Chapter Text
Rio has a love-hate relationship with the term Spider-Man .
They don’t mind being referred to as a man, often prefer more masculine terms even. Their issue is with people crediting a man for their hard work.
It used to bother them a lot more when they were younger.
A couple weeks after they’d first dressed up and started swinging around the streets of New York and people had first started using the term Spider-Man they’d gotten fed up with it and almost flashed a reporter once to prove to them wrong.
In the end they had not gone through with it, deciding that giving the press a picture of their tits was not the brightest idea.
Now they usually mind their own business and if someone happens to bring up the other guy in their presence they just sulk in silence.
—
Rio sits on the roof of a building in Queens, feet dangling over the edge and fingers fiddling with the mask in their lap. They watch the people walk by on the street below, couples holding hands, friends laughing together, strangers rushing home after what has presumably been a long day at work. They like coming up here, like watching the world pass by from a distance. It makes them feel so small, eases the loneliness they always feel lurking beneath the surface.
They wouldn’t call themselves lonely, exactly. They have friends, sort of—Natasha and Maria, a couple they met a few years ago who forces Rio to come over for dinner once a week. They meet with their adoptive mom Lilia at least once every two weeks.
(Lilia was an old friend of their parents, who took Rio in after they died in a car crash when Rio was four and eventually legally adopted her.)
It’s one person more in their inner circle than they had growing up. Logically they should feel less alone than they did back then. So, why do they not?
If Rio allows themselves to be completely honest with themselves, reaches into the deepest corners of their heart they know they will find an answer there, and what that answer will be.
They don’t allow themselves, though. Instead they keep that place locked up and focus on their job as New York’s friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, handling low life criminals and saving cats from trees.
Doing their job is fulfilling, even if they sometimes wish they could live a simpler life, somewhere more quiet, and collecting the little money they earn at The Daily Bugle with their freelance photography—it’s enough to survive.
The police radio next to them cracks and Rio snaps out of their self-loathing.
(They’re a bit of a hypocrite, they know. Stealing a police radio when they spend most of their nights putting thieves behind bars, but maybe if the police would help them instead of actively working against them, they wouldn’t have to resort to stealing.)
“ Break in… Home Depot…168th Street.”
Rio gets up, puts their mask on and gives their shoulders a little roll before taking off.
The store is closeby, it only takes a couple minutes of swinging before the store is in sight, and thank god they haven't seen a single police car yet. They prefer to do this by themselves. The cops only slow them down. They spot a figure, dressed in black, running away from the store.
Their plan is to swing down, release their webs and land in their signature pose, maybe even show off and throw in a backflip. The plan goes to shit however when they get closer and lock eyes with the suspect.
Those blue eyes, laced with hints of green in them on both sides. They’d recognize them anywhere, even now years later.
They end up swinging face-first into a brick wall, losing the grip on their web and falling to the ground, landing on their back in a dumpster with a loud thud.
At least the garbage somewhat broke their fall.
“Ow, ow, ow, fuck.” Rio mutters, coughing as they try to sit up and get air back into their lungs.
“Um.. are you alright?”
Rio looks up, the woman has put her ski mask back on, but it’s too late. Rio would recognize those eyes, that voice, that walk anywhere.
She’s standing right in front of Rio now. They haven’t been this close in years and Rio feels all the air leave their lungs for a second time, only this time it’s for an entirely different reason. They’re not sure what hurts more though, barreling into a brick wall at 60 mph or seeing your ex- something again for the first time in years.
They get up slowly, brushing off any residue trash from their suit, and try to get their brain to cooperate.
“Yes–just uh…slipped.”
Rio mentally facepalms themselves.
“Well, if you’re alright. I’m just gonna go before, you know, the cops show up.”
“No wait!” Rio calls after her when they finally remember they have a job to do here. Agatha doesn’t turn around, and Rio tries to shoot a web at her feet to stop her, but completely misses. “Oh for fuck’s sake.”
It makes Agatha stop, though, so Rio takes it as a win. Agatha turns around, and X-ray vision is not one of their superpowers, but they can see the smirk on Agatha’s face as she points at the residual web on the floor a few feet in front of her.
“Having some performance issues there, big boy?”
Rio feels their brain shut off, Agatha’s words eliciting goosebumps all over their skin. They feel their cheeks flush and they’ve never been happier they wear a full-face mask.
Rio opens their mouth to respond, but no words are formed. They fiddle with their web shooters instead. Maybe they can force Agatha to shut up, just tape her mouth shut with their webs, but of course the fucking thing is jammed.
They’re pathetic, really. One encounter with their childhood best friend and they completely lose the ability to function.
Agatha chuckles. “Alright, spider boy, see you later.”
Rio stops hitting the device on their wrist and looks up just in time to see Agatha run off. They sigh, give up on getting their suit to cooperate and watch Agatha leave instead.
They should feel embarrassed. In their efforts to prove Agatha wrong they ended up doing the exact opposite. Yet they spend the rest of the night with a smile on their face because this— Agatha has made them feel more alive than they have in years.
And if Rio has to cut their patrol short that night, and go home to take a very, very long shower while they replay Agatha calling them spider boy over and over again then no one will ever have to know.
—
Rio strolls into The Daily Bugle a couple days later, clutching the file containing a batch of new photographs to their chest. They take the elevator up to the top floor and head straight for Jameson’s office. They keep their head down as the walk through the halls, so distracted that they end up colliding into a person exiting his office, and what the actual fuck–
They try to remember if they’ve recently accidentally pushed someone’s grandma down the stairs, or done anything else to make the universe hate them this much. It’s the only explanation for Agatha being here, in Jameson’s office. Of course this has to fucking happen when they’re too broke to afford a therapist. Handling Agatha as Spider-Man has been embarrassing, but doing so as Rio is a whole new level of pain they aren’t prepared for.
“Agatha–” Rio starts, watching as Agatha’s shocked expression switches to hatred so fast it leaves them with a sinking feeling in their stomach.
“What are you doing here?” Agatha snaps.
“I work here.”
“No, I work here.”
“Ah, Rio, it’s good that you’re here. Please come in.” Jameson interrupts Rio before they can respond, and Agatha takes the moment to escape. Rio has half a mind to chase her, but decides against it. It was always better to let Agatha cool off for a little while.
They sigh and step into the office, letting the door fall closed behind them. They wordlessly hand Jameson the file, but fail to pay attention to anything he’s saying. Their mind is on Agatha, the look on her face. They’ve been on the receiving end of quite a few glares from Agatha, but never something like this.
“—new head of the crime department, Agatha Harkness, who you just met.” And that gets Rio’s attention.
“I want you to report directly to her from now on. There’s been an increase in break-ins in hardware stores. God knows why, but I’m expecting Spider-Man to get involved any day now, and when he does I want you to have the pictures ready.”
Rio tries to process what they’re hearing, just sits there and nods and—
Wait, is Agatha reporting her own crimes? That’s one way to throw the cops off the scent, they suppose.
Rio barely manages to suppress their smile because the whole thing is such an Agatha thing to do, and despite everything they’ve missed her.
The meeting concludes with Jameson reluctantly handing over what little money he owes them. Rio rolls their eyes, one day they’re going to visit his house and dangle him from the roof for a while, maybe that will teach him how to respect them.
They exit the office, and they should really head straight to the elevator and go home to catch up on some much needed sleep. Instead, they find themselves tracing the same steps Agatha had until they are standing in front of her desk.
“Hi.” Rio says, fidgeting with the edge of their hoodie.
“Fuck off, Vidal.” Agatha replies without looking at them.
Rio decides to ignore Agatha’s hostility, and leans a little closer. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Well, it’s been absolutely terrible to see you again.”
Rio takes a deep breath, resisting the urge to hit Agatha on the head.
“How are you, Agatha?”
“Feeling pretty shit now that you’re here.”
Rio sighs and pinches the bridge of their nose. “Can I at least get your phone number? So we can work together. I assume Jameson told you.”
Technically they don’t need the phone number. They can just set up an arrangement similar to the one they have with Jameson and supply the pictures once every two weeks, but they want the reassurance, the knowledge that they could contact Agatha whenever they’d want.
“No.”
“You used to be more cooperative than this.”
Agatha finally looks at them. She’s glaring, but Rio will take anything at this point. “Don’t act like you know me.” She snaps.
Rio narrows their eyes, wants to protest, wants to argue that they know her better than anyone until they’re hit with the sudden realization that they don’t . They haven’t seen Agatha in seven years, they have no idea what her life looks like now.
Before they can reply Rio hears a chair rolling across the floor and sees a woman pulling up next to Agatha.
“Hi, I’m Jen.” She holds out her hand, grinning.
Rio shakes her hand, clenching their jaw at the physical touch. “Hello.”
“It’s nice to meet you. Any enemy of Agatha’s is a friend of mine.” She holds out a piece of paper. “Here’s Agatha’s phone number. Added her email address too just in case.” Agatha tries to snatch the paper from Jen’s hand, but Rio is faster—thank god for those spidey reflexes.
“This is exactly why we’re not friends, Kale.” Agatha grumbles, fixing Jen with a glare.
Rio smiles, there’s the Agatha they remember.
They pocket the piece of paper. “Thanks, Jen.” Then turns to Agatha. “I’ll see you later.” They say before walking off.
“No you won’t!” Agatha calls after them.
—
“Okay,” They take a deep breath. “Focus, Rio.” They clasp their hands together. “You’re going to shoot your web to keep her in place, and wait for the cops to show up. Then they can deal with her, and your life will go back to being normal again.”
Except, now that they know Agatha is in New York again, their life will never be normal again. They’ll always end up gravitating towards her, even if all they’re able to do is watch from the shadows as Agatha lives her life.
In fact, it’s already happening.
They’re a bit embarrassed to admit it, but they’ve been tracking Agatha since that first night. Nothing too creepy. Just following her around after she finishes work, waiting to see if she goes out at night. Which is why they’re currently standing in an alley, hiding in the dark while they wait for Agatha to finish breaking into the store again. Rio’s come prepared this time, determined to not let Agatha throw them off their game again. Last time had only been about the shock of seeing her again, really.
They’re so busy triple checking that their stupid web shooters actually work that they almost miss the whole thing. They see a blur running past, dart out of the alley, take their aim, and watch with a satisfied smirk as it reaches its intended target.
The web attaches to Agatha’s foot and the sudden loss of momentum almost sends her toppling forward, but Rio shoots another web, aimed at her back, and saves her.
Agatha takes a minute to steady herself before turning around slowly.
“Glad to see you fixed those performance issues, pretty boy.” Rio can practically hear the smirk in her voice, and already feels their resolve slipping.
They want to punch her in the face, anything to keep the upper hand.
“I don’t have performance issues.” Rio replies, releasing their previous web and shooting two new ones at Agatha’s wrists, tying them together as if they’re trying to prove their point.
Agatha looks down at her wrists, and when she lifts her gaze there is a glint in her eyes that lets Rio know they’re completely fucked.
“Would you like to test that theory?”
Agatha takes a step closer, gets right into Rio’s face, so close they can smell her and the scent is so intoxicating, so familiar that they have to close their eyes and focus on their breathing. In and out. In and ou–
“I’m usually the one who does the tying up, but I could be convinced to switch positions.”
Well, fuck.
They’re so caught up in the visual Agatha has just provided that they don’t notice Agatha pressing the release button on her web shooters, and by the time they open their eyes again Agatha is nowhere to be seen.
They want to run after her, but a quick glance down reveals that their hands are tied together with their own webs. Rio groans before embarking on the very embarrassing half-hour walk home. They’ll get her next time.
—
THEN:
“Because the acceleration in the x-direction is positive, the system starts moving to the left if the second mass is greater than the first mass times the sine of alph–” Rio looks up. Agatha is doing that thing again where she’s not paying attention to anything Rio is saying. Instead, she stares at them with a look on her face that Rio never knows how to interpret. She’s been doing that a lot lately.
They stop talking, grab their eraser and throw it at Agatha’s face.
“Ow,” Agatha scoffs, chucking the eraser back at Rio, who dodges it effortlessly. “The fuck was that for?”
“You need to pay attention,” Rio shoves the textbook closer to Agatha. “This is important material for the test next week.”
Agatha looks at the textbook, then up at Rio as she closes it. “Let’s just go get some food.”
“Agatha, we should study–”
Agatha grabs their textbook, and throws it across the auditorium where it lands on the floor with a loud thud, earning them a couple of glares from other students.
“Rio, if you make me look at one more equation I will start strangling you.”
Rio opens their mouth to reply, but Agatha starts fucking pouting and saying please and Rio’s never been really good at saying no to Agatha anyway.
“Fine.” They say, getting up to retrieve their textbook from the floor.
They end up walking to a nearby diner since Rio still refuses to drive their car after finding out that gasoline is made from dinosaurs, and Agatha hasn’t gotten her license yet.
“I think I’m gonna stick with it.”
“Physics? Yeah you should, you’re really smar–”
“No,” They say, nervously fiddling with the straps of their backpack. “The pronouns.”
“Oh,” Agatha replies, then pauses for a second before she grabs Rio’s hand, stopping them. “You should. It suits you.” She’s got a soft smile on her face and it makes a warmth spread through their chest that they never want to stop feeling.
Rio beams at her before tugging her forward again.
“Come on, let’s get some food in you before you go all crazy on me again.”
“That happened one time.”
—
Rio sits on their bed, hunched over their physics textbook, Labyrinth playing in the background on their laptop. Their focus is interrupted by soft taps against their window. They frown and look up, but don't see anything and decide it’s just the result of the old house they and Lilia live in. They concentrate back on their homework until they hear a loud bang coming from their window. They look up, and notice a large crack in their window that has them scrambling up and walking over to the window. They open it, look down and spot Agatha standing in front of their house, gesturing for Rio to come down. They grin before closing the window and tiptoeing downstairs, trying not to wake up Lilia. They don't think Lilia would actually care if Agatha randomly stayed over. She just gets cranky when her sleep is interrupted, and Rio has no intention of dealing with that tonight.
They open the front door carefully, their heart fluttering as they come face to face with Agatha.
“You almost broke my window.”
“You weren’t picking up the phone.” Agatha shrugs, trying to act nonchalant, but Rio sees the tension in her shoulders, the way she’s fidgeting with the hem of her sweater. Agatha has that haunted look in her eyes, and Rio instantly knows something happened.
They wordlessly reach for Agatha’s hand, link their fingers together and pull her inside the house. They close the door behind them before leading Agatha up the stairs.
When they reach Rio’s room, they walk over to their closet and offer Agatha her usual shirt and pair of shorts, never letting go of her hand. Agatha accepts them with a smile and changes while Rio clears their bed.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Rio whispers, sitting on their bed as they watch Agatha place her clothes on a chair in the corner of Rio’s room.
“Threw me into a dresser.” Agatha shrugs, lifting up her shirt, revealing a deep purple bruise.
Rio feels their blood boil and fists clenching at the sight, and swears that one day they will put their suit on and scare the living hell out of Evanora Harkness. Not right now, though. Right now, Agatha needs them.
They get up, brush their thumb over the bruise, careful not to press too hard. They hear Agatha inhale shakily, and it makes them look up. They see tears welling up in her eyes, and that’s all it takes for Rio to pull her into their arms.
“I love you.” They whisper into her hair. They’ll never understand how someone, Agatha’s own mother of all people, can hurt someone they cherish so much. “You’re good, Agatha.”
“You’re the only one who thinks so.”
Rio once again fights the urge to beat up everyone who has ever wronged Agatha.
“I’m the only one worth listening to.”
Agatha doesn’t respond, just squeezes them tighter. She doesn’t cry, though. She never does.
Rio eventually moves them towards the bed and they climb into it. Agatha doesn’t need to say anything for Rio to reach out, wrap their arm around her waist and pull Agatha’s back to their front. Agatha reaches out to grab Rio’s hand and pulls their arm tighter around herself. Rio buries their face in Agatha’s hair, holding her as tight as they can.
“I’ll always protect you. I promise.”
—
NOW:
The third time Spider-Man meets Agatha, they are late. They’ve been staking out the store every night, waiting for Agatha to show up. But they’d gotten held up all the way on the other end of Queens dealing with a cat that had gotten itself stuck in a tree. They leave the cat in the arms of the worried owner and rush towards Home Depot, again. Honestly, at this point Home Depot should start handing them gift cards as a thank you for their efforts.
They spot Agatha walking about a block away from the store. This time they do manage a smooth landing, right in front of Agatha.
They take it as a sign that things will go their way this time. Third time has to be the charm, right?
Agatha stops walking, adjusting her backpack.
“We have got to stop meeting like this.” Agatha says, looking Rio up and down and Rio almost trips over their feet.
And to think they were so proud of sticking the landing this time.
“You need to stop breaking into these stores.”
“Who said I was breaking into any stores?”
“So if I were to check your backpack I wouldn’t find any—” They pause and tilt their head. “What exactly does one steal at a hardware store?”
“I mean, you’re welcome to check my bag, handsome.”
“Shut up.” Rio says too quickly. “And stay still while we wait for the cops.”
“They’re not coming.”
“Yes, they are.”
“I didn’t trip the alarm. There is no way for them to know we are out here.” Agatha pauses, tilts her head and slowly starts walking towards Rio. “Which means… were you watching me, spider boy?”
Rio’s mind is chanting fuck, fuck, fuck as they search for an answer that doesn’t reveal they’ve been stalking her for the past week. Although part of Rio thinks Agatha might be into that, that she wants Spider-Man to admit they’ve been thinking about her.
They’re the one with the spider-like abilities, but Rio’s been caught in her web, walked right into her trap.
“It’s spider- man , actually.” They settle on, and god they really do sound pathetic.
Agatha just laughs. “Okay, spider-man, do you always sneak up on women in the middle of the night?”
They decide to switch tactics. If Agatha’s going to make their job harder they might as well have a little fun with it, too.
They step closer to Agatha, and rip off her ski mask. “Only the pretty ones.”
Agatha smirks, biting her lip as she looks Spider-Man up and down like she wants to rip their suit off and fuck them right here in this alley, and it’s such a stark contrast to the look Agatha had given Rio three days ago that Rio stops breathing for a moment.
“Thought you’d at least buy me dinner first before you start ripping my clothes off.”
“Turn yourself in and maybe I will.”
“Take me out to dinner or fuck me?”
“Guess you’ll just have to find out.”
“That’s good.” Agatha reaches up to trace their lips through the mask and Rio fucking melts, barely holds back a whine. “You’re forgetting one thing, though.”
Rio swallows hard. “And what’s that?”
“You’ll have to catch me first.”
And before Rio’s had the time to process the words, Agatha takes off running. Rio curses and tries to shoot a web to catch her, but nothing happens. Rio looks down and frowns, hits them a couple times, but still nothing happens. Either Agatha had somehow managed to not only disable the devices, but also distract Rio enough that they didn’t notice, or they were jammed again.
They can’t decide which is worse.
Rio sighs, accepting their fate of having to do the superhero version equivalent of a walk of shame for the third time in a row.