By the time Daisy made it back to the den, it was almost so pitch black outside that she couldn't see. Dot and Sage still accompanied her, perhaps fearing for her safety like the good friends they proved to be. With the leather piece in hand, Daisy walked over to the entrance of the den. "Fang? Are you down there?" she called.
"No, I'm over here..." said a growly voice beside them. They all startled and looked into the grass. Fang revealed himself, his eyes glistening in the dark. "I was out hunting. Where have you been?"
Daisy seemed ashamed of herself. "I'm sorry, Fang. I found the leather, but I should have come back sooner."
"Yeah, you should have..." the spider muttered. He groomed one of his legs and licked his fangs. "But whatever. At least now I can fix the middle and upper part of your wing."
Dot stepped up. "Alright, drop the act. What do you really want with Daisy?"
Fang stared at the ladybug. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I didn't catch your name?"
"I'm Dot," she said. "And I'm on to you, spider. We all know you want to eat Daisy. So drop the 'friendly spider' act and just admit it."
Daisy looked dismayed. "Dot, you're not gonna hurt him, are you?"
Dot replied, "Not unless I have to. Right, Sage?"
Sage and Fang stared at each other. "Uh," Sage whimpered. "I'm not with her. She just dragged me along for this, Mr. Spider sir. Really, you're quite a handsome specimen for-"
"Shut up," Fang barked. Sage cowered a little.
Turning to Dot, the spider said, "I've got nothing to say. If I really wanted to eat her, why would I send you out to get me things to fix her wing with, huh? Did you figure that one out yet, little lady?"
There was a tense silence between them.
"Winter, right?" Dot asked. "You're waiting until winter when there's nothing left to eat, and when it's too cold for her to fly. She'll be stuck in there with you, then."
Fang growled. The ladybug continued, "Fact of the matter is that I don't trust you. So from this moment forward, me and Sage will be monitoring you. Understood?"
The spider chuckled. "I'm not afraid of your little spear."
"Understood?!" Dot yelled.
Fang glared at her. "Yes, I understand perfectly. But before you go on thinking you can come into my domain and bark threats at me, at least try to understand for yourself the logic of the situation. Unless you need me to dumb it down for you?"
Daisy gently put a hand on one of Fang's arms. "No, they get it. Right, guys?" Her friends nodded. The spider's anger seemed to melt away as his focus returned to her.
"Just be careful, Daisy..." Sage said. With that, he and Dot strolled away. Fang and Daisy watched them go, the sounds of the night echoing around them.
Then the spider cleared his throat. "Well, we probably should get some sleep." Daisy hadn't realized her hand was still on Fang's arm until now, and she pulled away. "Y-yes, alright..." she stammered.
Fang sighed as they walked back into his den. "Are your friends always this much of a headache?"
Daisy shook her head. "No, only when giant spiders are around them." Fang chuckled again, and the butterfly couldn't help but smile at him. She didn't trust him entirely, but she also had a hard time believing he actually wanted to eat her. Fang made a good point, after all: why bother helping her if his endgame was to kill her anyway?
Maybe he wasn't as bad as the insects thought he was.
**********
The following day, Fang put the makeshift wing together. Daisy watched with fascination. He used an old gear from his collection of metal trinkets he kept in a corner and used a few iron rods to attach the leather strip to the steel frame of the wing. It didn't look anything like Daisy's old wing, but as long as she could fly again, that wasn't a problem. In fact, it kind of looked cool.
"Just fixing your wing's only half the battle," Fang said. "Once we get this strapped to your body, you're gonna have to learn to fly all over again. You'll have to do some wing excercises to make yourself strong once more, strong enough to be able to get off the ground. And I can only hope for your sake that we succeed in doing so before fall is over."
Daisy felt a wave of nervousness sweep over her. "What happens in fall?" she asked.
Fang replied, "All of the butterflies are supposed to migrate south for the winter, because there won't be any more flowers left alive for you to get nectar from. And since butterflies don't normally hibernate like us spiders do, you'll starve. But just in case you're a painfully slow learner, I'll have to have a contingency plan in place."
"Like?"
"Well...I suppose I'll have to gather nectar in jars and preserve them," the spider muttered. "But hopefully it won't have to come down to that. You're a smart one. You'll be able to figure it out."
Daisy laughed. "I didn't realize I was such a burden," she teased.
Fang smirked. "Yeah, you got me running back and forth, that's for sure. Spiders are known for being hard workers, anyway. So no worries."
After a bit of silence, Daisy spoke up again. "I just wanted to say thank you, Fang. I'm afraid I haven't held up my end of the bargain by finding you things to eat, but-"
The spider shook his head quickly. "No, no. Don't worry about that, Daisy. I was in a rotten temper when we first met. I shouldn't have put that kind of pressure on your shoulders. You wouldn't have been able to live with yourself if you did. I'm...I'm sorry."
The butterfly got a bit closer to him. "Well, I did find some bugs you could eat. If you want to count mealworms and beetles. They're basically like cattle to us other insects."
"Like aphids to ants," Fang mused.
"Yeah, something like that."
They looked at one another for a while. Both spider and butterfly were so locked in a gaze that they jumped when the fireplace popped loudly.
Fang stood up. "Uh, if you ever get bored from just sitting around, you can always get a book from my library. It's alright."
Daisy smiled pleasantly. "Oh thank you, Fang!" she exclaimed.
The spider smiled back. "Yeah. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna take a little nap. I didn't get much sleep last night." With that, he leaned back in his recliner and fell asleep within a few minutes.
The butterfly quietly read for an hour or so before getting tired herself. She went back to her room and slept until late afternoon. Fang's den didn't really offer much else in the form of entertainment, apart from the chaotic harpsichord music he often played whenever he was working.
When Daisy ventured out, Fang was reading a book in his recliner. "Hi, Daisy..." he said. "What are you up to?"
"Not much," the butterfly sighed. "What are you reading?"
"Just a book about astronomy. Want to take a look?"
Daisy did so, carefully crawling between the spider's arms to see the pictures in the book. "That one's called the butterfly nebula," Fang said, pointing to one photo.
"It's beautiful!" Daisy breathed, staring at the prismatic rainbow streaks running through the constellation Scorpious. Its official name was NGC 6302, but she could see why it was called the "butterfly nebula", on account of the wing pattern.
Most of their time together was spent like this. When Fang wasn't working on the makeshift wing, and Daisy wasn't outside with her friends, they were curled up together on the recliner, looking through different books together. Besides astronomy, Fang often showed her geography books with various landscapes in them. "Most butterflies go here when it gets cold outside," he said as he pointed at a big triangle-shaped area called "TEXAS". "Then when it gets cold there, they go other places, too." The spider pointed to different areas in the picture. "My advice is to follow your butterfly buddies. They know where they're going." Daisy nodded.
More than once, they had dozed off from all this reading. It often got late in the night, and they became so tired that they passed out there in the recliner, Fang's arms gently cradling Daisy to his chest.
Even as the weeks passed, Dot still wouldn't give Fang the benefit of a doubt. "No such thing as a good spider," she argued. "He's plotting something, I tell you." Much to Sage's protest, she often sent the grasshopper down to the den to check on Daisy, if she couldn't go herself. And much to their astonishment, the butterfly wasn't even accidentally harmed in any way.
"Dot, really. Maybe he isn't like that," Daisy was telling her early one July day. "He's so smart, and gentle, and caring."
The ladybug sighed. "Well, I still have my eye on him, regardless."
Sage walked up, grinning. "Hey girls, guess what? Morales has invited us to his birthday party. He wants to meet Daisy."
Dot grimaced. "Sage, I told you! There's no way we're taking Daisy to Roach City!"
They argued some more. Daisy thought it over. "I'll go," she said. "As long as you bring that spear of yours, Dot. I've been wanting to meet Morales for a long time."
"Yeah," Sage agreed. "And how come we never get to do anything I want to do?"
Dot furrowed her brow. "This isn't even about what you want. It's about common sense and safety! You should've told Morales to come here!"
"Then I'll bring Fang," Daisy said. They both stared wide-eyed at her. She continued, "If either if you have a better idea, I'd like to hear it."
They looked at one another. Then Dot groaned, "Alright. But keep him under control!" Daisy rolled her eyes.