Title: Fire on the Rooftops, Bubbles in the Bath
Summary: Ganke often has very simple goals set for himself; for this month, just three things. Finish his Lego version of the Titanic. Make sure there is food in his apartment for both him and Miles when they have to really crack down for report in school. Make sure that Miles is clean and perfectly alive after doing the super hero thing.
Warnings: Hinted slash, mention of blood, mostly fluff in a bag of cotton candy. Also, I've only read the first two books for the Ultimate Comics Spiderman, so… yeah; if they're out of character, I wouldn't know. This takes place when they're more towards their college years and therefore able to live alone.
Dedication: For Kirra kills, who will be leaving the site because of harassment from various individuals that shall hereby be declared as trolls. Also, this will be my first in a string of various one-shots in an attempt to be progressive towards banning cyber-bullying on this site. I'll miss you, Kirra.
-:-
I must have my little joke now and then.
-The Maltese Falcon.
i. Go to the Towers
Fire is a fairly obvious sort of thing that a hero has to go through on a semi-daily basis to get to people that need saving. Maybe they're stuck in a building set ablaze because of crappy wiring, maybe it's because the building's owner wants the interest on the insurance plan, but for whatever reason, there is inevitably going to be people that need saving in their rooms or in hallways where things have already collapsed and been made impossible to escape.
That's usually where Miles comes in. He swoops in through holes that have opened in the floorboards after buckling to the heat chewing at them at just the right temperature, or smashing in through windows that hadn't opened despite the tenants' pulling and pushing at them for escape.
Ganke dislikes fire sites quite a bit. In fact, he hates them, because after everyone is rescued (and they are, dead or otherwise; Miles doesn't like to leave bodies to char like sacks of meat and the families having no memory of them besides that they died horribly) and Miles inevitably swings by Ganke's apartment afterward, there are burns to tend to on the hero and Ganke always has to go out and buy almost a truckload of gauze.
"Okay, don't move from that spot," Ganke ordered, pointing and wagging his finger like he might do towards a puppy he had just picked up off the street; Miles just rolling his eyes and continuing to stay immobile with Ganke's covers wrapped around his legs and up to his midsection and pressing the icepack to his arm like Ganke had told him to do (a little panic had stuck to the inseams of his voice when Miles had taken his suit off and the smell of burnt flesh assaulted his nose) for over half an hour, "I'll be right back with sterile dressings and ointment. Don't move."
Before allowing his best friend the chance to offer a clever repartee, Ganke shut the door.
In ascending the stairs of his building (what he really wouldn't give to tell the superintendant to stop dragging his ass around to get the elevator fixed) Ganke absently counted his money in his head, did some calculations and realized he'd have to push back buying the amount of Legos that would be required to complete his 78% finished version of the Titanic he had sitting in his living room. Ointment for second degree burns was expensive.
The thought didn't even cause him to misstep or pause.
ii. Go to the Café
It was official. The boys had cleaned out both of their apartments of food that was supposed to last the two weeks they had to complete a report on 'Ethics in the Mutant Registration Laws: Pros and Cons' together. It was two days from turning the report in and all Miles had in his cupboards was a box of tea he had no recollection of ever buying and all Ganke had was in his fridge; what he claimed it to be was not something Miles could pronounce, let alone something he would ever put in his mouth.
The darker of the two sighed, swinging the door of Ganke's fridge shut and then turning to the less-pudgy-than-years-previous young man that seemed to be blushing at the fact that he even still had that particular dish in his fridge. Probably.
"So…take-out or should we get out of this place for a couple of hours and regroup on that section in the essay about civil rights violations over a hot meal that does not involve Chinese food?"
Without words, Ganke grabbed their coats off of the hideous hook rack he'd bought online (surprisingly, people in New York were just weird enough that you could order furniture and appliances from certain sites with super hero figure prints painted into them—like the blankets or pajamas kids had when they were eight with Power Rangers or Disney Princesses on them) with Miles's Spiderman etched into the wood and tossed Miles his burgundy ("It's just dark red, dude." "Hey, if we're ever gonna talk to girls, we need to keep in mind these stupid color names in case we move in together." "That would just make us gay… or really persnickety type bi-sexuals,") coat to him; his own blue jeans type coat that he'd bought from only-God-knew-where covering him in seconds before he checked that he had both his keys and wallet.
"I think it's your turn to choose."
Miles grinned, shutting the door behind them as he also helped Ganke straighten out a little snag in his coat that was preventing the zipper from closing properly, "I think a trip to the coffee bar is in order. That one with the white tree painted on the window serves those giant, weird looking pastries with the Belgium chocolate in them for cheap, right?"
"You have no idea. I swear my downstairs neighbor—the one with the yappy mutt you can fit in a mailbox—has gained ten pounds since that place opened. You can tell from looking at her ass when she leaves the elevator each morning."
"Ganke!"
iii. Go to the Bath
"Will you stop wiggling your butt around?"
"Dude, this is embarrassing!"
"It'll be more embarrassing if that towel slips off before I drop you in the tub. Now will you just relax?"
Miles cooled off enough to just cross his arms rather awkwardly as Ganke opened the door to the hero's apartment bathroom (a place that was much bigger than Ganke's and much cleaner because Miles noticed every stain in the room the second it happened because of all the white and yellow tile—Ganke still remained firm that if you own a dark brown and pitch black tiled bathroom that didn't show dirt, you could leave it until you felt inclined to want to take a bath; a thing Ganke also remained adamant was a thing that only the injured, the old and those with a double X chromosome did) and made sure he didn't hit Miles's head on the doorframe as he carried him in.
Ganke didn't hit Miles's head, but the swollen ankle with little drops of blood forming along the edges of where Miles had smashed into metal billboard next to Osborn Industries, knocked against the doorknob and Miles bit his tongue to keep from snapping to be more careful.
"Oh, sorry dude," Ganke apologized, absently as he very carefully set Miles into the steaming hot bath (the tub was huge; Miles had been irritated by the size of the old one and bought this new one that could comfortably fit three people in it after he had gotten a promotion at work and wanted to use the money to show that he was becoming more like an adult. Ganke had agreed on the spending choice because, "Dude, it's marble and has those old, horror movie looking clawed-ball-holding leg things!") and discreetly looked away when the towel covering Miles's decency rode up when his butt hit the bottom of the tub.
"Alright then… You just get comfortable in here and I'll come back in after you've soaked a little. Don't get that ankle wet until I get back or no bubble-bath!"
As much as Miles loved his best friend, he couldn't let that slide without at least a little back-sass. Though, this type of sass was nonverbal as he just set his jaw, took a deep breath and submerged his head into the water.
When Ganke bent over to figure out what the other was doing, a hand re-emerged from the water and yanked hard on the neck of Ganke's T-shirt (a gift from Christmas that had Thor doing a parody of Rosy the Riveter) so that the other lost his balance and was launched head first into the bath with Miles.
Both emerged about five seconds later; Ganke sputtering expletives and Miles grinning at the other end of the tub, ankle still totally dry, "I guess now the bubbles are a guarantee, right?"
