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For over an hour, Robby had been sitting at the kitchen table, staring blankly at his laptop screen, long past the point of understanding what he was actually reading. The article with the new research was blurring before his eyes; his coffee, gone cold, sat to his left, forgotten God knows how long ago. Outside the window, the city lived its usual nightlife: distant sirens, the occasional car, the wind threading between the buildings.
It was quiet and calm.
Robby took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, leaning back wearily in his chair. Today’s shift had wrung him dry. Someone had started a brawl in a bar. Some teenagers had decided to have a contest to see who could down the most energy drinks. Another kid had managed to break his arm trying to jump over a dumpster for an internet video.
And it was just another Monday.
His thoughts drifted lazily from one thing to another, only to circle back to the same person every time.
To Dennis.
To the ungodly hours Dennis came home, sometimes barely able to stand, sometimes with a split lip. And sometimes with a look about him like he’d spent the last twenty-four hours running on nothing but caffeine and sheer stubbornness.
Somewhere over the past two months, Dennis had rooted himself into Robby’s life so thoroughly that Robby hadn’t even noticed when it happened.
Probably it all started with the move, the incident with the window, and that first shared shift in the ER, then, of course, the shared rides home after shifts, the takeaway coffees in the morning. And in the end, Dennis had started coming over just because.
Always with some ridiculous story to tell.
And each time, Robby would just shake his head, and each time, he would let him in, and on the especially bad days, he would walk the entire length of the hallway to Dennis’s door.
Because, apparently, he was a complete idiot.
A quiet knock at the door yanked him out of the sticky haze of his thoughts.
Then another.
Robby slowly rises from the table and walks to the door. A thought flits through his head:
*Whoever this is, I’m pretending to be dead.*
Checking the peephole, he pulls the door open, and the rest of his thoughts simply vanish.
“Hey! It’s your friendly neighbor!”
Dennis stood in the hallway holding a paper bag, shifting his weight slightly. His hair is tousled by the wind, a too-light jacket is thrown on haphazardly, and under his eyes are the familiar shadows of exhaustion.
But despite a hint of nervousness, today he looks… calmer, even softer.
And yet, for some reason, anxious.
“I know it’s been a while,” Dennis said, lifting the bag slightly, “but I kept thinking about that breakfast thing. So… I brought dinner. If that’s okay.”
Robby froze, staring at him for several silent seconds.
Jesus.
Robby had most definitely managed to fall in love like some teenager.
With this chaotic, constantly injured, impossible boy standing at his door holding takeout and looking at him like he genuinely hoped Robby wouldn’t turn him away and will be glad for his company.
And the worst part was that Robby was honestly happy to see him.
So happy it almost hurt and he is way too old for this kind of thing.
“So…?” Dennis asks carefully after a few seconds.
“Of course it’s okay, Dennis,” Robby breathed out, voice rougher than intended. “Come in.”
Dennis smiles, so sunny and bright, and Robby thinks it just might kill him.
Taking the bag of food from Dennis, Robby is surprised by its weight.
“What, did you buy out half a restaurant?” Robby asks, setting the bag down between the coffee table and the sofa.
“I was hungry when I ordered,” Dennis replies unflappably, leaving his sneakers by the door. “That was my mistake.”
“It’s a catastrophe for our stomachs.”
“What’s paid for must be eaten.”
Robby chokes on a quiet laugh before he can stop himself.
And Dennis pauses for a second, as if he’s caught something rare, and then he smiles even wider. The exhaustion doesn’t disappear, but next to Robby, it seems to soften.
The apartment quickly fills with the appetizing scent of spices, rice, and something sweet besides. Robby gets out plates; Dennis rummages through the bag, occasionally commenting on the contents.
“This one’s spicy.”
“You identified that by the color of the container??”
“I have a sense.”
“I thought we called that gastritis.”
“Hey, no, not gastritis, just super spider-sense!”
They settle on the sofa, pressed almost right up against each other simply because there isn’t much room among the boxes and papers. Their knees touch, and the warmth of the other’s body is tangible even through the denim of their jeans.
They talk about everything.
About work, patients. The man who’d tried to convince the entire ER that he’d “accidentally fallen onto a potato.”
“Of course, he couldn’t explain exactly how he managed it ‘accidentally,’” Robby said with a tired shake of his head.
Dennis laughs, louder. A real laugh. He tilts his head back against the sofa and closes his eyes.
And Robby catches himself just staring.
Because this laugh… It’s too rare for such a bright guy.
And then the conversation somehow drifts, first to the incidents on the streets, and then to movies.
“No, I refuse to believe you liked that movie,” Dennis protests.
“It had good cinematography.”
“That was the dumbest scene I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“But you watched it to the end.”
“Because I needed to see how much worse it would get.”
Robby smiles into his mug.
Then he looked at Dennis again and realized just how different he seemed tonight. Relaxed. Not twitchy or restless every five minutes.
It’s only at this moment that Robby realizes just how utterly exhausted Dennis really is.
The way Dennis blinks slower, how he occasionally rubs his eyes with his knuckles, how sometimes he just freezes and loses the thread of the conversation mid-sentence.
“You’re about to fall asleep,” Robby says quietly.
“I’m not,” Dennis answers automatically.
And within a minute, the chopsticks slip from his deft fingers.
Dennis slowly lists sideways into the pillows, curling up against the arm of the sofa. His breathing evens out.
At first, Robby genuinely thinks about waking him, but something stops him.
Maybe it was the shadows beneath Dennis’s eyes. Maybe the overall wrecked state he was in. Or maybe Robby simply didn’t want him to leave.
He could wake him up. Could nudge his shoulder and say, Hey, your neck’s gonna hurt, or Go home and sleep properly.
But something inside him tightened painfully at the thought.
“Jesus, Dennis…” Robby whispered.
Very carefully, he stands up and slips a cushion under Dennis’s head in place of his own thigh. Dennis murmurs something unintelligible in his sleep and frowns a little when Robby tries to pull away.
And then, almost without waking, he nuzzles his face into Robby’s palm.
Robby’s breath caught hard in his chest.
It was deeply unfair that this boy could turn a grown man into an emotional disaster with one accidental gesture.
Slowly exhaling, Robby pulled a blanket over him. His fingers moved almost on their own, brushing the hair away from Dennis’s forehead.
***
Morning crept into the apartment slowly.
Dawn light filtered through half-drawn curtains, stretching pale stripes across the floor and brushing against the edge of the couch. Outside, the city was still quiet. Even the constant sirens hadn’t started yet.
Dennis woke slowly.
First, a sensation of warmth from the ubiquitous sun. Then the smell of coffee, cleaning products, and something else foreign, yet painfully familiar. Dennis slowly opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling for a few seconds, trying to figure out where he is.
Robby is standing by the counter in an old t-shirt and sweatpants, sleepily scrolling through the news on his phone. His hair is still damp from the shower.
Suddenly and painfully, that he hadn’t felt at home in a very long time.
This thought arrives, spreads through his mind, and almost frightens him. Because the cause of this feeling right now is the guy sleeping on his sofa.
A soft rustle comes from the other room.
Dennis appeared in the doorway looking hopelessly disheveled. The blanket still trailed behind him like a cape. He squinted against the light, looking completely lost.
“You’re awake,” Robby said instead of greeting him.
His voice is even, restrained, but there’s something warm in the corners of his eyes, almost imperceptible.
“I’m awake,” Dennis confirms.
A pause.
Short, but filled with something unspoken.
“Amazing. You slept like the dead.”
Dennis blinks slowly, trying to wake up completely.
“I take it you need coffee, and fast?” Robby asks, smiling gently.
“God, I will pray to you for a cup of coffee.”
“Ha-ha.”
And this… this is something new.
Robby holds out a mug to him, and when their fingers touch, Dennis, for some reason, holds his breath. The silence between them becomes soft and domestic.
Robby leans his hip against the counter and watches as Dennis takes his first sip and closes his eyes. A warmth spreads through Dennis’s chest that has nothing to do with caffeine.
“I wasn’t kidding about the dead part. You slept for almost twelve hours,” Robby remarks.
Dennis nearly chokes on his coffee.
“How long?!”
“A new record for you, I think.”
The corners of Dennis’s mouth twitch into a weak smile.
He looks so relaxed right now that Robby can literally feel, physically, how rarely Dennis allows himself this state.
They have breakfast almost lazily.
Dennis sits on the kitchen counter, one leg tucked under him, and tells some absurd story about a man who felt he was a bird and had to be talked down from a bridge two weeks ago.
Robby laughs in such a way that Dennis falls silent mid-sentence.
Like he simply wanted to listen to the sound.
Robby notices the change in Dennis’s expression. The smile slowly fades. His gaze softens.
The air between them suddenly feels too thick.
Dennis slowly sets his mug on the table.
“Thank you,” he says, his voice low.
Robby opens his mouth to answer, but Dennis beats him to it.
He kisses him.
It feels like a flash of pure gratitude. No plan, just warm lips meeting Robby’s slightly hotter ones, and for a moment, the world stops.
The first touch is almost weightless, dry, cautious.
Robby freezes.
For one endless moment, he stops breathing. And then Robby exhales, slowly, raggedly, right into the kiss, and finally responds.
His hand comes to rest on the nape of Dennis’s neck, fingers tangling in the hair there, and the kiss deepens. Grows hotter.
Dennis stumbled half a step backward, and Robby followed just enough to pin him gently against the kitchen counter. Dennis steadied himself with one hand against the edge while the other drifted up Robby’s chest toward his neck, fingertips brushing the short hair at the nape before cupping his cheek
Robby answered with a quiet sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan, and Dennis felt it through his entire body.
This could become anything.
Right now. Right here, in this small kitchen, before it’s even properly dawn.
And it’s precisely at that moment that the silence is shattered by the howl of sirens.
Оne.
Then a second.
Then a third, closer, and somewhere in the distance, the characteristic popping sound that instantly makes Dennis’s shoulders tense up.
He freezes.
His lips still hovered inches from Robby’s. His breathing is ragged. In his pupils, a mix of adrenaline, disappointment, and something else swirls—something that could be taken for a childish resentment toward a universe that never grants him even five minutes of peace.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Dennis mutters, dropping his head and burying his face in Robby’s neck.
Robby is suspiciously silent, and Dennis has to lift his eyes and look at his face. Robby is simply looking at him, and in his eyes, Dennis reads everything he isn’t saying aloud. Understanding, acceptance, and a slight, barely perceptible sadness.
“I…” Dennis tries to pull away, and his hand reluctantly slips from Robby’s cheek. “Sorry. For the kiss. About all this…”
He trailed off, looking guilty and cornered, like he expected Robby to step back and say “I understand ” in that painfully polite tone people used right before they left.
Instead Robby grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him again.
Short. Firm. Like a period at the end of a sentence.
“Go get ’em, tiger,” he says right into Dennis’s parted, still-wet lips. “Beat them all.”
Dennis blinks, slow and stunned, then smiles wide and real, that very same smile that turns everything inside Robby upside down and makes it fall somewhere deep.
Dennis pulled away, though not before brushing his fingertips softly against Robby’s cheek. Light as a promise.
A second later, the living room window is thrown open, and he vanishes into the grey morning sky.
Robby is left standing, leaning against the kitchen table.
His lips are still burning. His heart is still pounding impossibly fast; the air still smells of coffee, and now, of Dennis.
Slowly, Robby lifted his fingers to his mouth and touched his lips lightly before closing his eyes.
“Brat,” he whispers to himself. “Hopeless and in love.”
And he smiles.
A bank robbery downtown is loud, dusty, painful, and much worse than Dennis bargained for.
Dennis arrives at the scene before the police.
Classic.
Three idiots in masks, armed, already loading bags of cash into a van at the back entrance. Two more idiots inside are holding hostages. A security guard is wounded but alive; Dennis can hear his heartbeat even over the wail of sirens, even over his own pulse, which still hasn’t calmed down since the kiss.
By the time Dennis crashed through a shattered second-floor window, everything was already spiraling out of control.
“Alright!” he breathes out, clinging to a pillar with a web. “Good morning, New York!”
He moved fast.
Webbing. A sharp yank.
The first guy barely managed a startled scream before slamming into the wall, gun flying from his hand. The second reacted quicker and bolted for the exit, only to get swept off his feet and skid across the pavement outside. The third took more effort. He's bigger, faster, and, as it turns out, armed with a crowbar.
The crowbar catches Dennis right on the shoulder. The very same shoulder that had been aching not so long ago, the one that still hasn’t fully healed, the one Robby has stitched up several times over the past two months.
“Oh— Shit!”
Dennis hissed through his teeth but kept moving. A few more blows later, the third robber hit the ground unconscious.
Inside, the hostages were safe.
Fifteen minutes later, the police were escorting the last civilians out while the criminals hung neatly webbed to the walls.
Time to breathe. Except Dennis didn’t.
Instead, he pulled out his camera.
A few shots from above while the police secured the perimeter. A few more from the side as officers dragged the robbers away in handcuffs. And, naturally, several pictures of Spider-Man himself reflected dramatically in the glass windows of the bank while swinging away.
By lunchtime, Dennis is standing in the newsroom.
And someone is yelling at him. Life has definitely taken some kind of wrong turn.
“Whitaker, what the hell is this?!” Editor Jameson, a man with a perpetually crimson face and a habit of throwing printouts, is shaking the photos in front of Dennis’s nose. “You call these photographs?! Where’s the focus?! Why is half of it blurred?!”
“Artistic blur?” he offers instead.
“This is garbage!”
“But atmospheric garbage.”
“What?!”
“I’m saying, it’s an exclusive. Nobody else has this.”
Jameson looks at him as if he’s contemplating murder and yells for another minute. Maybe two.
Dennis shifted his weight from one aching foot to the other and tried not to think about how much his shoulder hurt. The bandage beneath his shirt already felt damp again. He sincerely hoped blood wouldn’t soak through the fabric while Jameson ranted about standards, composition, and exactly where Dennis could shove these photos if he ever brought in “this amateur trash” again.
Still, they paid him.
An exclusive was an exclusive.
Dennis smirks as he leaves the newsroom, crumpled bills clenched in his pocket, and just stands on the sidewalk. His shoulder aches. The morning kiss still burns on his lips. Robby’s words warm him. He smiles, in spite of everything.
And suddenly, he realizes that he wants, terribly, with a tremor in his knees, to go home. Not to his own apartment. To Robby.
On the way there, he unexpectedly bought flowers from an elderly woman on a street corner.
The silliest flowers imaginable. Wildflowers, daisies mixed with some blue stalks that smell of summer and hay. The bouquet is absurd, shaggy, tied up with twine. It looks like a child gathered it.
Perfect.
The old woman looked at him knowingly, a bruised young man in a wrinkled jacket buying wildflowers, but said nothing.
Dennis goes up to his floor and stops at Robby’s door. His heart is hammering faster than it did during the robbery.
The hall light flickers off and on.
Dennis stood there holding the bouquet in one hand and clutching his jacket against his side with the other, feeling like a complete idiot.
He was already bending down to leave the flowers by the door. Just set them there and leave. Don’t make things awkward. Don’t—
The door opened before he could.
Robby stood there in the doorway looking tired, slightly grumpy, and painfully domestic in a loose T-shirt with a stretched collar. His gaze traveled over Dennis the flowers, the fresh bruise on his cheekbone, the faint stain of blood slowly seeping through his sleeve.
“You weren’t seriously planning to leave the bouquet and run away, were you?”
Dennis shifted awkwardly.
That, it seems, was answer enough.
Dennis straightens up. His cheeks are burning crimson.
“I bought you flowers,” he says, instead of all the apologies that are tumbling around on his tongue. “For… For everything you do.”
He falls silent. Because Robby is looking at him, at the bouquet, at the bruise, at the blood that seems to have finally seeped through his sleeve and in that gaze, there isn’t a drop of irritation. Only warmth. Only that very thing to which Dennis is still afraid to give a name.
“You’re impossible,” Robby said quietly. “Absolutely impossible. Come inside so I can patch you up. What happened to that famous healing factor of yours?”
Dennis snorts softly, dropping his gaze.
“It’s trying.”
“Not hard enough.”
Dennis still didn’t move. He shifted nervously like a guilty schoolboy, staring somewhere around Robby’s collar instead of meeting his eyes.
Then Robby stepped closer until barely any space remained between them.
Dennis could feel his breath now.
He noticed the flutter of Robby’s lashes as his gaze dropped briefly to the flowers before lifting back to Dennis’s face.
And suddenly Dennis saw something he hadn’t noticed before.
Robby looked tired too.
There were shadows beneath his eyes. Exhaustion in the corners of his mouth. Something wounded and unhealed buried deep inside him too.
Silence stretched between them.
Then Dennis slowly held out the bouquet.
“They’re for you.”
“They’re beautiful,” Robby said softly, stepping aside to let him in. “Come on. Shoulder first. Coffee after. And then, if you want, you can tell me about the robbery.”
Dennis stepped inside.
The door closed behind him.
And somewhere deep in both of them, something warm and heavy unfurled quietly in their chests—something neither of them was ready to name yet.