i have some spiderneil au for you :)
Breaking and entering, Neil finds, is a lot easier now. He scales the side of the school with ease, fingers sticking to the brick as he hauls himself over the edge of the roof. The door up here has been broken as long as he’s been going to this school, so at least longer than a year. He slips inside silently, slowly letting go of the door until it shuts behind him.
There’s no point in rushing down the staircase. At eleven pm, the hallways are empty and the school is quiet. He makes his way towards the locker room, crawling along the ceiling when necessary to avoid the cameras, the path so routine that he barely has to think about it. He releases a quiet sigh when he arrives, dropping his tattered bag beside him.
It smells heavily of sweat, the scent of deodorant doing nothing but adding to the musk. Neil barely reacts to it as he settles on one of the hard wooden benches that litter the place. It’s not the worst place he’s slept in the last seven years, but it leaves his back aching each morning. Usually the hot water makes up for it, but today Neil’s too exhausted to do anything but slump down onto the hard wood.
His bruises twinge from the earlier mugging he stopped, courtesy of some sort of high powered gun small fry like that shouldn’t have been able to get their hands on. The puzzle causes a grimace to bloom on his face. He drags a hand over his exhausted eyes, lazily looping his bag’s strap around his foot as he closes them. He just needs a few hours, and then he can patrol without worrying that he’ll die an embarrassing death like falling because he missed a swing.
“You don’t understand!” Slam.
Neil jolts into consciousness aggressively, fists already up as he flinches out of his uneasy slumber. He blinks hard, seeing the still empty locker room before him. It takes a second before he can differentiate the pounding of his heart and the stomping of footsteps in his direction.
He throws a panicked glance at the clock, 2 am, who the fuck is storming into the locker room at 2 am? They’re coming from the Exy court, and the thought sends a fresh wave of grief through Neil’s chest. It’s distracting enough that he doesn’t have time to grab his bag. He jumps for the ceiling just as the door from the inner court swings open.
“He’ll kill me,” Kevin Day says. His hands are shaking as he tears off his equipment. His helmet and gloves go first, but he seems to get stuck staring down at his left hand. It trembles violently in comparison to his right.
“He will have to go through me.” Neil’s heartbeat, which stopped as soon as he realized who exactly entered the locker room, returns in double time.
In the face of Kevin Day’s panic, Andrew Minyard remains unshakeable. His face is blank, his mouth drawing an uncaring line.
“You don’t understand,” Kevin repeats miserably, eyes bleak as he looks down to meet Andrew’s. “He’s already gotten too close.”
Neil is helpless to the curiosity burning inside his chest. Who could possibly want to kill Kevin Day? Actually, he grimaces, remembering the two painfully glorious weeks he spent on the Exy team sophomore year. Maybe the better question is who has the resources to attempt it.
“Did I not give you my word.” Andrew’s voice holds no emotion, but Neil catalogues the tension that rises in his shoulders. “Do you not believe me?”
Kevin flinches, as if Andrew’s words are poison to his ears. “I do,” he whispers unconvincingly.
Andrew scoffs, “Liar. Why don’t you ask your beloved Spider-man to intervene then.” Neil nearly chokes on his next inhale.
Kevin splutters, “I can’t bother Spider-man over Riko!”
“And yet you continuously bother me.”
Kevin shakes his head, moving towards the showers, but Neil is too busy reviewing the information he just revealed. Why would Riko want to kill Kevin? Everyone knows about Kevin’s injury, and his subsequent transfer from Edgar Allen high to Palmetto, but Neil’s heard nothing of a falling out between the two adopted brothers.
He doesn’t have the chance to investigate more as he notices that Andrew hasn’t moved from his spot below him. He’s looking to the ground, an unlit cigarette between his lips, his lighter paused in its journey towards his mouth. Andrew starts scanning the room around them.
Neil squints trying to figure out what caught Andrew’s attention before the hairs on the back of his neck raise, sending a shock of move move move move down his spine.
He leaps from the ceiling to the opposite side of a column of lockers just as Andrew looks up. His palms are so sweaty he worries that he’ll lose his grip, but he stays stuck to the wall like a, well, spider. He doesn’t dare move as he hears Kevin return from the showers a few minutes later.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
He hears Andrew finally light his cigarette, he can almost see the motions of it in his mind’s eye as he takes a drag. “The one that got away is here.”
Neil’s brow furrows before Kevin responds. “Neil’s here?” His mouth drops open in silent shock.
“Did you see him? Did he tell you why he quit the team? You know, he’s started running from me in the halls? If that asshole is here to practice at night I’m going to-”
“Hush, Queenie. I didn’t see him, but the rabbit’s never far from his bag.” Neil nearly bangs his head into the metal locker behind him. Of course.
“If we had him on the lineup we could-”
“Win the championship blah blah blah. Tell it to someone who cares,” Andrew’s voice gets quieter, and Neil hears a door open.
“You’re not even curious as to why-?” Kevin’s voice immediately follows.
Neil counts their steps, listening as their voices get quieter and quieter until even his heightened senses aren’t enough to keep track of their conversation. He finally lets his head fall back, nearly denting the metal as he groans. The brief display of emotion is all he allows himself before he drops to the ground.
He walks around the column of lockers, slinging his bag over his shoulder when he reaches it. He doesn’t let himself process what he just heard. It doesn’t matter that Kevin Day still wants him on the Exy team, or that Andrew is watching him closely enough to recognize his bag on sight.
It has to mean nothing because Neil can’t play Exy. His hand tightens around the strap of his bag at the thought. It doesn’t matter how much he wants to, how much his heart aches to step back on the court. It would only take one slip to reveal his powers, or worse, his identity as Spider-man.
He forces his feet to take him towards the exit, and not the court like they want to. His feelings towards Andrew’s attention are less clear cut as the knowledge settles in his chest. It could be dangerous. Does he suspect him? The thought makes Neil shudder in fear. There’s something else though, something that makes Neil’s hands clench into fists as his side.
Jealousy, perhaps, that Kevin has someone so clearly willing to protect him, as if it means nothing, as if it is easy. The only person who Neil could rely on like that is dead, and the grief is still too raw to settle into his bones.
Whatever Andrew’s feelings towards him, Neil forces any curiosity or jealousy away. He focuses on the information regarding Riko Moriyama instead. Kevin’s right, it’s not a job for Spider-man, but Neil Josten’s schedule is wide open.
