Chapter Text
The new neighbors are moving in today.
Peter Parker can’t help but glance into the opened door right across his and Aunt May’s apartment curiously. There’s still barely anything in the revealed other than boxes on boxes.
“Hey, pal, a bit of space please?”
A grunt behind Peter makes him hurriedly press his back against the wall, or at least to the extent of his smushed backpack, as two men in mover outfits pass by him with a large vintage-looking sofa.
“Sorry!” Peter says as he presses himself closer to the wall, inching towards his door.
“Don’t worry, you’re giving more than enough space.”
An unknown voice replies to him, and it’s not the gruff ones on the movers, but a much huskier and smoother one.
Peter jumps at the unexpected voice—within human limits, thankfully. Whoever just sneaked up to him went unheard by his spider hearing, their footsteps drowned by all the clamor in the hallway.
He turns around to find a tall man looking at him with a charming and mysterious smile. The man is dark-skinned, long blue hair tied into a stylish braid, a literal pirate-style eye-patch covering his right eye, a simple shirt with a questionable number of unbuttoned buttons that reveals quite a span of smooth skin, and an eye-catching single earring with a blue crystal so large that it feels like it should hurt the earlobe.
Wow. Was the first thing Peter thinks. What is a guy like him doing here?
“Uh…Hi?”
That is some good hair dye, Was the second thing that popped into Peter’s mind. The hair is certainly impressive, the blue color striking and not in some uncultured gangster way.
“I’m Kaeya, the one who’s causing all of this trouble,” the blue guy named Kaeya introduces himself. “Sorry about that, I wasn’t expecting the company to come in this late.”
“Oh, nonono, it’s fine.” Peter waves his hands right before he whips them back to avoid the incoming cabinet. “I live right opposite to you, actually.”
Kaeya’s smile widens by a fraction, blue eyes curving into a pleasant crescent. Peter suspects that Kaeya must also be wearing contact lenses, because he’s never seen anyone with a natural eye color like that, and it’s as cool as hell.
“Oh? What a lovely coincidence, then.”
“Y-Yeah, real lovely." Peter suddenly remembers with dismay that he hasn’t even introduced himself yet. “Oh, yeah, I’m Peter Parker. You can just call me Peter though. Nice to meet you, Mr. Kaeya.”
Kaeya raises a hand to his chest in mock hurt. “Oh, please, don’t call me Mr. Kaeya if I don’t get to call you Mr. Peter. Just Kaeya is fine too.”
“Sure, Kaeya,” Peter grins. What a cool name too. “Kaeya” is nothing like the last five Bobs or Toms in the apartment building. Everything about this man already is nothing like anyone he’s seen before (maybe not the Avengers, though), and Peter already likes him.
His door swings open, and Aunt May enters the hallway to look at Peter.
“Peter?” Oh, so you are here, I thought I was hearing things, since you didn’t come in for so long.”
Peter scratches the back of his head sheepishly. “Sorry, Aunt May, I was talking to Kaeya.”
“Kaeya?” Aunt May notices the noticeable blue hair behind him, and her expression changes slightly.
Kaeya greets her cordially, “Hello. Aunt May, if I heard correctly? I’m moving into that apartment.”
“Oh,” Aunt May looks momentarily thrown off by Kaeya’s looks, which Peter can relate to. Her smile quickly recovers and brightens. “Well, hello! I’m May, Peter’s aunt, but May really is fine. If you need any help, feel free to knock our door any time!”
“Thanks, May.” Kaeya moves to shake her hand, the blue jeweled earring on his left ear dangling dangerously close to Peter’s face as the man slips by him. “My brother will come by a few days to help, but I appreciate the offer.”
“Brother?” Peter voices curiously.
“Ah, yes, we’re living together,” Kaeya replies with a smirks. “We’ve been staying at a hotel, since we just came to New York, and he’s busy with work right now, so you probably won’t see him for a while.”
“Mr. Alberich?” a mover calls out from inside Kaeya’s apartment. “Where do you want us to put this sofa?”
Kaeya turns to Peter and Aunt May. “That’s me, I’m afraid I’ll have to go. It was my pleasure to talk to you two.” He turns to Peter, blue eyes twinkling with mystery. “I’ll see you next time, Peter.”
Peter nods as he adjusts his school bag. “Oh yeah, that’s cool man, I’ll see you next time, then!”
Kaeya nods and turns to enter his unfinished apartment, the long blue braid whipping around as elegantly as his entire presence.
“That place is fine, fellows,” was the last thing Peter hears from Kaeya before he’s dragged back into home by Aunt May. Aunt May closes the door, and immediately the air quiets.
“What an interesting young man,” she says. “Handsome too. I’ve never seen such a…visually striking person like that.”
“Aunt May?” Peter asks, mortified, because he doesn’t want to think about Aunt May whenever he sees Kaeya.
Aunt May catches his look and laughs. “Oh, Peter, don’t worry, it’s not like that. I’m just saying the truth, that’s all.”
Peter can’t really argue with that. “His hair looks dope too.”
“Mm, I’ve never seen anyone with blue hair like that,” Aunt May agrees. “It’s like straight out of a cartoon.”
Aunt May then changes the topic to force Peter to change his clothes because he looks “filthy” (it’s not his fault that he ran into a mugger!), and the small talk about their new neighbor disappears soon enough, leaving the sounds of moving furniture outside their home.
“Peter?” Ned whispers into Peter’s ear not so quietly as they walk on the street back to Peter’s home.
“What?”
“There’s an anime pirate cosplayer in front of your apartment.”
That caught Peter’s attention, and he looks up from his phone to see Kaeya in his cerulean blue hair standing by the entrance idly. Even though it’s almost winter, the man is wearing shirt that is has such a large V-line that it almost feels scandalous.
“Oh, no, he’s my new neighbor,” Peter says.
Ned stops and gapes at him. “Dude, what?”
Kaeya must have heard them, because he turns to Peter with that smile of his.
“Hey, Peter,” he says, “coming back from school?”
Peter nudges Ned in a "see I was right" motion while responding to Kaeya, “Yeah. Have you completely moved in?"”
“Not yet. We’ve got quite a bit of things to handle apart from the apartment, so I’ll still be staying at the hotel for a few days,” Kaeya says. His gaze—or his single-eye gaze, to be exact—moves to Ned. “Are you Peter’s friend?”
“Oh, uh, yeah.” Ned looks both surprised and intimidated by Kaeya’s sudden greeting. “I’m Ned, Peter’s best friend. I love your hair.”
“Well, nice to meet you, Ned,” Kaeya chuckles in that husky voice of his, “I appreciate the compliment, I’m very proud of my hair too. Did it myself too, actually.”
“You dyed your own hair blue?” Peter asks, impressed.
Kaeya shrugs. “I have a…unique taste, I suppose.” He looks down at his phone, then back at them with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, I must leave now. I have some urgent business to do.”
They give each other a hasty farewell, and Kaeya swoops away elegantly.
“Dude, what is he doing in this place?” Ned asks. “He looks like he should be in an anime game or something with his blueness and eyepatch.”
Peter can’t help but agree.
Peter runs into Kaeya a few more times before they finally switch numbers. Just like the easygoing air he has whenever Peter meets him in person, Kaeya replies to Peter’s text with just the right amount of EQ that Peter wishes he could have too. He tries looking for Kaeya’s Instagram account—not for stalking, he’s just curious—but without success.
“You should get an Instagram account, man, you’ll be a celebrity in no time,” Peter once mentioned that to Kaeya.
Kaeya grins, pleased. “Is that a compliment?”
It took a while for Peter to realize, but despite the casual and easygoing appearance of Kaeya Alberich, the man is very private and secretive about himself anything beyond the surface level.
Peter is curious to learn more from this enigmatic man, but he doesn’t push too hard (yet). Kaeya literally lives right across him, after all.
Peter doesn’t see Kaeya’s brother until a while later.
It was late night, when he was kept behind by a science project at school and a few mugging cases on the way home. It wasn’t that late for Peter to have to sneak through his bedroom window, but still enough for him to be expecting The Look from Aunt May when he goes home, and he's not excited for it.
He turns around the corner to the hallway leading to home with dread, then stops at the sight of an unknown figure.
“Uh…Hello?”
The hallway was dimly lit, but it did nothing to cover the flaming red that hits Peter’s vision. There’s a tall man in a business suit and a black wool coat standing right in front of Peter’s apartment door, his hair tied back into a low ponytail, and the color as red as Peter’s Spider-Man suit. There’s a deadpan expression, and it’s so out of place yet natural on the man’s pale face at the same time.
The man hears Peter and turns around, and Peter’s spider-senses tingles, just barely, at the cold presence.
“Hello,” the man says, and his voice is just as surprising as the rest of his face, low and sophisticated like a freaking nobleman. “Am I blocking your way?”
Peter shuffles a bit under the man’s neutral stare. The man has a stare that’s almost as terrifying as Mr. Stark in R&D when he’s high on caffeine and low on sleep.
Wait, are those red eyes? Peter can’t help but notice, and the red is not helping with the sudden pressure that he’s feeling.
“Oh…Uh, a bit? My door’s right on your left.”
“Oh, my apologies.” The man moves closer to the right side of the hallway, right where Kaeya’s apartment door is at. “I didn’t know you were our new neighbor.”
There was an information bomb in the sentence that Peter manages to catch.
“Neighbor…Wait, are you Kaeya’s brother?”
The man tilts his head, his face seeming to be fixed in a neutral expression, nothing like the smile that Kaeya always has when they run into each other. In fact, nothing that Kaeya’s brother is showing is anything like Kaeya, except for their apparent interest in eye-catching hair color and cool contact lenses.
“You’ve already met Kaeya?” the man asks. “Then you must be the Peter Parker that he mentioned to me, right?”
Peter nods. He’s feeling unusually nervous around this man. Even with the cosplay-level red hair, the man gives off such a strong air of class and dignity that Peter can’t help but wonder again just as he did with Kaeya, what is a guy like him doing here?
“Pleasure to meet you. I’m Diluc.” The red-haired man stretches out a hand gloved in leather (who even wears them at summer?!), and Peter hurriedly moves to shake it.
“So, uh, Mr. Diluc…” Peter must have held too long, because Diluc takes his hand away before Peter does, and now he’s feeling even more nervous. “What are you doing outside your door?”
Diluc’s face doesn’t change, but Peter can feel the annoyance from the man, and it’s thankfully not directed at him.
“I don’t have the keys, and Kaeya,” Diluc says the name distastefully, “was supposed to be here organizing our boxes, but he must have gotten occupied. Again.”
Peter wants to ask what Kaeya was “occupied” with, but decides not to after spotting the miniscule downturn of the man’s lips.
“Oh, that sucks, man,” Peter says. “Yeah, this building doesn’t give spare keys. There’s a place nearby that can make you a duplicate one, though.”
Diluc looks at him. “A locksmith?”
“Uh, yeah, I can write you the address if you want,” Peter offers. But before Diluc could reply, the default Stark phone ringtone coming out from the man's coat interrupts him.
“Ah, I’m sorry, it must be Kaeya finally coming to his senses,” Diluc says quite dryly as he takes out his phone from his suit pocket. He accepts the call, and any friendliness that Peter sensed from him disappears in an instant. It’s unnerving enough for his Spidey sense to tingle once.
“Kaeya.”
The name comes out with so much flatness that Peter fears for the man's wellbeing on the other end of the phone. Peter can distantly hear sounds coming from Diluc’s phone, but he didn’t use his spider hearing to listen in—it is rude to invade the privacy of someone that you only met for five minutes, after all.
The conversation ends quickly, with Diluc’s irritated yet resigned sparse words in that sophisticated tone of his. Peter can tell that Diluc has had similar conversations many times before.
“Hmph,” was the last thing Diluc says—or grunts—before he hangs up on Kaeya. He turns back to Peter, the irritation on him disappearing as soon as he meets Peter’s gaze. The speed of the mood shift is honestly quite impressive.
“I’m sorry for that. I would appreciate to know the address. Do you have Kaeya’s number?”
“Oh, yeah, I do.” Peter fumbles to take out his phone. “Do you want me to send it to him?”
“I would be very thankful.”
Diluc talks more formally and seriously than Kaeya too, and it’s almost reminding Peter of Steve Rogers, just a more elite-y, no-smile, red-haired Steve Rogers.
“Okay then, Mr. Diluc, I’ll text Kaeya as soon as I get back into my room,” Peter says as he looks at his closed door a bit anxiously. “And after Aunt May finishes chewing me out too.”
An indescribable look flash across Mr. Diluc’s face, then his mouth finally lifts into a tiny smile, so small that it couldn’t be really described as a smile, but more just as a “positive expression.”
“Don’t worry, Peter, I can wait. Kaeya doesn’t have anywhere else to go to anyways.”
After Peter manages to escape to his bedroom, he takes out his phone to text Kaeya the address of the locksmith.
Peter Parker: 105 XXX Building, XXX Street.
Peter Parker: i just met Mr. Diluc, and he asked me to send the address of a nearby locksmith that i know to you
Kaeya: thanks, looks like I don’t have to worry about staying out late anymore [heart].
Peter Parker: your brother also has really cool hair too
Peter Parker: did you also dye it?
Kaeya: yes, you could probably tell already that he’s not the most enthusiastic person in the room.
Kaeya: but he lost a bet, and I insisted.
Kaeya: he needs something bright to light him up, don’t you think?
Peter can’t help but snort.
Peter Parker: it does fit him. You make really good hair dye
Peter Parker: [wow.GIF]
Kaeya: [smile]