i hate labels - hobie brown (;spiderpunk) x oc/reader

friday?

well, i found him.

upon stepping through the familiar sparks and blinding brightness of the portal, i found myself in a cramped bedroom very similar to my own. for a second, i actually blinked. it was eerily similar, actually.

by that, i mean the layout. it was obvious we were in...some iteration of Brooklyn, atop a residential brick building in the suburbs. my residential brick building in the suburbs. just outside the window was a fire escape i recognised well, and beyond that was the gleaming Manhattan skyline, plus a few additional buildings i'd never seen before.

the room was empty, of course. it couldn't be that simple.

i remember thinking that it was clearly a girls, with random band and magazine posters chaotically plastered to the walls, clothing neatly folded at the end of the bed, and some worn pointe shoes tied to a closed door handle, gently swaying. and how could i forget; just atop the door, was a flag. i smiled. i recognised the blue, white and pink well.

"PROTECT TRANS KIDS"

i suppressed any urge to be jealous. Hobie clearly had other multidimensional friends - likely other spider-men. props to him for branching out, i guess. dude was a hermit most of the time.

figuring the watch couldn't have been too far off, and only slightly tipped off by the ajar window, i clambered out onto the cool metal, sights set on the rooftop. as i climbed, i reached into my satchel and retrieved my mask. just in case. a friend of a friend is my friend or whatever...but i can't help but still be cautious. even if she was spider-man. 

i was right; it was a girl. i spotted her first, just as my eyes rose above the edge of the staircase. she was blond, with her hair cut choppily at her ears, and fragments of pink clinging to the ends. she wore a suit entirely dissimilar to my own, entirely white minus some black and pink accents throughout, complete with a hood. i scoffed. you may as well have a cape, at that point.

as i rose to stand, i noticed something. on her feet. Hobie's chucks. granted, they were an old pair, but i recognised them. teal and utterly destroyed, you could still see Hobie's signature along the sides. i decided to observe them a bit longer.

it was then that i spotted Hobie.

he was stretched out across a filthy couch, adorned with a grubby blanket, rubbing his forehead. he looked pissed. despite yesterday's (?) wounds, he was clean and bloodless, likely that fun superhuman healing. his suit, however, was different. in the gash's places, he'd carelessly stitched band patches, likely made from scrap shirts. they littered his chest and legs, extending to his tartan pants. explains some of the mess i saw earlier, in his room. i made note of one for The Clash and another for The Sex Pistols.

the girl was...pacing, and as she turned, i made note that she was maskless, assuming the white fabric in her balled fist to be her mask.

though i only caught her eyes for a second, i wondered how she didn't sense me in that moment.

then i remembered; Hobie's gadget.

the one still pulsing on my wrist, now flashing a tad less rhythmically. likely to mimic my own heartbeat, again. looking again, she didn't have a gadget - just a watch similar to my own, but not quite. it was...less clunky, if that makes any sense. less homemade. she couldn't sense me, in the same way that i couldn't sense Hobie that night on the roof. in the same way i couldn't sense either of them now.

Hobie's gadget worked on spider...people?

what. the. fuck.

armed with this information, i once again fought the urge to stand and announce myself. instead, the girl spoke, halting me.

"why did you run Hobie? you know they're not gonna stop following you."

run from who? who's following him? while i internally panicked, Hobie only sighed deeply, and i could practically feel his eye-roll from feet away.

"don't you think i know that, Gwendy? why do you think i'm here?"

this time, it was 'Gwendy's turn to sigh, though this one soundly considerably more exasperated. i watched as she joined Hobie on the couch, turning her body to better face me. she settled next to him, comfortably slotting against his slumped form.

"you can't stay here, you know that right?"

my heart hurt for Hobie. whatever he was running from, he was clearly desperate. to have jumped twice in one day, to have ditched my own universe so quickly. his eyebrows furrowed as he brought himself to face the girl. they were impossibly close.

"one night? then i'll go."

"go where?"

"wouldn't you like to know."

he smirked his iconic smirk, jumping up from the couch and grabbing at bags i hadn't known were there. they were the same bags i'd seen that other night, still comedically full of Hobie's belongings.

"is that a yes...?"

the girl rolled her eyes, letting her head fall into her hands, before mumbling,

"fine."

Hobie outstretched a hand, waiting before forcing the girl's hand into his and exaggeratedly shaking it. the girl let out a small scoff before playfully punching Hobie's shoulder. she was pretty. Hobie pretended to take the blow terribly, falling to the ground and writhing jokingly.

that's when he spotted me.

not my finest moment, i'm afraid.

"y/n?! how did you get here, man?"

fuck. looking back, i want to curl into a ball.