Chapter Text
Ramona was going to be on time for class. She wasn’t going to show up late and get detention again, or have to deal with her friends’ confusion but knowing looks as she tells them that she overslept for the third time in the last two weeks. She swore it to herself as she grabbed her backpack and swung it over her shoulder, heading for her front door.
And then her phone buzzed.
Five minutes later, she was crouched on a fire escape across the street from a bank, her backpack stashed under a dumpster, suited up as Spider-Woman. She watched as two men in ski masks came out of the side of the building into an alleyway, with a duffel bag and a weapon each, and far too much confidence to be going to all of this effort on a Thursday morning.
She sighed, stretching out her neck before swinging once over to the alleyway, landing in a crouch directly in front of the thieves. They each jumped in surprise, before steadying up as Spider-Woman stood.
“Guys come on, it’s barely 8am.”
One of the guys, slightly shorter than the other, quickly raised his arm, gun in hand, and pointed it right at Ramona’s masked face. He smiled at her, patronisingly.
“We’ve got places to be, sweetheart. How about you just move along and I won’t put this bullet in between your eyes,”
Ramona tilted her head, her eye lenses squinting to depict her expression under the mask.
“We’re on the same page, I like it, because I’ve got places to be too. First period to be exact,”
She didn’t give him any chance to react, flicking her wrist and catching his gun in her web, yanking it out of his hand and attaching it to the wall behind him.
“Hey, what the fuck!” He exclaimed, rushing at her. But Ramona was faster, and sidestepped him completely, kicking her foot out at the last second, causing the robber to clatter to the floor. She shot another web, sticking his body to the concrete.
“That’ll dissolve in two hours, but the cops will be here before then,”
That left the bigger guy, and it seemed as if his weapon of choice was a crowbar. He was big and burly, built like a man who knew how to throw a punch. She supposed the man webbed to the floor was probably the smooth talker, while this guy was his muscle.
He came at her wordlessly, his crowbar already swinging in a wide arc aimed at her head. Ramona ducked under it instinctively, feeling the wind of it pass close enough to stir her hair.
"Not a big talker, huh?" she asked, backing up a step as he reset his stance. "Love the strong silent thing. It’s very intimidating."
He came at her again, swinging lower this time, aiming for her torso, and this time she caught the crowbar mid-air with both hands, her feet skidding along the concrete from the force of it.
“Jeez, you need to put your workout routine online, dude,” Ramona quipped, only feeling slight disappointment when he offered no reactionary response.
Instead of trying to push back on the crowbar, Ramona simply let go of her hold on it. She stepped slightly out of the way as his momentum pushed him forward, grabbing his wrist and pulling it back with a twist, and adding a kick to the ribs that shoved him hard into the alley wall, the crowbar clattering out of his grip.
He was already turning back around when she fired a web at his ankles, pulling them together. He went down hard, face first, arms scrambling in an attempt to catch himself, but failing.
Ramona breathed heavily for a moment, about to turn away, when she saw that he was trying to get up once again. She sighed, webbing both of his hands to the ground before he could push himself any higher up, and then pinning the rest of his body down into the concrete too.
"Great talk," she told him, straightening up, rolling her shoulder. "I really enjoyed this, but I gotta go fellas."
She looked at them both once again, the bigger guy scowling at her over the webs, with the smaller one failing to wiggle out of her webbing as he muttered to himself. Then she turned her attention to their duffel bags, webbing them both up against the wall. She could hear the sirens nearby now, so she didn’t worry about hiding them anywhere safer.
She was three rooftops away with her backpack on by the time any cop car had even arrived at the scene.
She landed in a nearby alleyway by her high school, with her mask being stuffed into her backpack and her jumper being hastily shoved on over her spider suit, a ritual that she had gotten disturbingly used to over the past few months.
She made it through the door of first period exactly as the bell rang, her hair only slightly more of a disaster than usual, and both of her shoe laces still untied.
"Nearly didn't make it, babe," Oona said, not looking up from her notebook as Ramona dropped into the seat beside her.
“I made it,” Ramona responded, shrugging off her backpack.
There was a silence between them for a moment, before Ramona’s best friend turned to take her in for the first time since her arrival. She smirked as she raked her eyes down Ramona’s body, landing on her shoelaces, before returning back to her face. Ramona tried her best not to let her face flush.
“You look like a hot mess,” Oona told her sympathetically, before she reached out without asking, fixing the collar of Ramona’s jumper.
Ramona held very still as Oona’s fingers grazed her neck. Despite the moment only lasting a few seconds, she felt her breathing stop, not taking her eyes off of Oona’s that were focused entirely on the collar.
When Oona finally pulled away, after what felt like a lifetime, Ramona cleared her throat aggressively; an attempt at not simply replaying Oona’s touch in her head over and over again.
“My alarm didn’t go off,” She attempted to explain, hoping that her lie would stick.
Oona rolled her eyes, still smiling. She went to say something else, probably something teasing, but she didn’t get the chance, as their teacher began the class and the two of them fell silent. Ramona faced him, and made it a solid minute into class before she let herself think about Oona’s hand on collar once more.
When lunch rolled around, Ramona dropped into her usual seat in between Ellis and Oona at their typical table. Ellis offered a hey when she sat down, but Oona was in deep conversation with Sully, not paying Ramona much mind when she arrived.
“You need to convince your mom that I should be serving the food, and not stuck in the back chopping shit.”
“Once you stop trying to make out with all the married mothers, maybe she’ll change her mind, but until then…” Sully responded, but there was a glimmer of humour in his eyes as he spoke.
“Hey, I never initiate!” Oona argued. All of their eyes turned to her, knowingly. “Okay I occasionally initiate,”
“Why do you even care what you’re doing, you’re getting paid either way,” Ellis offered.
Immediately Oona turned her entire body to face him, almost aghast,
“baby, this is a front of house face. I’m a people person, Ellis, not a…fucking fruit chopping person. Ramona tell him that I’m a front of house face,”
"You're a front of house face," Ramona said, not even looking up as she took a bite out of her sandwich. "I'd trust that face to sell me anything."
"Thank you." Oona turned back to Ellis as if her point had been entirely proven. "See?"
"She'd say that no matter what," Ellis responded, entirely unbothered, "she's contractually obligated as your best friend.”
“The point remains,” Oona continued, stealing one of Ramona’s chips as she turned back to face Sully, “you tell your Mom: Me. Front of house. The sales will come rushing in,”
“You’ll flirt with every woman over forty and get us both fired,”
“Flirting is half the sale, Sully!”
“I give up, I’m not talking about this anymore,” Sully stated, then sighed, “but I’ll see what I can do,”
Oona beamed, stretching over to kiss him on the head.
“Thank you, I love you,”
Sully rolled his eyes half heartedly, smiling at the sign of affection. Ramona knew it well, just how good Oona’s affection felt despite all your efforts not to feel it.
“Speaking of people you love, Oona,” Sully continued, shifting the conversation, “did you guys see the video of Spider-Woman from last night? There was a guy racing down the streets and cutting into traffic, and there’s a video of her using her webs and strength to lik, physically hold the car back,”
“Oh my god, yes,” Oona said instantly. “I saw that this morning. The way she plants her feet and stops a moving car? With her hands? Do you understand how strong you have to be to do that?”
Ramona makes a point to stare directly at the table. She’d obviously heard people talk about Spider-Woman around her before, when a superhero suddenly appears in a spandex suit it becomes quite the talk of the town. But she was still not used to hearing her friends talk about her, totally unaware that the very Spider-Woman is sitting right next to them.
"I don't think she stopped it with just her hands," Ellis said mildly. "I think that's the whole point of the webs."
"Don't ruin this for me, Ellis, I'm having a moment."
Oona pulled out her phone, scrolling through her social media likes with such seriousness for a few moments, before flipping her phone around.
“Look at her arms, Ellis. Look at them and tell me that she has skipped arm day once in her life,”
Ramona swallowed almost audibly, playing with the food on her plate as she listened to Oona gush over her, her appetite suddenly gone. And to answer the question, Ramona had skipped arm day…a lot. It was simply that once the spider bit her, it seemed like everything about her body started to change, especially her muscles. It’s one of the main reasons she now stuck to wearing jumpers and jackets nowadays, despite always yearning to wear the tank tops that she used to wear every summer.
Oona continued, "Look at the stance. Look at the shoulders. Tell me that's not doing something for you."
"Nothing about this is doing anything for me," Ellis said, “she’s cool, and I’m grateful she’s around, but we have no idea what she looks like or if the suit has muscle padding added into it.”
Oona scoffed, “just because she’s not Annie-,”
“This isn’t about Annie,” Ellis cut her off, though his eyes were glimmering.
Ramona couldn’t help but laugh. One day she needed to finally convince her sister and Ellis to just make out in a closet or something.
"You're being quiet," Oona said, glancing over at Ramona. "Back me up. Objectively hot, yes or no. This is a factual matter, not an opinion."
"I haven’t really thought about it," Ramona responded with a shrug. She was not going to sit here and call herself in a spandex suit hot.
"That's insane, that's an insane thing to say, how do you not think about it, she's out here holding cars back with her bare hands. I just know she’s undeniably hot underneath that mask,”
Ramona, who was halfway through taking a sip of water, almost spat it out in front of everyone. Instead, she swallowed, coughing and spluttering as she did so.
“Jesus, babe, are you okay?” Oona checked, patting Ramona on the back.
“Wrong pipe,” Ramona tried to explain, and she hoped that her bright red blushing face could be explained away by that excuse too. Once she was finally able to breathe again, Ramona spoke.
“Thinking she’s…attractive in a suit, is very different to saying that automatically makes her hot beneath the mask,”
“It feels like you’re shaming me, Ramona,”
Ramona held up her hands in defence, “I’m not shaming you, I just-,”
“You have your judgemental face on,” Oona cut her off.
“I do not,”
“You absolutely do, it’s clear as day.”
Ramona dropped her head into her hands, mostly to hide behind them. "I don't have an opinion on Spider-Woman's face and level of attractiveness because I've never seen it. Nobody has. That's what makes it a mask."
Oona shrugged, stealing another of Ramona’s chips, “logistics problem. You guys just need some imagination,”
It didn’t take long for the conversation to shift onto another topic once more, leaving Ramona to sit there with her racing heart and the deeply unfair knowledge that Oona had just spent four straight minutes describing her body to her face and would never, ever know it. She told herself at that moment that she was never telling her. Ever. She would simply die with the information that Oona finds Ramona’s arms attractive, and knowing that she’ll never have to disappoint Oona if she were to find out who was actually hidden beneath the mask.
When it was finally time to go back to class, which Ramona had alone, Oona grabbed her by the wrist as she went to say her goodbyes.
“Hey, are we still on for Saturday?”
Ramona forced her eyes not to glance down at the hand holding her arm, and swallowed.
“Of course, why wouldn’t we be?”
Oona rolled her eyes with a smile, “because you’ve cancelled the previous two times we tried to arrange to hang out,”
The first time there was a fire at her local deli store, the second was a guy she put away a few weeks prior escaping from prison.
“I’ll be there.” She promised.
“Good,” Oona concluded, her smile brightening, before she moved her face closer to Ramona’s, and Ramona’s heart skipped a beat, “because I’ve really missed you, Ramona,”
Ramona forced a half smile, feeling every single muscle in her body tense at Oona’s face being so close.
“Yeah, I’ve missed you too,”
***
Ramona arrived at her and Annie’s apartment not too long after school had ended for the day. It had become a ritual for her recently to come home early and spend some time with Annie, before spending the later evening patrolling the city. When she arrived, Annie was sprawled out across the couch, watching what appeared to be Love Island on her laptop. When she saw Ramona, she paused the screen, and flopped over to look at her sister.
“Hey, good day?”
Ramona shrugged off her backpack, dropping it beside the couch as Annie adjusted her position to let Ramona lay down head to toe opposite her on the couch.
“Nothing special. You?”
Annie thought for a moment, before suddenly seeming to remember something.
“Oh my god, I almost forgot. I ran into Mrs Harris today,”
“What, the lady downstairs?” Ramona clarified.
“Yes, and she was all yappy and cornered me for like an entire lifetime, talking about this racoon that is always getting into her bins and how she thinks it’s some like super secret government watchdog on her because she smoked weed once fifteen years ago,” Annie explained, with the total seriousness of someone relaying breaking news, grabbing onto Ramona’s ankle and shaking it as she spoke.
Ramona laughed, “Did you tell her that she’s insane?”
"Absolutely not, are you kidding, I nodded along the whole time like I was taking notes. I told her I had to go though because she was about to start spiralling into how she thinks Spider-Woman is also a government agent,” she paused, “or an alien, she isn’t quite sure yet,”
“That’d be a real shocking turn of events,” Ramona responded dryly.
“Do you think she’s like…sticky all the time? Like just grabbing a glass and oops oh no, I’m stuck to this glass,”
“I think if that were true she’d have a lot of broken glasses around,” Ramona responded, not really feeling up for yet another questionnaire about her superhero identity for the day.
Annie hummed in response, letting go of Ramona’s ankle and stretching out her back– Ramona had to tap her foot away when it got too close to her face.
“Oh hey, that reminds me, do you wanna go to the mall on Saturday? I need to get a birthday present for Ellis,”
Ramona’s eyes widened, a large smile widening across her face.
“A present for Ellis, huh?” She teased.
“Shut up,” Annie rebutted, immediately grabbing a cushion and throwing it at Ramona’s head, missing almost entirely, “it’s a purely platonic present,”
“Uh huh, and what exactly are you planning on getting him as a purely platonic present?”
"I don't know, that's why I need to go to the mall, that's the whole point of the trip." Annie was very deliberately not making eye contact now, picking at a loose thread on the couch cushion. "Maybe something to do with like…canoes…or boats,”
Ramona laughed harshly, “canoes or boats,”
“I don’t know Ramona!” Annie exclaimed, yet remained smiling, “this is why I need your help. So are you coming or not?”
Ramona hesitated, actually considering it for a second, before remembering the conversation she had at lunch, and the second she did, something in her face shifted without her meaning it to, a small smile creeping in.
"I can't, actually. I've got plans Saturday."
Annie’s eyebrows furrowed, "With who?"
“Why does your face look so surprised that I have plans?”
“Stop deflecting and answer the question Ramona,” Annie continued, but by the look on her face, Ramona knew that Annie already knew the name she was about to say.
"I have plans with…Oona,”
Annie brightened, sitting further up right, “your eyes just glimmered as you said that,”
“They did not glimmer,”
“They totally did. So what? Is this like…a date with Oona?”
Ramona scoffed, “obviously not,”
“Hey! Don’t say obviously like that, why would it ever be obvious?”
“Because Oona doesn’t see me like that, we’ve been over this already,”
“I don’t know Ramona. You’re hot, she already loves you, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her not smiling ear to ear when you’re around. I’m just saying, you should like…shoot your shot,”
Ramona physically cringed, “please never say that again,”
“Fine,” Annie responded with a huff of air, “if you want to keep the slow burn thing going, go right ahead,”
Ramona didn’t know how to respond to that, so she simply didn’t, poking at a loose thread on her sleeve.
“Anyway,” Annie said eventually, undeterred by Ramona’s silence, “one day you’ll both see the truth and I'm gonna throw the biggest 'I told you so' party New York City has ever seen. Streamers. A cake. The whole thing,”
“Fine, deal, you can have a party if that ever happens…because it won’t,”
Ramona regretted the sentence as soon as it was out of her mouth, because for a second, she didn’t think she had ever seen Annie happier.
“Oh my god, I am holding you to that Ramona.” She paused, turning deadly serious, “I better pick out the theme and the cake flavour,”
“Okay Jesus, Annie.” Ramona looked at the clock on the wall, then glanced outside onto the New York City skyline, “you know what, I can’t deal with this anymore. I’m gonna head out for a bit, get some air,”
She stood, stretching out her back as she did so. Annie reached out for her laptop, and brought it back to her lap.
“Don't stay out too late, you've got school tomorrow.”
“Okay, Mom,”
"I'm just saying! I'm not in high school anymore. That makes me a responsible older sister now, this is a whole new era for me."
“I’m leaving now,” Ramona stated as she headed to the door, not giving into Annie’s dramatics.
“Say hi to the raccoon if you see him. Tell him Mrs. Harris is onto him."
"Will do," Ramona replied, shutting the door behind her, leaving Annie fully absorbed in her show with absolutely no idea what her sister was actually about to go do.
***
Ramona had only been on patrol for around twenty minutes as Spider-Woman, just doing a slow loop of her usual route, rooftop to rooftop, mostly enjoying the quiet of it, before she heard the sound of what appeared to be a struggle in an alleyway nearby. Without thinking, she leaped to the closest rooftop, and peered down between the buildings to hear what the fuss was about. Looking down below, she saw a man with a bag in their hand rustling through it, and another figure, a woman, shoved against a wall.
Without thinking, Ramona dropped down into the alleyway, landing silently a short distance away. She watched the scene a bit closer, unable to make out any real features or true threats.
That’s when she heard the woman speak.
"-already told you, there's nothing in there worth–"
Ramona’s senses ran cold. She knew that voice anywhere. It’s not that often that people from New York have such a strong London accent.
Oona.
Instinctively, Ramona spoke, walking out from the shadows.
"Hey," she said, "I'm gonna need you to get your hands off her."
The guy spun toward her at the sound of her voice, eyes widening as he saw Spider-Woman in front of him. But Ramona didn’t wait for his shock to wear off. She closed the gap in quick strides, grabbed the wrist holding Oona’s bag and yanked it hard. The bag clattered to the ground.
His surprise wearing off, the man swung wide with his other fist, which Ramona dodged without much of a fuss, before she drove a palm into his chest, and sent him stumbling into a stack of trash cans.
He came up fast though, hand dipping toward his jacket, and she caught the flash of a blade catching the light.
She closed the distance before he could draw it fully, slamming his wrist against the wall until the knife clattered free and kicking it well out of reach.
"That's a mistake," she said, cold now, and kneed him hard in the ribs. He stumbled over with a groan, and for good measure, Ramona shoved him hard into the brick wall, watching him fall unconscious.
Only then did she let herself turn and look at Oona.
Oona stood there, jaw wide open, with a look entirely of awe and admiration.
"Hey," Ramona said, voice softer than she intended as she crossed the alley toward her friend. "You okay?"
Oona blinked at her for a few moments, before seeming to find her words.
“Uh yeah, yeah I think so.” A short, disbelieving laugh escaped her. "It’s kinda crazy that…you're actually real. I mean, obviously you're real, I've seen the videos, but you're — you're here. In an alley. Saving me. This is genuinely insane."
It took Ramona a second to remember that all Oona saw in front of her was a superpowered vigilante, not the best friend she spent her day with at school. She cleared her throat, realising that she couldn’t let Oona recognise her real voice.
“I have a fan, I see,” she tried, immediately ashamed at how god-awful her attempt at a not-Ramona-sounding-voice came out.
Oona's eyebrows shot up.
"Was that– are you doing a voice?"
Under the mask, Ramona’s brows furrowed.
"No."
"You're doing a voice. That was an entirely different voice than the one from thirty seconds ago." Oona tilted her head, delighted despite everything. "Do it again. I want to hear it again."
"I'm not doing a voice."
"You're doing it right now, actually, that's a third voice–"
"This is my regular voice."
"Uh huh."
“You’re very confident for someone who almost got mugged,” Ramona pointed out. Oona shrugged, pushing off from the wall.
“I got saved, didn’t I? Which,” she paused, “was very efficient, might I add. Very smooth.”
Oona’s eyes twinkled slightly, and Ramona almost felt physically sick, as her stomach seemed to do about a hundred somersaults at once. She tried to remind herself that Oona had no idea who she was talking to. That was the whole point of the mask. It gave her nothing to lose. That thought made something inside of her loosen ever so slightly.
“Smooth and efficient, noted. Maybe I should make a review page, all the people I save can give me a star rating,”
Oona crossed her arms, grinning, entirely unbothered by how close she'd just come to actual danger.
"That knife thing, especially. Very smooth. Very James Bond. Ten out of ten, would get mugged again."
"Please don't."
"No promises." Oona's eyes did a slow, unhurried pass over her, no attempt at subtlety whatsoever, and Ramona who was usually the one flushing, deflecting, tripping over her own tongue around her, found herself standing a little straighter instead, arms crossed. Oona was looking at Spider-Woman, not at Ramona.
After a long beat of silence, Ramona finally spoke once more.
“Well, I better get back to the patrol, in case anyone else needs a spider’s help,”
Immediately, once again, she cringed at herself, but she felt slightly better at Oona’s response of laughter.
“Alright Spidey,” she replied, “thanks for the rescue,”
Ramona stared at Oona for a few moments longer, unable to tear herself away from this moment where it felt like Oona wanted her, and where she could almost outwardly want Oona. Still, she managed to pull herself away, wordlessly swinging herself back to the rooftops.
She knew it was irresponsible for a superhero of New York as a whole to do so, but Ramona didn’t head back to her usual route for the rest of the night. Instead, she just slowly followed Oona home from the rooftops, making sure she got there safely.
***
Ramona didn't get back home until past midnight, climbing through her bedroom window like she’d done a hundred times before. She hadn't even peeled the mask off yet. She was still thinking about the alley. About Oona.
"Ramona? That you?"
Annie's voice, muffled, from down the hall. Closer than expected.
"Yeah," Ramona called back, already reaching up to yank the mask free.
"When did you get in? I didn't hear the door—"
The handle to Ramona’s bedroom turned without warning.
There was no time. Not even a second to think, nevermind act, when the door swung open and Annie was just there, phone still in hand, mouth already open mid-sentence.
And then her eyes landed on Ramona standing in the middle of her room in a full, unmistakable Spider-Woman suit, mask crumpled in one fist.
Annie froze. The phone slipped from her hand and hit the carpet with a dull thud neither of them acknowledged.
Neither of them moved. The room went completely silent, the only sound Ramona could hear was her own pulse roaring in her ears.
"...Ramona," Annie said, very slowly, eyes darting from the suit to the mask to Ramona's frozen face, "what the fuck is going on?”