Times are Tough, We All Could Use a Helping Hand

Chapter Two

The kitchen is the room Rick and Robbie spend the most time maintaining, and today is no exception. Kamala's dumped the bag of produce on the floor beside the counter. Robbie's rummaging for all the knives, cutting boards, and pots they'll need. Rick's fixing something underneath the sink.

"Robbie, Rick, I'd like you both to meet my Miles," Hobie announces to the room.

"Robbed the cradle to find this one, Hobie?" Robbie sets down the last of the dishes.

"I'm not that young," Miles protests.

"Let the boy be a boy, Hobie. Don't make him grow up too fast."

"There's a bigger gap between Mattea and Kamala," Hobie protests, but joking. He knows Robbie's just being difficult for the sake of being difficult.

"Stay young," Robbie says to Miles, then leaves, probably to help clear out that house two blocks down that collapsed yesterday. "I'd love to get to know you, but I'm needed elsewhere. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Miles says in return, giving Robbie a fist bump as the taller boy leaves.

Rick is still under the sink. "Did you hear me, Sir?" Hobie asks, falling into familiar patterns without thinking. His Dominant gives something one last turn with a wrench before turning around and standing.

"Yes, dear," Rick says. He crosses the room to pull Hobie away from Miles, and the touch of his Dom is even stronger than the disappointment Hobie feels at being separated from Miles. "Nice to meet you, Miles. Is it okay if I stake my claim a little bit? I can't exactly have you thinking you're the only one with a place in Hobie's heart now, can I, luv?"

Miles is looking a bit lost right now, but Hobie's not really in a state to be helping him at the moment. "Go ahead," he manages, and Hobie has a little bit of brainpower left to hope Miles isn't feeling pressured.

"Many relationships are between equals," Rick says, callused hands sneaking up from Hobie's arms to hold his shoulders. Hobie leans into his Dom's touch, brain flooded with too many hormones to think clearly. "In our relationship, I have power over Hobie."

He hooks a finger underneath Hobie's choker and tugs, gently, the studded leather digging into Hobie's neck. Hobie's head is forced up until he's making eye contact, the taller boy's brown eyes swallowing what's left of Hobie's ability to form coherent thoughts. If Rick's other hand wasn't holding his shoulder, Hobie's knees would have given in by now.

"Okay," Miles says, confusion lowering the volume of his voice. "Cool."

Rick lets Hobie go, all of a sudden, and Hobie can feel his brain clear up as Rick pats him on the shoulder approvingly.

"Hobie wanted to cut the vegetables with you," he says, shaking Miles' hand. He turns his head to Hobie. "Now, be a good one and show Miles what we're all about."

With that final command, Hobie shakes his head clear of the hormones of subspace, and starts grabbing dishes. It's amazing what a white boy with a mohawk and a commanding attitude can do to his heart. "We're making vegetable soup for the community."

"Like a soup kitchen?" Miles asks, accepting the knife Hobie passes him.

"Let me wash the vegetables," Rick says, taking Miles' bag to the sink. "The pipes are still a bit finicky. It's probably best to let me be the one to ruin all my hard work."

"Thanks," Hobie says, passing Miles a cutting board. Where are the washcloths? They're an oft-forgotten part of cutting vegetables, but important nonetheless.

"If I'm not being too rude, why are you the ones running the soup kitchen?" Miles asks. "You kind of seem like you could benefit from it."

"Don't worry about offending us, luv," Rick says. "We'll definitely be eating some of this soup ourselves, but the short version of why we're also in charge is that there's nobody else to run a soup kitchen."

Hobie checks the drawer where he and Riri usually put them. There's one, but he needs at least one more.

"Nobody?" Miles asks. "Can't you delegate? No offence, but isn't it kind of beneath a superhero gang to be running a soup kitchen?"

Hobie halts his search for a second washcloth. "Nothing's below a superhero gang," he says. "I'm the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. That means I have to be a friend of the neighbourhood."

"Aren't you already a friend of the neighbourhood from keeping it safe from all those villains you were telling me about?" Miles asks. "Like Kraven?"

"Fighting's easy," Rick says. "It's flashy and exciting and you get popularity after you win. Being there for the community during the peaceful times is the real marker of a hero."

"I guess," Miles says.

"Look at it this way, love," Hobie resumes his search for a washcloth. "I can put on my mask and beat up a Nazi who was shooting up the neighbourhood with a laser gun. That makes me a hero, yeah. But at the end of the day, the people whose lives I've just saved are still hungry. So if I can tie back my hair and make them soup, I should. It would be irresponsible if I didn't."

"I've never thought of it like that," Miles says.

Finally! Hobie pulls a washcloth out from between glass jars, stacked underneath the counter. It's probably being used to keep them from smashing, but he figures it can probably take a short vacation for his purposes.

"You're from a big city, right?" Rick asks.

"Yeah. Manhattan."

"That explains it. You've probably always got some violent crime to be stopping with the power of more violence, or a bit of spiderweb. This place is a bit quieter, luv. People are more focused on getting by. Looking for someone to beat up is a waste of Hobie's time when he could be addressing the problems right in front of him." Rick scrubs the last of the potatoes and sets it on the counter, gesturing for Hobie to pass him the washcloths.

After Rick rinses them, Hobie sets them on the countertop and puts the cutting boards on top. "There's the added benefit that people with full stomachs are better at fighting back. Ideally, we wouldn't be necessary. We're trying to establish a self-sufficient community, like Rojava."

"You've put much more thought into this Spider-Man business than I have," Miles says. Then, "Where's a peeler? For the potatoes?"

"They've been washed really well. We don't need to worry about peeling them," Hobie says. "Anyway, we need to make the stock first."

He passes Miles an onion, taking the potato from his hand.

"If you don't mind me giving you a bit of homework, you should listen to 'Health is Wealth' by Bob Vylan," Rick says, giving the faucet one last wiggle before turning around. "That pretty much explains why we make soup. Robbie's probably wondering why I'm not helping move rubble. I should get going." So Hobie was right about where Robbie was going.

Hobie kisses Rick on the cheek, leaving a black smudge of lipstick which Rick doesn't bother wiping off, and Miles shakes his hand.

 

"What was that all about?" Miles asks, as Hobie's watching Rick walk out of the kitchen. Damn, Rick's ass looks good in those jeans. It's a good thing Hobie discovered polyamory early - he would not be happy limiting his love to just one person at a time.

"What?" Hobie asks. He thought he and Rick were plenty clear about the necessity of meeting the needs of the community you claim to serve as a superhero.

"You called him sir. And the stuff with the choker. Rick said it was a power imbalance, but why?"

Oh. That. "As you may have figured out, I like all sorts of relationships," Hobe shrugs. "My relationship with Rick is one of them. Ever heard of BDSM? We're the D/s."

"I'm not great at acronyms," Miles says, and Hobie remembers how excited Miles was after he learned what the B in LGBTQ stood for.

"Fair," Hobie smiles, cutting into the first onion. Immediately, his eyes start to sting, but he blinks them back. He will not lose to these onions. "Rick's Dominant, I'm submissive," he explains.

Miles cuts into his onion, and now Hobie's got to fight back twice the tears. If only something so necessary could be just a little bit more romantic.

"There are all sorts of ways to have a D/s relationship, but ours is mostly psychological," Hobie explains. "He tells me what to do, I do it."

"I thought you were into anarchy," Miles says. How is he unaffected by these onions? Are his eyeballs malfunctioning? "Doesn't seem like you to listen to anyone."

"I don't believe in consistency, remember?" Hobie grins, then adds, "All that about not following orders went out the window when Rick suggested we try it in the bedroom. Over time, it's migrated into the rest of our life."

"Cool," Miles says. "How big should I cut the onion?"

"Oh, doesn't matter, love," Hobie says. "This is for the stock, anyway."

A quick shake of the pots reveals which one Rick filled with the good water, so Hobie drops his first onion into it, skin and all. With Miles' onion, that'll be two, so they probably need two more after that.

Miles is copying the pattern Hobie cut into his onion. "Why do you like it? Being bossed around."

"I don't really know," Hobie shrugs, grabbing the next onion. This one is easier on the eyes, thankfully. "Probably feels nice to not have to be in charge for once, or something psychological like that. I just know I like it."

"Fair enough," Miles says, dropping his onion in the pot. Hobie passes him another, which follows the same fate, and then they're on to the carrots.

 

They work in silence for the first carrot, the only sounds from the kitchen the thud of knife hitting cutting board. Kamala's voice is audible from somewhere, but just barely.

"So what do you do with Pavitr?" Miles asks. "Just out of curiosity. You said friends with benefits - what are the benefits?"

Hobie pauses, unsure what he's supposed to do now. What Rick and he have is easy to explain. Nobody's ever asked about him and Pavitr before.

"You don't have to answer," Miles says, quickly. "You're allowed privacy in your relationships."

"No, it's fine," Hobie shakes his head. He abandons his carrot to stand behind Miles, wrapping his arms around the shorter boy's waist. How should he say this? Sexily, probably. Although he doesn't like to kiss and tell. "Pavitr and I, it's mostly blowjobs. We've gone on a couple of dates, but we're just not interested in each other that way."

"Blowjobs," Miles repeats, eyes wide as he processes that mental image. Gorgeous. He swallows. "Cool. Like, just blowjobs? Not anything more?"

"You think Pavitr looks good normally, try looking up at him when you're on your knees, your lipstick smeared along his cock," Hobie says, leaning downwards to whisper in Miles' ear. Is Miles finding this sexy? He's going for sexy. It's probably sexy. "We don't need anything more."

Miles blinks a couple of times, swallows once more. It seems Hobie was successful. He's cute when he's turned on. "I see."

Hobie spins Miles around and pulls him upwards to kiss him. Miles returns the kiss, melting into Hobie's mouth, needy and desperate. He's not the best kisser Hobie's been with, but he's certainly very enthusiastic. When they separate, Miles' lips are smudged black with Hobie's lipstick. It's probably a fetish, Hobie acknowledges, but damn his partners look good covered in his lipstick. Riri's lipstick. Whatever.

"Not very sanitary," Kamala says from the doorway, and Miles squirms out from between Hobie and the kitchen counter. "I'd tell you to get a room, but I'm the one who arrived late."

"Sorry," Miles says, skin heating with a blush. "We really are cutting carrots, I promise."

"You're new, you're fine," she says, still leaning against the doorframe. Hasn't she anything better to do? "But Hobie needs to remember he has responsibilities to his community, not just to his dick."

"It was just a kiss," Hobie protests. "We're making soup."

"I saw Rick," she tuts. "And now here's Miles. Can't go two minutes without painting one of your boyfriends in lipstick, huh?"

"It was more than two minutes," Hobie says, fully aware that this isn't the part he should be arguing, but also aware that it's the part he's got the best chance of winning. She's not wrong about his love of showering affection on anyone who's around to take it, and she knows it. God knows she's been around for enough of his public displays of affection with various partners.

"All right," Kamala says, finally standing up to leave. "See you, Miles. Get back to the soup."


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