08 | distance
pairing — spider-man!vernon x ofc
featuring — joshua, yeji (itzy), felix (skz), yangyang (nct)
word count — 2.5k
genres — spider-man au, marvel au, fluff, action, angst, humor
warnings — minor violence
note — ok so this was kinda later than scheduled (three WEEKS) but the next update will hopefully be on time so i can keep up! by which i mean sunday 6 am (ist). also, for the love of god, tumblr make this show up in the tags. pretty, pretty please.
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“Okay, so here’s what I found out about your Rhino guy,” Yeji said, jumping over the side of the rooftop and landing on another, hitting the ground with a roll before coming up on her feet. They were currently involved in a high-speed chase, which meant she had to yell at the top of her voice for Vernon to hear her—not that it mattered a lot. Up here, no one could hear you scream. “He’s Russian. Name’s Alexei Sytsevich.”
“Russian, huh?” Vernon yelled back. He swung over a tall rooftop garden, taking care not to accidentally knock over something he wasn’t supposed to. “Anything that could tie him to Osborn?”
“Not really!” Yeji yelled. “His identity is public, so anyone could get to him, and he must have happened to have been around when he attacked you. But there’s nothing concrete we could go after.”
The two of them were chasing Batroc the Leaper across the top of the buildings, having caught up with him just moments after he robbed a store. A basic assignment, really, but it was still a challenge to apprehend him before he got too far from the crime scene. One of their more casual operations, much like a training session, except this was the real deal.
“Anything of interest?” Vernon asked. They were close to catching their quarry, very close. Batroc wasn’t really that notorious in the underworld, but he was still a menace and technically a criminal. A more notable point of interest were the mechanical leaping legs attached to both his feet which allowed him to jump several feet high in the air, making for a good old-fashioned superhuman chase scene.
“He was experimented on with this gamma radiation technique to give him superhuman strength and durability, but it ended in an accident,” Yeji answered. Her voice, apart from the strain due to the yelling, sounded strangely relaxed for someone who was chasing a guy across the tops of buildings. Even after having time to get used to it, Vernon was still surprised by her resilience. “The suit he was wearing that day—remember how it was made of some kind of self-regenerating polymer? It’s literally stuck to his skin. Can’t get it off him.”
“Must be constipated; it explains the anger issues.”
Just then, Yeji caught up to the Leaper. She sprung off a ledge and onto the top of a water tanker, from where she dived towards the unsuspecting criminal, flattening him to the ground. Vernon swung up to her, landing on the ground next to her. Batroc tried to wiggle away, but Vernon webbed his hands and feet to the rooftop, successfully trapping him. “So,” he said, turning his attention back to Yeji. “Any idea where they’re keeping him?”
“If you’re wondering if he’s being kept anywhere close to Osborn, don’t worry.” She placed her hands on her hips. It looked strangely satisfying, her claws aligned with the gray markings around the waist of her white suit. “Rhino’s placed in the Helicarrier for now, but in a special ward designed specifically for the big guys, though th They have specialists looking into his, er, sticky situation, but he’s on an entirely different level than Norman. And I mean that quite literally.”
He nodded. “Did the files mention which specialists are looking into it?”
“Eez it perhaps—” Batroc started.
Vernon webbed his mouth. “Zip it,” he said.
“No. The only files I could access didn’t have much on him,” Yeji said, sounding genuinely sorry. “There was other stuff, like his eye color and his blood type, but I don’t think you’d be very interested in all of that.”
“You think right.”
“There might be more details in the confidential reports coming in from the Helicarrier holder itself, but getting them would be a lot of trouble,” she said. “Although if you really want them—”
“No, it doesn’t matter,” Vernon said, shaking his head. “Thanks for digging up the rest, though. I owe you one.”
“Consider it early payback for when your Aunt May teaches me how to beat your ass at video games.” He couldn’t see her face, but he sensed that underneath the mask, she was smiling.
“Hey, that’s an Aunt May thing, not a me thing,” he said, then paused, hesitating. There was something else he had wanted to ask her, but he didn’t know if he really wanted to follow through with it. “Hey, Tiger…” he trailed off. “Actually, never mind.”
“No, go ahead,” she said. “Unless you’d rather not.”
He shook his head slightly. “It’s not like that,” he said. “This might sound kind of intrusive, but do you know the deal with Fe—Iceman?” he asked. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s great and everything, but with all the brooding and the secrecy, I’m just a little—” He scrunched up his nose. “That does sound intrusive.”
“It does,” she agreed, but it sounded amused. “Look, I’d tell you. I really would. But it’s something I feel he should tell you yourself, you know? If and when he’s comfortable talking to you about it.”
“Did he tell you?”
“No, I just kind of figured it out.” She sounded a little sheepish. “And maybe I got it out of one of the IT guys.”
He looked at her, amused. “They have IT guys at S.H.I.E.L.D.?”
“Well, I guess they’re not IT guys in the strictest sense,” she mused. “There’s a hierarchy of ranks even within the record regulators, so it’s a little hard to explain. Not that it really matters, anyway.”
“It would be kind of cool if S.H.I.E.L.D. needed IT guys,” Vernon said, looking down at Batroc, except he wasn’t really looking at him, but through him. “Unrealistic, though.”
Yeji shook her head slightly, like she was unable to believe they were having this conversation. Or maybe he was just projecting his own amused disbelief onto her. But he noticed the tenseness of her shoulders and she let her arms fall to her sides, as if she was holding in a laugh. It was one of those conversations that took a turn that didn’t even have to be funny to make you laugh.
“Good talk,” she said, and this time he could actually hear the smile in her voice. “Now let’s get this guy back to the carrier.”
Luce knew something was up.
She had known this for a while now—about a year, in fact. She had only just started to suspect it when Vernon had changed, and Joshua had gotten secretive, and Harry had first started floating away. It had come one after the other, like the three of them were carrying out parts in a play and she was in the audience, watching but unable to take part. Change, and secrecy, and distance.
She liked distance. Luce had always been distant, someone who stood in the crowd and yet apart from it, unwelcome and unsettling for most around her. Eccentric, some called her, or strange, or downright creepy. It never really mattered to her, because for her, it had always been just the four of them—Vernon, Joshua, Harry and her—and even after everything that had happened, they still felt like four. Three people with a ghost in between, still shaking his head at their dumb jokes and still taking the best seat in the Parker living room when they had movie night.
Looking back, she realized that the cracks in their relationship had first appeared a year ago. Often, after Harry died, she thought about how they had collectively ignored those fractures in their friendship, that had come in the form of change and secrets and distance.
The first to change had been Vernon, of course—trading his glasses for unexplained bruises, his mysterious disappearances poorly covered up and rarely questioned. Then Joshua—the two of them with their heads together in the hallways, shooting each other knowing looks that shut everyone out. It felt like it was just the two of them sometimes, Luce and Harry often forgotten during their closed conversations. That was probably what had pushed them together, but now that Harry was gone, she was left alone. Still on the outside, trying to look in, but in vain.
She knew she couldn’t blame Vernon and Joshua for it, she had started to blend into the background a little more with every passing day. Catching one without the other was hard, so at some point she stopped trying, letting them find her whenever they felt like it. Sometimes she felt like a ghost, too, lurking in a ruined castle, only seen when a wanderer needed shelter.
Now, it was all happening again. The arrival of the new kids had seemed like a minor disturbance at first, like a tiny cloud on the wide horizon, but Vernon had warmed up to them surprisingly quickly after his initial coldness. It wasn’t that Luce didn’t like them—after all, she had been the one to initiate first contact—but she had still been taken aback by how quickly they had become a part of their little group of three (and a dead boy, but he didn’t take up seats anymore).
Except they didn’t feel like it. Not to her, and probably not to Joshua either, whom she had seen watch the new trio with lingering looks when he thought she wasn’t looking.
She was a little surprised by her own reserve, because the arrival of more people should have been a good sign. More people, even numbers, pairs, so she wouldn’t be a third wheel anymore. But it hadn’t worked out that way—she was still stuck outside, but this time Joshua was stuck with her.
It was hard not to be even a little mournful.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she called as Vernon walked past her in the school hallway after fifth period, looking distracted as he usually did these days. He turned, surprised, as if he hadn’t even noticed her there.
“Me?” he asked, looking confused, and she sighed internally. On the outside, she simply shook her head as if in amused exasperation, reaching into her bag and taking out a spiral notebook.
“Notes. From Physics.” She handed it to him, and he stared at the cover for a dazed little moment before looking back up at her. “You missed another class today.”
“Right,” he muttered, giving her a grateful smile. Fifteen seconds had passed already, about five seconds less than the longest conversation they had held in two weeks. He probably hadn’t even realized. “Thanks.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, meaning it. No point in moping after something that hadn’t been for months. She leaned against the locker door and folded her arms across her chest. The zips along the cuffs of her jacket pulled against the leather. “Going somewhere?”
“Not really.” He shrugged. The smile was still on his face, that stupidly delightful half-smile that still felt like it was behind a glass wall. “Are you?”
Am I ever? She shook her head. “Where did you go?” she asked instead of answering his question.
He frowned. “Where did I go…when?”
“During physics,” she clarified. “You’ve been disappearing a lot lately.”
“Oh, you know…” he started, trying hard to keep his voice casual. “Places.”
It was hard not to smile. “Like?”
“The principal’s office,” he said, sounding a little disappointed.
“The new guy?” Luce raised her eyebrows. “Did you do something to piss him off? Get a low grade?”
“Of course not,” Vernon said indignantly. “My scores are perfect.”
“I know. The rest of us on the curve are suffering because of it.”
“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry in the least. Instead, there was a small smile on his face that looked suspiciously like a smirk.
Almost a minute now. Luce let the back of her head hit the locker door, finally letting herself believe that he wasn’t going anywhere, not this time around. The feeling that came with it was so warm and delicious that it spread inside her chest like hot water, reaching her toes and fingers and the tip of her nose. “You’re not sorry,” she said with a smile, though she didn’t really mind. “Are we still on for Friday?”
Now Vernon’s smirk dropped, replaced by a split-second look of horror. “Friday?” he echoed. “This is going to sound bad, but I don’t—”
“Movie night,” she supplied. “And don’t worry, I didn’t expect you to remember. The last time we talked about that was a while ago, anyway.”
Movie night, or game night, was their irregular childhood tradition that had become increasingly infrequent over the past few years, but particularly so in the last year. Even then, they’d never gone this long without getting together at least once. The last time they’d done something like that together, it had been almost two months ago, when they had still been four.
When Luce finally mentioned it, she felt strange thinking about the prospect of movie night with only three people. It felt odd. Unnatural. Three felt like the wrong number, like fates and the prongs of a pitchfork. Too little.
“Tell you what,” she said, pulling herself out of her thoughts with difficulty. She did that too much, lose herself in her memories or some random vein of thought and manage to completely detach herself from the world around her. It got harder and harder every time, and sometimes she wondered if one day she was just going to be trapped in her own mind.
“What?” Vernon asked. He had that distracted look on his face again, his posture jumpy like there was extra energy wrapped into his body.
“Why don’t you bring Yeji and the others along this time?” she suggested. Six wasn’t that great of a number either, but it was definitely better than three. And maybe this way she’d be able to get to know the others a little better, pull herself back to reality. “I’m sure they’d like to. And that way, it’ll be an even team.”
“Not if May decides to join in again.”
She smiled. “Then maybe I’ll bring Hairball.”
He groaned. “Oh, no, not Hairball,” he said, eyes refocusing on her face. There was such a vibrant intensity in his gaze that it made her want to stand up straighter. Then he smiled, and she actually had to stand up straight. “You sure, though?”
Of course he would ask her. Vernon Parker, despite all his bodily changes, was still the same guy from fourth grade who always let her have the rest of his lunch—if he managed to keep it from Flash. Luce was almost tempted to reconsider, but she saw the earnest look on his face, the slight arch of his eyebrows, and swallowed the words that welled up in her throat.
“Of course,” she said. “Three’s already a crowd, so we might as well have a whole party.”
“A party, huh?” He winced. “That reminds me. Food.”
“We’ll order from Larry’s.”
“I’ll have to decide if they deserve it yet,” he joked. At least, she thought he was joking. “See you on Friday.”
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