#noirslinger

Patrick O’Hara was heading to the commissary, both to get some lunch for himself and some some treats for Widow, when someone knocked into him. He stopped and stared for a moment, the man was decently tall, wearing an interesting outfit, all black with what may have been a gas mask and a jacket of some sort. Probably just another spiderman he hadn’t met yet.

“Crud Sorry- my bad I should be looking where I’m going-“ Wow. What a voice. Did he sing? He should.

“Ah Uhm-no harm done pal. Say, how long have you been ‘round here? I haven’t seen ya before.” He stood up a bit straighter, hoping he looked good.

“Oh I’m new… what about you?”

“I’ve been here a good few months now. It’s a pretty nice setup, gettin to actually make a difference and all.”

“Yeah it seems pretty nice.”

“… I’m called Webslinger by the way.”

“Noir. Hey uh-I’ve gotta go, but it was nice meeting you.”

“Right-yeah, see ya ‘round newbie.”

“Yeah. Of course.”

It’s funny how all it takes is a few moments to change the course of the future.

Patrick O’Hara was highly familiar with this.

From the moment Ben died, to the moment he joined Morbius’ side show, to getting bit by that spider, to joining the spider society.

And while he did not know if meeting that black-clad stranger would change his *life*, it had most certainly changed his afternoon. He’d been thinking about him all day, sadly nobody he asked knew anything about a ‘Noir’ spiderman. Maybe he should ask Miguel…

Except that turned out to be an awful idea.

“Spiderman Noir? He was here-inside the base?”

“Yes sir I was just wondering if you knew about him, he seemed like a nice man.” He didn’t like the way Miguel was looking at him. Almost like an animal looking at meat.

“He’s part of Spiderpunk’s band of rogue spider people, he isn’t a nice man he’s a danger to the multiverse.” He paused, before seeming to get an idea, “But you aren’t.”

“No I’m not uhm-what does that mean boss?”

“They have information on the whereabouts of a particularly dangerous anomaly, if we had eyes on the inside we could find and contain it.” Ah. This was a mistake. Patrick was a lot of things, a spy wasn’t one of them. Why did all the moments that changed his life seem to change things for the worse eventually?

Noir hadn’t expected to walk into Hobie’s base to find him talking to cowboy. Let alone a familiar one. How did he get that horse in the building? How did he convince Hobie to let a horse in his base, let alone Riotheart?

“And-oh hey! Noir right?” Webslinger turned his attention to him upon seeing him walk in.

“Yep. And you’re Webslinger. I thought you were part of Miguel’s group?”

“Was.” He responded, “Apparently you never were.”

“… I had my reasons for being in there that day.” As soon as Noir had left that day, as a matter of fact, he remembered his reasons had been to beat Miguel’s ass for what he did to Miles. If a cowboy with a cute voice was all it took to distract him, he was glad he didn’t see many cowboys back home.

“I’m sure you did pardner. It is nice to formally be on the same side as you, however. I’m hopin we’ll be working close together from now on.” Webslinger held out his hand, and Noir shook it. He had a firm grip.

“I’m sure we will.”

When Webslinger had walked away, going to do something with his horse, Hobie turned to Noir.

“I don’t trust ‘im, there’s something fishy about ‘im.”

“Give him a chance, he seemed alright the first time we talked.” Noir didn’t know why that would actually matter-they’d spoken for maybe three minutes- but apparently it did.

Hobie squinted at him for a moment, “I am. But I’m keeping an eye on the bloke, and I’m askin you to do the same, mate. Miguel still thinks we know where Miles is, we don’t know what he’ll do to get to us.”

“… Have. We made any progress trying to find Miles?”

“We know the go home machine malfunctioned, but not where it sent him.” Hobie paused before adding, “We’re gonna find him. If he doesn’t find us first, you said he’s crafty like that didn’t you?”

“Well. I sure hope he is.” Noir sighed, “Poor kid must be feeling so alone right now.”

Patrick did learn a lot over the next few weeks. Places where the group met, what universes they were all from, that they hadn’t actually found Miles yet. He reported… bits and pieces back to Miguel. Somehow he couldn’t pull himself to fully betray this ragtag little team he wasn’t even actually a part of. Maybe it was the fact that he’d now heard how Miguel had gone essentially savage on the poor kid. Anomaly or not that had been a child, and a scared one at that. So Patrick made the group seem less organized than it was, understated how much they knew, made them seem smaller and weaker in hopes that Miguel would think they weren’t a big enough threat to take action against. So far it’d worked.

And he learned about Noir. He’d learned about the world he was from and the values he’d carried and that, although it was in a much more metaphorical sense, he was just as isolated as Patrick was. Honestly he could barely imagine it-having an aunt and friends and all these people who loved you and still inevitably being so horribly alone in the way Noir was. It almost made him feel lucky it was just him and his horse back home.

And Noir was. Nice. He may have been serious, but he was far from cold. He cared, a lot. And he was bright and determined and had this sense of justice about him he couldn’t help but find alluring.

And the closer he let himself be to Noir, the more of a bad idea it felt like. The more he knew it’d hurt if his precarious position as a double agent was revealed, or the fact that he wasn’t exactly doing that job the way he should be. The more it’d hurt for Noir to find out.