparking in her eyes. She tilts her head, lips twitching with suppressed glee, and fires off her question without even pausing to consider it:

“So, when you said you don’t like Spider-Woman, is it really just because you think she’s responsible for… you know, taking someone important from us? And not because you secretly have mind-reading powers and you’re jealous of how attractive I think she is?”

The pink-haired one froze, blinking as if she had just been struck across the face with an entirely new problem to deal with.

 “...What?”

Zoey widens her eyes innocently, shrugging with exaggerated nonchalance. 

“What?” she echoes, tilting her head the other way, voice pitched high and airy. “Must’ve been the wind.”

The sharp tsk of Mira’s tongue against her teeth breaks the silence, followed swiftly by a roll of her eyes. She wants to hold onto her irritation, to remind Zoey that this isn’t a joke, but then… then her gaze landed fully on her girlfriend’s face. That deceptively angelic face, soft and open, masking a mind as playful and mischievous as any trickster. Zoey has always been both; the imp with the teasing grin and the gentle soul who cares harder and deeper than anyone Mira has ever met.

Her chest tightens. She doesn't know if she loves or hates this feeling of this uncontrollable thump-thump-thump beneath her ribs every time she lets herself stop and just see Zoey. 

And yet, as always, Mira’s expression softened, betraying her. Her voice, when it comes, carries no sharpness now, only honesty:

“It’s not jealousy,” Mira admits quietly. “At least… not necessarily. It’s just… I worry about you, Zo. I worry about the way you throw yourself after her, about what it means for you to be chasing her all the time. Whether she’s what you believe or what I fear, it doesn’t change one thing.” Mira drew in a breath, her gaze steady even as it wavered with emotion. “I don’t want you going out there alone anymore. Now that you know how I feel and what I think about her, I just…” her voice cracks on the edge of the confession, “We already lost them, I don’t want to… I don't want to lose you too.”

The words lands like a weight in Zoey’s chest, pressing against her ribs until her heart aches with the sharpness of it. The sting in her eyes comes quick, a heat she blinks against, but it is useless. Mira’s voice, Mira’s fear, Mira’s unguarded tenderness, it undoes her.

“Mi…” Her voice trembles as she speaks, “I don’t want to lose you either.”

Before the tallest can respond, the Korean American moves: sudden, impulsive, as always. She practically throws herself forward, her body folding into her partner's lap as though it belongs there all along. Her arms loops around Mira’s waist, clutching tightly, desperately, and she presses her head against the other shoulder like it is the only safe place in the world.

For a single breath, Mira is too stunned to react. Then instinct — no, love— takes over. Her arms wrap around Zoey with equal fervor, pulling her close, holding her tight. Their bodies mold into each other as though the couch, the room, the world itself has fallen away, leaving only the warmth of skin and the shared rhythm of their breathing.

The youngest holds on like she is terrified Mira might vanish if she lets go. The oldest returns it with equal intensity, as though she can anchor Zoey to her by sheer force of will. And in this moment, all the words they’d spoken; about Spider-Woman, about conspiracies, about fears and promises, blurs into the background. What remains is the truth neither of them can deny: they both love each other despite everything, and they can't lose each other. Not to paranoia, not to obsession, not to secrets.

Also, for all their questions, for all their tangled feelings, this embrace, this undeniable pull between them is the one certainty they both understood.

So, the silence stretches, soft and warm, until Mira breaks it with the kind of comment she dares to say just for fun: 

“Oh, and for the record… I don’t really judge you. I also think Spider-Woman is hot.”

Zoey’s head shot up so fast she nearly knocked foreheads with her.

“WHAT?!”

And this is how you break a Zoey.

Chapter Text

It has taken her more than two whole days to bring that phone back to life.

Two days of prying, soldering, replacing, re-replacing, recalibrating, losing her mind even more… until finally, the screen lit up again, a faint glow that should have felt like victory. Instead, the moment only settled heavier on Rumi’s chest.

The delay gnaws at her. Two days for one phone. One single, pathetic device.

It is shameful, humiliating almost. 

Who in their right mind would take that long for something so simple? She had done it before. Phones, tablets, little gadgets with guts of wires and chips that others found intimidating but which she once regarded as puzzles meant for her hands alone. When everything was normal, people often used to trust her with their broken machines. Zoey, Mira, even Celine, all of them came to her when their devices sputtered, skipping the official repair shops and instead showing up at Rumi’s door.

Back there, when they came, she would roll her eyes with theatrical flair, the gesture exaggerated just enough to make Mira snort and Zoey grin like they’d rehearsed the reaction a hundred times. Rumi’s lips would curl into that familiar sly smile, the one that lived somewhere between mockery and affection, the one that said I’m annoyed and I would do anything for you in the same breath.

“At this rate, I think I should start charging you all,” she’d say, already halfway through the fix, fingers moving with practiced ease across the exposed guts of a phone or tablet. Her voice would carry just enough edge to sound serious, but never enough to be believed.

And they would only laugh, because life was so much easier and she didn't know. Although, of course, whenever she said that to Celine, the older woman would just offer a faint smile and say:

“Guess I’ll owe you one.” 

But Rumi never charged them. Not once.

Because beneath all the teasing and mock complaints, she liked it. She liked being the one they trusted, of wielding her knowledge like a kind of magic and making their problems disappear with nothing but her steady hands and sharp mind.

So why, then, has this one phone dragged her through hell?

Why had her hands trembled? Why had her patience worn thin? Why had every step taken twice as long as it should have?

Rumi’s throat tightens with the answer she doesn’t want to voice.

It doesn’t matter if she had been interrupted during this process, If she needed to rush off to stop some thug in an alley, chasing cries for help until her body screamed even more for rest. It doesn’t matter if Derpy had come dangerously close to knocking the phone off the table more times than Rumi cared to count, always when she reached for a tool just out of arm’s length. It only hadn’t hit the floor thanks to her spider-sense. Meanwhile, there was Sussie, who’d started cooing for attention in full brat mode, which wasn’t exactly helpful, considering it only made Rumi’s headache worse.

Anyway, moving on… It doesn’t matter that the pathetic little piece of chicken Derpy had given her barely lasted in her cursed metabolism, since it didn't take long for all her hunger to come crashing back. The acid in her stomach had burned so violently she’d stumbled into the streets at night, desperate for anything to dull the fire, shoving any kind of food down her throat like medicine.

It didn’t matter if she had to stop mid-motion, palms braced against the edge of the workbench, knuckles white, breath shallow. If the dizziness came in waves, if her vision blurred at the corners, if the pounding headache from too many sleepless nights and too little food made her feel like her skull was being hollowed out from the inside. 

Those were excuses. Just excuses.

She should have been faster. She should have been sharper. The Rumi she used to be wouldn’t have struggled like this. That Rumi would have had the phone working again in a handful of hours, smirking at her own efficiency.

Now? Now she had wasted two fucking days clawing her way toward something that once came naturally.

Her reflection catches faintly in the black glass of the powered-down screen, and for a moment she almost doesn’t recognize herself. The image is warped, faint, but it doesn’t need to be clear for her to see what she already knows; she knows very well how she looks behind the Spider Woman mask. Tired eyes, ringed with bruised shadows of exhaustion. Smudges etched deep into her skin, proof of nights she hadn’t slept. Lips pressed into a thin, unyielding line, as if bracing herself for disappointment ate her own reflection. Her face is also too sharp now, too gaunt, outlined by old scars and fresh bruises.

And threaded through it all are the patterns: the violet-black sigils that creep across her skin like living cracks in glass. Besides all that, even her left eye gleams with gold, as if the universe needs a visual cue for how broken she is.

She’d always had the patterns since the day she was born, though they were small, barely visible unless you knew where to look, but the years passed, and the marks grew a little bolder, and a little more defined. She had assumed they were only keeping pace with her body. She was growing, so too were they. It seemed simple enough. Natural, like freckles, or birthmarks, or some strange quirk of skin.

But the illusion shattered the moment she was bitten by the spider.

Within months of becoming Spider Woman, the changes had become undeniable. The patterns that had once crept across her body with glacial patience spread with a considerable speed, darkening, twisting, branching into places they had never reached before. She had tried to tell herself that it was all connected, that the spider bite with the radioactive venom had simply accelerated something that was already inside her, tangled up with her already flawed and twisted DNA. She had whispered promises into the mirror that they would fade and remain manageable, but… they hadn’t.

Instead, they spread slowly. They didn’t explode across her skin,  they crept. Quiet, steady, inevitable. She could still pass for normal. Still be Rumi. Still sat beside Zoey and Mira without flinching, as long as she wore long sleeves and kept the truth hidden. Back then when they didn't know, the patterns hadn’t swallowed her.

But after Gwi-ma cursed her, it didn’t take long for the patterns to cover her up completely. They even deepened in color, branched further, shifting as if they belonged to something alive and restless beneath her skin.

She doesn’t understand them. Not really. Not the logic of their shape, or the timing of their flare-ups. They don’t seem to follow rules. They don’t obey her body. They just are unpredictable, invasive, and cruel.

The only thing that she knows is that they sometimes throbs and aches when she lingers too long inside her own head, when her thoughts turn heavy, bitter, and self-destructive. As if the weight of her pain is not enough unless her body bears it too. It is maddening. The more she suffers inwardly, the more her patterns demand to be seen, glowing and flaring like a cruel reminder that she can’t keep anything contained.

She hates her patterns.

Not just for how they look, but for what they mean. They are proof that she keeps changing… and apparently, only for the worse. Proof that she is becoming something else.

Something less human than before.

When she stops to think about it now, Rumi has always hated the patterns on her skin as long as she can remember.

Although, obviously, when she was very small, she used to think they looked like tiger stripes. She loved tigers back then, she always thought they were beautiful, because in some way, they reminded her of the patterns on her own skin. She could even imagine the patterns might be beautiful too. 

She remembers the first time she said the comparison out loud. The background’s a blur, but she thinks it might’ve been a news segment about tigers playing on TV, and with all the innocence and excitement of a child, she’d blurted out: 

“Look, Celine! They look like me!”

And Celine’s reaction was just to look at her, like she’d said the worst thing in the world. Quiet, wordless, but with one of her typical intense, serious stares. At the time, Rumi didn’t totally understand, but it didn’t take long for her to start learning how these things worked. As Celine kept repeating that she should cover the patterns, hide them, Rumi began to realize there was something wrong with them. Something that wasn’t supposed to be seen. Something that made her wrong. Something that made her ugly.

Her patterns would never be like the beautiful, majestic stripes of a tiger.

So, maybe she has always known, somewhere in the quiet of her mind, that she wanted them gone. If she could just scrape them free, she’d be normal. She’d be whole. She’d be like the children she saw running barefoot in the fields, no secret to hide beneath their sleeves.

And, sometimes, she had even fantasized about peeling them away like stickers, about waking up one morning clean, unmarked skin…

This fantasy faded when she became a teen.  

You know, adolescence always brings its own storms: the awkward body, the endless mirrors, the ache of becoming, etc. And to make it even worse for her? Her patterns deepened. They didn’t just stay; they thrived. They were no longer the delicate, faint etchings she had known as a child but darker, more sprawling, like ink bleeding through cloth. They started to grow with her body in slow motion as if they were alive. Puberty was already cruel enough, since her body was changing without her permission, but the idea that the patterns were changing with her felt unbearable, like being betrayed by her own flesh.

That was when her resentment hardened into something heavier, uglier. Hatred, not just of the marks but of herself for carrying them. Hatred of the way they linked her to something she didn’t — and doesn't — understand, to whispers of the golden Honmoon Celine said would take years, maybe decades, to her be able to do it. Hatred of how the marks seem to laugh at her patience, spreading anyway, claiming more of her body than she ever gave permission for.

It was in those years, the hardest ones, that the thought of peeling the patterns away like stickers stopped being an idle childhood daydream and became something she tried in quiet, clumsy acts. 

She never cut herself with the dramatic intent people might be imagining right now. There were no grand gestures, no tearful rituals. Instead, there were small, furtive moments. A blade in the bathroom. A shallow slice where the pattern curled purple at her srm. She wasn’t trying to destroy herself. She was trying to destroy them. Trying to erase the curling sigils, to scrape away the proof of what she is.

Unfortunately, the marks never left. 

The cuts would sting and weep and scar; she would stare at the rawness, hoping to see bare, unmarked skin beneath. Instead, when the wounds healed, the purple would return brighter, sharper, as if mocking her efforts. It was like trying to scrub ink from a cloth and only grinding it deeper into the fibers.

Now, older, she can look back and see how each attempt had been another layer of the same desperate logic: If I can get them out of me, I can be free. Even now, some nights she’d lie awake and press her palms over the patterns, feeling the faint pulse of their unnatural glow under her skin.

She can still hear Mira’s voice sometimes, clear as if she were in the room: “You know, you’re beautiful, Rumi, with your patterns and fangs. You’re incredible, you’re good, you don’t have to be anyone else, you are kind and thoughtful, and you’re loved, by me and Zoey and all, you have to do is let us love you”

Beautiful. Incredible. Good. 

Loved. 

Mira had said it with that fierce certainty she always carries, the kind that used to make Rumi almost believe her. The words had been soft as feathers and hard as iron at the same time. But it was too good to be true, because Mira isn’t here now. Neither is Zoey. 

They aren’t here to hold her wrists when she keeps trembling, or to press their foreheads to hers and whisper her back from the edge.

Rumi is the only one who carries the weight of what had happened after, the way they had all loved each other for that brief, impossible time. Everyone else is gone, vanished, rewritten, sealed away. She alone bears the memory. 

And the marks on her skin feels like the proof and the punishment at the same time.

So, she hates her patterns because they are proof of everything she can’t control: the legacy she hasn’t chosen, the powers that have warped her, the curse that now lives under her skin. Hates them because they are a mirror of what she fears most, that she is no longer human, and maybe never has been.

Yet, even after all these years of growing up, she sometimes finds herself staring at a blade in her hand, wondering if the next cut might be the one that finally works. Wondering if there was any edge sharp enough to carve out what she never wanted to carry.

She didn’t stop the cutting. She just… changed the reason, since she knows that apparently nothing can change the fact that she is a monster.

Now, when she cuts, she isn’t trying to rid herself of the patterns. She isn’t trying to escape some cursed inheritance written under her skin. No, now she does it because she is angry, because all the fuck time her patterns starts to show, it makes all the hatred wanna grow outta her veins. 

She is just so angry at herself for existing like this. Angry at the curse, at the spider, at the life she has been shoved into. Angry at all this loneliness that wraps around her like a second skin.

Sometimes she would think back to Celine’s warnings, to the Honmoon that was supposed to help her, save her, and feel her stomach twist with a bitterness so sharp it almost made her laugh. She had been told to wait, to endure, to hide. But what did waiting bring her except more spreading patterns, more pain, more proof that she is wrong from the inside out?

Cutting has become the only thing left that feels like a choice. Yes, it's a stupid choice, but it’s a choice, anyway. 

She hates her reflection. She hates herself for hating herself, for cutting herself. 

She never truly understood when they said that hate is something addictive, something repetitive, but now she understands much more than she would like. It seems like that once you go deeper into your hatred, it turns out into a loop you can’t really escape.

And for someone like her, for someone whose hunger hollows her out and the insomnia makes the walls of her mind feel like knives, hatred is definitely something inevitable.

Cutting herself is something inevitable. 

Not to die, not exactly, but to punish. To punish the body she can’t change, to punish the patterns that refuse to leave.

It isn’t about an end. After all, she would make different choices, she wouldn't be here right now. What she wants beyond giving her body what it's owed is something simpler, almost stupid in its simplicity: to stop feeling. To push herself past the thoughts, past the heat under her skin, past the gnawing ache of hunger and exhaustion, until she found that blank space beyond pain. 

She knows that if she cuts enough, bleeds enough, she would faint. Yes, It would hurt like hell until she faints, but pain is something that she deserves. And in that fainting, for a few hours, she would have nothing. No thoughts. No patterns. No self. She would wake up as if from a deep sleep, her head light, her body limp, and for a moment she could pretend that was all it had been, a nap.

But it is never just a nap.

Every time, she woke to find the patterns still there, still trying to heal. Her regeneration has slowed ever since Gwi-ma’s curse, and she doesn’t know if it’s because of the curse itself or simply because she’s barely alive. Barely has the energy to breathe, let alone for her body to heal.

Even so, every time, the cycle begins again… though she is idiotically trying to control herself because of Derpy and Sussie, but it's difficult to stay in line when they suddenly disappear and sometimes take a long time to return. And she is trying to convince herself that she's not that desperate for any kind of company when an intrusive thought of locking the two in the warehouse insists on invading her mind.

Speaking of which, they’re not with her right now, they left a few hours ago. Probably got tired of her showing up and giving all her attention to trying to fix that old phone.

She brings the screen closer to her face until her breath fog the glass. The glow of the patterns deepens, a sick violet pulse that almost seems to answer her heartbeat. She can feel the ache starting again; a low, familiar burn that makes her grit her teeth. The patterns always hurt most when she looked too closely at herself, as if feeding off her own disgust.

For a heartbeat she imagines smashing the phone, shattering the glass until her reflection disappears, but she doesn’t. She just stays there, breathing hard, staring at herself, at the monster she has become, until her eyes blurs and the reflection turns into nothing but a smear of purple and shadow.

Then, she lets her thumb hover before pressing the power button, eager to do anything to pull her mind elsewhere.

The pale glow washes across her tired face, and for the briefest of seconds, she lets herself believe it is enough, that the miracle of it breathing again means maybe she isn’t broken beyond repair either.

Once the screen is lit up, she starts to press harder on the screen, almost frantically, as if each click could rewind time, drag her back to those days when a phone meant nothing more than idle distraction. She tries to trick herself into this illusion: Back when she had time to scroll through her feed just to pass the hours. Back when she’d lie on her bed, legs swinging, phone in hand, when the only real rush came from studying and the sharp buzz of a notification; a message from Mira, a tag from Zoey, a mention that made her laugh out loud. Back when her name meant something. 

When she was part of something.

That had been normal once. Stupidly, beautifully normal.

She misses that.

And maybe this is why, now that she has this miracle in her hands, she doesn’t act like a normal person at all. A normal person would finish setting things up, customizing, optimizing… especially her, who always obsessed over making things faster, cleaner, more efficient. She’d always been the girl tearing apart devices to shave milliseconds off their performance. The girl who wanted everything running at peak speed.

But tonight? That version of her is nowhere to be found.

The phone just keeps lagging, sluggish as though dragging its feet after being forced back to life, and she can feel the itch in her chest, the part of her screaming to fix it, to open it again, to tweak, to repair. But she chooses to ignore it. She ignores the heavy delay between taps, the stutter of the icons as the system tries to catch up, because none of this matters, not compared to the only thing she wants.

Twitter.

Her fingers move with an urgency that borders on desperation, not caring about the clunky pauses, not caring about the faint heat rising under the back panel. She needs to know if anything of hers still exists there, like some digital ghost of Rumi left behind in mentions, retweets, threads she isn’t supposed to care about but does. She wants to see if Zoey or Mira had thought about her, talked about her, remembered her. If they’d left any trace that she hasn’t been erased completely.

The thought of it makes her throat ache.

She tries to swallow, tries to pretend it isn’t pathetic, this feeling that coils so tight inside her chest it hurts. Pathetic to be so thirsty for proof that she matters. Pathetic to need words from people who have moved on, but she can’t help it. She doesn’t care about pride or dignity anymore. She just wanted… No. She needs to know she hasn't vanished.

The phone drags itself through the motions, the little progress wheel circling lazily as if mocking her impatience. She taps her nail against the glass, her breath shallow, eyes burning with a tired brightness. Each second stretches until it feels like the whole world is holding its breath with her.

And then the app begins to download.

The sight of this tiny bar creeping forward is enough to split her open. A tremor runs through her hand as she grips the phone tighter, clutching it as though it is the only tether keeping her from drifting into nothing. She stares, wide-eyed, at the progress bar as if her entire existence depends on it moving forward. 

The download finishes with a sluggish flicker, and for a heartbeat Rumi’s pulse jumps with a fragile spark of anticipation. Her thumb goes over the icon, and she presses it almost reverently, as if the smallest amount of care could make the experience different, safer, less cruel. 

The familiar login screen opens, blank and indifferent, its fields waiting for her credentials as though nothing has ever happened.

She types quickly, muscle memory guiding her fingers. Username. Password. Enter. 

A small spinning circle appears and she holds her breath.

The next thing she sees appears in a sharp, unfeeling text: 

Sorry, but we couldn’t find your account.

The air goes out of her in a low, disbelieving exhale. Her lips parts, and a tiny sound; half laugh, half snarl, escapes her throat. It isn’t enough to release the pressure behind her ribs, so she types again. Username. Password. Enter.

The screen blinks. 

Sorry, but we couldn’t find your account.

Her jaw tightens. 

Again. Username. Password. Enter.

Sorry…

Again.

Her hands shake as she stabs at the keys, her movements jerky now, this ritualistic repetition more like an incantation than an action. She can feel the irrationality of it, she knows it wouldn’t change, she knows she isn’t going to hack reality just by trying over and over, but she can’t stop. Something inside her refuses to accept it.

By the sixth attempt, her vision blurs. She blinks hard, inhales sharply through her nose, and forces herself to stop. A long, slow exhale leaves her lips, dragging her shoulders down with it. She presses the back of her hand to her forehead, eyes shut tight, trying to keep her frustration from boiling over.

Of course the curse would reach this far. Of course it would erase her accounts, her words, her history, every little piece of her scattered online like breadcrumbs leading back to who she’d been. She’d already had a taste of it when she fixed the computer earlier and discovered her Google account was gone, completely wiped as if she’d never existed. She’d had to create a new one, cobbling it together with the same username and password like a child trying to glue a broken toy back together.

Some stupid part of her had thought maybe that would mean something. That by using the same name, the same password, she’d anchor herself to the version of Rumi that has been erased. That the digital ghost of her would hear the familiar knock and let her back inside. She’d even imagined, for a ridiculous moment, that the curse might slip, falter, or even break if she brought something from before into the now.

But it hadn’t.

The curse doesn't care about her cleverness or her desperation.

She has told herself she shouldn’t be angry. This isn’t new. She has seen it coming. She knew it was going to happen; she’d even rehearsed the reaction in her mind so she wouldn’t feel blindsided, but just because you expect something awful doesn’t mean you’re immune to its impact. That’s not how emotions work. That’s not how she works.

So, her breath trembles. 

She drops the phone onto the table and presses her fingers to her temples, hard enough that her nails left marks in her skin. She wants to scream, but there is no one to hear her. She even wants to laugh, but there is nothing funny about losing every trace of yourself.

The glow of the screen dims, the login prompt fading back into a neutral gray. She stares at her reflection faintly visible in the glass and she sees the soft pulse of her glowing marks. They burn violet beneath the thinness of her skin, mocking her, reminding her that she can’t even own herself, much less her past.

She tilts the phone slightly, catching the warped reflection of her eyes, tired and ringed with shadows. Her lips twists. She looks like a stranger, like the ghost of a girl she used to be… and the internet, it seems, agrees.

In the end, she does what she has done before, what she had sworn she wouldn’t bother with again: she registers a new account with the same username, the same password. The same clumsy superstition disguised as persistence. It is pointless, totally pointless, and yet the act itself feels like a ritual, a way to plant her flag in ground she no longer trusts to be hers.

When the app finally accepts her, ushering her into the pale-blue emptiness of a fresh profile, she doesn’t waste time tinkering with settings or uploading a picture. None of this matters. What matters is something else, someone else. 

Her fingers move with a single-minded urgency, almost trembling as she navigates straight to the search bar.

@turtles4everrr

The letters form so easily, almost of their own accord. She could have typed the username blindfolded. Rumi knows better than anyone that Zoey practically lives on Twitter. Out of all of them, Zoey’s presence there has always been the loudest, the most relentless, filling the feed with her thoughts and bursts of chaos. 

She holds her breath as the results are loaded, and then she finds it.

Zoey’s profile appears with the same familiarity, the same avatar she recognizes, but when Rumi’s gaze falls to the numbers above her name, she freezes. Her brows knits together as if she can’t quite believe it.

“Oh.” The sound leaves her lips without thought, raw and small, more reaction than word. 

Her chest tightens as her eyes darts across the glowing numbers again, and again, like maybe she had misread them the first time. But no, the count is unmistakable. Zoey has more than doubled her tweets since Rumi had last checked.

That was two months ago.

Two months of having no internet or anything like that, and meanwhile, Zoey had continued exactly as she always had: apparently her digital voice is still louder than ever. 

The curse has wiped Rumi’s accounts, but Zoey remained the same way she was — or got even worse. 

A strange mixture swirls in her chest, something close to relief, sharp with bitterness. Relief that Zoey hasn’t been erased too, that the world had kept turning, that the girl who filled timelines with reckless abandon is still herself. But bitter, too, because it drove home just how thoroughly Rumi herself had been cut out.

Her fingers trembles slightly over the glowing screen as she scrolls through Zoey’s posts, eyes moving fast, hungry, searching for anything that might hint she has been missed.

The feed blooms with Zoey’s voice, sharp and chaotic as ever, each post tumbling after the last. Rumi’s eyes darts over the words, skimming too quickly at first, like someone starved and afraid of what they might actually find if they looks too closely. What she wants… what she needs isn’t more of Zoey’s noise. She wants a trace of herself. Just one. A thread, a mention, a ghost of her name. Something to prove she hadn’t been erased entirely from Zoey’s world.

She doesn’t have to scroll far.

Right at the top of Zoey’s profile, pinned with the bright insistence of permanence, sits a thread.

“Posting every day until I get a decent photo of Spider-Woman or come face-to-face with her: The Infinite Thread?”

For a moment, Rumi simply stares. Her mind refuses to process the words in the correct order, her eyes blurring at the edges. She blinks once. Twice. Four times in rapid succession, as though each attempt might force her vision to sharpen, to reveal that she is misreading. Maybe her exhaustion is twisting letters into the shape of something crueler than reality. But no, the words remains the same. Taunting. Solid.

“Seriously?” she mutters under her breath, her voice scraping raw.

It isn’t that she should be surprised. She isn’t. Not really. She knows that Zoey’s obsession with Spider Woman hadn’t died with the curse. If anything, it has come back in full force, wild and ravenous, probably filling the void that Rumi’s absence has left. After all, she has even glimpsed it before, when she goes to tail her former lovers from the shadows, watching Zoey’s fixation re-emerge piece by piece.

But this? This is different. This is louder. More public. A declaration pinned to the top of Zoey’s existence online, immortalized as a joke that isn’t really a joke at all.

Her grip on the phone tightens until her knuckles aches.

It is always Spider-Woman, never Rumi.

Her marks pulses faintly in the corner of her vision on the screen, violet fire shifting under her skin, and for once she doesn’t look away from their glow, because maybe she deserves to see herself like this, to be reminded of exactly why Zoey’s hyperfixation had never been — and can never be — on her.

She has wanted to find something else at the top of Zoey’s feed, something that whispered she hadn’t been forgotten.

But no. Zoey’s world has carried on, and its centerpiece obviously isn’t Rumi. It is the fucking Spider-Woman.

Rumi, once again, is left with nothing but the echo.

Zoey’s words fill the screen like an endless mantra. Post after post, lined up neatly in the thread, each one circling back to the same subject. It is almost comical, almost absurd; Zoey seems to only speak one language, and this language is Spider-Woman. Every update is another frustrated attempt, another grainy photo that catches nothing but a shadow on a rooftop, another string of speculation about where the heroine might show up next, another dramatic declaration that basically says “tomorrow would be the day.”

At first, Rumi tries to resist any reaction, but a weak smile starts to appear at her lips as she reads on, even though she is still a bit disappointed of really having nothing about herself in there. 

Anyway, It isn’t because she enjoys seeing Zoey’s obsession given such loud, ridiculous form that she smiles. It isn’t because the swarm of equally clueless comments makes her feel oddly reassured, like maybe she really is part of some larger world most people wants a piece of. It isn’t because this distorted kind of attention feeds some hollow sense of safety, proof that she’s still everyone’s type, judging by all the comments from people simping over her body — little do they know the truth. She refuses to admit that.

The smile came from something softer, something more fragile.

Because if she lets her mind wander just a little, if she loosens her grip on reality for a few seconds, she can already begin to blur into something else. She can almost imagine herself back in her room before all of this: intact, unmarked, alive in the way she used to be. The smell of soldering metal in the air, scraps of half-finished projects scattered across her desk, her concentration anchored in the small joys of building her ideas. And then, without warning, Zoey would come barreling in, no knock, no hesitation, brimming with energy and some story she had to tell right then.

Or she could picture herself, Zoey, and Mira  tangled together on the couch, a movie playing in the background that none of them were actually watching because Zoey’s chatter filled the room, bright and relentless. Mira would roll her eyes, pretending to be annoyed, but her smile would give her away. And Rumi… Rumi would sit there quietly, soaking in the sound, the warmth, the ridiculous comfort of it all.

Her smile falters. 

Slowly, naturally, as if it has never belonged on her face to begin with. The warmth of memory gave way to this sharp, familiar ache that keeps hollowing her chest, squeezing until she can barely draw breath.

She misses them.

God, she misses them both.

Not just Zoey, not just Mira, though the absence of their arms around her, their voices in her ear, is enough to undo her in ways she doesn’t want to admit. She misses everyone. She misses belonging. Misses what it feels like to be held without question, without fear, without the sharp awareness of the patterns burning into her skin.

But most of all… she misses the way Zoey’s hugs were never careful, never measured, always crushing and immediate, like she wanted to squeeze the air right out of her lungs and keep her there forever. She misses Mira’s quieter embraces, the ones that felt like an anchor; steady, grounding, the kind of touch that told her she wasn’t drifting alone. She misses falling asleep between them, safe in the certainty that even if the world was falling apart outside, there was a place, a home, right there.

Her throat burns, and she forces herself to swallow hard, the sting sliding down like glass. It isn’t unfamiliar; lately her throat always aches like this, raw from holding back too much, from swallowing every scream, every sob. She has grown accustomed to the pain in the way you get used to a wound that never heals: you stop expecting it to close, you just live around it.

Rumi blinks hard at the screen, her vision warping with a sheen of moisture she refuses to let fall. She would not cry. Not for this. Not when all she has left is the ghost of something she can never get back.

And still, her thumb moved to scroll again. Because even if it hurts, even if every word slices her open, she can’t stop chasing the ‘’sound’’ of Zoey’s voice in the only place she can still find it. 

She can't stop chasing her girls.

Rumi forces her eyes to focus again on the glow of the phone screen, the thread stretching endlessly beneath her fingers as she scrolls. Her chest feels tight, caught somewhere between awe and dread. Fascination came first, it is impossible not to feel it when she realizes just how far Zoey has gone. The thread isn’t just a casual collection of half-hearted posts or silly jokes anymore; it is an obsessive record, a daily ritual. Zoey has been climbing rooftops. Rooftops. Perching there in the dark for hours at a time, waiting for the fleeting glimpse of Spider-Woman. 

Rumi’s lips part slightly, her throat dry. She hadn’t thought Zoey would ever take it this far. Sure, before the curse, Zoey has always been dramatic and excitable, chasing whatever idea or passion that seized her that week, but rooftops? This isn’t just excitement, this is almost desperation if you ask her.

And the photography. God, the photography. Each image, though blurred or half-formed or hopelessly distant, carries the mark of someone improving, someone practicing. Zoey isn’t just playing at being a photographer anymore, she is actually getting better. Rumi can see it, the way she frames shots, the way she captures light at odd hours, the instinct that had once been raw is now sharpening with repetition. This, at least, doesn’t surprise her. Zoey has always had an eye for beauty, but this intensity… this relentless pursuit of Spider-Woman is a whole new thing. 

Rumi’s chest gives a small, involuntary twist. 

The fascination is there, yes, but so is fear, pooling heavy and cold in her soul. 

Zoey, alone on rooftops, clambering over ledges without safety or thought. Zoey, who had always been the clumsiest of the three of them. Mira used to tease her about it, laughing whenever Zoey tripped over her own feet on the way to the couch, and Rumi used to already move to catch her before she knocked something over. And, honestly, even now, she’s still surprised that neither of them ever noticed how strange it was of how Rumi had always reacted too quickly in the past few years with her being Spider-Woman.

Well, the point is, the probability of Zoey falling off the rooftop isn’t just hypothetical. It’s real. Terrifyingly real, and this scares her more than anything.

But beneath all this worry, beneath this instinctive fear for Zoey’s safety, there is something worse gnawing at her. The determination. The fact that Zoey isn’t just chasing a blurry snapshot. She wants more. She literally wants a face-to-face encounter. She wants to stand before Spider-Woman.

Rumi’s pulse quickens painfully, this thought almost unbearable, because… can she ever stand before Zoey again? Can she stand that close, speak, breathe the same air, and risk Zoey looking at her with eyes that said she is nothing? That they had been nothing?

Her breath hitched at the memory of what happened with her and Celine, of the sharp ache of recognition in her chest when she realized that someone she loved — someone who should love her back, protect her — could look right through her, as if the history they shared had dissolved into smoke. That moment had carved something jagged into her, something that still bleeds when she touches it. 

She can’t live it again. Not with Zoey. Not with Mira. Not with the girls she still loves in a way that makes her bones ache.

Rumi had never imagined that something as simple as opening Twitter, of all things, could hurt this much. Once upon a time, it had been fun, almost effortless; scrolling through Zoey’s feed, rolling her eyes at the endless chatter, laughing at her silly observations, or pausing over the rare heartfelt posts that showed glimpses of how much she cared. Back then, it had been harmless entertainment, the comforting background noise of a life shared… 

Then why does she feel like every line she reads presses deeper into a bruise she hadn’t even realized is still spreading beneath her ribs?

Hm, maybe, it's because she has turned a bad judge of things lately. Maybe everything just hurts, no matter what she does. Pain seems to have laced itself into the very fabric of her days, into her waking moments, her sleepless nights, the quiet in-between where her thoughts spun too loudly. It is all jagged, all raw, so perhaps it isn’t Twitter at all, but her, broken from the inside out.

Still, she keeps scrolling. 

The thread stretches downward endlessly, post after post, Zoey’s voice spilling across the screen in bursts of excitement, sarcasm, and frustration. Rumi follows it with a strange mix of dread and longing, her thumb moving in slow, halting motions. Each entry charted Zoey’s strange little pilgrimage: the rooftops climbed, the hours wasted waiting for the flicker of a shadow in the sky, the sting of disappointment when the night ended empty-handed yet again. There is a rhythm to it, and Rumi knows that she is just wasting her time and should have closed the app, but she can’t.

Instead, she read on, and each new detail left her both unsurprised and caught off guard. Zoey’s clumsiness is legendary; of course she would nearly sprain an ankle trying to scramble up a fire escape. Of course she would rant about pigeons attacking her snacks while she waited. Of course she would post a blurry photo and insist, with unshakable confidence, that this time she’d almost gotten Spider-Woman’s outline right.

Her hand tightens around the phone. 

Sometimes, when she was swinging between the city, she had caught glimpses of Zoey’s and Mira’s faces, in places far from the college they attend; quick flashes in the crowd, familiar outlines that sent a shiver down her spine. But Rumi never stayed long enough to confirm, never allowed herself to look closely. She couldn’t. Looking too closely means opening herself up to that hollow, gnawing ache she is constantly trying to hold at bay. It is already enough — too much — that nearly every night her arms carry her to the apartment the three of them had once shared. 

Now, with Zoey’s words glowing in her palm, this hollow widens, pulling her under. Zoey’s world has gone on, Mira’s world has gone on, and she is still haunting the edges of what they used to be, a ghost tethered to what has been lost.

And she can’t even look away.

Her thumb keeps dragging down the screen, each flick revealing more of Zoey’s voice echoing into the void. It is impossible not to hear her, that particular rhythm of words, the dramatic flair that always made even the most mundane story feel like an epic tragedy, or an epic comedy, depending on the youngest mood. Rumi can even almost see her typing them out, tongue caught between her teeth, grinning at her own ridiculousness.

@turtles4everr:
Day 3 – 

Sooo… I decided to start climbing up rooftops, because i just wanted to, and do you guys want to know a fun fact? (that is actually NOT fun): rooftops are COLD, like “my soul left my body” cold

Does Spider-Woman have anti-hypothermia tech in her attire or is she just built different???? bc I am NOT 😫

Fuck I was up there for 40 mins max and my fingers literally gave up halfway through. couldn’t even press the shutter button. just me. shivering. trying to look cool. slowly becoming a popsicle.

0/10 experience. do not recommend. If anyone wants to send soup or those little hand warmer packs, I will literally name my next post after you.

Anyway, no sightings today. Unless you count the hallucination I had from the cold as her 😅😅😅

See you tomorrow!!! Hopefully with less frostbite 💪💪💪💪

This one drags a smile from her: small, crooked, fragile. She can practically hear Zoey whining, bundled up in some ridiculous jacket, shivering but still refusing to give up. After all, this is her: stubborn even when her teeth were chattering.

@turtles4everr:
Day 7 – 

Do people actually clean rooftops or is that just a myth??? Because I just lived through a horror movie

I Spent THREE. WHOLE. HOURS. on top of a crusty-ass building waiting for Spider-Woman to show up and guess what I got instead???!?!

A fucking flying cockroach. 

A literal airborne demon launched itself at me like it had a personal vendetta. I screamed. I flailed. I almost fell off the edge. And Spider-Woman? NOWHERE. Didn’t even swing by to pretend she cared. Like ma’am??? I thought we had a bond! 😭😭😭

So, yeah, no sightings today. Just trauma. 

Oh, and for gods sake, start cleaning your damn rooftops! I mean, you never know when some unhinged girl who should be studying for her exams decides to climb up there. 

This isn’t America guys, we don't just leave everything filthy like it’s normal, wtf😒

And trust me, I know what I’m talking about.

Honestly, I think should start going out with spray bug, right? Or any kind of weapon…. Or both! Just in case

Her lips curl into something like a smile, but it isn’t joy, not really. The image of Zoey shrieking at a flying cockroach is ridiculous, so ridiculous it almost makes her laugh. For a heartbeat, she can almost pretend nothing has changed.

But then the ache hit.

The words “Didn’t even swing by to pretend she cared. Like ma’am??? I thought we had a bond!”,  they’re enough to cut through the chaos of the post and pierce straight through her chest.

Rumi knows she shouldn’t care, that It’s just Zoey being dramatic as usual. And besides, the tweet is nearly two months old, and knowing her, she probably already forgot this whole thing by now.

But still, Rumi can’t help feeling frustrated with herself, because she knows the truth behind these words. Knows that Zoey must’ve been genuinely scared, that she really did wait, hoping Spider-Woman would show up. Hoping she would show up.

But the part that hurts the most It’s these six simple words at the end: I thought we had a bond.

The irony is cruel, because they did. They had the best kind of bond imaginable, but somehow, none of it seems strong enough to outweigh the curse.

She swallows hard and keeps scrolling, though her eyes insist on blurring.

@turtles4everr:
Day 13 – 

Im starting to think that maybe Spider-Woman just doesn’t like me. Maybe she’s ghosting me. Do superheroes ghost people?? Is that a thing??? Because I’ve been out here chasing shadows and vibes for almost two weeks and I just CANT take one good picture of her! 😫😫😫

Like, wtf man, am I that incompetent????

At this point I’m starting to think I need a new strategy than just climbing rooftops and just waiting for her good will to appear. Do I fake a mugging? Do I start a rooftop dance routine? Do I build a giant sign that says “PLS SHOW UP, I HAVE SERIOUS EMOTIONAL ISSUES”?

I’m open to suggestions. I’m desperate

The laugh this time came out broken. Rumi presses her forehead against the phone screen for a second, eyes squeezed shut. Ghosting. If only Zoey knew how sharp this word cuts.

Her chest hurts, but she keeps going anyway, unable to stop, caught between craving and punishment.

The tweets, for the most part, fall into a steady rhythm. Each post carries the same cadence: a bold proclamation of another “adventure,” her latest climb onto some rooftop or fire escape, always told with the same lighthearted bravado. Then, inevitably, the sharp downturn: a confession of frustration, a little self-directed mockery, and the promise that tomorrow she would try something new.

Rumi reads them the way one might watch a storm from the safety of a window: presses close, eyes wide, equal parts fascinated and horrified. She tries not to sink too far into her own ache while scrolling, trying to treat the thread as just… noise, just Zoey being Zoey, but the words presses on her anyway, burrowing into her ribs like needles. 

And then, one tweet stops her cold.

@turtles4everr:
Day 18 – 

I HEARD YOU GUYS AND GUESS WHO FINALLY MADE IT TO THE ROOF OF THE 63 BUILDING??? THAT’S RIGHT! ME!!!!💥💥💥

I am now officially part of the elite rooftop gremlin squad!  Honestly shocked I didn’t pass out halfway, those stairs were NOT built with human kindness in mind. My legs are so wet noodles and my soul is slightly detached, but the view??? Unreal! I could see half the city and one pigeon judging me from a ledge 😅 

And I even managed to see Spider Woman!!! but I ended up getting tangled trying to take my new camera out of my backpack and ended up losing sight of her. But HEY, that means that this building is really the most strategic, right???? Maybe I'll start coming here every day... And start coming here with my camera hanging from my neck, I never imagined that my backpack could betray me like that 💔

Rumi blinks. Once. Twice. A third time, harder, as if the very act of refocusing her eyes might change the words. But no, the sentence stays exactly as it is, taunting her with every capital letter and overconfident exclamation point.

The 63 Building. Out of all the rooftops in the city — out of every place Zoey could have risked her reckless, clumsy ass — she has chosen one of the tallest. One of the most dangerous.

“Unbelievable,” Rumi mutters under her breath, though her throat is so tight the sound barely slips past her lips.

First of all: how? 

How has Zoey managed to drag herself up that high without breaking her neck or alerting half the city’s security forces? 

And second: why? 

Why in the world would she push herself to something so extreme?

The answer comes fast, bitter and obvious, before she can even finish forming the thought. Because it's Zoey we are talking about, because Spider-Woman is always just out of reach for her, and this damn girl has never been the type to stop reaching, no matter how far she has to stretch.

Still, Rumi’s pulse hammers in her ears, panic crawling up her spine. The 63 Building isn’t just another rooftop, it is a landmark. It is a skyscraper where one wrong step meant not a twisted ankle, not a bruise, but a fall that would leave nothing behind but a tragedy for the papers. And Zoey had written about it as if she were bragging about sneaking onto a school roof.

Rumi opens the comments section, curious to see what her followers think of all this rooftop madness, and her eyes land on the top comment, making her smile a little, because it’s from Mira. 

@n4palm_era:
WTF, YOU DID WHAT? ZOEY, WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME? I mean, this is sick in a way, but… WTF, HOW DID YOU EVEN DO IT?? YOU COULD HAVE DIED, YOU STUPID ASSHOLE

Rumi exhales through her nose, trying to keep the smile in place. She doesn’t want to think about how badly she wants a kiss from Mira right now — probably off-topic, but there’s also comfort in knowing she isn’t the only one shaken by what the youngest did —, so she just scrolls down to Zoey’s reply, already bracing for impact. 

@turtles4everr:
Hey, babe, I’m a grown woman, ok??? And security was kind of a joke?? I mean, it was not even that hard to get in if you don’t think about it too much. Honestly easier than some of the smaller buildings. Lol guess money doesn’t always mean better locks

Rumi groans softly, pressing the heel of her palm against her forehead, and saying:

“Zoey…”

Of course she just confessed to breaking into it on a public platform for the whole world to see. Broadcasting her crimes like it is all part of the joke. It is too much like watching her own reflection spiral out of control, Zoey rushing toward danger without thinking, too stubborn to stop, too bright to realize how stupid what she does is. 

And yet, at the same time, Rumi can’t help the way her lips twitches, fighting a bitter smile, because it's so obvious that Zoey would say something like that, as if  trespassing in a skyscraper is nothing more than an inconvenience, a funny footnote. Having a filter has never been in Zoey’s nature.

Rumi continues to follow the thread, but this time with the difference of not only reading what Zoey posted but also the comments, wanting to see what Mira had to say about all of this as well.

And it wasn't difficult for her to notice that no matter how absurd Zoey’s post was, Mira was always there, weaving the same message with tiny variations, like: 

“so cool, Zo, don’t make me come drag you down tho”
“Godammit, can you stop giving me heart attacks??? Get your ass home and be safe”
“You’re insane, love, I don't even know why I insist on coming here. seriously, come home, the dinner is getting cold”

Something about the simplicity of it: not dramatic, not an argument, not anger — at least, not totally. Just Mira, steady as ever, loving Zoey enough to celebrate her madness while still begging her to please, please step off the ledge and come back down.

Rumi stares at it until her vision is blurred, not from the whole mess her body’s been dealing with, but from the mixture of emotions that wrestles inside her: anger at Zoey’s carelessness, grief at the thought of everything slipping further away, envy at the intimacy woven into Mira’s responses…. and underneath it all is a trembling ache, a dawning awareness that Mira has become even more the anchor Zoey leans on, and Rumi still isn't there with them. 

Rumi’s thumb hesitates again as she scrolls further down Zoey’s thread, eyes darting across the glowing lines of text. 

The tone of it hadn’t changed much, Zoey still kept that playful, reckless narration of her so-called “adventures.” But then, a particular post caught Rumi’s attention, the words pulling her down into a silence that feels like the floor being ripped out from under her.

@turtles4everr:
Day 20 – 

Listen to me guys, I have a new plan!!!! 😃🤩🤯🤯

Im starting to bring food because clearly my charm alone isn’t cutting it, and I saw those vids online of Spider Woman taking food pretty fast if people leave snacks to her after getting saved, or even just straight-up baiting her with dumplings and hoping for the best…. Guess im gonna start doing the same thing and also hope for the best 😅

I mean, she moves so much she’s gotta be starving 24/7, right? So I’m testing the theory hehe

Today’s bait: spicy chips, two granola bars, and an energy drink (because hydration matters-- No, dont talk to me about water, wtf is that) 

Anyway, If this works, I’m upgrading to dumplings next week! Wish me luck!!!

Rumi freezes.

Her eyes run over the tweet three times, as if repetition can somehow make the meaning shift into something less horrifying. 

Videos?! Her pulse roars in her ears, her throat tightening until she can barely swallow. People recorded me? Eating?

No. This isn’t possible. It can’t be. She has always been careful, always. Scaling rooftops in the blind spots of cameras, snatching food with speed and precision, ducking back into the shadows before anyone could blink. It has been her one certainty, her only small victory in this fractured life: that what she does up there is invisible, a private ritual. That the city would never truly see her.

And yet, here Zoey is, speaking of it as casually as if she is discussing the weather.

Her mind screams at her to leave it alone, to lock the device and let it above her table, but the temptation burns hotter than reason. She taps the search bar with a single shaking finger and types the words before she can talk herself out of it:

Spider Woman.

The results loads instantly, an avalanche of headlines, tweets, shaky cell phone footage, grainy screenshots. And the first video thumbnail is enough to make her stomach twist.

It is her.

There is no denying it: a hunched figure crouched on the lip of a roof, the silhouette unmistakable. Even with the shaky quality of the footage, Rumi can recognize herself instantly. The mask covers her face as always, tugged just high enough to bare her mouth, and she can see the faint flash of movement as she pulls food quickly into her hands. The cursed markings along her body — thank goodness — aren’t nearly as visible this way. The lower half of her face has only a few, faint and fragmented. If the audience looks closely, perhaps they might notice something strange, but no; nothing screams demon in these clips. This isn’t what makes her blood run cold.

What unsettles her is the way she looks while eating. Now this is actually the closest thing to a reason someone might suspect she’s a demon.

She clicks on another video, then another, each angle catching her in the same raw desperation: tearing into food with an urgency that is hard to disguise. She devoured it hunched and tense, chewing fast, always crouched as if the meal might be ripped from her at any second. 

It is just survival, plain and simple, and survival never looks graceful.

And now here it is, preserved forever, replayed endlessly, and shared to millions.

Rumi’s chest collapses inward. A nauseating heaviness pressed against her ribs, shame punching through like a blade.

Fuck it! She thought that she was doing such a fantastic job at hiding, but now what? 

She can already imagine what they see: a creature more than a woman, gnawing at scraps in the dark like some feral thing. Maybe they don't see her as a savior, or a protector, or the figure who had pulled them from wreckage and ruin anymore. No, the lens stripped away every last shred of dignity, leaving behind only a spectacle.

The comments manage to be even worse than the footage.

@spideyfan_420:
why she eats like a damn animal wtf bro

@unamployednothing:
Imagine idolizing this thing. Y’all are sick

@dumplingbait:
ok but she’s definitely skinnier than she was a few months ago right?? like noticeably?? 

@urbancryptid:
Imagine being that desperate you chow scraps on rooftops lol 💀💀💀

@4rdeathing:
Is this even real?? looks like some cursed freak tbh

@noodlesnfaith:
she never saw food in her life?? 💀

@snackwatcher:
Skinny Woman attacks again lol

@hunter690q39:
she moves like she’s buffering now 💀💀💀 low battery spider? lmaoo

@webz4days:
ok but why she always crouched like a goblin when she eats 😭😭😭

@slaybithcr:
not the hero of Seoul turning into a rooftop raccoon 💀💀

@a12a2a1424:
Bro she’s just some freak playing hero.

@ifyoureadingityouregay:
someone said she eats like she’s in a speedrun and I can’t unsee it 😭😭😭

@anonymusnumberwhaterv:
she’s not even scary anymore tbh just weird

@fysl9295784:
Racoon Woman! 😂😂😂😂

@guysimtired:
bet she’s the one causing half the problems she saves us from.

@deeeznYts:
even her hair looks pretty bad lmao

@napnappinh:
imagine being the flying bug that lands near her food. instant death loll

Each word digs deeper, heavier, until her body recoils as though the phone itself burns in her hand. The laughter. The casual cruelty. The fascination wrapped in ridicule. It suffocates her. It brands her.

And her cursed patterns, seemingly not satisfied with all her suffering, begins to throb as if in response, a heat crawling just beneath her skin, alive and merciless.

She thought she had been careful. Always moving fast, always pulling the mask back down before disappearing. She had convinced herself that no one truly saw her like this. That she remained untouchable, untarnished, beyond their gaze. But now she can’t escape the image they had captured a long time ago and she is just knowing now: Spider Woman, savior of the city, eating like a starving animal.

Her breath stutters, ragged, uneven. She hates the way her mind whispers that they are right. She is pathetic. She is feral.

And then, as if her own body wanted to twist the knife deeper, her stomach gives a loud, humiliating growl. The sound echoes in the silence of this old warehouse, mocking her, cruel as any comment on the screen. She slaps a hand over her abdomen as though she could smother the noise, her face twisting in disgust. It feels like her own body has joined the chorus, laughing with them, confirming every insult.

Her thumb hovers over the screen, trembling, before she scrolls again. More videos. More of the same angles… but relief washes faintly through her when she notices that most of the clips are repeated, reposted endlessly, recycled content masquerading as fresh. At least it means not every moment has been captured. Not every rooftop. Not every hurried meal. Some scraps of her life remain invisible, unseen.

But even this small comfort can’t erase what is already out there: her image, replayed and dissected. Her hunger. 

Her shame.

The city has already seen her, and they have already reduced her to nothing more than an animal.

Well, at least now she understands why the last few outlaws seemed so eager to tease her about her looks, turns out everyone knows, except her.

Her thumb jerks almost on instinct, the screen that had shut down flares to life again, harsh and too bright against her eyes, but she doesn’t care. She can’t stop herself. 

Yes, the videos are bad enough, and the comments are even worse, yet she keeps scrolling, desperate to see what else they’re saying about her. Desperate to know how far the rot has spread… and whether there’s anything she can still do to contain the damage.

She deeps into the threads beneath the posts, scrolling faster and faster. Each swipe reveals another sliver of how the world sees her.

The rare positive ones are either so exaggerated they felt like parody, or so poisoned with pity they made her want to choke.

@softwebs:
She’s literally an angel. The way she moves?? Divine. Ethereal. Untouchable.

@icanttakeitanymre:
Spider Woman is like… some kind of urban guardian angel 😭 we don’t deserve her fr

@fei921:
Girl’s starving up there, someone feed her already. It’s tragic.

@whyisthistakingthislong:
#justiceforspiderwoman She doesn’t deserve to be hunted by the police like she’s the villain, she’s out there risking everything for us

@justfinishitalredy:
I hope she’s okay. No one should have to live like that just to help us. It’s heartbreaking.

@cryptidbutmakeitsoft:
ok but the way she crouches when she eats… y’all ever heard of trauma???

@ilikethewordwtf:
She’s not a freak, she’s fighting for us, wtf is the issue with you guys????

@fanaccount_2390:
I saw her once, she looked so damn tired, didn’t say anything, just nodded and vanished. I think about it every day

@ihateusernames:
Stop calling her ‘’skinny woman’’ or ‘’raccoon woman’’ this is NOT funny! She’s a person! A hero! Show some respect!

The words blurs. Her stomach turns, empty but still threatening to heave. 

They think she is an angel? They think she is tragic? They think she is heartbreaking? They don’t know her. They don’t fucking know her. They don’t know anything. 

Her fingers twitches at her sides, nails pressing crescents into her palms.

All the praise feels wrong. Twisted. It lodges in her chest like glass, glittering but cutting deep. She isn’t an angel. She isn’t ethereal or divine or whatever other word they want to dress her in. She is nothing more than a body stitched together with anger and instinct. A mistake with teeth.

‘’An angel,” she mutters under her breath, as if she is testing the sound as it leaves her mouth. “Didn’t know starving counted as angelic.” She jokes, but her voice is laced with bitterness, and the weak laugh that slips from her lips is sharp, humorless. 

Every word of pity is like another hand reaching out to touch her like a specimen, like she is some tragic myth for them to project their fantasies onto. Heartbreaking. Heroic. Poor thing. She can already feel it sticking to her, slick and crawling, seeping through the cracks of her armor. It makes her want to claw at her own skin until it peels away.

She starts to think that she prefers the hate comments over all of this. This, at least, she understands. Hate is familiar. Hate is honest. Hate doesn’t try to dress itself up in fake sympathy.

She keeps scrolling, anyway. Not to see the hate, obviously not. After all, she already knows exactly what they’ll say, and it’s not like any of it is that different from what she thinks of herself. She stays on Twitter because, uselessly, stupidly, she wants to see if maybe someone will see her for what she really is. Not as Rumi, she has already accepted that no one will see her that way again.

She just wants to know if someone might see her not as an angel. Not as a freak. Not as a tragedy. Just… her.

But the deeper she goes, the more the comments blur into two monstrous shapes: worship and revulsion. Both unbearable.

She can feel her heartbeat everywhere now: in her temples, her throat, her fingertips. The patterns under her attire throbs as if the words themselves are burning them deeper into her flesh. Her eyes stings, but she doesn’t blink. She wants to vomit, but there is nothing in her stomach to bring up. 

All she can do is keep reading, as though she can punish herself into some kind of clarity, as if one more page of comments might somehow convince her that she’s not a mistake, not a monster, not anything like that. That she deserves some kind of kindness in her life, but even thinking about it makes her discomfort worse.

Oh, and just for the record, the tone and rhythm of the comments she keeps reading don't change. It's the same as before. 

At least, until she starts noticing how many of them come with videos attached.

At first, Rumi told herself she wouldn’t look. The deeper she sank into the labyrinth of replies beneath the posts, the more videos she saw tacked on like weeds. Apparently, they aren’t the grainy rooftop recordings she is dreading right now, so what is the point of looking? Just filler. Just noise.

But then she hit what might as well have been the millionth one, posted beneath some stranger’s attempt to defend her against another wave of insults. And this time, against her better judgment, she taps play.

Her regret is immediate.

The screen fills with cuts of her, her body spliced into something she hadn’t given permission for, something fevered and suggestive. Music pulses faintly under it, too low and distorted to matter, but the rhythm only makes her movements: her leaps, her crouches, her fights look obscene. And worse, the editor hadn’t stopped at raw footage. They’d slowed her motions, zoomed in on the smallest shifts of her waist, her thighs, the arch of her back when she twisted midair. Each movement is framed not as survival, not as combat, but as a fucking spectacle.

Her cheeks flush so hard it scorches her ears. 

Heat rushes through her skin so fast she thinks her patterns might ignite. Gosh, she is pathetic for reacting like this, pathetic for feeling the blood pound so visibly in her cheeks. It isn’t even the first time. She’d been Spider Woman for more than three years now, so obviously she already knows how people are. She knows how the internet works. She’d seen edits like this before, people losing their minds over the way she moves… Or, at least, at the way she moved. 

I mean, back then it was understandable, she had a body for it. Muscled, toned, beautiful in the way that photographs love to capture. Beautiful in the way that she had all the certainty that she was everyone’s type.

But now?

Dude, she barely even has a body left to show. Still, here it is again: her image, carved up and repackaged, thirsted after by people who can’t possibly know what she really looks like under the mask. Who can’t see how hollow she has become.

It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense. The internet doesn’t make sense.

Anger swollen in her chest, ugly and hot. She is seconds away from closing the app entirely, shoving the phone down beside her and refusing to waste another second watching strangers treat her as something she isn’t, but her fingers betray her. They brush against the retweets instead.

And there it is.

Zoey’s retweets, shining like fresh scars beneath every single one of the edits.

Rumi exhales through her nose, the sound sharp, half-surprised and half-indignant. A small, involuntary laugh almost escaped her, brittle and humorless. Of course. Of course it had to be Zoey.

Curiosity shoves her deeper before she can stop herself.

She turns the sound off completely, she can’t stand the moans people had spliced into some of the clips and the thought of hearing them layered over her body like a second curse.

Edit after edit, and every time, Zoey’s retweet gleams beneath all the edits. 

Damn. This girl is totally obsessed. 

What the hell did the curse do to her? And more importantly: where the fuck does she find time for all this? Because, as far as she remembers and knows, Zoey’s still in college. So how does she have time for all this shit and still keep up with her classes?

She’s operating on a different plane entirely, for crying out loud.

Rumi just stays there, her stomach twists like she had swallowed broken glass. There is a pull deep inside her chest, half-sick, half-starved, something that keeps clawing upward no matter how much she tries to push it down, because Zoey is looking, yes, but she is looking at Spider Woman. She just knows how to look at the cursed spectacle that people wants to either worship or destroy. Never at the girl beneath the mask, the grimes, scars… beneath the patterns.

It’s strange to say it, but… maybe she’s jealous? Okay, maybe that’s not the right word. Or maybe it is, and she’s just too closed-off that she doesn’t want to admit to feeling something this stupid. But whatever it is, it’s hot, it’s sharp, and it’s completely ridiculous.

Because, it's so easy to imagine Zoey’s face lighting up when she presses a retweet, easy to imagine the little laugh or smirk she might’ve had watching those clips. Easy to imagine her saving them, replaying them. And the idea that Zoey — her Zoey, who had once laughed with her, trusted her, loved her, — is spending even one second lost in these edits makes Rumi’s throat constricts like a fist has closed around it.

And braided through this strange feeling is something colder, darker.

Fear.

It isn’t just Zoey who is watching. It is everyone. Millions of hungry eyes, dissecting her body, stitching it into whatever they want it to be. 

Not that Rumi cares all that much about what the internet thinks, she likes to think that she is used to the fetishistic comments that always seem to follow her body, no matter how monstrous she feels. She knows the internet never cares about the truth, that it only cares about what can be consumed, but the problem is… if Zoey is now one of these eyes; then what does this mean for Rumi? For the small, fragile and pathetic hope she still carries that maybe, just maybe, Zoey can see her someday beyond the name Spider Woman? 

Her heart feels like it is tearing in two directions: dragged one way by the sharp spike of this feeling she’d rather not unpack, dragged the other by this sinking weight of fear. And somewhere in the middle of it, shame began to pool, slow and suffocating as always.

After all, isn’t it pathetic? To care this much about what the youngest thinks. To be angry that Zoey is retweeting, but also terrified of what it would mean if she wasn’t... It is all twisted, all broken. All her. 

Rumi exhales, long and ragged, forcing the breath to leave her lungs as if she could wring out the tension with it. Her chest still burns from everything she had just seen, but she presses her palms against the back of her tense and aching neck after setting the phone down on the table, trying to ground herself. She has to stop spiraling. If she doesn’t, she will lose herself completely.

Okay, she thinks while letting out an exhausted sigh. Back to Zoey’s thread. At least this… this hurts less.

Well, she knows it isn’t true. She knows it would still cut, maybe in a quieter, slower way, but there is something familiar about Zoey’s obsession, like an old ache she has grown used to pressing against. 

So she comes back into the thread that has started all of this. Line after line, day after day, she continues retracing Zoey’s words until finally she reaches the most recent posts.

@turtles4everrr:
Day 64 – 

Hey folks!!!! 

Yeah… didn’t get the shot today either 😭 But I did get more photos! They’re down below. Theyre not amazing, but maybe someday I’ll get there, right?

Nevermind, Spider-Woman seemed in a hurry today, but then again, when isn’t she? Aparently she passed right in front of the police station, which probably explains the speed. Maybe she was trying not to get spotted?

But then again… that doesn’t totally make sense, does it? She probably knows this city better than anyone. So maybe it was on purpose???????

Anyway, she was definitely too busy to notice me yelling that I had food 😩 

I didn’t film it, but I swear I shouted it! Like, full volume: “I HAVE FOOD!” And I honestly don’t know if she heard me and ignored me or just didn’t hear me at all :(

This sucks! I just want one good photo. ONE! Is that too much to ask???

Rumi’s body goes still, as if the words themselves had frozen her. For a moment she can’t even blink. Then, slowly, she closes her eyes, pressing them shut until sparks bloom in the darkness. Her mind pulled at the memory, calculating, stitching pieces together.

The police station.

That day. The day she had slipped into the precinct to hand over information to Celine — hoping that it would might spark a mother-daughter moment worthy of a K-drama reunion scene. 

Just two days ago.

The air rushes past her lips in a disbelieving laugh that isn’t really a laugh at all.

No way.

That means Zoey has been there. Close. So close. Calling out, her voice tearing through the noise of the street, offering food, of all things. And Rumi, what had she been doing? Distracted. Her head buried too deep in her own sorrow, replaying Celine’s words so much that she hadn’t noticed the youngest. 

Her hand curls into a fist against the table, nails biting into her palm. The urge rose in her chest, sharp and reckless, to type out a reply right there beneath Zoey’s post:

Sorry, Zo. I didn’t hear you. I was… distracted. I swear I wasn’t ignoring you. I would never.

The words pulses in her head, her fingers twitching with the weight of them. The apology she’ll never get to say. The truth she wants to carve into the screen, but she doesn’t, because she knows exactly how Zoey would react the moment Rumi’s username flashes back onto her phone. The same one she used years ago. The one that once meant everything to her, but now means nothing to Zoey. Or to Mira.

She can almost hear Zoey’s scoff: Just another lunatic. 

Rumi knows that no matter how many times she plays it out in her head nothing can break through the suffocating weight of the curse pressing against her life, the iron wall between who she is and who everyone sees.

She sighs and finally reaches the last posts of the thread, wanting to know what Zoey had been up to during the two days she’d been practically killing herself trying to fix this damn phone.

@turtles4everrr:
Day 65 – 

Honestly, kind of a letdown today, folks 😭

Barely saw Spider-Woman at all, she zipped past when some kind of fight broke out near the bridge, but she was gone in literal seconds and she just left with no chances for a photo…. AGAIN

I mean, I totally get that she’s busy saving people or whatever, but damn, give me some attention girl 😒

ANYWAY, If I can’t get attention from her, Im totally taking it from my girlfriend!!!

Yesssss, bitches, you read it right! Mira is starting to come with me on my adventures and I didn’t even had to get on one knee for it!!  😎✨✨ ✨ 

The only pictures I’ve got today are of her. She’s so hot I can’t believe she’s dating a nerd like me. Like, wtf did I do to deserve her?? 😭😭😭

WELL, hope you guys are satisfied with our pics below. We took this after I showed her how to trespass the 63 Building. Partners in crime go brrrrrr!!! 💥

Rumi stops, her gaze lingering on the bright glow of the screen. 

Mira went with her?

The words echo in her head, sinking deep like a thorn she can’t pull out. It shouldn’t be that shocking, or at least, that’s what she tries to tell herself. After all, she had already accepted that the curse has changed Mira somehow, since she doesn't seem to have the same energy as Zoey when it comes to Spider Woman. 

So what happened for her deciding to come long in this madness?

Did Zoey spend all these sixty-four days trying to convince her, little by little, until Mira finally gave in? Or was it something else entirely?

She tries to scroll past the photos before she can think too much about them, but its impossible to not dwell, since there are several pictures: Zoey and Mira together on that building, half-smiling selfies and even some of them they’re kissing, others just candid, easy smiles and poses aimed at the camera.

And then, she feels again that strange ache behind her ribs, a kind of dull, suffocating bitter and melancholic feeling that she doesn’t want to admit what it is at all.

Maybe it is just longing; the kind that hurts in ways no wound ever could, because she knows that she should’ve been there with them. She should’ve been part of these moments too, should’ve been the one between them, smiling, kissing, laughing, alive.

She should have been happy. 

She can almost see it: herself in the middle of them, maybe Zoey and Mira kissing her cheeks at the same time. Just the three of them being together, like things used to be. 

Rumi swallows hard and forces herself to scroll past the rest. She doesn’t want to look at their faces anymore, because she should’ve been with them, but she isn’t, and she is still trying to cope with the fact that she never will be again.

@turtles4everrr:
Day 66 – 

Okay this is getting ridiculous 

Two days in a row. HOURS outside, and what do I have to show for it? A glimpse. Like, blink-and-you-miss-it levels of fast. She slipped down an alley after some car crash and was gone before I could even lift my camera

BUT at least I am not coming alone anymore!!!! 😃😃😃😃 I spent the afternoon rooftop-hopping with my beautiful, pretty girlfriend and honestly?? 10000/10 use of my time 

You guys have NO idea of how much fun we had up there… 

AHEM, today’s pics are mostly skyline shots and a few of Mira because she’s stupidly hot, and i cant help myself, but obviously I’m not posting all of her pictures here bc I know how some of you act in the replies. I’m watching 🤨📸

Rumi pretends not to read the last part of the tweet. She knows damn well that if she stares at it for one more second, she’d be spiraling again. 

So, she tries to focus on something slightly less awful, like the fact that she has not only been frustrating Zoey for the past 66 days, but also managed to disappoint her even more over the last two, while she was busy trying to fix this old phone.

She tries to comfort herself with the thought that at least, in her absence, no new humiliating videos has surfaced. No shaky footage of her ripping open a paper bag like an animal cornered. No recordings of her teeth sinking into bread too fast, of her throat swallowing too hungrily. At least, for two days, she hadn’t been turned into a grotesque spectacle.

This fragile thought shatters instantly when her stomach growls one more time, long and low, as if mocking her with its emptiness, or as if demanding and reminding. She presses a palm against her abdomen as if she could muffle the sound, but it only throbs louder inside her head, like an echo of every comment she’d read, besides the migraine that doesn't leave her.

Whatever, she doesn’t have much time to sink deeper into her hunger, or even into this friendly ache of being forgotten by the people who once mattered most, because she hears a noise. Distant, but familiar. Very familiar.

Police sirens.

At first it was faint, almost indistinguishable from the constant hum of the city at night, but her senses are too sharp and maybe too cursed to miss it for long. The shrill wail of police cars cutting through the air, rising and falling in urgent waves. 

She stills, head tilting slightly as her ears tracked the direction, the vibration of sound echoing in her bones, letting her senses expand outward like a net. 

More than one vehicle. A convoy, by the way the tones overlap, stretched thin over the dark streets. All speeding toward a single point, but not in her direction. 

And why does it even matter? Well, because if they aren’t coming after her, then it can only mean one thing.

Trouble. Somewhere.

Her hand rises slowly, dragging over her face as a sigh leaks out between her teeth. The kind of sigh that carries not just exhaustion, but resignation. Her fingers brush against the edge of the mask lying above the table, its fabric worn smooth from use.

She picks it up, holds it for a moment, staring at the thing like it is both lifeline and noose. Then, with deliberate slowness, she slides it over her head, and the straps snaps into place against her skin. 

“Time to move,” she says, though her voice sounds too distant even to her own ears. She doesn’t have the energy to say it louder, or even to keep fighting, but here she is…

Again, and again. 

Chapter Text

It doesn’t take long for Rumi to catch up to the police convoy.

She moves like muscle memory wrapped in exhaustion, momentum doing most of the thinking for her. The wind stings her face through the fabric of the mask, and her arms tremble faintly each time she shoots another web. 

Her grip falters once, something typical and expected to happen to her, so she isn't too surprised, especially since her reflexes do her the favor of steadying her. Still, not everything is sunshine. The sudden movement pulls a hissed breath through clenched teeth. Not that it matters, because she refuses to lose the rhythm.

Below her, the wail of sirens rolls through the streets like a pulse, and she matches it beat for beat.

Each swing brings her closer to the flashing lights, to the procession of squad cars slicing through traffic with ruthless precision. The police are fast, but so is she. Even now, running on half-empty lungs and a stomach that feels like it’s eating itself, she manages to stay parallel with them. It’s almost impressive how she can keep up like this. 

None of the officers seem to notice the extra shadow streaking above them. Their focus is down there, where humans always look, where she used to look: at the road, at the other cars, at the chaos that stays on their level. None of them ever think to look up. It’s fine, though. She says to herself everyday that she is already used to being no one, already used to not being seen for who she truly… was. 

Rumi doesn’t want to go deep into her thoughts, she figures she’s suffered enough for one day — Twitter really is a dark place. She has no idea how Zoey manages. So instead, she breaks her thoughts by landing briefly on the edge of a rooftop, crouching low, her fingers pressing into the rough concrete, and her breath coming in small bursts that fog up the inside of her mask. 

The sirens beneath her are close enough now that they shake the air around her, and it’s because of this closeness — not to mention her keen hearing — that she manages to catch the static of police radio chatter:

“Two armed suspects, considered dangerous. A man and a woman…”

She exhales hard through her nose, straightening again as she shoots another web and swings forward, following the convoy’s path. 

Two armed suspects. Perfect. Just what her half-dead body wanted to hear. 

She can already imagine it in her mind: bullets, shouting, chaos, and her stupid self diving right into the middle of it because apparently, she has never had any concept of self-preservation.

What she really hopes is that these “armed and dangerous” suspects turn out to be something manageable. Some desperate thieves, or another kind of petty criminals, or… Urgh, whatever, she just wants something easy, something that she can hand off to the cops without even breaking much of a sweat, because no lying, she is tired.

And she doesn’t have anyone by her side, even with her diving into the fire every single day

She shakes her head. How does her mind switch tracks so easily?!

So this is how Zoey feels?-

Uh, well, by the time Rumi reaches the scene, the night has already started to curdle.

She lands silently atop a neighboring rooftop, perched low, her breathing shallow from the sprint it took to keep up with the police convoy. Below, the squad cars screech to a halt. The smell of burnt rubber, city dust, and cold metal fills the air.

Her eyes first latch onto a jewelry store window, the glass shattered outward and sparkling on the pavement under the dim light. And there, just beyond the broken window, she spots the source of the chaos.

Two figures stand over a man in a torn security uniform. He’s sprawled on the floor, one hand clutching his side, the other trembling around the grip of a pistol. The muzzle shakes so badly it could almost be mistaken for vibration. His eyes are wide, terrified, not just of the criminals in front of him, but of his own helplessness.

The criminal woman laughs, the sound cutting through the sirens like glass scraping metal. 

Her grin is feral, careless, as she glances to the man beside her, saying in a syrupy, drawn-out tone that borders on nauseating:

“Come on, honey. Just finish him already.”

The man, who seems to be her boyfriend, or whatever else Rumi can’t care less about, laughs too. He steps closer to the guard, boots crunching over broken glass. 

The security officer’s arm shakes harder, and he ends up dropping her gun to the floor. If he was desperate before, now he’s even worse. He looks like he’s praying for anyone to step in.

From above, Rumi narrows her eyes, her pulse hammering dully against her ribs. She casts a quick glance toward the officers climbing out of their cars, still ducking behind doors, shouting into radios, forming a perimeter instead of moving in. She spots Bobby somewhere in the middle, and at least he is trying to push people with their phones away from the crime scene. Not that it’s going to work. People just turn into a bunch of clueless idiots when something violent happens, like all they care about is filming it for social media.

In any case, it’s not exactly surprising that the cops are doing everything but actually intervening. It’s like they’re all just standing around, waiting for orders. 

Rumi glances again just to confirm her suspicion, and notices that Celine, or anyone with a higher rank, still hasn’t shown up, which means the life of that trembling security guard on the floor it’s literally hanging on her.

Typical.

She exhales through her teeth, already bracing herself for what comes next.

Then, with a practiced flick of her wrist, she fires a web. The line slices through the air, before it hits its target dead-on: wrapping around the criminal man’s torso, pinning his arms tight against his sides. He barely has time to gasp when Rumi suddenly drops from above, the wind roaring past her ears as she descends, the world narrowing to the precise point where her feet hit the ground, the impact rattling the broken tiles beneath her. 

The two criminals freezes for a moment, blinking in confusion as the sticky white webbing glistened under the streetlights. The sudden attack had caught them entirely off guard; no one, not even the police had noticed Spider-Woman’s arrival until that instant. Oh, and by the way, the security guard who was on the ground takes advantage of this moment and goes far away from them.

So, the criminal man struggles uselessly against the web cocooning his torso and arms, then he says with his voice dripping with irritation and mockery:

“Ah, if it isn’t Spider-Woman herself. Was starting to think you weren’t gonna butt in for once.”

Rumi’s mask hides her glare, though her silence says enough, and the guy just grunts, tugging again, the webbing stretching but not giving an inch.

Behind him, the woman, who is leaning casually against the cracked display window as if this is all a street performance, lets out a laugh that grates against Rumi’s nerves.

“You mean Skinny Woman, right?” she retorts, sauntering closer, her smirk sharp and deliberate. “Guess she was buffering mid-meal. You know how she gets when she’s hungry.”

The man barks a laugh, the sound loud and grating.

“Holy shit, yeah! Look at her, doesn’t even fit in that suit right anymore! What happened, huh? Took the whole Spider-Woman thing a little too seriously that now you’re only eating flies?” He leans forward, sneering even as the web cuts into his chest.

His partner giggled like it is the funniest thing she’d heard all her life.

Rumi needed every ounce of self-control she had not to let the low, guttural sound — half fury, half instinct — building in her throat escape: her jaw tightening until her teeth aches, the muscles in her neck pulling taut like drawn wires, and her heartbeat loud in her ears. 

She shouldn’t be reacting this way, this isn’t the first time a criminal had mocked her, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. She had already been insulted, threatened, cornered, and spat on before, and she’d always managed to keep a razor-thin composure. But now it is different, because she truly understands what they are mocking her for, now that she’d seen the posts on Twitter, the clips, the threads dissecting her every move… It makes the anger hit differently. Harder.

It is personal.

Her pulse throbs painfully in her temples. The memory of those stupid, smug tweets flashing behind her eyes. And now, hearing the same sneer spill from the mouth of these two motherfuckers in front of her, it is like every word on those screens had been sharpened and thrown at her all over again in a worse way.

What the fuck is their problem?

Okay, sure, they are criminals. She shouldn’t expect decency, but still… Come on! Isn’t it obvious this is a sensitive subject? Isn’t it basic human decency not to throw something like that in someone's face?

Her hands clench at her sides. These two bastards probably know exactly what they're doing, and maybe that is the point: pressing on the bruise just to see if she would flinch. Maybe one of them had even read the same thread she had. Hell, maybe they had posted on it. 

The thought makes something twist in her gut, a mix of fury and disgust, and every muscle begs her to strike, to end the smirk on their faces, to silence their laughter, but she can’t. She won’t, because she knows exactly what will happen if she gives in, if she lets the growl escape, if she lets her fury take over.

The lines between demon and human are already so thin for her. One wrong breath, one wrong move, and she’d prove them all right that she really is nothing more than a starving animal.

So instead, she swallows the sound clawing its way up her throat and forces herself to breathe through her nose, long and deliberate. In through the nose, out through the mouth. She has to stay focused, and she isn’t going to give them the satisfaction. Not to mention that she can’t let the situation spiral, not when her body is already betraying her, and surrounded by people who’d love to see the Spider Woman slip, to see the real monster under the mask.

"Alright," Rumi speaks, her voice low but firm, the sound carrying easily over the police sirens and the faint hum of the city around them. “Let’s make this simple: you two surrender peacefully, and the officers over there can put you in adjoining cells.” Her tone is controlled, professional even, but inside she is bone-deep tired. She isn’t in the mood for more theatrics, no witty banter, no fancy acrobatics; just wrap it up, hand them off, and go home to finally eat something.

Her stomach feels like a hollow pit, twisting painfully as she somehow remains standing. A dull ache pulses at the back of her head, the edges of her vision shimmering faintly, making her need to blink a few times, trying to push through the haze, but it doesn’t help much. Her body is screaming for fuel, and the longer she stays here, the louder it screams.

She definitely doesn't need a fainting spell in the middle of an arrest… of this arrest. 

I mean, they are already mocking her just for looking different, for the shape of her body under the suit, for things they can’t even see properly. What would be if she collapsed in front of them? Or even If they hear her stomach rumble? That would be like blood in the water, for sure.

Therefore, Rumi forces her back straight, pulling in a shaky breath through her nose. 

She prides herself on one very specific talent: surviving the brink. Every time her body gives her these familiar warning signs she has always managed to keep herself standing until the fight is done and to get somewhere safe before collapsing. Always. And she plans to keep it this way.

The man lets out an irritated sigh, rolling his shoulders as though the tension in the air is somehow Rumi’s fault, while the woman beside him laughs, soft and amused, a sound that drips with mockery. She steps closer to him… and that’s when Rumi notices a thing, her eyes narrowing.

There is something off about the woman’s arms. Both her forearms and hands are encased in sleek, metallic gauntlets, like some kind of hybrid between armor and machinery. They’re something in between, mechanical gloves, sleek and perfectly fitted, humming faintly with power even in the dark. The kind of thing that doesn’t belong to a petty criminal.

But, first of all, what the hell is that supposed to be?

Looking from not-too-close, it just seems like upgrades or enhancements, or whatever, something along those lines. However, the way the woman is so relaxed, so convinced, makes Rumi question if that’s really all it is. Is it tech-enhancement? Cybernetics? Or something worse?

Her mind races through possibilities. She’d dealt with so many kinds of “improvements” before, but this one looks… different.

Whatever it is, she can come to a conclusion that it isn’t homemade, and also that the last time she saw something like that she ended up barely walking away from a midair collision with the Vulture.

God, she really hopes this isn’t another one of those nights.

The offender woman grins, her teeth white against the dim alley light.

“How sweet,” she coos, voice dripping with mock affection. “Worried about our relationship, are you? Don’t be, darling,” she adds, turning her head toward the man tangled in Rumi’s webbing. “I’ll have you free in no time.” Her voice is teasing, sing-song, but her posture shifts with precision, with focus. The way she flexes her fingers inside the gauntlets reminds Rumi of someone sharpening a blade, testing its edge before making the first cut.

The superhero exhales through her nose, tired but unimpressed. She places one hand on her hip, her voice coming out steady, almost lazy, the way someone sounds after seeing too many idiots make the same mistake:

“I wouldn’t bother if I were you. You’re not tearing through my webs that easi—” Her words die halfway through, because in the next second, the criminal woman reaches down, grabbing a strand of Rumi’s webbing and pulling.

Not just pulling, ripping.

The air gets filled with the harsh snap of tension giving way, the sound like tearing silk amplified by metal. For a fraction of a second, the gauntlets on her arms glowing with a violent, flickering red that pulsed along the seams like fire under glass. Sparks dancing where her hands met the webbing, and the reinforced strands shredded apart like they were paper.

Rumi stiffens.

Oh, perfect. Exactly what she needs right now, because apparently her night wasn’t bad enough already.

She knows what this is now. Definitely an enhancement, something designed for brute strength, probably illegal tech, like an upgraded exosuit, maybe even biomechanical? Well, either way, definitely not something she can punch her way through without a plan.

The outlaw woman just brushes the torn remains of Rumi’s webs off her partner’s chest as though she’d simply untangled a loose thread from a sweater. The smirk on her face is infuriating.

“Oh, now I can finally finish you off,” the man says first, his tone a sick blend of laughter and promise. He tilts his head until his neck cracks loud enough to echo across the street.

“Don’t take too long, honey,” the woman retorts, brushing her metal-clad fingers along his arm in a slow, deliberate touch that makes Rumi roll her eyes beneath the mask. “We still have places to be tonight.”

This only pisses Spider Woman off more. Like hell she’s gonna let them do anything. Not while she is still standing. Barely, sure, but standing is standing, and until she’s on her feet, this fight isn’t over.

With that being said, she raises one arm, ignoring the way her wrist trembled, and fires another web straight at the man.

The line shot out with that familiar thwip, slicing the air in a clean arc and in the moment it was about to hit the guy… he moved.

Fast.

Too fast.

The web strikes empty air and splatters against the ground several feet behind him.

Rumi blinks once. Twice. She hadn’t even seen him start to move.

He is standing there again, smirking, like he has been waiting for her to notice.

Rumi frowns deeply, before instinct takes over and she fires again. Then another. And another. Six in quick succession, all aiming with the precision that had never failed her before. 

Yet every single one misses now.

Her pulse spikes, confusion tangling with a spark of dread. No way. There’s no way she's that off. Maybe the dizziness is getting worse than she thought, maybe her aim’s slipping, maybe she’s finally about to pass out on the job--

No. No, she’s not crazy.

He’s really dodging them all. Effortlessly.

The realization slams into her gut like a punch. She takes a step back, her eyes narrowing, scanning him again, and that’s when she sees it. The gleam of metal running up from his feet to almost his knees. Boots pulsing with faint green light beneath the steel. Not armor, or braces. 

Augments. 

Just like the woman’s arms… except these are on his legs, obviously.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she spits the words out without meaning to.

The man chuckles darkly at this, bouncing lightly on his heels like he is testing his new toys while talking:

“What’s wrong, Skinny? Can’t keep up? Didn’t eat enough to have energy for this? Figures.”

Oh, this son of a bitch--

Rumi doesn’t answer, though she wants it so bad, but she doesn’t trust herself not to let some kind of curse slip out. Thus, she convinces herself she’s too busy racing and running calculations: these aren’t cheap modifications. This speed, control, and the sheer power in his stance… she’s seen enhanced strength before, even advanced prosthetics in black-market jobs, but this? This is something else. The way he moves isn’t human anymore. It’s too precise. Too efficient.

In three years of swinging through Seoul’s skylines, she’s never seen anything like that.

Whatever these two are using… it’s not standard. It’s worse.

Way worse.

Then, quieter, a grim half-laugh escapes her lips, and exhales like tasting the coppery edge of her own adrenaline: 

“I’m so fucked.”

If the couple themselves hears what she says, Rumi doesn’t give them the satisfaction of responding, or the time to mock her about it.

For the next several seconds, she focuses on the guy and keeps firing web after web in his direction, determined to land at least one hit. Her movements are sharp but frantic, but each one misses by inches. Every time she thinks she’s got him, he darts to the side, impossibly fast, his movements blurring into streaks of green blur and metal.

This bastard is toying with her.

And she’s so focused on keeping him in sight, on trying to predict his next impossible sidestep, that she doesn’t notice the shift in the air behind her until it’s almost too late.

A sound faint and electric cuts through the night, the hum of energy building.

Her instincts scream before her brain catches up, making Rumi twists, throwing herself backward in a desperate somersault just as the other woman lunges.

From the woman’s clenched fists, a blade of pure red light erupts crackling with heat. It’s not a weapon she’s holding, but something projected, streaming directly from the metallic gauntlets that encase both her arms. Twin lines of plasma extend outward like claws, cutting through the air with a sizzling hiss as they slice where Rumi’s throat had been a second ago.

Rumi lands lightly but hard, knees bending, one hand catching herself against the ground. The asphalt scrapes her palm even through the suit, but she barely feels it, because the woman doesn’t let up. She’s already coming at her again, and the hero flips to the side, the red energy flashing past her face, close enough that she feels the heat skimming her cheek through the mask. Another swing, and she ducks low, the air burning as it passes over her head.

It’s all reflex now, all speed and instinct. She doesn’t have the breath to think.

To anyone watching, it might look effortless, the Spider-Woman dancing between beams of light, twisting and dodging with impossible agility, her body bending in perfect rhythm with danger.

But inside, Rumi feels like she’s coming apart.

Her chest feels too tight, her lungs screaming for air that doesn’t come fast enough. Each time she flips or rolls, her vision flickers at the edges, black spots creeping in, threatening to close in entirely. Her pulse is so fast it’s starting to blur into a constant, throbbing drumbeat behind her ribs.

Focus, she tells herself, swallowing hard. You can’t pass out. Not now.

The woman grins at her amidst the blows, sweat and fury glinting under the faint light, choosing to tease: 

“Still fast, huh? Adorable. Let’s see how long you keep that up.”

Rumi straightens her back and breathes through her teeth, one hand trembling slightly as she raises it again. She can’t afford to stop, not when the only thing keeping her upright right now is pure stubbornness, adrenaline, and the taste of anger still burning at the back of her throat.

The problem is that with this brief pause she gave to herself, she doesn’t notice the shift in air behind her; doesn’t hear the scrape of boots against concrete, doesn’t feel the vibration of the ground until it is already too late. 

By the time her body registers movement, the man is already on her, and his boot connects hard against her ribs.

The impact sent Rumi flying backward, air rushing violently out of her lungs in a strangled hiss that came out more like a snarl than a cry, pain rippling through her chest, sharp and bright, but her instincts snaps into motion before she can even think. Her hands catch the ground first, and she flips into a handstand, legs bending gracefully before she twists her body and lands back on her feet in that fluid, crouched stance that is so distinctly hers.

For one fleeting second, she looks like she hadn’t been hit at all, like she’d been born to fall and rise again, but the moment she really get up, the man is already moving, faster than her eyes can comfortably track. 

He begins circling both her and her partner, the modified shoes he wears glowing in an acid green, leaving streaks of color in the air like painted trails of light, and within seconds, he has created a glowing ring around them: a spinning, humming barrier that makes Rumi and the outlaw woman trapped with each other. 

He’s making damn sure she has no way out, and her pulse quickens even more. 

The woman comes at her again, fists up, movements heavier but just as relentless. Rumi ducks, pivots, then launches herself upward in one smooth motion, flipping clean over the woman’s head. Her feet lands behind her with a muted thud, and before the other can turn, Rumi is dodging again with another leap. 

The rhythm starts again: attack, dodge, leap, breathe. It’s almost a dance, but one that Rumi can’t afford to lose.

Then, the faint sound of helicopter blades cut through the chaos. The sound of whup-whup-whup grows louder, closer. Rumi freezes for just a fraction of a second and lifts her head, a small, crooked smile curling her lips.

A way out. Finally.

Before her opponents can react, she raises her arms and fires a web upward, the silvery strand shooting cleanly through the air until it latches onto the underside of the approaching police helicopter. The line goes taut, and in the next instant, her body is yanked upward, her feet leaving the ground as the green-lit blur of her enemy spun helplessly beneath her. The wind howls past her ears, and for the first time in what feels like forever, she can breathe again.

When she finally lets go, it is with precision. She swung toward a nearby building and landed smoothly against its side, the soles of her boots clinging effortlessly to the vertical surface. 

Hanging there, chest heaving, she allows herself a single, shaky exhale.

She isn’t safe yet, but it's good that she managed to buy herself a little space. A little time to think and to keep herself from collapsing right here and now.

The man finally stops running, the glowing trails of green fading slowly around his feet until only the faint hum of energy remains. He comes to stand beside his partner, both of them panting, their eyes fixed with murderous precision on the place where the superhero now clings to the side of the building. Their faces are tight with anger, not just at her escape, but at the sheer audacity of it.

Rumi doesn't waste a second, her muscles screaming in protest, but she ignores them. She raises her wrists and fires another volley of webs toward the man. Her aim is reckless, desperate, a spray of silvery lines slicing through the air toward him, and for a stupid moment, she allows herself to the fleeting hope that he might be too winded, too distracted to react in time. But no, the asshole moves again, weaving between the strands of her web like a ghost made of electricity.

“Of course,” Spider Woman mutters under her breath, half a growl, half exhaustion.

She fires again. Misses. Again. Misses. Every failed shot cost her more energy, each web pulling from reserves she doesn't really have anymore, the muscles in her wrist burn, and somewhere deep in her abdomen, the ache spreads like fire. 

Fuck, she really needs rest. So what if she does everything not to sleep? Just one solid hour without the city spinning beneath would be enough. 

Anyway, she is so focused on him again that she doesn’t notice the woman breaking into a sprint, heading in the opposite direction of her boyfriend. Her movement is deliberate and Rumi’s eyes widens when she realizes where the other is going.

The criminal woman reaches one of the tall metal poles and, with a flick of her wrist, twin beams of red light slices clean through its base. The sound is horrible, a metallic shriek followed by the groaning of the collapsing structure.

And, of course, because this city always seems full of idiots, there are people standing far too close, gaping at the spectacle instead of running for their lives.

Their screams rose in unison as the light post began to tilt toward them.

Rumi’s thoughts become a whip of frustration and adrenaline. The police can’t even keep people back. What the hell are they doing?! 

She doesn't think any longer and just moves. She swings her arms out and fires two lines of webbing toward the falling pole. It latches, the thick, elastic strand stretching taut as she dug her feet against the side of the building and pulls with everything she has, which, frankly, isn’t much.

I mean, for a heartbeat, it works, she somehow manages to hold; the pole jerking mid-fall, suspended awkwardly above the ground as Rumi’s arms tremble with the effort of holding it steady. She can feel every ounce of its weight in her shoulders, in her back, arms… a deep, burning pressure that makes her vision pulse with dark spots, and makes her want to scream, like this would help her carry.

Why is this fucking bullshit so heavy?! Come on… just hold… just a second mo--

She miscalculated. Of course she had. The damn thing is heavier than she’d allowed herself to believe, and her body definitely isn’t in any condition to take this kind of strain. 

So, her grip falters, and the next thing she knows is that the pull yanks her clean off the wall.

The world flips: sky, asphalt, sky again.

She hits the ground hard, rolling across the pavement as the impact tears the air from her lungs. Every nerve screams, but she forces herself onto her side, coughing, and her head spinning, but she lifts it anyway, desperate to see. The pole had fallen, but not where the people had stood. It lays in the street, cracked and smoking, close enough that they’d probably felt the shockwave in their bones, but far enough that no one has been crushed.

A shaky breath escapes her lips, relieved that at least her efforts were not in vain. 

She forces herself up, or at least she tries doing it, because the world tilts. A hot, vertiginous swoop of dizziness unseat her, the pavement rising and falling beneath her like waves, making her knees fold, and fall back down, catching herself with a single palm. The heel of her hand presses hard into the ground, fingers splaying to hold herself from slumping completely. 

At the edges of her vision a creeping shadow threatens to swallow the scene. Sweat breaks cold against her skin, and a shiver runs through her. She tries a small trick she’d learned on nights like this: slow, methodical breathing, clenching a fist and releasing it to pull oxygen back into a mind that is slipping. She counts each inhale. She wills her heart to slow, to find a rhythm that doesn’t sound like an alarm siren, and even starts to tighten her core, flexing the muscles in her legs to remind them they still exists, also fixing her gaze on a distant, unmoving point on the horizon so the world maybe stop spinning for a second.

All of this helps, but only for a moment, since the darkness is insistent on licking the edges again. 

She has to anchor herself with something else: sensation. 

She digs the heel of her hand hard into the street until the sting sharpened her thoughts, forcing her back into the present. She starts to pay attention to a car horn wailing somewhere, a dog barking from afar… These details keeps her from floating away entirely, but her mind is really in and out.

Shit. shit. shit!

The fight isn’t over. She can’t afford to let them see her go limp in front of them. Not when she still has this stubborn habit of staying on her feet.

“Problem, flycatcher?” The outlaw woman taunts predatory and amused, stepping closer with her red blades humming faintly in the night. 

Rumi’s head jerks up, her braid sticking to her damp neck, her body sweat managing to get through her outfit to this point. She wants to spit back, to throw some biting remarks like she always has done before, but her throat is so dry that she is afraid of talking and they see her voice cracking. 

The man joins his partner at his fast speed, swaggering to her side with his hands shoved casually into the pockets of his jacket, as though this is nothing more than a game. 

“Where’re your usual wisecracks now, huh?” he jeers

The woman laughs, tilting her head toward him, retorting:

“Can’t you see she’s practically out of strength, babe?” the woman snaps. “She’s barely holding it together, let alone throwing out her lame little jokes. All that’s left is a pathetic little masochist who likes to play dress-up as a superhero.”

The guys cackle at that, the sound bright and cruel. It stings something raw and very private inside Rumi. Their words drags all the rot she has been trying to hide up into the open, rubbed salt into it, and the shame flared hot and immediate, her patterns aching beneath her attire. 

“Would you cut it?” she rasps, forcing her voice steady, but the sound comes out thinner than she intended.

The couple is unbothered by that. Actually, it just makes the man’s smile turn harder. 

“If she likes pain, I can help with that,” he says, and his body explodes forward. He ran like a shot, boots eating the distance between them in a blur.

Spider Woman dodges. 

Barely. 

The kick sliced through the air where her ribs had been an instant before, but even this small victory is hollow, because her equilibrium is shot, her breath ragging, and the city seems to tilt and sway around her like a carousel gone mad. 

With all that being said, when her senses scream again with that familiar crawling tension that snaps down her spine in warning, her body doesn’t respond in time.

He’s already there.

The man closes the distance in a blink and unleashes all his force into one precise, brutal kick.

The blow lands squarely in her chest.

The sound that follows is sickening like a dull, heavy thud that vibrates through her bones, followed by the sharp crack of impact against something harder than she is. For one suspended second, she doesn’t even register the pain. She just feels the air rush out of her lungs, her body folding inward as she’s launched backward like a rag doll.

She crashes into the front of a bus that has been idling nearby. The front glass of its windows shatters under her weight, the force scattering sharp fragments across the pavement. People are still stepping out of the bus, ordinary civilians frozen in horror, their screams muffled behind the ringing in her ears.

She doesn’t even have time to brace before her body is thrown upward by the force of the impact, slamming into the bus’s roof,  hard enough to make the metal groan, and then rolling backward into the windshield of a parked car behind it. The glass spiderwebs instantly, then collapses inward under her weight with a sharp, crystalline crunch.

For a moment, everything is just ringing like her ears are underwater. Her fingers twitch once before she realizes she is still conscious, somehow. She blinks and tears well up, blurring the world even further, because fuck it, it hurts. 

Her head spins and the lights above her fractures into a thousand blurry constellations. Her lungs also refuse to work for a moment, seizing against her ribs as she gasps soundlessly, the pain that follows coming like an aftershock: sharp, spreading from her ribs outward in nauseating waves that seem to pulse with every heartbeat. 

Through the haze, Rumi finds herself absurdly grateful for her mask. At least they can’t see her face right now. Can’t see her eyes watering, or the grimace she can’t stop making. The last thing she wants to give those two psychos is the satisfaction of knowing how much that hurt.

Did he really have to hit this hard?

Her hands twitch against the broken glass again as she tries to push herself up. Her head barely lifted before the world spins violently, making her collapse back down, and suck in a breath, or try to, and immediately regret it. Fire races along her side, each inhale looking like a serrated blade that drags against her ribs. She winces and presses her gloved hand over the source of the pain, feeling something give slightly beneath her palm. 

Fuck. Something’s broken. Definitely broken.

Her chest rises and falls in shallow, ragged gasps, and she can feel herself trembling, not just from pain but from the effort of staying conscious.

Wonderful. Just wonderful.

For a heartbeat, she lets herself think something she almost never allows: that she wishes she isn’t Spider-Woman, because a normal person, if they’d been hit like that, they’d be allowed to stop. They’d be carried away on a stretcher, patched up, told to rest. She could close her eyes, surrender to the dark, and wake up in a hospital bed with doctors and nurses fussing over her, with someone telling her it was going to be okay.

But she isn't normal.

Hell, she isn’t even a person anymore.

She is just this broken and demon thing, who is stupidly trying her best to keep going like maybe, someday, something good might happen in her fucking depressing life.

“Surrender, both of you! There’s nowhere left to run!”

The voice cuts through the chaos like the crack of a whip, amplified by the shriek of a megaphone, and even through the haze of all her pain, Rumi knows that voice. The sharpness of it. The restrained fury. The authority that carries both command and exhaustion.

Celine.

Well, it took her long enough to show up.

Rumi doesn’t know when exactly she’d arrived, but it doesn’t matter. It’s typical. The woman always shows up right when everything is falling apart, like some grim reminder of duty and control.

Still, a bitter thought flickers in Rumi’s mind: Where were they when she needs them?

She is always out here, bleeding and breaking her bones trying to keep two lunatics and other criminals that show up from blowing up half the street, while the cops have been busy doing what?

Oh, right.

“Securing the area,” or whatever that means. They just make sure no civilians get too close, as if that had helped when the street light came crashing down earlier.

She does the dirty work without asking for credit or pay, and the moment she is done, they’d turn on her. Always ready to chase her, to brand her a criminal again.

Yeah, she thinks bitterly, her head pounding with each slow heartbeat. What a partnership.

Her vision swims as she lifts her head, her neck protesting the movement. The edges of the world blur together, but she still manages to catch a glimpse of the Seoul SWAT team, their black armor glinting faintly in the flashing lights of the patrol cars. They advance in a formation of precision and fear, shields raising, rifles aiming straight at the couple standing in the middle of the street.

The man smirks, the kind of grin that screams overconfidence.

“Let’s see about that.”

“Ready to finish this, love?” the woman asks beside him, her voice laced with excitement. 

“Hell, yeah!” he barks, and before anyone can react, he lunges forward, punching one of the SWAT officers so hard the man flies backward and slams into a squad car with a metallic crunch that makes even Rumi flinch, because she literally just went through the same pain of being thrown into a vehicle. 

I mean, obviously this isn’t the first time she has been thrown into some kind of vehicle, but that doesn’t mean she’s getting used to it, especially these past few months, when every new injury seems to hurt more instead of building tolerance. Rumi suspects it’s because there’s barely any flesh left on her bones to cushion the impact.

Anyway, continuing:

“Open fire! Now!” Celine tells them and as simply as that the world erupted into full chaos.

Gunfire explodes around them. The officers open fire in unison, the sound deafening, but as expected their shots go wide, striking asphalt, metal, and glass… everything except their targets.

Rumi groans softly, pressing a trembling hand against her side where blood has already soaked through her torn suit. The pain pulses in waves, but she can’t look away. Through the exhaustion, her eyes catch Celine for just a moment, and she can't help but pay attention to the familiar posture, the way she stay slightly apart from the others, her stance steady and unforgiving.

Even now, even after everything, she can’t tell what hurts more, if it's her ribs, or this unbearable ache she always feels when she looks at her mother. Or her girlfriends.

She moves again, trying to get up one more time, but the wave of pain that crashes through her is so agonizing that she ends up lying back down on the glass, ignoring the sensation of more shards digging into her.

Scratch that. It's the ribs. Definitely the ribs. Fuck.

The criminal woman slips through the chaos like a phantom, appearing behind the officers before they can even register her movement. With one sharp twist of her wrist, twin beams of searing light flare from her gauntlets, a violent crimson that sliced the air in jagged lines. The smell of scorched metal fills the street as she cleaves through rifles and shotguns as if they were made of paper. Before the nearest officer can even shout, she drives her fist into his chest with horrifying force, the sound of cracking armor and bone echoing down the street. 

Meanwhile, the man keeps running like he just wants to show-off. He darts between bullets with impossible precision, every step leaving faint streaks of phosphorescent green across the asphalt as he slams his elbow into another officer’s face. One by one, they fall, as if crushed by the inevitability of it all.

Rumi could’ve felt worried for the officers, maybe even pitiful. They are just following orders, after all, but pity requires energy, and this is something she has none of left.

Besides, right now, she is too busy trying not to pass out.

Her body screams with pain as she struggles upright again, her elbows trembling under her weight, and broken glass scrapes against her palms. Every muscle feels like it has been torn in half. So, painfully slowly she manages to sit up, still half-slumped amid the shattered debris. 

She reaches down, wincing as her fingers brush against her legs, since shards of glass are embedded deep in her skin. One by one, she begins pulling them out. The first one comes loose with a sharp sting that makes her hiss between her teeth. The second brings a trickle of blood running down her body. By the third, her hands are shaking so badly she nearly drops it, and after what feels like an eternity, she gives up. There are too many. Too deep. Her fingers slip on the next one, and she just let her hand fall limply to her side.

The world around her tilted slightly, but she forces herself to look up, wanting to escape the pain, even if it is only with the eyes.

It doesn't work very well, because what she sees makes her breath catch in her throat, and heart slamming against her chest with a violent, animal rhythm.

The street is a graveyard of shattered glass and twisted bodies. The SWAT officers lay scattered across the pavement with some motionless, twisted in unnatural angles. Their black armor is cracked, dented, or sliced clean open. One man’s arm lay several feet away from his body. The smell of burnt metal and blood mix in the air, heavy and suffocating. 

But death and chaos isn’t what freezes her blood. She’d seen all of it before, too much of it.

What makes the air leave her lungs is what comes next.

The criminal woman turns her gaze toward the remaining line of officers, and at the very end of that line stands Celine.

The oldest is still shouting orders, her voice steady, crisp, the same as always. She stands tall despite the carnage, weapon drawn, refusing to back down. There is no fear in her, not visibly, at least.

The outlaw woman’s lips curve into a vicious grin and she moves fast straight toward Celine, arms raised as if already imagining the oldest’s head rolling across the cracked pavement.

Celine doesn’t flinch when she notices the movement. She just lifts her gun and fires, each shot echoing like thunder, but the bullets never reaches their mark.

With a flick of her wrists, the outlaw woman conjures a shimmering barrier of red light. The lasers from her gauntlets intertwined, forming a spinning disk that deflects every round, sparks bursting outward like fireworks. She keeps going forward, smiling with the kind of smile that promises she is going to enjoy this.

Rumi’s breath catches, her chest tightening with something raw and electric — fear, anger, adrenaline, she can’t really tell. The world around her seems to slow to a crawl. The sound of gunfire dulling into a distant echo, drowning out by the pounding of her own heartbeat.

NO.

This is the last thing Rumi thinks before something inside her snaps… or maybe awakes. 

Her body moves before her mind can form a single thought, driven by something primal, perhaps something deeper than instinct. It is as if every fiber of her being, nerve, and thread of consciousness has agreed in perfect, terrifying unison: Celine is in danger.

It doesn’t feel like a choice anymore. It feels like gravity. Like inevitability.

She had been driven by instinct before, since her spider-sense is practically a second nature, an invisible thread that tugs her out of danger like a whisper that says move, now, or die. But this… this isn’t that. This isn’t about her. The signal didn’t come from the back of her head or the pit of her stomach. Seems like It came from somewhere older, darker, and infinitely louder, which means: from the demonic core that has been growing more restless with every passing week in this bullshit.

For months now, ever since her demonic nature has begun to expand, she’d noticed her instincts sharpening into something more primal, but this is beyond anything she has ever felt. Think of it this way: her spider instincts screams of danger. Her demonic ones howls for souls and even blood. But this new one, even though she’s certain it’s tied to her demonic heritage, doesn't crave ruin. It calls for something deeper.

It is protective.

The sight of Celine in danger — the woman who had raised her, who had taught her how to hide, how to fight, how to live — ignite something ancient inside her. It doesn’t matter that Celine doesn’t remember her. It doesn’t matter that, to Celine, she’s nothing more than a problem that needs to be cuffed.

What matters is that Rumi remembers.

And, apparently, her soul does it too.

Spider Woman doesn’t even register her body moving, one second she was on the ground, glass glittering around her like the remnants of a broken halo, and the next she is gone, a blur slicing through the smoke and gunfire. Her injured ribs screams, and her legs burns, but she doesn't care. Adrenaline surged through her like liquid fire, overriding pain, overriding fear, overriding reason itself.

Her hand shoots forward, web-fluid bursting from her wrist with a sharp thwip, the line catching on the edge of a nearby building. She yanks hard, body swinging upward in a perfect arc. 

Celine barely has time to turn her head at the sound before Rumi is there, already hooking an arm tightly around Celine’s waist, pulling her close in one swift, desperate motion.

However, this was not enough. 

The outlaw woman was already too close and the laser came first, slicing through the air where Celine had stood just seconds ago. Rumi twists midair, taking the hit along her side. It sears through her suit, skin blistering beneath the burn, and something like a snarl tears from her throat: deep, animalistic, more beast than girl. If she were more sober about what she is doing, maybe she would worry about someone hearing what her body emitted purely on reflex.

But she isn’t even processing what is happening, is she?

So, she doesn’t care. Pain is secondary. The mission — her mission — is clear. All that matters is getting Celine to somewhere safe. 

Rumi’s arm screams in pain, the burn along her bicep pulsing hot and wet beneath the fabric of her suit, but she doesn't stop. Actually, she can’t stop. Her body has already made the decision for her. The damaged arm still manages to fire webs, each movement a jolt of agony that makes her vision flicker at the edges, but her other arm stays locked around Celine’s waist with unrelenting strength, the older woman’s body tense, trembling against her hold. Rumi can feel it even through the fabric of her suit; the erratic pulse, the unsteady breathing, the instinctive resistance of someone who really didn’t want to be here.

Celine is swaying too much in her arms, a bundle of movement and disbelief. Whether it is fear of the insane height Rumi has yanked them to, or because of the simple, stubborn hatred the oldest always carried for the Spider-Woman, Rumi can’t tell. She only knows one thing: if she looses her grip for even a second, Celine would fall, and this thought alone tightens something deep in her chest.

Still, she swings high — higher than necessary, honestly, but she doesn’t want to risk another strike from the red-gloved assassin below, or that guy getting creative with his speed and trying to jump high enough to hit them. The air tears past them, stinging her raw skin through the slashes in her suit. Her body feels like it is splitting apart, every nerve catching between the demand to protect and the reality that she is too damn hurt. 

She pulls them both through the smoke-filled air. The police lights below become dots of red and blue scattered over the chaos. Somewhere down there, people are still screaming. Somewhere down there, the couple is still cutting through the SWAT line and some other cops like they're made of paper.

But here, up in the air, it is only Rumi’s heartbeat.

Okay, yes, and also Celine, nevertheless she looks too busy muttering something under her breath. Rumi doesn’t catch it, but it sounds like a curse, since it's sharp and incredulous. 

Well, Spider Woman isn’t in the right frame of mind to care about it, or about anything, It seems.

She lands roughly near a police car parked far from the line of fire, where a few officers are trying to control the crowd, while others are simply too traumatized, just trying to stay alive. Her senses immediately reach for Bobby, not just because he’s one of them, but because he matters. The memory of him earlier crashes into her like a jolt, and her instincts scream that it’s not just Celine she needs to protect. It’s him too. 

And by some mercy, some twist of luck or divine interference, she vaguely registers that he’s nearby, close to where she landed with Celine without hesitation.

Ahem, after she checks briefly that the two of them are ok, she finally sets her mother down — maybe a little too fast, but her arm can’t take much more — and pushes her gently back against the vehicle nearby. 

Her instincts are still howling inside her, primal and relentless, but this time in a worse way, because Bobby is now also included in the package. Stay between them and the criminal couple. Protect. Protect. Protect. The words aren’t even words anymore: they are rhythm, pulse, heartbeat.

She doesn’t explain anything to either of them. Doesn’t even look back.

She just moves.

Another line of web shoots out from her injured arm, the sting of the motion making her hiss through her teeth, but she holds it firmly, launching herself back into the fray before anyone could get some word out. 

As she nears the spot where the sadistic couple is, the man below her — still laughing and  weaving through gunfire like it’s a playground — hasn’t noticed her descent yet. She’s still airborne when he finally looks up, his mouth twisting into a grin that’s almost childishly delighted.

“Oh, look who’s back,” he says with his eyes lighting up with excitement. “Didn’t get enough last time, huh?”

No words come out from Spider Woman. Her mind is static and her body feels too much like a weapon moving on its own.

The man who was already waiting doesn't get an answer, just plants his heel into the pavement, propelling himself upward in a blur of speed, too fast for human eyes to follow. 

Oh, little does he know that she is done letting him set the pace.

If he wants a rematch, she will give him one.

Her body moves with a fluid precision she hadn’t felt since before her new wounds. She swings low, cutting her webline midair to drop straight down in front of him a few meters away, the shock of impact rattling through her already-bruised ribs, sharp and unforgiving, but she stays crouched.

The man’s grin widens, speaking:

“Round two, then.”

His boots flares with the same venomous green light again, the glow crawls up his legs like ghostly fire as he bends low, body coiling like a spring before launching forward.

Rumi could feel the pressure shift in the air before he even moved. The pavement cracks under his first step, and then he is gone in a blur of motion. 

For a split second, her vision blurs again, but she forces it steady, forces herself to focus, forces herself to be Spider Woman again. 

The sound of his boots screams toward her like a jet engine.

And then… impact never came.

At the last instant, Rumi twisted her body with an instinctive grace, the kind that doesn’t come from thought but from something far deeper like muscle memory, instinct, survival. She rolled sideways, her hair slicing through the air like a purple comet’s tail as the man tore past her, too fast to stop. The wind of his passage almost knocked her over.

He skids several meters away before grinding to a halt, sparks flaring where his boots scraped the asphalt. His head jerks up, disbelief etched across his face as he turns sharply over his shoulder.

Spider Woman is standing there, upright, calm, not even in a fighting stance — just there. Her chest rises and fall, her hand brushing dust from her thigh, her mask turned toward him as if to confirm that, yeah, you missed completely, you piece of shit. 

For a moment, the chaos around them seems to dim until the guy clenches his fists, fury twisting his expression, his jaw tightening and then he runs again.

He charges toward her, but she spins out of the way again, barely moving, just enough to make him miss by inches.

He grunts, his patience cracking, and goes for her again.

And again.

And again.

And…

Again.

Yep.

Soon, they are streaks of motion in a deadly dance: zigzagging through the broken street, between broken cars and shattered storefronts. The glow from his boots clashes against the pale gleam of her webbing as she moves, shooting lines between lampposts and wrecks, swinging and sliding across the pavement with liquid speed.

From above, through the helicopter’s open door, the scene looks almost surreal: flashes of green slicing through ribbons of white web and the shimmer of purple hair catching every spin of the floodlight. 

It could have been iconic, or even beautiful, If it weren't so tragic. 

Well, by the time the chase carves enough distance between her and the man barreling after her, Rumi has already mapped out her next move. In the split second between heartbeats, her hands still move with surgical precision, even as her wrists burn and the hollow of her stomach twists from the amount of web she’s burned through without the energy to sustain it.

So, in one swift motion, she fires two web lines, one from each wrist that catches on the edges of opposite buildings. The lines pull taut, humming in the wind like a stretched bowstring, and she brings her wrists together, fusing the lines into one thick cord across the street. A perfect, invisible tripwire.

Rumi darts backward, her feet skidding against broken glass, body lowering into a defensive stance. Her pulse is racing, and every nerve alive in her is waiting. Even the most primal part of her brain knows exactly what’s coming.

A body in motion stays in motion, unless acted upon by an external force.

The man comes barreling forward at full speed, his green-lit boots tearing up the ground, the hum growing louder as he accelerates. His focus is so narrow, his bloodlust so sharp, that he doesn’t notice the faint shimmer of web until it is already too late.

The moment his leg hit the cord, momentum betrayed him, his body snapping forward, weight and speed working against him.

For one beautifully chaotic second, Newton would’ve been proud.

Rumi dives aside just in time as he goes flying past, not even glancing at him as he falls. Her movements are precise and mechanical, her body knows what to do before thought can intervene. The man’s trajectory arcs directly toward his partner, and in this same moment, Rumi extends her arm and fires another burst of webbing at his girlfriend.

The woman spins around too late, shrieking as the threads wraps around her arms and torso, yanking her backward. Rumi uses the man’s own fall to her advantage, flinging another web that cinches them both together midair. They hit the ground tangled in a snarling, cursing mass of limbs and flashing neon tech.

The man immediately starts struggling, muscles straining, trying to tear the webs apart, but before he can go deeper, a strange, sharp hum starts vibrating from his boots; low at first, then rising into a harsh electric whine. The kind of sound that means something inside the machinery is about to go very, very wrong.

The woman freezes mid-struggle, eyes snapping to her partner.

“What the hell are you doing?!” She snaps, thrashing against him. The green glow on his boots flares brighter, sparking. “Turn it off, you idiot!”

“I’m trying!” he yells back, panic bleeding into his voice.

“Well, try harder! Shut down your damn gear before—” She gasps mid-sentence as sparks burst from his boots, crawling up his legs in erratic green pulses. And then, almost contagiously, the woman’s gauntlets begins to crackle too. Red lightning meeting green, fusing into a chaotic blur of color.

Both of them are hissing in agony, struggling to break free, but it’s no use. Within seconds, the smell of burning metal fills the air. 

“I can’t reach the button!” he shouts, gritting his teeth as a shock tore through him.

“Are you serious?!”

“And can you reach yours?!”

“Fuck yourself! This is your fault!”

And then, something inside the man’s gear breaks for good. A burst of green light shot out, followed by a mechanical screech. His boots ignite with chaotic energy, propelling his legs forward without control.

“Wait-- WAIT, NO!--”

His boots start dragging the two of them across the area, both yelling across the street, still bound together, spinning and zigzagging wildly like a broken firework. Their screams echoes between the buildings, the green and red flashes dancing erratically across the night.

From a distance, Rumi can even feel the vibration of their malfunctioning gear shake through the ground beneath her feet, and before they could reach the crowd gathering near the barricades — where she left Celine, and where Bobby still is — the instinct in Rumi’s mind goes wild again.

She moves, her hands shooting forward, firing a dozen lines at once, making the webs spread in a complex lattice across the street, tangling into a net that catches the two midair. Their bodies jerks to a halt, still twitching from the electric surge.

Rumi anchors the last thread to a nearby streetlight and pulls hard, using the pole as leverage to lift them upward. The motion flips their weight, sending them spinning into the air where they hang suspended, and the light spilling from their gear, combined with the speed of their rotation, blurs into a sickly shade of brown.

Rumi stands below them, motionless, every muscle in her body coils tight. Her eyes never left them. She doesn’t blink, or breathe, not until it is over. She just waits for the movement to slow, and for the chaos to burn itself out.

And finally, it happens.

The man’s boots sputters first, their glow flickering, stuttering, and then going dark. The whine of the propulsion system dies in an uneven groan, leaving behind only the faint hiss of overheating metal. A few seconds later, the woman’s gear follows suit, her crimson lights blinking weakly before extinguishing completely.

Silence falls, thick and heavy. Only the occasional crackle of residual electricity breaks through it, crawling across their suits in pale threads that make them convulse with each brief, painful jolt; their screams turning into broken, breathless gasps.

And still Rumi doesn’t move.

Her body remains tense, her gaze sharp and unrelenting. She stays this way until she is absolutely certain—until the only thing left in the air was the faint, dying scent of ozone and burnt polymer.

Around her, the surviving officers — those who scattered earlier now regrouping, weapons raising, steps hesitant as they edge toward the wreckage tangled in web — begin to stir after Celine tells them to go ahead. And, the SWAT line also moves with more purpose, batons extending as they prod the couple to test for signs of life or another surge of electricity. The jolt is minor, but enough to make both bodies twitch and groan, pain still clinging to them like static.

And then, a quiet, thinking part of Rumi’s brain whispers:

Serves them right.

The word echoes faintly inside her head as she exhales for what feels like the first time in minutes. And then, like a switch flipping, the weight of everything she had done slams without mercy back into her.

Her skull throbs so hard it blurs her vision, and a deep, nauseating pain ripples through her chest, her ribs aching from every breath. The illusion of strength she had been clinging to cracks apart, replaced by this twisted reminder of how wrecked she really is.

Her knees buckles.

Rumi manages to catch herself against the nearest car, her palm leaving a faint streak of blood across the metal. Her breath comes shallow and uneven, every inhale like a blade slicing through her lungs. The adrenaline that had been carrying her is totally gone, burned out, leaving only pain in its wake.

She feels her stomach lurch violently, a white-hot ache radiating through her abdomen, making her instinctively try to press a hand there, but even the faintest brush against her ribs sends a sharp burst of pain through her chest that makes her hiss through clenched teeth. Sweat slicks her brow, cold and clammy, and a ringing fills her ears; distant, hollow, like she is underwater.

Damn it. Fucking hell. Shitshitshit-- fuck!

She needs to leave. She knows she needed to leave. Get out before the cops regroups. Before someone get too close. Before she--

Her vision swims.

She blinks hard, forcing her eyes to focus and look up, searching for the only thing that she knows that can anchor her mind: the faint outline of Celine standing farther away, surrounded by the flashing lights of police vehicles.

And to make it worse, or better, their eyes met.

For a single, fragile heartbeat, the chaos seems to fall away.

And in that breath of silence, Rumi’s head plays a cruel trick on her. She couldn't help, but imagine Celine walking over, saying the words she knows that she will never hear: It’s alright. I finally remember you. I’ll take it from here. You did enough. You can rest now. I'll take care of you when I'm done here. 

This thought almost makes her laugh. Almost.

Her stomach convulses again, dragging her back to reality. She bends slightly, one arm wrapping around herself as the pain radiates outward. The world tilts once more, edges going soft and the sounds of everything around her fading into an echo.

She really needs to leave. Now. 

She knows this with all her heart, but It takes effort — more than she’d ever admit to herself — for Rumi to convince her own body to move, because her stupid mind keeps insisting on clinging stubbornly to the thought of Celine, the same way it always does. Leaving her behind feels wrong on a level she can’t name. It always has been this way. Even now, when her entire body screams for rest, her pulse still beats in sync with one desperate thought: don’t leave her. 

But logic manages to find its way through the haze. 

The fight is over. The danger — at least for now — is handled. Celine is no closer to being a damsel in distress, and she’s even surrounded by officers. She’ll be fine.

Rumi, on the other hand, is completely a mess, and if she stays… she’d just end up being caught, or worse, collapsing in front of them all.

Therefore, she repeats this reasoning in her head like a mantra. Over and over again until it sounds true enough to believe: She’s safe. You can go. She’s safe. You can go.

Only then did her body obey.

With visible strain, Rumi lifts her less-injured arm, and her fingers twitch as she fires a thread of webbing toward the nearest building. The line catches, sticking against the brick, and she uses it to pull herself forward; one swing at a time.

Each movement is slower than the last. The rhythm that once came so naturally is fractured now, uneven. Her breath catches with every lurch of her body through the air, her vision pulsing in and out, like a flickering lightbulb trying to die. Everything looks dimmer than before, or fogged over, smeared, wrong.

Wait. No.

Not just dimmer.

Darker.

Her chest tightens. Shit… it’s spreading.

The black haze she has been trying to ignore crawls along the edges of her sight, devouring color, swallowing the glow of streetlights and the stars themselves. Panic bursts through the exhaustion, but only for a second, because the next moment, her body gives up.

She even lifts her arm again for another web, but nothing comes. Nothing, except pain tearing through her wrist and abdomen, reminding her of how hard she really pushed herself this time.

Gravity seizes her before she can react. 

The fall isn’t long, but it is brutal. Her body hits the ground hard, skidding across the pavement before crashing into a pile of discarded boxes and metal debris, the impact knocking the breath from her lungs.

Everything goes quiet for a moment.

Then pain, sharp and immediate, flares across her ribs and spine as if she needed another brutal reminder of the fractured bone beneath, and to make it worse the sting of open wounds meeting filth with the glass still embedded in her skin, all her wounds throbbing with every heartbeat. She tries to move, but her limbs feel detached, useless, like her body no longer belongs to her. 

When she finally manages to open her eyes again, she realizes where she had landed.

A narrow alleyway.

Walls rising on both sides, tall and unyielding. No exit, no light. Only the faint smell of rust and rotting garbage filling the air.

Perfect.

Of course this is where she’d end up. A dark, forgotten place for a dark, forgotten thing.

She tries to laugh at the irony, but the sound comes out as a broken cough. Every inhale scraping against her lungs like sandpaper.

Her head tilts back against the cold floor, and for a second she wonders if this alley is really this dark, or if her eyes have simply stopped working. It doesn’t matter. Both possibilities are equally likely.

Her hand twitches, trying to push herself upright, but her muscles keep refusing to cooperate. Everything burns: her ribs, her arm, even the veins beneath her skin, and she is thinking that maybe has broken more bones than before. It’s like her body is finally cashing in all the pain she has been too busy to feel… or like the universe decided that no pain is ever enough for her, and she always deserves more.

And, to her nightmare, she doesn’t black out. Not completely, at least.

Her vision wavers in a cruel rhythm, flickering between darkness and dim awareness, like a dying lightbulb that refuses to go out. Each time it fades, she hopes that’s the end, that this time, her body will finally give in, that she’ll finally stop existing, but it comes back, dragging her mind along with it like some twisted punishment. 

Hell, she would take anything now: a bullet, a collapsing wall, one of her haters finally tracking her down and finishing what the world started, or maybe even Gwi-ma showing up, grinning like the devil he truly is, and hissing something like, “Now, it’s time for my vengeance,” as if the curse hadn’t been enough. Whatever. At this point, she’s open to anything that can shut off this unbearable noise in her veins.

She doesn’t know what more her body has to go through to earn unconsciousness, but whatever that threshold is, she hasn’t reached it yet. Her nerves keep firing like exposed wires, her pain growing instead of fading, consuming instead of dulling.

The shards of glass scattered beneath her back feel sharper now-- No, they are sharper. Every shallow breath drives them deeper, and she can't help, but prays that one of them will pierce something vital. Let it hit her heart, her lung, or… whatever! Just let it be over.

The burn on her arm, where that bitch’s laser had carved through flesh and nerve, still sears like fire chewing its way down to the bone. The scent of scorched fabric and blood cling to her skin like smoke, acrid and suffocating. Also, she feels her stomach aching like there is something feral inside it, something acidic, a hollow that has turned her gut into a battlefield.

She can feel it rising — bile and adrenaline and the phantom weight of something swallowed too fast, too little — threatening to spill from her throat even though there is nothing left to give.

Her head throbs, pulsing in jagged rhythm with her heartbeat, which is erratic and desperate for oxygen her lungs can't seem to deliver, or like it is trying to outrun the collapse of everything else. Each beat echoes inside her skull like a war drum, loud enough to drown out thought, loud enough to mimic footsteps that weren’t there.

Her body trembles uncontrollably, not from cold, but from exhaustion so deep it feels like gravity is trying to pull her into the asphalt.

Still, she remains painfully, miserably awake, her body refusing to stop, and her mind refusing to shut down.

It’s ridiculous, if you ask her. I mean, she was practically blacking out mid-fight, and now that she’s finally allowed to fall apart, she doesn’t. Why? 

She doesn’t know, but maybe her body decided betrayal is fun. Maybe her blood is so cursed it’s still trying to stitch her back together.

Fuck, she doesn’t want to regenerate. Screw that.

She just… Urgh, please, just make it stop!

Well, she keeps lied there, half-conscious, eyes open to a darkness that feels heavier than the night itself, and as the silence closes in, the only sound left is her ragged breathing, that feels like a countdown to something inevitable, but it never comes. The universe seems to enjoy the game: keeping her alive just long enough to make sure she suffers for it.

And she has no idea how long she stays like that. Perhaps some hours had passed, or minutes. Or seconds stretched out into eternity.

Either way, time stopped mattering somewhere between the pain and the exhaustion. It could’ve been a lifetime for all she knew. 

Then, out of nowhere, a light explodes in her face.

It’s blinding, searing, almost violent in how it hits her eyes. For a split second she thinks she’s died and someone’s dragging her toward the afterlife, but she thinks better because no way death would hurt like this. The brightness stabs into her skull like a blade, slicing through her fogged vision and burning against the rawness of her senses.

She groans before she can stop herself, a weak, guttural sound that barely makes it out of her throat. The reaction is automatic, pure instinct, like a wounded animal flinching away from touch. Her hand twitches, trying to shield her eyes, but it’s useless; the limb feels heavy, disconnected, as if it doesn’t even belong to her anymore.

The light flickers off as abruptly as it came, swallowed again by the dark. The sudden absence is almost dizzying. She’s left blinking into nothing, her head pounding, her vision swimming with ghostly afterimages.

For a moment, she’s not sure if the darkness is real or if she’s gone completely blind. Her heartbeat roars so loud in her chest that it drowns out everything else. Maybe it was just her mind playing tricks. Maybe she’s finally hallucinating.

In any case, the damage is done.

Like, damn, she was finally settling into the quiet rot of her own darkness, and now someone had the audacity to disturb her? In her potential death scene? Seriously? Who the fuck gave them permission for--

Her thought stops dead in its tracks when a voice cuts through the silence.

“Spider Girl?”

The words hit her like a shockwave.

That voice.

Her body stiffens instinctively. Slowly, painfully, she turns her head toward the sound. The movement feels like dragging barbed wire across her neck; sharp pricks of pain blooming everywhere at once, radiating down her shoulders and spine. She grits her teeth, every muscle trembling, her breath stuttering out of her lungs.

It’s not easy… Uh, ok, shit, it’s almost impossible, but she has to see. She needs to know if she’s hallucinating or if someone’s actually there.

Her vision, however, betrays her completely. Everything is a blur in shapes and shadows bleeding together into nothing recognizable. The only thing she’s sure of is the faint outline of someone standing in front of her, framed by the dim halo of whatever light had flared moments ago.

It’s too unreal. Too cruel. But even through the haze, she already suspects who it is. There’s only one person who dares to call her that nickname. 

Her voice comes out hoarse, trembling, barely a whisper leaking past her lips:

 “Bo… bby…?”

The name tastes strange in her mouth, and for a moment, she doesn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified that he’s actually there. Relieved because, gosh, finally shes being seen, but terrified because FUCk, she never wanted anyone to find her half-conscious — least of all him. The way he looks at her, desperate and maybe even worried, makes her chest ache, — or maybe it’s just her broken ribs finally jabbing at her heart? — Either way, she doesn’t deserve anyone’s concern. Especially not his. 

He moves closer, hesitant at first, then faster, urgency taking over every motion.

It’s only when he’s right in front of her, his shadow blotting out the faint gleam of the alley’s distant light, that she finally manages to make out his face. Or something like it.

“See” is probably too generous a word. Her vision is still a mess, like looking through fogged glass smeared with blood and tears, but even in this haze, there’s no mistaking the familiar outline of his round face and the slightly uneven hair falling over his forehead. Bobby. It has to be Bobby.

She watches his mouth move, forming words she can’t quite catch. There’s sound, but it comes through distorted, warped, like someone’s talking underwater. The world around her tilts and spins, her brain struggling to piece the fragments together. She can tell he’s saying something, probably her name, maybe swearing under his breath, but all she hears is the low hum of static echoing inside her skull.

Then even this begins to fade.

The noise grows more distant and muffled, swallowed by the same black tide that’s been creeping in from the edges of her mind. She feels him get even closer, his presence pressing against the thin thread of consciousness she’s still clinging to. 

His hand touches her face, trembling slightly, as if he’s checking whether she’s still breathing beneath the mask or if her temperature is high. Whichever it is, she barely feels it through the numbness spreading across her skin.

He even gives her a soft slap on her cheek. Once. Twice. Gentle, but desperate at the same time. He probably didn’t like how little she reacted when he touched her.

His voice is there again, and to your surprise she can’t understand it, but hey, at least she can feel the panic in it, the sharp tremor in his breath as he calls to her. His other hand is on her shoulder now, shaking her lightly, like if he stops, she’ll vanish.

Her eyelids flutter, heavy as lead, while her chest struggles for air. Everything inside her body screams to give up.

Oh, she thinks dimly, the thought slurring under the weight of everything. So now my body decides to pass out?

A hollow laugh almost bubbles up from her throat, but it never makes it past her lips. The absurdity of it all is almost funny. The universe has always had a cruel sense of humor, and this time it’s putting on a show just for her.

Because yeah, why not wait until someone finds her — until he finds her — to let her finally collapse. Typical. Perfect timing, I swear.

Why is she not even surprised?

That’s the last coherent thought she has before the darkness reaches up to claim her completely. 

She doesn’t fight it.

She just lets go, and sinks back into where she has always belonged: the dark.

Chapter Text

Celine wished she could say the last two days had been normal, but… no. Nothing about it had been, and deep down she knows nothing ever will be again. Not after she had declared this stupid, stubborn, silent war against Spider-Woman and all the maddening mystery that clung to her like a second skin.

There is no pride in admitting it, but instead of doing what any reasonable person might do after a long day of paperwork, patrols, and arguments with the higher-ups… Celine has been doing the exact opposite.

What? You guys thought she was kidding when she said she’d chase her through every shadow of this city until the damn truth was carved clean?

So, in summary: her new hobby is simple: split her time between two things.

First, she dug into every bit of intel Spider-Woman had dropped on her that day. She reread the notes, analyzed the tone, cross-referenced the details, still clinging to the dumb hope that she’ll catch a mistake that she can throw in the world’s face.

Second, she had filed multiple requests —some official, most not — for access to surveillance footage across the city. Rooftops, alleys, bridges, traffic lights. Any place where Spider-Woman had been spotted or rumored to appear. Sometimes it took bribes, sometimes favors, sometimes just the right tone of authority over the phone.

She began to notice patterns. Subtle ones, but there nonetheless.

Late-night movements concentrated in the same few boroughs. Certain rooftops she seems to favor, like ones with high visibility, or close enough to power lines to swing quickly between buildings. Timing: between 11:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m., almost without fail.

Celine wondered if the heroine ever slept, but the answer felt so obvious she rolled her eyes at her own naïveté. For Spider-Woman to be that good at sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong, of course she doesn’t sleep. And it’s not like Celine can say anything, she hasn’t been sleeping much herself these past two days.

But now that Celine stops to think about it, even though the superheroine looks exactly like someone who doesn’t sleep, the captain noticed she always moves with purpose, not like someone randomly wandering the city until something happens, and that leaves Celine with even more questions about her. 

Is she working with someone who feeds her intel? Or maybe… maybe she just knows when something dangerous is about to happen because of that… spider-sense? Is that what she calls it? Uh, Celine’s not sure, but at least she knows that’s what the internet seems to agree on when it comes to her freakishly sharp reflexes. Maybe that’s why it’s such a dumb name… or whatever. Because, let's be real, she seriously doubts the vigilante would manage to come up with anything better, considering the heroine literally calls herself Spider-Woman. I mean, really? That’s the hill you chose to name yourself on? Where's your creativity, girl?

Oh, and since we’re talking about the internet… Celine’s been doomscrolling more than she’d like to admit.

She tells herself it’s research. Just data-gathering. Just another method of collecting intel in a world that worships screens, but the truth is… uglier. 

She spent hours hunched over her laptop, the room lit only by the pale blue glow of the monitor, long after her subordinates had gone home and the hum of the building’s fluorescent lights was the only sound left, and all that she had as company was her back aching, eyes burning, and coffee gone cold three cups ago. Still, her fingers kept clicking through endless forums, local threads, encrypted message boards, comment sections full of chaos.

And Celine, who had once led full tactical units through citywide crises, now finds herself utterly defeated by her greatest enemy yet: internet slang.

Wait, before you even think about laughing or judging her, it makes sense, okay? Like, what the hell does “slay fr fr ong” even mean? Is that still English?

No one was there to answer her, of course. Just the quiet, and the light tapping of her own nails against the desk.

Anyway, conspiracy theories dominated the feeds. Some insisted Spider-Woman is an alien sent to monitor human behavior. Others swear she is a government experiment gone wrong, escaped from some secret lab. Others even say that Spider-Woman is actually Gwi-ma in disguise. A lot of haters, same old, same old, and then… there is the fans.

They keep calling her every positive adjective in the dictionary, and often make up new ones — Celine found people calling her “Mommy Spider,” and her mildest reaction was nearly throwing her laptop out the window. They’ve also built shrines out of screenshots, made fan edits with either melancholic or horny music, and speculated endlessly about what her “real face” might look like.

But worse than all of it were the videos, because if the comments were already a rollercoaster from zero to a hundred, the videos somehow managed to be even worse. 

Some just showed the usual, swinging between buildings and fighting, but others showed her eating in that desperate, ravenous way, and for some reason, the internet seemed to love the nickname “Skinny Woman’’ after this. Which, to be fair, Celine doesn’t totally hate — it’s definitely better than “Mommy Spider” —, though there’s something weirdly uncomfortable about hearing people call her that, however it's something that sinks in fast, since the internet can call her whatever they want. She doesn’t care.

And don't let Celine start talking about the videos that sexualize the heroine. Even the ones where she’s in this skinnier version of herself.

Celine can’t help but grimace just thinking about it. Why does it feel like the internet is full of horny people?

For some reason, she hates seeing this.

Being honest, Celine hated and hates all of this, because none of it told her who Spider Woman is. None of it explained why she fought so relentlessly.

And most essential of all, none of it explained why Celine feels this way every time she thinks about this stupid hero. 

Okay, so she’s only been digging into this for two days, and she knows she shouldn’t be feeling this intense or this frustrated about what she’s doing, but… Urgh! Spider-Woman just seems to have zero mercy on her.

She even had reached the point of stumbling across an account run by a girl who clearly has nothing better to do with her life than obsess over Spider-Woman.

The kind of account that makes Celine question whether humanity truly deserves the internet.

The girl has hundreds of posts dedicated to sightings, theories, blurry photos, and melodramatic captions, and even a thread. 

Celine scrolled through it one evening out of morbid curiosity and immediately regretted every second of it.

The girl had gone far beyond obsession. She’d turned it into a full-time occupation. She seems to go to rooftops every day, trying to draw the least amount of attention possible from a criminal like Spider-Woman.

I mean, it was all fine up to that point… only until Celine scrolled further down the thread and saw the day she started breaking into the 63 Building just to stay on its rooftop.

Celine just rubbed at her temple, exhaling sharply through her nose.

If she weren’t already drowning in her own problems, she might’ve actually tracked the girl down just to ask what in whatever’s name she thinks she is doing by climbing the roof of a building like that and posting it online like it’s a coffee run.

It is ridiculous. Infuriating, even. People like that, with too many followers and too little sense, terrifies the captain more than half the criminals she has arrested.

So, she tries to let it go, because the truth is, Celine hadn’t wanted to find this account at all. It had just appeared, and yet here she was, scrolling through the girl’s feed like someone watching a slow-motion car crash.

The kid had been chasing Spider-Woman for more than two months now, and what worries Celine isn’t how reckless she is — though that is part of it — but the sheer dedication.

If this girl had been trying for all this time and gotten nowhere… What makes Celine think she can succeed where an unhinged, sleep-deprived, teenage internet detective had failed?

The question crept in quietly, needling at her already fraying confidence. For a moment, her stomach tightened with that rare, unfamiliar flicker of self-doubt. Then she caught herself and forced a low, humorless laugh.

Please. She is the Captain of the Seoul Metropolitan Police. She has access, technology, training, and the kind of instincts that comes from decades of chasing monsters: human or otherwise. She isn't about to be intimidated by some unemployed teenager with a camera and an adrenaline addiction.

So she pushed the thought aside. Or at least she told and tells herself she did, because something about that account lingers.

Maybe it was how casually the girl talked about things she shouldn’t know: which cameras had blind spots, which rooftops were easy to climb. Maybe it was the tone in her posts, bright and familiar, like she was talking to someone who already understood her.

Or maybe it is something stranger, like a flicker of recognition that Celine can’t quite place, like a face glimpsed in a dream that refuses to fade.

She scrolled further down the girl’s thread, curiosity betraying her professionalism, and when she saw that this kid is breaking into the building with someone else — also known as a girlfriend — Celine needed to lean back in her chair, lips pressing into a thin line.

She does her best not to freak out and tells herself this is actually good, maybe now the building’s security team will finally notice their little rooftop romance before one of them breaks their neck, since the last thing she needs is a teenage thrill-seeker getting herself killed in pursuit of the same ghost Celine is trying to catch. She has enough to deal with as it is. 

So she tells herself she trusts that, at some point, the building’s security team will notice, because, seriously, this can’t be real.

Well, right now, Celine is at home. She arrived not long ago and is getting ready for another long night of research, guilt-free this time, since she has the day off tomorrow. 

She grabs a bottle of wine, pours herself a glass, and sets it beside her laptop as she sat down at her desk. The glow of the screen lights up her face as she begins booting up her system, the familiar routine already soothing: files opening, tabs aligning, her notes sprawled like pieces of a puzzle she is too stubborn to abandon.

For once, everything feels almost right. Her night, her solitude, her quiet obsession; perfectly aligned.

Until, of course, her phone starts buzzing. 

Celine glances at the screen, expecting some spam alert or late-night departmental memo she could ignore. Instead, the name flashing across the caller ID makes her stomach sink. The Superintendent.

She lets the phone ring once more, almost considering not answering. Then, with a resigned breath, she picks it up, and he starts talking without even apologizing first for what he says next:

“Captain, we’re dealing with two armed and enhanced suspects. Spider-Woman’s presence confirmed on-site. The SOU’s already en route. You are to proceed, assume tactical control, and neutralize all unauthorized interference.”

The line goes dead before she can even respond.

Celine closes her eyes, exhaling through her nose as if that can push the headache that is already forming at her temples. She tooks a slow sip of her wine, then another, before tipping her head back and pressing the cool rim of the empty glass against her forehead. The chill sooths her, but only barely.

Ah, so much for her night off.

With another deep sigh, she stands, already taking off her shirt as she crosses the room toward the wardrobe where her uniform hangs — crisp, ready, and mocking her with its unrelenting professionalism. She’d taken a shower not even an hour ago, her hair still faintly damp, and the thought of getting sweaty and bloodstained again makes her want to scream, but duty is duty.

And apparently, the universe has decided that Spider-Woman exists solely to ruin her evenings.

Ok, yes, she knows that isn't fair. Rationally, Spider-Woman hadn’t technically caused this situation, but rationality doesn’t factor into it anymore. When you are tired, under-caffeinated, and only got a chance to drink one miserable glass of drink, finding someone to blame is easier than admitting you are just unlucky.

Still, some part of her truly believes it is Spider-Woman’s fault. Before this fucking masked nuisance showed up, enhanced crime had been almost nonexistent. People used to respect the line between fantasy and reality. 

But now? 

Everyone wants to play hero or villain. All it took was one vigilante with web and super strength to inspire half the city’s lunatics to start mixing serums and building weapons in their basements.

It’s as if her very existence has unlocked something feral in people, like ambition, envy, greed, all multiplied by a thousand.

Celine tells herself that this is the reason she hates the vigilante, since the so called superhero isn’t just cleaning up the city’s messes, but quietly creating them.

Celine zips up her jacket, her movements annoyed. She checks her gun, holstered it, and then she turns off the lights from the house entrance, the soft click echoing through the silence, before she leaves and locks the door with her keys. 

( . . . )

By the time she reaches the cordoned-off street, chaos is already in motion: shattered glass scattered across the pavement, a police helicopter slicing through the air overhead, civilians pressing against barricades. The whole scene thrums with tension. She feels in her bones that thick, electric pulse of danger she knows far too well.

But nothing, not even her years of service, prepared her for what she sees next.

The first thing her eyes landed on was Spider-Woman.

Or rather, Spider-Woman being kicked.

Hard.

The blow sends the vigilante hurtling forward, her body slamming into the front of a city bus. The impact is sickening, the metallic clang echoing through the intersection, followed by the sound of shattering glass as the masked figure is thrown backward, rolling over the hood and disappearing somewhere behind the vehicle.

Celine can’t see exactly where she landed from her position, but she doesn't need to, given the fact that the sound alone is enough to make her stomach twist.

For a moment, something strange lodges itself in her chest, something she can’t name. A pressure. A flicker. A pulse of discomfort that feels almost like… concern? 

What the hell is this? 

She presses her lips together, forcing herself to swallow the strange knot of emotion building in her throat, as if she can physically dislodge it, shake the discomfort loose from her chest.

Because, this isn’t the first time she’d seen Spider-Woman getting her ass handed to her. Hell, lately it seems to be happening more often. 

And really, wasn’t it what she deserves?

Spider-Woman has chosen this life, chosen to break laws, to blur the line between order and chaos like it means nothing. If she wants to play superhero, she should be ready to face the consequences. Celine should feel satisfaction seeing her take a hit. Justice in motion. The world setting itself right.

So why doesn’t she?

After all, Spider-Woman isn’t a hero. She is a menace, a lawbreaker with a mask, a vigilante who believes she can do the job of trained professionals. If you ignore the costume and the headlines, Spider-Woman is just another outlaw playing god with people’s lives.

So why, then, does Celine’s pulse quicken whenever she sees her fall? Why does her chest ache, even for a second, as if some buried part of her wants to run forward to check if she is ok instead of standing still?

She scowls, shaking her head as though that might dislodge the thought.

It is borderline insane. Spider-Woman is a criminal, an unlicensed vigilante who endangers herself and others on a nightly basis. Feeling anything other than irritation toward her is… well, unprofessional.

Unaceptable.

And yet there it is, that same, nauseating pull in her chest that refuses to go away. A pulse of something she doesn’t want to explain.

Or… maybe it’s just exhaustion and that wine talking. That would make more sense than whatever this is.

But deep down, she knows that isn’t it, and worse; she hates the way it makes her feel, like she cares. 

Someone help her, she really is going to have a breakdown because of that damn woman.

Celine forces herself to move, because whatever she is feeling doesn't matter now. She can't let them see that she is thinking too much, our flaws and fears must never be seen, and thinking this way about the vigilante is definitely a flaw.

Her boots strikes the cracked asphalt in sharp, precise steps as she crosses the perimeter toward the armored SWAT van that had just rolled into position. Officers are already yelling coordinates, calibrating weapons and sealing helmets. 

She doesn’t waste time and her gloved hand reaches past the open vehicle, grabbing the megaphone hanging off its hook. 

Taking a few steps forward, she draws in a steadying breath and lifts the megaphone to her lips, announcing:

“Surrender, both of you! There’s nowhere left to run!”

And, basically, that is how everything goes to hell.

The man is the first to move, slamming into one of the SOU officers, sending the poor man flying, before flipping a nearby police car on its side as if it weighed nothing.

“Open fire! Now!” Celine shouts, her voice cutting through the radio static and gunfire alike.

Within minutes, the ground is littered with spent casings and bodies: some groaning, some still. The acrid smell of burnt gunpowder coated the back of Celine’s throat. Her heart hammers, but she keeps her jaw tight, refusing to let her composure crack.

Damn it, she can already hear the voice of her superintendent in her head, sharp and cold: You let this escalate. You lost control of the scene.

Because, yes, maybe she had.

Trying to regain the minimum amount of control, she ducks behind a police vehicle, barking orders into her comm:

“Regroup behind the barricades! Get the civilians back, now! Medical response, on standby!’’

Officers scramble to obey, forming a shaky defensive line while she tries to make sense of the battlefield, but the civilians — because there are always civilians — are too curious for their own good; some leaning out of windows with their phones, others crowded too close to the caution tape, drawn in by the spectacle like moths to a flame.

Celine’s teeth ground together. The stupidity of it all makes her blood boil. Didn’t they understand this isn’t a movie? That people are dying right in front of them?

She doesn’t have time to dwell on that, because when her gaze snaps up… there was the criminal woman looking at her with that predatory focus of someone who’d already chosen their next target.

Celine doesn’t hesitate, she is old enough to know what this kind of look means. Her hand comes up smooth and practiced, the gun leveled at the woman’s chest, but none of them lands, making the outlaw laughs and advances.

The captain holds her ground, and adjusts her stance, keeping her feet shoulder-width apart, her gun steady despite the wind of energy that ripples from every step the other woman takes.

Yes, the suspect is enhanced. Yes, she is deflecting bullets like they are nothing but dust motes in the air. Yes, she’d just thrown several of Celine’s men across the street with a flick of her wrist.

But still, Celine had dealt with worse.

…Ok, maybe not laser-shield-wielding psychopaths, exactly, but she’d handled unpredictable ones before. She’d fought her way out of riots, taken down armed convicts twice her size, stared down barrel after barrel without flinching.

She will find a way. She hopes.

Well, the outlaw’s eyes glows brighter as she gets closer with her smirk widening. The sound of her boots echoing like thunder against the concrete, the air pulsing with every flicker of her crimson energy.

Celine’s muscles tenses, her mind running through a dozen strategies, each more reckless than the last, but she is ready to move. To fight. To prove she isn’t just another target to be crushed under someone else’s power.

And then…

Something fast slices through the space between them.

Before Celine can even register what had happened, a hand gripped her arm. Firm. Unyielding. And in the next instant, her entire body is pulled backward, the air rushing out of her lungs as her feet leave the ground.

She doesn’t even have time to curse before the world snaps back into focus, and she realizes she’s being held by the last person she wanted to be held by.

“What are you doing?!” Celine yells, struggling in Spider-Woman’s grip. “I had it under--’’

The sentence never makes it out.

In the blink of an eye, the ground where she’d been standing erupts in a crack of red light, a strike so violent that it sends a shockwave through the air. The sound comes first, a deafening blast that punches through her eardrums, followed by the searing heat licking at her cheek. Her breath catches, and then she realizes why she isn’t in pieces on the pavement.

Because the vigilante is.

The younger woman had moved faster than Celine could even register, twisting midair and shoving her aside. The blow catches her square across her right arm, a burst of laser that scorches through the black fabric of her suit. The smell of burnt polymer and singed flesh hits Celine’s nose before her mind can process the sight while Spider-Woman’s body jerks violently, her breath tearing out in a strangled, guttural sound from her throat — too raw, too  painful — and it freezes Celine cold, because It is the kind of pain that didn’t belong to someone invincible.

The heat of it reaches Celine even through her vest: the faint, acrid scent of scorched fabric, of burnt skin. She turns her head slightly, catching the faint shimmer of smoke rising from Spider-Woman’s side.

And yet, the vigilante doesn't falter, even if her injured arm trembles as she fires another line of web, dragging them higher and faster into the thick night while the other arm that grips Celine never loosen.

“Are you out of your damn mind?!” Celine hisses, her voice sharp even as thwy keep going higher. 

Because, seriously, what the hell is this?

First of all, Spider-Woman had been down. Celine had seen her take that hit, and after that? Nothing. No movement, no interference, no smug acrobatics. Celine had assumed she was unconscious or, at the very least, licking her wounds somewhere far away.

It had been, what, five minutes since then?

A record, honestly, for the vigilante not to stick her nose into something.

And yet, here she is. Appearing out of nowhere. Acting like some sort of guardian angel who thinks Celine, of all people, needed saving, like she is some kind of fragile damsel in distress.

The nerve.

“Put me d--” she tries to shout, but the wind swallows her words. Her hair whips into her face, her coat flaring like a dark flag behind her as they swing upward, pretty much away from the red-gloved maniac below.

And beneath all this chaos, she still can smell something faintly coppery. Blood. Spider-Woman’s blood. Nonetheless, she doesn’t stop. Even through the pain, her other arm holds Celine like she’s something precious, something fragile.

It makes Celine’s jaw clench. She isn’t fragile. She’s the goddamn captain of the city’s police force. She’s taken down men twice her size, faced ambushes, firefights, ambushed others. She doesn’t need--

Another jolt of wind cuts through, slamming them upward in a sharp arc. The city stretches infinitely below. The police lights are no more than scattered rubies and sapphires, flickering across broken asphalt and fire. She feels how tightly Spider-Woman’s arm locks around her, how her chest rises unevenly against Celine’s side and how her heartbeat hammers unsteady. Rapid. Erratic in a way that is almost frightening. And for some reason she can’t explain, all of this crawls under her skin and stays there.

Every swing slices through the air with a velocity that makes her stomach twist. She doesn’t dare look down again; the glimpse she’d stolen earlier was enough to remind her just how high they are. 

Her fingers twitches uselessly at her sides, the instinct to do something clawing at her nerves. Should she reach for her gun? For the arm she is casting the webs? The thought of letting go to draw her weapon seems suicidal, but so does the idea of staying still while being carried like… like this.

The vigilante’s grip adjusts slightly, her forearm locking tighter around Celine’s waist as another gust hits them. Celine feels again the tremor that ran through the girl’s muscles, and she knows that isn’t adrenaline. She is hurt. Badly. Because it's not just the shaking, Celine can literally feel some sharp things on the vigilante and Celine prefers to believe it's not broken glass.

“You’re an idiot!” The captain shouts over the roaring wind, her voice raw with a mixture of fury and something she doesn’t care to name. “Do you even realize what you’re doing?!”

She wanted the vigilante to answer, to react. To roll her eyes, to snap back with that insufferable sarcasm, but nothing came out. 

Celine’s jaw clenches.

The Spider-Woman either didn’t hear her or is ignoring her entirely, and somehow, Celine can’t decide which option pisses her off more.

She wants to scream more, to curse her from head to toe until the city below echoes with her rage, but what is the point? The youngest apparently won't listen.

Celine presses her lips together, trying to swallow the heat rising in her chest, that infuriating mix of anger and… something else. She tells herself it is only irritation, simple as that. The vigilante’s carelessness is offensive to her very core. 

I mean, Celine is supposed to be the professional here, the one who strategizes, commands, controls every variable. Nevertheless, this… child — because that’s what she is — throws herself into danger like her life doesn’t even count.

It makes the captain want to scream.

Not because she cares whether Spider-Woman got hurt. Pff, this is ridiculous. What really unsettles her is the way this absurd creature makes her feel. It is the way that every time Spider-Woman does something stupidly selfless, Celine’s heart reacts before her brain does.

Well, the landing is harder than Celine expected. Her knees buckled beneath her when they hit the pavement, the impact jolting up her spine, rattling her teeth. For a second, she thought Spider-Woman might’ve dropped her on purpose. The vigilante had practically slammed into the ground beside a half-destroyed police car, one of the few still standing on the far edge of the chaos.

Celine’s boots scrape the asphalt as she tries to regain her balance, one hand bracing against the car door. Her other hand instinctively goes for her gun, except her fingers are trembling too much to pull it steady. Damn it. She hates how her body betrays her with its weakness, its shaking, as if she is some civilian caught in the crossfire instead of the commanding officer she is.

For a moment, all she can hear is the distorted and distant laughs from the crazy couple, the chaotic shuffle of officers trying to maintain control of a crowd that doesn't want to listen. She notices that some of her men are crying, some yelling orders that contradict one another, and others are too shell-shocked to move at all.

And right here, in the middle of all this disorder, is her. Spider-Woman. Still holding her waist like she is too afraid to let go by some reason. 

The vigilante doesn't seem to notice Celine looking at her since she is already scanning the area, her body tense, her posture angled.

The captain gets confused about her reaction, and almost questions about what the fuck is her problem, but before she can even open her mouth, the vigilante acts first.

The youngest gives her a small push — gentle, almost absentminded — forcing her back against the police car. It isn’t rough, but it is deliberate. A silent command to stay put.

And obviously, this doesn’t sit well with Celine at all.

She is about to curse her out when she catches a glimpse of her arm. The suit is split open along the bicep, and beneath it, the skin is a raw mess of burn and blood. The sight makes her stomach twist, though she doesn’t understand why. Maybe it is the sheer stupidity of it: the fact that this girl is still moving like her body isn’t falling apart. And it's not like she had time to do anything else, since in the blink of an eye Spider-Woman is already gone.

Another line of web shot out from her burned arm, and Celine winces just from the sound of the raw effort, the grit in her breath as she pushes past the pain. The vigilante doesn’t even look back, and doesn't offer a word of reassurance or explanation. She just launches herself back into the chaos.

The silence she leaves behind is deafening.

Celine stands there, her back still pressing against the car, trying to untangle the knot in her chest. She can even feel the phantom weight of that arm around her waist, the lingering warmth of being held so close. A touch that felt disturbingly familiar.

She shakes her head. She had to be losing it. There’s no way that touch should feel familiar, right? It’s not like she’s ever been that close to Spider-Woman to know what it’s like to be held by her.

And honestly, even saying it like that feels wrong. That menace is probably way younger than her. It’s almost criminal to even think about… touch, when it’s her we’re talking about.

She can barely make a face at her own thoughts, when...

“Captain! Are you okay?”

Her instincts flare instantly. She spins on her heel, fist already half-raised, ready to knock out whoever dared to sneak up behind her, adrenaline snapping back into place like a whip, but then she freezes mid-motion when her eyes meet a familiar face.

“Bobby.” The punch she almost throws dissolves into a heavy exhale that sounds more like a growl, relief and irritation wrestling in her chest, neither winning. “For god’s sake,” she muttered, lowering her arm. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that. Especially not me.”

Bobby blinks, taking a cautious half-step back, a sheepish grin tugging at his lips. The man is a little winded, his vest dusty and one of his sleeves torn, but the soft concern in his brown eyes hadn’t dulled.

“Sorry, Captain,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I thought you saw me coming, and, uh… well, I saw Spider-Woman bringing you here, so I kinda…” he laughs awkwardly, “...got worried. Are you alright? You didn’t get hurt, did you? Those two out there are really something else.” He sighs at the end, long and weary, the kind that comes from someone who’d seen too much for one night.

“They’re nothing we can’t handle,” Celine shoots back instantly, her words too defensive.

Bobby’s brow furrows, the faint smile fading.

“Seriously?” He asks quietly. “Because from where I was standing, it didn’t look like anyone was ‘handling’ much of anything. I saw guys going down left and right out there, and you were in the middle of it. I thought--”

“I said I’m fine.” Her tone cuts through the air, final and unyielding, but it doesn’t stop the sour taste that pools in her mouth afterward. Fine. Right. If you can call being saved as fine.

Celine’s jaw tightens immediately, her hand flexing at her side, because she can still feel the phantom press of Spider-Woman’s arm around her, the warmth of it even through the fabric of her uniform, and she hates that it lingers.

Bobby, oblivious or perhaps just wisely pretending not to notice the tension coiling under her words, gives a hesitant chuckle.

“Well… that’s good then. I mean… thank God Spider-Woman got you out when she did, right?”

The sentence lands like a slap.

Celine’s head snaps toward him, the look in her eyes sharp enough to slice through armor while asking:

“What did you just say?”

He gets startled by her tone.

“I just meant… it’s a good thing she helped you. You could’ve—”

“I didn’t need her help,” She cuts in, her voice low and flat now.

For a second, the noise of the world around them fades. All that remains is the heavy, uncomfortable silence between them. 

Bobby’s mouth opens, then closes again, the poor man is not sure which version of her he’s allowed to speak to.

Finally, he speaks:

“Right. Of course not.”

Celine sighs and drags a hand through her hair, try to sound less rude now:

“Look, just make sure the perimeter holds. Get everyone regrouped on the north side. We’re not losing more people tonight.”

He nods quickly, grateful for the command to latch onto.

“Yes, ma’am.”

As he jogs off toward the others, she stands there, staring at the spot where Spider-Woman had vanished moments ago, her pulse hammering loud enough to drown everything else out. The skyline ahead is fractured and somewhere in that storm of violence, the vigilante is fighting again.

This isn’t how it is supposed to go. She had a plan. A perimeter. A chain of command. And somehow, everything is slipping through her fingers like water, because thats what fucking happens all the time that masked menace is in the middle of it.

“Captain!” someone calls from across the chaos. “We’ve got a lot of wounded over here!”

Celine’s body reacts before her mind catches up. She starts moving, boots crunching over shattered glass and bullet casings as she crosses to the half-collapsed barricade. 

“Get them to the med tent!” she barks, kneeling beside one of her men to check his pulse. “Now! I want a paramedic here yesterday!”

“Yes, ma’am!” a voice answers, and within seconds two medics were sprinting through the haze, their white armbands catching flashes of red and blue from the emergency lights.

Celine straightens, brushing soot from her sleeves, the weight of command settling on her shoulders again like an old, familiar armor. 

Her earpiece cracks to life:

“Captain, we’re losing containment on the east side! What are your orders?”

“Pull everyone back from the main street! Set up a secondary perimeter at block forty-two. Nobody goes in or out unless I say so. And get the drones in the air,I want visual confirmation on the suspects’ location. Heli maintains overwatch.”

“Copy that!”

The line goes dead.

After that, for longer than Celine would like, her thoughts race too quickly. You might think it's because of all the confusion around her, but that's not necessarily the case.

She can’t stop thinking about one person.

Her thumb twitches against the radio again, the device clicking softly as she reactivated the channel:

“Unit Three, report. Do we have visual on the vigilante?”

There is a burst of static, then a breathless voice crackles through.

“Affirmative, Captain! She’s back in the fight with the enhanced man: moving fast and evasive. I can’t confirm her objective yet, but she’s dodging the suspect, staying mobile.”

Of course she is, that damn woman is never still, she seems to like always being one step away from stability.

“Copy that,” She sighs, because it's not like she has anything better to do besides that. “What’s the situation with the offender… the other woman?”

“Still engaged near the east perimeter,” the officer replies. “A few units are keeping their distance, but… some agents opened fire when she charged toward the civilians. She’s not pressing as hard now, though. Looks distracted, she keeps looking in the direction of the chase between the Spider-Woman and the male suspect.”

“I gave a direct order to pull back and regroup,” she replies, each word crisp and restrained.

“I know, Captain, but she was advancing on the vulnerable civilians. The team had to respond.”

She draws in a long, quiet breath through her nose, letting the cold air help steady her temper. 

“Fine,” She said finally. “Then listen carefully. If she’s not currently hostile, I want all units to cease engagement. Hold position and maintain distance. No one fires unless she initiates. And it's the same protocol about the male suspect. Keep your eyes on both and wait for my mark.”

“Roger that.”

Celine releases the radio, and the minutes drag on like hours.

The captain keeps her focus sharp, voice cutting crisply through the comms as she issues rapid-fire orders like shifts in formation, casualty checks and updates on ammunition. The chaos is slowly shaping back into control, and she clings to this structure like a lifeline. Discipline. Command. These are the only things that keep her grounded when everything else is burning.

The air still vibrates with distant clashes… and then, her radio comes again.

“Captain!” a voice burst through, breathless, panicked. “The vigilante finally caught the couple in her webs! And-- oh, this doesn’t look good.”

Celine stops mid-step with her eyes flicking toward the battle scene, though this doesn't help, since she can barely make out the silhouettes from the distance. 

“What’s happening?” She demands, tone low but urgent.

“Uh, apparently the suspect’s gear is shorting out, ma’am. His systems are-- Jesus, Captain, they’re going haywire! They’re hitting everything!”

“Hitting everything?” She repeats, voice tightening.

“Affirmative! They’re crashing into anything in range! The whole area’s unstable!”

Celine’s stomach twisted, even from this distance, she can hear the shouts from the couple, and see the erratic bursts of green and red slicing through the darkness like strobe lights from a nightmare.

Then, all at once, the light coming from them surges upward, bound together, flailing, dragged by a thread of light so thin it shimmers like glass in the air.

“What the hell…” Celine murmurs under her breath, her brow furrowing. 

The radio flared again:

“Captain! The vigilante’s got them! She lifted them off the ground! Both suspects are suspended high up! She’s got them spinning too fast!”

Celine’s fingers curls into fists. She can already imagine the sound of the whistle of the wind, the desperate momentum as bodies spin out of control, until--

“They’ve stopped,” the officer reports a few seconds later, voice lower, steadier now. “Rotation’s ceased. Both suspects are immobilized. Their equipment appears fried. No power readings, no glow. I repeat, no activity detected.”

Celine lets out a slow breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. For a moment, she stands perfectly still, the radio pressing tight to her chest while the distant lights dimmed to a faint glimmer against the skyline. Maybe it is over.

Maybe.

“Alright,” she finally speaks, her voice snapping back to full command mode. “SOU, you go ahead and assess the suspects’ condition. Unit One, take the intermediate position directly behind SOU. Unit Two, cover the rear and split up to prevent any civilians from breaching the perimeter. Unit Three, fall in with me and maintain comms: report visual updates.”

There is a chorus of affirmatives across the channel.

Celine exhales slowly, lowering the radio once more. 

Above the suspects, she can still see faint arcs of webbing. She can see from where she is that the vigilante is still out there, standing near where the couple is still hanging.

And fuck it all, Celine hates how some part of her is grateful for that.

Nevermind, Celine’s attention split cleanly between the multiple open channels: dispatch reports, tactical confirmations, SWAT updates. Her voice stays steady through it all, cutting through the static with that kind of command precision that came only from years of training and the exhaustion of countless nights like this one.

Well, she was halfway through ordering another tactical regroup when the familiar crackle of Unit Three cut through the comms again:

“Captain, SWAT’s made physical contact with the suspects. No resistance detected. They’re down, nonresponsive except for pained groaning. No attempts to flee. They’re fully immobilized.”

Celine’s jaw loosens a fraction. Finally.

“Copy that,” she says, quieter now. “Good work. Maintain your distance until SOU clears the site for tech retrieval. I want confirmation before anyone moves closer.” Her thumb rests over the transmit button. Just one heartbeat of relief…

Because the voice returns.

“Captain… uh, one more thing. The vigilante’s still on scene.”

Her brow furrows and she demands: 

“Define ‘on scene.’”

“She’s still near the capture site, ma’am. The Spider-Woman. She’s… not engaging anyone, just standing there. Looks like she’s hurt. Real bad. Kind of wavering on her feet. If there’s ever been a good time to move on her, this is it. We could split the SWAT teams: half secure the couple, half move in and apprehend her. It’d be easy.”

Celine totally stops.

It is subtle, since it is the kind of stillness only she would notice, but her heartbeat missed its rhythm for the briefest, most damning instant. Hurt. Real bad. These words hitting something she doesn’t want to name. I mean, she kind of already knew the vigilante is like this, but hearing it from someone else is like multiplying her conflicting feelings.

So, her eyes darts up, across the scene, searching for a shape she doesn’t really want to find. And there, still close to where the suspects are, but far enough away not to attract too much attention, the captain sees her.

The vigilante stands unsteadily while leaning on a nearby car, as if the ground itself might drop out from beneath her. Her shoulders rise and fall with shallow, uneven breaths, and even from this distance, Celine can see the tremor in her knees, the slow tilt of her head like she is fighting to stay conscious.

And then, impossibly, the vigilante looks up and their eyes meet.

For a heartbeat too long, everything else disappears: the sirens and the shouting. Just that one glance… burning, defiant, exhausted.

And this seems to be enough to make even worse the strange pain in her chest, the one that she has been trying to ignore all night, tighten until it is almost unbearable.

“Captain?” the voice on the radio prompts again, breaking the silence. “Orders?”

She hesitates, her throat going dry.

The answer should have been automatic. This is the opportunity they’d been waiting for: the notorious vigilante, the one Seoul Police has been chasing for months, standing there, injured, exposed… weak. Any captain with sense would take the shot.

But the words that leave her mouth come faster than her thoughts can catch up:

“No.”

There is a beat of static. 

“Ma’am? Sorry, what was that?”

Celine’s tone hardens to bury the flicker of doubt that had escaped. 

“Negative, Unit Three. We are not engaging the vigilante.”

“But, Captain, she’s right there! If we act now--”

“I said no,” she cuts him off before he dares to finish.

Her officers went quiet on the line. Even through the radio, she can feel their confusion, the hesitation of trained soldiers waiting for logic to follow command.

“Focus your attention on the primary targets,” she continues, voice iron-steady again. “The couple caused mass civilian damage and multiple officer casualties. They are our priority. We secure them, recover evidence, and follow containment protocol to the letter. The vigilante is secondary. If she escapes tonight, so be it. We’ll deal with her another day.”

There is a pause that happens to be too long and too loaded. Then, softly but audibly: 

“Ma’am… are you sure? She’s exposed. This can be--”

Celine’s patience snaps like brittle glass. 

“Did I stutter, officer?” she retorts coldly, her tone dropping to the level every officer recognizes as final.

Silence.

“Negative, Captain. Orders confirmed.”

“Good.”

She lets go of the transmit button, her hand shaking ever so slightly before she forces it still against her thigh.

Every instinct on her screams that she should give the order. Capture her. End this. Clean it up. But something deeper, something she doesn’t understand, told her not to.

It isn’t strategy. It isn’t mercy. It is something worse, something that feels almost… selfish.

However, she draw in a slow breath, and tries to convince herself this is about protocol, about priorities, about doing the rational thing.

But even as she turns away, even as she rejoins her men and gives the next wave of commands, her gaze drifts back once to where the vigilante stood just seconds ago. The spot is empty now, save for the faint echo of webbing snapping in the wind, somewhere in the distance.

Her chest tightens again, and somewhere in her mind, she feels something inside her almost rooting for the vigilante to be okay. Almost.

Geez, she’s totally losing it, and she doesn’t know if it’s because of the wine, or because she’s getting old, or maybe because that’s just what happens when they yank you out of your break without warning.

Well, trying to move on, Celine exhales slowly, her breath misting in the cold night air as she tightens her fists at her sides. The distant chatter of the SWAT team filters through her earpiece, the scene finally starting to calm after what felt like hours of chaos, and she decides to move forward.

The thick layers of webbing that had once suspended the suspects like grotesque marionettes were finally being sliced apart by the tactical blades of her men. The sticky strands clinging stubbornly to their gloves and visors, but inch by inch, the cocoon loosened. The bodies of the two culprits now lay — still tangled together — on the asphalt.

Celine crouches beside them, one knee hitting the ground, eyes scanning everything with the precision of someone who had done this a hundred times. Every detail matters now. Every insignia, every mark.

That is when she notices it.

At first, she thinks it’s just a scrape, a fragment of metal or burn mark on the man’s boot, but no, her gaze narrowing.

A symbol.

Etched right into the material near the heel, blackened but distinct. It isn’t a logo she recognizes from any registered syndicate, gang, or experimental weapons division. The shape was almost geometric: an elongated figure eight, but squared at the edges, like an infinity symbol trapped inside a box.

Her frown deepens. She leans closer, brushing her gloved fingers across it, and feels a faint indentation. Not paint. Not random. Stamped. Manufactured that way.

“Captain?” one of her men asks from behind her, uncertain. “You see something?”

“Perhaps,” she murmurs, her tone low and sharp with focus. “Get me a close-up capture of this.”

A tech officer jogs forward immediately, snapping several photos with a handheld forensic cam. Celine’s attention drifted to the female suspect’s hands. The metallic gloves are cracked open near the wrists, wires sparking weakly. And there, burned into the metal, is the same symbol. Twice isn't a coincidence.

“Same insignia,” she mutters. 

The sergeant beside her crouched as well, squinting.

“Any idea what it stands for?”

Celine gets up, crossing her arms. Her expression doesn’t change, but her mind is already running through possibilities, but none that she’s sure of.

“No,” she says after a beat. “But I will.” Then, she turns toward the tech unit. “Tag and bag every piece of equipment on them—gauntlets, boots, everything with a trace of that symbol. I want a full forensic workup by dawn. Send copies of the images to HQ’s cyber-intelligence division and tell them to start cross-referencing with the latest cases of unregistered tech shipments or unidentified labs we’ve had in the city.

“Yes, Captain.”

“And get medical treatment over here for them. They’re still breathing, so they go into custody alive. I want them under heavy guard, minimum four men per suspect until they’re transferred to the containment facility.”

The officers moved quickly, their discipline returning in the face of her calm precision. The SWAT medics knelt beside the suspects, checking vitals, while the tech team sealed fragments of shattered metal into evidence containers.

Still, Celine lingers there longer than she probably should have, staring at the faint glint of the strange squared-infinity symbol on the suspect’s armor, as though sheer willpower could pull the pieces together in her exhausted mind. Her brain, which had been running on caffeine, adrenaline, and spite for the past forty-eight hours, is starting to give out. She just wants to take another shower, a quiet room, maybe six hours of sleep and later be obsessed with her research. 

For a moment, she tries to piece it all together anyway. The sequence of events, the weapons, the web substance that still clung to the edges of nearby buildings, the unregistered tech, but the more she tries to connect the dots, the blurrier they become.

And then came that voice again.

“Captain Celine.”

Of course.

She turns around slowly, doing her best not to let her irritation show, though the twitch in her jaw betrays her. Can’t he see she is trying to think?

“Bobby,” she says with her tone clipped. “What are you doing here instead of sticking with the rest of Unit Two?”

The young officer stops mid-stride.

“Ah… Well, ma’am, the civilians started clearing out now that things are settled, so I figured I’d check in here, lend a hand, see what’s--”

Celine rolls her eyes with a huff, ending up to cut him off. 

“I’m sure they’ve all got their ten-second clips and shaky phone footage uploaded by now.”

Bobby chuckles lightly..

“The internet never misses a show, huh?”

She don’t laugh. Not even a hint of a smile. Just that dry, unimpressed stare that can melt an officer faster than a flamethrower.

He clears his throat. “Right. Anyway, uh… what do we have now? Anything more concrete than just two lunatics with high-end power tools?”

Celine’s gaze flicks briefly toward the suspects again. 

“That’s our best theory so far,” she answers, her voice even but weary, a flicker of sarcasm buried under the fatigue. “As you can see, we’re still piecing things together.” She runs a hand through her hair, pushing a few loose strands back, eyes briefly closing as she exhales through her nose. “Nothing about this makes sense yet.”

“Yeah,” Bobby mutters, crouching near the perimeter tape to get a better look. “Never seen that symbol before. Not on any of the powered-tech cases we’ve handled lately. You think it’s a new manufacturer?”

“Most likely. I doubt it’s a rework of the older models. It's too… deliberate.”

“Hmm.” That is all he manages before letting out a low sigh of his own. “Well, at least the situation’s under control now. I swear, I couldn’t take another second of that chaos. The bloodlust in the air was horrible…” His tone at the end gets melancholic and he adds: “You think the Spider-Woman’s okay?”

Celine can’t help but make a face. 

Honestly, what was this guy’s problem, always dragging that vigilante’s name into the scene? I mean, she sort of has her theories, since there were plenty of times she’d scolded him for using his phone during work hours, and every single time he was on some social media feed looking at something related to Spider-Woman… and other times it was just dance trends or animal videos, but still. Come on.

“I think,” she finally states, her tone flat as a blade, “she’s old enough to take care of herself.”

Bobby gets a little caught off guard by the coldness in her voice.

 “Sure. Just… asking.”

A heavy silence falll between them, the kind that stretches too long to be comfortable. 

Then, Celine lets out a long, slow breath, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Look,” she says after a pause, voice quieter but still firm. “Why don’t you head home, Bobby?”

He stares at her, stunned.

“Home? Are you kidding me?”

Celine tries not to be bothered by the casual way he speaks to her, but coming from someone who seems to have trouble with TikTok, she knows better than to expect much. In fact, the new generation of police officers seems to have this problem in general, and Celine doesn't know how to feel about it. Maybe she's just too old.

Anyway, she doesn’t bother to answer him right away. She just turns slightly, her eyes sweeping over the scene. Most of Unit Two had already dispersed, some gathered near the trucks, their postures relaxed, the urgency gone. The handful that remain are finishing reports or herding off the last few civilians who still thought this is their front-row ticket to internet fame.

“Yeah,” she speaks, glancing back at him. “The situation looks stable enough to me. I’ll start dismissing the rest of the units soon anyway. You can clock out early.”

He hesitates, torn between duty and relief.

“You’re sure, Captain?”

“Bobby, if I wanted to babysit, I’d have joined daycare services. Go home.”

He straightens, snapping a quick, awkward salute. 

“Yes, ma’am!”

As he walks off, Celine stands there a moment longer, rubbing her temple. The air is thick with the post-operation, the kind that makes her skin crawl because it never lasts. She can still feel the faint pull of unease beneath her ribs, that instinct that something about tonight is still off.

Her gaze drifts again to the strange symbol glinting under the floodlight, that damn infinity-shaped mark staring back at her like an unanswered question.

It isn’t over. Not by a long shot.

Chapter Text

Bobby isn’t an idiot.

Uh, well… 

At least, not completely.

Because, sure, people might say he is too nice, that kind of frustrating, well-meaning nice that doesn’t survive long in a world like this. And, yeah, maybe there is some truth to that: life has a funny way of punishing people like him, the ones who still try to see the best in others, who still offer a hand instead of a fist. Time and again, his good nature has left him standing alone or getting screwed over, or most of the time, usually both.

Still, that’s just who he is. Always has been.

And yet, here he is, a police officer. Which, by all stereotypes, should mean he walks around with a stone face, a permanent scowl, maybe a cigarette dangling from his mouth and a box of donuts always by his side… and no. Don’t comment on the fact that he loves donuts, that’s not the point right now.

The whole point is, even after joining the force, Bobby never changed who he always has been. He never stopped being kind, even when Captain Celine chewed him out for using his phone during patrol, which is a totally fair reaction from her. He just can’t help it; he has a soft spot for those short videos on TikTok. He is only human, after all.

And no matter how often his colleagues’ tempers flare, no matter how much cynicism seeped into their daily routines, Bobby still always does what he believes is right. Always. That is the one thing he refuses to compromise.

Which, in this particular case, applies to Spider-Woman.

You see, Bobby might work twelve-hour shifts on average, sometimes longer when chaos decides to stick around, but even after those endless days after dragging his exhausted body back to his tiny apartment, he never went straight to bed like a normal adult should. Oh, no. He’d drop onto the couch, still in uniform half the time, scroll through his phone, and let himself unwind in the glow of his favorite app, which automatically means TikTok... And that automatically means he knows everything that’s “possible” to know about the vigilante.

Did you notice how the word “possible” is in quotes? Yeah, that’s because all he really knows are those chopped-up, low-quality, heavily edited clips they throw online about the superhero.

Doesn't matter, Bobby likes to say he knows her better than that. 

That it happened naturally, not like those videos where people try to force some kind of connection with the vigilante just to get a reaction. Because, as mentioned before, he’s never stopped doing what he believes is right.

Which means that right from the first nights after Spider-Woman appeared three years ago, Bobby had this gut feeling that there was something… special about her.

And no, he isn’t just talking about the part where she seems to shoot webbing straight from her wrists, or the fact that she can crawl up the sides of buildings like it is the most natural thing in the world. That is superhero business. Weird, yes, but explainable in a city like theirs, where weird had become routine.

What Bobby means is something that goes beyond her powers.

Sure, he had been suspicious at first. You kind of had to be in his line of work. He is a cop, and again, only a human, so give him a break. Like, would anyone really be fine the first time they saw a stranger in a mask leaping across rooftops, wrapping criminals up like Christmas presents?

Oh, come on, at the very least, that’s the kind of thing that should make anyone’s eyebrows shoot up.

But, anyway, his suspicions only lasted ten seconds, because all that he needed was seeing her in action. 

You may be thinking now that he was dazzled the moment he saw her in action, jaw dropping at the way she always fights efficiently, fast and unreal, but no. At least, not entirely, because even to this day he still wonders how anyone can fight like that. What truly caught him off guard… was her heart.

She didn’t just take down demons and criminals; she shielded civilians, calmed crying children, stayed behind after the battle to help people get to safety. Once, in a shaky clip uploaded online, he’d seen her kneel beside a lost boy and tie a bandage around his scraped knee before disappearing again into the night. And she smiled, even behind the mask, you could tell.

That was the moment Bobby realized she wasn’t just a vigilante, she was good. She is good.

And maybe that is why Bobby has liked her since the very beginning, because in some small way, she reminded him of himself. A little out of place. A little too kind for a cruel world, even still doing good not because it is a job, but because it is right.

Even when everyone else in his unit rolled their eyes or muttered about her “getting in the way,” Bobby couldn’t bring himself to share the sentiment. The Spider-Woman isn’t a problem, she is a damn blessing.

Or rather, Spider-Girl.

The nickname came naturally, just like their first real conversation.

It happened after one of her classic, breaking interventions: a truck hijacking gone south. The criminal had been speeding down the freeway, metal screeching, tires smoking, until Spider-Woman swung in and without hesitation anchored a line of web to the back of the truck, dug her heels into the asphalt, and pulled. The impossible strength in those slim arms as she fired her webs onto the back bumper and held it. Her feet dug into the concrete, the ground cracking beneath her feet as the truck’s tires screamed against the force restraining them. Inch by inch, the vehicle slowed until it came to a grinding, furious halt.

The driver burst out, enraged, gun already raised.

Bobby barely had time to shout before the first shots rang out, but she was faster.

She dodged the bullets with the same nonchalance most people use to avoid puddles. She disarmed him in seconds, a web yanking the gun away before he could blink. The suspect hit the ground hard, wrapped head to toe in sticky webbing that gleamed under the flickering streetlights.

It was the coolest thing Bobby had ever seen.

So when the rest of the police arrived, he didn’t follow his team straight to the truck. Instead, he noticed her, perched on the roof of a bus stop a block away, sitting cross-legged, watching them with her quiet, vigilant air. Almost like she was making sure they’d actually do their jobs before disappearing again.

She was so focused that she didn't notice him at first. He doesn't know what came over him, but he decided to approach her slowly, carefully — since he definitely didn't want to end up tangled in her web or trigger some unpredictable reaction, who knows what kind of reaction she might have when she gets startled. Still, despite all his caution, she got scared anyway the moment he finally spoke, like a cat caught off guard. Maybe it was instinct, or just the usual caution she has around cops, but whatever the reason, her body tensed, her head snapped toward him, eyes hidden behind that mask of hers.

He raised his hands quickly. 

“Whoa, easy! Not here to cuff you or anything!” he says smiling nervously. “I just wanted to say that… you really did a nice job back there.”

That seemed to break the ice.

Her posture eased. She blinked once, then twice, and tilted her head like she was actually trying to read him. 

He didn’t mind her reaction and started rambling on, as usual, talking about how fast she’d moved, how insane her reflexes were. He might’ve even thrown in a dumb joke or two, just to keep the mood light.

And then she spoke.

The sound of her voice stopped him cold. It wasn’t what he expected at all. wasn’t low or confident or world-weary like the masked vigilantes from the movies.  It wasn’t hardened by experience. It was light, soft… young. 

He really thought Spider-Woman was an adult, maybe in her thirties as someone who took endless Pilates classes or had been doing gymnastics since childhood and never stopped, which would explain all that flexibility and the acrobatics she pulled off with her webs, but no. Apparently, he had never been so wrong.

He’d been a cop long enough to tell age by tone, and that voice didn’t belong to someone in their thirties or even mid-twenties. It belonged to a girl. 

That’s when it hit him, Spider-Woman wasn’t a woman at all. She was a girl. Maybe not even twenty. Someone who, in another world, should’ve been worrying about school, or friends, or dates, not fighting crime in back alleys.

The nickname just slipped out of his mouth at the end of their conversation:

“It was really nice to talk with you, Spider-Girl.”

For a moment, she froze. Tilted her head again, eyes narrowing through the mask. And then, she laughed. Softly. It was quick, but unmistakable. 

She didn't correct him. She didn't even complain. She just laughed, and they talked a little more, and then she left because Bobby's coworkers were already urging him to come back to work.

Bobby kept calling her that, and she never stopped responding.

Especially not the next time they met — weeks later — after she’d single-handedly taken down a group of low-level demons in an alley.

“Long night, Spider-Girl?” he asked, extending one of the donuts he’d brought along.

She’d looked at it like a kid seeing candy for the first time, eyes wide behind the mask, then took it with both hands and an excited little hum, the sound oddly sweet.

He hadn’t expected her to actually eat it, or even accept it; he just figured she might want something to eat, since she was always fighting. He’d been wanting to do it for a while, though he was a little unsure — who even knows what people with powers eat? — Still, he decided to take the risk with donuts, because Bobby had never met anyone who didn’t like them.

So, yeah, he got pretty happy he nailed it.

Unfortunately, as time went on, Bobby’s thoughts about Spider-Woman started becoming… a little too accurate for his own good.

One year has passed. Then two. Then three. 

And through all of them, Spider-Woman never stopped. 

She carried the weight of the city on her shoulders like it was stitched into her suit, and somehow, she handled it all with that same impossible grace. Always poised, always quick, always there when people needed her most.

But Bobby knows better.

He’d seen enough good people burn out under less pressure. Cops with families, therapists, partners… men and women who’d faced half of what she does everyday and still ended up collapsing under the weight of it all. And even the police department itself can barely keep up with the chaos of Seoul, even when they are trained, armed, organized, and still, they struggle to keep order on a good day.

What chance does a girl like her really have?

Sure, she has powers, but so what? She still bleeds. Still stumbles. Still winces when the fights drag on too long.

And Spider-Woman, no matter what anyone says, is still just a kid.

Bobby sometimes thinks that maybe she’d been in over her head from the very start. Maybe she’d just learned how to hide it better than anyone else, because he’d always noticed the small details everyone else misses, or just doesn't care enough to see.

For instance, how she’d sometimes appear in the middle of the night, swinging low between buildings, yawning behind her mask as if she hadn’t slept in days.  Or how she’d linger on rooftops long after the danger was gone, sitting there with her knees tucked to her chest, rubbing the muscles in her arms or neck in slow, tired circles. Or how her landings had started to get heavier as time passed, never in a clumsy way, but with a weight that doesn’t come from gravity.

Those moments were from years ago now: little things, stupid things, the kind of things people don’t think twice about when watching her on the news or through a shaky cell phone recording.

But Bobby thought about them.

He thought about them more than he probably should have.

He isn’t sure which category he falls into, someone who notices too much or cares too much, but he knows one thing for sure: she is running out of steam, and nobody else seems to see it.

So he did the only thing he could think to do. He tried to make it lighter for her.

Sometimes that meant staying back after a mission—waiting until she came down from the rooftops so he could talk to her. He would start the conversation casually, pretending it was about police procedure or just some dumb joke about how her webs always ruined the evidence reports, but it was never really about that. It was about making her smile. About letting her breathe.

They would talk. Just a few minutes, never long, never too deep. He knew better than to push. Their conversations were full of teasing and banter — her sarcastic little quips, his nervous attempts to sound cool and his normal rambling — but beneath all that, there was that unspoken understanding.

They admire each other. 

A cop and a vigilante, both on opposite sides of the same moral coin, but finding brief moments of peace together between the chaos.

For three years, that’s how it went.

Quick chats between missions. A nod from a rooftop. A small laugh shared over the sound of sirens.

Everything was fine.

Until suddenly, it wasn’t.

Or maybe it had never really been fine to begin with.

In the past few months — before Gwi-ma’s defeat — Seoul had descended into absolute chaos.

The city had always been a restless beast, pulsing with life, with sirens, with too many people pretending the shadows weren’t getting thicker every night, but when the demons began to spill even more through the Homoon… the fear was real. Tangible.

And who was the person that kept it all from collapsing entirely? Who was it that kept people alive while the city was eating itself from the inside out?

Hm. Yeah. 

Spider-Woman.

You don’t need to be a genius, or even particularly observant, to understand that kind of burden came with a price. You just had to look at her, and see the exhaustion had started to show in her posture, in the slower way she moved between swings, in how she’d land on her feet and take one extra second before straightening again.

Bobby had seen it coming. He’d felt it in his gut before anyone else did, because each new online post made it clearer that she was falling apart.

This was the peak of her fame, if you could even call it that.

Every news station, every social feed, every whisper in the station break room carried her name. There were photos everywhere: on the news, on forums, plastered across TikTok and Reddit and every other corner of the internet that fed off chaos. In those months, there were more pictures of her than ever before. Blurred shots of her leaping between rooftops, fighting monsters the human eye could barely register, saving people who didn’t even know what had almost killed them. She was everywhere.

And that was exactly what scared Bobby.

Because being everywhere meant she was never resting.

He hated that most of the footage from that time was something no one should see while eating: bloody, violent, sometimes almost inhuman. Images of her covered in deep gashes or bite marks from demons. Most of the times she was limping, sometimes barely standing, but always still fighting. Always pushing forward.

It made his stomach twist.

He hated that she had to go through that alone. That the world that owed her everything treated her pain like content.

So when the day finally came, when the headlines announced Spider-Woman’s victory over Gwi-ma and the Homoon’s golden seal, Bobby felt something he hadn’t in ages: relief.

Pure, genuine relief.

He remembered sitting in his squad car that night, staring at the faint golden shimmer in the distance, thinking: It’s over. She can finally rest now.

He’d smiled to himself, imagining her somewhere safe, maybe sleeping for a week straight, finally breathing without the weight of the city pressing against her body.

But… apparently, that wasn’t what happened.

Because even after all that, the warning signs about her didn’t go away. If anything, they got worse.

He doesn’t understand how that is even possible. How someone can save an entire city, banish one of the greatest threats in history, and still end up looking so… empty.

It became a cruel kind of routine. He would open TikTok, just like everyone else, and there she’d be: another grainy clip, another wave of comments mocking her. People joking about how she looks “too thin now,” how her movements seem slower, and how she doesn’t “hit as hard as before.”

They made her sound like a glitching machine instead of a girl. And each time, Bobby felt the same ache twisting deeper inside him.

Then he would see her in person again, because, yes, she still came to him. More often now, in fact.

And that is the part he doesn’t know how to feel about.

On one hand, it makes his chest warm in a quiet, aching sort of way. It means she trusts him. It means she still wants to talk, to stop by even when the night was cold and the air smelled like iron.

But on the other hand… it means he could see, up close, the damage she was — is — hiding from everyone else.

Her hands shakes when she thought he wasn’t looking. Her breathing hitched after laughing. The hollows beneath her mask seemed deeper, her shoulders smaller inside the once-sturdy fabric of her suit.

She would still smile when he greeted her, still sit beside him on the edge of the rooftop as if everything were fine, still make her stupid typical quips… However, the more time passed, the more her smile started to look like something she wears for his sake.

And Bobby can’t stop thinking about the same question, looping endlessly in his mind each night as he drove back home with the city lights blurring past his window:

How?

How is she still standing?

How does she still fight every day and night like she is running out of time?

He doesn’t have an answer.

Well, the bottom line here is that their conversations had grown more frequent than before. 

And strangely enough, it was always her who came looking for him.

She would appear out of the night like a shadow dipped in moonlight, landing near the edge of his patrol car or the roof of whatever building he happened to be stationed on. Sometimes she’d swing down silently and scare the life out of him on purpose, laughing under her mask as he jumped. Other times, she’d simply perch somewhere close, legs drawn up, waiting for him to notice.

At first, Bobby had been… Uh, honestly, flattered, but how could he not be? Like, hello? She is the city’s mysterious vigilante who’d saved millions, and she is choosing to talk to him. So, yeah, of course, he would feel that way. 

That feeling didn’t last long, though.

Because, as mentioned before, Bobby isn’t an idiot.

He saw why she started coming to him so often now.

She could barely stay standing.

Sure, she was smiling. Sure, she was making jokes. She still had that nervous energy, that quick wit that made her seem unshakable, but he isn’t blind.

Her hands were trembling. Her breathing came in uneven bursts. She even had stumbled when she landed, but she typically just laughed it off like it was part of some act.

There was something wrong with her.

Still, Bobby, being the gentle, patient soul that he is, didn’t pry. He didn’t demand answers, didn’t push her into corners she clearly doesn’t want to stand in. After all, he’d tried before. Once, he’d asked her something simple — so innocent it shouldn’t have mattered, something like, “What do you like to do after patrol?” — and she’d shut him down in an instant. A dry laugh, a swift change of subject, and suddenly they were talking about something else entirely, like he’d asked her to take off her mask instead of sharing a basic detail about herself.

So Bobby learned his place.

He let her lead their conversations: she would start, he’d follow, he’d talk too much, and then, like clockwork, he’d try to slip in his quiet, harmless little offer: “Wanna grab something to eat?” He’d say it in that easy, clueless tone, pretending it was nothing, pretending he doesn’t notice the way she always answers so quickly. Like she’d been counting the hours for him to ask. Like food isn’t just a casual thing anymore, but a lifeline she was clinging to without admitting it.

And that is… strange. Wrong. Off in a way that makes Bobby’s chest tighten with something unspoken and heavy.

Because why now?

Why, after the so-called Golden Honmoon, after Gwi-ma being finally defeated, after all the chaos had ended, is she like this? Shouldn’t things be better? 

Shouldn’t she be better?

She should’ve been recovering, stronger, healthier, freer than she’d ever been. Not looking weaker by the day, not trembling when she thinks no one sees.

It doesn’t make any sense.

Even if there are still crimes, It’s not even close as it was before. The city is healing, slowly but surely. There isn’t the same sense of constant catastrophe. Back then, she’d been battered and bleeding, but she’d looked… alive. Now, it is like she is fading right in front of him.

What the hell is happening to her?

Is she chasing some kind of trouble the police don’t know about? Getting herself tangled in things she shouldn’t be handling alone? He had caught that look in her eyes before; that stubborn, reckless glint that says she doesn’t trust anyone else to fix what is broken. Or maybe it isn’t about the city at all. Maybe it is something more personal, something eating her from the inside out.

He doesn’t know.

Yet, there is one thing he does know. Spider Woman might’ve been trying to act tough, to pretend she doesn’t need anyone, but Bobby can see through her.

He knows, without a single doubt, that she needs help.

Desperately.

So, that’s why now that Celine had miraculously decided to let him go early — or maybe she just took pity on him, because, honestly, he’d been there hours past his shift —, the very first thing Bobby does once he steps into his car isn’t heading home. No. 

The first thing he does is going after her.

Because, after what he’d seen the last time he caught a glimpse of her in the middle of that chaos, she’d looked absolutely wrecked, and Bobby doubts she can get very far in that condition, even if she is Spider-Woman.

Yeah, she’s the one who has outrun death more times than anyone should be able to, but even legends have limits, and Bobby’s got this nagging feeling in his chest that tells him that she’s been running on fumes for too long. He doubts she’s anywhere near “invincible” right now.

So he drives.

It’s late enough for the streets to be quiet, but not empty. His eyes flick between the road and the skyline, searching, scanning for that one thread of silver. Her webbing. It’s almost impossible to spot. The threads shimmer faintly under the streetlights, and the night itself swallows most of them whole. Still, Bobby tries.

Emphasis on tries.

It’s not exactly easy to crane your neck out the window in the middle of Seoul’s winter wind without freezing your ears off. The air bites, sharp and merciless, and his neck is already starting to ache from keeping his head tilted upward for too long. He curses under his breath, rolling his shoulders to ease the stiffness, but it doesn’t help much.

Gosh, age really is catching up with him.

And as if things couldn’t get worse, Seoul’s drivers have apparently decided that patience is optional. Actually, scratch that, it’s like that most of the time anyway, but you get the picture.

The first honk comes from behind him. Then another. Bobby frowns, realizing only after the sound blares again that his car has drifted halfway into the opposite lane. He straightens the wheel with a startled jolt, muttering, “Alright, alright, I get it,” to absolutely no one.

But seriously, what’s with people? He’s not even going that slow! 

Okay, maybe he is a little distracted, but it’s not like he’s swerving on purpose. It’s not his fault he’s trying to save someone’s life while freezing his ass off. The least they could do is cut him some slack.

Another honk. Louder this time.

Ugh, why do people only show respect when he’s in a police car? That’s if they even respect him at all, because lately people seem to have less and less sense.

Frustrations and near traffic accidents aside, Bobby eventually decides to pull over.

He has been driving for nearly half an hour now, and the last traces of webbing has finally disappeared from sight. No faint silver strands stretching between rooftops, no glint of silk under the moonlight. Just the dark skyline of Seoul, tall and cold and restless, humming faintly with distant city noise.

He exhales, long and unsteady, leaning his forehead against the steering wheel for a moment before straightening. He wants to believe the trail’s end means she is close. That maybe, this time, luck is on his side, but deep down, he knows better.

The police had already tried this before.

Every time Spider-Woman disappeared after dealing with crime or a demon attack, there were always faint patterns of webbing left behind and the department had attempted to trace those lines more than once, setting up teams, drones, cameras… And yet, somehow, she always vanished before they got even remotely close.

He can’t tell if she has some trick to make her webs dissolve faster after use, or if she just planned her routes ahead of time and deliberately destroyed her own trail, or if she stops using her webs and uses another thing. Either way, the conclusion is that it is clever, and it took brains. Precision. Control.

And control seems to be the last thing she has left in her, judging by what he saw earlier.

He shuts off the engine and steps out of the car, the cold immediately biting at his face. Seoul nights in this season just keeps getting colder and colder everyday. It's not winter yet, but it's close enough. His breath comes out in a pale puff of fog as he closes the door quietly behind him. The streets were slick with dew, and his boots echoed faintly as he began to walk.

He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets to keep them from shaking. Every instinct in him screams that something isn’t right. He’d been doing this job long enough to recognize the gut-deep pull of dread, the way it settles like a stone in his stomach and refuses to leave.

Maybe he is overreacting. Maybe she’d just gone home. Maybe she is fine.

However, the word ‘’maybe’’ doesn't carry much comfort, because if she really has reached her breaking point, then she totally needs help… even though he doesn’t know if he is ready to see what that looks like.

He’d seen enough horror for one lifetime, but the thought of her like that? The thought of the girl who carried the city on her back, who still managed to smile through blood and exhaustion and headlines? That hits differently.

His chest tightens as he walks further down the empty street, every step slower than the last.

He wants to believe she is okay, that right now she is perched somewhere above him, laughing at how ridiculous he looks stumbling around in the cold like some lost old man.

Hope is a dangerous thing, and tonight it feels like something far too fragile to hold.

Well, whatever, It wasn’t hard to find her.

For the first time in three years, following the webs actually works, and Bobby isn’t sure whether to thank the heavens or curse them for it.

You know, he was ready to give up. 

The cold had sunk deep into his bones; the kind of biting chill that no amount of layers can block. His flashlight had long started to dim, his neck was aching from craning up at rooftops for so long, and the only thing keeping him moving was that stubborn, gnawing fear sitting in the pit of his stomach.

But then he turned into one last alley — telling himself it would be the final one he checked, and that he’d go home if he didn’t find anything — and there she was.

For a moment, he froze.

At first, he thought it was just a pile of debris — some heap of old boxes and torn fabric discarded by the wind — until he saw the faint, unmistakable shimmer of her suit against the dark. 

His hand moves before his mind can catch up, sweeping the beam of his flashlight toward the figure slumped against the ground. The light hits her directly, harsh and white, and for one gut-wrenching heartbeat he thought she was dead, but then she groaned — a sound so faint and raw it barely qualified as human. It was enough, though.

Alive. 

She is alive.

Barely.

She’s sprawled on the ground near a stack of cardboard boxes and a dented trash can, her body folded in on itself like something discarded. The mask clings stubbornly to her face, but it’s smeared with blood. Her chest rises and falls in quick, ragged bursts, each inhale sounding more like a struggle than a breath.

For a long, paralyzed second, Bobby just stands there.

He’s seen her fight. He’s seen her win. He’s watched her dodge bullets, leap from buildings, snatch victory out of chaos like she is born for it, but this… quiet ruin before him is something else entirely. The Spider Woman, the goddamn hero of Seoul, reduced to a trembling, bloodied figure lying in an alley that smells like oil and rust.

“Spider-Girl?” The words scrape out of his throat, dry and unsteady. It’s almost as if he’s afraid to say them too loud, afraid that the sound itself might shatter her, or that he’s somehow wrong, that it isn’t her at all, that his heart’s breaking for the wrong person.

The light trembles in his hand, he had turned the light away from her face when he realized It had bothered her. For a moment, he tells himself to go to her, check if she’s breathing, if she’s really alive and he's not just dreaming it, but his body didn’t move. His brain gives the command, but his muscles refuse to obey. It’s like he’s been unplugged from himself.

The weight of it hits him all at once.

He doesn’t know if it’s his heart cracking in slow motion or his mind short-circuiting, but something inside him starts to collapse. The air feels too thick, like the alley’s closing in, and every breath he takes burns. He can’t tell if the pain in his chest is from running or from watching her like this; so goddamn small under all that strength she used to wear like armor.

He stands there, swallowing hard against the lump in his throat, his pulse hammering so violently that it almost drowns out the silence. 

But then she does move, painfully slowly, her head shifting toward him. The movement is so faint he could almost miss it if she didn’t start to stare at him intensely.

“Bo… bby…?” Her voice comes out like air escaping a broken pipe, totally weak and trembling.

It tears straight through him.

He moves before he even realizes it, stumbling forward, boots scraping against the wet pavement. His flashlight clatters uselessly to the ground, rolling away. He is on his knees beside her in seconds, the cold pavement biting through his jeans as his hands hovers helplessly over her, since he doesn’t know where to touch without hurting her more. There is so much blood. Too much.

“Yeah… yeah, it’s me,” he says quickly, leaning closer, his voice trembling as he speaks. He brushes trembling fingers against her cheek, the fabric of her mask rough beneath his skin. “It’s me, kid. I got you. Just-- just stay with me, alright? You’re okay, you’re… Shit-- please, just stay with me.”

Her head lolls slightly, and her lips parted, but nothing comes out. Her eyes, barely open through the mask, flickers in a heavy and unfocused way, as if she is drifting somewhere far away.

“Hey. No, no, no, don’t do that.” He reaches out, his hand shaking as he cups her cheek through the mask. Her face feels too still, and too cold beneath the fabric, grime and sweat. “C’mon, Spider-Girl. Open your eyes for me, please. You’re alright. You’re alright.”

She doesn’t respond, and the poor man gets more desperate. 

He taps her cheek lightly once, twice, nothing harsh, just enough to try and pull her back. It doesn't work anyway, her head only lolls again, her lips parting as a weak breath escapes.

“Shit,” he mutters again, panic seeping more and into his tone. “Please, just-- please, don't give up… You did so good, so great… You’re gonna be okay. Please, you're going to be okay.”

He doesn’t even know if she can hear him. The mask hides most of her face, but he can tell by the way her lips parts that she is fighting for air, her body trembling with every useless attempt. 

“Come on, kid. Come on, look at me, please” he tries again, feeling like he is begging at this point, but he doesn't really cares, he just tightens his grip on her shoulder while the other hand stays on her cheek, shaking her just enough to keep her from slipping into whatever place her mind is trying to run to.

The movement draws a small sound out of her: half a sigh, half a whimper. Her chest rises once more, then falters

He can feel her slipping. There is something in the way her body grows heavier at his touch, the way her head tilts just slightly toward him, as if gravity itself is pulling her away from life inch by inch.

Her pulse, when he presses trembling fingers to her neck, is still there, but weak. So goddamn weak it barely pushes against his fingertips.

Bobby’s chest constricts. He can feel the panic clawing its way up his throat. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to her. Not to the one person who had survived everything until now.

Her breathing grows shallower, a weak flutter against the night’s silence. Each rise of her chest came slower, weaker. Her head tilts just enough for him to see her lips move. Maybe she is trying to say something, but the only sound that comes out is a ghost of a laugh, broken before it ever begins.

And then… she goes still.

“No,” Bobby whispers, shaking his head, his voice trembling so hard it doesn’t sound like his own. “No. NO! SPIDER-GIRL!”

His throat closes up, and he presses two fingers to her neck again, searching — begging — for something, anything.

There it is. A faint thump. A fragile beat.

Relief and terror collides all at once, twisting in his chest.

“Okay,” Bobby mutters under his breath, the word barely making it past the lump in his throat. His voice trembles as he forces himself to breathe — slowly, evenly, like he was trained to — but it doesn’t help much since his pulse is a thunderstorm under his skin. “Okay, she’s breathing… She’s still breathing. She’s going to be okay… It’s not like she’s dying or anything like that…”

The last part doesn’t sound as convincing as he wants it to. 

He swallows hard, his mouth dry as ash, and glances down at her again. This time, slower. Not in that frantic way from seconds ago when all he could think about was keeping her awake. He forces himself to really look now, to take in every detail he missed while his mind was clouded by panic.

And immediately, he wishes he hasn’t.

Because there it is. The reason the air smells faintly of something burnt and metallic. The right sleeve of her suit is torn wide open along the bicep, the fabric fused to the skin in places where heat has seared through. Beneath it, her arm is a horror of raw, blistered flesh and streaks of blood. Angry red burns crawl up toward her shoulder, pulsing faintly with each weak heartbeat that somehow still keeps her alive.

“Jesus Christ…” Bobby whispers, his stomach twisting violently.

The sight hits him harder than he expects. 

More blood keeps soaking through the fabric, dark and steady. Not just from this wound — he figures she must have gotten it from that crazy woman’s laser, so the bleeding itself is minimal, the real problem is the burn on her arm — but from all over her body, from the other injuries. He can feel the warmth of it even in the cold air. 

His pulse begins to race in sync with hers — or maybe with his own panic — until all he can hear is the pounding in his ears.

She’s dying, his mind whispers. You’re watching her die.

“Oh, no-- No, no, no…”

His hands hover uselessly above her, shaking, unsure of where to touch, what to press, what to fix first. His brain runs through every possible thing he’s supposed to do in situations like this, maybe call it in, secure the area, request medical support… but none of it feels right. None of it feels safe for her.

Because she is her.

She’s not supposed to be caught.

Every instinct in his body screams at him to grab the radio and call for backup. He’s a cop, this is what he’s trained to do. To grab the radio, to shout for medics, to do something. That’s what protocol demands. Secure the scene. Call emergency services. Wait for the team.

But that is exactly the problem.

He looks at her, at the mask still clinging to her face, the one that had made half of Seoul curse her name and the other half worship her. If he called it in, the first thing they’d do once they arrived would be someone ripping off her mask because “procedure demands identification”.

And when they did…

He doesn’t know who she is, what her face looks like and whatever, but he knows she isn’t just some outlaw swinging through the city for fun. No one fights like that, or bleeds like that just to make a name for themselves. Whoever she is, she is fighting for something, and If he calls for help now, he would be the one to hand her over. To destroy everything she has been risking her life for.

He can’t let that happen. He can’t let them find out who she is. I mean, he already failed to keep her conscious. He can’t fail her again.

In this case, Bobby exhales shakily, his decision sitting heavy in his chest like lead.

“Alright,” he whispers, barely audible over the city’s distant noise. “I’ll help you my way. Just… don’t die on me, okay? I’m not letting you go out like this.”

So he quickly decides to carry out the rest of the protocol as best he can, without hurting her much more. 

First aid, she needs that just as much as she needs a warm, safe place to stay. And in this case, that doesn’t mean a hospital, even though he knows that should be his first instinct, but rather… his house. He’s not a doctor, but he knows enough to at least try to keep her alive without risking her being further defamed than she already is by calling in professional help.

And yes, he’s aware of the risks. He knows that if anyone finds out he’s taking care of a… fugitive, when he has no obligation to do so, it’ll almost certainly cost him his badge, but right now, he can’t afford to care. After all, he has always done what he believes is right, and in this moment, what’s right is not letting her die, and not handing her over on a silver platter to the people who want her gone.

Therefore, he forces himself to breathe while his mind scrambles to recall his first-aid training. He’d been trained for this. The steps should’ve come naturally, automatic, but right now they fees distant, tangled, like trying to remember the lyrics of a song while the world burns around him.

Every situation that needs first aid is different, that much he knows, and this one… this one is chaos. Training doesn’t prepare you for the part where the dying person in your arms isn’t just another victim, but her. His girl.

“Okay,” he mutters under his breath, his voice cracking from the strain. “Okay, come on, think, Bobby. Think.”

He draws in another breath — maybe the thousandth since this all started — and mentally sorts through the checklist.

Step one: make sure she’s still breathing.

Simple. Straightforward. Except it isn’t.

He can see the faint rise and fall of her chest, but it isn’t enough reassurance. 

So, with careful hands, he reaches for her neck. There’s a thin seam along the edge of her mask — a barely visible line that he’s seen her pull up before when she is going to eat or drink. He remembers how she used to lift it just enough to take a sip of coffee or bite into something he offered her, always making sure it never revealed too much.

That memory burns in him now as his fingers trace the same spot, trembling slightly. He swallows the guilt pressing at his throat, since this feels wrong, like crossing a boundary she trusted him to respect, but she’s barely breathing, for God’s sake. This isn’t about trust or privacy anymore. This is about keeping her alive.

“Sorry,” he says anyway, voice low and guilty as his thumb caught the edge of the fabric. “Just… just need to make sure you can breathe, alright?”

He pulls the mask up just enough to uncover her nose and part of her mouth, not a fraction higher. The air feels thicker somehow, heavy with the quiet sound of her breathing…

But then he notices it, a faint shimmer in her face. 

What the hell…?

A soft purple glow pulses from beneath her skin, just below her jawline, a violet sheen that runs like a thread along her neck and fades into her cheek. It’s subtle but impossible to miss once seen.

His heart stutters. 

Has that always been there? How did he never notice something like that?

The glow pulses faintly, rhythmic, and he thinks that maybe it follows her breathing. He’s not sure, yet he can’t help it, but feel like he has definitely seen this somewhere before--

“Focus, Bobby,” he hisses at himself, shaking his head as if to dislodge the thought.

Currently is not the time to start connecting dots that will only lead to questions he’s not ready to ask. Now that he has lifted her mask slightly, he can see that she’s too pale and her lips have lost their color, tinged faintly blue beneath the dim light, which means that the glow can be anything. Veins, blood vessels, whatever strange reaction that happens when someone loses too much blood. His mind is spinning, desperate to make sense of it, to rationalize.

There will be time later to wonder what the hell this purple light is — if there is a later. Right now, there’s only one thing that matters: keeping her breathing, keeping her here. Everything else can wait.

In this way, he adjust her neck to be straight, careful not to turn her head even a fraction too far. Every motion has to be measured, deliberate, like handling something fragile that can shatter at the smallest mistake.

Slowly, he turns her onto her side — the recovery position, right? That’s what they called it in training, anyway— so she won’t choke on her own blood or vomit if it comes to that. His hands moves with clumsy care, one sliding beneath her head to keep her airway open. Her breathing is still shallow, rattling harshly against his palm. 

“Good… good…,” he mutters, half to her, half to himself. His voice is barely more than a tremor.

When he finally looks down at her arm again, he has to pause, close his eyes for a brief second before opening them slowly, as if maybe the damage will look smaller when he does. It doesn’t. The gash is still there, ugly and deep. The smell of burnt flesh hits him all over again, and for a terrifying moment, Bobby thinks he’s going to be sick. He closes his eyes and presses the back of his hand to his mouth, forcing himself to swallow the bile rising in his throat.

He takes a breath. Then another. And another. 

He keeps doing it until he can think straight again. He isn’t even supposed to treat that yet, just stabilize her, stop the bleeding, avoid infection, keep her breathing. That’s it. The rest will come later. 

God help him when it does.

His hands start to move in a trembling and clumsy way, but moving. He strips off his jacket, already shivering, and that’s with his jacket still half on. The night air bit into his skin, and for a fleeting moment he almost gives up on the idea, but then he looks at her again, at the way her body shivered involuntarily even unconsciously, and that is enough. She must be freezing, since she’s wearing that thin, torn spandex and he doubts it holds any heat at all.  

He clenches his teeth, completely peeling off his jacket.

From the utility belt at his side, he pulls out his folding knife, flicks it open with a quick motion, and slices through the inner lining of one pocket. The fabric tears cleanly. It’s not sterile, not by any means, but it’s the cleanest thing he’s got.

He presses the cloth gently around her arm, wrapping it in place just tight enough to shield the wound without cutting off circulation. The burnt skin looks angry beneath the fabric, red and dark at the edges, but at least it’s covered now; protected from the dirt and the world.

He forces his hands to stay steady as he ties the makeshift bandage.

Then, he finally moves behind her to check the rest, and the sight nearly knocks the air out of him. Now that she’s turned on her side, he can see more clearly: slivers of glass embedded at the entire back part of her body, glinting faintly under the streetlight, and blood stains blooming across her suit.

His lips press into a thin, grim line

He wanted to pull every last piece of glass out, to clean her up properly, but logic cuts through the panic. Touching them now would only make her bleed more. If he starts removing things without equipment, she might not even make it to his place alive.

So he forces himself to step back, even as every instinct in him screams to do something.

“Not yet,” he whispers hoarsely. “Don’t make it worse. Just… not yet.”

The next thing he decided to do before covering her with his jacket is something that makes his stomach turn with hesitation. 

Her ribs.

He had already noticed the irregularity in her breathing, and now that she is unconscious, it should’ve evened out, should’ve been steady and slow, but it isn’t. Every inhale is still short and trembling, every exhale weaker than the last. And beneath it all, there is this awful, faint sound; a soft, crackling pop that he can hear every few seconds.

This noise is wrong, and he doesn't need much to know instantly what it is about.

Broken ribs.

He stops there for a moment, torn between wanting to check and wanting to not know, because if he confirms it, if he feels what he already suspects, it would make everything too real… but he can’t let fear win now. 

Finally, he lowers his hands, pressing down as gently as he can manage.

The moment his fingertips brush the side of her ribcage, her whole body reacts, just barely, but enough to send a shock of panic through him. Even unconscious, she jerks like a marionette caught on a sudden pull of string. A broken sound escapes her throat, half gasp, half whimper, and Bobby flinches like he’s the one who’s been hurt.

“Easy…” he murmurs, his voice tight, barely a whisper. “Easy, Spider-Girl. I’m not--”

Her chest stutters again, the breath catching mid-motion. It comes with the same subtle crackling sound, and this time, his stomach clenches hard enough to make him feel dizzy and make his own lungs ache in sympathy. He can practically feel the damage beneath his fingertips; ribs that aren’t sitting where they should be, bones shifting slightly under her skin, plus a body that appears to have no fat on it.

He draws his hands back as if burned. He can feel the tremor in his own fingers. His jaw tightens again, and for a long, tense second, all he can do is stare at her chest rising and falling unevenly.

“Yeah,” he mutters under his breath. “It’s broken.”

He runs a shaky hand down his face, trying to think, to focus, but all that comes to mind is the rush of blood in his ears and the pounding in his temples. She is falling apart, and he is holding her together with nothing but scraps and luck.

“Okay… okay…” he murmurs, trying to collect himself. 

He reaches for his utility knife again, the familiar weight grounding him just enough to think straight. He hesitates for only a second before slicing through the fabric of his thermal undershirt, the one he always wears beneath his uniform this time of year. The fabric is soft and warm from his body heat. It isn’t much, but it would have to do.

Working carefully, he loops the torn cloth around her torso, right under her arms, wrapping it gently across her ribs. He doesn’t make it tight — too much pressure could make it worse — but firm enough to offer her some stability, just firm enough to keep her chest from expanding too much when she breathes, to stop the sharp edges of broken bone from grinding further against one another.

When he ties it off, he exhales slowly, his breath coming out shaky, fogging in the cold air between them. Her body gives a faint twitch, a weak reflex to the pressure. Even unconscious, she feels it.

“Sorry, kid,” he whispers, his voice barely audible while gently, carefully, and quickly caresses her cheek. “I know it hurts. Just… hang on.”

He hates that the sound doesn’t really change, she still struggles to breathe and he keeps hearing her ribs crack in and out like a dying engine. Also, he hates how helpless he feels, how much it scares him to look at her and realizes she truly isn’t the untouchable legend everyone thinks she is but just a broken girl bleeding out in his arms.

Well, after securing the makeshift bandage around her ribs, Bobby finally pulls his jacket over her, tucking the heavy fabric around her frame like it’s some kind of shield.

The coat looks absurdly big on her. Too big. The sight hits him harder than he expects, a sharp tug low in his chest that makes him bite the inside of his cheek. She looks small beneath it, fragile even, and that shouldn’t make sense, since she is taller than him. Which, honestly, isn’t saying much, considering that Bobby has never been exactly a giant himself. Still… seeing her swallowed by his jacket like that feels wrong. Wrong in the kind of way that stings, like the world just cracked a little in front of him.

He forces out a breath. He can't afford to lose his attention now. He can spiral later, not now when she needs him the most. 

Thus, he gives her one last glance just to make sure she’s still breathing, and then pushes himself to his feet, his knees aching from kneeling too long on the damp concrete, but he barely notices. He jogs toward the mouth of the alley, boots splashing through small puddles reflecting the dull orange of the streetlights.

The city is mercifully quiet. No footsteps, no distant chatter, not even a stray car passing by. Just the faint hum of the neon sign a few blocks over and the soft buzz of the night air pressing against his ears. 

He scans the street quickly, heart thudding. No one. Good. He doesn’t think he would have it in him to explain why he’s carrying Seoul’s most wanted vigilante like a wounded animal in the middle of the night.

He practically sprints to where his car is parked, fumbling for the keys as soon as he spots the familiar vehicle at the curb. His hands are shaking again, and it takes him two tries to fit the key in the ignition. The engine roars to life, and he drives forward, the tires crunching over loose gravel as he maneuvers closer to the alley.

When he stops in front of it, he kills the lights and sits there for a second, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turn white. After it, he stares through the windshield at the dark mouth of the alley where she lay hidden. The reality of what comes next pressing down on him like a physical weight.

He is going to have to carry her.

A person with broken ribs.

“Okay,” he exhales shakily. “No, it's ok. I can handle this.”

He repeats it again, quieter this time, like saying it enough will make it true.

“I just need to visualize that she is not dying, and that there is no chance that I can kill her by accident. Everything is fine, she is just…. sleeping. Yeah, it's fine. She's… sleeping.”

Funny thing, because it isn’t fine. 

His mind is already racing through every possible way this can go wrong. And him, the one who barely passed his field trauma training, has to try to move her without making things worse.

Oh, Gosh, why is he the only responsible adult here?

After a few deep breaths, he finally releases the wheel, flexing his fingers until the ache in his joints eases a little. He glances toward the alley again, and after a second, he leaves the car, boots crunching against the wet pavement, and stops at the alley’s edge. He can see her shape faintly still covered by his jacket beneath the shadows.

He is just praying that maybe the heavens have mercy on them both.

So, without giving himself the chance to hesitate another second, Bobby reaches for the handle and swings open the back door of his car, the hinges creaking in the cold night air. He has already make up his mind; she will go there, in the backseat, where she can lie on her side and where he could keep an eye on her.

Then he turns back toward the alley, and bends down to pick up the flashlight that had fallen to the ground earlier, the dim light trembling as he walks, the beam quivering just like his hands. He crouches beside her again, the chill from the ground cutting straight through his knees until it feels like the cold itself has teeth.

“Okay, Spider-Girl…” His voice comes out rough, the words misting in the air between them. “I’m gonna move you now… I’ll be careful, I promise.”

He doesn’t even know why he said it, but maybe he needs to hear it himself. Maybe the sound of his own voice is the only thing keeping him from falling apart.

He turns off the flashlight and then puts the item back in his utility belt. Then, after another deep breath that doesn’t help much, to the point where he even wonders why he insists on doing it, he shifts forward.

Slowly, carefully, he slides one arm beneath her shoulders, the other under her knees. His palms are clammy, his pulse drumming against his fingertips as if his body knows this is a terrible idea, and the moment his hands touch her, he realizes just how frighteningly light she is. 

“Easy… easy now,” he murmurs, voice low and shaky.

But her body flinches anyway, a faint, broken sound escaping her throat, something like a muffled cry, half-choked by unconsciousness.

Bobby freezes, his heart stuttering, the world narrowing to that sound. For a full second, he doesn’t even breathe. Then, when he finally hears her draw in another shaky gasp, he lets out the breath he has been holding.

“Yeah,” he whispers, swallowing hard. “I know. I know it hurts.”

He adjusts his grip, mindful of her ribs, and keeps her torso angled slightly upward, remembering something he’d once read that broken ribs move less when you’re not flat on your back. It isn’t perfect medical logic, but it is all he has. He position the burned arm gently against her side, cradling it between them so it wouldn’t swing or scrape against anything. Then, with a strained groan, he pushes himself to his feet.

For a moment, it feels like the ground tilts under him, not from her weight, but from the complete realization of how little she weighs. She is nothing in his arms. A ghost. A shadow. And still, she feels impossibly heavy. Not the kind of heavy you measure in pounds, but the kind that drags against your chest; guilt, fear, or simply the weight of another human life balanced on your trembling hands.

I mean, carrying someone unconscious is supposed to make them feel heavier, dead weight in every sense of the word, but she feels light, weightless in his arms, and somehow that terrifies him more.

He had worried, earlier, that he wouldn’t be strong enough to lift her, given the fact that he isn’t the kind of guy who hits the gym after work; he isn’t built for heroics at all. However, as he stands there, her limp body pressing against him, he realizes that his lack of muscles isn’t the issue. It is the opposite, she is so frail that every step, every tiny shift, feels like it can break her all over again.

Her head lolls slightly against his shoulder as he steadies himself, her breath feathering weakly against his neck, his chest tightening.

“Hang in there,” he mutters one more time. “Just a little longer, okay? You’re almost there.”

Then he starts moving in slow, deliberate steps through the alley, his boots echoing softly off the brick walls. Every jolt makes him flinch, every uneven patch of pavement feels like a minefield. His arms ache almost instantly, but he doesn’t dare readjust.

The night air keeps biting at his face, but sweat gathers along his temple anyway. All he can hear is his own breathing and the fragile rasp of hers, syncing in uneven rhythm, and yet none of that compares to the sick twist in his gut every time her chest hitches with a faint, broken sound.

“Sorry-- sorry, kid,” he muttered under his breath, voice cracking with the strain. “I know, I know… I’m trying.”

So, yeah, basically every step toward the car is its own kind of torture.

He isn’t the kind of guy who swore much. It feels strange and ugly, coming from him, but right now, it is all he has to keep him from falling apart.

By the time he reaches the car, his arms are trembling so badly that he thinks he might drop her. He presses his back against the driver’s door for a second, sucking in a shaky breath, then lifts his boot to kick the rear door to open more than it already was. The hinges groans, but the door swings wide enough. 

“Almost there, almost there…” he murmurs as if she can hear.

He crouches, muscles screaming in protest, and lowers her carefully onto the seat. He doesn’t dare lay her flat, so he angles her body on her side, using a worn blanket he has dug from the trunk to prop her up. Her breathing comes short and shallow, hitching every few seconds like her body is fighting itself just to stay alive.

“There we go…,” he breathes out. “It’s okay, it’s okay… I mean, it’s not.” His laugh is short, nervous, shaking. “But it’s gonna be. I swear it’s gonna be. Just… keep breathing, kid. Keep breathing.”

The mask had shifted again, slipping toward her mouth, so he leans in to adjust it, his fingers brushing against her cheek. Her skin is damp and cold. The kind of cold that scares him more than blood ever could.

He lingers for a moment longer, one hand resting near her shoulder, watching the rise and fall of her chest through the fabric of his jacket. Each breath is a gift he doesn’t trust the world to keep giving.

With that being said, he shuts the door carefully, like slamming it might break her all over again. Then he circles around the car, his boots slipping against the wet pavement, and hop into the driver’s seat.

When the engine roars to life, it feels too loud, like something that doesn't belong in this moment of fragile quiet. He doesn’t care, though. He shifts gears and pulls out into the empty street, headlights slicing through the fog.

Red lights blurs past, ignored. Cameras flashed faintly in the distance, but he doesn’t care about those either. Let them fine him, let them chase him, it doesn’t really matter.

All that matters is getting the girl in his back seat  somewhere that can feel like home before the light in her chest goes out for good.

( . . . )

The moment Bobby pulls into the narrow parking space in front of his building, regret hits him like a brick to the chest.

And no, no need to freak out, it’s not about him saving her. 

It’s about something he never thought he would have a problem with.

Why the hell had he chosen an apartment? 

Out of all the options, all the neighborhoods, all the places he could’ve rented, he had to pick a damn condominium. 

Sure, it is practical. Cheaper than a house, easier to maintain, no lawn to mow, no leaky roof to fix. He’d told himself he didn’t need more headaches than the ones he already had with his car payments and his job, but right now it feels like the dumbest decision of his life.

Because how exactly is he supposed to sneak the most wanted vigilante in Seoul, which to make everything worse is unconscious, bleeding, and looking suspiciously like a corpse through a shared lobby and up a flight of stairs, or elevator, without anyone noticing?

He grips the steering wheel tighter, staring at the bland facade of the building. The rows of identical balconies, the flickering light above the entrance, the faint sound of a television leaking through someone’s open window. All of it suddenly feels hostile, like the walls themselves are conspiring to expose him.

Yeah, he should’ve really thought about this when he signed the lease, because obviously one day he would need to smuggle Spider-Woman into his living room. Totally foreseeable, don't you think?

He leans back in his seat, exhaling sharply, trying to calm down as he thinks that at least he doesn’t live smack in the middle of downtown Seoul. That would’ve been a nightmare for sure. His building is a little further out, quieter, tucked into a neighborhood that most people only pass through on their way somewhere else. Still, it isn’t far enough. Not for this.

His eyes flick to the passenger seat.

The blanket and his coat he’d thrown over her does little to hide the state she is in. She looks fragile in a way that makes his chest ache, but is also… incriminating. If anyone sees him carrying her like this, they wouldn’t think “injured hero.” They’d think “dead body.”

He can already picture it: stepping out of the car, trying to balance her weight without jostling her ribs, walking across the lot with her limp in his arms, every shadow feeling like a pair of eyes. Every window a witness. He can also hear the whispers, the accusations, the questions he’d never be able to answer. And on top of all that, he has to be careful to not make her pain worse than it already is. 

Carrying a half-dead vigilante through a condo complex. What can possibly go wrong?

He sits there for another long moment, the engine ticking as it cools, the weight of his decision pressing down on him. He knows the risks. If anyone finds out, if anyone even suspects, he’d lose everything, but then his gaze drifts back to the girl who had stopped a truck with her bare hands, who had saved lives without ever asking for thanks, who is now lying broken in his passenger seat because no one else had stepped up.

And Bobby knows with a clarity that silences every doubt that he isn’t leaving her here.

So, he opens the door, remembering to at least try not to look like he's carrying some kind of corpse.

Bobby checks his surroundings for what feels like the thousandth time before daring to move again after leaving his car. His eyes sweep over every shadow, every lit window, every parked car that might conceal a curious neighbor. Nothing stirs, but still he lingers, nerves stretched taut. Only when he is as certain as he can ever be in this situation, he finally opens the back door of his car.

And there she is, still lying the way he left her last time. Yes, he drove very carefully to avoid her moving.

He braces himself before doing the most reckless, insane thing he had ever done.

He slides his arms beneath her again, careful not to press against her ribs, careful not to jostle the arm that had been burned raw. She doesn’t stir. Her head lolls against his shoulder, strands of her hair spilling over his jacket. 

Gosh, why does she have so much of it? Long, purple, like she’s trying to make his life harder on purpose, something that is impossible to hide properly. And why the hell does she keep dyeing it that color? 

Wouldn’t it have been easier if she’d kept it short and in a normal color? Would it kill her to have something that doesn’t scream ‘’look at me’’? 

I mean, it's not like he doesn't like her hair, he loves it, actually. But, girl, help him help you.

He adjusts his coat, pulling it around her as best he can, trying to cover the colors of her suit. The fabric clings stubbornly, refusing to disappear beneath the folds, but he tugs and tucks until at least the worst of it is hidden. Then he shifts her weight, pressing her closer to his chest, her head tucking against him so that, from a distance, she might look like someone drunk, or sick, or simply exhausted; not broken, or bleeding, or in other words, definitely not Spider-Woman.

He locks the car with a quiet click, the sound far too loud in the silence of the lot. His pulse jumps, but no lights flicked on, no curtains twitched. Good.

The plan in his head is simple, if you ignore all the ways it can go wrong. Carry her. Keep her covered. Avoid the cameras he knows about. Take the long way around, through the side path where the hedges grow tall and the lights are dim. Slip in through the back door, the one most residents forgot existed. From there, make a run for the service elevator.

And pray.

Pray the elevator doesn’t have a camera. Or if it does, that it isn’t monitored in real time, since most of the residential buildings aren’t. Footage was recorded, stored, only checked if something happened. If he is quick and careful, maybe no one is going to notice anything worth reviewing.

That is the hope.

For the alternative — dragging her up the stairs — is out of the question. That would be suicide. Every step would jolt her ribs, and he hadn’t fought this hard to keep her alive just to have her lungs punctured by her own bones halfway to his apartment, thank you very much.

So the elevator it is.

And with that, Bobby steps away from the car and into the night, carrying her like contraband, like something sacred, or the most dangerous secret he had ever chosen to keep… which is very close to the truth.

Well, he begins to follow through with the plan, or the barely-holding-together excuse of one, now with the added detail of pretending he’s just carrying some harmless grocery bags. Or maybe a heap of winter coats. Either lie will work, really, because if by any chance he happens to step into the field of a camera, or if someone looks his way from a balcony, they’d just see a man burdened with fabric or groceries. Nobody carries groceries like they’re made of glass, but he figures if he needs to, he can say it is glass. A set of plates, maybe. Or wine bottles. Yeah. Something like that.

He keeps moving, fast as his stress-riddled body allows, his pulse pounding with the same rhythm as his hurried steps. 

When he finally reaches the back entrance and spots the service elevator, he silently thanks whatever luck made him stay late at work tonight, because that means the lobby’s dead quiet, the corridors mostly empty. No chatty neighbors. No old lady with her dog trying to start a conversation.

Bobby likes to talk — He talks too much, actually —, but now silence is a blessing he doesn’t dare disturb.

He adjusts his grip, tightening his arm around her weight just enough to keep her steady, and elbows the elevator button. The door opens almost instantly with a mechanical ding, and no one is inside. He expected that, it’s late. No one uses the service lift at this hour, so it tends to idle on the ground floor.

He steps inside. The space is narrow, too quiet with the kind of silence that makes every thought sound like it’s being shouted. His eyes darts immediately to the corners of the ceiling. Maybe not his smoothest move, given the fact that if someone watches the footage later will definitely notice, but screw it, he can’t help himself.

He scans for a camera, the tiny glint that would confirm he’s about to end up on some grainy security footage carrying Seoul’s most wanted vigilante in his arms. He doesn't find anything, but he doesn’t celebrate just yet. Elevator cameras are sneaky, they hide behind black domes, blend into the panels.

So, he just exhales slowly and forces a calm expression.

Yes, Mr. Security Officer, nothing to see here. Just a guy carrying… groceries. Or maybe dry cleaning. Perfectly normal.

The elevator hums softly, each passing second stretching like a thread about to snap. He can hear the pounding of his own heartbeat, so fast it feels like it’s echoing inside the metal walls.

Then the doors slide open with another soft ding, spilling pale light into the hallway of his floor.

He glances around and sees no one. Perfect.

His legs move quicker now, cautious but urgent, every step measured so he doesn’t jostle her ribs. The sound of his keys jingling feels absurdly loud in the empty corridor.

And that’s when regret number two of the night hits him square in the face: his choice of lock. 

Because here he is, juggling a limp body in one arm while trying to dig through his pocket for the right key with the other. He pulls out the ring — five identical silver keys — and nearly growls under his breath. His fingers fumble, clumsy from tension, and each failed attempt feels like an eternity. The whole time he’s thinking: Why, why didn’t I just get one of those digital locks like everyone else?

Everyone else had gone digital — sleek panels with keypads, fingerprint scanners, even facial recognition if you really want to get fancy. But no, he’d kept the old-fashioned deadbolt, because “it works fine”, “who breaks into apartments here anyway?” and ‘’I don't need to spend my money on that.’’

Now he’s paying for it.

He sorts through each key, trying to find the right one by touch alone. The wrong key scrapes uselessly at the lock, his fingers slick with sweat. The movement makes her stir weakly, a soft sound catches in her throat, and he freezes for a moment, terrified that he had hurt her.

“Easy,” he whispers, mostly to himself. “Almost there.”

He tries again, and for what feels like the first time in forever the key slides in properly. 

He twists it, the deadbolt gives way, and the door finally clicks open with a sound that feels like salvation.

If he survives tonight without collapsing, he swears he’s changing this damn lock first thing tomorrow, or anything that doesn’t make him play a one-handed game of “guess the key” while balancing a bleeding vigilante in his arms.

Anyway, Bobby doesn’t even bother taking off his shoes. He’s too far past this point of caring. He moves straight through the narrow hallway, every breath shaky but determined, and heads for the living room.

The place smells faintly of coffee, a comforting sort of normalcy that feels wildly out of place given what he’s carrying in his arms.

He lowers her gently onto the couch, painfully careful not to let her ribs bend the wrong way. The sofa dips barely under her weight, and e adjusts her head so it’s slightly tilted, tucks one of the cushions under her shoulder, then steps back, scanning her body as if afraid that even blinking might make something worse.

Then, with the last bit of adrenaline beginning to fade, he spins around and hurries back to the front door. He shuts it. Locks it. Checks it again.

Only then he turns to face the rest of the room.

His gaze sweeps across the apartment in quick, tense motions. Every window. Every curtain. Every possible crack someone might look through. He’s not paranoid by nature, but tonight he can feel paranoia sitting right next to him like an old friend.

He walks to the nearest window, presses two fingers against the curtain just to make sure it’s tightly drawn and it is. The next one is also closed. The third is locked, just as he left it. He always keeps everything sealed when he’s out or asleep. The only time the place ever breathes fresh air is on his rare days off, when he opens everything at once, lets the sunlight in, and pretends for a few hours that he’s got a normal and boring life.

But tonight, normal and boring is long gone.

Once he’s satisfied that the place is sealed up, he lets out a long, uneven breath and collapses into the chair nearest the couch. His whole body feels like it’s been wrung out, tension running through every nerve. He drags a hand down his face, trying to steady himself. 

Holy hell, he actually did it.

He got her out. He got her here. She’s alive.

He almost laughs — half delirious, half incredulous —and he almost thinks that he deserves a damn medal for this, but the thought barely has time to form before he hears it: a faint, broken sound. A low hiss of pain.

The brief illusion of safety shatters.

In an instant, he’s on his feet again, crossing back to her side. Her brow twitches, a weak grimace twisting her features, and he feels panic claw up his throat.

“Hey, hey, easy… easy now,” he murmurs, his voice shaking even though he tries to keep it calm. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

Ah, he can’t rest. Not yet, not when she is still a damn mess. He hasn’t dragged her here, hadn’t risked everything, just to sit back and hope she survives the night. No. He has to make sure.

He has to keep her alive.

Only when she gets stable again that he can let himself collapse. Only then he would be able to close his eyes with the faint comfort of knowing he hadn’t done all this for nothing.

He draws in another deep breath, steadying himself, and lets his gaze sweep over her injuries one last time. The burns. The cuts. The ribs. The exhaustion carved into her very bones.

“God help me,” he whispers, almost like a real prayer.

And then he rolls up his sleeves, because the real work is only beginning.

Chapter Text

Warmth.

That’s the first thing Rumi feels when she wakes up.

She doesn’t open her eyes right away, not because she doesn’t want to, but because her eyelids feel like they weigh twenty kilos each. Her body isn’t any better; every muscle aches as if it’s been beaten into dust, and the simple act of breathing sends dull pain rolling through her ribs. A low, shaky groan escapes her lips before she can hold it back.

Urgh, why can’t the world help out just this once?

She just wants to see where the hell she is, or if this is some sort of afterlife, at least figure out if she’s in the warm and cozy section of it, even though she doubts it, since sinners like her don't deserve it. And most of all, from what she remembers, she definitely wasn’t anywhere near anything warm, soft, or remotely comfortable when she blacked out.

Wait. 

Wait.

What is she lying on?

And how — how— is it comfortable?

Her brow furrows slightly, still refusing to open her eyes, letting her other senses do the work first. No cold concrete pressing against her spine, no metallic chill of a warehouse floor, no faint drip of water echoing somewhere in the distance. Just… warmth. Stillness.

And then, she finally notices something else.

There’s a smell. Subtle at first, but so out of place it almost makes her dizzy. No dust. No rust. No blood. It's… food.

Something light and totally savory. The faint scent of broth, sesame oil, and maybe even scallions…?

She can’t place every scent, but through the fog of her mind one truth cuts through: It's Korean food.

The smell hits her harder than expected, twisting her empty stomach in protest. 

Her body responds before her brain can stop it, a pathetic attempt to move her hand toward her abdomen, to press down against the sharp ache in her gut, but her muscles refuse to cooperate, trembling uselessly instead. The simple effort sending a white-hot sting through her chest and side, tearing another small, strangled groan from her throat.

She squeezes more her eyes, because Great, every inch of her hurts, and obviously she’s starving on top of it.

Spider Woman doesn’t have much time to sink into her own misery, because she catches another smell. Beneath the food and soap, there’s a faint but unmistakable scent of alcohol, not the kind for drinking, but the kind that makes it obvious it’s used to clean wounds. The kind that clings to gauze and metal, to medical supplies. And then there’s a faint trace of cologne, stirring something uncomfortably familiar in her confused mind.

Her pulse picks up.

No. 

No way.

Her brain scrambles for an explanation as her memories start piecing themselves back together. The last thing she remembers is trying to drag herself toward the warehouse, her vision swimming, everything going dark… and then--

Oh.

The realization hits her like a blow to her chest. 

Bobby.

His voice, his face, that frantic look on him, she remembers most of it. She remembers how he kept shouting something she still can’t quite make out, how his hands trembled when he tried to help her, how the world slipped away right after.

And now this warmth. This smell.

Oh, hell no.

Her stomach twists in panic, a spark of adrenaline pushing through the haze.

He wouldn’t--

He wouldn't bring her to a hospital, right?

Oh, who's she trying to fool? Of course he would do it. The idiot cop with a bleeding heart for every lost cause.

Her mind spirals.

She can’t stay at a hospital. She can’t risk that with who she is, or worse, what she is.

Her breathing turns shallow again, the panic rising faster than her strength can handle. She finally cracks her eyes open, blinking through the blur, desperate to see proof that she’s wrong, that she isn’t where she thinks she is.

The light stabs through her vision, and for a moment everything blurs, swimming in and out like she’s underwater. Shapes resolve slowly — dark first, then definition, then meaning.

The first thing she sees is… black.

A huge, black and flat rectangle looms in front of her like a slab of polished obsidian. 

Her sluggish mind panics for a second before she realizes she’s lying on her side, and also that the black thing is just a fucking TV.

Definitely not hers, and definitely not anywhere she should be waking up.

Which is why her eyes drag to the side, blinking through the haze. That’s when the rest of the wall comes into focus and she sees bright, glossy posters plastered everywhere, colors too cheerful for the pounding in her head. K-pop groups. 

She senses something familiar about them, but she doesn't dwell on it, because without thinking too much, her gaze drifts, continuing to take in the surroundings piece by piece. There is a couch under her. A coffee table crowded with empty mugs, papers, and what looks suspiciously like a police badge tossed carelessly aside-- 

Her brain clicks.

She almost growls to herself when she realizes why it's so obvious that these posters are familiar, because they are the same ones she’s heard him rant about more than once when he got too comfortable.

Her stomach drops when the realization keeps sinking in her and all she can do is stare at this chaos of the room. 

Oh, damn it. This is his place. She is in his place. 

Why the fuck she is in his place?

Like, yeah, she's glad that she's not in a hospital, but hell he’s a cop, that’s basically the very last person who should let her come in.

And before she can spiral further, a sound cuts through the silence: the soft clatter of something in the distance, followed by some muttering, and then…

Footsteps.

Her body goes rigid. She tries to move again, but her limbs are like lead, every nerve protesting, and the footsteps draw closer, and heavy, and--

“Hey-- hey, easy, don’t move,” a voice says from the hallway, laced with alarm.

Yeah, it's really him. 

Bobby emerges from the kitchen, his hair is a mess, and his expression is somewhere between panic and relief. 

“Gosh-- Spider-girl, you’re finally awake!”

His voice reaches her before his shape truly makes sense in her blurred vision. It comes out soft, shaky, the kind of fragile relief that carries too much emotion even though it is Bobby who she's talking about. The sound tightens something in her chest instantly, as if her bones were trying to shrink around her heart.

He takes a few hesitant steps closer, the floor creaking under his weight, and even in her half-delirious state she can sense the uncertainty radiating from him. He seems… lost. As if he had rehearsed a thousand times what he would do when she finally opened her eyes, only to discover that no version of the plan makes sense in the face of reality.

Her eyelids flutter, heavy, and her eyes narrow beneath the mask, trying to focus on his face. She recognizes him, but at the same time, her mind demands proof, confirmation, anything to say that this isn’t a delusion born of pain, since her vision still dances, undulates, as if she is underwater.

“Bobby…?” The word barely escapes her, a ghost of a sound, more air than voice. She tries to move, which is stupid and stupid, but it was supposed to be just a shift of her arm, trying to reach his arm, just enough to feel that he is really there.

It’s a terrible idea.

A sharp hiss tears her throat as the pain in her ribs ignites like fire, hot and sharp, rising to her neck. She writhes, breath caught in her chest.

He’s beside her in an instant. 

“Hey, hey, easy,” he says quickly, the words tumbling out with more panic than he means to show. “Yeah, it’s me. It’s me. Just– don’t move, alright? Please. I don’t want you making this worse after-- after everything I just went through.” He reaches out before she can protest, resting a hand on her shoulder. The touch is light and almost apologetic, as if he is afraid of hurting her more. 

For Rumi, the sensation is immediate: grounding. Real. And, for a second, she feels relief pull a breath into her chest, because oh, he really is here.

But the moment doesn't last, given the fact that her brain, always efficient at destroying anything good, grabs the only part of his sentence that she hadn't paid too much attention to until now.

After everything I just went through.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Carrying her shouldn't have been that hard, not the way she knows she is almost too light. So… what exactly is he talking about?

She swallows — or tries to — throat dry like she swallowed dust. 

“Wh…what…?” It leaves her in a whisper, thin and confused, her own thoughts echoing so loudly that she barely hears her own voice.

And Bobby, noticing the way her eyes flick toward him, noticing the disorientation written in every tiny movement she makes, he softens even more.

“Spider-girl… it’s fine,” he says gently, lowering himself so he’s not towering over her. “You’re safe. You’re gonna be okay, alright? I… I took care of you. You’re at my place now, kiddo. And you don’t need to worry. I live alone.” He says it like he's trying to speak directly to the storm inside her, or as if he can feel exactly the weight that is crushing her.

His words strike her in a way she didn’t expect.

Did he take care of her?

Her breath stutters. She lowers her gaze hesitantly, as if the whole world had shrunk around her and only that phrase remained, repeating in her mind.

“Took care of me…?” she whispers to herself, barely audible, as if she is testing the phrase, feeling its weight, its meaning.

And that’s when she lowers her head, just a small, instinctive movement, like she needs to double-check she actually heard what she thinks she heard. And for the first time since waking up, she has a ridiculous impulsive thought of pulling the blanket off herself, just enough to understand what the hell he meant by “everything I did.”

She tries to do it with her right arm.

The moment she moves, the burn screams, a reminder of the gift that bitch left on her skin. A sharp breath escapes her, more a whimper than anything else, and her fingers go limp.

Bobby notices instantly.

“Oh-- hey, hey, don’t,” he murmurs, and there’s something almost gentle in the way he reaches forward, something like pity or maybe guilt. “Let me… here. I know you won’t settle until you see for yourself.”

And before she can protest, he lowers the blanket for her slowly, with the kind of caution someone uses when disarming a bomb.

Rumi freezes, and it's not because of the thick bandage wrapped around her ribs, or the cold compress he placed over the worst spot, resting lightly against the cracked bone and bruised muscle, or because her arm is wrapped in gauze from shoulder to forearm, or neither because she can feel more gauze basically along all her body.

No.

None of that is what makes her blood run cold.

She freezes because she sees the damage in her suit, because around the burned arm… all the fabric is cut away.

Clean, sharp cuts, made with scissors or maybe a knife, exposing her entire bicep, and obviously exposing the skin beneath.

Or, in other words, exposing the patterns she has spent her entire life hiding.

And to make it worse she feels cold air brushing other parts of her back and side, which means he cut more, which means more of her patterns are exposed, which means--

Wait.

Why does she feel cold on her face…?

Oh, no.

No, no, no, no, no--

Her heart misses a beat, then another. She sucks in a sharp breath, and with a surge of panic that overrides every injury, she brings both hands to her face, her fingers brushing bare skin and then the edge of fabric, raised only to the bridge of her nose.

Her mask. Lifted.

She feels like she's going to faint again, and suddenly she's very happy that she's already lying down. 

Like, yeah, there aren’t many markings on her face, not enough to give her away entirely, but it’s still too much. Too close. Too exposed.

Her thoughts crash into each other in pure panic. 

Who the hell does he think he is? Who gave him the right to strip away her mask? Who told him could--

“Bobby, why you-- why would you--” her voice cracks mid-sentence, breaking apart between anger and something dangerously close to fear, which makes her hate the sound of how weak it comes out. 

She tries to push herself up, tries to glare, to sound furious, but all that escapes is that quivering, half-broken question, and even worse is that she knows that her eyes must be so wide open right now that it should be noticeable even with part of the mask still on her face.

“Hey-- easy. Easy, kiddo,” Bobby says, lowering into that calm tone that comes from too many years of patching people up after disasters. “Spider-Girl, breathe. You need to breathe, okay?”

But she doesn’t hear him. 

Her heart feels like it’s bursting inside her chest, a frantic, uneven rhythm echoing all the way up her throat, and she clutches the sheet against her body, fingers trembling, trying to cover as much as she can of that no one should ever see. At least, not again, not after everything that has already happened, and definitely not him, because only the heavens know how Rumi will react if Bobby starts to hate her.

“What were you thinking, cutting my suit like that?” Her voice breaks again, and this time she forces anger into it hard enough to sound like she means it. However, the tremor under the words betrays her.

Bobby flinches a little at her tone. He’d expected the anger, maybe even the suspicion, but not that raw note of fear. 

“Kiddo, please… calm down, and listen to me, okay?” His voice is rough with exhaustion, but laced with something else too, something she can’t quite define.  “I didn’t mean to cross any line, or learn anything you didn’t want me to know, but… you were bleeding so much. There was glass stuck all over you, and the state of your ribs, your am-- They didn’t look good. I… I had to see where the bleeding was coming from to give the proper care.’’

“You were never supposed to see.” The words come out trembling, as if she is confessing to a crime she hadn’t meant to commit.

Bobby’s jaw tightens while his lips press into a thin, weary line. 

For a second, he looks like he wants to reach for her face, to reassure her that everything will be all right, but then he stops himself. After all, this is Spider-Woman, the one that wears her walls like a second skin. And right now she looks so scared she probably would hate being touched. 

So instead, he takes one cautious step closer, stays low by the couch, his voice dropping to the quietest, most earnest tone he can find:

“I know, kid. I know, but please… trust me. I never meant to see more than I should. I never meant to push past the lines you drew. I didn’t want to find out who you were under your suit if it made you uncomfortable, but it was either that… or watch you die right there in my arms.”

Her gaze narrows intensely. 

“And why didn’t you let me die?” Her voice is so faint it almost breaks apart at the edge, but the demand inside it is unmistakable. “Why do you keep helping me even after you saw that I’m a demon?”

Bobby straightens, and to his own surprise, his face doesn’t flinch that much at the word. Actually, It makes him wonder if maybe he’s grown used to people calling her all sorts of things, and that probably only recoiled because it isn’t fair for her to speak that way about herself. It isn’t right.

“You’re not a demon, Spider-Girl.” The words are quiet, not preachy, just plain as a fact he doesn’t care to argue with.

She gives a humorless, small sound that is half a laugh, and half a buzz of static in her skull. 

“Of course I am. Have you forgotten? All demons have patterns, all demons deserve to die. They deserve nothing but pain and…” Her breath stutters, the sentence unravels into a hiss, since her patterns start to burn along all her body.

Bobby doesn’t quite understand what it's happening to her, but it's obvious that he can't let her spin into her dark logic even further. 

With that being said, he moves closer and finally lays a hand on her shoulder; his touch so light and careful like a reminder that someone is there and not leaving.

She tenses so hard it looks like she’s bracing for a strike. Everything in her body prepares for the condemnation she knows she deserves: the mockery, the shove, the list of reasons she is monstrous, making even her disgusting patterns burn even more on her skin just thinking about it. 

Bobby doesn't recoil, though. He doesn’t shout, doesn’t turn away. He just keeps holding her shoulder as though it’s the most fragile thing in the world and he’s been assigned to guard it.

“How do you… how can you be so—” Her voice cuts off. She can’t finish the thought. How can a man who’s sworn to the law keep his calm when it comes to someone the law wants to label a criminal? How can he treat her like a person and not a target?

And most important of all, how can he still be so… Bobby in a moment like this? 

How can he still look at her like that, when every instinct tells her she is something worth fearing? Worth of dying?

Bobby’s mouth twitches into the faintest smile, the one he only ever lets out when embarrassment and stubbornness fight for a foothold.

“I don’t know. I’m probably an idiot, but I'm ok with that” He shrugs once, a small movement that would be laughable if it isn’t so tender at this moment. “And…I don’t believe in throwing people away when they’re bleeding.”

“But I’m…” she starts, incredulous, then exhales, a little sound of disbelief and pain. “I'm not even a person.”

Bobby lets out a tired sigh, but his careful gaze doesn't change and he begins to speak slowly:

“The only thing you said that’s close to the truth… is that all demons have patterns, but that doesn’t mean they all deserve to die, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean they deserve to live in suffering.”

She blinks, thrown off by the certainty in his tone.

“You know why?” he continues, voice still gentle, but firmer now, grounding her. “Because I just got to know you a little, kiddo. And even with you having these patterns, you’re nothing like them. Just because you have these purple marks doesn't make you the same as them. Doesn’t make you someone who deserves to die, or hurt, or be hated.” He lets the words sink in, eyes steady on hers. “I’m a cop. I’ve seen demons. I’ve fought them. I know how they act, what they do, what they are, and you… you’re nothing like that.”

Her breath catches.

“Maybe you’re the most human person I’ve met,” he says, his voice dropping even lower now, the truth of it pressing against the quiet of the room. “Scared, even though you do the possible and impossible to let it show. Unsure, but still fighting for people who can’t fight for themselves, still doing everything to save those who can’t be saved and even for people who hate you. And somehow… you still manage to smile through all that. If that doesn’t make you human, then I don’t know what does, because you, kid… you’re not a demon. You’re definitely a person. A hero. And I couldn’t just let you die because of a few stupid purple markings.”

Rumi’s breath hitches once, then again. Her vision blurs around the edges, and this time it's not because she's about to faint, but because of something that is far more vulnerable than she would like… because of something she’d kept locked away for far too long.

Bobby just waits. 

He can see she’s trying to process what he said, trying to decide whether to argue or accept it. He half expects her to scoff, to throw the words back at him with the same bitter disbelief she throws at the world, but she doesn’t. She stays there, staring at him in silence, the air between them thick with exhaustion and something almost like relief.

Both of them fall into silence for a while, the weight of Bobby’s words hanging in the air. The room feels strangely quiet now, save for the soft, uneven sound of her breathing and the faint hum of the heater working across the apartment. 

Rumi can feel her heart still beating too fast under her chest, the dull ache of her wounds pulsing in rhythm with it. She doesn’t dare look at him again, afraid that if she does, she’ll see something she won’t be able to handle. 

When Bobby realizes that whatever fight that was left in her has melted into stunned silence, he exhales quietly through his nose, the tension in his shoulders finally dropping a little. 

“Guess you must be hungry, huh?” he says softly, trying to break through the stillness. “Don’t worry, Spider-Girl. I was cooking something light for you.” He pushes himself to his feet, his joints popping faintly from the hours he’s been awake. “I’ll go get it. And don’t even think about moving, okay?” There’s a firmer note at the end, a little more authority slipping into his tone, yet the warmth in his eyes never changes, then he turns toward the kitchen, his heavy boots making soft, tired thuds against the wooden floor until he disappears from her view.

Rumi just blinks twice in a row.

What… was that?

Her brain can’t quite keep up with the whiplash. One second, she was bracing herself for disgust, for rejection, for him to look at her and see nothing but the monster she’s always been, and the next, he’s talking about cooking her dinner like none of it matters, like she is still someone worth taking care of.

Did he really mean everything he said?

Her eyes drift toward the faint light spilling from the kitchen doorway, the sound of metal clinking softly as he stirs something on the stove, and without her knowing Bobby’s words echoes in her mind. 

He saw everything, and he still… stayed.

He stayed like Zoey and Mira, like--

She closes her eyes when the longing starts to become too unbearable inside her.

Afterwards, forces her breath to come out slowly, unsure whether she wants to laugh or cry, since she probably just hit her head harder than she thought. Probably she's just hallucinating this entire thing, given the fact that her body’s wrecked, and she’s lost too much blood. That had to be it, right?

From the kitchen, the faint scent of something warm drifts her way. It’s absurdly domestic, completely out of place after everything that’s happened, but it somehow makes her chest hurt more.

A soft clatter comes from there, and then Bobby’s voice calls, almost casually:

“Hey, Spider-Girl! Are you still okay in there?”

Rumi opens her eyes again, blinking the daze and her thoughts away. 

She hesitates before answering, her voice coming out smaller than she’d like.

“...Yeah.”

“Good,” he says, his tone lighter now. “’Cause I don’t want to come back and find out you passed out again. You already scared the hell outta me once tonight.”

Despite herself, she almost smiles under the mask, and maybe that’s exactly why he’s so dangerous to her walls.

Bobby comes back into the room a few minutes later, the soft clinking of ceramic and metal announcing him before the warm scent does. He’s holding a bowl, steam curling up from a light broth filled with small pieces of vegetables. It smells maddeningly good, the kind of homey, comforting food that shouldn’t exist in a night full of bruises, blood, and adrenaline. To Rumi, whose stomach has been hollow for what feels like forever, it’s almost torture. Her instincts kick in before her brain does, her body moving on its own as she stubbornly tries to sit up, drawn by the smell like a moth to fire.

It’s ridiculous: pain radiates up her side, the room spins for a second, but still she insists on trying to push herself up.

The second Bobby sees her moving, he reacts fast, almost dropping the bowl in panic. He lets out a startled sound, sets the bowl down quickly on the coffee table, and practically darts across the room to stop her.

“Hey, no-- no, no, no!” he blurts out, reaching her just in time to steady her shoulders, guiding her back with the same tone he would use on a reckless rookie.

Rumi exhales shakily through her teeth, her breath leaving her lips like a weak huff that might have been meant to be a complaint, but that’s all her body can manage. The effort to sit up has drained what little strength she had left, leaving her trembling more and paler, her heartbeat also fluttering fast beneath the cracked armor of her chest.

Bobby’s expression softens instantly, his frustration melting into concern laced with exhaustion.

“I know you’re hungry,” he says quietly, his tone dipping low, almost coaxing. “But just… wait a second, okay? I gotta fix you up first, make sure you’re not gonna choke to death or pop a rib while trying to eat. Or, I don’t know, accidentally stop breathing or something.”

She blinks up at him, barely following the stream of his words, but there’s something in his tone that is half-serious, and half tender that keeps her from collapsing right now.

Bobby stays by her side for a moment longer, his large hand still steady on her shoulder to keep her from trying anything reckless again. Only when he’s sure she won’t move, he grabs some nearby cushions. 

Within seconds, he’s back with his arms full of mismatched pillows that look like they’ve been stolen from every corner of the apartment. 

“Alright, I got you,” he mutters more to himself than to her, moving carefully. He sets the cushions behind her, adjusting them one by one, every motion slow and deliberate. “Okay, lean back… Yeah, there you go. Easy, easy.” His voice stays soft but firm, a tone caught between a nurse and a worried parent. Rumi’s body tenses under his touch at first, her instincts screaming for her to move away, but the exhaustion wins. She lets him guide her.

Then, with almost too much gentleness, he helps her sit up. His arm slides behind her back, supporting her weight as she leans into the cushions, and even that small movement makes her gasp quietly.

Bobby doesn’t move away immediately. He stays there, seated beside her, his hand still on her shoulder. He watches her closely, his eyes flicking between her face and the rise and fall of her chest as if trying to gauge whether she’s about to pass out.

“You okay?” he asks after a few seconds, obviously worried. 

Rumi manages a faint nod, though it’s evident she’s lying.

“Yeah, sure you are,” he murmurs, the words dripping with disbelief and a twisted amusement at her audacity.

When he’s finally satisfied, he gets up and reaches for the bowl on the table, a swirl of scent that makes her body ache with want.

“There,” he says softly, settling back beside her with the bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other. “Better?”

She doesn’t answer or move, not even when the faint sound of her stomach growling breaks the fragile silence that grows between them. Her eyes just stay fixed somewhere between the spoon in Bobby’s hand and the man himself, as though she’s trying to decide which one is more dangerous.

For a moment, Bobby stares at her, half-expecting her to roll her eyes, mutter something sarcastic, or maybe even slap the spoon away. He’s dealt with stubborn people before, but this girl takes it to a whole new level. After all, she's the same reckless girl who leaps off rooftops and throws herself into fights no sane person would touch, so why wouldn’t she hate being treated like someone fragile? Getting spoon-fed soup by a middle-aged cop must feel humiliating.

But when she finally speaks, her voice isn’t defiant. It’s uncertain.

“You’re… really just gonna feed me? Keep taking care of me?” she asks, the words slow, hesitant, almost testing him. “You really don’t have to do this, you know. And… aren’t you even a little scared? I mean, of my patterns?”

Bobby blinks, caught a little off guard, and he lets the spoon sink back into the broth with a soft clink before sighing.

“Me? Scared?” he repeats, half laughing under his breath. “Spider- Girl, the only time you scared me was when I found you in that alley…” he gestures vaguely, exasperated. ‘’...and when I saw the state of that cut on your arm. I swear, I almost threw up ten times trying to clean it, and when I realized you had patterns, that was the least of my problems.”

Her brow furrows beneath the mask, suspicion flickering through her tired eyes.

“But you’re not even mad that I hid it from you? All this time?”

That makes Bobby pause. He presses his lips together, just like she had always seen him do  when he’s about to pick his words carefully, his thumb rubbing absentmindedly at the back of the spoon handle. 

When he finally answers, his tone softens, careful but sincere:

“Mad is… a strong word. Maybe a little disappointed you didn’t trust me enough to tell me, yeah, but not mad. Being a demon-- Oh, actually just being different makes people look at you sideways, and makes you wanna keep it buried, so… yeah, I get it that you didn't tell me.’’

A strange, heavy quiet fills the space between them, the only sound is the faint simmer of the broth cooling in the bowl.

Then, Bobby exhales through his nose and tries to lighten the mood, his voice taking on that half-gruff, half-playful tone again:

“Besides, it’s not like you ever told me much about yourself. You’re a mystery wrapped in spandex. I’m pretty sure I know more about my neighbor’s dog than I do about you.”

This weak attempt at a joke is definitely clumsy — too forced, maybe —, but it works, given the fact that a faint breath escapes Rumi’s nose, something dangerously close to a laugh. She doesn’t have the strength for a real one, but Bobby catches the tiny sound and grins like it’s the best thing he’s heard all night. He even chuckles with her, and for a brief moment the room feels warmer. 

When the laughter fades, she becomes quiet again. 

He’s just about to lift the spoon back up when her voice comes out low, almost hesitant, as if the words are heavier than she expected:

“I’m… half demon.”

Bobby blinks, caught by surprise.

“What?”

She swallows. 

“I’m… half demon. Not a full one, or… whatever. I didn’t sell my soul or anything like that. I was just… born like this.” She isn’t sure what exactly makes her want to reveal this part of herself to Bobby, but maybe it’s because she thinks it’s fair that after everything Bobby has done that he should know a little more about her than he claims to know about, well, whatever that neighbor’s dog is.

She doesn’t elaborate more, though.  Doesn’t talk about her mother’s distorted love tale that resulted in her birth, or the curse, or any of the pieces that make her story too painful to touch. She just sits there, eyes distant, like she’s still bracing for him to pull away, but Bobby doesn’t. 

If anything, his face lights up.

“See?” he says, and his tone is so gentle it feels like sunlight breaking through clouds. “You’re more human than you think.”

For a second, Rumi doesn’t know how to react. Her lips twitch, uncertain, but then curve into the faintest trace of a smile, so faint it’s almost not there. Bobby catches it instantly and smiles back, the same easy, unbothered way he always does.

He dips the spoon into the bowl again, blowing gently on it before lifting it toward her. 

“Now, eat a little, before the soup gets cold. I promise it tastes better when it’s warm.”

And this time, when he offers it, she doesn’t hesitate.

In fact, she comes forward far too quickly for someone in her condition.

Bobby instinctively pulls the bowl back an inch before catching himself.

He tries to let it slide the first time. After all, she’s injured, half-bandaged, and running on fumes. He’s sitting close enough to stop her from toppling forward, keeping one hand hovering near her shoulder just in case she loses balance, but as he watches her devour each spoonful with desperate precision, he can’t help but think Christ, when was the last time she actually ate?

That thought only digs deeper when she does it again. And again. Every single time he lifts the spoon, she moves faster and closer, like a reflex. Her breath hitches, and for a second he’s not sure if it’s from pain or hunger. The bandages on her ribs shift with every movement, the edges darkened from antiseptic, and the faint scent of medicinal salves lingers between them. She shouldn’t even be sitting upright, let alone moving like this.

“Hey, Spider-girl…,” he mutters, pulling the bowl slightly out of reach when she leans forward a little too much this time. “Easy there. The food’s not going anywhere, alright?”

Her head jerks up at his tone, startled. Her eyes dart to his hand, then to the spoon, her mouth still half open as if waiting for the next bite. Then, slowly, she draws back, lowering her gaze. She blinks slowly, as if realizing for the first time how fast she’s been moving.

“I… I’m sorry,” she mumbles, barely audible.

Bobby exhales softly, shaking his head.

“No, don’t be sorry. Just… take it slow, okay? You’ll make yourself sick if you rush. You’re already patched up like a mummy, I don’t wanna add ‘choking on soup’ to your list of problems.”

The corner of her mouth twitches. It’s small, almost imperceptible, but he sees it. A flicker of amusement, maybe. Or disbelief.

Either way, Bobby prefers to believe that she’s amused by his comment, because honestly, it’s easier that way. Easier than admitting that every time he looks at her, something inside him twists tight with this strange, protective need, not just to take care of her, but to make her feel something other than pain or exhaustion. He wants to make her feel better. 

So he keeps feeding her.

And this time, she… well, she doesn’t exactly eat slowly, but there’s a new kind of restraint in her movements. She’s clearly aware now of how much she had been leaning forward before, how desperately she had reached for each bite. 

Bobby can tell it’s taking a hell of a lot of self-control for her not to just grab the bowl and drink the broth straight from it.

The very mental image of her doing it makes him laugh under his breath, a low, barely audible sound. There’s worry there too, but he tries not to think about her condition and lets himself laugh.

She notices his reaction, and she tilts her head slightly, even though the fabric is still over her face, he can see her eyebrows drawn together in confusion. Her expression says it all: What’s so funny?

When he offers another spoonful and she still hasn’t stopped staring, he can’t help the grin tugging at his lips.

“It’s nothing,” he says, tone light, teasing. “It’s just-- Well, you're eating with so much enthusiasm that I’m starting to think your favorite meal in the world is… plain chicken and vegetable broth.” Saying that is easier than asking why she's losing so much weight and why she eats like she's never seen food in her life.

Even battered and bruised, she rolls her eyes, and the corner of her mouth curves into the faintest hint of a smile. It’s small, still, it’s there.

For a fleeting moment, Bobby swears he can actually see her softening, but just as quickly as it appears, the smile fades, like a candle flickering out in the wind.

“Not even close to my favorite,” she murmurs, her voice rough but quiet. Then, after a pause, “But… you cook well. It’s good.”

He keeps his expression neutral, still playing it casual, because he recognizes that tone instantly. The hesitation, the deliberate choice of words. Years on the force, and essentially years of talking to her, have made him fluent in the language of people who hide things for a living.

And Spider-Woman? She’s practically fluent in silence. She does it all the time. And yet, that doesn’t make him care any less.

Actually, it makes him more patient.

He’s learned to wait, because he knows that the girl in front of him is the type of person who only starts talking about herself when she feels comfortable and safe, and he doesn't mind making her feel that way even if she doesn't end up saying anything about herself.

And Rumi is grateful for his silence, for not pushing, since right now, the last thing she wants to talk about is why this stupid soup makes her chest ache. Why it reminds her of the soups Celine used to make whenever she got sick, back when comfort still was present in her life.

Bobby clears his throat softly, breaking the silence. 

“Well, thanks. I think.” He smirks faintly. “Honestly, I can’t even remember the last time I cooked this stuff. Or what I put for seasoning. It’s been sitting in the freezer for months. Figured I’d keep it for a special occasion, you know? Just in case I had to feed a certain injured vigilante.”

That earns a small, breathy laugh from her. 

“Makes sense,” she says between slow bites. “You never know when some vigilante might need soup, huh?”

“Exactly,” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, shoulders squaring a little as if he’s proud of the plan. ‘’It's a good thing to always be prepared.’’

She nods solemnly, playing along with exaggerated seriousness.

“Right, so… the soup tasting like freezer also counts as being prepared?”

Bobby stops mid-breath, staring at her as if she just insulted his ancestors.

“Excuse me? I thought you said the soup was good!”

“It is good,” she replies immediately, raising a hand as if to swear an oath. “It just… has a flavor of-- a little bit of everything in your freezer.”

“That,” he says, pointing at her with the kind of mock authority only a deeply tired man can muster, “you can pretend is part of the seasoning.”

She narrows her eyes, amused.

“Raw cod as soup seasoning, seriously? How long has that fish been in there, by the way? Because, wow.”

Bobby's eyes widens, startled.

“…I’m sorry, but how do you know I have cod in the freezer?”

Her answer is a casual shrug, as if this is the most normal conversation on earth.

“My five senses are more sharpened.”

“So sharpened you can tell what kind of fish it is?” His tone is half disbelief, half admiration, and he can’t hide either.

“Something like that,” she admits. “I just guessed the fish, though. Cod smells stronger, and it’s what most people buy.”

Bobby doesn't seem to know if she should be even more surprised or betrayed by the accuracy of her guess, and she just smiles faintly. 

“…Okay, but just so you know, it is a top-quality cod. Premium. Imported.”

She blinks twice in a very slow way.

“…You bought it on discount, didn’t you?”

“HOW DO YOU--” He stops himself, inhales sharply, and drops his voice. “...that is not information you can just… sniff out.”

She lifts the arm that is not wrapped in layers of bandage and wiggles her fingers lazily, retorting with the faintest smirk:

“Enhanced senses, remember?”

“That doesn’t explain the discount part,” he mutters.

“It does when your whole freezer smells like it.’’

“You know,” he says after a while, leaning back slightly with reluctant admiration, “for someone who was almost dying on my couch not that long ago, you’re awfully mouthy.”

“Must be the soup, brings out the best in me.”

“Oh, yeah,” he scoffs, reaching for another spoonful. “Clearly.”

When he lifts the spoon toward her again, she meets him halfway, not lunging like before, just leaning the smallest bit, trusting his timing more than her own body. Her eyes remain heavy, half-lidded with exhaustion, but the wariness that usually sits behind them is softer now.

Bobby clears his throat, more gently this time.

“You, uh… doing okay? Pain-wise?”

She takes the bite, swallows, then makes a vague motion with her hand, something between “so-so” and “don’t worry about it’’.

“It hurts,” she admits quietly. “Everything still hurts, actually. But I… I’m feeling a little better than before.”

He nods, but the tightness in his jaw tells her he doesn’t like hearing that.

“Well… at least you’re eating,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “That’s something.”

She only nods weakly, because if she opens her mouth right now she’ll probably say something like, “No, this is everything,” which even in her own head it sounds too dramatic, yet that doesn’t make it any less painfully literal for her. Since, for someone who can barely secure food on a good week, this slightly-fish-flavored soup is everything her starving stomach has been begging for. Something like luxury disguised as mediocrity, and warmth disguised as freezer burn.

She keeps eating slowly, savoring every spoonful like it’s the last meal she’ll ever get, because maybe that's what is gonna happen, while Bobby sits beside her pretending he’s not anxiously watching her reaction every five seconds.

When the bowl is almost empty and the steam has faded into a thin curl, Bobby clears his throat, and hesitates for some seconds. However, curiosity wins, even knowing exactly how she usually responds to anything remotely personal.

“So…” he begins cautiously, rolling the words around like he’s trying to taste-test them. “I’m just curious…. Are your five senses more… enhanced because you’re half demon, or because you… uh-- actually, I’m not sure how to ask this but… does being half demon give you spider powers?”

Instead of reacting the way Bobby thought she would, Spider-Woman laughs. Not a big, loud laugh — she doesn’t even have the breath for that —, but the kind of laugh you give when someone says something hilarious… or really dumb. He wants to think it’s the first, but since he wasn’t joking, yeah… maybe it was a stupid question.

“No, Bobby,” she says with a tiny shake of her head, her voice still warm from the laugh. “Being half demon doesn’t gave me spider powers. Have you ever seen a demon shoot webs?”

…Oh.

Yeah. Probably that’s why she laughed.

“Uh… no…? Not that I remember, at least… And you’re not fully demon like you said, so I thought… I don’t know, maybe being half demon made you, like, born shooting webs and learning to crawl by climbing walls? I’ve never seen another half demon to know.”

She exhales a small puff of air, amused.

“Fair enough.” She tilts her head, a small smirk tugging at her lips as if replaying his question in her mind, which she probably is. “And my five senses have always been sharper because of my demon heritage, but when I got these new powers, they got even sharper.”

He sounds almost disappointed when he says:

“So you weren’t born crawling on ceilings?”

She laughs again, softer, barely shaking her head.

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Then how’d you get those powers?” he asks, leaning in a little, genuinely interested.

She looks at him for a long second. Not hostile, just… thinking.

Deciding.

Because technically… it’s not a revealing question, due to the spider that bit her is probably long gone, or dead, or crushed, or eaten by a bird, who knows. So, even if Bobby wants to use the information against her, there’s nothing he can do with it.

She almost curls in on herself at the flicker of suspicion that rises. And instantly, she scolds her own mind for it, for that knee-jerk recoil toward fear, but wanting her brain to behave and actually controlling it are two different things.

Therefore, she can’t help it, her mind simply refuses to accept the idea of someone truly helping her without wanting something in return, without waiting for the perfect moment to twist the knife, without circling her like a vulture around a carcass. The concept of kindness with no hidden blade feels… impossible and dangerous. 

She lets out a slow breath and drags her gaze away from him, settling it instead on the bowl of soup resting in his hands. Steam coils gently upward, softening the air between her and the world.

Her shoulders droop a little, tension easing as warmth spreads through her chest and down her arms.

Her body is pathetically grateful for the simple luxury of sitting somewhere comfortable, lying somewhere soft, being somewhere warm. A place where the air doesn’t bite her skin and the ground doesn’t bruise her bones. A place where she isn’t constantly bracing for the next hit, the next threat, the next reason to run.

And then finally comes to her brain something that is in fact good: all the times Bobby helped her without even knowing he was doing it.

All the little things he did for her, so small they shouldn’t matter, especially the ones from long ago, yet they still do. She remembers every single time that cop came to her and they matter more than he can ever understand.

Those small, ordinary gestures had carved out spaces of safety in days where everything else felt sharp and merciless. They had kept her going when she didn’t think she could. They remind her that there are still fragments of gentleness left in the world.

She swallows, fingers tightening slightly around the warm bowl.

Yeah… 

Bobby is trustworthy.

“I was bitten by a radioactive spider three years ago. It was an accident. I was in a genetics lab.,” she says, voice low, steady but careful. “I passed out right after, and when I woke up… my whole body felt different. Everything was too sharp. Too loud. Too bright. Too much, basically. It was insane trying to adapt to all the new sounds, the smells… everything.”

Bobby’s eyebrows shoot up so fast she actually wonders if they’re going to fly off his face.

“A radioactive spider?” he repeats, leaning forward like she’s telling him the plot twist of the year.

She weakly nods once.

“So the spider thing-- did you at least, I don’t know… see it coming? Did you notice it before it bit you?”

“No,” she says bluntly. “I didn’t notice anything. It crawled on me and I didn’t even realize it. Which is… kind of ironic considering I’m supposed to have heightened senses.”

“Well, to be fair,” Bobby says, raising a finger as if delivering an important lesson, “your senses weren’t spider-level yet. So technically, you’re not to blame.”

She huffs a tiny laugh. 

“Thanks for the reassurance, Coach.”

He smiles, warm and genuine, and something inside her chest flickers uneasily, not in a bad way, she's just… not used to it anymore.

“And after that,” she continues, because once she starts it’s easier to keep going, “everything escalated fast. I could climb walls. Jump ridiculous distances. Stick to ceilings. I didn’t even understand what I was doing half the time.”

“Aah,” Bobby nods sagely. “So you did eventually crawl on ceilings.”

“I wasn’t a baby doing it,” she corrects quickly. “Don’t start.”

He raises his hands in surrender. 

“Alright, alright, but still…that sounds like hell,”

Oh, boy, he has no idea. 

Sounds like hell works, but nothing can ever capture what she endured. Not that she's going to say it aloud. 

Instead, she lets out a faint laugh and replies:

“It was. I couldn’t sleep for days. Every car horn, every dripping faucet, every whisper felt like someone was screaming into my skull. I could smell things from blocks away. People. Food. Blood.” She shuts her eyes again at the last word, but forces them open just as quickly. “It was too much.”

“And no one helped you?” Bobby asks quietly.

There’s something in his voice — anger, maybe, or disbelief — that makes her chest constrict all over again. 

Oh, no. 

Not this question.

Oh, fuck it, Bobby, why are you like that?

She is definitely not ready for this. Not when she’s injured, hungry, exhausted, and brittle in ways he can’t even imagine. 

How the hell is she supposed to lie about something like that without sounding like the most suspicious idiot alive? Is she supposed to nod? Shrug? Invent a mentor that never existed? Say she attended a magical spider academy?

What ends up happening is far worse than lying: she opens her mouth… then closes it. Then opens again… Then closes again.

A dying fish would be proud of the performance. Really. 

Bobby watches her with the kind of patience that only makes her panic more, and by the fifth time she closes her mouth uselessly, he releases a quiet sigh that is something between tiredness and pity.

“Hey,” he murmurs, voice low and frustratingly gentle. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be embarrassed to say that… nobody helped you.”

And there it is again the tiny flicker of indignation at the end of his sentence, like he’s mad on her behalf. Rumi almost loses it right there, because someone like him absolutely should not waste that kind of emotion on someone like her. It feels wrong and too unfair. 

“No-- no, I wasn’t alone. I… I had help.” She blurts it out too fast, maybe even too forcefully, but she needs that look to disappear from his face. Needs it gone.

But the question now is: Did she?

Well, Sort of?

Maybe?

Okay. Fine. Technically… technically she did have help.

She clings to that idea desperately, combing through memories at high speed, trying to arrange them into something that looks like a coherent narrative.

Celine would count as help, right? 

Three years ago, Rumi still lived with her, and Celine would still show up after work, would still check on her with that signature blend of irritation and begrudging care. And the first day after the bite… Gosh, that day was definitely catastrophic. 

She remembers Celine arriving home from a long shift, tired, serious, ready to scold someone — which means Rumi — for leaving a light on and stopping dead in the doorway of her daughter’s room. 

Rumi was trembling. Sweat running down her spine. Barely able to breathe because the refrigerator humming three rooms away sounded like a train inside her skull. And on her bed? Half the contents of the kitchen. Everything she could grab in panic because her body was burning through energy like wildfire.

Celine had looked at her for a long, long second, eyes calculating, suspicious, worried, all at once. Then she’d crossed the room, checked Rumi’s temperature with a cool, steady hand, muttering something under her breath that Rumi couldn't catch, because her senses were so overwhelmed everything sounded like it was happening underwater, but she remembers the feeling, anyway; the certainty of someone taking control when she couldn’t.

No questions that night. Just medicine. Food. A blanket laid across her lap, a warm compress, and a cup of water pressed into her trembling hands. Also had Celine’s usual deep sigh, the one that meant I don’t know what trouble you got yourself into, but it’s probably not worth yelling about right now. Perhaps she just thought Rumi was ill. Or drunk. Or high. Or just pulled some other dumb stunt that teenagers always manage to do when they’re left alone too long.

She didn’t ask questions afterward, maybe thinking that whatever mistake Rumi had made the night before, she probably wouldn’t repeat it, but Rumi knew it was only a matter of time, essentially because in the next day, still overwhelmed by everything and definitely not used to her new powers, she ended up breaking several doorknobs, handles, and drawer pulls thanks to her new super strength.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. At one point, a fly buzzed too close to Celine, and something entirely new and instinctive took over Rumi, enough to stop that “threat” in its tracks. She couldn’t tell who was more surprised, Celine or herself. However, even then, her guardian didn’t ask questions. Thinking back now, Rumi wonders if Celine assumed it had something to do with her half demon side, because honestly that’s the only explanation that makes sense for the silence. Or maybe Celine was simply too exhausted to ask, due to the fact that raising a daughter alone while working must have been draining enough.

So she started hiding things better, or tried to, because every time Celine found something broken, or caught her trying to “discreetly” fix it, Rumi had earned at least one of those three looks: suspicious, tired, or annoyed.

Yep, Celine totally helped.

She also thinks of Zoey and Mira, both of them pushing food toward her because she was eating like she hadn’t seen a meal in years. They would stay up with her when her migraines were unbearable, or laughing whenever she accidentally broke something, and still try to fix it with her, even if they were mostly joking around instead of actually helping.

Back then, they never knew why she changed so fast—but they stuck around. They kept her going, never gave up, even when Rumi was late, dodged questions, or just pulled back. Not only because some crime had suddenly happened, but also because pulling away was easier than giving a real explanation.

It must counts.

It has to count.

If Bobby expects her to add more details, he doesn’t show it. In fact, what happens is that his features soften, as if deciding to believe she told the truth, and he comments:

“Good. That’s… good to hear. It’d be rough going through something like that alone.”

She nods slowly, fingers curling tighter around the edge of the blanket.

He studies her for a moment longer, and his gaze its like he’s trying to read what little she allows him to see, and then something unreadable flickers behind his eyes as he adds quietly:

“I’m glad they were there for you. Really.”

He doesn’t know, but the words land wrong. They carve into her in a way they shouldn’t, sharp and merciless, finding soft places she’d rather pretend didn’t exist. They were there for you. The sentence echoes in her skull with the same weight as a memory she can’t outrun, the past tense sitting heavy on her chest. 

Were. 

It feels like pressure against already damaged ribs, pushing down in a way that makes her wish again that one of her broken ribs just lodge itself into her heart and finish the job, because thinking about before hurts. Thinking about the people she used to have hurts. Thinking about the fact that she can’t look him in the eye and say, They’re still there for me, hurts worst of all, because she can't even pretend; she can't lie about it without choking so hard in her own words. 

And Bobby sees it, though he doesn't know exactly what and why is it happening, but he sees something. Now that only half her face is exposed, it’s easier to catch the small shifts in her expression, like the tightening at the corner of her mouth, the tremor in her jaw. But more than that, he notices her patterns changing.

He watches, stunned and fascinated and suddenly worried, as the deep violet streaks curling across her cheekbone begin to shift. Slowly, like ink dissolving in water, the purple bleeds toward blue.

Bobby is definitely not an expert in demonic physiology, but he’s noticed enough in the last hour to connect some dots.

Like how, earlier, when he cut away the torn pieces of her suit and brushed his fingertips near a wound to check the damage, her markings had flared just for a heartbeat, a burning red before settling back into their usual color. The timing made him suspect the reaction wasn’t random at all, but triggered by pain. A warning system, or, to put it more simply, a mood ring made of something far more alive.

Blue, then, probably meant sadness. Maybe melancholy? Inside Out had implied something like that, and it tracks well enough, but… if blue is sadness, what the hell does the default violet mean? According to the movie’s logic, it means fear, yet that doesn’t sit right with him. The point is that she hasn’t acted afraid of him. She’s acted… wary, sure, and even guarded, but fear? Fear of what? And if violet really does mean fear, does that mean that all demons have fear as their default emotional state? 

That doesn’t quite make sense. None of it does.

Or maybe she just--

He cuts himself off internally. He can get lost in these spirals for hours, and that is absolutely not helpful to the half-dead superhero sitting on his couch. What matters is that she looks sad now. Really sad. The kind of sadness that makes his chest ache with a protective instinct he isn’t prepared for, and he doesn’t want that for her. He doesn’t want to make her feel worse, even if he can’t figure out exactly what he said wrong.

So he does the one thing he can do: he decides to keep feeding her.

The soup’s gone cold by now from all this talking, but when he holds the spoon out, she still leans forward obediently, still accepts it with the same quiet hunger she had at the start. She doesn’t seem to care that the warmth is gone, because maybe warmth was never the point. Maybe she just needed something to fill the hollow space inside her.

He feeds her slowly, gently, as if the temperature doesn’t matter but her feelings do, and she eats, blanketed in dusk-blue patterns that pulse faintly along her skin, like sorrow made visible.

Neither of them says anything, making him wonder even more what the hell could have happened to her to make one line sting that bad.

It’s not a question he’ll ever ask, though. He already hurt her without meaning to, and the last thing he wants is to dig his fingers further into a wound he can’t see. So he doesn’t press, doesn’t lean in, doesn’t let curiosity win.

Instead, he clears his throat softly as he searches for something non-lethal to say. 

She opens her mouth again, lips parting just slightly as she takes the next spoonful, and he notices… something.

A welcome change of subject.

“Hold on.” He speaks suddenly, and she freezes mid-chew, confused. “Your fangs,” he continues, pointing vaguely at his own mouth, as if that will help. “Are those because you’re half-demon? Or is that, like, a spider-power thing? Or-- wait” He frowns, thinking way too hard. “Do spiders even have fangs? I mean, I know they bite, obviously, but-- are those fangs? Or… pincers? Mandibles? Oh, I’m mixing this up with ants. Shit.”

There is a beat of shocked silence.

And then, her patterns shift.

Slowly, almost cautiously, the blue drains away like watercolor touched by warm hands, replaced by that deep, unmistakable violet he’s come to associate with her “normal.’’, or whatever the hell normal means for her. But the colors look steadier now, more alive than hollow, and even if he still has zero clue what violet actually stands for, it’s definitely better than sadness, right?

Right?

He hopes so. Desperately.

Her shoulders twitch, barely. Not exactly a laugh, but close enough to echo the shape of one. It flickers across her exposed cheek in a ghost of expression she tries to hide but fails.

“…Spiders do have fangs,” she mumbles finally, voice low and scratchy, as if unused. “Technically.”

“Technically,” he repeats, nodding like this is extremely important scientific information.

She eyes him like she’s still unsure whether he’s serious or an idiot.

He is both.

“Well, that’s one thing cleared up.” He gestures at her again, still gently, as if worried touching the topic too hard might break her mood the way his earlier words did. “So they’re… spider-fangs?”

‘’Not exactly. They’re demon,” she mutters. “Probably. Mostly. I think.”

Oh, yeah, Rumi. Crystal clear explanation.

Bobby tilts his head. 

“Mostly?”

She shrugs, wincing at the sharp tug of pain, pretending she didn’t just feel something pop. 

“I kinda had fangs before, but they weren’t obvious. Then the bite messed everything up… and I don’t know anymore where the demon stops and the spider starts.”

“Well,” he says after a beat, a little smile tugging at his mouth, “whatever the ratio is… you’re still you.”

The words hit her with the softness of a pillow and the force of a freight train.

Ah, shit.

Why that phrase?

Why does he have to say that phrase?

It slams open a door in her mind she has spent months bricking shut, and the moment it swings wide, everything she tried to bury comes crawling back like smoke under a door: faces she loved too much, voices she hasn’t heard in what feels like lifetimes, and a warmth she won’t ever get again.

Of course he would say something like that. 

She wants to scoff, or laugh, or claw her own skin off just to stop feeling this, but instead, suddenly she isn’t in Bobby’s dim apartment anymore.

She’s back in their apartment. 

She remembers telling them the truth. All of it.

And Mira, of all people, had simply said:

“Okay.”

Rumi had stared at her, incredulous.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” Mira repeated. “It’s a lot. I don’t know what you want us to say, but it’s still you, and you’re everything to us.”

It’s still you.

Basically it's the same words that Bobby has just spoken.

And that’s the fucking problem.

Because hearing it now, from someone who doesn’t know a single intimate detail about her, feels like a cruel joke from the universe. Like fate took the most tender memory she had and decided to twist it until it snapped.

She feels her throat close, and her patterns ripple violently under her skin, purple deepening toward something darker. 

Because Zoey and Mira — it was just Mira actually, but you get the picture — said you’re still you with arms around her, with fingers brushing her body, with love she never deserved but took anyway like a starving thief.

They said it in a way that meant she belonged to them, in a way that meant she was theirs. Bobby says it now, totally oblivious of what is happening, and it sounds like an echo of something she lost.

Of someone she lost.

Of them. 

Oh, fuck it, someone remind her why she didn't just kill herself? It would be so much easier than--

And as if Bobby can feel her slipping back into her own head — technically, he can, considering he’s watching the violet along her cheek drain, merging with that painful blue — he reaches out and touches her.

Just a gentle press of his fingers to her uninjured shoulder. Light. Careful. Almost hesitant, like he’s afraid she’ll break under his hand.

It’s enough to pull her out of the spiral, and he brings the last spoonful to her lips, deciding to ask something generic just to keep her distracted from whatever she’s thinking, maybe even coax her into talking.

“Hey, Spider-girl… how are you feeling now?”

Wanting to die.

That’s the real answer. The honest answer. The one that burns at the back of her throat who keeps begging to be spoken, but she doesn’t say it.

Her half-exposed cheek doesn’t dare show anything except that quiet, exhausted blankness she’s learned to use as armor.

Because telling him she wants to die, after he spent hours dragging her out of an alley, and keeping her alive with that stubborn, tired determination feels like too heavy a burden to drop onto someone who is clearly at the end of his energy himself. His hair is a mess, sticking up in ridiculous angles, and his eyes are puffy with the kind of fatigue that comes from stress more than lack of sleep.

He’s given too much already, the last thing he needs is her saying something horrific like I want to die.

She can already picture what would happen if she answered honestly: Either she’d get stuck under that very concerned look he keeps giving her, or she’d end up trapped in some long, boring lecture about mental health and coping and “hey, you matter” and blah-blah-fucking-blah.

She absolutely does not have the patience for either option.

So she swallows the truth, waits a moment, and forces something that won’t worry him:

“…A little better,” she murmurs, voice barely there. “Not so empty. But… I would like more food.”

The last comment makes Bobby let out a short, breathy laugh, the kind that says thank God you’re still here to complain.

He rises from the couch slowly, like even the act of standing might shake the cushions too much and hurt her ribs. It’s absurdly careful, almost comically gentle. The couch does not move an inch.

“I figured you’d say that,” he says, rubbing a hand over his face, “but, uh… I’m kind of terrified of what stuffing you with food might do to your body right now, even if its… super or not.”

She blinks at him once. Twice.

He continues, waving a hand as if trying to explain the concept of digestion to a toddler:

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not judging. Trust me, I’ve seen people inhale worse than soup, but your body’s… not in its best condition. And I wanna avoid any complications like throwing up or… I don’t know, spontaneous demon-organs failure.”

She stares.

He corrects himself immediately, flustered:

“Not that you have demon organs! I mean-- you might? I don’t actually know enough about demon biology… or spider to say anything with confidence. Honestly, I’m winging most of this.”

Rumi just blinks again, slow, unamused, but not in a way that hurts.

He exhales.

“So I’m gonna see how your body handles the soup first. If everything’s okay, I’ll bring more later, alright?”

She feels a tiny tug of irritation, not at him, but at the fact that he’s annoyingly right. He may be the world’s most unofficial, unlicensed doctor, but right now he’s the closest thing she has to one. And despite the fact that he probably only started using his medical knowledge today, he still knows more about bodily precautions than she ever bothered to learn.

So she gives a short, reluctant nod.

“…Okay.”

He keeps staring at her, eyebrows raised like he expects her to argue, complain, hiss or bite, but she does none of that, which seems to surprise him a little.

Therefore, he finally turns and walks toward the kitchen. 

From the faint splash of running water and the rhythmic scrape of a sponge against ceramic, she can guess he’s washing the bowl, since his kitchen is separate from the living room. 

As she still sits there, she realizes she’s not sure whether all this quietness is giving her a moment to rest or a moment to brace herself for whatever comes next. 

All she knows is that it’s going to be a long, long night.

Chapter Text

It doesn’t take long before he comes back from the kitchen, the faint smell of soap still clinging to him, water dripping from his fingers as he presses them into the fabric of his uniform, and that's when she finally realizes that his uniform is torn.

The lower part of his shirt is sliced jaggedly, exposing a strip of skin and the faint line of his soft belly beneath. She frowns, confused, until her gaze drifts downward and lands on the small pile of fabric on the floor.

His fabric, and her fabric.

Her suit had been cut open in precise sections, while his uniform, by total contrast, shows the hurried, uneven slashes of a knife, and the blood staining in his torn fabric told her that he must have had to slice through both to reach her wounds. 

Something tightens in her throat, something unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Gratitude, perhaps. Or guilt. Or both.

Well, Bobby sits on the small wooden stool in front of her again, settling himself directly in her line of sight before speaking:

“But anyway… aside from the whole ‘still hungry’ thing,” he begins, leaning a bit closer, elbows on his knees, “how are you feeling in other areas? Like, your burn, is it still hurting a lot? How about your ribs? Your skin doesn’t look as pale anymore, and you’re miraculously not running a fever, which is good. And… oh, wait, are you cold? I can raise the temperature, and maybe grab you more blanket and--.” His eyes widen, panic rising. ‘’Ah, right! I was going to grab water for you when you woke up, and painkillers, hang on!”

And exactly as fast as he spoke all of that, he stands again and vanishes back into the kitchen. She blink-blinks after him, too tired to keep up with his speed, or too sore to roll her eyes properly.

He returns with a glass of water and a blister pack of pills, she can’t read the label from here, her vision still a bit fuzzy at the edges, but she doesn’t get the chance to worry for too long, because Bobby immediately launches into explanation:

“I got ibuprofen. Probably demons don’t have a problem with that, right?” he tries to joke, but the sound of his own joke seems to embarrass him, because he clears his throat and switches tone instantly. “It should help with your overall body pain… and because I really don’t know what else to give you that won’t, like, accidentally kill you. Ah, it's a small dose because again, I don’t know how reliable your stomach is right now.”

He settles back onto the stool, steadying the glass with one hand and bringing the pills toward her mouth with the other when he notices her fingers trembling too much to hold it properly.

Once she finishes the pill, and drains the whole glass because her body needed it more than she thought, he immediately asks:

“So, are you feeling nauseous? Dizzy? Does your stomach hurt? If anything feels wrong you can tell me, I--”

“Bobby,” she says, cutting him off with something that lands somewhere between exhaustion and amusement.  “I think it’s my turn to tell you to calm down.”

The older man lets out a short laugh at her comment.

She continues, voice still rough around the edges.

“I’m fine, you know… as fine as someone can be in this situation. I just… hmm…” she shifts slightly, wincing, “I still feel a few pieces of glass stuck in me and I just have to… adapt to it, and also breathing with my cracked ribs.”

“Wait-- wait, hold on.” Bobby straightens so fast the stool creaks under him. “Did you seriously just put in the same sentence an ‘I’m fine’ AND ‘I have pieces of glass stuck in me’ AND ‘my ribs are broken’? Seriously, Spider-Girl? Do I need to explain what being fine really means? Because it is absolutely nowhere near that.”

She exhales softly through her nose, and rests one hand over the cold compress still pressed to her ribs.

“Oh come on, It’s not even the first time I’ve broken my ribs… And definitely not the first time I’ve had some glass stuck in me.”

He blinks at her, pure disbelief stretching across his face.

“You see?! No one who’s even remotely fine would say something like that! And what do you mean you’ve broken ribs before?-- Ugh! How are you even alive???”

She lifts her shoulders the tiniest amount, a shrug that almost doesn’t qualify as one.

“Well, I ask myself the same thing every day,” she says, her voice dipping into a shade of dark humor that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “But the simplest answer I’ve come up with is my… self-regeneration.”

Bobby’s brows knit together.

“Self-regeneration…? Like… like when you cut a lizard’s tail off and it grows back?”

Rumi just snorts. Of course he would compare her to it.

“It’s like that, yeah. Except lizard regeneration takes forever. Mine doesn’t.”

Bobby looks her up and down, confusion knotting with concern.

“Then why aren’t you healed already? Do you need more… time…?”

Oh.

This is great.

Apparently tonight is the night Bobby decides to accidentally slice her open with perfectly accurate questions.

“Yeah… hm…” she swallows, choosing her words carefully, “I just need a little more time.” It’s the simplest answer she can give, because she is absolutely not about to give him more ammunition by explaining that it looks like her regeneration is extremely dependent on the nutrients in her body, and that her nearly two months of barely eating anything more than scraps have probably thrown the whole system into chaos.

He does not need to know any of that. If she tells him, she will never hear the end of it.

So she sits there, quiet, letting the explanation hang exactly where she left it.

Bobby, still frowning, seems like he’s about to ask something else that probably will be too accurate and equally annoying, but for now, thankfully, he doesn’t.

He only keeps watching her in that way he always does whenever he senses she’s burying something under layers of “I’m fine’’, which being honest here, happens more times than he would like. 

And yeah, she knows she’s not exactly subtle about keeping things to herself, but to his credit, he never pushes. He swallows whatever suspicion or worry builds behind his eyes and stores in some invisible mental drawer labeled “Questions for Spider-Woman, to be answered whenever she decides to stop being a brick wall.”

A drawer that must be overflowing by now.

“Alright…” he finally says, exhaling like he’s resigning himself to something bigger than both of them. “I’m gonna get my tweezers again, and this time you’re gonna tell me where it hurts so I can see if I can pull every piece of glass out, okay?”

Rumi only nods, quick and tight, still deeply grateful that he knows when not to insist. People usually insist. They dig. They demand. They pry. Bobby doesn't. 

Perhaps he’s an angel… or something like that. I mean, if demons exist, why not angels? And why not Bobby, when he seems to fit the word so perfectly, so much better than the ones who dares to worship Spider-Woman.

Anyway, he pushes himself up again, slower this time, his exhaustion making even the smallest movement look heavier. However, for his own good, he doesn’t have to walk far, he just turns toward the cluttered table near the kitchen and grabs the overstuffed first-aid kit he had abandoned there earlier. When he sets it down next to her again, she almost wants to laugh, because the thing looks like a miniature hospital exploded inside it. Bandages, gauze, antiseptic wipes, three different types of tweezers, something that might be a cauterizer, and at least four instruments she can’t even guess the names of.

“Damn,” she mutters under her breath, eyebrows lifting. “What… is all of that?”

Bobby shrugs, like it’s obvious. “Stuff I might need. Stuff I hope I don’t need. Stuff I probably shouldn’t be using without a medical license.” He pauses, then adds with that familiar grin, “And most stuff I bought because Google told me to.”

She laughs at his comment at first until the weight of his last sentence actually settles in her chest like a stone.

“Wait. Hold on. ‘Stuff I bought because Google told me to’?” she repeats, eyebrows rising slowly. “What do you mean by that? You’re telling me you literally dragged me in here and then went to look up what you needed and bought it? Something like that?” She tries to say it as a joke, but the way Bobby goes quiet… the way his mouth presses into a thin, guilty line…

Oh, no.

No way.

Oh, for fuck’s sake-- Yeah, he did.

“Bobby, you-- you-- holy shit, how did you even have time for that?” she sputters. “Like-- what? Did you just drop me on your couch and sprint to the nearest pharmacy or--?”

“No,” he interrupts quickly, hands lifting a little as if to defend himself. “I didn’t leave you alone. I just ordered it. Express delivery. One of the pharmacies near the building. It took about an hour and a half to get here. Pretty fast, honestly.”

She blinks at him.

“…An hour and a half,” she echoes, fully stunned.

“Yeah…?” he answers, confused at her confusion and looking like he’s trying to figure out why she sounds almost offended at fast delivery of all things.

She just stares at him, her brain suddenly connecting dots she really didn’t want to connect. Then, slowly — too slowly — she asks the question forming like cold sludge in the pit of her stomach:

“…How long exactly was I unconscious?”

Bobby doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he reaches for his phone left on the coffee table, unlocks it with a swipe, glances at the time, then mutters under his breath as he starts doing mental math.

“Considering the time you passed out back in the alley and everything…” He speaks, seemingly having finished his calculations, raising his head again to look at her. “I think around four hours? Uh… yeah. Three or four hours, kinda like that. No lie, if you took one more hour to wake up I probably would’ve had a meltdown.”

He tries to make it sound like a joke, but she barely hears it.

Four hours.

She was out for about three or four hours.

Wow.

Just… wow.

She feels the echo of that realization hit her like another blow

Bobby sees her expression shift and he immediately panics, ready to fix whatever he thinks he broke.

“Hey, hey, look at me,” he says quickly, voice softening. “It’s alright. Nothing worse happened. You’re okay. It’s all gonna be fine.”

She weakly shakes her head.

“No, Bobby, it’s not-- I’m not upset about that,” she murmurs, rubbing a hand over her face. ‘’It’s just… Geez, I didn’t think I could stay unconscious that long. Usually, I…”

Shut up shut up shut up--

“Uh, usually I don’t pass out. At all.” she blurts out so fast she nearly chokes on the correction. It doesn’t help that she tries to shrug like someone completely relaxed, except she’s nowhere near relaxed right now, and even less like someone whose body is as wrecked as hers should be shrugging. So she bites down hard on her lower lip, forcing the grimace back, also swallowing the hiss that tries to escape, because no way in hell she’s letting that slip out.

Only heaven knows the freak out this guy in front of her would have if he ever found out she faints so often she actually knows her average blackout time, which is usually fifteen minutes to an hour. Sometimes longer, when she’s been fighting sleep for too long, or when she’s desperate enough to drink just to force her body into a heavier, deeper blackout. Four hours. Five. Once, six.

So the idea of passing out naturally, not from a calculated collapse by alcohol, but because her body simply gave up from injuries, hunger, dehydration, and exhaustion?

Seriously?

Bobby narrows his eyes at her in that way that she can tell that he caught her lies. Oh, shit.

“Right,” he says, in a tone that means I absolutely do not believe you, but fine. ‘’Sure.’’

He sighs afterward, not frustrated at her, but frustrated that he can’t force honesty out of her without hurting her more. He leans back a little, shoulders dropping.

“Well,” he says after a moment, “for your… first time passing out, you actually didn’t stay down as long as I thought you would. So I guess you weren’t lying about the regeneration thing.”

She forces a smile.

Haha, you’re so funny, Bobby. 

Why would he think she’d ever lie to him? It’s not like she’s been lying or hiding things from him since the very beginning. Haha, what the fuck.

To avoid letting him stare too long into whatever she’s feeling, she immediately deflects:

“Anyway, you shouldn’t trust everything Google tells you. I have my doubts you’ll even need half of that stuff.”

“Better safe than sorry, right?” he fires back. “And besides, my sources weren’t only Google. I also used ChatGPT, and Twitter.” He says it with confidence like that combination of sources is supposed to sound reliable.

“…Was that supposed to make me feel better?” she asks, absolutely deadpan.

It takes Bobby exactly one second to process what he just said, then he lowers his head like he’s grieving the death of his own dignity.

“Yeah,” he mutters, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Fair. Fair enough.”

To avoid further embarrassment, he decides to focus on what he has to do: he opens the kit and starts sorting through everything, checking the sterilized packages, organizing tools into a neat little line like he’s done this a hundred times—even though she knows he hasn’t.
He’s just trying. Trying really damn hard.

“So,” he says as he selects a pair of long, thin tweezers and moves closer again, “point me to the war zones. Where’s the worst of it?”

Rumi shifts slightly, wincing the moment her torso flexes even a fraction. “Mm—my left leg, right below the back of my knee. And… maybe my shoulder. I think something tiny is stuck there too, and… Argh, it's easier to stop keeping track.”

“Fantastic,” he mutters, deadpan. “Love when the patient loses count of the wounds.”

She gives him a look. 

“Bobby.”

“Spider-Girl,” he counters, raising a brow. “If I stop making jokes I’m gonna start screaming. So let me have this.”

A tiny, reluctant smile tugs at her lips while he kneels beside her again, the floor creaking under his weight. His movements are still careful in that way he’s been ever since he found her collapsed, bleeding, half-conscious on that filthy rooftop. He hesitates for just a second before his fingers make contact near her ribs.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” he murmurs.

She almost rolls her eyes. 

“It already is.”

“Great,” he says, the tweezers hovering over her skin. “We’re off to a beautiful start.” He glances up at her, searching her face, the lines of pain she’s trying to swallow down. “Alright…  I’m going ahead”

And then he barely lets the tweezers touch her skin, just literally a brush, and her leg jerks on pure reflex, startling him for a moment.

“Hey,” he says quickly, pulling his hands back. “You good?”

She takes a deep breath, or at least the deepest breath a person with broken ribs can manage, and replies flatly:

“Define good.” 

“Alive,” he answers. “Conscious, and basically not about to pass out on me. Again.”

She scoffs.

‘’I feel like I'm going to.’’

‘’Oh, no, don't joke about that. Just-- Hold still.’’

He brings the tweezers down one more time, in a way even more gentler. She doesn't jerk, but still stiffens as the cold metal brushes her skin. A shard of pressure, then an immediate and blinding flare of pain. 

“Fuck--”

“I know, I know,” Bobby murmurs, steady and apologetic. “Just another second, ok? I think I see it.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, teeth grit, fingers digging into the mattress beneath her.

“There you are,” he whispers, like he’s coaxing a wild animal out of hiding. “Come on… got you.”

And when he pulls the shard out, totally slicked in blood, she exhales shakily, like a weight has been lifted from deep inside her.

He holds it up with a grimace. 

“Okay, this one could’ve caused real damage.”

“Fantastic,” she mutters. “Add that to the list.”

“Oh, trust me,” he drops the shard into the metal tray with a soft clink, “the list is getting ridiculous.”

And, hell yeah, he has never been so right.

He spends long, steady minutes working through the deeper pieces of glass lodged in her leg, longer than either of them expected. Every time she hissed out a quiet “there’s another one,” his brows pulled tighter, and he went back in with the tweezers, trying to keep his hands from shaking. 

He thought he had cleared most of it earlier. Truly, he did, but the truth is that the smallest shards had buried themselves too deep, too well-hidden for him to ever notice without her guiding him.

Once the larger fragments are out, he disinfects the cuts with antiseptic, muttering soft apologies each time she tensed, and places clean bandages over the worst wounds. It should have ended there. At least, that’s what he hoped, but the trail of tiny glints under her skin kept going, refusing to let him feel even a moment of relief.

She complains about her arms next, and then he treats each scrape and cut, more cautious now that he is close to the burned part of her upper arm. He barely grazes the area, terrified of doing anything that might worsen the raw, angry skin there.

When he finally leans back, he genuinely believes that the worst is over. From here on, all he has to do is keep track of her pain medication every six hours, make sure she stays warm, fed, watered, and resting. Manageable tasks. Things he can handle.

But then she opens her mouth again, saying that there are still some glass pieces in her back, and he nearly has a heart attack right there.

For a second, he can’t decide if he wants to scream, faint, or curl up on the floor. He also doesn’t understand how it happened, since he was sure he had done a decent job on her back earlier. Those shards were bigger, easier to see, easier to remove. He’d felt confident about that part, but now that he thinks about the position she was in at the time, lying on her side, facing him, half-slumped, barely able to hold herself up… 

Ok, maybe the angle actually wasn’t ideal at all for him.

So now he has to face the one area he had begged the universe to spare him from having to revisit.

He adjusts her more carefully this time, guiding her to lie fully on her side with her back exposed to him. He helps her shift without putting pressure on her injured arm, moving slowly, always asking if something hurts, always pausing the moment her breath caught in discomfort. Once she is settled, her breathing easier, he sits behind her and finally looks.

And there they are.

Small, nearly invisible pieces of glass, so deep and so subtle that he feels an immediate wave of guilt for having missed them. They glint faintly under the light, hidden under the dried blood and bruised skin, shards tucked lower than the rest, almost microscopic.

He can feel her tense under his hands again, the tiny shiver that betrays pain even when she stubbornly tries to hide it. The smaller shards in her back are deeper than he expected; every time he presses the tweezers to her skin, her breath stutters. And Bobby, who cannot offer morphine or lidocaine or anything remotely useful, does the only thing he can: talk.

“So… you said earlier you were in some genetics lab when you got bitten… which raises a very, very important question.”

She makes a noise, not quite a laugh, or a wince as another shard comes out.

“And that question is,” he continues, “what were you even doing in a genetics lab in the first place?”

He already knows she probably won’t answer, since she is allergic to personal questions. 

He expects her to shut down, stiffen, pretend she didn’t hear, or change the subject as she had so many times before, but pain is one hell of a truth serum, and the way she’s almost hugging herself just to endure it tells him she’ll cling to any distraction she can get.

“I was on a school field trip.”

He freezes mid-tweezer.

“…A field trip.”

“Yes.”

“A school field trip.”

“Yes, Bobby!,” she grits out, like talking is both a distraction from the pain and another kind of torture.

He blinks at her back like it personally offended him.

“Okay. Okay. Just let me get this straight: You were on a field trip, and that was three years ago, which means… wait. Wait.” His brain catches up and then promptly short-circuits. “Oh, gosh. You’re actually-- you’re young. How old are you now?”

There’s a pause, the kind that isn’t dramatic, but embarrassing, and also like she is trying to decide whether answering is worth the pain of staying quiet.

“…Nineteen.”

The tweezers clatter against the kit.

“Nineteen!?” he practically chokes. “You still have teen in the number!? Are you kidding me? Holy crap--”

She groans, burying half her face into the couch cushion.

“Please don’t make this worse.”

“I am making it worse! Because what the-- nineteen. Damn it, Spider-Girl--” he stops himself, horrified when another realization hits like a brick. “Wait. Wait, wait, WAIT… If it happened three years ago…” He points the tweezers at the air like accusing a ghost. “Then you started being Spider-Woman at SIXTEEN!?”

“…I was about to turn seventeen--” She mutters into the cushion, voice muffled.

“That’s not better!” Bobby hisses, whisper-yelling like a scandalized grandmother. “Sixteen, seventeen, whatever! It’s still a child swinging around Seoul beating the shit out of criminals! Do you wanna know what I was doing at sixteen? I was failing math and crying in the boys’ restroom! That’s what normal teenagers do, Spider-girl!”

“Yeah, but I’m not normal, am I?” she snaps back, sharp enough to make the words drip with something tangled between anger and exhaustion.

And Bobby hears it. He sees it, actually, given the fact that when he pulls out another shard, some of the torn sections of her suit on her back — the ones that reveal the patterns that keep glowing red whenever she feels pain — flare brighter in red, edged now with a faint shade of blue around them.

He is still not exactly sure about what that means, but the weight of it hits him hard enough to stop him from freaking out further. 

He swallows, sets the tweezers down, and steadies his tone:

“Hey,” he says softly, “pay attention to what I'm gonna say, ok?”

She doesn’t nod, but her shoulders lift just a little.

“You might think you’re not normal,” Bobby continues, “and okay, yeah, fair, you’re absolutely not-- But not-normal doesn’t mean wrong, and it doesn’t mean you deserved to handle all this alone at sixteen.”

She breathes out in a shaky and reluctant way that sounds dangerously close to breaking.

Before he can say anything else, she croaks: 

“…Just finish the glass, Bobby.”

He nods, picking up the tweezers again, and the glow on her back shifts again, less frantic red, more muted, the blue thinning out like her body isn’t sure what to feel anymore.

He pulls out another shard. She flinches more this time.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “It’s a stubborn one.”

“Story of my life.”

“Yeah? Tell me about it.”

She just grumbles something that feels almost like a complaint. 

And so they fall silent for an unbelievable three minutes, though for Bobby, it may as well be a decade. He feels sweat gathering at his temples, running in slow, anxious beads down the side of his face as he fights with one particularly stubborn shard buried near her shoulder blade.

His hand trembles and the effort to keep steady makes his mouth run faster than his brain.

“So… distract me before I pass out from the stress of digging glass out of a teenager’s back,” he mutters in a frantic whisper, trying to keep both of them conscious and sane. “Was there, uh, any specific reason you decided to be Spider Woman? Like, besides the whole spider-bite-genetics-lab situation, but I mean… you could’ve just not done anything, you know? Kept your powers to yourself, and had a normal teenager life.”

It hangs in the air.

She doesn’t answer.

Not for ten seconds.

Not for twenty.

Either she’s ignoring him, or she’s going to curse him out, or both.

By the time they hit the thirty-second mark, Bobby thinks he’s done it,  he’s asked the one question she’s actually going to bite his head off for.

But then he notices the way her back is trembling, the way the red light in her markings keeps flickering violently, the way she’s barely breathing because she’s focusing all her instincts on not reacting to the pain of him trying to get the shard out.

And Bobby backs off fast, hands retreating, not saying another word. He figures he’s talked too much already, and she deserves a break, from the glass and from him running his mouth.

She lets out a long breath the moment he stops trying to dig out the glass. Her spine sinks, her shoulders sag, and for a second she just… breathes, like she’s been underwater for too long.

Then, in a fragile voice that barely belongs to the creature he’s been calling Spider-girl, she says:

“I kind of… learned how to fight since I was a kid, and… well…”

The words stumble out of her mouth, thin and uneven, as if each one has to claw its way past everything she doesn’t want to say. She wants to explain. She wants to make sense, but how the hell is she supposed to talk about her past without thinking of everyone she lost? Without feeling that same old, sharp emptiness punching straight through her chest?

And then…

Her mind goes off the rails, dark and stupidly terrifying:

What if I lose him too? What if I tell everything to him and somehow I lose him too? What if the curse reaches him if he knows too much about me? What if in the end I will be alone for real? What if he starts to hate me? What if he–

Her breath catches mid-thoughts. Pain blooms hard beneath her ribs, sharp enough to make her flinch. For a beat she prays desperately that it’s just the broken bones protesting. Just physical pain. Something simple. Something she knows how to handle.

However, the ache spreads too fast, too tight, curling hot up her throat and squeezing around her lungs.

No-- no, not now. 

She can’t break here. She can’t. She doesn't get to fall apart, not in front of him, not ever--

Her lungs seize again, refusing to fill properly. Her fingers tremble, and she silently thanks whatever she can that her back is to Bobby, because if she had to meet his eyes she’d unravel completely.

Still, she tries to keep talking, because it looks like words are the only thing stopping her from drowning in her own chest. In her own mind. 

“I… I had to… do something good, and-- and it was so easy to do it… and--”

She gives up on trying to explain. 

Her thoughts crash into one another refusing to line up, making her exhale, defeated, pressing the nearly-warm ice pack weakly against her side. She’ll have to remind Bobby to replace it later. She should, but she knows better that she probably won’t.

Because she leaves things out on purpose.

She leaves out that she always had to be something else than her demon heritage. Something that would prove she isn’t a mistake. That would make Celine proud in a way. Or to be something that would be enough to live up to the stories she grew up hearing about her mother: a good woman, a kind woman, a woman who wanted her daughter to be good too.

Which means that she definitely leaves out that being Spider-Woman is the closest thing she has ever found that is close enough to… redemption. 

Salvation.

Her one shot at proving she was more than everything she was born from, more than any curse coiled in her blood.

Little did she know that becoming Spider-Woman would be her downfall.

Bobby senses none of all that, or at least not the details inside her head, but he feels the weight, like the heaviness in her breaths, and the way her glowing patterns shift from that deep, bruised blue into sudden, jittery flashes of orange, before dimming back to blue again. It seems like her body can’t decide whether to freeze or combust. 

He doesn’t touch her yet.

He just leans forward slowly, voice softer than he intends:

“…Hey. I’m still here.”

And then, another pulse travels across her back at the sound of his voice, none of the colors from before: her patterns flashes golden for just a split second. 

Oh, okay. Another new color he definitely doesn’t understand, but if it’s gold, that has to mean it’s good… right?

Was there even a golden emotion in Inside Out? 

Ah, damn, he’s really going to have to rewatch both movies just to figure this out at least a little better.

Thoughts shoved down for now, he wets his lips, glances toward the stubborn shard buried just beneath the skin, soon saying in a low voice to pull her back fully into the room with him, and not wherever her mind had slipped just seconds ago:

“You don’t owe me an answer, Spider-Girl. It’s more than understandable-- No, actually, it’s perfectly fine if you’re not ready, so… just breathe, ok? I’ll be right here, and… whenever you are ready, I’ll continue removing the glass, right from where I stopped.’’

It takes her five long seconds of hesitation. 

Then, finally, she gives a weak nod.

And Bobby, already trembling just thinking about what he has to do next, swallows hard, takes one deep breath that does absolutely nothing to calm him, and resumes working.

It’s slow, and awful, the kind of tension that makes both of them hold their breath at the same time.

After some long minutes, he eventually reaches for the last piece. The shard comes free with a soft, sickening sound that makes his stomach twist, and Spider-Woman lets out a long, shuddering sigh of relief. A sound so relieved, so exhausted, that Bobby’s shoulders drop like someone just unclipped a weight from them.

He almost expects her to point out another spot where a shard of glass still lingers, but she stays quiet, breathing in her fragile way, as if a certain weight has finally been lifted from her body. Which, honestly, is exactly what happened anyway.

He wipes his hands on the towel when he sees that it was definitely the last of it, breathing through the leftover adrenaline, then grabbing the antiseptic. Her back twitches when the cold sting touches her skin, but she doesn’t pull away. He knows she’s far beyond spent, running purely on stubbornness for a long time.

Once the last bandage is placed, he stands, stretching his own aching back, and only then noticing the ice pack resting uselessly on the armrest. 

Right. That thing needs replacing, but first he carefully helps her shift onto her other side, making sure she’s facing him again, not because he needs to see her face — he needs to keep confirming that she's not about to pass out or stop breathing —, but because that twisted, over-rotated position he put her in earlier would become hellishly uncomfortable if he left her like that. 

He returns a moment later with a fresh cold compress, placing it gently against her bruised ribs. She winces, but only a little, which considering everything, is practically a compliment.

Then he grabs one of the chairs from his table, dragging it across the floor and sitting right in front of her. 

Yes, he could have used the little stool he'd been on this whole time, but his back feels like it has aged eighty years in the past hour, and he desperately needs something with support. The table chair is practically a luxury.

They stare at each other in complete silence.

Both of them exhausted, and refusing to blink first, neither willing to surrender to sleep.

He knows what he should say: “Close your eyes.” “Rest.” “Sleep.”, but she’s watching him with that inflexible focus that he can notice even with her mask still on her face, the kind that tells him she’d rather chew off her own arm than let herself relax right now.

So instead, he starts talking about something else entirely:

“You… really did a good job today--”

“When do I not?” She cuts in instantly, all bite and sharp edges, and for a split second Bobby actually forgets how fragile she is right now. The tone sounds so normal for her, so familiar, so deceptively strong that catches him off of guard.

He lets it slide almost gladly, because if she still has that kind of spirit, then either she’s getting better… or she’s clinging to what’s left of her pride with her fingernails.

He chooses to believe the first option.

“I mean,” he continues, “besides everything you did… fighting when you were already bleeding, already hurt…  I just…” He rubs the back of his neck, sheepish. “I wasn’t expecting you to save Captain Celine, to be honest. So… Thank you for that, since she’s probably never gonna thank you herself.’’ He ends with a breathy little laugh, trying — failing — to lighten the mood, to pull her into the joke with him, but the moment the name Celine leaves his mouth, she’s gone.

Her attention drops, her eyes snaps toward him, just a fraction too sharp, and her patterns dims, then tighten into a faint, pulsing red.

Surprised that she saved Celine?

Of course she would save her.

Surprised would’ve been if she hadn’t.

If he had any idea how fast she would’ve thrown herself in front of a bullet for that woman, If he knew the truth…

And maybe that’s exactly why the answer that slips from her mouth comes out different from the storm of thoughts in her head:

“I save everyone. I just did my job.”

“Right. Right.” That’s what Bobby says, because the first thing that wants to exit his mouth is something like and are you getting paid to call this a job?, but that feels like either the kind of thing she’d under-react to, or over-react to, and neither option sounds pleasant. So he settles for the safe road. “Still… thank you. People can say you’re dangerous, that you’re a problem, that you should let the police handle things on their own, but honestly? Tonight was one of those nights where, if you hadn’t stepped in, we’d definitely have more casualties than we do. Maybe even Celine would’ve…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence.

And Rumi is quietly, painfully grateful for that omission.

Because god, that thought hurts.

“I know, Bobby,” she murmurs, voice so soft it barely reaches him. “Thank you.” The way she says it — low, fragile, sincere — makes something in him falter, because he can tell that she is not just thanking him for the compliment. She’s thanking him for all of it; the care, the effort, the fact that he hasn’t run out of the apartment screaming yet.

He offers a faint smile, shaking his head like he wants to dismiss all of it.

“No, you don’t have to thank me for anything,” he says. “What I’m doing right now is… honestly the bare minimum. Nothing compared to what you do, especially for people who don’t respect you, or outright hate you.” He huffs, leaning back in his chair. “I mean, I’ve been noticing things with Celine. She’s been firing certain officers, and there were those drug trafficking cases we’d been stuck on for months… all suddenly getting solved in the same week.”

Rumi freezes, just a fraction.

He continues, oblivious.

“I asked the Captain where she got those leads, and she dodged the question. Said it was ‘confidential information,’ but she wouldn’t look me in the eye when she said it. Then she pretended to read a document that--” He snorts. “was upside down. So, obviously something was weird about that confidential source. And I put two and two together and realized it had to be someone she didn’t like or fully trust… which led me to deduce it was you.”

Rumi only lifts her brows slightly, unimpressed.

“Are you sure you’re a police officer and not a detective?”

“Oh, so it was you,” he says, and there’s this ridiculous, proud tone in his voice that makes her exhale a tiny, involuntary puff of air through her nose.

“Yeah… something like that,” she sighs, adjusting the cold compress against her ribs again. Then, with a voice that tries very hard to sound casual, she asks, “And Celine… Is she okay? How was she after everything today? ”

“Uh…” Bobby’s voice dips, because something about the question throws him. Confuses him. Maybe even… intrigues him?

There’s something in the way Spider-Woman’s tone softens around that name, something in the way she almost curls inward for a second when she asks, or the way her patterns pulse blue again, but now with thin golden threads running through the color. 

Okay, golden again. Nice. 

Now what is that supposed to mean this time? Something… almost like interest? No, that sounds weird, and it doesn’t make sense if blue really means sadness. So… yeah, vibe is strange. Still, he doesn’t press it, because it doesn’t look like she is about to explain why she cares, and honestly, he’s seen enough glowing blue sad and pained-patterns tonight to know better.

“I think you know how she is” he finally resumes. “She’s Captain Celine. So stubborn and tough it honestly worries me sometimes. So, actually, she’s fine. When I talked to her afterward she didn’t even look like someone who’d almost died. She was more concerned and buried in her thoughts about whatever the hell those upgraded weapons were, and where those two criminals managed to get their hands on that stuff.”

Rumi lets out a thin, tired laugh, the kind that slips out only because her body is too weak to hold it in. The patterns on her skin thrum in a deeper blue, the muted gold threads inside them swelling just a fraction thicker, pulsing with an emotion she’s clearly not aware she’s showing.

“That… sounds like her,” she says without thinking.

Uh… okay? 

Yeah, this is getting a bit… weird.

That’s all Bobby can think because, there it is again that tone she also doesn’t seem aware she’s using, the strange softness reserved specifically for the Captain, and honestly? He still has no idea what the hell those gold streaks mean. Or why they react to that kind of comment. And also, she said that like someone who knows Celine. Like, actually knows her, but… Spider-Woman doesn’t know Celine. Right?

Well… maybe he’s overthinking it. After three years of street chases, rooftop missions, and constant back-and-forth with the police force, maybe the girl just ended up learning enough about the Captain to talk like that.

Yeah. That’s probably it. 

He clears his throat, deciding to gently shove the conversation away from that increasingly suspicious territory.

“Well… do you know anything about those upgraded weapons they were using tonight? Or were you just as caught off guard as we were?”

“…Bobby, do you think if I knew anything about that I would’ve ended up in the state I’m in right now?” she asks, a trace of amusement undercut with exhaustion, leaving out the extremely relevant fact that even if she had known something, she probably still would've ended like this because her health wouldn't keep up with her battles anyway.

“...Okay. Got it,” he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment.

Rumi sighs, the sound thin and frayed.

“It seems like it was a surprise for all of us… I have absolutely no… no idea what those things were. Like-- okay, yes, obviously they were enhanced weapons, anyone with eyes could see that, but… I don’t know who made them, where they came from, if they’re remade versions of other cases involving psychos with similar tech, if they’re Cybernetics, or something worse…” She shakes her head weakly. “…I don’t know. I don’t know.”

The frustration threading her voice is so raw that Bobby immediately feels an instinctual tug to say something reassuring — anything to stop her from sinking deeper into that helplessness.

“Hey, hey, It's alright. Relax. We’re all on the same page apparently.” His tone softens without him meaning to. “Before I went looking for you, I talked to the Captain. Asked if she had any idea what this crap was, and the best conclusion she came up with is that it’s probably a new manufacturer, not a rework of anything we’ve dealt with before.”

Rumi scoffs, painfully done with the universe.

“And here I was thinking the police would get some useful information before I did.”

“And it looks like your attitude regenerates faster than your body.”

A small, airy laugh slips out of her, it died quickly afterwards but left her eyes a little less heavy. Bobby chuckles too, shaking his head as if thinking, girl, you’re impossible.

The silence that settles isn’t hostile, but It isn’t awkward, either. It’s something… calmer, like both of them finally hit the point of exhaustion where even breathing feels like too much effort.

But then Bobby’s eyes suddenly fly wide open, as if his brain finally reconnects two wires that should’ve been connected a long time ago. His voice jumps out of him in one breathless burst:

“Oh! And their tools had a symbol!”

‘’…What?” Rumi blinks twice in a slow way as if the sentence didn’t quite compute. “A symbol?”

The moment the shock hits her, her whole body reacts on instinct, she starts to push herself up as if she can just get up and investigate right now, but obviously she can't just do it, which makes her breath turn into a choked hiss when she feels that pain. 

She collapses right back down, jaw clenched so tight that for a second Bobby thinks she might actually snap her fangs.

“Hey, don't do it. You’re not recovered, not even close,” Bobby scolds gently, hands hovering but not touching. “Your humor might’ve healed, sure, but your body definitely hasn’t. And yes, there was a symbol. Like an infinity sign trapped inside a box, or maybe more like a sideways eight with corners…? Anyway, why? Don’t tell me the police finally noticed something before you did.” The smirk he gives her is so annoyingly cocky that she rolls her eyes so hard she genuinely thinks her irises might get stuck in the back of her skull.

“Sorry, I couldn’t see it, I was a little busy fighting those two while all the police did was get beaten up and die.”

Bobby opens his mouth, closes it, and genuinely looks unsure whether to laugh or take offense.

“…Okay, first of all, low blow,” he mutters, throwing a halfhearted frown at her. “Second of all,  message received.”

Spider-Woman exhales, long and tired. She stares at the ceiling for a moment, her brows pulling together with the weight of new information pressing against her already overloaded mind.

After a few seconds of silence, she mutters, quieter:

“I’ll see what I can find about it later.”

“Yeah, later,” Bobby repeats with strong emphasis. “Not now, or in an hour, and definitely not in the next twenty-four hours. If you even think about sneaking out of here to investigate before you’re healed, I swear I will figure out how to use your own webs against you and tie you to this sofa myself.”

A short breath of amused disbelief escapes her.

“Oh, good luck with that.”

And thankfully, Bobby takes it as nothing more than their usual teasing. He doesn’t notice the way she meant it. Doesn’t hear the truth buried beneath the joke, because she knows, painfully well, that at this point there aren’t any webs left in her at the moment to shoot. 

Urgh, apparently she’s going to be forced to keep working on that web-shooter project, just to avoid more future situations where her webs might fail, because she’s certain that what happened a few hours ago won’t be the last time.

After a few long minutes of silence Bobby decides that this is probably the moment where he should finally bring this impossible, terrifying, and utterly draining night to an end.

His voice comes out instinctively gentle, like he’s talking to a little girl who’s stubbornly keeping herself awake because she’s convinced something is lurking under the bed, but perhaps… that is what she’s become to him now: not a monster, for fuck’s sake, but a kid bracing against monsters he can’t see.

“Go to sleep, Spider-Girl,” he murmurs, brushing a hand over his tired face. “You need it, and don’t worry, I’ll stay with you the whole time. I’m not working tomorrow, or technically today, but not the day after either, so I’m not that wrong-- Just… rest, okay? Everything’s gonna be fine.”

The words should be comforting, but Rumi stiffens.

It’s subtle, but he sees the slight tensing in her shoulders, the way her gloved fingers curl just a bit more into the blanket, the faint, jittery ripple of blue flickering through her patterns like her body is unable to lie even when she tries.

Sleep.

The word hooks into her like a claw.

For almost two months now, she’s been forcing herself awake, fighting it with anything she can get, because sleeping means darkness, or even worse: remembering. 

However, Bobby is looking at her with patience she doesn’t think she deserves, and something in her chest pulls too tight, since he said he’d stay. He said he wouldn’t leave.

And the horrifying part is that she wants to believe him.

Her throat tightens as she lowers her gaze, struggling to form words, to form any excuse that doesn’t expose her fear.

“I… I don’t--” She stops, swallows, and tries again, almost childlike despite the rasp. “Sleeping isn’t… easy.”

“I figured,” he admits, not unkindly. “But you can’t keep going like that.”

She hates that he’s right, and even more that she wants to give in, because despite all her pain in her body, there’s also the fact that her eyelids burn every time she blinks, and the simple idea of falling asleep and waking up with someone still there…

Gosh. She can almost feel the warmth of that thought settle into her bones, heavier than exhaustion, or heavier than anything she’s willing to name.

Just once.

Just tonight.

She wants that.

She needs that. 

Her fingers unclench slowly, breath shaking.

“…Fine,” she whispers, sounding defeated but also relieved in a way she hates to admit. “But… if anything happens-- I mean, if you need me for anything, just--”

“I’ll wake you,” Bobby promises immediately, as if he knows she needs to hear it, not because she’s afraid of him needing her while she's sleeping, but because he knows she’s afraid of something she’ll never say out loud. So he just wants to make it easier for her at this moment, adding softly: "I’ll be right here.”

Something in her chest loosens.

And finally — finally — she lets her eyes close for more than two seconds.

Sleep finds her faster than she expects.

One moment she’s tense, eyebrows pinched like she’s still arguing with herself about whether she should close her eyes or not…  and the next, her breathing evens out, softens, and settles.

Bobby watches the shift happen in real time: the slow unclenching of her jaw, the slight drop of her shoulders, the way her fingers stop gripping the blanket like it’s a lifeline.

His lips twitch into a weak, tired smile.

“Yeah… that’s it,” he whispers, though she’s already far beyond hearing him.

He keeps his eyes on her like a human shield bracing himself against whatever nightmares might try to drag her under.

He doesn’t move, and does not blink for too long, afraid even a moment of darkness might somehow make her stir.

And he doesn’t dare leave her side.

Hell, he’s tired, exhausted, actually. His back is screaming at him, and every muscle in his neck feels like it’s been glued into place, but the longer he looks at her, the more he wonders when was the last time she slept like this, or even the last time she let herself.

A day? A week?

Longer?

The thought makes something twist sharply inside him.

Whatever the answer is… it’s too long.

So he makes a quiet, stubborn choice: He can stay awake a night. Or two. Or however long she damn well needs. He’s had plenty of good nights of sleep in his life, seems only fair she finally gets her turn, even if that means resisting the slow, creeping urge to blink longer than three seconds, or if that means ignoring the painful reminder from his bladder that he really, really should get up at some point.

He just shifts in the chair, uncomfortable but resolute. 

If holding it in means he doesn’t have to leave her, even for a moment, then so be it.

He can deal with the consequences later.

For now, his job is simple: stay, keep watch, protect who never asks for protection, and make sure that, just this once, her nightmares — because it's so obvious that she is scared of them — don’t get to win.