t-wordy-kk - Tumblr blog

t-wordy-kk · 3 years ago

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This is pure gold, it got me so flustered!!! Such an amazing piece of writing right here 💜💜

Snowed In

Word count: 16,800

Pairing: Loki x reader (enemies to lovers)

Warnings: Sexual tension and innuendos 🔥🔥🔥, nongraphic descriptions of injury, hypothermia, violence, killing bad guys, making out

We had a blizzard, and it inspired me to write off prompt 😎 (or should I say 🥶) So, please enjoy another idea of my own making!

Alright, snow boots... fleece gloves... heavy socks...

You sifted through your bag for the fourth time that evening, making note on your mental checklist of each and every winter gear item you had stored inside. It would do you no good to arrive up in the mountains and not have the appropriate attire. Best to make absolutely sure you were prepared before departing the next morning.

Heavy coat... snow pants... winter hat... extra underwear...

Ok, so maybe you were a bit neurotic. But it suited you just fine. You prided yourself on being a planner - the person who had everything the team could possibly need, including the items they never thought they would. It might not be a superpower, but it was damn close to one. Especially when you were paired on missions with scatterbrains like Tony or Bucky. They had a particular appreciation for your aptitude for organization.

Flashlight... first aid kit... snow goggles... alright, done.

Satisfied, you closed your bag and zippered it up, setting it aside for the morning. To say you were nervous was an understatement. Not only was this the first time you would be hiking through the icy mountains - a place you'd never really hoped to visit, given your hatred of the cold - it would also be your first mission being paired with the mysterious and brooding God of Mischief.

You and Loki hadn't crossed paths much since your initiation to the team. He tended to keep to himself, Thor had explained - it wasn't anything you had done in particular. So, you tried not to pay him any mind. But it was hard not to take it personally when he seemed to disappear the moment you entered a room.

Loki intrigued you. He had this air of elusiveness about him, and yet he had a regal confidence that announced his presence without him having to say a word. It was undebatable that he was unfathomably attractive. That stern, sharp jawline... those perfect cheekbones... and those eyes.

It was really a shame he was such a jerk.

When Fury called asking for two agents to trek out to the snow-peaked mountains to track down a hidden ancient magical artifact, you had offered up your services immediately. Being new to the team, you were desperately trying to carve out your place. This didn't seem the type of mission that required super powers or magic, simply grit and determination. And perhaps a tolerance for the cold, which you were certain you could figure out along the way.

No one else seemed keen on partaking in this particular mission. In all fairness, Steve and Bucky had just come back from Berlin three days ago and were still pretty battered, and Tony and Bruce were on the cusp of a breakthrough with developing a retractable hook shot that could fit inside the standard belts on most of the heroes' outfits. And the others? Well... they just hated the cold.

It was Thor who had volunteered Loki. As a frost giant, Loki had a tolerance to subthermal temperatures unmatched by anyone else on the team. It only made sense that he would go along on this particular mission. Loki, of course, had no interest in helping Fury with anything. But, it was hard to argue with the stubborn SHIELD director when he suggested that perhaps Loki would prefer to serve time in a high-security cell for his prior crimes against Earth, given how uninterested he seemed in helping pay recompense by assisting the Avengers.

You had no idea how Loki felt about this development, outside of the fact that he quite obviously didn't want to go in the first place. The fact that he would be paired with you hadn't even arisen in the conversation - he was too busy scolding Thor for having opened his mouth and daring suggest he actually contribute to SHIELD's endeavors. Perhaps he had forgotten he'd have a partner in this at all.

You found out soon enough exactly how he felt.

Late that evening, on your way back to your bedroom from the common room after finally deciding you might be able to fall asleep, you heard loud voices from behind a door as you walked past. You thought nothing of it at first, having grown accustomed to the rambunctious shouting of the various tower inhabitants, but the familiar baritone timbre made you pause and listen. The door wasn't completely closed, so it technically wasn't eavesdropping... at least, that's what you told yourself as you crept closer to the crack in the door to listen to the conversation.

"Loki - for the last time, I'm not going to apologize for volunteering you for this!" Thor sounded frustrated, almost exasperated, as though he'd been arguing about this all evening. "Use your common sense, brother! Look me in the eye and tell me you are not the perfect choice to go on this mission."

"I am well aware of my heritage, Thor," Loki spat. "No need to continuously remind me of such."

"Then why are you so angry about going? This should be child's play for you."

"I did not sign up to babysit a mortal, Thor."

You bristled at his words. Babysit? Who the hell did he think he was, talking about you that way?

"The young agent is more than capable," Thor argued. "You need not be concerned about that."

"Oh, is that right? Tell me, then. What power does this mortal possess?"

"She is clever and strong-willed. She need not bear magical powers to succeed on this mission."

Loki scoffed. "Strong-willed. Give her fifteen minutes out there in the snow and ice, and she'll be begging to return to the cabin."

You'd heard enough. Clenching your jaw, you stepped away from the door and stormed back to your own room, swallowing the burning feeling in your throat. No, you weren't going to let yourself cry over his words. You were going to hold your head high and face him gracefully the next morning. Or, perhaps you'd simply aim to make his life a living hell.

Maybe that was too petty.

The following morning, you were the first to arrive at the quinjet. You prided yourself on being punctual, so it made you only that much more satisfied when Loki wandered up the ramp to the jet ten minutes late.

"Morning," you stated flatly as he stepped into the jet cabin. He nodded stiffly before taking his seat across from you, leaning his head back against the headrest and stretching his legs out lazily in front of himself. It was as though he was purposely trying to spread out, make himself look larger and more intimidating. "Where is your bag?"

"I don't have one," he sneered.

"You're just going to wander out into the mountains with no supplies, then?"

"I don't need extra baggage." His eyes locked on yours as he said the word. You huffed, turning your gaze away from his. No need for idle chit-chat on this plane ride anyway. It was only a distraction.

You decided to get some rest - save your energy for when you truly needed it. Allowing your eyes to slip closed, you slowly drifted off to sleep. It wasn't the most comfortable position to sleep in, sitting upright in a less-than-cushioned chair, but you knew you would thank yourself in the long run for the extra shut-eye.

"Get up."

It felt like only minutes had gone by when the deep, gravelly voice of your partner was urging you awake. Your eyes flew open to find Loki hovering over you, looking irritable as ever as he motioned for you to stand.

"We're here. I hope you had a lovely nap, mortal." There was a sarcastic bite to his tone that told you he didn't actually feel the sentiment he was expressing. With a sharp glare, you stood up and hoisted your bag onto your shoulder, disembarking the jet behind the ornery god.

The world you stepped out into was what you could only classify as a winter wonderland. A thick layer of untrodden snow coated the ground, reflecting the bright sunlight off its surface. The air certainly had an icy bite to it, but it was tolerable for the brief period between stepping off the jet ramp and heading across the field to the safe house you'd be using as a home base - a small, somewhat dilapidated-looking cabin with nothing of consequence around it.

The wooden front door to the cabin stuck as you tried to shove it open, forcing you to throw your weight into it to make it budge. Loki rolled his eyes, waving his hand with a flourish and opening the door the rest of the way with a burst of green light.

"Couldn't have done that before I bruised my shoulder on the door, could you?" you growled.

"I would have, if you hadn't been so eager to open it yourself."

Scowling, you stepped inside and fumbled along the wall for a light switch. Your fingers finally met the battered plastic of the switch cover, flipping on the lights and illuminating the interior of the cabin. It certainly left something to be desired. It appeared to be all one room, with the exception of a door in the back leading to what you could only hope was a separate bathroom. The floors and walls were made up of exposed, aging wood, with a couple of loose floorboards sticking up toward the far edge of the room. There was a small kitchenette with a fridge and a stove, and a dusty-looking futon sofa placed in front of the large fireplace - the only redeeming quality of this place.

"Where are we supposed to sleep?" you asked.

"I suspect there," Loki responded, gesticulating to the rolled-up sleeping bags in the corner. You let out an exasperated sigh.

"If I'd known, I'd have brought my own pillow," you muttered under your breath. You dropped your bag on the floor unceremoniously beside the sleeping bags in the corner, trudging across the room to inspect the mystery door. Much to your relief the door did lead into a small bathroom, although it wasn't anything spectacular, with its leaking sink and narrow shower stall.

"Are you finished? We really should be getting on with this."

"I have to put on my snow gear, then we can go." You crossed the room back to your bag, and Loki scoffed impatiently. It was just one gripe too many at this point. Whipping around to face him, you glared fiercely at the sullen god. "What the hell is your problem?!"

"My problem? You've been eyeing me as though I'm dirt from the moment I stepped on the quinjet," Loki shot back, squaring his shoulders.

"Oh, please. Don't act as if you didn't hate me from the start!"

"What are you talking about?"

"I heard you and Thor talking last night!" You rose to your full height, though Loki had at least a few inches on you. "Don't worry - you don't have to babysit me. I'm more than capable of taking care of myself!"

"So you say. But the moment things begin to get treacherous, this mission is going to fall on my shoulders to complete," Loki snapped back. "And not only that, but it will be my responsibility to make sure you make it back alive."

"Oh, so sorry my life is such a burden for you." You whirled around, crouching by your bag and digging forcefully through your belongings to drag out the winter gear you needed.

"That's not what I-"

"Save it, Loki. Let's just get through this mission and get home, alright?" You began throwing on your gear haphazardly, zipping up your coat and yanking your hat down over your head. Tugging on your gloves, you motioned to the door. "After you, prince."

Loki gave you a scalding look, nudging past you on his way out the door. You released a puff of air, a breath you hadn't noticed you were holding, before following him outside into the chill mountain air.

The quinjet had taken off and headed back to headquarters already, it’s absence a stark reminder that you were truly stuck out here with Loki until you could finish this mission and call for your ride. Around the side of the cabin, SHIELD had left a snowmobile for easier travel. One snowmobile. You were relieved that you would at least not have to hike through the entire mountain range, but the idea of having to be that close to your Asgardian partner right now made you sick. Still, you were a professional. You weren't about to allow a petty rivalry between you and your partner to get in the way of the success of this mission.

"Do you want to drive, or do you want me to drive?" you asked, trying to extend some form of an olive branch by allowing him to choose.

"I'll drive." He swung his leg over the vehicle and parked himself on the front half of the seat, looking at you expectantly. Gritting your teeth, you mounted the back of the snowmobile, feeling around along the seat beneath you for something to hang onto that wasn't the prick seated in front of you. "I'm sorry to tell you, but unless you want to fall off the back of this the moment we start moving, you're going to have to suck it up and hold onto me. I understand how repulsed you must be by the idea."

"I'm not repulsed." You hesitantly wrapped your arms around his waist, holding on loosely. With an exasperated sigh, he suddenly grasped both your wrists and tugged to tighten your grip, eliciting a surprised squeak. A low, rumbling laugh emanated deep within his chest at your reaction.

"What's wrong? Never been this close to a man before?"

"Never one quite like you," you snarled. He merely laughed once again.

"Where should we start?"

"Let's head southeast. The cavern is supposedly somewhere to the east of here, and we've got to start somewhere."

"Fine."

The engine roared to life, and without another word, the snowmobile kicked off into gear, speeding across the snow-coated ground. You'd never admit it, but he was right to force you to hang on tighter - you felt yourself slide backward the slightest bit the moment the vehicle began to move.

A benefit of the deafening noise of the engine was you didn't need to pretend to make small talk with your infuriating partner. The most you said to him was to direct Loki toward any suspicious-looking crevices in the rocks that might house the artifact. Otherwise, you remained silent as Loki drove you both through the mountainous terrain.

An hour later, the wind began to kick up. Once bright and sunny, the sky gradually became coated with a gray covering of clouds. Pointing to a shallow-looking cavern inset into a rock wall, you urged Loki to pull over so you could evaluate the situation. Surprisingly, he obliged, slowing the snowmobile to a halt as you approached the opening to the cavern.

"The weather's starting to get bad. We'll need to turn back if it gets any worse," you warned, your eyes skimming over the ominous swell of gray clouds hanging overhead.

"You'll need to turn back," he corrected. "I would be just fine."

"Loki..." You pinched the bridge of your nose with a gloved hand in frustration. "I don't know what you're trying to prove, but even a frost giant shouldn't be wandering around in a blizzard. Not up here in the mountains."

"Since when did you become an expert on what a frost giant can and cannot do?" he sneered.

"Hey! I'm looking out for your well being, Loki! It's not a competition!"

"Of course it isn't. If it were, you'd have little hope of victory."

Throwing your hands up with a groan, you turned and walked into the cavern just to have an excuse to put some distance between the two of you. If you were lucky enough, maybe the artifact was hidden in here. Then you could get right to calling SHIELD to return with the quinjet and go home without having to spend a night with Mr. Holier-Than-Thou. Deep down, of course, you knew that would be too good to be true. But at least it gave you something to do that wasn't standing around with your jerk of a partner.

Sure enough, the cavern was decidedly unremarkable. You made sure to check every nook and crevice, just to be thorough (and perhaps to waste a little extra time). By the time you returned, the wind outside was whipping the snow up off the ground into bursts of flurries, and new snow had started to fall from the sky.

"Find anything?" Loki asked, leaning casually against the outer wall of the cavern.

"Nope. But we need to go back. Hate to burst your bubble, Your Highness."

Loki rolled his eyes, scowling. "Fine. Get on, then." He took his seat in front of the snowmobile and you hopped on behind him, not wasting any time being hesitant about grabbing hold of him in favor of getting the hell out of there before things got worse.

It was a damn good thing Loki was driving, because you could barely see a foot in front of you by the time you reached the cabin. The moment the vehicle stopped in front of the door, you staggered off the back and began to stumble toward the cabin with your forearm held out in front of your eyes to block the wind. Loki opened the door proactively this time, and the pair of you slipped inside before slamming it shut behind you.

You quickly shed your damp winter gear, digging through your bag for a warm change of clothes. Meanwhile, Loki was suddenly enveloped in a shimmer of green, the dampness vanishing from his attire leaving him looking warm and dry. He caught you watching him, shooting you a self-assured smirk and a wink as you gathered your own change of clothes in your arms. Rolling your eyes, you brought your outfit to the bathroom to change.

"Why don't you make yourself useful and start a fire in the fireplace?" you directed as you brushed past him.

"Ooh, yes ma'am," he shot back, voice dripping with sarcasm. Choosing not to engage, you disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door behind you.

You returned wearing dry clothes, finding a relatively dust-free spot on the floor to lay out your wet attire to air dry. Loki, you suspected, had used magic to conjure up a fire, as the hearth was already roaring with a blazing flame. At least it meant you didn't have to focus so much on trying not to shiver, now that the cabin was warming up a bit. Shivering, you were certain, would equate to weakness in Loki's mind.

"We're going to need more firewood once there's a lull in the storm," you stated matter-of-factly. "We'll have to wait until the morning to go back out searching - need to make sure this band of bad weather has passed first before we get caught far from the cabin."

"Am I to assume I shall be the one collecting firewood?" Loki jeered. You squared your shoulders.

"I'm perfectly capable of cutting firewood. You can make us dinner if you'd prefer."

"Don't be ridiculous. I can cut firewood using magic. Don't waste your energy."

"Then why even bring it up?" You crossed your arms, shooting him an icy glare. "You know, Loki - it's gonna be a long few days if you can't manage to stop treating me like I'm useless."

"Then perhaps you should stop treating me as though I'm vile," he retorted, glowering right back.

"What are you talking about?! The only reason I don't like being around you is because you seem to have some problem with me!"

Loki laughed humorlessly. "Please. I've seen the wary side-eyed looks you send my way. You've been doing it ever since you came to live with this band of blundering misfits. Don't behave as though you're irreproachable."

You stared at him in confusion for a moment. "Loki - I only look at you that way because you've always made it a point to avoid me!"

"I avoid everyone. It isn't a sentiment I feel exclusively toward you."

"And yet, somehow you seem to tolerate the others for at least brief periods of time. But the moment you see me approach, you high-tail it out of the room!"

Loki sighed. "Clearly we're getting nowhere with this conversation. I'm going to collect that firewood. Fix us something to eat, if that is what you'd like." With that, he pivoted on his heel and stormed outside, slamming the door shut behind him.

It took everything in you not to scream out loud in an explosion of aggravation. He was infuriating. The nerve, turning this around and insinuating this bad blood was to be blamed on you.

You wrenched open the door to the refrigerator and poked around inside, just to have something to do with yourself besides stew over this. The selection left much to be desired. A few nearly-spoiled fruits, a jug of filtered water, a bag of shredded cheese that at least had an expiration date printed on it that was in the future. You shut the fridge and dug around in the cupboards, finding a box of dry pasta and an unopened can of tomato sauce. Wonderful. Pasta it is.

You hoped it was deemed acceptable enough for your ungrateful partner's taste.

Loki returned only ten minutes later, the door opening for a moment and allowing a swirling cloud of snow to blow inside before he slammed it shut behind him with his boot. You didn't bother looking at him as you fished out a pot from deep within the cupboard and filled it with tap water to boil the pasta. A loud clattering told you he'd dropped the stack of firewood on the floor next to the fireplace. Shutting off the tap, you transferred the pot from the sink to the stovetop and lit the gas burner to let the water boil.

"It seems, perhaps, we got off on the wrong foot." The proximity of Loki's voice startled you, realizing he was standing right behind where you were preparing dinner. You tried not to flinch, but knew you hadn't completely succeeded as you heard Loki utter an apology under his breath.

"You think we did?" You turned your head to glare at him out of the corner of your eye.

"I'm trying to clear the air. The least you could do is drop that bite in your tone."

You let out a breath. "You're right. Sorry."

"Thank you." He hovered over you as you opened the box of pasta and measured out what you thought might be enough for two servings. It was always impossible to tell with pasta. Not to mention you were cooking for a god. Who knew what the standard serving size of pasta was for a god?

"You think we can put aside our differences? At least for the next few days?" you asked.

"If you can promise to stop looking at me as if I'm dirt, I suppose I can refrain from commenting on your... mortal limitations."

"If that's as good as it's going to get between us, then fine. Sounds great."

"Wonderful." Loki left your side, pacing toward the fireplace to stoke the fire while you continued cooking. It wasn't much, but at least you didn't feel the desire to wring his neck any longer.

The two of you sat down at the small, time-worn dining table to eat your meager dinner. Outside, the wind howled and heavy snow pelted the roof, setting the soundtrack to your awkward meal. Loki was silent as he ate, but at least he wasn't complaining. Still, the silence became too much for you. So, you did the unthinkable, and attempted to make small talk with the most stand-offish member of the Avengers tower.

"So... how long have you been staying with your brother and the rest of the team?" you asked between bites. Loki's eyes flitted up from his plate to meet yours, brows raised in confusion at the idea that you'd even consider taking an interest in him.

"Too long," he responded finally. You furrowed your brow, prepared to scold him for not at least making an effort to exchange pleasantries, but he continued. "It isn't exactly pleasant living with a team of heroes who once were your sworn enemy."

Your expression softened, then. That wasn't something you'd even really considered. In the time you'd known Loki, he had been on the right side of the line between good and evil, albeit not very far from the border. But the others - well, you could only imagine what they thought of him, after going through everything they did.

"I see." You were at a loss for anything better to say. A heavy silence fell over the two of you once again. Unwilling to give up so soon, you finally spoke. "Have you ever gone on any other missions before?"

"Once. Thor begged me to accompany him and his little friends."

"You don't sound enthused.”

“Was it that obvious?” He stabbed his fork into his pasta with perhaps more force than was necessary. “Thor was the only one who actually wanted me to come. The others… let’s just say they would have been much happier in my absence.”

“Well they aren’t here now,” you offered, a feeble attempt to lighten his mood. “It’s just me.”

“You haven’t exactly enjoyed my company thus far either.”

You fell silent once again. This time, your mind was buzzing with this newfound understanding of Loki’s attitude. It was a front, a wall he built around himself to protect him from the sharp daggers sent his way by the unfriendly gazes of the others. They stung him more than he was willing to let on.

Still, it didn’t excuse his attitude toward you. You hadn’t done or said anything to warrant his rudeness. Although, you supposed that for someone who only received unfriendly looks, even the mildest of wary gazes might start to burn.

"So... how does someone like you - someone with no discernable powers, with nothing particularly noteworthy about your physique - end up working as an agent of SHIELD?" Loki asked.

"Um, rude."

"It was meant to be a joke."

"Really? I couldn't tell."

Loki rolled his eyes. "You mortals are so irascible." You glared at him. "In all seriousness - how did you come to find yourself working for SHIELD?"

"Obviously, as you've so astutely pointed out, I don't have any special powers. But the Avengers already have plenty of brawn and magic. The reason they hired me was for my intellect, not my physicality." Loki tilted his head, urging you to elaborate. "I was top of my class in the forensics program at my university. SHIELD approached me shortly after I graduated and got me working behind the scenes, teasing out the solutions to unsolved mysteries of the mystical arts and the magical artifacts they'd sequestered from falling into the wrong hands. After a while, I got bored working in an office. Fury himself set me up with a training program to build on the physical skills required to be a SHIELD agent."

"You chose to face the dangers that exist in all these Nine Realms with nothing but your 'intellect' and a bit of battle simulation training?" Loki appeared skeptical, which only made you sit up straighter as you nodded.

"That, and a whole lot of grit and determination." Loki gazed wordlessly at you for a moment, his expression unreadable. "Something else to say?"

"Just that you're either quite impressive or quite foolish."

"That was almost a compliment."

"Hardly."

"I'll take what I can get." You rose from the table, scooping up your empty plate and taking Loki's as well. "Why don't you go tend to the fire while I clean up?"

Loki looked put out by the fact that you were ordering him around, but he didn't say anything as he stood and strode over to the fireplace to do as you asked. As you washed the dinner plates, you reflected on the fact that you'd actually held a conversation with the sullen god for once. Aside from the clear disregard for your feelings with his supposed 'joke,' it wasn't actually all that unpleasant. If nothing else, perhaps the pair of you wouldn't fight all evening.

There wasn't much to do in the cabin, and the blizzard was unrelenting. Loki conjured up a book out of nowhere and sat lounging on the futon in silence as he read. Entertainment was one thing you hadn't planned on needing, so you spent most of the evening researching a map of the area that SHIELD had provided you to assess for possible locations for the hidden artifact. You marked a few possible locations, figuring you could review them with Loki in the morning before setting out on your renewed search.

Shortly after nightfall, you decided it would be best to turn in for the evening and get some rest. Loki remained seated on the sofa, reading by the light of the fire as you unrolled your sleeping bag and balled up one of your sweatshirts to use as a makeshift pillow. You slid between the layers of the sleeping bag and zippered it around yourself, sitting up a bit with the opening of the thick fabric bunched around your midsection.

"Are you going to get some sleep?" you asked, feeling a bit awkward.

"I don't sleep much," he replied flatly, not glancing up from his novel. "No need to worry about me."

"Oh. Alright." You lay back down, pulling the sleeping bag up to your shoulders as you rested your head against the sweatshirt-turned-pillow. Do I say goodnight? Would that be weird? Taking a breath, you decided just to do the amicable thing and say it. "G'night."

"Goodnight." He didn't sound overly enthused, but he didn't sound annoyed either. At least he couldn't say you weren't trying to be friendly. Turning onto your side, you let your eyes slip closed and tried to calm your mind enough to get some sleep.

* * *

The following morning, you awoke to the vibration of your communications device on the floor beside your head. Dragging one arm out from inside the warmth of the sleeping bag, you fumbled around blindly with your hand until your fingers closed around the device. Without standard cell phone service up in the mountains, this could only be one person calling.

"Director Fury... *ahem* to what do I owe the pleasure?" you muttered groggily.

"Agent." His voice was much too... demanding for this hour of the morning. "I have good news and bad news."

"Let's go with the good news, then." You sat up, glancing around until your eyes fell on Loki. He must have finally gone to bed, as he was resting inside his own sleeping bag on the opposite side of the room. The sight was almost adorable, in a weird way.

"The team has tracked down the exact coordinates of the artifact."

"That's... great news, sir!"

Loki began to stir at your outburst, rolling onto his back and sitting up to glare at you. So much for adorable.

"You may not think so when I give you the bad news."

"Oh? And what is that?"

"There's a deadline now to find this thing."

"I don't understand." You frowned, brow furrowed in confusion. Loki noticed your perturbed expression, sliding himself out of his sleeping bag to wander over and listen in to the conversation. You put Fury on speakerphone.

"Turns out a small faction of wannabe Zealots remained at large after Strange managed to drive off Dormamu. We gained the intel on the exact location of the artifact because they discovered its whereabouts. And they're headed to sequester it. Today."

A swirling gust of wind blew against the walls of the cabin outside. Peering through the small window by the door, the only thing you could see was white powder spiraling through the air.

"Fury - we're in the middle of a blizzard," you informed nervously. "Do you think they'll come out in this?"

"You've heard the stories, agent. Nothing - and I mean nothing - will stand in their way. I'm counting on you. Don't screw up."

He hung up the phone without another word. Loki had stood before you could even look at him, changing into his leather armor from his sleep tunic with a wave of his hand. You nearly tumbled out of your sleeping bag trying to scramble to your feet.

"I'll plot out the coordinates he sent over on the map," you stated, gathering your winter gear. Loki spun around and looked at you incredulously.

"You can't possibly think it's a good idea for you to go out in this weather."

"Yeah, well, Fury didn't exactly leave us much choice. And if the enemy is truly on their way, he's not wrong. We've got to get going."

You stooped down to slip on your snow boots and tie the laces. Suddenly, you were interrupted by a hand clasping tightly around your upper arm, whipping you around.

"You're not coming with me. I'm going alone." Loki's gaze was cold, unwavering. You bristled at his harshness.

"Absolutely not. I'm coming with you."

"Did I ask you, agent? You're staying here." Loki released your arm, striding toward the door. This time, you caught his arm.

"Loki! Stop treating me like I'm a burden!!" The volume of your voice surprised even you. In any case, it got Loki to pause in his warpath toward the door. "I can do this! You need me as much as I need you!"

He scoffed. "What need have I for a mortal? You'll only slow me down."

"You need someone to think logically while you... stomp around all high and mighty acting reckless!!" You took a confident step forward, pointing your index finger at him threateningly. "You might have the skill, but you sure as hell don't have the patience to get this done right!"

"You'll surely die out there in this weather!"

"Then I'll die a hero!"

"You'll die a fool!" Loki wrenched his arm from your grasp, whirling around and stomping into a corner in a fit of frustration. When he turned around, his expression was less angry and more fretted. "What in Valhalla are you trying to prove?? You know as well as I this is a dangerous task!"

"I'm not trying to prove anything! I'm committed to the mission, and I intend to see it through from start to finish!" You returned to lacing your boots. "I knew what I was signing up for when I joined SHIELD. You don't have to protect me. I'm well aware of the risks."

Loki sighed exasperatedly. For the briefest of moments, his eyes softened as he gazed upon you, almost forlornly. "We're wasting time arguing about this. If you want to come, fine. I'm not going to stop you."

"Thank you."

Silently, you finished adorning your winter gear, trying not to allow the anxiety of what you were about to do to overcome you. The coordinates on the map were only a thirty-minute snowmobile ride away, perhaps an hour in this weather. And you had prepared for the icy terrain. You were ready for this.

The moment you stepped outside, you began to second-guess your decision.

The blizzard was worse than it had been yesterday, if that were at all possible. A gust of wind nearly made you stumble as you made your way toward what you assumed must be where the snowmobile was parked. You couldn't be sure - the air around you was completely white-washed. All you could focus on was following Loki, who clearly seemed to still be capable of seeing at least a few feet in front of him, and getting on that snowmobile.

"I need you to actually hold on this time. As if your life depends on it."

Because it might, you thought as you mounted the back of the snowmobile and wrapped your arms tight around Loki without hesitation this time. A roar of the engine, a cloud of snow, and the two of you were careening across the treacherous landscape.

The wind whipped your hair chaotically around your face as you traveled, strands slapping your cheeks like sharp little needles stinging your skin. You ducked to keep your face hidden behind Loki in a feeble effort to block some of the headwind with his torso. A sharp left turn took you skirting just barely around a massive boulder that you didn't see until you were zooming past it. You said another silent thank you to the fact that Loki was seated in the driver's seat of this vehicle right now.

At long last, the snowmobile skidded to a stop as you reached the designated coordinates. Your wind-whipped skin stung with the sharp cold of the snow billowing up into your face. You had made it. The official halfway mark of your journey lay before you - all you needed to do now was find it.

"Do you see anything?" Your voice was nearly swallowed by the blizzard gales despite shouting at the top of your lungs.

"Nothing - keep looking." Loki stepped heavily along the rock wall, feet buried up to his ankles in the snowdrifts that had been forced to take shape by the oppressive storm. You pressed a gloved hand against the wall, using it as a guide to carefully step in the opposite direction of Loki in search of any unusual crevice in the jagged surface. As your palm trailed along the stone, you noticed a looser pile of boulders jutting out from the wall.

"Loki!" you all but screamed. "Here!!"

The crunching of his boots in the snow was barely audible over the whistling gusts as he approached your location. When he'd made it close enough to see what you were referring to, he nodded.

"This is it."

“We have to figure out how to get inside.”

Loki chuckled almost pityingly. “Please. That won’t be a challenge.”

A green gleam of light shone through the sheets of white snow flinging through the air. A sudden feeling of panic washed over you as you realized what he planned to do.

"Loki!! Wait!" You glanced up, squinting just enough to see the boulders stacked well over both of your heads. "Don't-"

It was too late to warn him. The light flung from his hands and blasted into the rocky wall, blasting a hole in the rubble to reveal a cavern. For once in your life, you didn't think first before diving into your partner, looping both arms around him and tackling him to the ground just as a rockslide began rumbling and echoing through the mountains.

Loki landed hard in the snow, and you crashed down with him. Your upper body stretched diagonally across his torso where you'd landed, head pressed against his chest as you shut your eyes tight and awaited your impending death. All around you, heavy cracking of rock smashing against rock made your ears ring as the boulders tumbled down the wall. You shouted out in pain as one landed on the back of your thigh. A scattering of smaller rocks and pebbles rained down into the snow, and then just as quickly as it had started, it was all over.

You rolled off of Loki onto your back, feeling somewhat self-conscious all of a sudden despite the stabbing pain in your leg. The boulder hadn't crushed your limb, thank gods, but the ragged tear in your pants with the slightest tinge of red seeping through told you it had left a substantial gash in its wake. It was impossible to know without visualizing it how deep the laceration might be. But you knew hypothermia and bleeding were a deadly combination, so you had to get moving and get out of here fast. So, you began to sit up and pick yourself off the ground, gritting your teeth through the sharp sting in your leg.

"Why would you do that??" Loki demanded gazing at you as he propped himself up on his elbows.

"I s-saved your life! The least you could do is th-thank me!" you growled, starting to shiver as the snow seeped into your clothes. Loki shook his head, scrambling to his feet and ushering you inside the hole he blasted in the wall.

Inside the cavern, there was a hollow muffling of the storm that cleared your head just slightly. Despite the darkness, there was still better visibility in here than in the pure white wall of snow swirling in the air outside. You grasped the cavern wall as you limped into the shelter of the hollowed stone.

"You're injured."

"No shit, Sherlock." You leaned your back against the stone wall and slid carefully to the floor, allowing yourself a moment's reprieve to rest while sheltered from the harsh elements. Loki crouched down in front of you, brow furrowed in what you might have mistaken for worry had you not known him better.

"Allow me to take a look."

You shifted to lean on your hip so he could see the back of your leg, watching him warily out of the corner of your eye as he assessed the damage.

"I can probably heal it, but I can't do so without getting a better look at it."

"It'll have to w-wait until we get b-back," you stated resolutely. For once, Loki agreed with you. He knew as well as you did that you had to keep your layers on to prevent a dangerous drop in body temperature.

"Why would you do that?"

He wasn't shouting this time as he asked the same question he had moments ago. If anything, his voice was shallow. Meek. Quite uncharacteristic for the normally self-assured Asgardian.

"I saw the r-rocks up above. I t-tried to warn you, b-but it was too late."

"Clever mortal." Perhaps it was the blood loss, but he almost said the word as though it were a fond nickname. "I meant to ask, why would you save me?"

"You're my partner. We're in this together. I wasn't going to just let you get crushed under a rock slide."

Loki's blue-green eyes shimmered as though he had more questions, but he didn't press the issue. He merely tilted his chin down in a nod of thanks. You returned his gesture, your way of saying 'you're welcome.'

"Go see if you can find the artifact. I'm going to rest my leg for a minute before we have to head back in this mess."

Loki stood up, gazing at you for a moment longer than was necessary before turning and vanishing into the darkness of the cavern. You leaned your head back against the wall behind you and took in slow, deep breaths. The idea of going back out in this was daunting, but you knew if you remained here for too long you would catch your death from the cold. A brief rest wouldn’t hurt, you decided.

This worried, uncertain, dare you say grateful Loki was not the god you’d grown accustomed to over the last thirty-six hours. This Loki was certainly more bearable. Charming, even.

Ok, so maybe the cold was making you delirious.

Loki returned moments later with a stone slab in his hand. It was an unassuming object, but you felt the energy coming off it the moment it came within a ten-foot radius of where you sat.

“You found it.” Your voice was softer than usual, and Loki seemed to notice. He made the tablet disappear into whatever magical void pocket he had access to, pacing over to you and taking a seat next to you on the floor.

“You’re shivering.”

“Wow. Y-you should have b-b-been a detective. Y-you’re just f-f-full of ast-t-t… astute observations.”

Loki cracked what definitely looked like a smile, which only reinforced the fact that you we’re definitely becoming delirious. “I’ll let that one slide, but only because you’re injured.”

“Wow. G-g-going soft, L-Loki?”

“Don’t push it.” He glanced down at your leg, where more blood had seeped through your pants. “We have to get you back to the cabin.”

“Can’t I just r-rest for another m-minute?” It came out more whiny than you’d have liked.

“Thirty seconds. Then we get moving.” You let your eyes slip closed, and Loki reached over and shook your shoulder. “Eyes open. Don’t go sleeping on me.”

“B-But I’m exhausted…” Your eyes fluttered closed again, defying Loki’s orders.

“Alright.” Loki stood up, bending down to slide an arm around your waist and hoist you to your feet. “Thirty seconds is up. Let’s go.”

“Ugh. F-fine.” You allowed him to prop you against his side, throwing your arm around his neck for added stability as you hobbled toward the mouth of the cavern.

Even without the searing pain in your leg, you would have felt unsteady on your feet as Loki led you to the snowmobile. The wind stung the bare patches on your face as you stepped back out into the blizzard, and instinctively you tried to shrink back into the cavern. Loki wouldn't allow it, pressing forward and muttering something you couldn't quite hear over the howling wind.

He guided you to sit down first, keeping an arm wrapped tightly around your waist as he carefully helped lower you into the seat. You were shivering violently at this point from the cold, unable to control it as the frigid air seeped into your bones. You'd experienced cold weather before, but nothing as cold as this. Deep down, you knew Loki was right to be forcing you to keep moving - your only chance of survival was to get back to the cabin and rewarm your core temperature. But the icy wind was clouding your mind, and you were desperate in that moment just to get back into the dry cavern and take a nap.

Loki slid onto the seat behind you this time, leaning forward and reaching around you to grasp the handles and drive while still holding you steady. You didn't have the mental capacity to feel awkward or flustered by his closeness. His body heat was seeping into your back where he leaned against you to reach the handles, and primal instinct told you to accept it without question.

You barely remembered the drive back to the cabin. You knew you never lost consciousness, but you were in a sort of fuzzy state of mind as your body temperature continued to drop. It was probably for the best that you weren't fully cognizant of the borderline reckless driving maneuvers Loki was performing to get back as fast as possible.

The blizzard was wild as ever when you arrived at the safe house cabin. The vigorous shivering had slowed, which was a relief considering you were becoming more and more exhausted with each passing second. You were vaguely aware of Loki parking the snowmobile and dismounting it, then scooping you up effortlessly in his arms before carrying you inside. You didn't even protest. You just wanted to sleep.

Inside the cabin, the silence was deafening in comparison to the ear-splitting whistling wind outside that you'd been subjected to for the last hour and a half. The lack of snow slapping against your cheeks and dampening your clothes further was such a relief that your eyes slipped closed before Loki had even put you down.

"Hey! Stay with me. You can't sleep now," he barked, lowering you down onto the futon before busying himself restarting the fire in the fireplace. Your eyes snapped open briefly, then began to slide closed again of their own accord. You felt, more than saw, the fire roar to life in the hearth, the warmth bursting from the flames and warming your face. A hand clapped down on your shoulder and shook you with enough force to force your eyes open once again. "Talk to me. You need to stay awake."

"Ok..." you slurred groggily. Survival instinct was urging you to keep your eyes open, but it was just so damn difficult, and sleep sounded so wonderful right at this moment. "What now?"

"We need to get you out of these wet clothes first." Loki sounded uncertain for the first time since the start of this mission. It might have been the hypothermic delirium, but you swore you saw a tinge of red dusting his cheeks. Normally, you'd be mortified by what he was clearly suggesting, but you didn't have the energy to concern yourself with that sort of overwhelming emotion right now.

"S'okay. M'wearing c-compression shorts... should b-be dry..."

"Er, great."

You started fumbling with the zipper to your coat with trembling fingers, fighting to get a grip on the small piece of metal until Loki seemingly grew impatient and nudged your hands out of the way to do it himself. He was uncharacteristically gentle with you, carefully guiding your arms out of the sleeves and tossing the coat aside. He assisted with tugging the hem of your sweatshirt up over your head and removing it, leaving only a thinner T-shirt underneath it, which also seemed to be somewhat damp.

"I... you'll need to..." He gave you a look of awkward discomfort, gesturing to your shirt. You pointed to your bag with a tremulous hand.

"I h-h-have a d-dry shirt in m-m-my bag over th-there," you urged. Relieved for a reason to leave your side while you got to work removing your shirt, he knelt down beside your bag and pulled out one of your remaining T-shirts. His eyes flitted over to you briefly to ensure you were alright, barely suppressing a grin when he saw you sitting there with your shirt pressed against your front to hide yourself from him. He handed you the dry shirt, turning away until you pulled it on over your head and threaded your arms through the sleeves.

"How is your injured leg feeling?" he asked.

"Stings," you mumbled, already beginning to slide your torn snow pants down your hips. Underneath that you had worn tight fleece sweatpants, also torn by the boulder incident.

"Woah, hang on there," he stopped you, beginning to unlace your snow boots that were still on your feet. "You need to remove these first."

"R-right." You bent your uninjured leg to unlace your other boot as Loki tugged the first off carefully. Your socks, too, were completely soaked through, your feet numb. Loki helped to remove those as well. Normally you'd have had qualms about him touching your feet, but you didn't much care at the moment.

He allowed you to shakily slip both layers of pants down over your bottom, careful not to accidentally push down the waistband of your shorts, before he helped to tug the pants legs the rest of the way off.

"Wow, L-Loki. N-n-normally I d-don't let m-m-men undress me without at l-least taking me on a d-d-date."

Loki rolled his eyes at your jest, although you were pleased to see his cheeks turn redder at the insinuation. This was completely and utterly awkward in every way - humor was your method of deflecting. He would just have to put up with it. After all, it was him who was getting the benefit of seeing you sitting there in just a T-shirt and skin-tight compression shorts. He had to suffer at least a little in all of this.

"You're still shivering," he observed, changing the subject.

"Mmhmm... m-m-means I'm w-w-warming up th-though," you explained. "It's when the sh-sh-shivering st-stops that y-y-you're in t-t-trouble."

"Come closer to the fire," he ordered.

"M'fine right here- L-Loki!" Unwilling to take no for an answer, he wasted no time in scooping you up off the futon sofa and placing you on the floor directly in front of the fireplace. You'd never admit it, but it was a lot more comfortable. "J-j-jerk."

"If me being a 'jerk' helps keep you alive, I'll accept it." He shifted to kneel beside you, motioning for you to lean on your hip so he could better visualize the gash on your leg. It was a jagged-looking laceration just above the back of your knee, not deep enough to reach the tendons in your leg but certainly deep enough to cause quite a bit of bleeding. "I should be able to heal this. It may sting a bit."

You nodded solemnly, gritting your teeth as he let his hand hover close to the wound, a green glow emanating from his palm. The sudden shooting pain made you gasp, earning you an apologetic look from the Asgardian as he placed his other hand on your knee to keep you still. As he worked his magic, the pain gradually ebbed away.

"I'm s-sorry about all th-this." Your voice was hushed, ashamed. "You w-were right... I was j-j-just a b-burden to you."

Loki's blue-green eyes shot up from the wound to meet yours, a sternness behind them. "You did your part. You prevented me from meeting an untimely death due to my own reckless actions."

"But I h-hurt myself d-d-doing it. Now y-you feel responsible for m-m-me."

"Please. The least I can do is take care of you after what you did for me." He averted his gaze then, returning his attention to your wound. The air between you was tense, but in a much different way than it had been during the earlier parts of your stay. "I... thank you. For saving my life."

"Thank you f-for saving m-m-mine." His eyes raised to look at your face without tilting his head up, a hint of a smile playing on his lips.

"Don't thank me yet. You're still hypothermic."

"I'll b-b-be fine."

The glow around Loki's hand faded as he finished his work, lifting his hand to reveal intact, uninjured skin where the gash had once been. He released your knee with his other hand, tracing his fingers along the path of the prior wound. You jerked your leg away from his tender touch, earning a look of confusion.

"Still hurts?" he asked. You shook your head, looking away to hide the blush forming on your face.

"T-tickled. Sorry."

"Ah."

You ventured a quick glance, noting the gleam in his eye as he filed that bit of information away in his mind, and wondered if you should have lied to the trickster god. Still, he didn't act on it as he rose to his feet and wandered into the kitchen, pulling two mugs out from the cupboards.

"You should drink something warm," he recommended. "What would you like?"

"Is there h-h-hot chocolate m-mix?"

He dug around in the cupboard a moment, pulling out a can and holding it up for you to see. "Is that what this disgusting sugar-laden powder is?"

"Y-yes. And it's n-n-not disgusting."

"Whatever you say, mortal. Just tell me what to do to make it."

You directed him to heat some water on the stove and simply pour the hot water into the mugs with the mix and stir. He opted to make himself tea instead, muttering something about 'ridiculous Midgardian inventions.' He couldn't possibly have heated the water so quickly without using magic, because only a minute later he was heading back with the two filled mugs, handing one to you. The ceramic burned against your ice cold fingers, and you immediately retracted your hand from the mug before he let go of it.

"Sorry." He instilled his magic into your mug, and the steam faded a bit as the liquid cooled slightly. Turning the mug, he was careful to hand it to you so you could grasp the handle.

"C-c-could you warm m-me up l-l-like that?" you asked jestingly.

"Unfortunately, no. That sort of sorcery is dangerous when performed incorrectly."

"Damn." You slowly sipped the warm liquid, wincing as it passed over your frozen lips but sighing as it warmed your throat. "Thanks for the hot ch-chocolate."

"It was hardly a challenge to make." He took a seat on the floor beside you, sipping his tea. The room was quiet for a moment, the only sound coming from the crackling of the fireplace and the occasional gust of wind blasting against the cabin walls. This silence wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as the tense moments the pair of you shared toward the beginning of your journey here. A question had been nagging at the back of your mind, and you finally built up the courage to ask.

"When I m-moved to the tower... aside from the f-fact you thought I hated you... what m-made you so c-cold toward me?"

"You sound ridiculous with your teeth chattering like that."

"And you're d-dodging the qu-question." You remained firm in your resolve, gazing at him with a tilt of your head in wait of an answer. Recognizing you weren't dropping this, he sighed.

"You were a blank slate. You had experienced none of my past treachery as the others did." His fingers tightened a bit around the handle of his mug. "I suppose I was afraid to ruin that by allowing you to form an opinion of me, by interacting with you. Obviously, my avoidance of you didn't help matters."

"Wh-what were y-you afraid I w-w-would think?"

Loki grimaced at your probing question. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly the most pleasant company."

"You weren't. B-before, at least. N-n-now, you're n-not so b-b-bad." You caught his eye and offered him a quivery grin, the best you could muster through your aggressive shivering. He let out a breath of a laugh through his nose, smiling weakly.

"Finish your liquid sugar. You should really get some rest."

"Oh, n-n-now I can s-sleep??" you griped jokingly.

"What you were trying to do earlier was slip into a coma. Now that I know you're improving, yes. You should sleep."

"Careful. I m-m-might start t-to think y-you care about me." You intended it as a joke, but Loki suddenly looked away from you, busying himself with cleaning up his mug. Odd.

As you finished the last sip of hot chocolate, Loki dragged your sleeping bag from your side of the room over to where you sat.

"You should sleep here by the fire. You're still clearly hypothermic."

"Thanks."

"Don't thank me - I'm just getting tired of listening to your teeth chattering."

You opened your mouth to retort, but he shot you a wink and a smirk, letting you know it was a joke. With a shake of your head, you turned to unzip your sleeping bag, sliding inside the fleece fabric and zipping it around you.

"You're not g-gonna just sit there and w-watch me sleep, are y-you?" you asked with a side-eyed glare in his direction. Exasperated, Loki wandered over to his own sleeping bag and sat down on top of it, facing the opposite direction.

"Better?"

"Much. Th-thanks." You lay your head down against your makeshift pillow, closing your eyes and willing yourself to stop shivering long enough to fall asleep.

Never had you experienced such a deep-settling chill in your bones. Even lying directly in front of a blazing flame, wrapped in a fleece-lined sleeping bag wearing dry clothes, you still felt as if your insides were frozen. In a paradoxical way, it burned your skin as you began to gradually warm from the surface inward. You tossed and turned, trying desperately to get comfortable, but no matter how you shifted, you couldn't ignore the bitter cold keeping you awake.

You heard Loki release a sigh of vexation, followed by shifting of fabric against fabric and then heavy footsteps drawing nearer to you. Opening your eyes, you nearly jumped in surprise to find him crouched in front of you with a worried expression plastered to his face.

He reached out and laid the back of his hand against your cheek gently, wincing at the chill of your skin against his. Gods, his skin was so warm. It was ironic, really - him being a frost giant and all. It felt wonderful against your icy cheek. You leaned into his touch without even thinking - only following the innate desire to feel his warmth, and perhaps to feel a kind and tender touch against your skin after such a harrowing ordeal.

"You're still ice cold," he mumbled.

"Mm..." You let your eyes slip closed, letting out a tiny whine when he removed his hand from your cheek. Your eyes flew right back open when you heard the sound of the zipper on your sleeping bag, glancing at him in confusion. "What are you d-doing?"

"You're not warming fast enough," he responded plainly, sliding into the sleeping bag with you without further explanation.

"Oh - Loki, y-you d-don't have t-to... Oh. A-alright then."

Ignoring your attempted protests, he had settled in beside you inside your sleeping bag, zipping it closed around the both of you. If you had enough heat in your body to blush, you were certain your cheeks would be burning furiously.

And then he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you close to his chest, and it just felt so damn good to feel his body heat against your own body, that you didn't even care how absolutely outlandish this situation had just become. An embarrassingly provocative-sounding moan bubbled up in your throat as you finally felt warm enough to stop shivering, and you didn't care one bit what Loki might think of it as you let your eyes flutter closed once again. You were vaguely aware of a throaty chuckle emanating from the god who had hijacked your sleeping bag, amused at your reaction but clearly not put off, as he merely wrapped his arms around you tighter. At last, you finally drifted off to sleep.

* * *

It had been so long since you’d fallen asleep in the arms of another. The last person you fell asleep like this with was a former boyfriend of yours with whom you had an established relationship. And he certainly wasn’t trying to prevent you from slipping into a coma from hypothermia.

You barely knew Loki. In fact, only twenty-four hours ago you thought you hated each other. Everything about this should have felt awkward and uncomfortable - simply a necessary awkward situation to keep from freezing to death.

And yet, you hadn’t slept this comfortably in years.

As you traversed the blurred line between consciousness and unconsciousness the next morning, your mind began spinning. Now that you were warm, you were lucid enough to recognize the undeniable feeling of bliss when you realized Loki’s arms were still wrapped around you. It was an entirely unexpected feeling, which sent a wave of panic through your brain.

Were you even friends at this point? Only hours ago you were bickering with every attempted conversation. Though, you supposed that was only because you misunderstood one another. Now that you’d cleared the air, there hadn’t been any more fighting. And really, going through a life-or-death experience with someone had a curious way of accelerations a relationship between two people.

But was it friendship you felt? You’d never felt this peaceful in a friend’s arms. Never this happy either. And certainly never this conflicted.

You stirred slightly, and suddenly Loki’s grasp around you loosened just a bit to allow you to turn onto your back. He was awake already - seemingly had been for some time, as he didn’t have the drowsy glaze over his eyes that you were certain was currently in yours.

“Feeling better?” he asked quietly. His voice was low and gravelly, laden with the remnants of sleep as he spoke in your ear. It made you shiver.

“Yes.” You gave him a sleepy smile. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do this. I know it must be… uncomfortable for you.”

“You saved my life, I saved yours. We’re even.” He turned his gaze away from you. “And it wasn’t… exceedingly uncomfortable.”

With your body temperature back within a physiologic range, so returned your blush reflex. You wished you could read what he was thinking at this moment. The fact that he hadn’t let go of you despite the fact you were clearly feeling better was both flustering and confusing.

What else does one say to the guy... god... who willingly snuggled up to you to stave off hypothermia after a tumultuous thirty-six hours that started off with you snapping at each other? The whole thing sounded absurd even in your head, and yet here you were sharing a sleeping bag that was clearly only meant for one person. There is no social protocol for this. So you did what you always did, and turned to humor to deflect.

"I didn't know gods snored."

"I beg your pardon?? I do not snore."

Grasping the familiarity of this friendly bantering, you grinned cheekily. "I beg to differ. You definitely did. Rather loudly, in fact."

Ok, so maybe loudly was a bit of an exaggeration, but you were telling him the truth.

His eyes narrowed, and his grip on you tightened. "I prevent you from freezing to death, and this is the thanks I get??"

You opened your mouth to provide a witty retort of some kind, but the sudden feeling of Loki's fingertips digging into your sides for a moment forced a rapid stream of giggles out instead. "Haha-hehehey!! Loki!!"

"You thought I would forget your little slip of the tongue last night, did you? Unwise of you to tease the God of Mischief when you're in such a precarious position, darling." You could see his smirk out of the corner of your eye as he wriggled his fingers into your sides once again, this time unrelenting as he pulled ticklish laughter from your lips. Your instinct was to turn onto your side and curl up in a ball, but you could barely move as it was inside the sleeping bag that held two people but was only large enough for one. He knew exactly what he was doing. He had you cornered, trapped with nowhere to go, nowhere to move.

"L-Lohoki this isn't faHAair!!" Your hands found his and began shoving desperately to push them away from your sides, but he wasn't budging. If anything, it only encouraged him as he dug his thumbs into the sides of your belly where they rested and toggled little circles into the pliant skin. "Yohou AHASS!"

"Insulting me now? Tsk, tsk."

He suddenly allowed his hands to go still against your sides as your communications device began to vibrate by your head. You knew before answering it would be Fury looking for a report. Turning your head enough to look at Loki, you gave him a sharp warning look, shaking your head as his impish smirk grew.

"Don't you dare."

"Answer it."

With a flustered groan, you hesitantly pulled your arm out of the sleeping bag and reached for the comms device, turning it on speaker.

"Director Fury."

"Have you succeeded in obtaining the artifact?"

Straight down to business, that one.

"Yes, we've secured it. No sign of the enemy." Loki's fingers twitched against your sides, and you barely suppressed a gasp as you shot him a wide-eyed look.

"Excellent."

"When will the quinjet be returning?" you asked.

"The blizzard is still ongoing. We won't be able to fly out until it clears. Hang tight."

You weren't sure if you were excited or anxious that you would be stuck here at least a while longer, alone with Loki. Likely a mix of both. Although, flustered was probably the best word for what you were feeling as his fingertips pressed threateningly into your sensitive sides.

"We'll be in touch when the jet is on route."

"Wait!"

You had said it without even thinking, trying to stall him on the phone to prolong the inevitable tickle attack that was to follow.

"What is it?"

"Uh... h-how's the weather over at headquarters?" You mentally facepalmed yourself for such a ridiculous stall tactic.

There was a beat of silence. "Warm."

"Oh. Well, lucky you, then! Doing anything fun later?"

"Is there a point to this conversation, agent?"

"Apologies," Loki suddenly interjected, lifting his head to lean over you to speak into the comms device. "The agent nearly caught her death yesterday from hypothermia. She's still rather delirious."

"Am no-HA-nohot!" A well-placed prodding of his fingers into your lowest ribs forced a few giggles to slip out. You glared at him.

"Alright. Well, take care of the agent until we're able to send the jet out. Can we count on you for that much, Loki?"

"Oh, don't worry." His smirk was practically wicked now as he gazed predatorily at you. "I'll take care of her."

"Thank you."

Click.

"No, no, noho, Lohoki, I know what you're think-IHING NOHO!!" Disregarding your protests, his fingers were all over you in an instant, wriggling into your sides and ribs as he sought out the spots that made you squirm and laugh harder. "WHAT DID I DOHO??"

"You dared to insinuate that I snore." He punctuated his response with a jab to your belly with all ten fingers, eliciting a shriek. "Not to mention you scared me half to death yesterday."

"I-hi dihid whahat??"

He paused in his torment a moment, allowing you to catch your breath. “You were on the brink of death last night.”

You struggled to turn over so you could look at him, with the added benefit of protecting your belly from his antsy fingers. He allowed it, keeping his arms wound tightly around you even after you successfully rolled to face him. You realized immediately it was a mistake. His face was mere inches from yours, his torso pressed against the front of yours as his hold tightened to keep you from escaping. A scalding heat rose from your neck through your cheeks to your ears. Gods he was close.

But did you really mind?

“Did it really scare you that much?” you asked quietly. His expression was unreadable as he pondered his response for a moment, then nodded. “Why?”

“I… I don’t know.” His eyes caught yours, softening as he gazed at you. You were beginning to wonder if this sudden burst of feelings you’d developed for him was reciprocated. How ridiculous would that be? A god caring for a mortal? He’d made it clear he thought of you as weak when you started this whole mission. But the look in his eyes right at this moment was not the look of someone who thought negatively of you.

“Are you sure you don’t know?” you probed, trying to get a straight answer. Loki took it as a tease, his expression morphing to a mischievous grin as his fingers dug into the backs of your ribs. You screeched, not believing how incredibly ticklish you were in that spot as you shoved your hands against his chest desperately.

“Perhaps this would have been a more effective method of raising your temperature,” he teased, clearly recognizing how severe your squirming had become and honing in on his new favorite spot. You couldn't have retorted even if you had the wherewithal to come up with something clever to say. The unbridled laughter he was pulling from you prevented you from speaking. Finding little success in pushing him away, you buried your face in his shoulder and let the sensation overtake you as your laughter became breathless.

His fingers slowed and then stopped, grip tightening to hold you close against his chest. Neither of you knew what to say, so you didn't bother trying. You simply breathed him in as you lay limp in his arms recovering from his vicious attack.

When you finally did tilt your head back to look at his face, you suddenly felt incredibly shy under the weight of his gaze. He studied your features in silence, an unreadable expression on his face.

You wanted nothing more than to kiss him. Right here, right now.

And the thought made you panic.

"I... I should get up and get something to eat," you mumbled, averting your gaze and moving to untangle yourself from his arms. He let you, reaching over to unzipper the sleeping bag to allow you to get up. You recalled, as you stood up, that you were still only wearing your shorts and T-shirt. Clearing your throat awkwardly, you added, "And I should go put on something warmer."

"Yes... that would be wise." He was staring, making your face feel hot. You scurried to your bag and grabbed a change of clothes, disappearing into the solitude of the bathroom and wondering what the hell had happened between yesterday and today to make you fall so hard.

Once you’d come out of the bathroom in your jeans and sweater, you headed directly to the small kitchen without a glance in Loki’s direction. If you didn’t look at him, maybe you would just forget about that fleeting thought you had of kissing him. Because, really, that could only end poorly for both of you.

Right?

There was no milk or eggs, really no breakfast food whatsoever. You began sifting through the cabinets for anything remotely breakfast-y, finding a stale box of cereal that you pulled down from the cupboard. As you reached up to poke through the cabinets for a bowl, two fingers began scratching directly at the center of your underarms, causing you to slam your arms down to your sides with a squeak. A rumbling laugh sounded behind you. Not that you needed it to know who it was.

“Loki! Are you going to be doing this all day?” you demanded. Deep down, you didn’t mind all that much, having his attention. But you’d never allow him to think that was the case.

“Perhaps. I need to keep myself entertained somehow in this wretchedly boring cabin.” He swiftly reached over and pinched your side outside of your field of vision, and you buckled away from his touch with a half-hearted glare. “I came over here to stop you from eating that garbage.”

“Oh? And what exactly do you propose we eat?”

Loki didn’t answer verbally - he merely held out his hand, palm facing upward, and conjured a carton of eggs out of nowhere. You cocked your head in surprise.

“How did you do that?”

“You’re not the only one who knows how to prepare for a mission.” He shot you a wink. “I wasn’t about to chance the possibility of having to live off of that.” He gestured to the box of cereal on the counter.

“Oh. Well, great!”

Somehow, the fact that he had actually done some prep work before this mission made him even more attractive to you. But you shoved that thought right to the back corner of your mind.

“Wait…” you narrowed your eyes in realization. “Why didn’t you tell me this until today? We’ve been eating this crap food for the last two days!”

“Admittedly, it was a petty desire to make you suffer.”

“Gee, thanks.”

He chuckled. “I apologize. You obviously have proven you didn’t deserve that.”

“Well… thanks. I guess.”

“Allow me to make it up to you. Sit - I’ll cook breakfast.”

“Uh… sure! I’m not going to argue that.”

Who was this and what had he done with the real Loki? This… imposter was far from the sullen, grumpy god you started this mission with. It certainly wasn’t helping you to push down your feelings for him. If anything, it was making them harder to control.

Loki cooked breakfast as promised, then sat down with you at the table to eat together. It was amazing, really, how having to share a sleeping bag somehow managed to break the ice between the two of you. It was much less of a challenge to pull conversation from the god this morning. He chatted with you about life in Asgard, and you told him more about your time before becoming a field agent of SHIELD. All in all, it was a pleasant morning, despite the circumstances.

But peace never lasts long when you're an agent of SHIELD.

A sudden distant whirring noise sounded outside the cabin. At first, you thought maybe you were hearing things, but as it grew louder, even Loki appeared mildly concerned. He stood from the table, striding swiftly over to the window to peer through the sheets of snow outside.

"They found us."

"What?" You stood, hurrying to join him at the window. "Who found us?"

"The enemy - those Zealot idolizers Fury warned us about. They're fast approaching." He turned from the window to face you, a stern look on his face. "The tablet is hidden and safe for the time being. Stay inside - allow me to dispose of them."

"What? No, I'm coming with you!"

He shook his head firmly. "No. You're still recovering. I won't have you putting yourself in harm's way once again."

"But-"

His hand shot out and grabbed hold of your wrist, grasping it tightly but not enough to hurt you. You fell silent, gazing down at his fingers wrapped around your arm for a moment before lifting your gaze to meet his. There was an unease in his eyes you'd not seen before.

"Stay. Allow me to take care of this." He lifted his other hand, conjuring a dagger with a glow of green light. "Take this." He turned your wrist to tilt your palm upwards, pressing the hilt into your hand and guiding your fingers closed around it. "I understand you are skilled in hand-to-hand combat, but please don't hesitate to use it if you require something a bit more..."

"Lethal?" you finished. He nodded. You sighed. "Fine. I'll stay here. But I'll be watching from the window - if there's any sign of them getting the best of you, make no mistake, I will be coming after them."

Loki chuckled, grinning weakly. "You doubt my ability to lay waste to these mortals?"

"Just... don't be reckless."

He nodded, holding your gaze for another moment without a word. A final nod, and he spun around and burst through the door to face the enemy head-on.

The source of the whirring sound finally came into view, only barely visible to you through the ongoing blizzard. A man and a woman sat aboard a snowmobile of their own, skidding to a halt in front of the cabin and leaping off the vehicle to their feet. You couldn't hear what was being said, but Loki was speaking to them, likely telling them to leave (though surely in more violent terms.) Only moments later, the metal of Loki's daggers flashed as he flicked his wrists and whipped them into view, clasped tightly in his hands. And then the fight commenced.

These enemies may not have had the dimensional manipulation capabilities that the Zealots had, but they certainly fought formidably. Loki's limbs and blades were a blur as he slashed and swung at the pair of them, but they, too, had blades of their own. The clanging of metal against metal echoed over the howling wind of the blizzard as Loki fought them both expertly. He kicked out and slammed his boot into the woman's stomach, focusing his energy on the man who had now rounded behind him to try to slash at him while he was vulnerable. The woman leapt to her feet, stalking powerfully toward Loki to dive back into the fray.

Suddenly, her eyes flashed toward the cabin. And they caught yours.

You ducked down, but you knew it was too late. She'd seen you. She knew you were hiding, and she would surely be coming after you now. What she didn't know was that you could fight. And she certainly didn't know you had a blade. You concealed the blade in your sleeve, keeping it hidden from view as the door burst open and the woman stepped inside.

She was taller than you, with a muscular build and a fierce scowl on her face. You didn't wait for her to come after you - the moment she entered the cabin, you charged full force and slammed a fist into her stomach. The blow barely phased her, and she bit back with a foot to your hip, sending you reeling. Stumbling, you regained your balance and rushed at her once again. Fists flying, legs swinging, you locked her in a fierce battle of manual combat.

Either she was toying with you, or she didn't want to risk causing you mortal injury just yet, because not once did she aim her blades at you. Not that it mattered - she was obviously miles more skilled than you in combat, made evident by her persistent ability to beat you down without once using her fists. A back blow with her forearm, a shove with the sole of her boot - that was all she needed to send you staggering and toppling to the floor. But you would give yourself one thing - you maintained that fierce grit and determination you prided yourself on as you picked yourself up time and time again to launch yourself at the villain.

Eventually, she became fed up with you.

"Enough of this," she barked, suddenly swinging her leg aggressively to strike your side with her heel, the force of it knocking you to the ground. She was on you in seconds, shoving her weight into pinning you flat on the floor and pressing a blade to your neck. Your eyes widened only for a moment, then narrowed determinedly despite your clear disadvantage. You were not going to die a coward.

"Do it," you hissed.

"Get up." Removing the blade from your throat, she grabbed you above the elbow and wrenched you to your feet, yanking your arm behind your back and replacing the dagger at your neck.

"What are you playing at??" you demanded.

It didn't take long to figure it out.

The door slammed all the way open once again, a dark-haired, regal figure bursting in with a cloud of snow surrounding him. Loki's eyes landed on you, traveling down to the blade at your throat. He lowered his arms, suddenly trying to appear less threatening despite the fire in his eyes.

"Give up. I've already taken care of your partner. You've lost," he growled. The woman laughed maniacally, the sound making you cringe.

"Please. He wasn't my partner. He was my subordinate." Her hand tightened on your arm, the sharp edge of the dagger pressing harder into your neck. "Give me the tablet, or I'll kill her."

A panicked look flashed across his face. He took a cautious step forward, not brandishing his weapons but clearly trying to appear powerful with his strong stride.

"I suggest you reconsider, before you make a dire mistake."

"Take one more step and this blade slices her throat."

You gasped as the dagger cut into your skin, standing up straighter to try to reduce the pressure of the blade against your throat. Loki stopped dead in his tracks, that same glint of fear in his eyes. The tension of her arm around your neck loosened slightly at the realization that he was relenting.

"Where is it?" she demanded.

"Loki, don't give it to her!" you cried, sucking in a breath as she tensed once again in retaliation. Loki's brow furrowed in both anger and frustration. Hanging his head in defeat, he lifted his hand, dagger vanishing and the tablet appearing in its place.

"Hand it over. Now."

"Loki!!" You twisted a bit in her grasp, stopping immediately as the dagger further sliced your skin. "Don't. It's not... I'm not worth it."

His head shot up to look at you, then. A blazing fury filled his eyes, but it was directed at you.

"Never say that to me again."

He held out his hand, slowly pacing toward your captor with the tablet in offering for your release. Her grip on you loosened gradually the closer he came with her prize. You had only seconds before she would have it in her possession, and while you clearly couldn't get away with offering your life to prevent it, you weren't going to let him just hand it over without a fight.

It would be a short window of opportunity, you knew, but you had to try.

You allowed the dagger you had concealed in your sleeve to slip down into your hand, fingers tightening around the hilt as Loki approached with the tablet. Your captor released your arm to reach for the prize, her other arm loosening around your neck as she leaned forward to retrieve it. In a flash, you flipped the dagger so the blade pointed behind you, slamming your fist into her stomach and driving the blade into her abdomen.

She doubled over, and that was all the time you needed to duck out of her grasp. Loki was on her instantaneously, the tablet vanishing back into the void in a green flash of light as he reached down and grabbed a fistful of her collar in his hand, lifting her easily from the ground. His blue-green eyes practically glowed red as he whipped around and marched her outside.

"You deserve a much slower death than I have patience to offer you," he growled. With that, he placed her feet on the ground and slammed her with a burst of seidr, sending her careening meters away from the cabin. Her back struck a rock wall before she slumped to the ground, a mountain of snow tumbling down from the ledge above from the impact. Then, it was silent.

Once certain she wasn't getting up, Loki whirled around and re-entered the cabin, shutting the door behind him before sweeping across the room to you. His hands grasped your waist tightly, as though worried you might float away if he didn't hold you down on the ground.

"Are you alright?"

You nodded, grasping hold of his arms above his elbows and clinging to him. Those eyes. Gods, the way he was looking at you made you weak in the knees. That same demanding voice in the back of your mind wanted you to kiss him so badly.

And this time, you listened to it.

Surging forward, you smashed your lips against his, kissing him frantically. He melted into your kiss the moment your lips captured his, hands sliding around the small of your back and tugging you closer to lean against him. You let your hands slide up his arms to slip around his neck, lacing your fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. A seductive growl of appreciation resounded in his throat as his hands slid down your hips to the backs of your legs. He hoisted you effortlessly off the ground and guided you to wrap your legs around his waist. Your grip around his neck tightened to steady yourself on instinct, pressing yourself flush against his chest.

He was intoxicating in the most wonderful way. His mouth moved against yours perfectly, his teeth nipping occasionally at the plump skin of your bottom lip with just enough force to make you gasp, but not enough to hurt. He stumbled over to the futon with you still wrapped around him, falling backward onto the seat and eliciting a squeal of surprise from your lips. It made him laugh low in his chest, his hands sliding back to rest on your hips as you shifted to kneel over his lap.

Kissing Loki was desperate and frantic and passionate. He kissed you as though he feared losing you if he didn't press his lips hard enough against yours. You clung to him tightly, drinking him in as though you'd been awaiting a taste of this you're entire life. This delirious euphoria he'd instilled in you was more than enough to chase away the effects of the turmoil you'd experienced through this entire trying mission. He wanted you. And that was an incredible feeling.

Loki's hand slid firmly up your back to clasp around your neck, tugging you closer to deepen the kiss. He was leaving you breathless, but you didn't want to separate from him long enough to take a breath. Eventually, though, the need for oxygen forced you to part your lips from his to stop your head from spinning.

Loki, too, was gasping a bit for air, causing a grin to spread across your face as you pressed your forehead to his.

"You... you're a damn good kisser," you breathed, earning a chuckle from the god.

"What did you expect, darling? I'm a literal god."

"Yeah... God of Mischief," you retorted with a laugh.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He sat up a bit, his hand at your neck returning to your waist.

"Isn't mischief kind of the opposite of passion and romance?" You were teasing him now, knowing it was getting to him. Unfortunately, it backfired, as a smirk spread across his face and caused your stomach to flip.

"I suppose I should just stick to mischief then, hmm?"

Before you could react, he was pinching at your sides with his thumbs and index fingers, laughing evilly as you shrieked and burst into giggles. Your instinct wasn't to try to escape, but to lean into him as he teased out the spots that made you jolt and squeak.

"LOKI! YOU'RE RU-AHAH-RUINING A MOHOMENT!!"

"Am I? I was under the impression that you started this." He pinched his way up your sides, suddenly adding his other fingers to grab at your ribs and dig into the crevices with his fingertips. You leaned sideways, and he swiftly flipped you onto your back against the sofa cushions beside him as he continued his ticklish onslaught.

"No, noho, NO!!" You hooked your fingers around his hands at your ribs and tugged, squirming in an effort to prevent him from shifting to kneel over your hips. He easily managed to evade your attempts, planting his weight down on your legs to pin you down as he scribbled into your belly. With a buck of your hips, you dissolved into ticklish laughter as his fingertips preyed on the sensitive skin of your abdomen, skittering and clawing in search of a more dramatic reaction. And he succeeded, fingers grazing over the spot just above your waistline where you suddenly began to fight much harder for your escape. That classic Loki smirk crossed his face as he devilishly slipped his fingers under the hem of your shirt to flutter against your bare skin in that hypersensitive spot.

"Is this mischievous enough to live up to my title?" he demanded teasingly, clearly pleased with himself for drawing such desperate laughter from you.

"NOHO!"

"No?" He paused a moment to think, allowing you to breathe. You immediately began shaking your head pleading with him that you didn't mean it as a response to his clearly rhetorical question as he ignored you and shifted his weight further back on your legs. With a knowing grin, he slid his fingers between the seat cushion and your leg, poised to strike at the underside of your thigh where you'd given yourself away in the first place.

"W-WAHAIT!! Loki! Wahait a minute!" you pleaded through anticipatory giggles. He gazed at you expectantly, his fingers resting motionless against his new target.

"Something to say?" he asked.

"I..."

"Are you asking me to stop?" His smirk returned as he watched your internal conflict play out on your face. Is that what you wanted? He was far too good at wheedling out your weak spots, but did you mind? This playfulness, this flirty little game he'd started with you, was perhaps exactly what you needed right at this moment.

"I... you..."

"Time's up."

His fingers sprang back into action, scratching at the ticklish skin along the back of your thigh. You sat up on instinct, fumbling for his hands as laughter poured from your lips, but he wasn't having any of it. Now that he knew you didn't mind this little game, he was going to play until you inevitably declared him the winner. So his fingers found your ribs for a brief moment, long enough to make you fall back against the sofa before continuing his attack on your leg.

"LOHOKI JUST KIHISS ME! PLEHEASE!!" you begged frantically. His fingers stilled, a sultry look in his eyes as he returned his attention to your face. With a seductively handsome grin, he slowly crawled to hover over you, hands pressed against the sofa at either side of your head.

"How could I possibly decline such a request?"

Loki ducked down and captured your lips with his, and you immediately wrapped your arm around his neck to pull him in closer. His skin felt cool now against your blushing lips. Your mind went hazy as you succumbed to his kiss, melting as his lips trailed from yours along your jawline, giggling when he kissed the soft skin of your neck. He leaned back a bit to grin at you, a similarly hazy look in his eyes to what you were feeling, before leaning back down and pressing feather-light kisses to your neck.

"Yohohou tehease, Loki!" you scolded half-heartedly, shrugging your shoulder in a fruitless attempt to block his tickly kisses. He merely trailed down to your collarbone, a surprisingly sensitive spot that made your giggles pitch up in octave, much to his pleasant surprise. A few more well-placed pecks along this newfound spot, and you finally decided to retaliate, your fingers fluttering lightly at his neck where they rested.

To your surprise, he flinched hard, a small laugh escaping his lips at the unexpected sensation. He lifted his head to meet your gaze, a dangerous look flashing in his eyes at the sight of your triumphant expression.

"Oh, darling - you're asking for it now."

A sudden scratching under your outstretched arm made you screech and contract instinctively, resultantly yanking him down closer to you. He took advantage of the sudden shifting off-balance, allowing his weight to simply drop onto you and pin you down so his previously supporting hand could find purchase on your ribs, his other hand continuing its assault under your arm. You could barely squirm with the weight of a god against the length of your body, which made every dig of his fingertips into your skin that much more unbearably ticklish as you laughed wildly. As his fingers at your ribs hooked around to that hypersensitive spot he'd discovered earlier toward your back, he pressed another ticklish kiss to your neck, driving you into silent, breathy laughter. He tormented you just a moment longer before halting his attack, lifting his weight off you slightly to gaze down at your disheveled form and grinning face.

"Alright, love?" he asked, his tone filled with adoration for you. You merely nodded, unable to find your voice just yet as you gasped for breath. You were more than alright. This was euphoric bliss, having him this close to you, tickling you silly and kissing you breathless. He pressed a gentle kiss to your lips before shifting his weight off of you, wedging himself between the back of the sofa and your body so he could pull you into his chest.

"M'tired now," you grumbled half-heartedly. A rumbling laugh vibrated in his chest against your back.

"Then rest, darling. I'll be right here."

And so you did, allowing your eyes to drift closed and your breath to slow and deepen. The last few days had been overwhelming, and you hadn't realized how the exhaustion had caught up to you until this very moment. It wasn't long at all before you slipped into a peaceful sleep, wrapped safely in Loki's arms.

* * *

Loki kept his promise - remaining at your side while you took quite possibly the longest nap you'd ever taken. Hours later, when you finally did awaken, you heart skipped at the realization that his arm was still wrapped tightly around you. This time, it wasn't awkward in the least. This time, you knew he wanted you, and you wanted him.

What a whirlwind of a relationship.

You stirred, turning onto your back to look at the god keeping you warm in his embrace. He smiled, and you pressed a slow, sleepy, drunk-like kiss to his lips.

"Sleep well?" he asked.

"Mmhmm." You greedily went in for another kiss, and he allowed it, pulling you to lay on top of him as he rolled onto his back. His sleep-warmed hands slipped beneath the hem of your shirt, fingers tracing gentle patterns along the bare skin of your back with just enough pressure to keep from tickling you, but light enough to leave goosebumps in their wake. You sighed contentedly into his lips, and he grinned against your mouth, continuing on his mission to make you feel good and relishing in the little shivers he elicited from you as his fingers drifted lazily up and down your spine.

Your comms device began buzzing where it sat on the floor. With an annoyed groan, you shifted to lift yourself from the warmth of Loki's embrace, but he tightened his grasp, capturing your lips once again.

"Mm'Loki! I have to - mmpf - I have to answer it!"

"Mm-mm. You're not going anywhere." He stole another kiss, and you allowed it briefly, then wriggled your fingers into his sides. With a bark of a laugh and a jolt, his hold on you loosened long enough for you to slip out of his grasp and move to the comms device, shooting him a cheeky grin as you picked it up off the floor. He sat up, sending you a playful glare. "You'll pay for that later."

"Director Fury," you stated, ignoring Loki's threat but unable to prevent the heat from creeping into your cheeks.

"Agent. I hope you're a bit less delirious now."

You rolled your eyes, glaring at Loki. "Yes, much better, thank you."

"Good. The storm has lifted, and we'll be coming to get you within the hour. We heard about your little run-in with the Zealot idolizers."

"Don't worry. The tablet is safe - we took care of them."

"Excellent work. Be prepared to board the jet when it arrives. We're on a tight schedule." With that, he hung up, no hint of a goodbye. Typical Fury.

You stood, moving to your bag to start packing up your belongings. As you folded up your clothes to pack them away, two hands latched onto your ribs from behind, digging into the spaces.

"HEHEY! Loki! Sahave it for LAHATER! I have to pack!"

"Just throw everything in there, it's not that difficult," he urged, halting in his attack. You looked at him incredulously.

"Just throw everything in there? Do you even know me at all, Loki?? I can't just throw things into my bag haphazardly, it has to be organized!"

"Yes, I know, I know..." he sighed. "I know you're a perfectionist when it comes to preparedness."

"Thank you." You turned back to your packing, yelping when suddenly your belongings folded themselves on their own accord and stacked neatly into your bag, the zipper closing over them. You whipped around to find Loki grinning impishly, his hand still with a slight residual glow from performing his seidr.

"Now then - now that that's finished..." He tugged you to your feet, snaking his arms around you and pulling you in for a passionate kiss. You squeaked in surprise, but melted into his lips shortly thereafter. He broke apart from your lips to flash you that handsome grin of his. "Since you're so worried I don't know you well enough, why don't we work on that, hmm?"

Heat blossomed in your cheeks under his intense gaze. "You'll have to wait a little while to know me that well," you insisted, a teasing grin spreading across your face.

"Oh, naturally," he agreed. "But we have an hour to kill. And I don't intend to waste a moment of it."

You spent the next hour truly getting to know one another. Talking and trading stories, interlaced with many more passionate kisses. Perhaps more kisses than stories, really. And, maybe, you weren't quite as prepared to board the jet as you normally would have liked to be when it arrived.

You found that, for once, you didn't really mind.

616 notes · View notes

t-wordy-kk · 3 years ago

Text

To anyone who needs a good TASM Peter Parker fic, here ya go. Had me blushy and everything 🥰

The Perfect Alibi

~12,100 words of (AG/TASM) Peter Parker x reader fluff

Pairing: Peter Parker x female reader

CW: Swearing, blood/wound, alluding to (Gwen’s) death

If you went back less than two years and told your fresh-out-of-high-school self that you’d soon become the fake girlfriend of a vigilante, you’d… well, to be honest, you’d probably have found it cool.

Maybe ‘cool’ wasn’t the right word. More… unconventional.

It was the perfect arrangement. You both got exactly what you needed: an excuse, a reason, a justification for your actions.

It’s a ruthless, cutthroat job market out there and, after getting a full-ride scholarship Columbia University, which was widely regarded as the best school for science in New York, you knew these next four years were for focusing hard, studying harder, and getting the best grades possible. Bonus if those grades got you valedictorian.

Sure, maybe it had been a pipe dream to be valedictorian of your class but after topping almost all of your freshman courses, you gained more confidence in that crazy idea that you could just maybe do it. It would look stellar, unbeatable even, on job applications. Hell, maybe you wouldn’t even have to apply, and they’d all come crawling to hire you.

You’d created a list (found in the back page of your journal which you only wrote the most important things in) of non-negotiable ways to ace the college life.

1. No dating

2. No drugs/alcohol

3. No dating

4. Find like-minded friends, keep the circle small

5. NO DATING!!!

6. Don’t skip class under any circumstances. Even if you’re dead.

The list was your bible, and it had clearly served you well. However, at the beginning of your sophomore year… it started. The few close friends you’d made, Dana especially, starting probing into why you never dated. There were admittedly a number of people on campus you found attractive, some of them you even had a spark with, but you suppressed any emotion, snuffing any potential flame before it started. Whenever you tried to explain that your high-school relationship had almost cost you your SAT results due to the distraction of it, Dana and Sam would wave it off as you being a dumb teenager and point out that you‘re clearly better adjusted now, if not having gone too far in the opposite direction.

They pestered and pestered, obviously with their hearts in the right place but you were getting to the point where you were nervous that showing up to hang out with them would result in you being tricked into a blind date - that’s how persistent they were. They’d tell you whenever someone asked whether or not you were single, and you’d, without fail, say “Tell them I’m not available.” You were met with eye-rolls, admonishing stares, the occasional begging for you to give them a chance. You held firm. Half a semester into your sophomore year, they started worrying about you a little more, asking if you were nervous about dating, if you’d give it shot, did you not like anyone? It was okay if you didn’t. They just wanted you to be happy, not at all understanding the pressure you were under to keep your grades up to keep your scholarship. Almost at the breaking point, you considered going on just one date to shut them up for a while.

Then, one night, the perfect solution climbed through your window.

It was lucky your roommate’s girlfriend lived ten minutes from campus, effectively rending your room a single-person dorm. Seriously, you could count on one hand the number of nights Olivia spent in the dorm with you (and none of them were very pretty, considering she’d only sleep in her own bed when she and Remi were fighting). This particular night, all was well with their love so Liv was nowhere to be seen. It was early, around 2:00am, when someone jimmied open the latch on your fourth-story window.

You held your breath, dead silent, as your fingers closed around the Louisville Slugger aluminium bat you hadn’t used since you were nine but brought to college specifically for this reason. The blood pounded in your ears, your heart felt like it’d jumped into your throat, blocking any potential scream as the window between the two single beds slid open. A small grunt, a cough, a wheeze, then, a loud CLUNK brought a yelp through your lips as a tall, masked figured tumbled over your bedside table and onto your floor. The groan of pain told you he was injured, and the dim glow of the safety streetlights dotting the pavement outside illuminated the blue, the red, the webbed patterns, and you dropped the bat from shock. It fell in a muted clang to the floor beside the bed, ricocheting and softly whacking Spider-Man in the head.

“A-are you okay?” You gasped, instantly falling to your knees beside him. “You’re Spider-Man,” you stated the obvious, reaching up and scattering your hand around the beside table until you switched on the lamp. Once you did, another gasp left your lips when the brighter light revealed a large strip of blood pooling around his abdomen. “Can you hear me?” You took his masked head in your heads, looking at the blood stain slowly creeping, growing. He only responded with a groan. “Look, I-I know your identity is a secret so you can keep the mask, but you’ve gotta let me check out this wound.”

He groaned again, turning his head to look up at your face properly. “Oh man,” he breathed out, then tried to sit up. “Oh man, oh man,” he winced and grabbed his side, just at the bottom of the blood patch.

“I know first aid,” you let him sit up. “Look, I’m really not trying to-”

“I’ve gotta get outta here,” he coughed again, shakily planting one foot on the ground. “Wrong window, oh man.”

You winced, huffed and grabbed the first-aid kit from the bottom shelf of your bedside table, holding it up to show him. “Seriously, you can keep the mask on, but we have monthly dorm inspections and I can’t explain that much blood on my carpet without looking like a serial killer.” The frantic words tumbled through your lips in one long breath as you desperately hoped you weren’t going to have to report a dead vigilante in your room. Your chest heaved as you gestured to the drops making their way through his suit and splattering at his feet.

“Sorry- sorry!” He placed his other hand on his side as well, before looking over at your raised blinds. In a second he’d whipped up his wrist, shot a web at the cord, then yanked it down to cover your window. He looked down again at the blood, and you threw a towel to him. “Uh, thanks,” he winced again, “Ah, ah, ahhhh,” he breathed out, applying pressure to the patch. He sounded young.

“Will you let me see?”

He looked back up at you, and a small shift of his head to look at the first aid kit you’d opened told you he was considering it, then a lowering of his head and shoulders told you he’d resigned himself to it. “That would be nice,” he laughed nervously. “Man, sorry, you must’ve been so freaked out… some weird guy falling through your window. I promise I’m one of the good guys.”

Your mouth twitched into a nervous, wry smile as you beckoned for him to pull out the office chair which sat nestled in the desk at the edge of your bed. Having only gone to sleep an hour or two before after a night of trying to figure out the same damn physics question, your notes and failed attempts were strewn about the light oak desk. It was extra credit, to be fair, but the fact that it’d kicked your ass for four hours straight was enough for the sight of it to be discouraging.

“Mind the mess,” you sniffed, pulling Liv’s barely-used chair over to sit next to the vigilante. He turned his head as one hand went up to tug at a zipper on the back of his suit, just above the base of his neck.

“Looks complicated,” he said slowly, looking more intently as he worked the upper-half of his suit off his body, leaving his mask in-tact.

“Yeah, well,” you shrugged, biting your lip to distract from the heat pricking at your cheeks when he revealed his very toned chest and abdomen. “Something isn’t clicking. I’ll have another shot at it tomorrow and- ooh, ouch,” you let out a puff of breath as the five-inch gash was revealed. “Mind if I…?”

He nodded, “It doesn’t feel too deep. I can web it up.”

“Somehow that doesn’t seem sanitary,” you mumbled, shifting your glance upward to give him another wry smile, this one a bit more shy. “Does that stuff come out of you?” He laughed, which made you smile wider and blush as you picked up a cleaning pad and some rubbing alcohol from the kit. “Well, it didn’t seem like a stupid question.”

“No, you’re clearly not stupid,” he tilted his head, and something told you he was smiling behind his mask. Maybe you heard it in his voice.

“This is gonna sting,” you said, saturating the pad. “But judging by the news footage I’ve seen, you’ve got a pretty high pain tolerance.”

“They always show the videos of me getting my ass kick- AH!” He flinched with a sharp intake of breath when you pressed the pad directly onto his cut.

“Or maybe you don’t,” you teased. Which seemed impossible, right? Was this some kind of fever dream? Surely it wasn’t possible for Spider-Man to have accidentally stumbled into an Columbia dorm of all places. “Focus on my physics question,” you joked as you cleaned the wound, trying to assess how deep it was. You searched your brain for the information you’d learned at those first-aid courses, and came to the conclusion that it would probably be okay without proper medical attention. “At the risk of killing the best vigilante in the country, I think a bandage will do,” you looked up at him again, to find him focused on your question. He shifted the papers with his elbow, careful to not get blood on your notes, then you saw him lean in a little more. Taking the chance while he was distracted, you cleaned the wound completely and ripped open two large gauze pads.

“Your rounding isn’t wrong,” he suddenly spoke and you paused, moving your gaze from his gash to his mask. He looked at you for a second and then sighed, nodding back at the paper. “You wrote here, “rounding incorrect decimal?” … nah, that’s not it.”

“But my answer is so close to the one given. It’s only out by a fraction of a whole number. How could it not be a rounding issue?”

“These readings were taken in Antarctica, right?”

“Yeah, so? Centrifugal force on a sphere is-…” Then, it clicked. You let out a frustrated sigh. “Dahammit,” you whined and collapsed back into the chair. “Of course… the Earth isn’t a perfect sphere so it-”

“Centrifugal force isn’t the same around the globe, yeah. Something I’ll need to remember if I ever need to go up and take down Santa.”

“Right,” you scoffed a laugh and shook your head. As you placed the bandages, something occurred to you. He was good at science. He was on campus. He climbed in your window, clearly by accident. He sounded young.

He… could he?

It didn’t seem polite to ask. It didn’t seem like something you had the right to know-

“I gave it away, didn’t I?”

He said it solemnly but he didn’t sound upset. You took your lower lip between your teeth, not quite responding, just sticking the medical tape to his skin.

“Where’s your roommate?”

“She’s never here.”

You ripped off another piece of tape, swallowing thickly. He must go here. Maybe you knew him. Was this going to be a problem?

“Lucky. Mine will be back by now.”

You held your breath as you packed away the stuff. Your hands shook slightly, your nerves getting the best of you as you avoided looking up at his mask. Sensing your unease, he reached out a placed a gentle hand on your forearm.

“Can this stay between us?”

You paused, nodding furiously. “I’m good with secrets.”

“And with first-aid.”

“Sixteen-year-old me was considering med school.”

“What happened?”

“I’m too squeamish.”

He let out a surprised laugh and let go of your arm, and that whole thing kind of broke the tension. You half-grinned as you stood and replaced the kit underneath your bedside table.

“Thank you,” he stood and replaced the suit on himself with some effort.

“Thank you,” you stammered, turning back to him. “My uncle. He, uh, owns a small bodega in Queens. The last three Thanksgivings he tells the family how the heroic Spider-Man saved him from an armed robbery.”

He paused, only for a second, before zipping the suit back up behind him. “I’m glad I could help.” His voice was sincere, if not a bit abashed.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone this story. It’s the least I could do to help someone who’s actually making a difference. And, um, I might have some of my older brother’s clothes I stole if you need to change before going back into your dorm.”

You both stood in silence for a few long moments after you spoke the quiet part out loud.

“I’ve got a pack stashed on the roof.”

“Good,” you nodded, crossing your arms in front of your pyjama top. “I take it you’ll be going out the window considering boys aren’t allowed on this floor after 11pm?”

He hung his head, but you heard a small chuckle, which made you need to suppress a cheeky smile.

“Thanks for the reminder.”

You stood aside as he approached, letting him pass you. He removed the webs from your blinds and switched off your lamp before letting the fabric fling up into its rolled-up position. He crawled out the window and just before he closed it again, he turned to you, that smile evident in his voice, and said:

“I’ll see you around.”

There wasn’t really a hope of easily going back to sleep after that encounter. You actually had half a mind to march yourself down to the medical unit to get checked out, wondering if you’d studied too hard and given yourself hallucinations to make life less math-y.

You managed to catch an hour or two of sleep before your alarm went off, and when you planted your feet on the floor your eye immediately caught the droplets of blood on the carpet. It had happened. Spider-Man had been in your room, you’d patched him up, he said he’d see you around. He practically admitted to being a student here. Which was crazy. Insane. How on earth- why on earth...?

There was too much going on in your brain, too much to process, so you used his helpful hint to distract yourself with scurrying through the final stages of the physics question still strewn across your desk (thankful to see it was free of any bloodstains). Using the hint he’d given you, you cracked it in just under half an hour; just enough time to frantically brush your teeth in the shower, throw on some warm casual clothes, sling your bag over your shoulder and rush out the door as you shuffled the work into a folder as best you could.

If you walked fast you’d make it slightly early, which is how you liked to be, but this time, as you made the trek to your nine a.m. lecture, you found your eyes darting between every tall, slender, male student you saw. He could be any one of them, and everyone around you was none the wiser.

When one guy made eye contact with you, your breath caught in your throat and the immediate feeling searing through your gut was that it had to be him. But when you looked away, then looked back, he‘d turned his attention elsewhere. He looked a bit too tall anyways.

Physically shaking your head and blinking hard before you entered the lecture hall, you took a deep breath in. The second you stepped inside, you released it in overwhelming thankfulness - a sleepy grin came to your cheeks when you saw Dana and Sam sitting in your usual three, Sam beckoning you over with an extra cup on her writing desk. You trudged over, while trying to make it look like you weren’t trudging, but your best friends were too perceptive.

“Holy shit, dude,” Dana laughed, somewhat nervously. “Did you sleep last night?”

“Not really,” you mumbled, sliding in next to Sam, resisting the urge to kiss her passionately in thanks for the coffee she’d brought you, making sure to not accidentally kick the guy at the seat in front of you.

Sam sipped her coffee and raised an eyebrow. “Everything alright? Liv and Remi aren’t fighting, are they?”

“No… no,” you shook your head and wrapped your fingers around the coffee. You’d promised him. “This extra credit question got the better of me and I lost track of time. I figured it out, but I barely slept.”

“I suppose it was a pipe dream to hope that you’d been up late texting someone…” Sam sang, taking a rather sassy sip of her coffee.

“Or, you know, making out with them,” Dana tossed in, opening her laptop as the professor entered the room.

You laughed through your nose as you swallowed your own life-giving sip. “When have I ever given you two even and inch?” You pulled your own laptop out. “I’m not dating in college. End of story.”

“We’ll find you someone you can’t refuse.”

“Please don’t.”

“One date?”

“Hey, sorry to bother you.” The three of you looked down to the brown-haired guy who’d taken the seat directly in front of you. He smiled sheepishly and held out his empty hands. “I kinda forgot a pen. Do you have one I can borrow?”

He was looking directly at you, which made you furrow your brow in question as to why he was only asking you, but you were barely there, so in an automatic movement you reached into the outer pocket of your bag, “Uh, yeah, of course,” you smiled back and handed him a pen. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” he smiled, but it was more like a little grin, and it lingered for a second or two before the professor cleared his throat and began the class.

As you opened your notes document Sam nudged your elbow with her own. When you looked over, you were met with very enthusiastic wide-eyed friends who were mouthing “HE’S CUTE.” Instead of indulging them in yet another reason as to why they should respect your “No,” you rolled your eyes and turned your attention to the matter at hand: mechanical waves.

It was a gruelling three hour morning lecture slot, thankfully with a fifteen minute break in the middle of it to stretch your legs, refill water bottles, go to the bathroom, perhaps brave a mad dash to the closest coffee cart. Today, however, once the boy who’d borrowed your pen had absconded to do one of those things, Dana and Sam cornered you in your seat before you had much of a chance to stop them.

“He’s so cute,” Sam whispered loudly. “Did you see how he looked at you?!”

“Who doesn’t have a pen?” Dana scoffed excitedly.

Sam cut in, still looking at you. “Everyone has a pen.”

“He wanted an excuse to talk to you.”

“Or,” you ducked your head to the side. “He forgot his pen.” Before they could protest you help up a hand and declared you were braving that mad-dash, asking if they wanted anything. They declined, both with stern glares, so you chuckled and rushed out of the room.

The closest coffee cart was only a two minute power-walk, so the trick was beating the rest of the people who had the same idea. The line only had a few people in it by the time you got there, one of them being the boy who borrowed your pen. He was directly in front of you, but didn’t turn to see who’d taken the spot behind him. That was probably for the better, considering your head was so full of equations you doubted your ability to have any kind of social interaction. In no time, he was at the front.

“I’ll have uhhh, double espresso and,” he turned to you. “Whatever she’s having.”

“Oh!” You shook yourself out of an equation. “You don’t have t-”

“Consider it rent for the pen,” he chuckled. “Hurry up, these people need their caffeine.”

“Black,” you blurted out. “Black, no milk, no sugar. Thanks,” you smiled and rubbed your arm self-consciously as the boy paid and thanked the barista for the coffee. He held them both in his hands as he stepped several feet away from the line, forcing you to follow him to receive your drink. You held in a sigh, hoping this very nice boy wasn’t about to ask you out.

“One black coffee,” he smiled, handing it to you.

You slipped the sleeves of your sweatshirt over your palms before taking it. The cups at these places were always too thin. “Thanks, but… you really didn’t have to do that. It’s just a pen.”

When you met his eye, you saw him take a nervous breath in, release it, his face softened but like someone who had to deliver bad news. Something about his demeanour, his voice, his posture - you narrowed your eyes and tilted your head in curiosity.

“Then, uh… consider it an apology for the blood on your carpet.”

The blood in your own body immediately drained from your face, somehow still pounding in your ears, in your throat, even in your hands and feet. Your stomach surged with a sickly anxiousness as your chest heaved and you tried breathing through your nose.

“Hey, hey,” he placed a hand on your shoulder and you flinched, too rooted in your spot to take the backwards step you so desperately internally screamed at your foot to perform. You’d always had a hell of a flight instinct, but a bitch of a freeze response. “Are you okay? Sorry, that’s a lot to drop on you- I’m an idiot- sorry, sorry,” he ducked down to try catching your gaze as you calmed yourself down enough to brave looking up at him again. He had such kind eyes.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” you whispered.

“I know,” he removed his hand from your shoulder. “I heard your friends earlier. Thank you,” he nodded earnestly. “That means a lot.”

“Y-you didn’t have to show me your face.”

“I know, but…” he rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah, this is gonna sound so stupid but it sounded so good in my head- I had this idea when I heard your friends talking - which, I wasn’t eavesdropping by the way, or not trying to, it kinda just happens with the whole spider thing - but I heard them giving you a hard time and I just thought-”

“I’m gonna need you to get to the point before I throw up.”

He froze, then let out the remainder of his breath. “Hear me out.” He gestured to you, “You have friends who won’t get off your back about dating,” he started.

Well, there came the blood returning to your face; the superhero knew you were an antisocial dweeb.

He then pointed to himself, “I have a roommate who keeps asking where I go so late at night.”

The second he’d spoken it aloud, it made sense. It made perfect sense. You instantly relaxed, which made him relax. Your head turned to the side in thought, a bit of a mischievous smile coming to your cheeks, despite all odds, and you admitted, “I like where this is going.”

You two shared a look, both fighting the excitement of the potential arrangement. He truly was a hero.

Other students began making their way back to the lecture theatre and so you two walked back together, whispering between yourselves, exchanging names. His name was Peter. Peter trusted you, and he knew he could give you what you needed, and you could give him what he needed. Ultimately, you both needed the same thing:

An alibi.

“I have a plan,” he grabbed your arm just before you two came into the line of sight of the people inside the hall.

“What is it?”

“You’ll see,” he nodded. You gave him a look. “Just- don’t tell them I bought your coffee.”

With that, he slipped past you and into the room. “Peter!” You called after him in a loud whisper, but he was already gone. You gave yourself a moment to laugh at the absurdity of this entire thing, ponder your existence, and make a good case as to why you really should go to the medical wing for a psych evaluation because no way in hell was this happening.

But there he was, sitting at the seat in front of you, twirling the pen expertly. You wondered if he was one of those people who’d looked up how to do the pen tricks in class, or if it was a result of the whole Being Spider-Man Thing.

Just like sleeping the night before, focusing in class was some unobtainable pipe dream. This time you didn’t try forcing it upon yourself, instead giving yourself a gentle reminder that you could always listen to the recording later and it was okay to be kind of freaking out about this.

Peter seemed calm. Far too calm for someone who just revealed their secret identity to someone he’s met literally one time before. He seemed so sure… maybe there was some kind of super-intuition to go along with his powers. God, his powers. How did he get them? How long has he had them? Did he seek them out, or was it an accident? A billion questions raced through your mind, unlike the professor’s voice which went in one ear and out the other, and you couldn’t stop wondering how it all worked and if you’d ever be able to ask him.

Time flew as you zoned out of the teaching and in no time everyone around you was making to pack up their things. Peter stood up and turned to where you were closing your laptop lid. He placed the pen on your table and slid it towards you, leaving his hand on top of it.

“I owe you one,” he smiled.

Your heart pounded as you locked eyes with him, your tongue subconsciously slipping out to wet your nervous lips. “I-it’s just a pen,” you repeated the earlier sentiment.

“Yeah, but,” he shrugged. “Who knows, if I hadn’t taken those notes I might have failed this class and flunked out and ended up in some dead-end job I hate, no hope of happiness in my career or paying off my now-useless student loans…” he let himself trail off. You laughed once through your nose and suppressed a grin as best you could as you reached over and took the end of the pen his hand wasn’t covering.

“So you’re saying I saved your life?”

“You’re a hero,” he smirked knowingly. “The least I could do is buy you a coffee.”

You nodded to the table next to you, “I have a coffee.”

“Dinner, then.”

You laughed from pure surprise, and maybe a little bit from the nearly inaudible squeak you heard leaving Sam’s mouth as she turned away and poorly pretended that she wasn’t listening. Oh, he was good. You narrowed your eyes at him for a few moments before letting your smile turn mischievous and you tugged the pen from his grasp.

“Considering I saved your life… it better be a nice dinner.”

Needless to say, Sam and Dana damn near exploded when you three left the room together. You were grinning, caught in a flurry of fanatical friends declaring how proud they were of you, how cute he was, what were you going to wear?! Did you want Sam’s help doing makeup? She’s really good at it and she wouldn’t make it look too much and-

“Guys,” you laughed, hoisting your bag higher. “It’s no big deal. It’s one dinner.”

“No big deal?!” Dana whisper-shouted. “You just said yes to a date.”

“With a really cute guy!”

“Yeah, and I’m sure it’ll be nice and fun, he seems cool,” you smiled and checked your watch. “I need to get to Bennett’s office hours but I’ll catch you guy later.”

They begrudgingly let you go, walking off together while chatting about lunch.

On your way to Professor Bennett’s office, you tried making those extra credit notes just a little bit tidier, letting your mind wander to this strange arrangement you were about to enter into. How would it work? What would you do together? What do you say to your friends, your family?

All those questions were answered later, around midnight, when there was a noise at your window for the second night in a row. You were sitting on your bed studying, the blind was drawn but there was only one person it could be. You opened your window and Peter crawled in with much more grace than than his previous entrance. He was just in jeans and a zip-up sweatshirt, so the powers must be him and not the suit.

“How’s your cut?” You asked as he drew the blind. He listed his shirt, revealing that toned core once again, and showed you a wound that looked more like a scar at this point.

“Much better,” he dropped it. “Thanks for cleaning it out, I’m not too great at that and it’s a mess when it’s not done right. Sorry you had to do that.

“No, no, it’s fine,” you sniffled a laugh and crossed your arms over your stomach, still finding yourself somewhat tongue-tied in his presence.

Desperate to fill the awkward silence, Peter clicked his tongue, “Should we figure this thing out?”

“Yeah!” You jumped.

“You sure?” He lifted an eyebrow. “You alright?”

“Yeah, good- I’m good,” you assured. “So how do you see this working?” You perched on the edge of your bed, Peter mimicked your movement on Liv’s white comforter.

“You and I say we’re dating. Boyfriend and girlfriend. That way your friends don’t pester you to find someone and, as an added bonus, if you ever want time away from them to study you can say you’re with me,” he said. You nodded in thought. “And my roommate is getting way too suspicious about why I come back so late, so I can say I was with you,” he nodded back.

“Okay, but we also have to sell it,” you cut in. “We can’t just say we’re dating and then never be seen together.”

“Good point. We should probably go on some dates.”

“One meal out in a public visible place each week, and we can do our work in the library together. That’s an easy two-for-one.”

“You’re a huge nerd, aren’t you?”

“That’s no way to talk to your girlfriend,” you playfully shot back. He chuckled, you smiled. Feeling the anxiety alleviate, and the comfort he radiated filling the space between you, your smile was genuine, and weirdly excited. This would work.

And it did work. Really well, in fact.

You went out to your first dinner together the very next evening at a casual restaurant close to campus. There, you covered the basics. Home, families, you were on a scholarship and he was too. He went to a dedicated school for science so when you asked why no MIT he explained he couldn’t bear to leave New York; he had a lot of history here and even though the city had taken much from him, he couldn’t bear to leave. He didn’t elaborate on what that meant, but you got the feeling that, whatever happened, it still hurt him.

Much to your surprise, you felt confident and comfortable enough around him to brave asking how he got his powers. Though as the night went on, and he told you stories, and you keenly listened and asked questions that made him think and laugh and tell more stories, you couldn’t quite believe your luck. Because here was someone you were about to spend a lot of time with, and you genuinely liked him as a person. Thank goodness Spider-Man wasn’t a pompous asshole. That would’ve sucked.

You also took the chance to establish some ground rules and ways for him to work around his roommate. You recounted the tales of Liv and Remi, and you two agreed that if for whatever reason he couldn’t sneak in your window one night, the blind would be closed. Be it that Liv was back or something else was going on, he wasn’t to enter unless it was open.

When it came to the whole “selling it” part of your relationship, you both felt sure enough to be flirty and cozy in public, give each other hugs, he‘d put his arm around you, the very innocent list went on. You would do those study dates in the library, and he’d have to make a bit of effort with your friends and you with his, otherwise they’d resent the other for stealing their friend away.

“Man, this is getting complicated,” you laughed nervously, pulling your coat on as you two walked out of the restaurant. “But I think it’ll work.”

The hopeful disbelief in your voice made Peter laugh, and he threw his arm around your shoulders just as the late-autumn air started nipping at your neck. Seamlessly, you put your arm around him and you two walked across campus keeping each other warm.

That very same night Peter went out on his patrol, and he snuck back in through your window just before three in the morning. He was quiet. It only woke you because it was such an unsettling sound. But those nights started happening frequently and that early hour shift of the pane soon blended into your dreams most evenings.

During your library study dates, or when you were out eating your meals together, Peter would tease you for the way you snored, or the panda pyjamas you loved to wear. Sometimes you’d swat at him, though most times you were able to come up with a remark to shoot right back. He seemed to like that.

You learned a lot about Spider-Man, and a lot about Peter Parker, over the following months.

He was resilient. Even after the occasional night he’d slip into your window and his groan of pain would give his injury away, he’d shrug it off and insist he was fine. Sometimes he let you help. Whenever he did, though, he made sure to break the tension by commenting on the chubby pandas or lamenting that you weren’t wearing them. He’d crack lame jokes until your worry turned to exasperated humour and you were fighting a grin instead of fighting the urge to worry sick over him.

He was insanely smart. The guy went out five or six times a week to keep the city safe, returning home sometimes just before dawn. News story after article after op-ed explained how Spider-Man was cleaning up the streets but privately, Peter Parker was somehow still acing all his classes on three hours sleep and way too much coffee. Or maybe it wasn’t too much - super metabolism and all. Actually… it’s a wonder coffee even worked on him.

He was kind, and a good friend. Those nights you got dinner, or those mornings you got brunch, all to keep up appearances, he’d ask more about you. He wanted to know about your life, your interests and hobbies, what you wanted to do with your intellect. He was encouraging and helpful, and so caring. One night he returned to find you still awake, hunched over your desk, crying from stress. God, you felt so stupid to have him see you like that. But he didn’t make you feel stupid. He didn’t make you feel foolish for being upset over something you couldn’t figure out because he seemed to understand the way you doubted yourself and how much it killed you to feel incapable. It was your own version of powerlessness, and he said he knew all about feeling powerless. Seeing you were embarrassed to be actively crying in front of him, he said: “Put on your pandas. I’ll be back in ten minutes.” Ten minutes later, Peter crawled back through your window with a pint of chocolate-chip cookie dough ice cream and two of the tiniest spoons you’d ever seen. The sight of the fluorescent pink plastic spoons made you laugh, and laughing made you cry a little more just from being overwhelmed, but Peter chuckled and pulled you in for a warm hug. When he pulled away, he made fun of you for the panda pyjamas.

Around the time you two celebrated four months of fake dating, some kind of guilt started tugging at your chest. It was something you’d been thinking about for a while and it had never seemed like the right time to say anything about it. Though one Saturday morning, over surprisingly good pancakes in the cafeteria, you noticed a girl from your class and her stare lingering on Peter for a few seconds too long for someone who wasn’t interested. She was beautiful. You’d met her once, in passing really, but she seemed really sweet. Smart, too. Peter didn’t seem to notice her, happily chatting away to you about an armed robbery he’d foiled the night before. Or, you thought he was, but his hand waving to you made you snap back into the moment with small puff of air.

“Sorry, Peter” you sniffed and turned to your pancakes, realising you’d barely touched them.

“I guess you’ve heard one too many stories of heroism lately,” he smiled kindly, albeit sheepishly.

“Not at all,” you smiled. “I like your stories. I‘ve… I’ve just been thinking about this whole thing and…” you sighed and didn’t quite meet his eye.

“Hey,” he reached his hand across the table, not grabbing yours, just enough to pull your focus upwards.

You sighed deeper. “I don’t want to hold you back if there’s someone you actually want to date.” Your gaze turned back to the swirling mess of melted butter and syrup. “You’re a great guy. Anyone here would be lucky to date you a-and I don’t want you to feel like you can’t.”

Peter was silent for several long moments, retracting his hand and sitting back to press himself into the leathery cushions of the booth. When you looked back up at him, he was looking out of the window into the busy courtyard. Even though the snow had just melted, students gathered around tables chatting and laughing over breakfast, blissfully unaware this seemingly-ordinary student had single-handedly stopped a shop-owner from losing a night’s takings, and potentially much more than that.

“I’m, uh-… I’m not ready. For anything like that,” he sniffed, pulling himself away from a memory of someone before looking at his own nearly-empty plate. He averted his eyes and chuckled sadly, “It’s been two yehears but I still… it feels wrong to think about another girl that way.”

You were smart. You could tell this pain was far more than just a bad breakup. This was true loss.

“I’m happy with you,” he finally looked up, eyes noticeably glassy but nothing more than that. “I can be myself around you and there’s no pressure, and it’s fun and it’s so weird that we’re doing this,” he laughed again, and he looked at you, urging his sincerity. “But this is exactly what I need right now.”

You smiled sadly, feeling a little bad for bringing this up, still grateful to know that even in some small way, you truly were helping him too.

The scheme continued to great success. Your friends were happy that you were so happy, they liked Peter - really liked him, and you got some unequivocally blissful, silent study time when you were supposedly with him but he was actually webbing crooks to brick walls and calling the cops on them with their own phones. Peter’s roommate liked you and liked that you kept Peter away from the dorm, giving him the chance to bring whoever he liked over. You giggled abashedly when he’d told you that but he was so confident in his statement that you had to respect the machismo.

There had only been a handful of nights your blind had been closed when Peter came around. One of them you‘d fallen asleep at your desk and forgotten to open it, the other you were holding and comforting a sobbing Liv as she lamented over Remi apparently texting another girl. It was all a misunderstanding, apparently, which was little solace to Peter who had to strip and change on the roof when it was covered in snow.

All in all, you were making it work.

Then, the day came when it all threatened to unravel.

“Peter, nine-one-one, get to my dorm now!” You’d hung up as soon as you‘d made the demand, then tossed your phone down on the bed and paced back and forth across the carpet. His damned bloodstains never fully came out and they were all you could focus on as you took your thumbnail between your teeth, wrapping your arms protectively around yourself. In less than a minute, a breathless Peter burst into your room. You were so used to having him come through the window that you gave a startled yelp when he near-crashed through your door.

“What’s wrong?!” He panted. With one hand ready to shoot a web, his eyes darted around your room to assess it for any threats, only finding a very upset you with your arms folded over your stomach and a worried-sick look on your face. “Hey-hey-hey, what happened?” His battle posture dropped as he took on his own worried look. He shut the door and strode over to you, placing his gentle hands on each of your upper arms.

“The worst thing possible,” you breathed out shakily.

He looked back and forth between your eyes, urging you to continue.

“We have to go on a double date tomorrow night.”

His worry immediately turned into confusion, then into disbelief, then his hands dropped from your arms and he opened his mouth but couldn’t quite find the words - kind of a first for him, in your experience. You started blurting out the chain of events before he had the chance to turn tail and run.

“Dana asked what I was doing tomorrow night and I said hanging with you, obviously, and she asked what we were doing and I stupidly said we didn’t know yet “probably watch a movie” - that’s what I said - and she was like “oh, if you don’t have plans then we should totally go on a double date” and I had no good reason to say no and I panicked and-and-and said yes, and now we have to-”

His hands met your shoulders again, his features hesitant, and it stopped you in your tracks. You panted from the nerves, from the lack of breathing in your retelling. Peter grimaced and lowered his voice to a whisper to tease, “You’re scaring me.”

Your worry turned into a scowl when you saw the amusement behind his eyes. With a small grunt of frustration you shoved his hands off of you and looked out the window.

“Hey, it’s not a big deal,” he said calmly. “It’ll be fine.”

“Fine? Fine?!”

“Oh no-”

“Peter, we know big picture things, family, friends, aspirations, but there’s no way we know enough about each other to convincingly play a couple who’s been together for nearly five months.”

“Then we’ll study,” he declared with a nod.

“Study?”

“I’ll give you a crash-course in Peter Parker, and you can do the same. You and I get along great, we’re comfortable around each other, convincing Mike and Dana we’re in love will be a piece of cake.”

“Well,” you mumbled, “Love is kind of a stretch. It’s only been five months.”

“Oh, trust me,” he grinned, taking steps back towards the door. “If I’d given you the full Peter Parker experience, you’d be head over heels right now.”

You raised an eyebrow, “Is that so?”

“Absolutely. Hey, I’ve got class but I’ll be back in two hours,” he opened the door to leave and you opened your mouth to maybe protest, maybe ask him to skip class and start studying now, but he pointed to you with one foot out the door, “The vege sub from that weird little shop you like? No pickles? I’ll bring dinner.” And with that, he was gone.

To distract yourself, and to make good use of the time while Peter learned more Spanish, you started looking up relationship quizzes, get-to-know-you questions, lists of things to ask the other person before you get married - quite literally any content you could get your hands on. Then, you stumbled across the holy grail: an app.

IceBreak was free - it had a few ads but, whatever - and it landed on your phone‘s Home Screen with an icon showing a minimalist ice cube adorned with a small crack. The reviews said it was fantastic - that there were conversation starters for friends, family, new relationships, long-term relationships, roommates, almost every way a human could be connected to another. You were sifting through some of the questions, smiling as your heart lifted, when a knock on the door commanded your attention. You called for Peter to come in, recognising the way he seemed to always knock.

“One vege sub for my beautiful girlfriend,” he charmed with a cocky smile. You fought the urge to stammer and blush, but didn’t fight it very well. Peter‘s smile turned into a grin and a laugh as he closed the door with his foot. “You can’t act like you’ve never heard that before.”

“I know, it’s just… been a while,” you blushed harder and started unwrapping the sandwich. “How was class?”

“Couldn’t tell you, I was dreaming up the new schematics for this,” he bumped his eyebrows and pulled a small device from his backpack. “New and improved web-shooter.”

“Let me see.”

He handed it to you and sat beside you on your bed, both of your backs against the wall. His feet hung well over the other side’s edge, so he didn’t bother taking off his shoes. You’d since changed into a faded long-sleeved shirt and some workout leggings, even though you hadn’t worked out in way too long. You tucked your feet underneath your legs as you sat up and inspected the device. It did look more streamlined than the previous model. You knew better than to test it, knowing there was an unexpected kick Peter was keenly attuned to, so you handed it back to him with an impressed nod. You sucked your teeth and smirked to yourself before saying, “Espero que valga la pena reprobar español.”

He chuckled and winked, “Ya soy fluido.”

You showed him the app and let him focus his eyes on tinkering with the web shooter, picking up minuscule tools from his small tool kit, as you two exchanged answers to all the basic questions people in a relationship would realistically know about each other.

Favourite colour, flower, movie, dream vacation location, would you rather go to the moon or the bottom of the ocean, did you ever want to climb Mount Everest? What did you want to be when you grew up, and did that change? Why did it change? Do you think you’d be good at the job you wanted to do when you were six?

You went back and forth for over an hour, Peter successfully getting his shooter into an acceptable beta model.

“Morning person, or night person... I think we know the answer to that,” you bumped your eyebrows and pressed the NEXT button. One you had, Peter looked up at you with a worn look in his eye.

“I think we’ve studied enough.”

“No, we haven’t.”

“You’re forgetting I’ve got much more on the line here,” he laughed. “They’re not going to quiz us on each other. They won’t know if I don’t know your favourite colour.”

“Yours is green.”

“So is yours, but that’s beside the point.”

“Just a few more,” you pleaded. “For my peace of mind.”

“Five more,” he put the web-shooter down, giving in with a turn of his head against the wall to give you a firm stare.

“Fine,” you sighed and clicked the randomise button on the app. “What was your favourite place to go as a kid?”

“Easy. The skatepark,” Peter shrugged. “You?”

“The museum.”

“Wow. You’ve always been a nerd, haven’t you?” He teased. “Did you collect rock samples too?”

“Next question,” you glared, fighting a smile, settling back beside him so you could look at the phone together. This proved to be a mistake, proven by overwhelming desire you had to press the button again, fib that you’d already had that question, and ignore the new question that’d popped up on the screen.

Where are you most ticklish?

“Oh, uh… I think on my feet? I don’t know, bad guys tend to use knives and guns, not feathers. How ’bout you?” He asked it so casually, and he didn’t even look at you when he asked it. If you had the ability to act cool, calm and collected you may have been able to rationalise that Peter was not considering acting on the knowledge he was seeking, but the lie tumbled through your lips before you had the chance to use that rational part of your brain.

“Umm- I-I’m not,” you cleared your throat, wondering if there was possibly a more obvious way to tell that lie.

“You’re not telling me?”

He turned his head. Oh no. You didn’t return the look. Instead, you shrugged, “No, I’m not ticklish,” you mumbled, swallowed thickly and pressing your thumb against the random button. Peter stayed looking at you, and you could’ve sworn he was smirking in your peripheral vision. “Okay! When did you have your first kiss?” You braved turning to look at him, hoping it looked innocent enough. He didn’t respond right away, instead narrowing his eyes. You nodded to urge him to answer, and he cracked a cheeky grin.

“The summer between eighth and ninth grade. At Camp Riverside in Maine. You’re lying to me.”

“I haven’t even told you about my first kiss.”

He raised his eyebrows, and before you could react his fingers were at your side. You gasped at the contact and shifted to move away before realising he hadn’t made any attempt at tickling you.

“You little liar!” He laughed and a whimper slipped through your lips as he made no moves to take his hand off you. “How are we supposed to convincingly play a loving couple if you won’t be honest with me?” He punctuated his teasing rhetorical question with a dig of his fingers, making you jump and squeak. “Secrets can destroy a relationship, you know,” he said as if he were serious, squeezing your side a few more times as giggles bubbled up from your chest and you shot your hand down to close around his fingers. “I mean, really?” He clicked his tongue, beginning to shift to face you. Your eyes widened and you began stammering.

“Wa-wait, wait, Pete,” you laughed, nerves bringing a blush prickling to your cheeks. “They’re not gonna ahask about thihis,” you sniffled, still trying to push away his hand which had stilled at your side.

He shrugged and sighed deeply, feigning the despair of having no other choice. “But-but what if they do? I mean, we can’t get caught,” with a solemn shake of his head. “And you clearly can’t be trusted to be forthcoming with this information, so I might need to-”

“No, Peheter!” You tried to squirm away as he opted to finish his sentence not with an explanation, but with a demonstration. His other hand found your other side, and they both creeped up for him to lightly dig his fingers into your lowest ribs. Your elbows folded inwards and tried to shove him off as you fell into desperate giggles almost immediately. “NahanonoNO!” You tried turning in on yourself as his attack made your backside slide down from where you’d been sitting up. As much as you tried to press your arms against his hands to dissuade him, to push him off course, he still seemed unbothered by your attempts at self-defence. “PARKER!”

“You’re a terrible liar, you know that?”

“And youhou- YOU- AHA-” You kicked out and tried to turn onto your front as he brought his hands inwards to claw at the sides of your stomach. Completely involuntarily, you kicked out and caught his shin with your foot. “CUT IT OHOUT!”

He laughed and grabbed above your knee with one hand, squeezing the muscle between his thumb and middle finger, making you shriek and kick out again before his grip closed around your knee and pulled you further from the wall. “If you’d just answered the question I wouldn‘t be forced to extract this information from- woah!” He cut himself off with a laugh when his fingers were vehemently blocked from trying to wedge themselves under one of your arms. He yanked you even closer, your hips nearly over his legs, and got to work on prying your bicep away from your side. “What do we have here, huh?”

“Peter, so help m— AHH NO!” You growled and sent your knee punting into his stomach. He made a small grimace, but your strength wasn’t really something that could hurt him. “Back OFF, Web-Head!” You shouted through nervous giggles, trying your best to keep your arms clamped to your sides. He scoffed and paused his wrestling, giving you a mischievous look.

“Really? You’re gonna get cute with me?” He resumed his fighting, with much more strength than before. You squeaked and shook your head as he pulled you by your wrists to be sitting up. “Right now, you’re gonna get cute with me?!”

“Noho, I- Ihi wohon’t!” You laughed and squirmed nervously, but you were no match for his strength. With another swift tug, he lurched you forwards to be sitting between his legs. With a final yank, he turned you to be caught with your back against his chest, his legs ensnaring yours as he handled your wrists in his grip. “Peteher,” you sniffed, squirming as anxious giggles bubbled through your lips. “Thihis is so unfair!”

Before you could register what was happening, Peter grabbed your left bicep and pulled it away from your side with terrifying ease. Before you had the chance to gasp, squirm, or beg, his other hand shot around your waist, up your ribs and dug wiggling fingers into the soft space of your underarm. You shrieked out in laughter and arched your back away from him, thrashing in his trapping limbs.

“Woah-ho!” He laughed, letting your arm clamp down at your side with his tickling fingers worming deeper against the thin long-sleeved shirt. “Oh man, I’m never gonna let you live this d-”

SMACK!

You didn’t mean to slap him.

It was his fault, really. You tended to get involuntarily violent when tickled, even if you did secretly find the whole ordeal pretty fun and playful. Nevertheless, the open palm that’d met his jaw now covered your own gasping mouth, his hand beneath your arm stilled from the shock of your hit.

“I’m soho sorry,” you apologies through laboured breaths. “I dihidn’t mean to. I- HEY! Peter - NO!”

He, apparently, didn’t accept your apology. Because his right hand abandoned your underarm in favour of grabbing your own right hand, the one that had dared to slap him, and he pinned it to the wall above his shoulder. With widened eyes, you saw him pick up the web-shooter he’d been tinkering with and aim it at the hand he’d stuck above you.

“N-n-no! Don‘t you dare web me!”

Fwip.

“HEY! Get it off!” You yanked on your wrist, now webbed to the wall, gritting your teeth with a frustrated growl to hide the blush creeping into your cheeks. “Peter,” you whined, “Let my hand go.”

“Mmmno. That one’s in time out.”

In an instant, his fingers were lightly skittering at the fabric under your now-exposed arm. The sensation was light, just enough to be damn near unbearable, and your reaction was instant, dramatic, and, apparently to Peter, hilarious. He erupted into laughter alongside your squealing, breathy bursts of loud, shrieking giggles.

When your free hand swiped over at his tickling fingers, he closed around your wrist and held it just enough at bay that you couldn’t interfere with his torment. A growl of frustration resounded through your laughter that was pitching up every second he continued, and he spluttered in his own laughter when he found an especially sensitive spot just above your ribs that made you attempt to fly out from under your imprisonment.

“PETEHEHER!” You squeaked, sliding further down despite yourself, trying to twist away to no avail. “P-PLEHEASE!”

“Please what?” He teased, scratching just two fingers at the centre of your underarm, laughing breathily at how you squealed and tugged against him. “Hey, you never answered the question.”

“IHI’M NOT TELLIHING YOU!”

He paused, fingers still poised to strike. “Why not?”

“Because this’ll get wohorse,” you coughed.

“Oho…” Peter’s smirking laugh made your stomach flip. “Ohoho…” He ducked his head around to look at your blushing cheeks. “I was talking about the first kiss,” panic struck your chest as he lowered his voice to just above a whisper and said, “but now you have me very intrigued.”

“W-wait. No. No Peter, I-”

“I mean, I thought this had to be it,” he scoffed and resumed tickling at your underarm with all five fingers. Cackling laughter burst through your lips, your eyes shutting tight once again as you submitted to your fate. You were stuck, there was no fighting back. That was, until he released your free wrist in favour of hunting down your most ticklish spot. “You gonna tell me?” He teased over your squeaks and cackles. “Seriously, if you don’t tell me, I’m going to have to find it myself,” he sighed sarcastically as you shook your head, indicating even if you had the ability to form sentences right now, no way in hell were giving him that sort of information. “Thankfully… you and I, we’re scientists. We’re good at experiments.”

“PARKER!” You managed to yell, pulling on your legs still trapped in his.

“So, let’s see…” With one hand stilled at your underarm, his other hand clawed into the side of your stomach. You lurched and barked out a laugh, your free hand wrapping around his attacking fingers. No sooner had you done so, he dug his wiggling fingers back in under your arm. You shrieked, burst into belly-laughter, and abandoned his stilled hand to fight off this new attack. “Hmm, interesting,” he mused. There was a shit-eating grin evident in his voice. Then, his plan sunk in: he was going to force your hand to reveal what was most unbearable. And so he did.

When you swatted at the attack under your arm, he turned the side of your ribs into his target. When you squealed and tried to crush your elbow against his hand, he shook his fingers into the same spot on the other side of your body - the one with the arm still stuck above your head. “Very interesting…” He laughed along with you as you twisted in vain, trying to hit at both hands at once. You sniffled and whined through the laughter bursting through your chest, reacting too hard to form a cohesive sentence.

“NAHAHA, I cahan’t- P-PE- NAA!” You tried to dampen your shrieks, but he was too damn good at this. After a particularly hard hit at the fingers drilling into the uppermost ribs exposed by your pinned arm, and a particularly loud shriek, you begged with just his name. “P-Pehehe… Peter!” You gasped, and he backed off.

“Answer the question,” he sang, shifting his fingers down to ready themselves at your sides should you choose to refuse. Despite the fact that he was removing all the air from your lungs, you couldn’t deny the fun of it all. It’s not like you got physical touch all that often, and certainly nothing as playful as this.

Your brief reverie was ended by Peter deciding you’d waited too long to answer, and him declaring this by digging his fingers into the sides of your stomach.

You screeched, hitting your hand at both of his while the laughter was once again forced through you. “I’m gonnaha GEHET YOHOU FOR THIHIS- EEP!” You squeaked, high-pitched giggles weakening you further as he skittered his fingers all around the sensitive patch in the very centre of your belly.

“More threats?” He gasped, taking your free wrist in one hand and pulling it away from where you were interfering with his current target. “Youhou just never learn, do you?” You giggled and squeaked as he made use of his unobstructed movement, alternating between prodding and scratching at the skin. “Now, that’s adorable,” he teased, moving his fingers closer to the centre to ghost along the exposed skin below your navel. Your giggles hitched up and you tugged on both of your trapped wrists, obviously trying to form some kind of words but failing miserably. Sensing this, Peter chuckled and halted. “How about now?”

You took the moment to catch your breath, resigning yourself to the reality that you’d have to disclose your secret to save yourself from him hunting down every ticklish place on your body. “Okay okay okahay...” You coughed. “Youhou… you win. Unweb me, and I’ll tehell you. But you ha-.”

“Shh!” His hand flew to your mouth and you both sat dead still. His head turned towards the hallway, his hyperaware senses alerting him to an impending visitor. “Dana’s coming,” he whispered, reaching up and ripping the webbing from your wrist before shoving it behind his back. “Tell me now or you’re getting it when she’s gone,” he grinned beside your ear as your limp arm toppled to your side.

“I hate you,” you mumbled and sighed, beginning to pull against his legs again. “Around my hip area. Like, if someone squeezes at the sides and stuff,” you admitted, blushing profusely. “Now, let me go before Dana thinks this is something else.”

“Well…” he started, wrapping his arms a little tighter around your waist. Your heart beat in your chest, hearing that cheeky lilt in his tone. “Isn’t that exactly what we need?”

“Peter, no-”

“Peter, yes.”

“Don’t you dare, Parker. I swear I’ll- nahAHA WAHAIT!”

He dug his fingers into your ribcage, attacking the place where your back met your sides with a pinpoint precision, just as there was a knock on the door. He ducked down to whisper, “This’ll sell it,” before he lifted his head and called “Come in!”

“Peheter nohoho, dohon’t lehet- AH!” You squeaked again and collapsed your head against his chest in defeat as he picked up the pace, slowly travelling one hand down your side with every few digs and squeezes. “Dahana hehelp!” You begged, tears of mirth forming above your flushed and grinning cheeks.

“So this is why you weren’t answering my messages,” she playfully glared.

“I-I’m sorry,” Peter sighed sarcastically. “I really am - you know, for distracting her like this, she just- woah, careful there!” He tugged you a little higher, both hands now dangerously close to your hips. “As I was saying… sometimes, when she won’t stop studying, I have to resort to drastic measures to get her to stop.”

Dana raised an amused eyebrow at your demise under Peter’s fingers and rolled her eyes with an endeared smile. “We get it - two are super cute together. Should I come back later?”

“Dohon’t leave me- PETER!” You squeaked louder and gripped at his wrists, trying to push his hands off course to no avail. “Pehete, PLEASE!”

“I’ll come back.”

“DANA!”

“Sorry, Dana,” Peter stopped his hands, allowing you to catch your breath. “It’s the sworn duty of a boyfriend to enact tickle torture in times like this.”

“That’s fair,” she shrugged. You shot her a death glare from behind disheveled hard.

“Okahay,” you panted. “I’ll stop for tonight, just- no mohore… please.” You gulped the air in, chest heaving with the exertion from bearing the brunt of Peter’s playfulness. He turned his head to grin down at you, you looked up at him with a glare that was betrayed by a smile you couldn’t hold back. You couldn’t hold back your blush either, or the way that you weren’t really trying hard to escape his arms.

“Ugh, you guys are sickeningly adorable,” Dana rolled her eyes and went to leave the room. “Seriously, the way you two look at each other… anyway - are we still on for tomorrow night?”

“Yeheah,” you coughed, then grumbled, “If I’m still alive.”

“I’ll keep her in one piece,” Peter promised as Dana grinned and shut the door.

You continued to catch your breath, taking the chance to swat at his leg with your now-freed hand. “Peter!” You scolded. “That was so embarrassing,” you coughed again, and found yourself subconsciously settling into his arms before remembering what you were doing. “Alright, we can stop studying now.” When you tried sitting up, his arm around you didn’t relent. “Peter.”

He lowered his voice to a whisper as he grimaced and said, “I have to try.”

“Huh?”

“The spot, I have to try the spot,” he whispered again and you felt him shrug apologetically.

Your eyes widened, you shook your head, whipping it around to look up at him as you giggled nervously, “No. Peheter you’ve done enough!”

“I-I’m sorry, but it’s necessary and-”

“It is not necessary, you just-”

“I mean, you can’t just tell me about it and then not-”

“You forced me to tell you! Peter!” You continued struggling as he shrugged again and started leaning sideways with you still in his arms. “Peter, plehease,” you pushed at his hands and squeaked when he turned himself to be partially pinning you face-down with his own body. “PETER?!” You held tight to his wrists as he started pulling one away, already giggling hysterically and groaning at the situation you’ve found yourself in. As he pulled his hand away slowly, but with very little effort, you realised there was no stopping him. The best you could do was to ask him to go easy on you. “Okay- OKAY, WAIT!”

He paused with his hand about to strike at your hip, his legs tangling tighter around yours as you squirmed in anticipation. “Yes?” He taunted in a sing-song voice.

“Okay,” you breathed out. “I’ll let you try, but- hey, don’t laugh at me!” You swatted at his shoulder behind you and tried to glower up at him.

“Oh, you’ll let me,” he laughed with a sarcastic edge. “That’s what this is - you calling the shots.”

“You have to let me tickle you too.”

“Sure.”

You hadn’t expected him to agree, which threw you for a loop. Just as you opened your mouth to stammer and come up with some kind of bargain for him to ease his torment, his fingers squeezed harshly around your hip and began digging into the susceptible place next to the bone.

Your face flew straight into the pillow close to your head so you could muffle the volume of your scream of ticklish ferocity. Your whole body flew into fight and flight, tensing and twitching and thrashing against the way Peter had locked you in his arms between him and your bed. After a gasp for air, you fell into silent laughter as you continued to writhe against him and his kneading fingers pressing and wiggling against your hipbone. You spluttered and gasped for air, the laughter trapped in your chest as the tears of mirth spilled over onto the pillow. When he backed off a little, only to flutter his fingers at the space on your stomach just above your hipbone, you pressed your face back into the pillow to muffle some of the boisterous laughter he was drawing from you. Your twitching and spluttering soon overcame your laughter and coherent struggling, so he stopped his tickling and laughed brightly near your ear, giving you a squeeze with his arms before slowly snaking them away from you. He laughed again when he saw how limp you’d gone, making some kind of comment about how dramatic you were, and how he’d gone easy on you.

It took you a solid half-minute to catch your breath and work up the courage to glare up at him. “You’re an ass,” you seethed, gritting your teeth in an effort to hide your smile.

“Ah, but,” he held up a finger with a cheeky smile, “We’ve certainly convinced Dana. Which means… we can stop studying.”

You rolled your eyes and pushed yourself up to sit, propped up on your hands behind you. “Well I’m not gonna argue with you,” you mumbled with a blush before casting a glance to your laptop. “I have some notes I wanna catch up on anyway so-”

He cut you off with a firm hand on the forearm you’d reached towards your computer, and a hesitant shake of his head. “When’s the last time you did something fun?”

“What d‘you mean? I have fun all the time.”

“No, I mean when‘s the last time your Friday night wasn’t spent studying?”

You sighed and looked away, knowing where this was going. “I find it very fun to keep my scholarship,” you said, and you two almost instantly traded unimpressed looks. There was no pretending it wasn’t a lame excuse.

“We’re going out,” he announced, letting go of your arm and standing up from your bed. “Let’s go.”

“Where?!”

“Anywhere but here, or the library, or the cafeteria,” he said with a somewhat worried, exasperated look. “You’re in desperate need of a break.”

You sighed with a scoff, “Peter, come on, I-”

“I’ll be right outside the door,” he stated, pulling his jacket on. “Get changed. If you’re not out there in five minutes, so help me-“ He chuckled incredulously, balling his hands into fists just below his chin before shooting them open for emphasis. “-I will hang you from the ceiling and tickle you so hard.”

Some noise between a scoff, a squeak and a whimper burst through your lips, bringing a grin to Peter’s cheeks. He slid on his beta web-shooter and wiggled his fingers at you before shutting the door to your room and waiting outside.

You silently laughed and shook your head at the ridiculousness of it all, sliding off your bed and replacing your long-sleeved shirt and leggings for some jeans and a nicer crew-neck. As you tied the laces of your shoes, you found yourself smiling, blushing, maybe more grateful for Peter than you ever realised you’d be. Sure, he was convenient, the perfect excuse for studying way too hard, but maybe he was what you needed in more ways than just a fake boyfriend.

You opened the door to your dorm as you slid your other arm into your jacket and snuggled it over your sweatshirt, giving Peter a smile that you wanted to look annoyed and fake, but you were pretty sure it just looked shy and endeared. He smiled back and when you turned around from locking your door he took your hand and laced his fingers through yours.

In a split second, you fought your gasp and your face morphed from surprise into sheepishness. “Right,” you laughed. “Gotta keep up appearances.”

“Yeah. Right,” Peter smiled, softer than before, and nodded. After a few seconds of hesitation, he pulled himself back to the moment and smiled wider. “Let’s go.”

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