Chapter Text
Ilya is halfway through grading a paper on the fall of the Soviet Union when Shane texts to say he is going to be late. Again.
He stares at the message for a moment, then puts his phone beside the laptop.
It is not a big deal. Shane works in research, and Ilya has gotten used to the fact that his workday does not always end when it is supposed to. Sometimes an experiment takes longer than expected or a machine decides to stop cooperating, and sometimes Shane gets stuck fixing something somebody else should have done correctly the first time.
At least, that is what Shane tells him, and Ilya has never had much reason to question it. He types back that he will try not to eat everything before Shane gets there, which is a lie because Ilya ordered far too much food in the first place. Shane likes to blame this on Ilya having no understanding of portion sizes. Ilya maintains that Shane simply eats enough for two people and has made Ilya adjust accordingly.
Shane: Please save me some tuna sashimi.
Shane: I love you!
Shane: In that order
Ilya smiles and goes back to the paper. He manages another page before deciding the student has suffered enough for one evening. It is nearly eight anyway and he has limits to how much bad citation he should have to endure before dinner.
Shane arrives not long after that. “Sorry,” he says as soon as he comes through the door. “I know. I know.”
Ilya is already getting the food out again. “I don't think that's gonna make you less late.”
“No, but I thought it might help.”
It does, a little.
Shane kisses him on the cheek as he passes, then puts his bag down near the door. His glasses are slipping down his nose and Ilya reaches over to push them back up, Shane smiles.
Over time, Ilya has picked up a collection of small habits where Shane is concerned. He pushes Shane’s glasses back up when they start slipping down his nose, plugs in his phone whenever he finds it dying beside the couch and keeps tofu in the fridge because Shane will put it in almost anything. Ilya, please get the firm one. Not the soft one.
It is only when they settle onto the couch that Ilya gets a proper look at him. Shane is tired and he has been tired a lot lately, actually, coming over with shadows under his eyes and falling asleep halfway through shows he had been the one to suggest they watch. Ilya knows work has been busy but this is the second dinner this week Shane has nearly missed because something kept him at the lab. “Work’s particularly bad today, huh?” Ilya asks, nudging the box of sushi toward him.
Shane is already reaching for one. “Not really. We had to rerun something and then one of the machines had to be rebooted.” He pushes his glasses higher with the back of his wrist before opening the sauce. “Mostly it was just a long day, I’m sorry I made you wait.”
“It’s okay.” Ilya smiles and steals a piece of sushi from Shane’s container. “But honestly, I was very close to eating your share.”
“You would never!”
“Maybe next time you’ll come home earlier and you won’t have to find out.”
Shane laughs around his first bite and Ilya finds it difficult to stay annoyed when he is sitting this close. He had been perfectly prepared to make Shane suffer for keeping him waiting but now that Shane is here, eating his food and leaning into Ilya every so often, the evening already feels warmer than it did an hour ago.
It is an embarrassing thing to admit, even to himself.
He used to be very good at being alone. He still is, technically. He has work, friends, books stacked beside his bed that he keeps saying he will get through, and several students who seem determined to make sure there is always an email waiting for him. His evenings were full before Shane started filling them too, slipping into his life so quietly that Ilya did not realize how used to having him around he had become until there started being nights when Shane was supposed to be there and wasn’t.
Now Shane is late twice in one week and Ilya catches himself listening for the door. Embarrassing, really.
“Did you eat lunch?” Ilya asks after noticing how quickly Shane is working through the food.
Shane’s hand slows on its way toward a piece of karaage.
“We have talked about this, Shane.”
“I know.” Shane takes the karaage anyway, buying himself a little more time by chewing before he adds, “I’m trying to get better about it, I had a protein bar earlier.”
Ilya puts his chopsticks down. “I don’t think that counts as lunch.”
“I was busy.”
“You are always busy lately.”
He does not mean for it to sound quite so pointed. Shane seems to hear it anyway, because he stops reaching for the food and gives Ilya a small, tired smile.
“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
Ilya does not want another apology but Shane has been giving him a lot of those too. He reaches over instead and takes the karaage Shane had been reaching for, dropping it onto Shane’s plate. “Eat.”
Shane bumps his knee against Ilya’s and leaves it there while he goes back to eating. Shane is beside him and warm against his leg, telling Ilya about something stupid one of his coworkers did in the lab while he steals from Ilya’s sauce like he had not spent the better part of the evening apologizing for being late.
And, annoyingly, this is all Ilya had wanted. He had missed him. He always does, more than he means to. The television is on mostly for background noise while they eat, neither of them following whatever is happening on screen. Shane asks what Ilya had been grading before he arrived and Ilya tells him about the student who cited Wikipedia three times in the same paper.
That earns him a laugh. “Better than finding out they used AI, I guess.”
Ilya makes a face. “Ugh. Don’t remind me.”
Shane smiles into his food and then starts telling Ilya about someone at the lab who keeps changing the music whenever nobody is paying attention, and Ilya lets him talk. Shane looks a little better now that he has eaten, some of the tiredness easing from his face so Ilya decides not to ask about work again tonight. Whatever has been keeping him there so late can wait.
Then Shane reaches for his drink and winces. It is quick, barely more than a brief pull at the corner of his mouth, but Ilya notices. “What happened to your shoulder?”
Shane’s hand stills around the glass, “Nothing, it’s just a little sore.” He rolls the shoulder carefully, then seems to think better of it. “I must’ve slept on it weird.”
Ilya studies him for a moment. Shane sleeps in positions that should probably require medical supervision, so it is not impossible but there is something about the way he said it that bothers Ilya.
Shane notices him watching and gives him a tired little smile. “I’m fine, don’t worry about it.”
Ilya almost asks again but Shane has already gone back to eating, his shoulder tucked a little closer to his side now. So Ilya lets it go.
Shane has always been like this with small injuries, walking around with bruises he cannot remember getting or cuts he only notices when someone else points them out. Once, he showed up at Ilya’s with a scrape across his palm and spent an absurd amount of time trying to work out whether he had done it in the lab or while opening a package. Rose says he was no better as a teenager; she told him once that he broke a finger and carried on as usual until she noticed how swollen it had gotten. Ilya can believe that without much trouble, which is mostly why he lets the shoulder go.
After dinner, they put on a movie Shane has been insisting they watch for weeks. He falls asleep before the main characters are even properly introduced. Ilya leaves him there and keeps watching, though the movie turns out to be much less entertaining without Shane talking through half of it. At some point Shane shifts closer in his sleep until his head settles against Ilya’s shoulder, one hand resting loosely over Ilya’s thigh, and Ilya lowers the volume instead of waking him.
Shane’s phone lights up on the coffee table.
Rose: Shane
Rose: You alive?
Another message appears.
Rose: Answer me pls
He nudges Shane lightly with his knee. “Your wife is looking for you.”
Shane wakes with a confused little sound, blinking at Ilya before reaching for the phone. “Rose?”
“Who else?”
That gets the beginning of a smile but it disappears once Shane reads the messages. He sits up straighter and types something back, suddenly much more awake than he had been a few seconds ago.
Ilya watches him for a moment. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, she just—” Shane stops when another message comes through, reading it before he finishes. “She needs help with something.”
“At this hour?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.” Shane is already pulling himself off the couch, which answers the question Ilya had not asked yet. “This shouldn’t take long.”
Disappointment settles heavily in Ilya’s chest. He had been hoping for more of Shane tonight, especially after how little of the evening they have actually spent together, but none of that is Rose’s fault. If she really needs him, Ilya is not going to make Shane feel guilty for going.
Still, he had thought Shane was staying over tonight. “You’re leaving?”
Shane pauses with his phone still in his hand and his face softens. “Just for a little while, I’ll be back.”
“Okay, if you say so.”
Shane moves closer again and rests a hand on Ilya’s knee, thumb brushing once over the fabric of his pants. “I’m really sorry.”
Ilya exhales through his nose. He could make this into an argument and part of him wants to, if he’s being honest. Shane has been late several times lately and now he is leaving again after barely being here but Rose is Shane’s oldest friend so he says, “It’s fine, go.”
Shane leans down and kisses him. “I’ll be back.”
“You said that last time too.” Ilya regrets saying it almost immediately not because it is untrue but Shane had promised the same thing a few nights ago and never made it back, only sending a message much later to say he was sorry. Ilya had already been asleep when it came through.
Shane’s face falls a little now, “I know,” he says quietly. “I’m really, really sorry, Ilya.”
Ilya sighs and reaches for the front of Shane’s coat, pulling him closer instead of letting him stand there looking guilty. He is still disappointed but he does not want Shane leaving with that expression on his face either. “Go help Rose.”
“You sure?”
“No.” Ilya smooths down the collar he had just wrinkled. “But go anyway.”
That gets a small smile out of him. Shane leans down and kisses him, lingering for a moment before pulling away. “I love you.”
“I love you. Text me.”
“I will.”
Ilya watches him grab his bag and head for the door and then he is gone again. The movie keeps playing after the lock clicks shut, bright and loud in an apartment that suddenly feels much emptier now that it’s just him in it. Ilya stays on the couch for a while, still warm where Shane’s leg had been pressed against his.
He tells himself not to make a thing out of this.
Shane has been busy and Rose needed him tonight. Neither of those things is unreasonable and Ilya knows better than to start counting every late dinner and changed plans as proof that something is wrong. People get busy and plans fall apart and sometimes a boyfriend says he will come back and does not. It happens.
Still, when Ilya finally goes to bed, he does not lock the chain on the door. Just in case Shane comes back.
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Shane does not come back. Ilya wakes sometime in the night and reaches across the bed before he is properly awake, finding cold sheets instead of Shane. When he checks his phone the only thing waiting for him is a message sent hours earlier.
Shane: Rose thing got complicated. I’m sorry, baby.
Shane: Didn’t want to wake you by coming back so late so I went back to mine tonight.
Shane: Sleep well ❤️
Ilya reads it twice, mostly because he is still half asleep, then drops the phone onto Shane’s pillow.
Fine.
Ilya understands the reasoning perfectly well, which does absolutely nothing to make him less irritated about waking up alone. He pulls Shane’s pillow under his head anyway and goes back to sleep.
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Ilya: Did you at least get some sleep?
The reply comes while Ilya is standing at the front of his lecture hall waiting for his students to remember that class has, in fact, started.
Shane: Define sleep.
Ilya closes his eyes.
Ilya: SHANE
Shane: I slept, I promise.
Shane: Dinner tonight? I’ll make it up to you.
Ilya: This feels like déjà vu.
Shane: :(
Shane: Mean but I deserved that.
Shane: Please? Let me make it up to you.
Ilya: 7
Shane: I’ll be there!
Ilya slips his phone into his pocket as the last few students hurry inside.
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He tells himself he is not going to check the time tonight but he ends up checking it at around ten minutes past seven. Shane arrives at 7:18 with takeout and a bottle of wine. “I said seven,” Shane says when Ilya opens the door, holding up the food as if presenting evidence in his own defense. “Eighteen minutes is basically on time for me now.”
Ilya steps aside to let him in. “Did you bring wine because you're guilty?"
“I brought wine because I love you.”
“You can be guilty and love me at the same time.”
“See, this is why I date a professor. You’re very sharp.”
Shane kisses him before Ilya can answer, smiling against his mouth when Ilya catches the front of his shirt and keeps him there.
They eat at Ilya’s kitchen table this time, mostly because his papers have finally been moved somewhere other than every available surface. Shane tells him about a presentation one of the junior researchers gave that morning and does a surprisingly good impression of his supervisor trying not to interrupt. Ilya tells him about a student who asked whether an exam question would include anything they had discussed in class.
“What did you say?”
“I stared at him until he answered his own question.”
Shane laughs into his wine. “You scare them.”
“Eh, they like me.”
“They should, you’re scary but you’re a brilliant professor.” Shane reaches across the table and steals a piece of food from Ilya’s plate, “They’re lucky to have you.”
A faint flush spreads across Ilya’s cheeks, which he will conveniently blame on the wine if Shane points it out. “Is this you trying to make up for yesterday?”
“No, I’m stating a fact.” Shane smiles, then tips his head a little. “But if it gets me some extra boyfriend points, I’m not going to turn them down.”
Ilya shakes his head and reaches over to flick Shane lightly on the arm, even as the smile he is trying to hold back starts giving him away. He is a weak, weak man whenever Shane Hollander turns on the charm like this.
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They end up in bed later with Shane stretched across most of the mattress while Ilya is answering one last email on his phone when Shane reaches over and plucks it from his hand.
“No more work, Prof.”
“You are one to talk.”
Shane drops the phone onto the nightstand on his side, well out of Ilya’s reach, then settles back against the pillows with a contented hum and closes his eyes. Ilya considers climbing over him to get it, he could and it might even be worth doing purely on principle.
Instead, he notices Shane’s glasses beside the phone and decides to pick them up.
Shane has worn glasses for as long as Ilya has known him. They are such a familiar part of his face that Ilya sometimes forgets they are there until Shane takes them off and suddenly looks younger. He is always pushing them up while he works, leaving them on top of his head and forgetting where he put them, or taking them off during sex and immediately complaining afterward because he cannot find them.
Ilya slips them on and the room looks exactly the same. He blinks, takes them off and tries again.
“Shane?”
“Hmm?”
“Are these not prescription glasses?”
Shane opens his eyes before shifting his attention slowly to Ilya, “No, they're not.” He reaches over and takes the glasses from him, turning them around once in his hand. “I used to need them but I got my eyes fixed a few years back.”
“But why do you still wear them every day?”
“I like them.”
Ilya raises an eyebrow.
“What?” Shane puts them on again. “They look good.”
That, unfortunately, is true.
Ilya laughs and reaches over to straighten the frames where Shane has put them on crooked. It is strange but not strange enough to matter, people do things for appearance all the time. Ilya owns shoes that hurt his feet and has continued wearing them because they look good. Shane likes his glasses, that is hardly a crime. So Ilya lets it go.
Shane catches his wrist as he puts the glasses back on the nightstand and presses a kiss into his palm before slowly moving to straddle him. Whatever Ilya might have said next gets lost somewhere between Shane’s mouth and the way his hands roam under Ilya’s shirt.
The glasses end up forgotten on the nightstand. Or, mostly forgotten.
Later, with Shane asleep beside him, Ilya finds himself thinking about the conversation again. Not the glasses themselves, really. Shane’s explanation makes sense but it is the brief pause before Shane answered that kind of nags at him.
Ilya watches the slow rise and fall of Shane’s chest for a while, the way his mouth has fallen slightly open in sleep and one hand is curled loosely near Ilya’s pillow. He looks completely relaxed now, nothing guarded in his face and Ilya feels a little ridiculous for picking apart a pause that probably meant nothing.
He shifts closer and presses a kiss to Shane’s forehead who makes a soft sound and moves toward him on instinct, tucking himself against Ilya until his face is warm against Ilya’s neck. He wraps an arm around Shane and closes his eyes.
He is probably reading too much into it. Still, the thought stays with him until sleep takes him under.
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At some point, Spider-Man became just another part of living in New York and Ilya cannot remember when the sight of him stopped feeling ridiculous.
Maybe sometime after the third giant thing crawled out of the East River and everyone in his department carried on with their afternoon as if there were not a twenty-foot something creature throwing taxis and uprooting trees three neighborhoods away. One of his students even asked if class was still continuing while sirens screamed outside the building. (It was, Ilya had already prepared the lecture.)
Spider-Man is on the news often enough that Ilya barely reacts when another clip of him comes on, whether he is stopping a robbery, fighting some creature in the middle of traffic or getting caught on someone’s phone while doing something dumb between rescues.
Ilya has seen all of it.
There was a video last winter of him hanging upside down from a streetlight while helping an old woman untangle the strap of her shopping bag. She had spent most of it telling him he was too skinny and should eat more, Spider-Man had politely agreed while still upside down.
Another time, someone filmed him walking a little girl through a crowd after she lost her father near Times Square. Spider-Man crouched beside her until they were nearly the same height and stayed there talking to her until the girl stopped crying, he disappeared as soon as her father came running over.
Ilya remembers that one.
He also remembers the footage of Spider-Man being thrown through the front window of a pharmacy a few months ago and climbing back out seconds later like that was a reasonable thing for somebody to survive. Well, Ilya supposes that is just another day in the life of an arachnid-human hybrid.
And that is generally where Ilya’s opinion becomes complicated, Spider-Man seems like a good person but Spider-Man also seems completely insane. The city argues about him constantly. There are people who think he should be arrested, people who would probably elect him mayor tomorrow if he showed his face and people who have built entire social media accounts around guessing what kind of underwear he wears under his suit.
Ilya prefers not to think about the last one.
Mostly, Spider-Man exists somewhere above him. Ilya will hear people shout and glance up in time to see a glimpse of red and blue disappear between the buildings or find the remains of a web stuck to a lamppost on his walk home.
Once, he spotted Spider-Man sitting on the edge of a roof with his mask pushed up just past his mouth, drinking a can of ginger ale while traffic crawled below him. Ilya had found that oddly charming, although that might have been because Shane has the same ridiculous devotion to the drink.
He has seen Spider-Man around the city plenty of times but always from a distance, never close enough to watch him work or have the man notice him in return.
Until Thursday.
Ilya is leaving campus when a scream carries over from somewhere across the street. He slows and glances toward it, along with half the people around him, just in time to see something slam into the side of a parked car hard enough to set off the alarm.
And suddenly Ilya is staring at a creature hauling itself up from the road, grey scales running over its back and shoulders, its long arms ending in clawed hands that scrape against the pavement as it rises. It braces itself against the car beside it, grabs the door and tears the whole thing off with a horrible screech of metal.
“Oh, fuck this,” somebody says behind him. Ilya cannot argue with that.
People start moving quickly after that, rushing toward the corner and ducking into whatever storefronts are closest. Ilya turns with them, keeping his books pressed against his chest as the crowd pushes forward. Living in New York has taught him many things and one of them is that when something with claws starts throwing pieces of a car around, it is usually best not to stick around and see what happens next.
He is nearly at the corner when the creature roars behind him. Ilya glances back despite knowing better and sees it rip a parking meter out of the pavement then it throws it directly toward him.
Ilya finds himself rooted to the spot, eyes widening as he stares straight at a parking meter that is very much not supposed to be flying through the air and is very definitely about to take him out.
A web shoots across the street before he can move, catching the parking meter midair and yanking it sharply off course. It crashes onto the pavement several feet away, and Spider-Man drops down between Ilya and the scaly creature.
Seeing him this close is different from watching shaky videos online or catching a glimpse of him swinging overhead. Ilya can see the scuffs along the red and blue suit now, the dirt ground into one knee and a tear near his ribs that exposes a thin strip of skin underneath.
“Okay,” Spider-Man says, breathing a little harder and flexing his fingers. “It’s probably best that you go now.”
Ilya is fully prepared to agree with him when the creature rakes its claws across the hood of another car and turns toward them. Spider-Man moves with it, keeping himself planted between Ilya and the street as he gestures toward the corner.
“Keep going, Professor! Get somewhere safe!”
Ilya takes one step before the word registers. “H-How do you know I’m a professor?”
Spider-Man’s head snaps toward him, then tips slightly to one side as if to convey, Really? You want to do this right now?
The creature chooses that moment to charge. Spider-Man fires a web around its wrist and throws his weight backward, dragging one long arm away from the car it had been reaching for. “Hey! No, we’re done throwing those,” he calls as the creature snarls and yanks against the web hard enough to pull him forward several feet.
Then, much less convincingly, he adds, “Lucky guess..? It’s the coat.”
“The coat?”
“Ilya—” Spider-Man cuts himself off so quickly that Ilya almost thinks he imagined it. “Sir, please. Get moving!”
The creature tears free and swings one clawed hand at him. Spider-Man ducks beneath it, shoots another web into its chest and uses the line to pull himself feet-first into the creature hard enough to send both of them crashing against the side of a parked car.
That finally gets Ilya moving. He makes it around the corner with the rest of the crowd and slips into a coffee shop where several people have already taken shelter, though nearly all of them are pressed close to the front windows trying to watch what is happening outside. In hindsight, gathering beside several large panes of glass during a monster attack is probably not their brightest collective decision but Ilya stays with them anyway.
From there, he watches Spider-Man fight.
It is considerably less graceful than it looks on television. The swinging and webs are still there but so is the part the news clips never seem to hold on for very long: Spider-Man getting hit. The creature catches him across the chest and sends him crashing into a bus shelter hard enough that it buckles part of the frame. He comes out of it favoring one leg, shakes it off after a few uneven steps and goes straight back in.
The creature turns toward the coffee shop once, drawn by the people gathered behind the glass and Spider-Man immediately throws himself into its path. He webs one arm to a streetlight, takes a claw across the shoulder for the trouble and keeps pulling until the creature turns back to him. Every time the creature turns toward the people watching, Spider-Man pulls its attention away.
Eventually, the police arrive. Followed by a larger vehicle Ilya assumes belongs to whichever city department gets called when the offender has scales and claws. Spider-Man finally gets the creature pinned against the side of a building under layers of webbing, stays long enough to speak with one of the officers, then shoots a line toward the roof above and disappears before the crowd can properly react. Ilya checks the time once the street starts to clear and realizes that his train is long gone by now.
He stands on the platform afterward thinking about Spider-Man’s torn suit and the way he had put himself between a flying car and a crowd of strangers without hesitating. Then, he thinks about the coat comment. His phone buzzes before the next train arrives.
Shane: Ilya
Shane: Ilya
Shane: Ilya Rozanov
Shane: I saw the alert near campus
Shane: Where are you?
Shane: Are you okay?
Ilya smiles as he types his reply.
Ilya: I’m fine.
Ilya: Slightly insulted, but fine.
The typing bubble appears almost immediately.
Shane: Insulted? How?
Ilya: I may have met Spider-Man?
Shane: ???
Shane: WHAT
Shane: What?
Ilya laughs quietly.
Ilya: He stopped a flying parking meter from hitting me straight in the face and before you start panicking, I’m not hurt.
There is a pause before Shane replies.
Shane: Oh. Okay.
Shane: Jesus
Shane: WTF
Shane: Are you sure you're not hurt? Like you’re actually sure?
Ilya: Yes, Shane. I am sure.
Shane: Okay good.
Shane: That’s good.
Ilya can practically see him worrying through the screen.
Ilya: He did call my coat a “professor coat,” though.
This time the reply takes longer.
Shane: Wow, Spider-Man's a funny guy, huh?
Ilya: You think?
Ilya: It seems I dress so much like a professor that even masked strangers can tell while fighting a monster.
Shane: Or maybe he has excellent instincts?
Ilya: I think I liked him better before he spoke.
Shane: Hey now, that's our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
Shane: But seriously maybe stay far away from him next time.
Ilya’s smile fades a little.
Ilya: I was planning to stay far away from any weird ass looking creature, yes.
Shane: You know what I mean.
Shane: If Spider-Man is there then whatever he’s dealing with is probably dangerous.
Shane: Just be careful, okay?
That sounds more like Shane. The joke is gone now, replaced with the familiar tinge of worry that always creeps into his messages whenever Ilya is anywhere near trouble.
Ilya: I will. Promise.
Shane: Thank you.
Shane: Want me to come over tonight?
Ilya glances down the tunnel as the train begins to pull into the station.
Ilya: Will it make a difference if I say no?
Shane: No. I'll see you tonight, keep out of trouble!
Shane: I love you.
Ilya: See you, sweetheart. I love you.
Ilya puts his phone away and gets on the train. He does not think much about Spider-Man after that, at least not beyond wondering what exactly qualifies as a professor coat. And perhaps, once or twice, wondering why Spider-Man’s voice had sounded strangely familiar.
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Shane arrives that evening carrying food and a six-pack of ginger ale but he barely makes it through the door before giving Ilya a quick once-over, as if the texts saying he was perfectly fine had not been convincing enough.
“I told you, I’m fine,” Ilya says, letting Shane kiss him before taking the drinks from his hands.
“I know. I just wanted to see for myself.” Shane follows him inside with the food and sets the bag on the table. “You nearly got taken out by a flying parking meter today, I think I’m allowed to worry a little.”
“Well, we have Spider-Man to thank for me living another day.”
Shane goes quiet as he starts unpacking the containers, his mouth pressing briefly into a line. “Yeah,” he says after a moment. “Good thing he was there.”
Shane is opening one of the ginger ales when Ilya notices the way he shifts his weight.
“Did you hurt your leg or something?"
Shane pauses with the tab halfway open. “Huh? Oh, I probably pulled a muscle during my run this morning.”
Ilya watches him cross the kitchen and the limp is barely there now that Shane knows he has noticed it. Maybe it really is from running. Shane has come over sore after a longer route before, complaining about his calves at the time. Still, Ilya thinks of Spider-Man stepping out of the wrecked bus shelter earlier, favoring the same leg before charging straight back at the creature. The thought arrives so quickly that he almost laughs at himself. There is no way. That would be absurd. Totally crazy.
Later, they end up on the couch with the news playing while Shane finishes the last of the food. The monster attack is already one of the top stories, complete with footage from several angles that Ilya had not realized anyone was filming while they were all trying not to die. One clip shows Spider-Man getting thrown through the bus shelter.
Ilya glances at him. “Jesus, that must have hurt.”
“Oh yeah. Probably.” Shane says as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He takes another bite and keeps his attention on the television. “I mean, he’s Spider-Man. So, maybe it hurts less?”
The footage changes to the creature pinned against the building, then to an interview with someone who had been trapped inside one of the stores. Ilya listens until he feels Shane’s fingers brush against his hand.
“You scared me today,” Shane says quietly.
The words take Ilya off guard. Shane is still watching the television but his hand has settled over Ilya’s now, his thumb moving slowly across his knuckles.
“I’m okay, sweetheart.”
“I know.” Shane gives his hand a small squeeze, though he still looks unsettled. “I saw where it was happening and knew you’d probably be leaving campus around then. It’s scary knowing you might be in harm’s way.”
Ilya turns his hand beneath Shane’s and threads their fingers together. He can imagine what that must have felt like, seeing the alert before Ilya had a chance to tell him he was safe.
“But I am,” he says softly. “And I got lucky, Spider-Man was there.”
Shane’s eyes flick toward him before returning to the television. “Yeah. I’m really glad he was.”
Ilya is too. He keeps thinking about the parking meter being pulled away from him at the last second, and later, from the coffee shop, watching Spider-Man step between the creature and anyone it tried to go after no matter how many times he got knocked down himself.
“He was good,” Ilya says after a moment. “A little strange, but good.”
Shane leans over and kisses his temple, smiling against his skin. “I’m glad you’re home safe, Prof. Rozanov.”
Ilya elbows him lightly in the ribs, expecting the usual complaint but Shane jerks away with a sharp inhale instead. “Shit, sorry.” Ilya sits up and reaches for him, “Did I hurt you?”
“No, no, you’re fine.” Shane catches his hand before Ilya can tug up his shirt. “I bumped into something at work earlier, it’s just a little bruised.”
The tear along Spider-Man’s ribs flashes through his mind, followed almost immediately by the limp he had noticed earlier. For one ridiculous moment, his brain puts the two of them together and Ilya nearly laughs at himself for it. Of course. Shane Hollander, who spends his days in a research lab, had apparently slipped out that afternoon to throw himself at a giant reptile between experiments.
He really needs to stop thinking about Spider-Man.
“Your lab is trying to kill you,” he says instead, settling back against the couch.
Shane laughs, though there is something slightly nervous in it. “You have no idea.”
Ilya smiles and lets the comment pass, already turning his attention back to the television.
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A few days later, Ilya wakes with the date sitting heavily in the back of his mind.
Irina's death anniversary is next week.
He knew it was coming, of course. He always knows. The date starts sitting in the back of his mind days beforehand, even when he is busy with lectures or grading or anything else that should be taking up his attention. It has been years now but he still feels a little off in the days leading up to it, quieter than usual without really meaning to be. He usually spends the anniversary on his own. He goes about his day as normally as he can, then comes home and makes something his mother used to cook for him. It never tastes quite the way he remembers, but he keeps trying every year anyway. His mother would probably have plenty to say about his cooking if she could see it.
This year, though, Ilya keeps thinking about how quiet the apartment will be when he gets home. He tries to ignore it for a few days before finally admitting that he does not want to spend the evening alone.
He wants Shane there.
It should not feel like such a difficult thing to ask. They have been together for almost two years and Shane already knows so much about his mother through all the stories Ilya has told him. He knows which dish she used to make when Ilya was having a bad day and which song still makes him think of her every single time. But this feels different because talking about her is one thing and asking Shane to share the day with him is another. He carries the thought around until they are lying in Shane’s bed with a documentary playing quietly in the background.
“Hey,” Ilya says after a while. “Are you busy next Thursday?”
Shane shifts onto his side so he can face him properly. “I don’t think so. Why?”
Ilya rubs his thumb over the edge of the blanket, “It’s the anniversary of my mother’s death.”
Shane’s expression softens, and he reaches across the space between them to take Ilya’s hand. “Do you want me to be with you?”
Ilya nods, some of the tension in his chest easing now that he has actually asked. “Yes. I thought we could have dinner, I usually make something she used to cook, although mine never tastes quite right.”
“Dinner sounds good, I’d like that.” Ilya shifts closer and Shane brings their joined hands to his mouth, pressing a kiss to his fingers. “I’ll be there, baby,” he says.
Ilya believes him.
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Thursday starts normally, which Ilya is grateful for. He teaches two classes, spends most of his office hours arguing with a student about an extension and answers several emails he could have ignored until tomorrow. Keeping busy helps, it always has. There is less room for his mind to wander when someone is sitting across from his desk explaining why forgetting an assignment existed should count as an unforeseen circumstance.
Shane texts him sometime after lunch.
Shane: How are you doing?
Ilya: I’m okay. Busy.
Shane: Good busy or bad busy?
Ilya: One of my students is trying to negotiate with me like I’m holding him hostage?
Shane: So.. good busy?
Ilya: I think so, yes.
A few seconds pass.
Shane: I’ll see you tonight. ❤️
Ilya: Yes, see you.
Shane: Around 6:30?
Ilya: Perfect.
Shane: I love you.
Ilya: I love you.
Ilya reads the last message again before putting his phone away.
🕸 🕷 🕸 🕷 🕸 🕷 🕸 🕷 🕸 🕷
He leaves campus earlier than usual.
The recipe is already waiting on his counter when he gets home, written in his mother’s handwriting on an old index card. Ilya has the recipe memorized but he still takes the card out every year. Half of the measurements are useless anyway because his mother believed a little and until it tastes right were perfectly acceptable instructions, which explains why Ilya’s version has never once come out exactly the same.
It feels strange knowing Shane will be here for it. Usually Ilya cooks with the television on and eats whenever he is finished, without thinking much about the table or whether the food is ready at the same time. Tonight he catches himself setting out two plates and smiles at how stupidly delighted and comforted that makes him feel. It's almost half-past six when his phone buzzes on the counter.
Shane: Leaving soon!
Shane: Just wrapping something up.
Ilya sends him a heart and keeps cooking. Six thirty has passed and Shane is still not there. This is fine. Ilya knew six thirty was never going to mean exactly six thirty anyway. He had expected some flexibility when he agreed to the time, mostly because he has been dating Shane for almost two years and has learned to plan accordingly.
The food needs a little longer anyway. At seven, Ilya checks his phone again.
Nothing.
Shane is probably on the subway. His signal drops all the time underground and getting from the lab to Ilya’s apartment can take longer depending on traffic. Maybe he stopped to pick something up despite Ilya specifically telling him not to make a big thing out of tonight. That sounds like Shane. Ilya can already picture him arriving with dessert and insisting it does not count as making a big thing out of anything because dessert is expected.
He smiles despite himself and goes back to the stove. The television is playing quietly in the living room, some news program he turned on earlier mostly for company. Ilya only starts paying attention when the reporter’s voice changes. There has been an explosion downtown, he walks closer with the spoon still in his hand.
The footage is shaky and taken from several blocks away, smoke rising between buildings while emergency vehicles crowd the street below. The banner says there was some sort of attack near a construction site, though nobody seems sure what caused it yet. One witness claims someone threw a beam through the side of a building, another says there were two men with weapons. Then Spider-Man swings into frame, and Ilya’s attention leaves the stove completely.
The clip lasts only a few seconds before Spider-Man disappears into the smoke and the reporter takes over again, explaining that several floors have been evacuated. Ilya finds himself thinking about the coffee shop, the parking meter coming straight at him and the web that pulled it away before it could reach him. He hopes Spider-Man is careful out there. More than that, he hopes the idiot manages to stay safe himself.
Then his phone buzzes.
Shane: Ilya, I’m so sorry
Shane: Something came up at work
Shane: I’m trying to get out of here as soon as I can
Ilya stares at the messages. His first reaction is disappointment, quick and sharp, but he pushes it down. Shane cannot control everything that happens at the lab. Ilya knows that, he knew it when he asked him to come over tonight.
Ilya: How late do you think you would be?
The typing bubble appears, disappears, then comes back.
Shane: I don’t know yet
Shane: I’m sorry baby
Shane: I really am trying, I’ll be there soon
Ilya closes his eyes for a moment.
Ilya: Okay. Just let me know.
He puts the phone down and goes back to the kitchen, the food is ready now. Ilya turns off the heat and leaves everything covered on the stove. Shane will be here soon. Maybe half an hour, an hour at most. He can wait.
The news is still following the attack downtown. The situation has gotten worse, though Ilya has stopped listening closely enough to understand how. There are more ambulances now. Someone caught footage of Spider-Man pulling two people from an upper-floor window, and later another clip shows him fighting somebody in the middle of the street while firefighters run past behind them.
Ilya watches him get hit hard enough to disappear through the windshield of a parked car. “Jesus,” he mutters.
Spider-Man climbs out again, and Ilya lets out a breath he had not realized he was holding before reaching for his phone. Still nothing from Shane.
Ilya: Hey, is everything okay?
He keeps the phone beside him while the news plays on, checking the screen whenever it lights up only to find another alert or an email he does not care about. After a while, he gives up waiting for a reply and calls instead, it goes straight to voicemail.
Ilya lowers the phone and stares at it for a moment, frustration starting to mix with the worry he has been trying not to feed all evening. Shane said he was stuck at work so there are plenty of reasons he might not be answering. Something could have gone wrong at the lab or he could be somewhere he cannot have his phone or maybe the battery finally died after all those mornings Ilya has found it sitting at ten percent and plugged it in for him.
Eventually, the food cannot stay on the stove any longer. Ilya puts most of it in the fridge but leaves Shane’s plate where it is.
The news keeps running in the living room. Later, the reporter announces that the attack downtown is finally under control and that Spider-Man helped police take two people into custody before disappearing from the scene.
Ilya glances at his phone again, it sits dark and void of any new messages.
He sits at the table with his own plate in front of him but whatever appetite he had earlier is gone. He knows his mother would still want him to eat. She would have sat across from him and kept him company until he finally picked up his fork, probably sneaking a little more onto his plate and the thought makes him smile, though it does not last very long.
He takes a few bites for her, but something about it is wrong. Ilya cannot tell if he added too much of something or forgot an ingredient entirely, only that it does not taste the way he remembers. His throat closes around the next bite that he has to swallow twice to get it down, eyes burning suddenly as he sets the fork aside and presses the heel of his hand against his mouth.
He wishes, suddenly and painfully, that he could call her and ask what he did wrong.