Venus

SUMMARY: Keith Kogane felt like he could never fit in anywhere, he hates everyone and everything, and yet, out of everyone in New York, he was bitten by a radioactive spider and forced to save said people he hates. it doesn’t end there, he also needs to avenge his brothers death while also suppressing his life long crush on his best friend Lance Mcclain and hiding his identity in the process.

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“Scar tissue that i wish you saw.”

Keith never felt normal, that sounds ‘emo’ to say, but that's true. When he was a kid, he didn't like playing outside; he would rather stay in his room and play with his toys or with his big brother. In Middle School, he was classified as that ‘Weird Emo Kid’, but he didn't care; it only meant fewer people were going to bother him, that's what he thought anyway. Turns out being the ‘Emo Kid’ in Middle School gets a lot of attention, even more now in High School as a Freshman and Sophomore. Small giggles when looking at Keith turned to full-on laughs, small teases turned into weirdly detailed drawings of him on the bathroom stall doing stuff that he didn't even think was possible to do with a pencil, but somehow being the victim of ‘my friend thinks you're cute’ jokes never changed.

But now, Senior Year of High School, he has to protect those people, those same people who don’t give a crap about him, but still managed to make his Middle School and current school life hell. Why? Because out of everybody in New York, out of everybody in Galra Labs, out of everybody in lab room 216, he had to get bitten; out of everybody, Keith Kogane, the boy who quite literally wishes the worst on people if they look at him wrong, now has to protect them from whatever danger lurks around in the streets.

Because if he doesn’t, how else is he supposed to avenge the person he's doing all of this for?

Keith was perched on the edge of a building, his knees hugged near his chest, and his chin resting on them. The wind was soft, unlike other nights when he couldn't swing without spinning like crazy, his mask was off, and a few strands of hair kept hitting his face no matter how many times he would push them back behind his ear.

It was a quiet night, one of his favorites, where all he had to do was maybe stop a few purse robberies, maybe help an old lady cross the street, but most of the time? He would watch people in the busy New York streets; he loves seeing people act like people, if that made sense. He loved seeing them all go everywhere and yet nowhere, seeing the occasional family on a walk, or somebody walking alone. It was all so interesting.

“Keith,” a voice spoke up through his mask that was beside him on the ledge, Keith lets out a sigh and picks the mask up, putting it back around his face, “Pidge,” he responded in turn, standing up to get all the blood flow back to his legs, he seriously doesn't need another cramp mid-swing again. “Robbery around Third Street, just something small, but you know the police.” Pidge sighs through the small earpiece in the mask.

Pidge is one of the few people Keith trusts. He met them during Sophomore year AP physics; they were the youngest in the class and the smartest, and they didn’t get on Keith's nerves. So when Keith found out about his new ‘powers’, Pidge was the first person he told to help him. They made him the suit, weapons to help him fight crime, you know, the works.

“Seriously? How long do I have until I get home?” Keith sighs, already deploying a web to swing his way over to the street. He can hear Pidge clack away on their keyboard before responding, “It's Wednesday, so just twenty more minutes. But I think after this, we can call it a night, we have that chem quiz tomorrow.” “As if you're worried about that.”

Keith scoffs, shooting another web to swing around the corner. He can feel the wind through the mask, one of his favorite feelings whenever he's swinging. That and also the small adrenaline rush he feels whenever he misses a swing, but that sounds too sadistic. He hears Pidge let out a small laugh, “Yeah, I'm just worried about you passing, Webs.” They reply jokingly, knowing that Keith will most likely pass; he's made his web fluid after all, so he's had first-hand experience with chemistry.

His lenses then zone in on the small corner store, letting out a soft chirp as they go from night vision to thermal vision, another perk of Pidge’s genius. Honestly, Keith would be the shittiest vigilante if he didn't have all this fancy stuff. Keith throws himself to the wall near the window of the shop, peeking a bit to see three thermal signatures, two of which he's assuming are the robbers due to their rapid movements, and one being most likely a worker by how they're behind a counter doing nothing.

With that information, Keith can confidently say that this ‘fight’ will last five minutes max and the police wouldn't get there until twenty minutes, because of course they never help, they're all just there for the glory of it all those damn- “Keith! Focus up, buddy.” Pidge cuts off his thoughts, becoming aware of the robbery happening, he nods.

Keith pushes himself off the wall and walks to the front of the store. The robbers haven't seen him since they're still shoving stuff into their duffel bags. Keith enters the store, a bell jingling when he pushes the door open and steps inside. He can see the worker still behind the counter, good, fewer people to worry about. Once Keith entered the store, the robbers drew their guns, making Keith raise his hands in mock surrender. “Whoa! Okay, I should've knocked, I know.” He says sarcastically, he can hear Pidge's snort through the earpiece.

“It's Mr. Web's guy!” One of the robbers says, making Keith throw his hands down,“Dude, that is not my name!” He groans.

“What is your name then?” The second robber asks with a tilt of his head, Keith shrugs, “I dunno, literally anything but Mr Webs, you guys make me sound like I'm some sort of teacher or old guy.”

“Then don't complain about what we call you if you don't even know what to call yourself.” The first robber chimes back in, earning a soft mutter of agreement from his partner as they both nod.

Pidge bursts out laughing, quickly having to mute themselves to not make the robbers hear them, but Keith can tell they're dying on the floor. Keith huffs and pinches the bridge of his nose through his mask, “This isn't supposed to be us figuring out my name! This is supposed to be me beating you two up.” he huffs, flicking his wrist to throw webs at the two robbers feet, making them stick to the ground, as he does so, the two robbers start to shoot at him, because of course they were going to. Keith doesn't hesitate, already webbing their wrists together to make them drop their guns, and he hears the metal hit the tiles of the corner store.

See, he swore it would last five minutes max.

Keith then, out of pure spite, goes up to one of the robbers and pokes their forehead, “Oh yeah! Mr. Webs just did that!” He says proudly, which earns a shared look of confusion from the two robbers. Keith is painfully aware of how cringeworthy his witty comeback was. He sighs and steps back, “God, I seriously do need a name…” he mumbles to himself, already taking a mental note to figure it out soon, since he refuses to be known as Mr. Webs by everybody in this damn city.

Keith sees one of the robbers open their mouth to speak, but he quickly webs both their mouths. He forgot how noisy robbers are when they're usually caught. He rubs his neck through the mask, ignoring the robbers muffled shouts of protest. God, he's so tired and so not excited for school in the morning. Just as Keith was about to leave his signature call card, he heard some ruffling from nearby. He forgot the worker behind the counter, and he quickly turned his head to see a head of brown hair peek out from behind the counter.

Keith mentally curses at himself and quickly moves over to the counter, "I'm sorry, are you okay?” He asks in a worried tone, already preparing for the lecture by Pidge, saying that he has to be more aware of other people wherever he's fighting, and not the bad guys. Keith peeks his head over to get a better view of the worker behind the counter, and he makes eye contact with them.

The first thing he sees, besides the brown hair, are blue eyes, but not normal ones that people are usually freaked out by, soft ones, like the ocean that fill him with a sense of familiarity, then he notices their tan skin, a mole beside their lip, and that's when Keith realized who it was.

Lance fucking McClain. Now, Keith is used to seeing people in his hero persona; he usually just treats them like how he would any other citizen and goes on about his patrols, but this person was different, because this person was Lance. Lance is his friend, they met in Middle School where Lance had some weird rivalry with him for some reason, and they then grew closer in High School where they both now talk almost daily. But that's from an outsider's perspective. To Keith, this boy was the love of his life; this boy saw him at his worst and still chose to talk to him, this was the boy that always looked at Keith like he was Keith, not the ‘Weird Emo Kid’, but as Keith. That alone was able to make Keith's Middle School heart melt.

“Thanks, man.” Keith hears Lance say with that slight accent in his voice that always got Keith to smile. Keith nods, having to ground himself and tell himself that he's on duty, that he can't be cheesing over his crush. “Yeah,” he says with a crack in his voice before clearing his throat, “yeah, no problem,” he says with fake confidence, leaning against the counter. Lance raises a brow and just presses his lips awkwardly, “Okay…” he says, dragging out the word before contributing, “um, I do appreciate the help, I know those guys wouldn’t have hurt me, but I don't think this shop couldn’t afford to lose whatever they were going to steal.” He explains, motioning to the two duffel bags on the ground, and Keith nods. Usually, corner stores like the one there can't afford to allow products to go to waste.

“No problem, like I said. I'm just… doing my duty as New York's vigilante.” Keith says with a sheepish voice, which makes Lance immediately slap his hands on the counter, “No way, man! You're New York's hero! I've seen you on the news, helping people in fires, helping people with robberies like this one, you saved a bus from falling off the edge of a bridge!” He says loudly, with that familiar sparkle in his eyes that fills Keith's mind.

Keith hesitates to speak, his heart speeding up each second that Lance looks at him, because holy shit, Lance sees him like a hero.

Keith opened his mouth to speak, before he heard the familiar sound of Police sirens, his lenses then showing a small alarm of their own, showing a thirty-second countdown before the police got there. He pushes himself off the counter and grabs a marker, quickly doodling down his call card that was a small sigil, and then back to Lance, “Okay, police are almost here, I gotta go.” He says quickly, already rushing his way to the door, “Wait! Stay! Explain to the police that you helped!” Lance shouts, following Keith outside the store. And god, Keith wants to stay, he wants to stay only because Lance said to, but he can't. “Me and the police? We don't get along much.” He says with a dry laugh, climbing up onto the nearby light post to swing away.

But he glances at Lance, for one more moment, and he speaks without thinking, “Get home safe, okay? For me.”

Keith doesn't look back again, not when Lance shouts for him to, because he sees the lights emerge from around the corner of the street. After all, he and the police don't get along.

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