Chapter Text
You were, frankly, having an absolute shit day.
This wasn’t uncommon for you. Working two separate retail jobs just to barely make ends meet, you often had to deal with the most annoying people humanity had to offer. And even then, 15 dollars an hour meant you only had enough money to live in the shittiest of shit holes, pretty much regardless of how many hours you worked. Such were the joys of minimum wage.
Life would be easier if you had a roommate, but, well. New York had become a bit of a shit-show in recent years, with the weird ass shit constantly going on. Supervillains, dying vigilantes, the world nearly ending about once a week- it made trusting people a bit hard. Never know when your seemingly friendly coworker will suddenly turn into a lizard man hellbent on destroying the city, or whatever. It was hard enough for you to trust people long enough to hang out in a cafe with them, never mind inviting them to where you live. No thank you. Barely making ends meet was better than getting stabbed in the back, as far as you were concerned
To be entirely fair, your day hadn’t started out much worse than most. A few angry customers, condescending coworkers, a villain vs. Spiderman fight outside your store. All in a day's work.
It was after you got off your shift that the trouble started.
The first thing that went wrong was, unsurprisingly, the remnants of a fight. It wasn’t like you blamed the kid himself- because as much as they liked to play dumb, New Yorkers weren’t stupid, and it was fairly obvious that’s what the new Spiderman was. A kid. But his protection of the city was invaluable, and New Yorkers minded their own business. Not their kid, not their problem, and especially not when he’s seemingly the only thing keeping the city intact. You were no different from the rest, in the fact that you knew what he did was invaluable. It wasn’t his fault that destruction rained wherever he went. But it did mean that when you saw him, you could pretty much immediately guess that you were, at best, about to be majorly inconvenienced.
It took approximately twenty minutes to get past the entrance of the store, avoiding cops, debris, and the leftover webs- well, not so much the last one, as some somehow found their way onto your pant leg and shoes. You sighed, knowing the shit was near impossible to get out of clothes. You kept putting off looking online if someone had posted a tutorial on how to get it out, and the pile of clothes you were too attached to to toss but were too webby to wear kept getting larger.
Glancing up toward the setting sun, you sighed. You were used to walking home in the dark, but you tried to avoid it. Most days the few extra dollars refusing to take the bus or subway was worth it, but Lord if you didn’t just want to sit down right now. Instead, you had an hour-long walk to look forward to.
Absentmindedly, you stuck your hand into your satchel, feeling around without looking down, continuing your walk home.
Phone: check. Pepper spray: check. Wallet: check. Pocket knife: check. Keys: check. Taser: check.
You allowed yourself to relax, just slightly. Not to the point of being unaware, just so that you could breathe, so that your shoulders could untense. During your first week living alone, you stressed yourself out so badly you got a two-day long migraine. You quickly learned how to force yourself into a state of calm, even when your every instinct begged you to be hypervigilant. Everyone says to trust your gut, but no one tells you what to do when your gut tells you that you're always in danger, all the time.
By the time you’re nearly home, the sun had completely set. It was never actually dark in the city, you’d discovered, but the night still had a way of elongating shadows, playing tricks on your tired mind. You’d gotten used to dismissing the jumps your brain takes, and maybe that’s why you didn't realize what you were looking at until you were nearly five feet in front of it.
When you first saw it, you dismissed it as a weird stain against the wall, maybe some graffiti. It’s only when you’re directly in front of the wall, still watching it from the corner of your eye, that you realize it’s in the shape of a person. More than that, it had dimension- it definitely wasn’t something staining the flat surface. You almost decided was a weird, fucked up sculpture, when it moved.
“Shit!” you whelped, flinching back.
Its… face (?) reeled back, hands flying out in front of it. “AH! Sorry, please don’t scream!” As it spoke, it got to its feet. Standing, you got a much, much better idea of how odd its proportions were. You screamed.
“No no, that’s what I said not to do! I’m not scary, see, I’m backing away-,” it backed into the wall. “Oh, no, that’s as far as I can go actually, sorry.”
“It’s fine,” left your mouth before you could think, still in retail mode. Even though every single brain cell you had was screaming at you at once to leave, to at least grab your fucking knife, you instead stepped closer. Your voice shook as you asked, “Are you okay?”
“You-,” it laughed awkwardly, long arms gesturing as it spoke. “I just made you scream like you’re being murdered, and you’re asking if I’m okay?”
You shrugged, trying to look less scared than you were. “I mean, you’re a person huddling against a wall in a shady part of town, so… Yeah?”
It's (his?) head tilted to the side, like it (he) wasn’t quite sure what to do with that. “Some people would disagree with the person part.”
That left a bad taste in your mouth. You took a deep breath, shoving a hand into your bag and curling your fingers around the hilt of your knife, while at the same time taking another hesitant step forward. You were prepared to fight back if he tried anything, but you couldn’t just leave someone who seemed so unsure about their own personhood. “Some people are jackasses. Are you a person?”
He laughed, but the sound didn’t put you at ease. It wasn't a happy sound. “I was.”
“Then you are.” You sounded more convinced of this fact than you felt, but sometimes you just gotta fake it til you make it. “What’s your name?”
“It was Johnathon Ohnn.” He said it wistfully, like you had asked him the name of someone he misses but knows will never come back. “It’s The Spot, now.”
You barely managed to not cringe. You went through a few names before landing on the one you have now, but The Spot? It might go with his whole… thing, but it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. “Do you want me to call you that?” You attempted to keep the judgment out of your voice.
“I… Guess? Hmmm…” He brought one hand up to his face, stroking his chin thoughtfully. It must just be a trick of the light, but for a second, it looked like his thumb dipped into the black spot on his face. “I never thought about needing to use it in casual conversation… Does Spiderman get called Spiderman by his friends…?” After a moment he dropped his hand to rest by his side, shrugging his wide shoulders. “I dunno. Call me whatever you want?”
“Johnathon it is, then.” You tried to smile at him, despite the oddness of the situation. You told him your name in response, before pausing and tacking on, “Oh, and they/them pronouns. Please.”
He perked up reminding you absurdly of a puppy for a moment. “Oh! Yeah yeah, okay! Uh I use he/him! “
“Cool.” Your polite smile felt more genuine, now. Weird spooky thing with debatable humanity or not, you found it hard to not feel at least some fondness for someone who took your pronouns in stride like that. “Back to my original question then. Are you okay?”
“Huh,” he said, “I thought you had dropped that line of question by now.”
“Eh. I can be stubborn.”
“Mmm,” he hummed in response. There's a few seconds of awkward silence, like he was trying to avoid the question by just refusing to answer it. Finally, he sighed (making you suddenly question how he sighed. Or was speaking, for that matter. You were fairly certain he didn’t actually have a mouth, unless the… Splotch? On his face was a mouth? But it wasn’t moving , so how-) and said. “That’s a complicated question.”
“Oh yeah?” you replied, setting aside your curiosity for the moment. You moved cautiously forward, now fairly certain that he wasn’t going to attack you, but not fully letting your guard down. Slowly, you crept toward him, until you were right up against the same wall he was, your side leaning against it. “You wanna talk about it?”
He laughed, a hint of hysteria in the edges of it. "You are asking me if I wanna talk about my feelings?”
“Yeah,” you reply, almost challengingly. You shrugged one shoulder adding, “Why not?”
“Why not?! Look at me!”
You did, letting your mind finally linger on the oddity of him. At first, you had thought he might just be extremely pale but now that you were right next to him, you could clearly see that his skin was a bright white. Black spots dotted his skin, ranging in size from one that could nearly be a mole, to the one that took up a majority of his face. The most disconcerting thing though was his size- too tall, arms and legs too long, everything just a little off. It was like random parts of him got stretched out, while other parts stayed the same. It was disconcerting to look at for too long.
“Okay, I looked.”
“You-” he spluttered for a moment, gesturing wide enough to nearly hit you. You flinched back slightly, but he didn't notice. “You should be reacting with disgust! Or at least mockery, not this! Whatever ‘this’ is!”
Despite his voice rising to the point he was nearly shouting, you weren’t afraid of him. It was kinda hard to be, with the way he was reacting to the most basic kindness. “Well, I’m not. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just some dude. A bit weird looking, sure, but we get lizard people and shit like, every other day terrorizing people on the streets. You’re not terrorizing anyone as far as I know, so what do I care?”
Even with his lack of eyes, (how could he even see) you could feel him staring at you. It was not something you enjoyed. It was difficult to resist the temptation to squirm, to just give up this whole good samaritan thing and just book it. You didn’t, obviously. But the temptation was there.
“Huh. You know, this might make more sense if you just weren’t scared of me, but you are.” You instinctively opened your mouth, then slowly closed it. You had no defense. He was right, you were scared of him. There was something about him that made your hair rise, that told your caveman brain that you were in danger. Anyone else, and they might have just run the moment they’d seen him.
“Well,” you slowly said, “I’ve gotten good at ignoring my fear.”
The skin on his face shifted, like he was making an expression. Frowning, maybe? It was difficult to tell without the, ya know, mouth. “I don’t want to be someone that can only be tolerated when someone’s ignoring their instincts.”
He sounded so sad. Not angry, or like you had offended him. Just sad. Mournful.
“I’m sorry.”
“What for? You aren’t the one who did this to me.”
“I’m just sorry that whatever happened to you, happened.”
“Oh.” A beat of silence. “... Thank you. You know, I think you might be the first one who’s said that to me.”
“Really?” Your eyebrows furrowed together, offended on his behalf. “That’s awful.”
“I guess.”
You stood there together, leaning against the wall. You didn’t know what to say- you knew lots of weird shit happened these days, especially in this city, but you’d never been directly impacted by it. Never been seemingly changed into something else by it.
“Do you want to sit?”
His sudden question broke the quiet, interrupting your inner concern over what to say. “What? Like, right here?”
Nodding, he gestured to the ground. “I mean, that’s what I was doing before you got here and interrupted my very important work by screaming at me.”
Your face reddened, shame flooding you. Rationally you know that it had been a personally reasonable reaction, but you couldn’t help but feel bad about it. Johnathon had clearly been put through enough regarding the reactions he’s gotten to his appearance, and you hated the idea of adding to that. “I’m so sorry, I-”
“No, no! That was a joke, ha ha!” His laugh was almost painfully awkward. “This might actually be the best interaction I’ve had in months!”
You winced. Talk about a low bar. “Still, I’m sorry…”
“It’s really okay.” His face did something again, the muscles moving without the features to clearly indicate what the expression was. It was around where the mouth would have been again, but different from the frown from earlier. A smile? “I get it. So, sitting? Ground? Yes?”
The sudden shift in topic took you off guard for just a moment before your brain caught up. You genuinely considered the offer for a second, but looking at the ground to assess its level of filth reminded you of just how dark it’d gotten. Even if this guy isn’t going to hurt you, others might. No way are you willing to sit on a dingy ass sidewalk in the dark with a strange man you just met. No way in hell.
“Sorry,” you said, smiling, “but it’s getting late, and I still have a bit to go before I get back home. Maybe…” A likely dumb idea crossed through your mind, and you went with it. Anything to get his increasingly kicked puppy demeanor from getting worse. “If you give me your number, I could text you?”
Instead of perking up like you had been expecting, he only wilted more. “I uh, don’t exactly have a phone right now?”
“Wait, what?” Who could survive without a cell phone these days?
“Haha, yeah. Funny story, that’s what happens when you can’t pay the phone bill… Or any bill…”
“Wait.” The realization hit you in the face, and you quickly started to feel like the dumbest person alive. “Are you homeless? ”
He reeled back slightly, waving his arms in front of his face and he shook his head. “No! Well, I mean, that’s a bit of a strong word! I wouldn’t say homeless, just. In between living places right now!” His arms stopped moving, and he hung his head. “Okay, I’m maybe a little homeless.”
You felt like a complete and total ass.
“Come to dinner with me.”
Oh. Well that wasn’t any better, was it?
Your face begins to flush with embarrassment again, as you reel back from your own words. Despite his lack of any facial features, you could just sense his wide-eyed, dumbfounded gaze. “Not like that!” you say, near shouting. “I just! This street is kinda gross and it’s dark, and I haven’t eaten dinner yet! So we could continue talking in a cafe or restaurant!”
Before you could continue talking, he mercifully stopped you. “Uh, well the problem with that is I don’t exactly have any money. Sorta comes with the whole ‘technically homeless’ thing. And, second thing, I look like this,” he said, gesturing to himself.
His lack of an immediate denial calmed you. Sure, it wasn’t a yes, but it also wasn’t a ‘how dare you try to take advantage of a guy down on his luck, what kind of sicko are you’, like the tiny voice in the back of your head had been saying, so you’ll take it. “One- I have money.” Technically. Only barely just, but he didn’t need to know that. “Two- I, quite frankly do not give a fuck what you look like. And if anyone else does, then I guess they’ll just have to go eat somewhere else. Faster service for us.”
He laughed, that hint of hysteria that you heard earlier coming back. It was harsh, filling and echoing down the empty street, but not quite bitter. Just a little too obviously unhinged. “You know what,” he forced in between laughter, “sure. Fuck ‘em, right!”
“Yeah!” A grin stretched across your face. It was obvious he didn’t believe the words yet, but you did enough for the both of you. You truly didn’t give a fuck what some assholes think- not that you thought too many people would even blink, to be fair. He was an odd sight, sure, but this was New York City. Who truly gave a shit.
“Alright, come on.” You took the lead, knowing exactly where you wanted to take him. “Follow me.”
“Sure,” he said, slightly wild amusement lingering in his voice. “Lead the way.”