#at least petey played incredible

[gardonsofbabylon]

quinn looks like how i'm feeling rn

[wfagamerants]

With my Jamboree hype still in full force, I decided to revisit both previous Switch Mario Parties as a refresher, with some 3, 6, Star Rush and Top 100 on the side to help with some things I wanted to compare.

Mario Party is one of my favorite series in anything and I have been vocal about my relationship with the Switch games being rocky. I was curious to see if the benefit of hindsight changed my views on them.

The answer is one No and one Yes, with some no sprinkled in.

Super Mario Party

This is the big one for me.

From the Hudson games, to the first five NDCube titles, I unironically enjoyed every previous entry, as is well known with all the cheerleading I do for 10 and Star Rush in particular and even Island Tour has some good stuff well worth experiencing.

With all that in mind, it probably comes as a surprise THIS is the one Mario Party I genuinely can’t stand and a revisit did not change my mind one bit.

Not like I didn’t try either, even with my enjoyment of the other NDCube games, of course I was excited to see the old formula back, but that only means so much when it doesn’t do it well and that’s what I really do think is the case here.

Going point by point, as I like to do, I wanna start with one thing I do find praiseworthy…despite not liking it that much, the character roster.

Mario Party usually doesn’t have much going on in terms big roster numbers, so to see one push so far is genuinely refreshing and they did need to put work into it, given the amount of characters that needed to be updated (Hammer Bro and Dry Bones) or never had a playable MP outing period (Pom Pom, Goomba, Monty) not even mentioning all examples here, that stuff is commendable.

I’m just personally not that big on the selection. Losing the Toads really hurts and I am generally more in favor of less mook centric rosters, even if I like all the ones on offer. Pom Pom to me, even as someone who loves the boss characters like the Koopalings, King Boo, Petey, King Bob-omb, etc, is just a really lame and unappealing character, no better than Boom Boom who at least had Strikers to make me warm up to him.

Bowser being playable is also iffy for me. I love the big guy, but taking him out of his usual role has some very drastic consequences in function and flavor, which I am very happy Jamboree is addressing, to give us the best of both worlds, but more on that later.

Objectively, this is a good roster, it’s just very not for me.

Another thing I find praiseworthy and do enjoy is the hub. Dropping regular main menus in favor of an interactive hub where you can walk around and chat with characters is a cute concept I want to return.

Once we get to the actual board gameplay though, the cracks start to show right away.

Everyone already complained about it, even when the game was new and generally praised, but yeah. 4 boards is an absolutely abysmal number and that could at least be salvageable if they were all good and fun to play on but….you already know where this is going.

I will say, I do love the themes. As much as I think the previous games did more with the NSMB tropes than they are given credit for, it’s great to go back to something more original again. They are cool themes, they are visually great, that stuff all works out.

Too bad they’re really bad boards.

It’s been talked about to death, but yeah, the boards are incredibly tiny and small boards don’t even need to be bad. DS had smaller boards and did such a good job with them you barely felt it, on top of to me, being a Top 5 Mario Party.

Not only are Super’s boards even smaller than the ones for the game that HAD to scale them back, but they are also very linear, with little in the way of interesting gimmicks or alternate routes.

You can call most MP boards, aside from deliberately linear ones like Pagoda Peak, basically big circles or squares. That’s fine, they are BOARDS after all, it’s more what you can do on them that matters and makes you not even notice that.

King Bob-omb’s Powderkeg mine feels like the closest to  an aversion to this and even it just amounts to choosing either the smaller circle or the larger circle, to run in circles in. There is simply nothing interesting going on and the events are too basic and lame to distract from it.

What doesn’t help is that Super made some changes to fundamental aspects of MP we take for granted and it really says a lot about how well thought out those elements were.

For one thing, the Dice has been reduced from a 1-10 to a 1-6. This was already a thing in 9 and 10, but in those games you were all in the same vehicle and progressed together, it was way more about wanting the best result out of your current situation. In Super, being a classic style MP again, it just makes progression feel fundamentally more sluggish, since cutting down the dice numbers so hard means you will go by nature, much slower and the odds of barely going anywhere are way higher.

There is also just the general lack of truly threatening obstacles on the boards. This especially shows with Bowser being playable. Gimmicks like him being on the board like MP1 and MP4’s Bowser’s Gnarly Party are off the table, as is him having his own board or game specific ideas like Bowser Time in MP7. Instead of Bowser Spaces we now have Bad Luck spaces.

They Suck. Really hard.

The penalties are just not threatening and the game feels rigged to prioritize the tamest one. The coin penalties barely hurt, losing an item is really not that big a deal here, the star moving is rarely anything but a non-punishment, etc. They do get a bit more punishing during the last 3 turns, but not only does that window give them little time to come into play, but even losing a star is less of a big deal than it would usually be, for one particular reason.

The economy in SMP is totally out of whack. 

Now second and third place also get coin rewards in minigames, which WAS a thing in 9 and 10 as well, but in those games that had more of a purpose, given the much more limited control during board play for everyone. In a classic Mario Party though, this already has implications and it only gets worse with other elements thrown in.

It just doesn’t feel that rewarding to be good at minigames,  because even if you play well, you may not even build up much of a lead, with Hidden Blocks, Hidden Block items and Lucky Spaces that can give coin rewards in abundance and ALL that is combined with how little everything costs.

Stars cost only 10 coins and combined with how small the boards are, getting to one rarely feels like a hassle. Even stealing a star only costs 30 coins and items are remarkably cheap and that’s on top of there being so few events that really threaten your coin count. King Bob-omb is really the only one that makes a real attempt there.

All of that results in really dull board play. More than ever the game really is all about the dice roll, with nothing from the board layout, to events, to the items, doing anything interesting to let you strategize or anything like that.

There’s also the small annoyance of them finding it necessary to give you needless tutorials and tips, like when you open the map or getting an item for the first time, which you can’t disable. 

On a final note for the board play are the allies and ally spaces, as well as custom dice, all taken from Star Rush. A lot of people dislike them, but I do find their implementation to be the most interesting thing on SMP’s boards. Supremely unbalanced, it needs another pass there, but I can see interesting potential for it in a MP with boards of more substance.

There is also Partner Party, which is essentially the Star Rush mode of the game and as Star Rush fan, I should love it.

Eh.

I appreciate the thought, but you can’t do free for alls, There are way fewer opportunities to get and especially steal allies and the boards continue to be void of anything interesting. Even just playing the 4 boards it had once each, with the minimum Turn count of 10, felt like a slog.

Then there are the minigames, which I often see praise for and honestly, they’re okay enough, but I do find the overall selection pretty meh.

It has genuine highlights, Slaperazi, Croozin’ For A Broozin’, Don’t Wake Wiggler and Fuzzy Flight School all being ones I really like for instance and I don’t hate the motion controls, I think they work fine.

It’s really not so much that there are a lot of bad minigames and more that it misses types I really like. There are no platforming minigames, no brawling minigames where you just punch and kick other players off of a platform, only one mashing minigame, etc. That’s on top of the fact that I feel a lot of the rumble minigames are really samey. There are like three separate minigames where you use the rumble to select the biggest/most of the thing you are meant to get.

There is also a general major sense of reduced player interactivity that plays into this and the most blatant example of it for me is comparing Hammer Drop from Mario Party 1 (and Superstars) to Super’s very own Lightning Round.

They are very similar coin minigames, but there is a major difference that sets them apart. While the hammers and lightning strikes both aren’t much of a threat, Hammer Drop lets you jump to swipe the incoming coins and coin bags, even jumping on opponents and hindering them or even ground pound opponents to hold them back. In Lightning Round, that interactive element doesn’t exist and everyone is just slowly running to the coins, while dodging total non-obstacles.

That example sums up a lot of why I find SMP’s minigame selection to be just not as interesting as the rest of the series and it also contributes to a stylistic difference I am not fond of at all.

I always loved Mario Party for being a more zany kind of Mario game, putting the characters in all kinds of wacky scenarios and to be fair, Super isn’t FULLY devoid of it. It’s still a rare time you see, say, Peach, helplessly chased by a giant Wiggler or Broozer army entirely as a gag at her expense one moment and then the next she pilots a big Sidestepper mech to whack Bowser with hammers with. That stuff is just awesome.

Super just has very little of it, due to the lack of interesting board gimmicks and action-heavy minigames and even what is there is heavily scaled back. Like characters just go into their dizzy animations when a Bob-omb blows up on them, rather than flying off-screen and said Sidestepper mech minigame just flings the characters away with a generic flail the game uses for almost every single negative event, as opposed to the other MPs which will just totally crush the character.

Is it pure flavor? Yeah, but I like flavor, flavor is good. MP just has a particular personality to it that Super doesn’t capture. It has plenty of personality in other areas, but it is missing a particular aspect I thought helped make the games really energetic, competitive and cartoonishly charming. It’s as if Mario took a page out of Wario’s playbook to be more wacky and I miss that.

Having said all that, one area the game does quite well in are the side modes. Champions Road is a perfectly functional ‘’Play all the Minigames’’ mode and Toad’s Rec Room hosts some minigames I honestly wish had regular play counterparts.

River Survival is decent, not something you can go back to much, but it’s a neat concept that at its hardest, does offer a challenge and its own minigames are pretty enjoyable for the most part.

Sound Stage meanwhile is the big star of Super as a whole for me. I love the rhythm minigame approach, there is a great energy to it, it’s got some lovely charm with all the dance animations for the cast (Waluigi’s moonwalk being the best, just sayin’), it’s just a good time. At most I wish I found the music more catchy, but it does its job at being fun to play along with.

I didn’t mean to be as negative as this likely came across, but it is just how it is. While it has some content I really like and ideas I think have potential, SMP on the whole I just do not like at all. It brought back the classic formula, while totally butchering it and it’s just all around lacking in so many things I like about the series. I went back to it to see if time and benefit of hindsight changed my mind and sadly no, if anything I have only grown to dislike it more.

Mario Party Superstars

By contrast, Superstars won me over on several things I was iffy on. I still have my gripes, but overall, I was pleasantly surprised.

One not pleasant surprise since the game came out, to start similarly to the Super section, is the roster. It’s small, it’s lame, we all know that. Of course character choice rarely affects anything in MP, but as I said, flavor is good and besides: When a series makes this much money and makes so heavy use of reused models, animations and voice clips across games, I do expect it to at least be able to compete with games that came out in the 2000s in terms of content in all places.

Speaking of which, this game is a bit funny to evaluate because it is all remakes of older content, but there is still plenty to talk about.

First there are the boards, five in total. Only one more than Super in terms of quantity, but they are all so much better than all of Super’s boards combined that they may as well be four boards more than Super had. That said a 6th board would have been appreciated, ideally they wouldn’t have just a N64 focus, but if they really wanna then at least give 3 a second board.

The board selection itself is quite pleasing. It has Horror Land so that alone is already a slam dunk, but there is a good quality level all around. The lack of a proper finale board is felt and I would have rather had a second MP3 board than two from MP1, simply because the former has much more interesting board design, but as it is, it’s fine.

Peach’s Birthday Cake made me roll my eyes when I saw it, but it turned out to be the most pleasant surprise of the whole game. The addition of items, a shortcut ramp and Bowser also doubling as a short-cut, if with a penalty, along with the lottery being moved, makes getting around and actually getting stars is far smoother and quicker. This also makes star stealing Piranha Plants far more of a threat, since there actually is something to steal now and that’s on top of there also being coin stealing Piranha Plants now.

This game turned what I thought was easily the worst Hudson era board and turned it into my second favorite one in this game. I am still stunned to this day and the improvements made to it show some really smart thinking that makes me optimistic for Jamboree’s new original boards.

The other boards haven’t seen any major changes and that’s perfectly fine. Playing Yoshi’s Tropical Island with items is a fun new experience though.

The actual board play has improved a lot, on top of playing on actually good boards, the coin distribution after minigames has been reworked to give the winner 10 coins again instead of only 8, with second and third only getting 2 and 3 respectively, making minigame wins far more of a benefit to build up a lead again. Stars are also back to the usual 20 coins and Bowser is back and as punishing as his spaces always are, so seeing harsh loses through that and the returning Chance Time brings back a ton of value to coins and stars that they largely lost in Super.

One new addition that’s consistent across all boards is Lucky Spaces, functioning the  same as in Super. The coin and item rewards you get from those can be really extreme and coupled with how many of these spaces there are, it gives the game a pretty chaotic feeling at times. For this particular game, I’m cool with it for this game, but ideally future games cool it a bit with these things.

There are also some nice QoL additions that once again, give me a lot of confidence for Jamboree. The generally increased game speed is a plus. Getting to choose between random Bonus Stars and the classic three is a feature that always should have been there. Getting to save up to 8 sessions, even online ones, is incredible and having the option to speed up board event scenes is a godsend for ones you may see many times in a row.

So yeah, the board game portion to me is a total hit in this game. The minigames are where I get more mixed. Not counting item minigames there are 100 in total and over half of those were already in Top 100. Not a bad thing by itself, but it does make some choices made bother me even more. Also not a fan of the N64 focus on the minigames as well, since it not only throws out a lot of good minigames, but it also screws over the GameCube and Wii & Wii U minigame packs, which would have been really cool options with a bigger selection.

Despite the latter gripe, I think the selection is….okay. It has it’s winners, particularly Hot Rope Jump and Dungeon Duos, but also some really notable stinkers like Spin Doctor, which wasn’t even in Top 100, so they deliberately picked that over something like Camp Ukiki or Apes of Wrath from the same game, genuinely bewildering. Duel Minigames in general really got the short end of the stick with only 5 in total and of all things, they pick stuff like Spin Doctor (which is at least okay) or Mass Meteor (one of MP6’s few stinkers).

Top 100 wasn’t perfect in that regard either, but I found its overall selection way more consistently solid and satisfying.That and bringing back certain minigames a third time just baffles me. Piranha’s Pursuit is a really bad minigame in all its incarnations, that can way too easily turn into a free win for the one player. It was a weird choice in Top 100, but bringing it back again in Superstars, without any changes for the better, really pushes it.

It’s still largely a good selection, it’s just easy to see the cracks when you have older versions to compare these games to and some did get butchered a bit. Tidal Toss’ hitboxes for the biggest waves not matching the visuals in particular being a NASTY example.

The characters also make far more grunts in many of the minigames and...yeah they can get pretty insufferable, especially with how small the pool of voice clips in this game is, compared to say, MP10, which had two minutes worth of clips for everyone.

There is also a case where the game still feels like holds back on bit on Mario Party’s old personality, with alterations to some minigames, for some examples:

You don’t see losing players bounce away in the lava anymore in Bumper Balls, they just vanish.

Several minigames replace more distinct damage poses with the generic flail, even if the more appropriate animation is elsewhere in Superstars.

The characters just lamely fall off the record in Dizzy Dancing, instead of crashing into the walls.

Squared Away lost it’s ending animation, which was already a thing in Top 100, the only time it took something like that away, but that had an excuse due to it using a generic minigame results screen like the other NDCube games did before.

Even taking the slapstick aside, replaying 3 in particular really revealed how many small things got cut for more generic animations. Hide and Sneak in particular has the characters just all do a heads down ducking pose, as opposed to the original where everyone had a distinct one, like DK adjusting his tie or Mario lying down.

Again, all this is flavor, but it sticks out even more when you are remaking content and if the roster is gonna be that small, going the extra mile on a few things would be appreciated.

It feels weird too, because the game oozes personality in so many other areas.

The title screens are all lovely.

The board ending pics and loser elimination sequences at the end of a round are very classic Mario Party.

The way characters literally pull out maps when you study the board map is amazing.

The dismayed reactions everyone has when landing on a Bowser space are great.

The Stickers are a fun evolution of taunts that can express way more.

Really, the game is full of great personality, it’s just in the minigames where some of the old charm they had gets weirdly sanded off.

Lastly there is online which is as functional as one could hope for. Has its hick-ups, but for Nintendo standards it’s fine. It’s not a disaster ala’ Mario Maker 2.

All nitpicking aside, this is a good game and a good Mario Party. I don’t think it’s one of the best ones, but the QoL additions and generally really solid board gameplay show the potential for it is there.

More than anything it feels like a testing ground to study the old board designs and test out things like the online, rather than something meant to be big on its own. I didn’t even touch on side content because there really is nothing to discuss.

Good game, but I was waiting for the next big thing and now it’s finally happening.

Super Mario Jamboree

My thoughts back here still apply and are very up to date, since we haven’t seen anything new since:

Playing the other two games again just really put into perspective how many things already got improved from one game to the next and it makes me all the more hopeful for Jamboree.

I have no doubt it will be the MP I have been waiting for all gen and I couldn’t be more excited~

[cryp-reply]

Petey is asleep, poor baby sounds rolled r rough

She’s not feverish but Fern is. His nose has been runny all day but at least head eating and nursing. Tho he’s been incredibly fussy pants, extra dramatic sicko like his papa lol

I picked up ickys ashes but left them in the car until now because I didn’t wanna explain to Petey what they were

Last night I went to bed with such dread over this thing I saw at the park. This teen kid had a stick that looked like a rifle and was hiding in the trees pretending to shoot the people on the playground. Just made me sick with rage. I wanted to storm up to him and tell him off but idk what good that would’ve done. What fucking asshole pretends to play mass shooter like that. Like????? Idk I wanted to *do* something but idk what. I just stared daggers at him until he noticed he was being watched and stopped. Fuck I’m still seething over it.

[gongedtornado]

updated introduction cuz i’m cool like that.

hiii welcome to my little hidey hole where i post art and scream all the time :3

be sure to scroll to the bottom or at least read the DNI + things i need tagged. thankssss

you can call me any of the following: silas / yarida / goose / kazzy

i use he / it / any + neos. though please try to refrain from using exclusively they/them on me. not that i really mind but i like a bit of variation :3.

20 and mixed filipino babeyyy !!

artist and professional shitposter . you can count on me to start a silly little doodle as a joke and put in wayyy too much effort into it lol. you can usually find these posts under the tag #shartposting

BE WARNED - I MAY POST BODY HORROR FROM TIME TO TIME.

I YELL AND SCREAM AND SWEAR A LOT. ALSO I’M NOT WELL IN THE HEAD. my textposts for when i scream is #kazzy caws. my more vent related tags will be under #kazzy complains. (feel free 2 mute that. no hard feelings)

PRETTY PLEEEEAAASE use tone indicators when talking to me. i can’t read tones past text for the life of me

i’m incredibly socially awkward and typically busy, overwhelmed, or generally burnt out. i promise i’m not ignoring you or hate you or any of that- i’m just trying to get by lol.

IF YOU NEED SOMETHING TAGGED DON’T BE SCARED TO ASK . i’ll obvs tag things like eye contact, g0re, etc.

this is a big one BUT IF I DO SOMETHING WRONG PLEASE TELL ME AND DON’T BE VAGUE ABOUT IT THANKSS. /srs

here’s more of my tags and whatever

#kazzy caws - text posts where i scream my thoughts into the void

#kazzy complains - text posts where i complain about shit

#kazzy scribbles - art posts

#shartposting - shitposts

I LIKE PATAPON A NORMAL AMOUNT. (<- HAS BEEN FIXATED ON THE SERIES FOR OVER 2 YEARS.)

little shop of horrors

paper mario

plant related characters (ie: audrey ii, petey piranha, potbelly from msm, etc)

stone story rpg (PLEASE PLAY IT ITS SO GOOD)

all tomorrows

DND (I FUCKIMG LOVE DND BRO)

just some things i would prefer of they were tagged for the sake of my sanity. just use “silas don’t look.” or “sdl” work fine lmao

roblox doors game (more specifically the visuals pleeeeaase)

generally upsetting or uncanny images. especially ones with heavy eye contact.

knack (playstation game)

posts with transphobia in them

h*zbin/h*lluva content + anything v*vziepop related

i don’t feel like making a specific section for this one but here’s some other things i’d advise you to avoid doing around/to me. thaaanks

do NOT refer to me as “smol”, “smol bean”, a “cinnamon roll”. anything of that at all. (if it’s for a joke go for it, but dont make it repetitive or a habit.)

do not refer to me as a child either- especially if you’re younger than me. i might sound a little whiny here but it genuinely rubs me the wrong way and i actually just hate it all around. 😃 don’t treat me like a child- in fact just avoid infantilizing me. please

please don’t call me “sister” or “mom”. i’m being so serious.

don’t come into my dms if i don’t know you- asking for art requests and such. i’ll just straight up block you.

(trigger warning for s/a mentions here.) if you joke about s/a or find it funny to make fun of such- just block me. i don’t want you here and you disgust me and so many others. thanks

i’ll also include the ask to follow below the dni stuff. dni/dnf will be red while ask to follow will be orange

basic DNI criteria

pr*ship/zo*philes

dream supporters

fetishizes trans/nonbinary people

ai ‘artists’ (lmao imagine not being able to pick up a pencil)

those who continuously use the excuses “it’s just fiction”, “it’s just a drawing”, and “erm it’s the internet. things happen” yall are annoying as fuck

She Who Will Not Be Named (you know who you are.)

He who will not be named (I don’t care if you want to make ammends. I don’t want to waste my time on your stupid loser baby ass.)

YTTD (Your Turn to Die) fandom

those with the intentions of befriending for free art

v*vziepop dickriders.

under 15.

if i generally just get bad vibes from you, i’ll just block. lol

applying this to the he/she who will not be named- if you’re thinking “is it me?” then it’s likely not you. /srs

ASK TO FOLLOW

irls. how and why did you find my tumblr huh? huh? do you wanna fight. do you wanna go to the dennys parking lot and fight there? huh? weenie (/JOKE)

h*zbin/h*lluva enjoyers. current mutuals are fine- i would REALLY REALLY prefer if y’all asked before following first?? i know not everyone in the fandom isn’t awful, but it’s just for my own sake. 🙏🙏

people that primarily go by the names “clyde”, “nadia”, “aspen”, “azzy”, or “marcel”. im sure yall are nice people or whatever but its moreso for the sake of my sanity :3. i also likely wont interact with you much but its whatever

dms are usually open unless i specify not to dm me.

commissions are closed off for now

i don’t do art requests. LOL sorry

art trades are always good! i take a long while on them though. srry

tagging/mentioning in a post is fine. kinda the same rules with the dms.

rp is kinda ehhh. i kinda only do it with closer friends tyyyy

okay cool you made it to the bottom thanksss enjoy ur stay lol

[bqstqnbruin]

Rinks and rouxes

Ok we’re ignoring so many things here as we normally do when I drop a fic. So first, we’re ignoring the fact that the plural of roux is roux and not rouxes like I have in the title because it sounds weird with English. We’re ignoring typos because no matter how many times I try to catch them all, I never do. We’re ignoring that this is being posted at like three am as well. And then there has to be something else that I’m forgetting but whatever.

This is the longest fic I’ve written as a one off fic so I hope you like this! This is for the lovely @slapshot-to-the-heart​ for the @hockeynetwork​ winter gift exchange (sorry I didn’t get this to you sooner but I was a mess this semester with grad school oop).

Enjoy!

_________________________

You were excited for the first few days in a while where you didn’t have to wake up to an alarm. A few mornings to sleep in, the sunshine pouring in through the windows, Quinn’s snoring filling the room in the bed next to yours. The boys had rented a cabin for New Years, having a rare few days off before and after the holiday to mess around somewhere outside of Vancouver. 

You were not expecting to be woken up three mornings in a row to a smoke alarm sounding in the kitchen because whoever made breakfast burnt something again. 

You sit up, groaning, rubbing your eyes. “Do you think they caught something on fire or do you think we can risk staying in bed?” 

Quinn sits up with a yawn, shaking his head. Before he can say anything, the alarm stops, yelling coming from the kitchen. “I think we should stay up here in case someone gets killed. Don’t wanna be a witness.”

The two of you laugh, the yells getting louder from the kitchen as the smoke alarm sounds again. “You guys make so much money and yet you insist on almost burning the house down every meal,” you say, watching Quinn get out of his bed, no shirt on. You tried not to stare at your best friend, but, fuck, seeing every inch of his torso just there, you were failing hard at not looking.

You grew up with Brock, getting introduced to his teammates shortly after moving to Vancouver for school, hitting it off with Quinn incredibly fast. To say that you had a crush on him was probably an understatement, falling hard and falling fast for the boy no matter how much you were convinced he didn’t feel the same about you. You figured whatever feelings you had would pass eventually. 

But that was three years ago. The feelings had not faded. 

And now, the two of you were sharing a room in this cabin, praying that what you smelled was not an actual fire coming from the kitchen. And he was just there, walking around your room without a shirt. 

“Y/N?” Quinn calls from the bathroom, pulling you out of whatever fantasy you were about to dive into. 

“Sorry, what?” 

“Who do you think burnt the food this time?” 

You laugh, trying to remember who the guys decided was cooking that morning, your mind completely forgetting about whatever thirsty feelings you had coming on with Quinn right there. “I think Jake was supposed to do something but Elias didn’t trust him.” 

“I wouldn’t trust either of them to make us food.” he says, a cocky tone dripping in his voice.

“You act like you could do better when we both know you set off the alarm the first morning,” you chirp back, earning a scoff from him. 

His phone starts buzzing on the nightstand between your beds, nearly falling off the small table. “Want me to get that?” 

“Yeah, what is it?” Quinn yells over the water running from the sink.

You pick up the phone, your heart dropping immediately. “You have a new match! From Tinder!” you say, fake cheeriness dripping in your tone. “I didn’t know you were on Tinder?” 

You hear him laugh, the water shutting off. “The guys thought I seemed lonely so they made me an account. It’s not like I ever use it.” 

“Hm. See. Here’s the thing,” you start, handing him his phone as he approaches, plopping down on your bed to probably look at the new match, “You don’t get matches on Tinder unless you both swipe right, which means you had to have been using it.” He shrugs, not looking up from his phone. “I didn’t know you just wanted hook ups,” you let out, trying to hide the pain in your voice with a teasing tone. If he wanted to hook up, that would mean he wasn’t interested in a relationship, which meant he didn’t like you the way you like him. Why were you even thinking about that? Why were you letting yourself spiral?

“I do not. And before you say, ‘well that’s what Tinder is for,’ because I know you and I know that was going to be the next thing out of your mouth,” Quinn says, a smirk on his face as you roll your eyes at him, slightly blushing because he was right, “I definitely want a relationship but the boys thought this would be a good start.” You swear you saw his eyes flick down to your lips for a moment, leaning in ever so slightly. You had to be imagining this, your still crush on him causing you to make things up in your mind. 

“Quinn! Y/N!” interrupts you from the other side of your thankfully locked door, as you  practically launch yourself off your bed to see Brock on the other side. “I didn’t interrupt anything did I?” he asks, a stupid smirk on your face causing heat to run to your cheeks.

“No,” you say, even though you were sure your face was giving everything away. 

“We made breakfast,” he says, moving aside and gesturing for the two of you to join what sounded like the rest of the team down in the kitchen. 

“Are you sure about that? The smoke alarm says otherwise,” Quinn chirps, throwing a shirt on as he takes your hand and pushes past Brock. You could hear the sharp inhale that came from Brock, knowing that you would be hearing about this later. You can’t help but smile as the boys start to chirp each other, your heart racing until Quinn drops your hand, the smell of pancakes and burnt toast hitting your nose as soon as the three of you get to the kitchen. “So who fucked up this morning?” Quinn asks, trying to find plates for the two of you.

“Jake,” the guys chorus, forcing a laugh out of you and Quinn while you watch the teammate in question turn bright red.

“It’s not my fault!” he tries to defend himself.

“You didn’t even just burn it, you caught it on fire,” Thatcher yells through a mouthful of what you hoped was not the toast. 

“Do you even see any food for us to eat?” you whisper to Quinn, trying to look over the boys shoulders for anything that seemed edible. 

Quinn shakes his head, rolling his eyes as the boys continue. “Well whose idea was it to have me make toast?” Jake asks.

“We thought you were smart enough to use the toaster and not hold the bread over the open flame on the stove,” Petey mumbles, you and Quinn trying to hold back your laughter. 

“So, where is the food that Y/N and I can eat?” Quinn asks, trying to get the boys’ attention.

“I think we ate it all,” Brock says, a smirk on his face.

“Then why did you come get us?” you ask him, clearly annoyed with him.

“We had to make sure you weren’t doing anything inappropriate behind that locked door of yours,” Brock says, the rest of the guys acting like children at the thought.

Quinn scoffs, walking towards the stairs, “Ok, one, no one talks like that, two, Y/N and I are going out for breakfast, anyone who wants to come, be ready in the next 15 minutes.” 

You watch him leave, praying that someone else would get up to go get ready. “Looks like you’ve gotta go get ready for your breakfast date with your boy,” Brock teases, the boys now laughing at you. You hated that your feelings for Quinn were no secret. At least, it seems like it was known to everyone but him, but why did that matter?

“It is not a date,” you start, only to hear Jake yell, “yes it is,” behind you. You turn to him, pointing at him. “Remember that I played soccer growing up so I can kick you really hard if I have to,” you start, the smirk on his face changing to slight terror, “so if burning that toast didn’t kill you, I can.” 

You turn on your heels to go get ready, even more nervous about going out with Quinn since Brock had to go and call it a date when Jake yells, “I didn’t mean to burn the toast!” 

“You still did it, though,” you yell down, shutting the door behind you. You were panicked now, completely freaking out. As much as you told yourself it wasn’t a date, Brock’s annoying voice still rang through your ears, ‘your breakfast date with your boy.’ Fuck Brock. You start to change, realizing that Quinn could come out of the bathroom at any minute and see you half naked, more panic washing over you. You set your phone on the bed, grabbing clothes and try to figure out where to change. “Hey, Q? Can I get in the bathroom to change?” 

He opens the door, no shirt on yet again. This was not fair. You weren’t even sure how you ended up having to share a room with him in the first place, let alone what you did to have him walk around shirtless every day. You practically run into the bathroom before you can do something stupid, shutting the door and leaning against it. You let out a deep sigh, saying, “Fuck,” in the breath, cursing who evers idea it was the bring you here and put you in this room instead of in one with Brock, or in one all on your own. 

You shake your head of the thoughts of whatever he was doing out there. He was your friend, just like Brock was. Nothing more, nothing less. And you needed to be ready soon if you wanted to get breakfast since the idiots downstairs burned any semblance of what would be edible. You try to force any thoughts of Quinn from your mind, pulling on leggings and a sweater.

“Hey, Y/N?” you hear Quinn call, “You’re getting texts.”

You open the door, starting to brush your teeth as you call to him, “You know my passcode, who are they from?”

“Brock.” 

You stop brushing, terror and an urge to murder him rushing through you. “What do they say?” you ask him, thankful you had your toothbrush in your mouth to cover up the anger that would otherwise be taking over your tone.

“‘We all know you two are going to date,’” he reads, “and ‘If you don’t kiss him tonight, I will.’” You were officially going to kill Brock. “Who are you going to date?”

You position yourself so you can see his reflection in the mirror of the bathroom. He was almost pouting, his eyebrows knit together in frustration. He wasn’t mad about those texts, was he? He didn’t know they were about him, right? “Uh, just this guy Brock and I know from home. He was joking about inviting him here tonight,” you lie to him, hoping he would buy it. He nods, scrunching his face up. “You know he’s not coming, right? I mean, he’d have to get here from Minnesota.” 

He nods again, handing you your phone as you come out of the bathroom, letting you send a quick death threat text to Brock. “You ready?”

“Just need a coat,” you tell him. He takes your hand, leading you back down the stairs. You had to pass the kitchen to get out to the cars, passing the guys with your hand in Quinn’s. 

Quinn stops without warning, you crashing into him in surprise. The guys gaze went to your hand in his, pretty much ignoring his words as he said, “So is anyone coming with us?” No one says anything, Brocks mouth falling open as he readjusts his hand in yours, clearly holding it tighter. The look on his face told you that you would not be living this down, forcing a mental note to turn your phone off as soon as you get in the car. “Awesome, text us if you need anything,” Quinn says, dragging you over to the door. 

“Ok, your mood changed,” you point out, putting on your coat and practically running to catch up with Quinn at the car. 

“No, it didn’t,” he snaps, getting in the car. You climb into the passenger seat next to him, looking at him stare at the steering wheel in front of him. He turns to look at you, his mouth in a thin line, “The boys are just annoying me lately, I don’t know.” You cock your eyebrow, telling him that you didn’t believe him. “Ok, fine,” he says, starting the car up, “They made me get on Tinder when I have no reason being on it and seeing Brock’s texts to you made me think about the texts they send to me about-” he rambles, cutting himself off. He looks out the window, turning his attention to the road in front of you.

“About who?” you ask. The boys wouldn’t tell him that you liked him, would they? They would have no reason to be trying to egg him on about asking you out, right? Then again, if Brock would do that to you, who’s to say that he wouldn’t also do it to his teammates who he easily had a closer relationship with and spent more time with. 

“About the girls on Tinder,” he breathes out, you also letting the breath you had no idea you were holding in. Part of you wished he said you. At least that way you could get a read on what he thought about the idea of you two being together. If it was disgust then you could put the whole crush to rest. 

“I mean, if it’s Brock, just point out that the only women in his life are his dogs, me, and his family,” you try to reassure him, pulling a laugh from his lips. “But he would also probably say that he’s fine with it, so you might have to think of something better.” 

Quinn nods, a small smile on his face. You just wanted to know what was really going on inside his head, because what he told you was definitely not it. It’s not like you could pressure him about it, though. He wouldn’t answer you if you tried to get more out of him, so what was the point? The two of you drive the rest of the way in silence, finally finding a diner that you could find a parking spot in front of and walk in. At this point, both of you were starving, already praying that they had the classic breakfast food you could order as soon as the server would come over to you. 

You were seated in a booth by the window, looking out across the street to a small pond that was now covered with ice thanks to the cold Vancouver winter. It had to be thick enough to withstand the weight, because you could see a who you assumed to be a father with his two little girls skating around on the ice. They looked like they were showing him some sort of figuring skating routine, the smaller girl raising her hands over her head in a ‘ta-da’ fashion, the dad lifting her off the ice and into the air, spinning her around before kissing her cheek and putting her back down to chase her sister. You couldn’t help but smile, completely forgetting about the menu in front of you. 

“What are you thinking about?” Quinn asks, reaching across the table to touch your hand. 

You barely even notice the warmth of his hand on yours, for some reason feeling all too comfortable by his touch, but you were lost in the memory and thoughts the scene on the pond had brought up. “Have you ever seen the movie ‘Holiday in Handcuffs’ with Mario Lopez and Melissa Joan Hart?”

“Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’ at the end of the word, a smile on his face as he gets ready to listen to you.

“So, it is your classic tale of Stockholm Syndrome,” you say, both of you laughing, “But basically, she kidnaps him to impress her parents that she has this great boyfriend compared to her perfect brother and sister and they fall in love. There’s this one scene where they’re standing out on the back porch and she’s talking about how one Christmas Eve she had this big figure skating recital but it got cancelled because of a snow storm, so her dad made a rink in the backyard so she could perform it for them. Mario Lopez’s character surprises her the next morning by making an ice rink so they could skate around together.” 

You look over at Quinn, not even realizing that you had been watching the dad and his daughters the entire time. He had this soft smile on his face, for a moment forgetting that you two were out in public until the waitress came over to take your order. 

“Tell me more about this ice rink,” he asks you once she leaves. 

All you can really do is shrug. “I don’t know. Him making the ice rink just seemed like such a romantic gesture. If a guy did that for me, I think I would melt,” you tell him. 

“Just like the ice would,” Quinn jokes, leaning back as the waitress comes with your food.

“I hated that. I hated that so much,” you joke, both of you laughing as your phone buzzes on the table, interrupting whatever moment may or may not have been there. You sigh, seeing Brock’s name pop up yet again. He had to get tired of this constant teasing about you and Quinn at some point, right?

“Brock again?”

You throw your head back, letting out a groan that you hoped only Quinn could hear. “Since Jake burnt the toast this morning, he is now no longer allowed to make dinner tonight.”

“Tell them to order something then, we can pick it up?” 

“Nope. Brock told the guys about the mac and cheese that I used to make when we were in high school and now they all want it. Something tells me there is virtually nothing in that house that lends itself to being mac and cheese.” Brock keeps sending more and more texts about how your ‘date’ is going with all the hand holding you two had to be doing, prompting none other than an eye roll from you as you shove your phone in your coat pocket. “So now I need to get to the store at some point.”

Quinn looks at the window, watching the father pick up his daughters and carry them to his car. He smiles, turning back to you, “When we’re done, do you think Brock can take you? I have to take care of something.”

“Uh, sure?” you say in response, texting Brock to pick you up from the diner. Quinn’s mood shifted, becoming much more animated than he had been earlier. He kept looking between you and the frozen pond, the smile never leaving his face. 

He doesn’t stop talking the rest of breakfast, paying and leaving as soon as Brock pulls up to take you to the store. “So how was the date?” Brock smirks as soon as your door is closed, watching Quinn practically sprint to his car and drive off. 

“If you keep this up then you aren’t going to see the New Year,” you threaten. 

“We all know you two are going to get together, we just don’t know why you haven’t acted on it.”

“What was at the house from the recipe I sent you?” you ask him, praying that he’ll drop the subject.

“Nothing and you aren’t dodging this subject.” 

“You don’t even have milk?” 

“You saw what breakfast was this morning. And since you won’t admit the obvious here, we have a plan for tonight.” 

Nothing good could come of those words. You knew Brock well enough to know that any plan he came up with would end in disaster. And his teammates were just an extension of his idiocy. “Please don’t. If you love me at all you will not do anything,” you beg him.

“I never said I was going to do anything,” he teases. You glare at him, only resulting in him laughing at you as he pulls into a grocery store. 

You let out a deep breath, knowing today was going to be a long day. “Get flour and salt and then whatever else you guys want for food. You’re paying,” you tell him, practically running into the store just to get away from him. There was no way you were going to spend the entire time being heckled about the crush you didn’t want to have in the first place. It’s not like it was reciprocated, anyway. You could feel your phone buzzing in your pocket, dreading what Brock was texting you. ‘Do me a favor: grab your favorite wine and those sugar cookies you like.’ came from Jake. 

You would be lying if you said you weren’t surprised it came from him instead of Quinn, but who were you to judge? ‘Can I ask why?’

‘Just want to make tonight special ;)’ 

Don’t like that. 

You shake it off, debating on even getting what he asked you for. Why would Jake ask you to get your favorite stuff? That seemed so out of character for him, at least in his interactions with you. You grab what you need for the mac and cheese, not even sure how much you should make considering how many boys were there in the house. You wander off to find Brock, praying that he actually got what you need. “This is not where you find flour.” He turns around, holding a bouquet of your favorite flowers, including the wine and cookies Jake had texted you to grab. “When I said flour this is not what I meant. What are you doing?”

“Jake wanted me to make sure I got these for you,” he tells you, handing them over to you.

You stare at him for a minute, your face scrunched. This had to be part of whatever scheme they were planning to get you and Quinn together. No part of you wanted their meddling, but you knew that the more you tried to fight it, the worse it was going to end up for you. “How long would I be in jail if I just killed you all?” 

“A few life sentences depending on how many murders you committed,” he shrugs, walking away from you. 

You didn’t even want to talk to him at this point, pissed off at the fact that they were all scheming against your wishes. You grab what you need, including some stuff for baking, figuring the longer you kept yourself busy, the less likely you were to to harm the idiots you were spending time with. 

“You bought apple cider and cream cheese for mac and cheese?” Brock questions, holding up the gallon at check out.

“Apple cider no, one of the cream cheeses, yes. You wanted me to make mac and cheese, let me make mac and cheese. I was gonna make apple cider cupcakes for everyone.” 

The two of you get back to the house, which was strangely quiet considering how many of the guys were there. You start getting to work on the cupcakes, figuring it was too early to start dinner. You get out everything the real owners of the house had to bake with, figuring that you could focus on this instead of whatever bullshit was going to face you that night. 

You get lost in baking, measuring and mixing when you hear footsteps coming down the stairs. You didn’t care who it was, as long as it wasn’t Brock.

“Need help?”

You look up to see Jake leaning against the counter, his head resting in his hand. “After you caught the toast on fire this morning, I don’t think so.” 

The two of you laugh, falling into a conversation. Of all of Brock’s teammates, you probably had spent the least amount of time with Jake. It was nice; he was weirdly easy to talk to, somewhat flirty if you were reading him right. If he was showing interest in you when Quinn wasn’t, who cared? 

“Can I at least help with the frosting? I can’t burn that,” he begs, coming up right next to you. He juts out his bottom lip, batting his eyes as you stand there with the bowl, knowing that you didn’t want to whip the frosting yourself. 

You let out a deep sigh, handing him the whisk, “Fine. Get the cream cheese soft and then add in that vanilla and the powdered sugar.” He gets to work, you hopping up to sit on the counter next to him while the cupcakes are in the oven. “Why did you ask me to get my favorite stuff at the store?” 

He shrugs, a smirk on his face while he continues to whip the cream cheese. “You put up with us teasing you about Quinn so I figured you could use something that you enjoyed.” You can’t help but smile at his words, not even getting the chance to say anything before he continues, “So who are you kissing tonight?”

“What?”

“It’s New Years Eve. Who are you kissing at midnight?” 

You sit up a little straighter at his question, not even thinking about it before. “I don’t know.”

Jake stops whisking, the sound of another set of footsteps coming down the stairs. “Would you mind if I kissed you then?” You sit there for a moment, shocked. He knew you liked Quinn, right? You start to stammer out an answer, none of it coherent when he turns his attention from you to whoever just came into the kitchen. “Unless there was someone else Y/N should be kissing tonight, Quinn?” 

You twist around to see Quinn turning red, looking at you sitting so close to Jake, your leg obviously touching his side with the way you were twisted. “I don’t know why you would be asking me that,” he seethes, going over to the now beeping oven. “Want me to take these out?”

You nod, hopping off the counter to check if they were done, putting the first batch on top of the stove to cool, the next batch in to bake. “So, Y/N. You and me kissing at midnight, then?” 

You stand up, your back towards both of them. If Quinn had wanted to kiss you, then he would have said something. “I guess so, Jake,” you say, going back over to him to help him with the frosting. 

Quinn stands there, not sure what to do. There was no way you could be kissing his teammate tonight. He opens his phone, storming off before you could get the chance to ask him what was wrong. 

Jake eventually leaves you once the cupcakes are done, leaving you to start the mac and cheese the boys wanted. You start making the roux when you hear the front door slam, someone’s overly obnoxious laugh floating through the house. Whoever it was came into the kitchen, startling you while you were starting the melt down the cubes of cream cheese.

“Hi!” comes from behind you, an overly peppy high pitched voice, a skinny redhead appearing in the doorway. “I’m Katie!” 

You had no idea who this was, looking past her to see Quinn behind the two of you, nervous and practically shaking. “She’s my date for tonight.” 

“Oh!” you let out, turning the burner down and putting down the whisk. “I had no idea you were bringing a date! I’m Y/N,” you tell her, feeling less and less bad about agreeing to kiss Jake tonight. 

“What are you doing?” she asks, practically on top of you. 

“Making the roux for the mac and cheese tonight.”

“Rue? I thought that was when you made someone regret something. You know, like in iCarly?”

You turn to her, doing everything in your power to not burst out laughing at her reference. You swear you could hear Quinn muttering something under his breath, his head in his hands as he leaned against the counter. “That’s r-u-e, I’m making a r-o-u-x. It’s the base for the cheese part of mac and cheese.” She cocks her head to the side, looking between you and the pot on the stove. “You know, I think some of the guys are out on the porch with some beer, you should go join them,” you suggest. 

“Ok!’ she says, bouncing away. 

You turn to Quinn, your eyes wide and a mocking smile covering your face. “Well she’s just adorable. Where did you find her?” You knew you were being petty, but no part of you cared.

“Tinder,” Quinn mumbles. 

“Come here,” you tell him, handing him a spoon to start stirring the pasta. “Why did you find a date all of a sudden?” 

“Well who am I supposed to kiss at midnight now that you’re kissing Jake?” he snaps, some of the pasta water flying away from you.

“Brock?” you joke, earning a scoff from him. “Who did you intend on kissing? Me?”

He stares at the pot of water, shaking his head, “I guess I’m not now.” He puts the spoon down, leaving you stunned at the stove while he goes out with the rest of the guys. There was no way he wanted to kiss you that night. You couldn’t believe it. There was no way. You shake off the thought, finishing up the mac and cheese as the guys start coming in to ask where the food was. 

Everyone sits around the table like they were this morning, Katie talking everyone’s ear off about something you weren’t paying attention to. Elias was sitting right next to her, looking like he was plotting her murder with every passing second. If she went missing that night, he was the first one you were going to blame. 

“Hey,” Jake nudges you in the shoulder, taking you away from the trance you set yourself into, “You ok?”

“Yeah, just kinda tired. Someone woke me up with the smoke alarm again,” you tease, pulling a laugh from him. “I think I’m just going to go up stairs to mine and Quinn’s room.” You get up, Jake the only one seeming to notice that you were leaving the rest of the group. 

You must have actually fallen asleep, awaken by someone pounding on the other side of the door. “It’s open,” you say, fumbling around to turn on the light. 

Quinn opens the door slowly, poking his head in like he was afraid to see you. “It’s almost midnight. Are you gonna join?”

You nod, getting up to follow him down the stairs. The two of you reach the door to the backyard, Quinn stopping in front of you, bending down to grab the pair of ice skates that were by the door. “You’ll need these,” he smiles, taking your hand.

“What is this?” you ask when he opens the door, the guys playing a pick up game on a sheet of ice on the lawn. 

“You said you thought it was romantic when a guy made his girl an ice rink in her back yard. So I made one for you,” he says, looking down at his feet, his face turning red.

“What? I have so many questions.”

He laughs, sitting down to put his own pair of skates on, you following suit. “Katie is with Jake right now, probably doing things that we don’t want to know about. Turns out the guys used Jake as a ploy to get me to finally ask you out, so when I figured that out, I asked Katie over so Jake could have someone to occupy him.”

“You want to ask me out?” you ask, not hiding the smile on your face.

“Oh, you are so oblivious,” he groans, a smile on his face, as well. “Of course I do.” 

He picks you up to step on the ice, off to the side where the guys weren’t playing. Brock gets the puck past Thatcher, his hands in the air in celebration when Elias yells, “15 seconds!” 

The guys start counting down to the new year, your heart racing with each second as Quinn’s hands wrap around your waist. “Would you rather have me or Jake?”

“Ten! Nine! Eight!”

“You really have to ask?”

“Seven! Six! Five!”

“Yes.”

“Four! Three! Two!”

You can’t help but roll your eyes, Quinn’s face centimeters from yours, your foreheads pressed against each other. “You.”

“One!” the guys around you yell once Quinn’s lips connect with yours, everything around you melting away. 

“Happy new year, Y/N,” he whispers once he pulls away, stealing another quick kiss before the guys can pull you away from each other.

“Happy new year, Quinn.” 

[shipskicksandgiggles]

Alright this one is gonna be a bit weird if you’ve never watched the Impossible but in case you haven’t it’s a movie that Tom Holland was in when he was younger which is based on the true story of a family who is on vacation when a tsunami hits. It’s super super angsty and Tom gives a gut wrenching performance of thinking he’s lost his brothers and his father and then also his mom only to be reunited with them all in the end. It’s honestly a really good movie and I keep having the urge to rewatch it which is where this idea came from. The last thing that you’ll need to know for this to make sense is that in this one shot/head cannon thing Tom Holland is an actor who is probably around ten years older than Peter. Peter just happens to look a lot like Tom did when he was younger and is constantly told about how similar they look but Peter doesn’t really see it. Anyway here we go!

It was no secret to anyone that knew Peter that teen was constantly being told that he shares an uncanny resemblance with Tom Holland. Peter always claims that he doesn’t really see the similarities but Harley does. Now that Tom is getting older, he and Peter are starting to look less and less similar but that doesn’t change that young Peter and young Tom look strikingly similar.

This is how Harley found himself on the couch watching The Impossible one day when Peter was out on patrol. Harley was benched while his Iron Lad suit was down for repairs after their last mission with the team and needless to say the teen was bored out of his mind while waiting for his boyfriend to get back.

So Harley had done what anyone would have done and asked Friday to find one of Tom Holland’s movies from early on in his career so that Harley could collect more evidence to prove to Peter that the enhanced teen does look like Tom.

Harley had not recovered to get so wrapped up in the story playing out on the screen in front of him and he certainly had not expected for his heart to clench so painfully as he watched the young boy on the screen, who looks nearly identical to the pictures he’s seen of Peter at that age, go through such terrifying and sad experiences. It did not help Harley’s care that his mind was reminding him that Peter has been through hardships similar to those in the movie, Peter had in fact lost his parents at a young age and then his uncle too.

Harley had started crying at some point but wasn’t aware of it until a quiet sob escaped his lips, making the weight of his own emotions known. Harley asks Friday to pause the movie in a wavering voice and wipes his wet cheeks with the sleeves of the sweater he’s wearing. He takes a deep breath to try and collect himself and reminds himself that the boy on the screen is not Peter and while the events of the movie are true but the family did survive and most importantly, at least to Harley, his boyfriend would be home soon.

Harley quietly implored Friday to resume the movie for him as he settles back down into his place on the couch to finish watching. His heart continues to break as he watches young Tom gives a scarily convincing performance of a terrified, hurting, and heartbroken kid which only makes Harley picture what Peter must have been like as a child when he’d lost his parents and then had to relive the trauma of losing his parental figures when he also lost Uncle Ben.

The movie finally comes to an end and Harley is left feeling just a bit breathless. He gets up and makes his way to the kitchen for a glass of water. He’s a bit surprised to find Peter sauntering into the kitchen after having let himself into their floor through the balcony door just a few moments before.

Peter lets out a surprised gasp when he sees the tear tracks running down Harley’s cheeks and the red tint lining Harley’s slightly swollen eyes.

“Harls, what happened? Are you okay? Is everything alright?” Peter rushes out in one breath as he quickly checks Harley over for any signs of injuries.

“I’m fine, Petey. I promise everything’s alright, I just got a little too involved in the movie I was watching. It uh had young Tom Holland in the cast and he really does look like you when you were that age and the movie was really intense and it just made me think of all you’ve been through and I just couldn’t stop myself from crying because you don’t deserve all the bad things that have happened to you. And somehow you still manage to be one of the kindest and most selfless people I know.” Harley explains and feels tears once again starts to fill his eyes.

Peter’s expressions melts from concern into a fond sort of exasperation as he listens to Harley explain. “Well, I’m very glad that you’re alright. You really had me worried for a moment there. I’ve learned a long time ago that bad things happen to people who don’t always deserve them and while a lot of bad things have happened in my life I haven’t done anything to deserve them and I shouldn’t blame myself. You helped me learn that, Harls. Now, how about we make a little snack and then we watch some light hearted movies to cheer up?” Peter suggests and smiles softly at his lover.

Harley nods slowly and takes another deep breath. He took a moment to swear to himself that we would do everything in his power to stop Peter from experiencing anymore heart break but for now all he needed to focus on was making a snack and getting cuddles from his boyfriend.

Well I think I hate how this turned out bug oh well. -🌸

sweetheart do you need a hug? because after that I certainly do what the fuck man that’s a lot of emotions okay let’s take a minute-

first of all, MCU actors existing in the MCU is one of my all time favorite tropes and I wrote a silly fic about it once that I’m too lazy to find now but I used TDATT in it and Peter being embarrassed. I have not seen the impossible as I haven’t had the energy for new things in over a month but I’m working on it not to worry and it’s on my list if I can find it. it sounds incredible and this take is >>>>>>>> 1000/10 babe i love your work as always

[lemonpeter]

STARKER, by Peter B. Parker

Chapter 3: Domesticity

A/N: petey’s having a grand old time and so are we! lol -bri and bloo 💕

Warnings: domestic fluff, nff

Masterlist ao3

————

In the first few moments after Peter woke up, things were perfect. Memories of the previous night came flooding back and a slight smile tugged at his lips as he snuggled into Tony’s warm embrace.

Everything was alright.

But as soon as he had the thought, something shifted.

Because everything wasn’t alright.

His eyes snapped open, instantly pulling him out of the illusion. His hands roamed over his body, trying to mimic the sensations he had felt before. But it wasn’t the same and he knew it.

It had all felt so real.

He slid the glasses off, just for a moment, while he reached for his phone. When he checked it there were dozens of missed calls and unread texts. Mostly from May, but there were quite a few from other people as well. MJ, Ned, even a couple from Pepper.

Shit, that made him feel ridiculously guilty. She was trying to get into contact with him and he was busy playing house with his fantasy of her husband.

Yet the guilt wasn’t enough to make him respond. Instead, he turned his phone back off and tossed it to the side, putting the EDITH glasses back on. Out of sight, out of mind.

Indulging himself and just pretending for a little longer wouldn’t hurt anybody. It wasn’t like they’d know. This was just for him.

Him and Tony.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he focused back in. And he was taken right back to where he wanted to be.

When he opened them again, he was laying down with Tony. A smile appeared on his face.

The older man was still fast asleep, limbs tangled with Peter’s. He seemed to be completely unaware of Peter’s brief absence, not that he would have felt it in the first place. As far as he knew, both of them had stayed in bed the entire night.

Peter gently began pulling himself away, pressing a quick kiss to Tony’s forehead before he dug his way out of the covers and slid out of bed.

The room was cold and made him shiver slightly before he found the shirt that Tony had been wearing the night before and pulled it on. There. That was much better. It fell just to the tops of his thighs, hardly hiding anything, but he didn’t mind. And he was sure Tony wouldn’t either.

He wandered a little, making his way out of the bedroom and looking around. The penthouse was huge, but it didn’t feel empty in the way it had before. Love filled up the space, bringing everything to life. It made the place feel like a home.

The thought brought a smile to his face as he continued his wandering. He knew exactly where he was going, of course, but it was nice to just explore in the morning quiet.

Everything was just as he remembered it, down to the smallest details. The neatly stacked magazines on the coffee table (it wasn’t like Tony ever read them), the way morning sunlight beamed gently through the window wall, the various mechanical parts strewn about from late-night projects that got brought out of the lab. It was all the same.

Peter eventually made his way to his initial destination, the kitchen.

He started pulling ingredients out, mentally running through what he needed to make breakfast. Eggs, flour, milk...everything was there, all the things that were necessary. Not that he’d doubted they would be.

The teen got to work soon after, humming quietly to himself as he started prepping. He combined, sifted, whisked, and followed each step to make sure everything came together. Ruined pancakes just wouldn’t do.

As he was standing over the stove, finishing up the cooking, a pair of strong arms wrapped around his waist from behind.

He instantly melted into the touch, leaning back and grinning when he felt the warm press of lips against his cheek. When he spoke, his voice was soft so as to not disturb the intimate moment. “Morning, Tony. I figured I’d let you sleep in.” The facial hair covering his chin and jaw rubbed against Peter’s skin, making something tingle deep in his belly.

The man made an appreciative noise, nodding a little. “Thank you, honey,” he murmured, voice still rough from sleep.

Peter thought it was one of the most wonderful sounds he’d ever heard and he wanted to keep hearing it. The tone was raspy and low, insanely sexy. He loved it. “You’re welcome. Working on breakfast now, it’s about done,” he informed Tony happily.

“It smells incredible, I can’t wait.” Tony slowly pulled away, as if it was the last thing he wanted to do, before walking over to the cupboard and pulling out two plates. “I’ll make things a little easier on you, I can help plate everything once it’s finished. Teamwork makes the dream work, and all that.”

The young man nodded a little, the hint of a grin pulling the corners of his lips upwards, though his main focus was the food on the stove. He didn’t want to let any of it burn, he wanted it all to be absolutely perfect.

Not that any of it could turn out anything but that. The fact tugged persistently at the back of his mind, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. He’d coded the STARKER program for perfection, with instructions to replicate exactly what he desired. So no matter what he did, breakfast would be perfect regardless.

He just wanted it to feel real on his end, too.

“Okay, I’m ready- bring the plates over here,” he instructed, glancing over at where Tony was standing.

Tony nodded quickly, holding out the two plates. He stood there patiently, giving Peter a small smile as they met eyes. That warm glow was there again, the one that reminded Peter of sunlight shining through honey and made him feel like he was the most important person in the other man’s world. Which meant- a lot, considering the life Tony had lived, the experiences he’d had, the people he knew.

Peter blinked himself out of his thoughts in order to dish out the food, stacking each pancake just-so and making sure the yolks in every egg stayed unbroken. So he was being a bit neurotic- sue him.

Once he was finished plating breakfast, the pair made their way over to the square table and sat right across from each other. It wasn’t overly large, so they were close enough to hold hands, which was exactly what they did. Their hands stayed clasped together as they got situated , both digging in almost instantly.

A contented hum came from the other side of the table. “This is great, Peter, I had no idea you were such a whiz in the kitchen,” Tony complimented, tone light and playful. He sounded truly happy, and it transferred over to the younger man as if they were in some sort of feedback loop.

“I have to be,” Peter laughed, swallowing the bite he’d taken. “May burns everything she makes, I can’t survive off of that. I had to learn some basic things myself. And it’s fun.”

He’d imagined cooking for Tony a lot. Not anything big, it wasn’t like he was really that good. But he always thought that it would be such a nice thing. Something sort of domestic the two of them could do together. Something special for them to share with each other. And the reality was just as good as he’d imagined.

Tony nodded, watching him. “Well, you did amazing. It’s really great, I couldn’t have asked for better.” He grinned, sincerely impressed.

Peter smiled softly at him, squeezing his hand gently. “Thank you.”

They continued eating in silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was a gentle, companionable quiet. Nothing needed to be said, they were just enjoying being with each other.

That was all they needed.

By the time they were finished with breakfast, Peter was already lost in other thoughts.

The simulation was going so much better than he ever could have imagined. It was all so real. Which was everything that he had hoped for.

He really could have everything that he wanted, everything he’d envisioned life with Tony to be. They could really have their happily ever after, the one they both deserved. The universe owed them this.

“I can see you thinking,” Tony teased lightly, snapping Peter out of his thoughts. “What’s up?”

Peter looked up again, blinking rapidly as he tried to reorient himself. “Hmm?” He couldn’t really explain it all. Nor did he want to. “Oh, nothing. Just...thinking about how happy I am.” That was fairly true, at least. Lying by omission wasn’t really lying in his book. “I’ve wanted this for so long. With you.”

The older man smiled a little, eyes once again filled with adoration as he gazed across the table. Peter swore he’d never grow tired of being on the receiving end of that look. “Me too. It’s always been you, Pete.”

He said it with such sincerity that Peter could almost believe it. Although, he figured that for this Tony, Peter was always the one for him. And honestly- That was enough.

“It’s always been you for me too, Tones.” The nickname slipped out, but he didn’t try to take it back. It didn’t hurt anyone and it felt so much more personal. Intimate. He liked it.

Tony smiled at him, nodding.

Peter watched him, meeting his gaze and not looking away. Suddenly he remembered the silly plan he’d made after he met Tony for the first time.

It didn’t make any sense, not really. It was unrealistic, just the silly dream of an obsessed, love-sick teenager.

But he used to imagine getting married to Tony. He had things planned out exactly in his elaborate daydreams, down to the flavor of cake they’d have and the color scheme. There were even a couple venues that he’d researched. Peter could admit that he’d spent an embarrassing amount of time focused on that specific fantasy.

And that’s all it had been, fantasy. But...he could bring it to life. Here, in his ideal world. Where things were exactly as he desired. He could easily have that dream become a reality. At least for a little while.

Before he could stop himself, he was standing up from his seat and letting go of Tony’s hand.

Tony raised an eyebrow, watching his movements curiously but not commenting. He stayed in his seat, eyes following as Peter rushed away to the other room.

“I just have to grab something!” He called over his shoulder, running back to the bedroom. The bed was still unmade, reminding him of what they’d done the previous night. It brought a small smile to his face before he resumed what he was doing.

He began shuffling through drawers, moving stacks of clothes and papers in his search. For a moment, he wasn’t even sure what he was actually looking for.

Then his fingers brushed against a small box and wrapped around it. He pulled the velvet cube out, hands shaking slightly as he brought it up to look at it and set it on top of the dresser.

He opened it, revealing a gold engagement band. It had a beautiful, intricate pattern and deep red stones set around it. It was perfect, exactly what he’d imagined in his daydreams. Of course it was.

He closed the box again and held it close to his chest. He’d give it to Tony. Maybe it was moving fast, but he thought he deserved it. This was supposed to be everything that he wanted, so he would make it match his fantasies exactly, down to a T.

But he could wait for just a little bit. He didn’t want to break the soft, domestic bliss they were feeling just yet. After all, he had all the time in the world to pop the question. Even the thought was exciting; in his dreams, Tony had always been the one to propose to him. This would be an interesting flip in the script.

So he tucked the box away again, remembering where he left it. Then he peeked back out of the room. “Tony?” He called softly.

“Yeah?” From the sounds of it, Tony was washing the dishes from breakfast. He was so thoughtful that way.

“I think I’m gonna get a shower,” Peter started, fingers sliding against the smooth door frame. A slight smile tugged at his lips as he got an idea. “Maybe you could...join me?” He offered.

He heard a dish crash from the kitchen and he covered his mouth in an attempt to hold back his mirth. Then he gave up and laughed when he heard the sound of Tony’s footsteps rushing back to the bedroom.

“I would love to do that, yep.” Tony grinned, looking at him as he all but fell through the doorway. He almost sounded like he was out of breath from running from the kitchen.

Peter laughed harder, leaning up to kiss the other man before pulling away to walk to the en-suite bathroom. He didn’t have much to do in terms of undressing, just slowly pulling off the shirt he’d put on. He tossed it down to the floor, taking note of where it landed so he could find it again later.

He glanced back over his shoulder, meeting Tony’s eyes and giving him a small smirk before walking in further.

Tony was close behind, stepping out of the thin sweatpants he’d slipped on.

Peter moved to turn the shower on, eyebrows furrowed for a moment before he figured it out. How could a shower be so damn complicated. Then he turned to look at Tony, feeling breathless. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to seeing the man like that. And he didn’t want to. He wanted to always be just as excited as the first time.

“You’re absolutely stunning,” Tony murmured, taking the young man by surprise.

The teen felt one of his eyebrows shoot up without his permission as he gazed over at Tony with wide eyes. “Me?” It’s not that Peter considered himself ugly, but he didn’t think he was anything special. Just average. Nothing like the man in front of him who was undeniably one of the most beautiful people on the planet.

“Of course you.” Tony grinned a little, grabbing his hand before stepping into the shower. “Who else would I mean?”

That was fair. It wasn’t like anyone else was there, no one else for Tony to be referring to. But the words were thrilling and made him happy all the same. The fact that the billionaire saw him like that, thought that they looked good together, did wonders for his ego and self-confidence even if he wasn’t completely convinced.

“Well...I don’t know.” Peter smiled a little. “You’re sweet. And you’re...absolutely gorgeous too.” He laughed a little, getting into the shower with the older man. His cheeks flushed as he talked, but he meant the words.

“I’m glad you think so.” Tony chuckled, moving to stand under the water and wet his hair. “Hey, get over here really quick,” he encouraged after a moment, stepping out from under the showerhead again. “I want to do something.”

Peter was pulled away from his thoughts, raising an eyebrow at the other man. “Get over where? We’re barely standing a foot apart.”

“Hush. Come get your hair wet and let me do this.”

The teen did as he was told, a small smile tugging at his lips as he gently brushed his fingers through the now-dripping curls. “There. Better?”

Tony nodded, grabbing a bottle of shampoo and getting some in his hand. “Much.” He lathered it up, humming softly to himself as he did. “Let me wash your hair?”

Peter watched him, nodding slowly. It was such a small thing, but the action was so soft. He would never deny Tony of something like that.

He stepped closer, turning around so that his back was to Tony.

Tony smiled, hands moving to Peter’s head. His fingers began gently working the shampoo into his hair, massaging his scalp as he went.

The teen made a content sound, eyes slipping shut. Tony’s fingers in his hair felt nice.

“How’s this?” Tony asked softly, grinning a little. He loved how Peter started melting into his touch as soon as he’d started.

“It’s so good,” Peter nearly-whimpered, biting his lip. It was so nice, gentle and intimate.

The older man smirked a little as he heard the tone of Peter’s voice. “I’m glad you think so.”

Once the shampoo had been effectively lathered and worked in, it was time to wash it out.

Peter didn’t want the feeling to ever stop, the action incredibly soothing. But he knew that he couldn’t just have his hair washed forever, that wouldn’t work out. And they still had more to do.

So he stepped under the water again, rinsing out the suds and watching them swirl down the drain.

When he was done, he stepped back and looked at Tony again. He hadn’t expected something so sweet, but he loved it.

Peter watched him closely, mouth nearly watering at the sight before him. This absolute god of a man, completely bare in front of him. No matter how soft and sweet he was, the teen couldn’t help but think about other things. The water slid over Tony’s body, making his skin glisten and shine.

And Tony didn’t seem to notice the reverent way Peter was gazing in his direction at all.

He recalled the night before, how agreeable Tony had been to their activities. So he had no worries that he’d be denied here.

But he did, however, want to shake things up a bit.

He took a few more moments to admire Tony’s form before he was stepping closer, his hands dragging over the older man’s chest and abs, tracing the scar where the reactor used to sit. The muscle definition was softer than his own, but he loved it just the same. This body was so strong, had been through so much and done so many amazing things.

Tony raised an eyebrow, moving so that his back was to the water. “Pete?” He couldn’t help but smirk a little. He’d expected some sort of contact, Peter was very handsy that way. But he was really going for it fast.

“Hmm?” Peter didn’t look up. His cheeks were burning as he touched Tony, but that didn’t make him stop. Then, slowly, he began to sink down onto his knees. His hands slid down Tony’s hips until they rested on his wet thighs.

He’d imagined a moment like this for a long time. Pleasing Tony, being able to watch the man as he fell apart from the way Peter was making him feel. And of course, he’d seen it partially when they’d slept together. But he wanted to cause that pleasure in a different way, now.

“What are you doing down there?” As though it wasn’t obvious. Tony’s fingers gently threaded through the young man’s hair, the strands sticking together from the water falling from his fingers. “Thought we were showering.”

“We will,” Peter whispered, placing a gentle kiss on Tony’s left hip. “I want to do this first.” He started kissing down the man’s stomach, lips brushing against the light happy trail once he reached it.

One of his hands moved from its place on Tony’s thigh to wrap around the man’s cock, gently taking hold of it. It was mostly soft, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. He stroked slowly, glancing up as he kept his lips pressed to Tony’s lower belly, trying to hold back the urge to just let his tongue ghost over the sensitive skin there.

Tony was watching him with half-lidded eyes and his lips parted just slightly. His hips gently rocked forward, fucking into Peter’s slick grip as he was gradually brought to full hardness.

Peter leaned back and shook his wet hair out of his face, looking over Tony as he figured out how he wanted to approach things. Then he leaned in again, pressing a soft kiss to the tip of the man’s cock. It wasn’t much, but it was what felt right. It was sweet, intimate.

And it made Tony shiver above him, so he thought it was a good choice.

The young man smirked to himself slightly, batting his eyelashes as he looked up. “Did you like that?” He asked sweetly.

“Uh huh...Peter, do you know what you’re doing?”

Not at all. He had never done anything even remotely like it. “Yeah, of course I do.” His tongue darted out, giving a soft little kitten lick over the head to punctuate his sentence.

He’d never given oral, and the only time he’d even received had been the night before. But he’d seen enough porn and read enough that he was sure he wouldn’t be awful. He just needed to remember the things he’d read. And he knew what felt good to his own body, he just needed to translate it to another person. Shouldn’t be too difficult.

Tony nodded slowly, fingers tightening in his hair slightly at the feeling of the young man’s wet tongue on his erection. “Okay, honey.” He relaxed, ready to take whatever Peter wanted to give him.

Peter kissed the tip one more time before slowly wrapping his lips around it. It was weird, the slightly salty skin against his tongue. But he liked it. And he definitely liked the sounds that the action caused Tony to make.

So he sucked gently, his eyes slipping shut in order for him to focus solely on what he was doing. It wasn’t all that different from having a lollipop or a popsicle in his mouth, if the treat was warm and gave way under the pressure of his ministrations.

His tongue brushed over the slit in the head, gathering the small amount of precum that had welled up already. Then he rubbed it against the slight ridge on the underside of the tip. He knew that would feel pretty good.

A low moan came from Tony, causing Peter to echo the sound, instinctually responding to his partner’s pleasure. The vibrations made the older man grip his hair tighter.

“Maybe you do know what you’re doing,” he mumbled, eyes dark and heavy as he gazed down at Peter.

Peter smiled a little at that, as best he could around the flesh in his mouth, at least. He liked knowing that he was doing well, that he was pleasing Tony, even if he hadn’t done much yet. Hopefully it would only continue to get better.

At the slight praise, he started trying to take down more. Peter hadn’t known how much the validation would turn him on. He wanted more of it, wanted to be good for Tony. He started with just a couple of inches, sucking lightly and humming to give different types of stimulation. His head bobbed slightly, only taking as much as he had before. It wouldn’t be good if he tried to do too much too soon. He didn’t want to embarrass himself by choking or anything.

Tony stayed fairly quiet, but he just wasn’t the most vocal in his pleasure, Peter knew. He showed his appreciation in other ways, holding Peter’s hair tighter, nudging his hips forward slightly into the wet heat of the teen’s mouth. And Peter eagerly drank in the few sounds that did escape him.

The younger man held onto Tony’s thigh with his free hand, nails leaving small crescent-shaped indents as his fingers dug in slightly. His other hand stayed wrapped around Tony’s cock, holding it steady as he took more down and stroking what he hadn’t yet fit into his mouth.

He slowly moved further down, taking more and more of the length in as he let himself get used to the feeling. But before he was able to take it all the way, the tip hit the back of his throat and made him choke, the gagging sound obscenely loud in the tiled room.

He pulled off, eyes watering as he coughed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.” Sniffling and taking a shaky breath, he licked at his lips in an attempt to clean off some of the thick saliva he could feel running down his chin and smearing along his lips.

Tony groaned, still holding Peter’s hair as he pulled away. “It’s alright. Don’t worry, not a big deal. You’re still a beginner, it’s alright,” he assured breathily. The gag made Peter’s throat tighten deliciously around him and he was still recovering from the sudden sensation.

“Still.” Peter pouted a little, looking up at him for a second. He blinked against the light spray of water ricocheting off of the shower walls and Tony’s body. He didn’t want to embarrass himself like that any more.

Tony frowned slightly at whatever expression he saw on the younger’s face. “Hey,” he said softly. “It’s okay, I mean it, baby.” He paused for a second, looking like he was considering something, before opening his mouth again, a glint in his eyes. “It, uh, I actually think it’s pretty hot, feels good, too. I promise.” A lopsided smile pulled at his lips as he let his fingers scratch lightly against the boy’s scalp.

Peter felt his cheeks flush. If it felt good for Tony, maybe they could explore it another time. But today he just wanted to get acquainted with this new part of Tony’s body without feeling like he was going to throw up. He slowly started taking the man’s cock again, making sure he was patient (well, as patient as he could be) and didn’t force himself too much. Closing his eyes momentarily, he focused on relaxing the muscles of his throat and breathing through his nose.

And it worked, he was able to ignore his gag reflex and start bobbing his head while taking the entire length down his throat.

Tony dropped his head back, chest heaving with labored breaths as he kept his hold on Peter’s hair. His hips twitched forward with the teen’s movements, trying to keep himself at least partially composed.

Although it wasn’t really working.

“Pete, this...okay, fuck,” he swore under his breath. “I won’t last much longer like this,” he warned. “You feel so good, baby, so good for me.”

Peter hummed in acknowledgment, but didn’t still or slow down his actions. Hearing Tony’s praise only made him more determined to make the older man come apart for him. His head kept bobbing, taking Tony’s cock down easier every time.

Maybe it would have been nice to go further, have Tony press him against the wall and fuck him until he couldn’t remember his own name. But there were still things he wanted to get done today and there would always be plenty of time for sex later. He was happy to just please Tony for the moment. That was more than enough for him.

Tony groaned softly, but it was strained. He was quickly nearing his release and they both knew it.

Peter felt the man’s cock throb against his tongue and he switched up his technique, quickly moving to just suckling at the sensitive tip again. Making his eyes intentionally wide, he looked up at his partner from underneath his wet eyelashes as he made a show of letting his tongue peak out as he licked around the head before resuming the light, teasing suction.

And that was Tony’s undoing.

His fingers tightened in Peter’s hair again, tugging slightly as his hips thrust forward through his high.

Peter moaned around him, tasting the first burst of cum as it hit his tongue. He kept his head bobbing slightly, just keeping his lips wrapped around the tip as he worked the older man through his orgasm.

“Jesus, Peter,” Tony breathed, legs trembling as he came down from his high. He pulled his softening cock from Peter’s lips, eyes not leaving the teenager’s face.

Peter stared up at Tony, something fluttering deep in his belly as he knelt there on the shower floor.

But it wasn’t arousal this time.

Maybe it was the wrong time. But as far as he was concerned, whenever he wanted it to happen was the right time.

“Marry me, Tony,” he said softly, eyes shining as he gazed upon the man that he loved. "I know that this is all going fast, so fast, but I love you more than anything in the world. I can't imagine life without you, and I don't ever want us to be apart again. So will you… Will you marry me?"

It wasn’t anything like how he’d dreamed it. Not anywhere close. But it still felt right. It was them.

Tony's deep brown eyes were wide and glistening with unshed tears that he tried to blink away. "Peter," he whispered, "Come up here. I would get down there with you but my knees don't work like they used to." A soft chuckle escaped his lips.

Peter stood slowly, wincing at the slight ache in his own knees before pulling Tony completely out from under the water to look at him. “I don’t want you to say I’m too young, or it’s too fast or anything like that.” But he knew that he wouldn’t. Because Tony would never.

But especially not when everything Peter wanted got to happen.

Instead of responding, Tony took Peter’s hands in his before pulling him in for a gentle kiss. It was soft and sweet, but there were still the hints of passion behind it that made Peter’s heartbeat quicken.

By the time they pulled away, Peter had almost forgotten what had inspired the kiss in the first place. Tony’s kisses had the ability to do that, they took his breath away and made him forget anything but Tony himself.

Then he was reminded when Tony kissed his forehead and whispered against his skin. “This is the beginning of our forever, Pete. Yes. Of course I’ll marry you.” Another chuckle, this one a bit louder and slightly baffled sounding. “Although it is a little surreal for this to be happening when I just came down your throat.”

A shocked cackle erupted from Peter’s mouth before he could stop it and he wrapped his arms around Tony’s neck, hiding his smile and laughter in the crook of his neck. “Shut up,” he muttered halfheartedly, content in the older man’s hold. He pressed a soft kiss over Tony’s pulse and let his lips linger there as the water cascaded over his back.

What a beautiful forever it would be.

***

Peter was okay with how the proposal had gone. It had felt right and the outcome was exactly what he’d wanted. He was thrilled, even if the proposal itself was a bit...unorthodox. So were he and Tony.

But he wanted a wedding, wanted the experience and the memory of having that moment with the man that he loved. He wanted to look into Tony’s eyes and say ‘I do’, and to hear those words repeated back to him. And he wanted it to be the wedding he’d always planned in his dreams.

The issue was that he wanted it to happen as soon as possible, since he knew on some level that things couldn’t last forever. And planning an entire wedding was difficult.

“It has to be perfect,” he mumbled to himself, frustrated.

Perfection shouldn’t have been hard to achieve in his simulation. The program was designed for ‘perfect’. But things still felt off no matter what he did.

Or maybe he just felt off about the whole thing, somewhere deep in the back of his mind. That didn’t mean he had to acknowledge the feeling, though.

Peter shook his head like that would shake the thoughts away. Then he got started planning out more of what he wanted to do, writing notes and ideas in a little notebook he’d found after they’d gotten dressed to go about their day. He would have included Tony in the planning, but…well, he wasn’t really sure how that would work.

Could this Tony have actually shared his own ideas on the matter? Or would it have just been all of Peter’s ideas repeated back to him anyways?

The teen honestly wasn’t sure. So he determined that it would be easier for him to keep his sense of the reality if he just went about doing all of the necessary preparation himself. That would be okay, he could do it.

They already had the ring. He’d given it to Tony after their shower, his heart pounding as he slipped it onto the man’s finger. It looked perfect on him. Just as Peter knew it would. Now he just needed one for himself, something complementary.

Figuring out the venue wouldn’t be difficult. He could have the wedding anywhere he wanted, nothing was off limits. But he knew where he wanted it to be. At least...he had a pretty good idea. He had always envisioned something grand and luxurious, something worthy of Tony. The man was a billionaire, for fuck’s sake.

After that, there wasn’t too much left to take care of. He didn’t want anything big. Although the half-formed guest list in his mind was fairly impossible, he could come back to that. What was impossibility when EDITH was involved?

***

The man gave a heavy sigh as he sat in front of the holo-display, one hand moving up to rub across the skin of his head. He spun around in his chair to make eye contact with the other individuals scattered throughout the room. “Any news? Anyone? Please tell me we’ve got something.” The frustration and exasperation were clear in his voice.

Only silence followed as the agents looked at each other uneasily, no one daring to speak up.

Fury slapped his hand down on the desk. “Why the fuck,” he ground out, “can the world’s leading intelligence agency not locate a goddamn teenager?”

Rolling her eyes, Agent Hill walked into the briefing room, shooting a long-suffering look at the director. “He obviously doesn’t want to be found, Nick.”

He made an affronted face, mouth opening. “Do I look like I give a rat’s ass what Peter Parker wants? What I want is to find his ass and bring it back here so we can do some damage control on this shit storm!” He turned to face the agents again, staring them all down. “And since you incompetent motherfuckers can't find him, the least you can do is bring me someone who can!”

One of the agents, clearly the greenest of the bunch, hesitantly raised her hand as she turned away from her computer screen. “Where should we start, Director Fury, sir?”

Nick scoffed, throwing his hands up in the air. “Can you all do nothing on your own? I’m not your mother, figure it out!”

She narrowed her eyes at him, almost like a challenge. “I actually have an idea, sir. One of Peter’s closest contacts is an Edward Leeds-”

Fury shook his head before she could finish. “No, absolutely not.”

The young agent pressed on, rising up out of her chair. “With all due respect, Director, I think he might be our best bet. We know from Stark’s files that Mr. Leeds is an extremely capable programmer, he’s helped Mr. Parker alter Stark tech in the past.”

“With all due respect, Agent Oliver, absolutely fucking not.” Fury looked at her, eyebrows knit together. “No. No, no, I’m not recruiting another damn teenager.” Obviously there were enough issues and liabilities just from Parker being involved. And while it was for a different purpose, he would rather just stick with adults.

“But Peter’s more likely to listen to him. And he knows his way around tech,” Hill pointed out, casting a look in the younger woman’s direction. “I think Oliver’s right, Nick. He really is our best bet.”

Fury shot her a weak glare before pinching the bridge of his nose. He didn’t want to agree. The last thing he wanted was to deal with another teenager. “Well, I’m not babysitting him.”

***

Ned hadn’t heard from Peter since the big announcement from the Bugle and that asshole J. Jonah Jameson. And what kind of a name was that? He wasn’t sure that anyone had been in contact with his best friend, which was worrisome considering he’d just been outed to the entire world. He’d sent him a dozen messages and called even more, but there had been silence. The texts weren’t even read.

So he wasn’t as surprised as he probably should have been when he received a secure message with an obvious SHIELD logo on the bottom. He may have freaked out for a minute out of sheer excitement, though.

“This is so cool,” he mumbled to himself once he’d calmed down, eyes quickly raking over the message to see what it was about.

He smiled weakly when he got to the point. ‘Locating Peter Parker.’ Of course that’s what it was about. Why else would SHIELD ever contact him? “Guy in the chair,” he whispered, automatically responding to the message.

He really wanted his best friend to come home. It couldn’t be good for Peter to be out there all alone. “I hope you’re alright, man,” he thought aloud after sending his reply.

If he couldn’t find Peter, who could?

[lostintranslaation]

history always repeats itself

By @wh0doyouthinkyouareiam for @clover-roseee for the @friendly-neighborhood-exchange!

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Ned Leeds, Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Ned Leeds, Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Pepper Potts

Summary: When Peter gets bitten by a spider at the Stark's lake house, he thinks he's got it all under control. He's gotten through a spider bite once before, right?

(hint: he doesn't quite have it all under control)

Read it on AO3

Peter shrugs his backpack over his shoulder and winces. He’s been busy recently and between trying to finish out his senior year strong and helping with May’s homeless shelter liaison program and spending more time with the Starks, Peter hadn’t had much time to go out on patrol. So yeah, he was out of shape. But was it normal to be this sore?  

“Peter? Can you hear me?” Ned cranes his neck around Peter’s locker. Peter blinks.

“Uh, yeah.” Peter closes his locker. “Sorry, I just zoned out for a minute. What were you saying?” He shoves a knuckle into his eye to counteract the pressure building in his head.

“Have you seen the new Star Wars movies yet, the ones that came out during the blip? I think there’s, like, two, maybe three. They switched the actress for Rey, but I heard they’re pretty good other than that.”

“I haven’t, have you?” Peter pulls his hood over his head as the two of them push open the doors of the school to start their daily walk to the train back to Queens. At least some things never change.

“No. Haven’t gotten the chance yet, y’know? Been a little busy. But,” they stop at the bottom of the stairs, “I got a new Lego set from the latest episode for my birthday last week. I was thinking, if you’re free tonight, we could put it together and binge all the movies that came out while we were gone?”

Peter sighs and leans on the railing. “That sounds like a lot of fun, but I promised Ton- Mister Stark that I would babysit Morgan tonight.”

Ned’s jaw drops. “You call him Tony?” Peter just smiles and looks down. “Are you guys… close? It seems like you’ve been hanging out with the Starks a lot recently. Babysitting tonight, the lake house last weekend…” Peter huffs out a laugh.

“Last weekend was just to help them out. They needed a couple boxes moved in their garage and Pepper called me to help out because Tony’s still… not in moving-boxes condition. But yeah, ever since… you know, he’s been acting different. Nicer, I guess. He’s like, actually wanting to spend time with me, which is a nice change.”

“Well, either way it’s cool.”

“Yeah,” Peter agrees. “Hey, I gotta go. Tony told me to just come to their apartment after school got out.” He starts walking backwards. “But text me about a raincheck for our Star Wars binge, okay?” Ned nods and Peter turns around to start the three-block walk to the Stark’s Manhattan apartment.

It’s chilly out, the kind of cold where fall is fading into winter and the sky is grey and the streets are wet even though it’s been a couple days since it last rained. Peter tries not to focus on the headache building behind his eyes and the stiffness in his neck and hopes that Morgan will be up for a nice, calm movie night or something like that.

Knowing her, she probably won’t be, though. She’ll probably want to play horses or something like that and Peter will have no choice but to trudge around their apartment with her on his back, perfecting her princess wave she’d tried so hard to teach him but couldn’t quite accomplish.

And despite all this, despite the fact that when she gave him the eyes he was physically incapable of telling her ‘no’, he wouldn’t change a thing. He couldn’t change a thing, not even if he wanted to. The first time he’d babysat her, she’d asked for a juice pop and then the next thing he knew it was a couple hours later and they were sitting on the couch watching Sofia the First, three juice pops in. When Pepper and Tony returned, they just offered sympathetic smiles that said that they’d been there before and sent him home with a nice check.

The doorman at the Starks apartment building was nice and Peter sometimes would buy him a coffee if he had a little extra cash when he came over to visit. But today all Peter could do was offer up a weak ‘hi Mister Hudson’ and a tight-lipped smile.

“Hello Mister Parker,” he greets as Peter walks through the doors. “Up to see the Starks?” he asks before pressing the floor number in the elevator. And after not receiving a verbal response, “Rough day at the office?”

Peter sighs and leans back against the cool wall of the elevator as it starts its ascent. He pulls his jacket tighter around himself and tries to suppress a shiver. “I’m just tired. Nothing new,” Peter says. “How are you?”

“I’m doing great. You know, Ava had her baby a coupla days ago.” The man’s wrinkled face splits into a giant smile and Peter can’t help but smile himself.

“Congratulations! How does it feel to be a grandpa?”

“Oh, it’s incredible. She's incredible,” he flips open his creased leather tri-fold wallet to show Peter a photo of a pink squishy baby with giant eyes and a small tuft of dark hair atop her head.

“What’s her name?” The elevator dings and the doors slide open.

“Nina,” the doorman replies, still smiling fondly on the photo in his hands.

Peter claps the man on the back. “She’s beautiful, Mister Hudson. Have a great rest of your day.”

“You too, Peter. Try and get some rest.” The look in the man’s eyes is sincere. Peter smiles and the doors slide shut again.

Peter leans against the wall in the entryway and kicks off his shoes near the door. He closes his eyes and hangs his head, but the moment of solace does not last long before Morgan’s footsteps come pattering down the hallway to greet him.

“Peter!” He kneels down and pulls her into a hug.

“Hi Morgie.”

“Do you wanna have a tea party tonight? Mister Bear is gonna be there.”

“That sounds like a blast.” He straightens back out and immediately doubles back over, an involuntary groan escaping from his lips as his stomach cramps. He sways on his feet and a wave of nausea rises in his throat but he swallows it back down. Clipped footsteps echo down the hall.

“Heya Pete,” Tony rests a hand on the top of Morgan’s head and she squirms out from underneath his touch. “You feeling okay?”

Peter forces his face into a tight smile and straightens back out. “Mmmhmm,” his voice is higher than normal and he clears his throat. “Just peachy.”

“Do you have the keys?” Pepper asks from down the hall and Tony answers back in the affirmative.

“Alright, we gotta get going.” Tony extends an arm to Pepper and she laces hers around. “We shouldn’t be back too late, maybe elevenish. You know the drill. Dinner and bedtime like normal.” Peter nods and tries to ignore the tension building in the back of his neck.

Pepper walks down the hall and slings her purse over her shoulder before kneeling down to give Morgan a peck on the top of her head. “Be good for Peter, okay?”

Morgan nods and beams up at Peter, “We’re having a tea party, right Petey?”

Peter musters up a small smile to return to her. His head is pounding now and he leans against the wall for support. “Yep!”

“Well don’t have too much fun,” Tony shrugs his coat over his shoulders and him and Pepper step into the waiting elevator. They wave as the door closes.

“Bye Mommy! Bye Daddy!” Morgan waves back.

She takes Peter’s hand and looks up at him. “Ready?” Peter nods. The headache is blinding now and he can hardly think straight. The room is spinning and waves of nausea roll over him to the point where he has to rest his hands on his knees until the bout passes.

“You okay?” Morgan rests a hand on Peter’s sleeve and sharp spikes of pain race up his veins towards his neck. He coils away from her touch and ends up on the ground. This can’t be good. He takes a breath and rolls up the sleeve of his sweatshirt. A raised red bump greets him.

The Starks’ garage was a mess. Old bots and other projects that Tony didn’t need anymore littered the floor and boxes of old tools and car parts were stacked up to the windows. At one point, Peter moved a stack of firewood into the house near the hearth. There was a nest of spiders wedged between the logs and Peter swears he saw one bite his arm. But he was sure it was nothing to be worried about. He was Spider-Man, after all. Whatever spider had bitten him, it was sure to be no worry.

But now, as he swallows back the bile rising in his throat and his arm that had been bitten throbbed so deeply he could barely think, he wasn’t so sure.

The skin around the bite was red and swollen but other than that didn’t look too abnormal. Peter rolls down his sleeve and forces his face into a smile. “I’m okay, Morgs.” Her face is unconvinced so he takes her hand with his good arm. “I’m okay.”

“Promise?” She holds out her pinky.

“Promise.” He hooks her pinky around hers and she nods. “Are you hungry? I think we should eat before we have our tea party.”

“Can we have dino nuggets?”

Peter pushes himself up off the floor and takes a moment to catch his breath before responding. “Whatever the princess wants.”

She takes his hand and pulls him towards the kitchen, slower than she normally would, but with all the usual enthusiasm. His feet blunder underneath him and legs float as if disconnected from the rest of his body. A bead of sweat races down his temple and he catches it with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

In the kitchen, he blows out a shaky breath and digs in the freezer for the chicken nuggets. His chest feels full of tissue paper and he can’t suck in a full breath.

Once the nuggets are in the oven and a glass of juice has been poured for Morgan, Peter searches through the cupboards for some tylenol or ibuprofen or anything really. Once he gets his hands on a bottle of ibuprofen, his shaking hands are barely able to twist the cap off, but once he does, he shakes out a handful of the tiny orange pills and swallows them, chasing them down with a glass of apple juice.

Some time passes and Morgan plays her music and Peter is almost able to take his mind off of the warning buzzing in the back of his neck and the increasingly painful stomach cramps that come and go like a wretched tide.

Once they’ve both eaten, (Morgan more than Peter, for once.) Morgan leads Peter down the hall to her room and shows him to a seat at a table set up with her pink-and-white porcelain tea set and stuffed animals resting in their own chairs in front of their own teacups and saucers.

Morgan picks up the teapot and “pours” the tea for herself and Peter and each of the guests at the table. Peter zones out for a moment, but Morgan must have said something to him because she’s staring at him expectantly.

“Petey?”

“Yeah?” Peter blinks. His stomach is full of bricks and it aches like it never has before. He clamps his arms around his middle and breathes as deeply as he is able.

“I said do you want sugar,” Morgan sighs, exasperated.

“I think I’m good.” Peter replies. He can no longer ignore the pain and his sweatshirt is damp with sweat.

Morgan sets the sugar bowl down on the table and rests her forearms on the white tablecloth. “You’re not very fun to play with today.”

Peter looks up and his head pounds. “I’m sorry babe. I just don’t feel very good. Do you want to watch a movie or something?”

Morgan sighs. “I guess. But only if it’s Nemo.”

“Nemo it is. You go get it started and I’ll be right in.”

As Morgan bounces off to the movie room, Peter stumbles into the bathroom, leaving the light off to ease his headache. He rests his head on the cool granite of the bathroom counter and breathes for a moment, working up the courage to fight back the nausea that threatened to cripple him. His heart is racing and so is his mind, trying to match up his symptoms with something, anything that he could remember from his time being a Boy Scout when he was younger and Ben was still around. It almost felt like it might be a black widow bite, but wouldn’t there be fang marks? Or maybe there wouldn’t, Peter doesn’t know.

“Petey? Are you coming?” Morgan’s voice pulls him from his head. He splashes water onto his face and takes small deliberate steps to avoid toppling on his way to the movie room. It’s only a couple rooms down the hall, but still, Peter is sweating and his legs are trembling and he practically collapses down onto the couch when he arrives. Breaths come in labored pulls and his head is swimming in pain.

Morgan orders FRIDAY to start the movie and FRIDAY complies, but Peter has a difficult time focusing on the movie, or anything besides controlling his breathing and not puking all over the rug.

Peter doesn’t know how, but somehow, he was able to make it through the movie and to Morgan’s bedtime. She had fallen asleep on his shoulder and he somehow hadn’t noticed until after the movie had ended.

He moves to wake her and everything hurts. He doesn’t remember feeling this horrible since the first spider bite. Oh no. It couldn’t be happening again, right? No, right. Yeah. It couldn’t happen again. Unless…

“Is it over?” Morgan sits up and rubs the sleep from her eyes.

“It’s over, baby. Time for bed. You should go and use the potty and brush your teeth really quick so we can get you to bed. It’s getting late.”

“I would do that all really quick if I could get a juice pop.”

Peter sighs. “Alright. One juice pop. Then bed.”

“Deal.” She hops up from the couch and bounds toward the kitchen.

Peter leans forward, an involuntary groan escaping from his lips as his stomach cramps again. When he stands, his vision blacks out, and he comes crashing down to the floor.

Tony’s watch buzzes on his real arm. Peter’s photo lights up the display. He pulls his phone from his pocket and picks up the call.

“Hey Pete, how’s it going? Everything alright on the home front?”

“Daddy?” Morgan’s voice is shrill, like it only is when she’s scared.

“Morgan? Are you okay?” This grabs Pepper’s attention and she comes closer to Tony and the two of them walk away from the center of the social circle to the outskirts where they can hear better.

“It’s Peter,” she says. “I think he fell down and now he’s sleeping really hard and I can’t wake him up.” Her voice wavers and Tony’s heart speeds up, fluttering and skipping over beats like they’re nonessential.

“It’s okay Morgie. You did great. Can you tell me where he fell?” Pepper’s eyes are wide and Tony fights to keep his demeanor calm when all he wants to do is freak out.

“In the movie room.”

“Did he hit his head when he fell?”

“I…” Morgan whimpers, “I don’t know.”

“It’s okay babe. No worries. Everything is all good. Mommy and I are going to be home in just a couple minutes, okay? It’s all going to be okay.”

“Okay…”

“I’m going to give the phone to Mommy, okay? And we’ll be home really soon.”

“Okay.”

He hands the phone to Pepper and they leave the party in a whirlwind of curt goodbyes and squealing tires until they are back at the apartment and running through the lobby, barking inquiries about Peter’s condition at FRIDAY.

When the elevator doors finally open at their penthouse apartment, Tony and Pepper sprint down the hall to the movie room. When they finally get there, Tony’s stomach drops. It’s a sight no parent should ever have to see, one of their kids pale and sweaty and passed out on the floor while the other looks on with tears in her eyes and streaming down her cheeks.

Tony skids across the floor and his knees creak when he droops down close to Peter (he would pay for that later). “Peter? Time to wake up buddy. It’s not bedtime yet.” He cups Peter’s cheek and he can see Pepper ushering Morgan out of the room out of the corner of his eye.

Peter shifts under Tony’s touch and groans. His eyes open, just slightly, and then close again. “Come on buddy. Talk to me. You can do it.”

“T’ny?” Peter breathes. His face is so pale. Way too pale.

“Yep, it’s me buddy. What’s going on?”

“I,” his face scrunches in pain and he lets out a breath, “I dunno.”

“It’s okay bud. No worries. Everything’s gonna be fine. Cho’s on her way, but she’s about 20 minutes out. Be honest, can you wait that long? Or should I take you to the ER?”

“I dunno.”

“Okay, okay. That’s fine. We’re gonna get this all sorted out, no problemo here.”

Peter hums and closes his eyes. “Oh, no siree, we’re gonna want you to keep those peepers open right now, okay? Peter? Open up.”

Peter hums again and opens his eyes back up. He gasps and sits up suddenly, like he just realized what was happening. “Morgan?” Peter whips his head around searching for the girl and Tony manhandles Peter back to the ground.

“Morgan’s fine, kiddo. She’s with Pepper.”

He blows out a breath. “Okay, that’s good. That’s good.”

“How long have you been feeling this miserable bud?” Tony maneuvers himself so that Peter’s head on his thigh and he tangles his fingers in Peter’s sweaty curls.

“Since yesterday. Got bit by a spider.”

“Again bud? You have quite the luck with spiders, huh?”

Peter squints up at Tony. “Could you turn the lights down? Head hurts.”

“FRIDAY, lights down to 15 percent.” She complies.

“Tony, I don’t—“ Peter claps his hand over his mouth and gags.

“Woah, it’s okay. It’s okay. Let’s get you—“ he pushes Peter up into a sitting position and rubs his back. Peter gags again and vomit splashes onto the dark carpet. “There you go. You’re okay.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sor—“ he doubles over again and groans.

“Hey, it’s all good. No apologies here. I was thinking this rug was getting to be out-of-style anyways.” Peter just whimpers.

“It hurts Tony. Like, really bad.”

“I know bud. I’m so sorry.”

Peter leans into Tony’s chest and Tony rubs his shoulders. “Make it stop,” Peter whines. “Make it stop, Tony, please.”

Tony holds Peter closer. Peter is hot. Like, just-ran-three-miles-in-the-August-heat hot. “FRI, ETA on Cho?”

“Helen Cho will arrive in seven minutes.” Even though she’s just an AI, Tony swears her tone is sympathetic.

“Can you tell me where it hurts bud?”

“My stomach and… my— oh Tony my head too.”

“Cho’s gonna be here any minute bud. Just hang in there.”

“Mmhmm,” Peter nods into Tony’s chest and he can tell that he’s crying. It makes his heart ache.

The next seven minutes pass slowly and painfully, but somehow, they pass. When Cho gets there, she takes the situation by storm and all Tony can do is watch.

“Did he say what kind of spider it was?” She pricks the back of Peter’s hand with a needle and hands Tony the saline bag with instruction to squeeze.

“Uh, no he didn’t.”

“How long has it been since he was bitten?”

“36 hours, max.”

“And what are his symptoms?”

“He said his head hurt, and his stomach. Fever and sweating. Nausea and vomiting too.”

She holds his eyelids up and flashes a penlight into both of his eyes. “Anything you want to add, Peter?”

“Hard to breathe. Can’t really move my legs.”

“Got it. It sounds to me like this might be a black widow bite. Were there two fang marks at the bite site?”

“I don’t… I don’t remember.”

“It’s okay. No worries. I’m going to give you muscle relaxants, painkillers, and something for the nausea.” She digs around in her kit and produces three syringes that she systematically plunges into Peter’s saline line.

“Givit to me straight, doc,” Peter slurs. “How long do I got?”

Cho huffs our a laugh. “You’ll be fine, Peter.”

“Oh goodie.”

“Yes ‘oh goodie’. You’ll still be hurting for a couple more hours, but we just gotta let the venom flush out of your system. So that means lots and lots of water.”

“Hope I don’ drown.”

“Looks like those painkillers are kicking in nicely,” Cho smiles as she packs up her bag. “Call me if anything changes.”

“Thank you.” Tony puts a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s no problem.”

As Peter fades in and out of consciousness, Tony works on getting him cleaned up and changed into a pair of Tony’s old sweats, carefully threading the IV line through the sleeves of his sweat-damp hoodie. The bite is swollen and red and Tony feels sick at the thought of Peter feeling so horrible for so long.

Tony wedges his arm under Peter’s and the two of them wobble over to Peter’s room together. Peter collapses into the bed and Tony helps him get comfortable, pulling up the comforter and brushing his slightly-too-long curls off of his clammy forehead.

“Daddy?” Tony whips his head around.

“Morgan? Aren’t you supposed to be asleep right now?” He sits on the edge of Peter’s bed.

Morgan just shrugs and fists her pajama shirt in her hands. He beckons her over and pats his knee. “C’mere madam secretary.” He pulls her close and bumps heads with her. “Pete’s fine. See?” He points over at Peter, and Peter raises his arm in a pathetic wave.

“Hiii Morgie,” Peter says, a touch too loud. “I’m gettin’ aaalllll better. No problems here, no siree.”

“See babe? He’s fantastic. A little high, but other than that, he’s doing great.”

Morgan looks back up at Tony and sniffles. “Are you sure?”

“Sure? Honey, I’m positive.” Morgan nods and crawls up into the bed with Peter, where he tucks her under his arm.

“Well,” Tony slaps his knees, “I think I’m going to turn in for the night. Holler if you need anything, okay?” Peter mumbles something along the lines of ‘okay’ and Tony switches off the lamp. “Love you guys.”

“Love you too,” Peter mumbles and Tony’s heart melts.

[missnxthingg]

At First Sight | She’s Just Tired Prequel

A/N: First, I wanna thank you all for +1K notes on “She’s Just Tired”. I loved writing that request just as much many people liked to read it. I wanted to post it when it hit 1K, but I was away for a trip with my friends and just got to finish it today (because I’m inspired by a boy I met). If you haven’t read “She’s Just Tired” yet, there’s no problem, because this is a prequel! So you can read this first and than read this post right after. It’s a bit long, but I hope you enjoy it!

Words: 9.1K

Pairing: Peter Parker x Female Reader

Warnings: Pure sugar, I feel sorry for you diabetes.

masterlist | she’s just tired

Peter Parker was always late for decathlon meetings since his first year of high school. This year, for the first meeting, wouldn't be different. He arrived when everyone was already sitting down at the table, eating the cupcakes MJ always brings for the first meetings since she became the leader after Liz Allen graduated.

"You're late, loser." MJ said, cleaning her mouth from the whipped cream.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay, we're used to have you coming in really late." MJ said and Peter nodded, glancing over the table to find an available seat.

A girl was sitting at the table, one he had never seen before. She was glancing at her nails, playing with them. She was shaking, clearly nervous, and that only made Peter think she was cute. Actually she was gorgeous, and he thinks his heart skipped a beat when he saw her. He immediately sat next to her, leaving his things over the table, getting a cupcake right after.

"So, we have a new member today. This is (Y/N), and she is new in school. She's going to spend a lot of time with us, since she was from her old school's decathlon. So be nice to her." Mr. Harrington said, starting the meeting for once. "Oh, and Peter, since you're late, you're going to show the school for (Y/N)." Peter nodded and glanced at her with a shy smile.

"Hi, I-I'm Peter. Peter Parker."

"I'm (Y/N) (Y/L/N)." She smiled nervously, tension coming from both sides.

"I can see you're nervous. Don't be, everyone here is nice. Well, everyone except Flash." He glanced at the boy eating his third cupcake across the table.

"I noticed, he's been calling me fresh meat all day." She rolled her eyes and Peter nodded.

"Don't mind him. He's an idiot."

The meeting didn't take long, they arranged the new schedule for their meetings and trainings, ate some more cupcakes and they were dismissed. (Y/N) left soon and Peter followed her.

"(Y/N), wait for me." He smiled when he approached her. "Let me show you around."

"Okay." She smiled shyly, following him around the halls.

"So, what school are you coming from?"

"Bronx High School of Science. But it's too far away from my apartment, and my mom wanted me to study here."

"Where do you live?"

"Queens." He giggled, opening a wide smile.

"Seriously? I’m from Queens too. Forest Hills.”

“I’m from Sunnyside.” He smiled and kept walking around with her. 

“That’s not too far away from where I live. I can walk you home sometime.”

“Yeah, it will be great.” She smiled to him, making him melt with that gorgeous face she has. “I could really use making some friends around here.”

“I don’t have many friends around here, mostly Ned but he’s not here today. So, I don’t think I’m your best choice to start making friends.” He said, shrugging, afraid of her reaction. Maybe she would just turn around and leave. But she chuckled and shook her head.

“But you’re the only one who has been nice to me all day.” 

They kept walking together, talking about each other and about school. He showed her everything and gave her some advice on how to survive that school. She was really funny and very easy to be around, it made Peter comfortable, more comfortable than he had ever been. They had a strong connection since the beginning, it was like they’ve been friends for life.

“So, this is Midtown High. And I hope that you stick around.”

“I probably will.”

“I have to leave now. I have an internship to get to. But I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

“Of course, I hope to have someone to sit with during lunch, because I sat in the library today.”

“Well, you can always sit with me and Ned.” He said with a big smile on his face.

“Thank you.” She kissed his cheek and both blushed so hard, that it was the cutest thing in the world. “For showing me around and being nice to me.”

“You make it really easy being nice yourself.” He smiled. “Goodbye.”

“Bye!” She said, watching him walk away.

Peter went patrolling that day, and a smile didn’t leave his face during the rest of the day. He swinged through the streets of Queens, wondering if he would bump into her. He wondered if she would like Spider Man, or if she would like to know he’s Spider Man. She didn’t leave his mind for a second that day. Once he decided it was a calm night in Queens, he went home to have dinner with May.

“May, I’m home.” He shouted from his room, taking his suit off to change into some more comfortable clothes.

“Hey sweetie, come here." Peter came to her with a big smile on his face. "Someone looks extremely happy today."

"It was just a really good day." He said, sitting next to her.

"Really? Nice. What's her name?" 

"(Y/N). She's new in school." He sighed and May smiled, pushing him slightly with her elbow.

"Tell me about her."

"Nooo, this is too embarrassing! I'm going to bed."

"Oh Pete, no! C'mere." She pulled him back but he got up to get something to eat.

"There's really nothing to talk about her. She's just nice, and very pretty." May couldn't see him from where he was standing, but he was smiling a lot. "I just made a new friend, okay? It's nice to have more friends other than Ned."

"I know. I'm sorry to embarrass you. But you know you can always talk about this stuff to me."

"I know May." He finished his sandwich, and kissed the top of her head, before going back to his room.

The following first month of classes were good. (Y/N) sat with MJ and Betty, along with some other girls from her debate team, completely forgetting about Peter or his invite to join him and Ned during break. Still, she said hi to him whenever she saw him in the hall or when they met in shared classes. He would see her mostly in decathlon, when she was answering all of the questions correctly, showing how smart she was.

"I guess someone is taking your place of the best in the team, Peter." Ned said and Peter shrugged.

"I don't mind, especially if it's her."

He was amazed by how intelligent she was, doing her own thing and always answering questions correctly, or always having something to say in debate class. (Y/N) was simply good at everything, and that's probably why he found it strange when she asked help with physics. 

"I really need help, do you think you can help me? Maybe over a coffee or something. I'll pay."

"You don't have to pay (Y/N), just meet me at this place after class, it's in Queens. I'm gonna help you." He wrote on a small post it and gave it to her.

"So tomorrow after class?"

"I'll be there." She smiled and kissed his cheek before leaving.

"Thank you Pete, you're the best." 

He dressed up so nicely just to go study with her. And there she was, just being herself, waiting for him in a table in the corner, lost between her own thoughts, concentrated on a book resting on the table. Peter felt something on his chest, something very different, one that he never felt before, not even with Liz Allen. He could stand back and admire her for a long time, but he didn't want to keep her waiting.

"Hey, am I late?" He asked and she shook her head no, smiling to him.

"No, I got here earlier to go through some homework." She said, closing what she was doing on her notebook, focusing on the boy in front of her. "Oh, you smell nice."

"Thank you." He blushed, not letting his wide smile go. "Do you want to order something?"

"Yes. I want a iced coffee, with the whipped cream and sprinkles."

"Oh God, you're such a kid." He laughed at her order and hide her face between her hands. He got up to get their order while she organized their stuff to study. It took awhile, but he came back with their coffees in hands. "Here's one for my 5 year old kid, and another for me."

"I'm gonna start crying."

He laughed and got one napkin and a pen, writing something down for her. "Cute, but with a really bad taste in coffee. Still, cute." He handed it to her and she kept it on her bag, blushing very hard.

"So, Petey. I need help because I don't know what half of these words mean."

"It's easy, come on." He sat next to her and started to explain, and she met him halfway, understanding everything he was saying. It took a whole afternoon, but she caught up with him after a long study session.

"Well it was easy indeed."

"See, I told you. Also, you're incredibly smart, I bet you didn't even need my help."

"But I wanted some company." She smiled to him and they kept staring at each other for a while, until he broke the silence.

"Are you hungry? We can order something to eat."

"A pie would be nice."

The date went on for at least one more hour, they tried to study more, but they couldn't concentrate on the smart jokes Peter kept cracking around, making her laugh loudly, and the stupid kids songs she kept singing to him. 

"I guess I have to go. It's getting dark. Let's go pay."

"It's my treat." Peter said, getting up before her to pay.

"Thank you." She blushed, helping him by organizing their things before leaving.

"Come on, I'll walk you home

Peter walked her home right after they were done, considering it was on his way to the subway and he couldn't let her go home alone so close to being dark.

"I'm sorry for not sitting to you in lunch. It's just, MJ and Betty were so nice and we were hooked on a conversation."

"It's okay. You need to make friends, it's not like you're gonna get them by sitting with me and Ned, listening to us talk about Star Wars."

"No! You guys are really nice, I would love to talk to you about Star Wars." She smiled to him, slowing down her pace. "This is my building."

"Oh, okay."

"Thank you for today." She hugged him, and what was meant to be an awkward hug turned out to be a very nice one. She held his middle and he held her by the shoulder. "For paying and helping me."

"Anytime, (N/N)."

"Good night Pete."

"Good night."

He was too energetic to simply get the subway. Instead, he changed clothes in an alley and swing home, doing a lot of flips. Today made him extremely happy and all he wanted to do was scream in excitement. It was a good night, and he even did his small patrolling very happy, again, because of the same girl.

The next day, she met him early in the halls, and gave him some homemade cookies baked by her grandmother, just to thank him for the previous day. They met again in chemistry class, where they were partnered up by their teacher. And when lunch came, she saw him passing with his friend and called him.

"Hey Pete, why don't you guys sit with us?" She asked with a warm smile on her face. (Y/N) was sitting along with Betty and MJ.

"Okay." He said and Ned shrugged, following his friend.

Ned knew his best friend was falling for that girl, and how his eyes glow whenever he sees her. Completely heart eyes emoji. And they were close, like the inside jokes type of close, laughing a lot together. He even shared some of his fries with her. Also, she stood up for him when Flash came around to bully him during the following week.

"Sup Penis Parker. Did your mom dress you up today? Oh right…"

"Flash, seriously, go find something else to do. Also, he has a name."

"Oh, so you and New Meat are a thing? Good to know." He pointed to both of them and Peter step closer to him.

"Don't you dare say anything about her, or I'll break your fucking face." Peter said with an angry voice. "You can say anything about me, but don't you dare say anything about her."

"Come on Pete, he's not worthy it." She pulled Peter to go away, but still, they could listen to what Flash said.

"So you are a thing! I knew it!"

(Y/N) pulled him to an empty classroom, only to see he was crying. Red and puffy eyes, with wet cheeks. She didn't know what to do, so she locked the door and kneeled in front of the chair he was now sitting, resting her hands on his knees.

"Hey, don't cry for a guy like Flash. He's not worth it."

"I'm not crying because of him." He tried to wipe some tears away, but some more were kept coming. "My mom and dad died when I was really young, and I was raised by my aunt May and uncle Ben, and he died many years ago. And every time Flash brings it up this way, my heart breaks. I know shouldn't care, sometimes I really don't, but in days like today, it really gets to me."

"I'm really sorry Peter." She wiped some tears away and tried to smile to comfort him. "Family stuff can be hard sometimes. God, my parents are hard too. But if you ever need anyone to talk to, even though we're not this close yet, you can always come to me."

"Thank you. Really." He sobbed, trying to calm himself down.

"Do you want a hug?"

"A hug would be nice, yeah." She held him for  while, trying to comfort him. He cried a little more, but something about her seemed to make him calm down. Maybe it was her finger running down his hair, or her soft way of talking to him. 

It was weird, but they grew their intimacy so fast, trusting each other to tell things they've never told anyone. It took a long time, like a month or two, but they practically became best friends, knowing a lot about the other, always hanging out. But their chemistry was undeniable, and both of them knew they were falling for each other, slowly opening their hearts to the world, but they never admitted it.

One night, a Wednesday one, Peter stayed up patrolling until it was 2 AM, when his phone oddly started to ring. Her name shining on the screen. Peter jumped into his room before answering it.

"Hello."

"Pete?" Her voice broke the silence from the other side of the line. She was sobbing, crying.

"(Y/N), what's wrong?"

"They had a fight, and my dad stormed out… I-I don't know where he went. I'm scared."

"Who are they? Your parents?

"Yeah."

"Do you want me to come over?" He asked and she started to cry harder.

"No, it's pretty late, I don't want you walking all the way over here. It's dangerous. W-We can just talk, it's okay."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I could use a hug tomorrow though." She sobbed, breathing deeply before continuing. "My mom thinks he's cheating and he claims that he's not, but the fight was ugly and now I'm locked in my room and I can't sleep because I'm crying, and in the end I just wanted to hear your voice."

"I'm here. You can always come to me."

“Thank you, Pete. You’ve been the best friend I’ve never really had before. I’m glad I have someone like you to be there for me.” Peter smiled, even though his heart ached to see her so hurt.

“Do you want me to do anything until you fall asleep?”

“Just talk to me. Tell me a story.” He pressed the spider on his suit, removing it to be only on his underwear under the cover to think about something to tell her.

“So, when I was a kid, May used to take me to eat ice cream at least once a month. It was a thing she used to do when uncle Ben was still alive. And it was a very nice thing we used to do. One day, I even ate a whole bunch of ice cream and it started to get out from my nose.”

“That’s disgusting!” She giggled for the first time that night, and that made his heart warm up. “Tell me another one.”

“I don’t have many stories.” He giggled. “I’m not a very interesting guy.”

“Yes, you are! Everyone is. Now, tell me like… The first time you’ve been in love, or liked someone.”

“Oh I don’t think I’ve ever loved someone like this. But, I used to like this girl, her name was Liz, but I didn’t really love her.”

“So you never loved anyone?”

“No, I don’t think so. But who knows, maybe I get the guts to ask my crush out.”

“You should, I bet you’ll make her really happy.” He smiled, thinking he wanted to ask her out the most. “More stories Parker.”

“I’ll just tell you how I became friends with Ned. It’s a long one, so maybe you’ll fall asleep to this one.”

Peter told her the whole story and soon she wasn’t answering him anymore, probably asleep now. He smiled, but let the story finish, to be sure she was really asleep.

“Maybe I’ll take your advice and ask you on a date. But tomorrow I just wanna hug you until you feel better. Now, sleep well my angel.”

The next day she looked horrible, like someone who cried her heart out until she slept. Peter’s world crumbled to not see her in such colorful clothes she normally wears, but in black jeans and a black hoodie, hair tied in a bun and absolutely no makeup, showing dark bags under her eyes. She smiled softly when she saw Peter, but it wasn’t one of her warm smiles. It was cold, like it could transmit her pain. But she was truly happy to see Peter, just couldn’t demonstrate it.

“Hey.” He said and she curled up in his embrace before saying anything. “Are you feeling better?”

“Not much. Dad was sleeping in the couch when I woke up for school. I didn’t feel like coming, but staying home was worse, but I’m not in the mood to watch the classes.”

“Do you wanna ditch? I know the perfect place. I can stay with you and you can let it all go.” She nodded and he dragged her to an old changing behind the gym, that wasn’t in use since Peter got into Midtown.

“Are you sure no one is coming here?” She asked and Peter nodded.

“The janitor only comes here on Fridays to clean it up a bit. But I’ve ditched many classes in here with Ned or alone. It’s a good place to think.”

“So why no one uses in here?”

“It’s the old girl’s locker room. They never come here because it’s small, including the lockers. Also, the shower is pretty awful, and water’s always cold. So they use the one inside school.” She nodded and he sat on the floor and she sat next to him, embracing his arm, resting her face on his shoulder.

“I'm sorry for being like this. I hate the ugly crying."

"It's okay. Everybody cries and you have a pretty good reason to do it." He caressed her knees with his thumb. "And I'm here if you wanna talk, or simply not talk."

"It's been so hard to see them fighting. And I'm holding it in, it's just good to talk to someone about it. I feel like they aren't my family anymore."

"You can build your own family. You have friends. Family doesn't mean you have to be blood related."

"I know." She started to play with his fingers and he entwined their pinkies.

"I swear I'll be here for you."  She smiled tenderly, looking at their fingers.

"I'll be here for you too. Cross my heart."

"And hope to die."

Peter tried everything to make her happy and forget about her parents situation. He even organized a bowling night with their friends to cheer her up. And the more time passed, the more they liked each other. One week, Peter was agitated, and Ned knew it was because he overheard some jocks talking about inviting the new girl on a date.

"She's gonna fall for one of those stupid idiots, and they are going to be prom queen and king, and live happily ever after." He rambled, nervously flicking his legs.

"That's why you need to get to her first. Because the way she looks at you, it almost looks like she's gonna explode."

"Really?" His eyes shined and he couldn't hold smile back.

"Yeah. Now, there she is, go talk to her." He pushed Peter into (Y/N)'s direction. She was organizing her locker when she saw him coming towards her.

"Hey Pete." She smiled to him, closing her locker to face him.

"Hey (Y/N)." He smiled back, trying to come up with words to ask her out.

"So, May told me about this old pizza place that is really good, and I was wondering if you wanted to go with me. A-as a date" He was nervous, heart beating faster than it ever had. "O-only if you want it to be a date, of course."

"I'd love to." She smiled and blushed so hard, it was the cutest thing in the world.

"G-good." He smiled wider, not containing his excitement. "Do you mind if we walk there? It's not far away from your place, and I don't have a car."

"I'm fine with everything, as long as I'm with you" She held his hand and his whole body shivered.

"So, Friday?" She nodded and he entwined their fingers.

"Walk me to class?" He nodded back and she pulled him to the hall, so they could walk together.

When the day came, Peter took the subway to her place and waited a long time until he called her to come down, just because he got there earlier than expected. She got down to open the door and once he laid his eyes on her, he got completely mesmerized by her. (Y/N) usually dresses up nicely for school, but today she looked different, completely gorgeous. She was wearing a tight plaid skirt and a black tshirt with converses. She usually doesn't wear much makeup, only when she had a really long study session. But today she had a light makeup on and glossy lips. Peter almost fainted because of how beautiful she looked like.

"Hi Pete." She smiled to him and he was still jaw dropped looking at her.

"H-hi." He smiled and blinked a couple times. "You look so beautiful. A-actually you look beautiful every day."

"Thank you." She blushed, looking down to her toes. "Let's go?"

"Let's go." He gave her space to walk beside him.

They talked about all sorts of things during their walk to the pizza place. Their conversation flowed naturally, and suddenly all that anxiety of being on a first date with the other was gone. They were comfortable around each other. So comfortable that they didn't even noticed when they started to hold hands, it was just natural, but still enough to make them feel the butterflies in their stomach.

Arriving at the pizza place, they sat in a booth on the same side, this way they could be closer to talk to each other. He kept throwing jokes at her and they had a really nice conversation. They ordered soda and one pizza to share.

“You like pepperoni right?” Peter asked and (Y/N) nodded.

“It’s my favorite.” She sipped her soda and rested it over the table. “And after it comes those with pineapple on top.”

“You’re disgusting.” Peter did an ugly face, making her giggle and push him away.

“You’re such a bore. Pineapples on the pizza are fun! They bring you sweetness in the middle of all of that salty food. I definitely tastes nice when you choose the right toppings.”

“Yeah, like pepperoni, cheese and NO pineapple.” 

“Oh, shut up.” She giggled.

Both of them ate the whole pizza slowly, trying to enjoy every second of their date. They talked about everything, and it was the most magical thing in the universe. Peter was amazed of the way she talks, and sometimes she even caught him staring at her with admiration, like she was an angel.

“I really meant when I said you looked beautiful today.”

"You look beautiful too Pete." 

"I look like trash compared to you." He giggled and fixed her hair, resting his thumb on her cheek. "Do you know what?"

"What?" She asked confused.

"I really wanna kiss you right now." She smiled and locked their gazes together.

"So why don't you do it?"

Those words were like song to Peter's ears. He let a crooked smile out and leaned in to take her lips onto his. It was brief and sweet, but their hearts were pounding so hard that they thought it would beat out of their chests. And right there it was their first kiss, quite simple, but the most amazing one that they’ve ever had. He pulled back giving some small pecks on her lips before breaking the kiss. They both smiled when they pulled away, foreheads still close together, and they were just feeling each other.

“This was amazing.” She broke the silence for the first time.

“Yeah. And it tasted like pepperoni.” He joked and she hid her face in the crook of his neck, blushing hard.

“Oh my God, this is so embarrassing.”

"I like pepperoni.” He poked her waist with his index finger, making her look back to him. “But I like you more, since the first time I saw you.”

“I like you too. More than pineapples on pizza.” She touched the tip of his nose and he smiled.

“I’m starting to think that you don’t actually like me." She giggled, pulling him to another kiss.

"You dork. I really really really really like you."

"I really really really really like you too." She smiled and caressed the back of his head, bringing him closer to leave some more pecks on his mouth.

"You're my little angel." He whispered against her lips. "Thank you for coming with me."

"I had so much fun tonight. I'm glad you invited me."

"Well, I couldn't think of a better company." They entwined their fingers and she rested her head on his shoulder.

"I don't want this to be over, but my dad gave me a curfew."

"I will walk you home. Just let me go pay." He kissed her cheek before getting up to pay.

"Oh, let's split."

"Please (Y/N), I saved all my money for taking the girl I like out and I'm not letting her split."

"Well, I want to help the boy I like pay this for me." She smiled reaching him to hug him from behind while he waited to pay.

"The boy I like. That sounds really good." He smiled, glancing down to his wallet to get his money to pay up.

"I like hugging you. It's comfy." She brushed her cheeks against his back and inhaled his perfume.

"I feel like you might fall asleep if you keep doing this." He turned around and she hugged his middle. Peter kissed her forehead and she smiled widely.

"I like this new side of you."

"The Completely Head Over Heels side?" He asked, gaze locked with hers.

"Maybe. I don't know, haven't named it yet." 

"Come on, curfew." He reminded guiding her with a hand on her lower back towards the exit.

The weather was chilly and Peter noticed her body shiver in contact with the cold wind, so he involved her with her with his jacket and their hands glued together like two magnetic puzzles that were meant to be together. Since they found out this was a thing that felt too good to do, they didn’t let their hands go apart again. The feeling right deep in their chests was like the most addictive drug in the world, and they wanted to feel it again. Peter took her home safely and even gave her a good night kiss before leaving.

“Be safe, and text me when you get home.” She yelled watching him walk away.

“I will babe.” He said turn around one last time to blink at her.

“Babe.” She whispered with a smile on her face, before turning around to go inside.

As if it was somehow possible, they became even closer, the kind of inseparable close, on the following week. They texted all weekend and when it was Monday again, there they were, hanging together all the time. That week they had two study dates and Ned even let Peter have one lunch alone with her. But they didn’t kiss even once after that date, and it was driving both of them insane. They would glance at each other’s lips for long periods, wanting to feel it again.

The whole school already knew they were hanging out in two weeks of doing things like sharing homemade treats, partnering up in almost every class, and sometimes spotted holding hands and staring at each other in class or while talking. Being apart was getting harder and harder for both of them.

“(Y/N), wait!” He raced his pace to reach her before she met the front door.

“Hey Pete.” She smiled to see him again, just because they had separated classes all day and only talked during break. “Heading home?”

“Yeah. I was thinking that maybe I could walk you home.”

“Isn’t it too much for you to walk? I live a bit far away from your house.”

“I don’t mind. My day isn’t being the best, and you always cheer me up.” She stopped to look at his face with concern.

“Are you okay?” She asked with her worried eyes and he nodded.

“Yeah, I just woke up in a bad mood, didn’t sleep much and I get cranky when I don’t sleep properly.” She held his hand and caressed its back with her thumb.

“Come on. Maybe I can distract you, but promise me to get some sleep when you get home?”

“I promise.”

“Good. Let’s go.” She pulled him by the hand and they walked together through the streets of New York.

They took the subway together to get outside Manhattan, all the way to Queens, where they would have a fifteen minute walk from the subway to her apartment. They walked slowly, talking about their favorite things about New York, like places to visit or eat, and things to do. Peter knew in that moment that it would become his favorite thing to do with her, walk around New York, fingers laced together and they talked. He rocked their arms back and forth while listened to her list her favorite ice cream places in Sunnyside.

“Oh, there’s one of my favorite things in New York.” She pointed to his left, and he glanced over where she was looking.

“A newsstand?” He got a bit confused and she giggled.

“No! Look at the Daily Bugle. It’s Spider Man!” She said with a smile on her face.

“D-do you like Spider Man?” He asked nervously.

“Of course! He’s my favorite superhero, and he even helped me find my stolen phone once.” Peter eyes shined once those words came out of her mouth. “I wish I could see him again.”

“Maybe you will.” He said, trying to hold a smile back. “He’s always around Queens, you know.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so. I only saw him once, but it was amazing.” She smiled and got her keys out of her backpack. “I even have this key chain. It’s him upside down.” He glanced over her keys and smiled.

“You are the perfect girl.” He said, looking back to her, and before she even processed what he was saying, their lips were glued again. They didn’t properly kiss in two weeks, only a small peck Peter gave her in the middle of the hall and almost died of embarrassment, also not being very lucky once Flash was nearby. This time, he was taking full advantage of being alone with her. It was a real kiss, and it took longer than the first one, but it was also hotter and needy.

“What was that?” She whispered against his lips and he kissed her again.

“I just really missed your lips.” He said with one hand on the back of her head, before leaving some minor kisses on her lips.

“You need to go rest Pete.”

“I will.” She kissed his cheek before hugging him.

“And you are the perfect guy.” She said against his chest.” Thank you so much fo walking with me, baby.”

“Thank you for lighting up my day.” He smiled, leaving one last kiss on top of her head. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Bye. Text me when you get home.”

“Always, boss.” He saluted her and walked away until he saw her coming into the build.

Peter decided to swing home in his Spider suit, because it would be faster for him to do it. So in less than 10 minutes, he was home, cooking something for him to eat. He couldn’t get that stupid smile out of his face, because the girl he truly likes also likes his superhero version, and he couldn’t be happier about something like this. He really tried to sleep a little bit, but she couldn’t get out of his head, and when he saw, it was already time to go on patrol.

It was a calm night in Queens, some minor things happened and he helped lost people, tourists, and some small robberies were stopped. But it was early and nothing was happening, so he decided to surprise his girl, knowing she was home and that she would love to see Spider Man once again. So he swung to Sunnyside and stopped at her firescape. He stood back and watched her inside her room. Her light was low, and she was concentrated on her Twitter and the songs playing on her headphones, as she normally does before lying to sleep. He smiled at her and her unicorn pajamas, seeing her so peacefully brings him joy and he could sit back and watch her do it all night, but it would be creepy. So he knocked on her window, and he thanked God her music was low, because she was able to listen and look back. Her eyes widened at the figure standing on the edge of her firescape. She ran to open the window with a big smile on her face.

“Spider Man? What are you doing here?”

“Just swimming by. Hello!”

“Hi.” She smiled and gave him space to pass. “Please, come in. Are you hurt?”

“No! I just got tired, and tonight is a calm night, but I need to rest. Sore back.” He pointed to his back and she nodded. “You’re (Y/N), right?”

“How do you know my name?”

“A friend of mine told me. And he also told me you’re my biggest fan.”

“I don’t know if I’m your biggest, but I’m a big fan.”

“I really appreciate that.” He smiled under the mask, completely mesmerized by the way she looked at him. “Can you get me a glass of water? Pretty please, I’m really thirsty.”

“I’ll be right back. Please don’t be loud, my parents are home.”

“Don’t worry.” He watched her leave the room and glanced over it.

It was almost like he entered her brain. Her room was so full of her personality. It had a fun decoration, but not with too much color. She had pictures all over the walls, along with posters and some books and HQs. Her bed was messy, and so was her table, since she’s not an organized person at all. But there was some things to be noticed around the room. She had a Spider Man plush over her bed, a Daily Bugle with him on the cover resting right next to her bed. It was all about him, but he couldn’t help but notice some Peter things as well. The napkin he wrote on their first study date was hanging on a board next to her door along with the post-it he gave her with the café name. He smiled, knowing that she kept it somewhere she could see it everyday.

“So, are you going to tell me who’s this friend of yours who told you about me?” She said coming back to the room with a glass of water in hands.

“I can’t. It would break my disguise.”

“At least tell me if it’s from Bronx or Midtown High.”

“Midtown.” He said and she whined.

“Come on Spidey! Tell me.” She begged and he smiled.

“Maybe if you tell me your friends’ names, I can see if it’s anyone I know.”

“Okay, so there’s MJ and Betty, and they are a few of my girl friends. I met this nice girl named Alicia in Biology class. Also, there’s Ned, but I hang with him more when I’m around Pe…” She stopped halfway and smiled, looking down to her knees, cheeks completely red.

“Around who?”

“Peter. Peter Parker.” She smiled with the mention of his name. It was like she completely forgot that she had a superhero in her room once Peter’s name was mentioned.

“I’m guessing this Peter is not just a friend.”

“He’s not. I mean, he is, but I don’t know what we are yet. But we’re far beyond the friendship lane, and I really like him.”

“Tell me more about him.” He leaned back on his seat and pulled his mask above his nose to expose his mouth so he could drink the water.

“Peter is the first guy I truly liked, from the very first moment I saw him. And it’s weird, because I feel so good around him and we’ve known each other for only a month now.”

“I know what that’s like.” He drank another sip of his water and continued. “I met this girl too, and she’s amazing, you know. I really truly like her, and I just wish she knew it.”

“You should tell her that.”

“I already have.” He smiled, finishing the glass. “She likes me back, yeah. Maybe in the same intensity, but I just wish she knew how important she is to me.”

“I bet she knows.” (Y/N) winked and he smiled, pulling his mask back down. “He kissed me today. Peter. I think for the second time, and it was magical. How did it feel to kiss that girl for the first time?”

“So good. Maybe it was the best kiss of my life, and I didn’t care a bit if it tasted like pepperoni.” Once she realized what he said, her eyes widened and she sat straight.

“Peter?” She asked and he nodded. (Y/N) approached and pulled his mask off. “Oh my God. You’re Spider Man?”

“Surprise.” He smiled nervously and she hugged him.

“I can’t believe this.” She said against his neck. “I’m going to be so worried about you now.”

“Don’t be, please. I’m completely fine.”

“You’re my favorite superhero. I think I might be dreaming.”

“I swear you’re not darling.” He smiled and she glued their lips in another kiss.

“And I opened up my heart to you.” She punched him in the arm, and his only reaction was to pull her into a hug.

“I opened mine too.” He stroked her hair, feeling her calm down under his touch. “I really mean when I say I like you. And (Y/N), you’re the most amazing girl in the world.”

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Because I needed to know if I could trust you."

"And you do?" He stopped to caress her cheek and smile tenderly.

"You're the person I trust the most."

"I'm glad you told me." She sat on his lap and he pulled her into a hug. "Are you hungry baby? There's some pizza leftovers. And did you sleep well?"

"Couldn't sleep, but I'm tired. And I ate a sandwich before coming."

"Come here. Let me make you rest." She pulled him to bed and he lied between her legs.

"May will be worried about me."

"Text her. Say you're with me." 

"I can't baby." She buried her nose in his hair and held him tightly.

"Please." She cried and he nodded, pressing a kiss on the palm of her hand that was before resting on his chin.

"Just a little bit, okay?" She nodded and pressed some more kisses on the top of his head. "Tell me about your day, I haven't seen you all day."

She told her everything about his day and he told about his and what was bothering him. And from that day, they were officially a thing, not holding back their relationship to the world. He even went to have dinner with her parents one night, which ended up with them loving Peter, but fighting with each other when Mr. (Y/L/N) was called for a "late night work". The night that was supposed to be a nice dinner ended up with Peter staying over to comfort his girl to sleep, because she couldn't stop crying.

But it didn't have a name, or a label. Everytime they were asked if they were girlfriend and boyfriend, they didn't know how to answer that question, simply saying that they were a thing. But both of them wanted something else, even though they've been to plenty of dates and were inseparable. (Y/N) hasn't met aunt May yet, because she was always busy. 

Peter was watching her during class, completely lost in her thoughts, not paying attention to class, buried in her book. In that moment he knew she needed to be his girlfriend and make it official with a promise ring or something.

"Ned, I'm gonna ask (Y/N) to be my girlfriend."

"She isn't already?"

"Yeah, kind of. But it's not like I ever asked her to be my girlfriend. We just hang out."

"You met her parents."

"Which was a disaster." Ned nodded, agreeing with him.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! I want her to be mine forever."

"So go for it dude."

Peter planned for a whole week and it was just a good coincidence when she called him Thursday night during patrol.

"Movie day! Tomorrow, at my place." 

"Hello to you too babe." He giggled during his swing through the streets of Queens.

"Sorry. I'm just too excited. My parents won't be home for the weekend and I really wanted to have the place for us."

"Okay. I can cancel patrol tomorrow." He smiled, because his plan was falling into place.

"I really want to do absolutely nothing tomorrow. Just watch movies, eat junk food and be with you."

"The perfect day."

And it was indeed. After class, they rushed to her place and even met her mom leaving the apartment before going to the airport. (Y/N) cooked some pasta for lunch and they spent the afternoon in her bed.

"You know what is today?" He asked and she kept thinking if she forgot something.

"No, not really."

"Our 2 month anniversary since our first date." He caressed her cheek and smiled.

"You saved the date. How cute!"

"It's a really important one to me." He sat in bed and pulled his backpack to his lap. "And I got something from you."

"Pete, I didn't get you anything…"

"It's a gift for us both." He got a velvet box out of his bag and opened it for her, showing her a key necklace.

"Peter, it's so pretty, but it seems so expensive."

"I got a raise from my boss." He said and pulled his keys out of his pocket. "See this key chain? It's a heart, and it's locked up. And in the middle of many keys, you have the only one that can unlock my heart."

"Stop it! I'm emotional, and I'm gonna cry." She said tearing up and he giggled, turning her around to put the necklace around her neck. "Thank you so much."

"(Y/N) (Y/L/N), will you please be my girlfriend? This time officially."

"Yes!" She jumped on his neck and pulled him into a long kiss. They kissed many times before, but that one felt like it was their first one. Tasted different and new, and it was quite fun to do it. "You make me so happy."

"That's the reason why I asked you to be my girlfriend. You make me happy, you make me feel special, like no one ever did."

"It's you and me against the world, forever." She entwined their little fingers and he glued their foreheads together.

"Forever."

And their relationship was the best one they could ever had. They barely fought and they had a lot of fun together, it didn't matter if they were on a fancy dinner date or dancing while they were alone in her room. Still, even though Peter wanted to introduce his girlfriend to his aunt, it seemed like she was never home.

"Please May, try to manage some time. I really want you to meet her."

"I'm trying sweetheart, but things just seem hard on F.E.A.S.T. right now and I just wanna get all my work done by the end of the month."

"But I've been dating her for almost three months now, and I've already met her parents. She'll start to think I don't want you to meet her."

"That's bullshit darling." She kept concentrated on folding laundry and Peter decided to help her finish it.

"She's the girl of my dreams, and I really wanted her to meet my family. And you're my whole family May."

"I know sweetie. I promise you to have her over for dinner by the end of the month."

“I just wish that she could come over so we could have a dinner as a family, you know, because she has some issues with her family and I wish she could just be happy for one night.”

“She will, and it’s going to be perfect Pete.”

He thanked that he had (Y/N) to be there for him, because it seemed like May was pretty occupied with her new shelter to even remember his existence. He felt sorry for her, because he knew she was very tired. But (Y/N) was always there to support him, and vice versa. She made sure that he got home safely everyday after patrolling, and wouldn't sleep until he said he was alright. There was three situations where he got very injured and she had to take care of him, but that meant cuddling afterwards, which was a great thing for him.

At the same time that Peter felt lonely, (Y/N)'s parents started to fight even more than before and she would stay up until it was very late listening to their screaming and fights. She would show up everyday with dark bags under her eyes and her spirits buried deep down on earth. Peter was the only one to make her smile, because he had that kind of effect on her.

But one day she couldn't do it anymore. Peter was doing his homework in his room, listening to a low and calm music to set the mood, when he heard knocks on his door. He thought it was weird, because he wasn't expecting anyone, but was surprised with his girlfriend completely heartbroken in front of her. She had red and puffy eyes, with tears falling nonstop, as she couldn't barely breathe. When she saw Peter, she immediately ran for his arms.

"What's wrong baby?" He asked but she couldn't stop crying to tell him. 

"M-my parents. T-they had a pretty bad fight, and… and my mom stormed out and I don’t know where she is."

"What? That's some serious shit. Come in." He pulled her into the apartment, right into his room.

He sat in his chair to face her sitting on his bed, trying to wipe her tears away. He held her face between his hands, as if that way he could read her better. Peter gave her some forehead kisses and held her to his chest. It took a while, but she calmed down and got away from Peter.

“I need to text her, see if she needs anything.” She stated, getting her phone in hands.

“You’re right. And I’m here if you need anything, okay? Just please be okay.”

Peter’s chest aches in pain as he watched the girl he loves so worried and sad. All he wanted to do was get all of her pain to himself, so she could be happy for once. He would take it, anything to see his girl smile again. Once she sighed in relief, Peter rested, knowing everything was probably fine.

“She’s staying at my aunt’s house.”

“Good, at least she’s safe.” He said and she straddled his lap and lied her head on his chest.

“I just want this to be over! I haven’t slept properly in weeks and all I wanna do is cry. I don’t know what to do Pete. I just wanted a family.”

“You’ll have one, I promise. We can build our own family, okay? You already have Ned, MJ, Betty.”

“They are my friends.”

“Doesn’t mean they’re not family.” He stroked her hair softly, as she sobbed against his chest. “And you have me. We can start our family with just the two of us. Oh, and May will take care of you just like she takes care of me.”

“I haven’t met May yet.”

“I know, I’m sorry for that, she’s a really busy women. But you will, and you won’t have to hold on to that family that keeps hurting you, because you would have already built your own.”

“This means so much to me Pete.” She stopped sobbing and closed her eyes. “Can we cuddle?”

“I really need to finish this work.” He said looking down to his notes, but too heartbroken to let her go. “But you can stay like this until I finish, I won’t take long.”

“Tell me a happy story.”

Peter told her many stories, some about Spider Man, some about people he knew, and some about his own personal life. But while he did it, (Y/N) fell asleep listening to his voice. She was so tired that she barely could hold herself to be awake for too long. Soon Peter stopped telling her stories and focused back on his homework, while his left hand caressed her hair.

“I’m so sorry baby.” He whispered, kissing the top of her head again. 

Some noises came from outside the room, like someone was opening the door with its keys, and Peter knew seconds later that it was May because of the sound of her heels on the hard floor. He prayed to every God that she would be quiet, but knowing May for so long, he knew she was going to say something very loudly.

“Hey Peter, what do you want for dinner?” He pressed his index finger against his lips and watched his aunt freeze to see what was happening. Her expression softened when she saw who was on his lap.“What happened to her?”

“She’s just tired May. Her parents were fighting and she didn’t know where to go. And she just fell asleep right here.” He whispered and May nodded, leaning to the door and smiled.

“So this is the famous (Y/N)?” She asked and he nodded with a smirk on his face. “She’s really pretty.”

“She’s so beautiful, inside and out.” May approached him, standing behind him and stroked his hair. He inhaled the good smell of her shampoo on her hair and kissed the top of her head. “My beautiful girl.”

“Do you like her?”

“I think I love her May.” He giggled and dropped his pen over the book. “She makes me feel like no one has ever made me feel before. Happy, special, loved, but in a very singular way.”

“That’s cute.” She smiled, sitting on the edge of his bed. His eyes were locked on her and his other hand met her back. He softly rocked her, and she snored, deep into her sleep.

“She takes care of me, like… she always texts to see if I already got home safely from patrol, and if I have a problem, she’s always there to help me.” He squeezed her and she relaxed even more in his arms. She sighed, making his smile go widder. “Sometimes she does this thing where she draws constellations on my freckles with her fingers, and I kept staring at her thinking how lucky I am to have such a special girl in my life.”

“You know Pete, the last time I saw someone like this, head over heels about a girl, his name was Ben Parker. And well, I married him.” She caressed her nephews cheek, squinting her eyes. “Sometimes I think that you look so much like your uncle, more than your dad.”

“Really?” His eyes shined when he glanced back to his aunt, watching she nodding her head yes.

“Maybe not in appearance, but the way you act…” She sighed, remember her old love. “ He used to hold me like that too, when we were younger. And if I was ever sad, he simply knew how to make me feel better.”

“I really miss him.” Peter felt down for a while, but he usually loves to hear stories about his uncle.

“I miss him too. So much Peter.” She let a tear fall from her face, but she wiped it right away. 

“I’m sorry aunt May.”

“It’s okay sweetie.” She smiled, trying to comfort him. “If she is really that special, you better hold onto her and never let her go. You know that old phrase, ‘If you love her, let her go?’ ” He nodded. “That’s bullshit.”

“Great advice May.” He giggled, shaking his head.

“Now tell me about this girl...” 

…………………

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[bltngames]

Review: Super Mario Sunshine

Super Mario Sunshine is a weird game for a lot of different reasons. It was among some of the first game reviews I ever wrote for the internet, for one, all the way back in 2005. I was proud enough of that review that when it came time to relaunch TSSZ News in 2008, it was one of five archived reviews I transplanted on to the site. It was also a strange case where I became convinced it was a game I’d never play, originally. I was 23 years old, with no job, no money, and no prospects. I was desperate to play the game that was being sold as the sequel to Super Mario 64, but I could not envision a future where that would ever be possible.

Eventually, I reached my breaking point. Earlier that same year, somebody had linked me to something called “Quake Done Quick.” It was attached to a relatively new site, called the “Speed Demos Archive”, a hub for videos of people finishing games as fast as possible. The site was small, updated manually, and featured a list of roughly 100 games -- maybe less. This was before Youtube, so these were downloadable video files, usually in AVI or MPG format. And it was here that they had a Super Mario Sunshine speedrun. Even on my fledgling broadband internet, it took a considerable amount of time to download. But, with nothing more than two hours of raw, unedited, uncommentated gameplay footage, I watched a user named “Dragorn” play through the entire game (his old run is still viewable on the Internet Archive). Watching a speedrunner flip, spin, and trick his way across levels, I became convinced that Sunshine was incredible.

A few months later, I was surprised by my brother with $200 for Christmas, stuffed inside a greeting card. He said it was for “all the Christmases he missed” since moving out, years ago. Combined with other money I’d received in gifts, I headed to a Gamestop and purchased a Gamecube with my own (used) copy of Super Mario Sunshine. In my mind, it did not matter that I had spoiled the entire game for myself only three months earlier with the speedrun video. Watching someone else play is no substitute for a controller in your own hands. I needed to play it for myself.

In the modern context, Super Mario Sunshine is one of the games attached to the recently released Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection. Full disclosure: I will not be buying this collection, and I have not played the version of Super Mario Sunshine it includes. It’s not that these games are bad, but even from the outside looking in, the collection looks underwhelming. It’s full of basic, bare-bones ports of games that deserve more. But it does mean that these games have been on my mind, particularly Super Mario Sunshine, which I finished replaying, separately, a little more than one year ago. It was the first time I’d finished the game since that fateful Christmas of 2004, and it provided a refresh in perspective.

The truth of the matter is, brushing aside everything else about it, Super Mario Sunshine is an easy game to hate. Nintendo was trying a lot of new things with the Gamecube, struggling to figure out what could be done with the leap in horsepower over the Nintendo 64. Their pitch was a Mario that was subtly more serious and realistic. Sunshine is a game with a surprisingly large number of cinematics, and a considerable amount of narrative setup. It sounds like a joke, but it’s true: the game opens with Mario taking a long-deserved vacation on a tropical island, only to be arrested and wrongfully accused of crimes he did not commit. He is sentenced to community service, forced to clean the island of a paint-like substance its residents claim he has used to vandalize their resort town. This is accomplished with the F.L.U.D.D., a backpack-mounted squirt gun perfect for washing down walls and floors. It was the first manual labor he’d been shown doing since the NES version of Wrecking Crew in 1985.

It’s odd territory for Mario, but it leads to the game’s first real problem: Plot. Sunshine is not a game that’s packed with story -- there aren’t a lot of named characters, and there aren’t a lot of genuine story arcs to get hooked in to, but it’s way more than you got in most Mario games. Regardless, the influence of a narrative structure is definitely felt within its levels. One of the benefits of Super Mario 64 is that there was no set order to anything; you might drop in to a level with a specific goal in mind, only to accidentally stumble on to something else. You were encouraged to follow your curiosity, collecting stars more through natural exploration. Even though it’s not always obvious on the surface, the objectives in Super Mario Sunshine are following a specific plotline, which means flat, rigid linearity.

So you might reach an amusement park area, but you can’t go inside until you finish the mission where you open the front gates. Even once you re-enter the level for the next mission inside the amusement park, exploring its various rides will be a moot point, as the game will want you to focus on a specific goal instead. Want to ride the rollercoaster? Too bad, the story dictates it’s not available yet. Though you still have that go-anywhere, do-anything world design from Super Mario 64, the current mission is the only thing that’s ever active. Another example: at the beginning of the game, you open up the first stage -- Bianco Hills. Even though you have a whole village and a sizable lake area to explore, there’s little to do out there, because your mission is about reaching the bottom of the windmill. The second mission, again, doesn’t involve the village or the lake, but now asks you to reach the top of the same windmill in order to fight the game’s first boss, Petey Piranha. And so it goes: big zones to explore, but most of it useless as Sunshine slowly trickles out objectives one at a time, following a barely-visible narrative that drags everything down.

Nintendo had other intentions for the game, too. The company was known for taking its time with game releases -- Super Mario World released in 1990, and it took six years for Super Mario 64 to follow it up. Even once a game was announced, there were often months or even years of delays as the game got pushed back, and back, and back, as with Ocarina of Time. Similarly long waits happened for many of Nintendo’s other flagship franchises (Super Mario Kart, Super Metroid, etc.), and the peanut gallery was getting restless. With the release of the Gamecube, Nintendo made a vow to explore other avenues to release more games, more quickly.

The problem was, all of those delays are exactly what lead to Nintendo’s extremely high bar of quality. Rushing these games out the door meant cutting corners and finding easy ways to tack on extra play time, skipping necessary fine tuning. In The Wind Waker, this notoriously led to the last fourth of the game, wherein you must find and decode maps to dredge up half a dozen pieces of the magical Triforce. For most, this meant hours of sailing out to random, completely featureless areas in the middle of the open ocean hoping to find a single golden tortilla chip. “Tedious” is putting it kindly, but it saved Nintendo from having to delay the game too many times in order to add more in-depth content.

In Super Mario Sunshine, this manifested in a degree of repetition that is difficult to ignore. In both Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy, most mission objectives are unique. There are occasional repeated missions, like finding 8 red coins, but by and large it's things like rescuing a baby penguin, opening a pyramid, assaulting an airship, or finding your way through a gravity-bending maze. There's enough variety that you don't notice as much when you're asked to do yet another one of Galaxy's purple coin comets.

Sunshine still has unique goals like that, but they are much fewer and farther between. Instead, the bulk of the game is filled with doing the same four or five missions over, and over, and over again. Finding fruit to hatch Yoshi or hunting red coins can be fun occasionally, but Sunshine often makes you do this stuff multiple times per level. Most bosses also must be faced at least twice, sometimes up to three times, and very little changes from fight to fight. And then there are the races -- a man named Piantissimo is waiting for you in most stages, looking to race you to an arbitrary landmark, and every single level has one penultimate mission where you must chase down the hero's evil doppelganger, Shadow Mario. It’s padding, basically, and thanks to a tenuous grip on narrative, there’s few ways to skip the things you don’t want to do.

This isn't even touching on the game's blue coins. They're one of Sunshine's rarer collectibles, and ten blue coins can be traded at the shop for a single Shine Sprite (the main item central to the story). The majority of blue coins can be found by hosing down graffiti found around the island. Spray a circle-shaped pattern on one wall, and a blue coin pops out of another circle-shaped pattern on the opposite side of the level, which you must run to and collect before it disappears. Then, the opposite: spray down the second pattern, and another blue coin will appear back where the first graffiti used to be. In a game full of rerun objectives, this is the worst offender. Rarely are these blue coin graffiti spots interesting or challenging; they primarily exist to fill space and fluff up the Shine counter.

The level concepts themselves also suffer from this repetition. In any other Mario game, “tropical island” would be one theme among many other level types, like deserts, volcanoes and frozen lakes. Sunshine tries to stretch its one theme out to last an entire game, and in practical terms, this means that even after 18 years and two complete playthroughs (three, if you count the speedrun video), I still can’t remember most areas in any kind of specific detail. I remember a couple stage names, maybe a few environmental traits (like the hotel at sunset or the amusement park), but anything beyond that and it all starts blurring into homogeneous beaches, docks, and villages. Even the music -- beyond the iconic acoustic guitar of the Delfino Plaza hub world song, absolutely nothing about Super Mario Sunshine’s soundtrack stands out as memorable in the slightest. Every part of this game plays, looks and sounds like every other part in the worst way possible.

And yet, through some miracle, Super Mario Sunshine does not come out the other end being a bad game. It’s not necessarily good, either, mind you. But when I finally managed to get my hands on this game back in 2004, it made me angry. Super Mario 64 was a tough act to follow, and rather than build on those concepts, Sunshine felt like a massive regression. Nowadays, it’s easier to see the bigger picture. Super Mario Sunshine was a stop-gap as Nintendo slowly pushed Mario back to a more linear, level-based structure. Super Mario Galaxy was another step in this direction, doing away with the open worlds in favor of traditional, straight-forward level design, something that would later be perfected in Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World.

That makes Sunshine more of a curious black sheep than anything else. It’s definitely not a game worth hating -- its biggest offense is simply being dull, and there are worse fates. For my replay, it became the sort of game I chipped away at, bit by bit, over the course of nearly three years. As it turns out, the best cure for repetition is to forget everything you were doing the last time you played. It’s even fitting on some level that a game about Mario taking a vacation is best served in lazy, slow, indifferent chunks. Make no mistake -- there are better, more polished, and more engaging platformers out there for you to play. It is in no way a stretch to call Super Mario Sunshine the worst 3D Mario game, but it speaks to the franchise’s high bar of quality that even the worst 3D Mario game really isn’t so bad.

[iloveyouthree-thousand]

and even if I���m gone, there’s always a place for you here

Tony leaves something precious behind for Peter. 

(This is my coping mechanism)

//

“Oh, Peter, come on in,” Pepper said, opening the door and stepping aside to allow the teenager in.

He just nodded his thanks as he brushed past her, stopping just inside the door. He felt out of place in the small house. The last time he’d been there was under much different circumstances, and he tried to push those memories into the back of his mind.

“Can I get you something? I know you just got out of school, I’ve got some snacks in the cupboard--,” she started moving toward the kitchen, rummaging through cabinets stocked with snacks that clearly belonged to the five-year-old living in the house.

“I’m okay, Ms. Potts, thank you though,” Peter said, still standing like a statue in the front entryway, as if he was afraid to walk any further.

Pepper looked older than he remembered, and he had to keep reminding himself that he’d missed out on five whole years: five years of moments, of memories, of moving on.

“How’ve you been, Peter?”

“I, uh,” he stuttered, trying to find the right words, “I’ve been okay, I guess.”

He didn’t want to tell her that the last three weeks had been a roller-coaster of emotions, that coming here had ripped open the stitches in a wound he thought was healing.

“I miss him too,” she said, and he had to fight against the ugly sob trying to force its way out of his chest, because Pepper had enough hurt of her own without having to comfort a teenager that didn’t even really belong there.

“You, um… you said you wanted to show me something?” He hated the way his voice cracked as he tried miserably to change the subject, but to her credit, Pepper just smiled and gestured toward the stairs.

Four rooms lined the narrow hallway. The first, he assumed from the mess of toys and Avengers gadgets, was Morgan’s. The master bedroom was next door, and a small but cozy room with a perfectly-made bed sat just across the hall.

Pepper stopped in front of the last room.

“It was originally just supposed to be another guest room, but we had all this stuff that we couldn’t just… at first I thought it might be unhealthy.”

He was about to ask her what she was talking about, but the question died on his lips when he looked past the door frame.

There was a twin bed, just like the one in Morgan’s room, but this one had a familiar dark green quilt and Jurassic Park sheets. Above the headboard was a Star Wars poster that Harrison Ford had autographed, next to a periodic table of memes and a framed photo of Stephen Hawking.

A desk sat in the far corner against the window, and he recognized the AP History textbook he’d been looking for sandwiched between two R2-D2 bookends along with a few notebooks and reading assignments he’d forgotten at the compound over the years.

“When I found out I was pregnant, he wanted to get away from the city and start over after… everything. We started moving things, and we just kept finding these little things of yours all over the compound and he couldn’t...” she bit at her lip, which had started wavering, “I think it gave him hope. If we had this room all set up for you, then it was like you had to come back.”

The tears that Peter had been so valiantly holding back came pouring out with a vengeance now, and Pepper pulled his shaking body into her own.

“I wanted you to know that he never forgot about you. You meant a lot to him, to us. You were a part of this family too, and it didn’t feel right to not include you in our new home.”

They stayed like that for a minute, just holding onto each other, until the convulsing sobs melted into a dull ache.

She pulled back from him, using her thumb to wipe the watery mess from his cheeks before guiding him into the room.

“He recorded a couple things before--,” she took a breath, unable to finish the sentence but Peter understood. Her back turned to him as she reached into the closet. Above a rack of clothing--some were Peter’s, some had been stolen from Tony’s collection--was a device no bigger than a phone.

“I only watched the first few minutes,” she admitted, setting it up on the desk as Peter took a seat on the bed, “but I think you should see it. I’ll give you some space.”

Pepper brushed his hair from his face and gave him a small smile before she disappeared from the room.

“Hey, kid. Pete. Mr. Parker. Underoos. Take your pick.”

Peter had to blink his eyes a few times, because all of a sudden Tony was right in front of him. Or, at least, an incredibly realistic hologram of him was.

“You have been an excellent… how should I say… protege, if you will. Smartest kid I know, aside from Morgan of course, but she gets her brains from her mother.”

He almost had to laugh, because it was all so surreal, having Tony Stark quipping jokes in front of him as if wasn’t gone. As if Peter’s whole world hadn’t been flipped on its head.

“I can’t claim you, of course. You’re Parker through and through. Still, when I look at you, Pete, God, I just feel like I’m doing something right. Someday you’re going to blow my whole R&D department out of the water and I really hope I’m alive to see it,” Tony’s smile faltered, “But there’s a more-than-decent chance that I won’t, hence this video.”

He paused, as if debating on what he was going to say next.

“You know, I had this dream—right before this whole shit storm started—that I had a kid. It was so vivid… I really thought it was real. And the weirdest part is that, for the first time in ever, I wasn’t scared. And then I was on that donut ship headed straight into the star-studded abyss and all I could think about was how twisted it was that, after being haunted by the idea for years, I was finally ready to be a dad—and I was going to be robbed of the chance. I just kept seeing that little face from my dream, looking at me with all the trust in the world, like I could do no wrong. I've never felt that overwhelming sense of responsibility before, and I didn't think I'd ever feel it again.”

Tony laughed drily, shaking his head up at the sky and looking almost like he was holding back tears.

"And then your rebellious, teenage ass disobeyed my orders and climbed onto that god damned ship, and I had to watch as you started disappearing in my arms while your stupid little lamb face stared up at me and that beautiful and horrible feeling came flooding back. When you were gone, I felt that. I'll always remember the feeling. That was real."

He took a sharp breath and pressed his lips into a thin line. “Look, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, kid, and I’ve learned to live with my regrets. I have this one particular regret, though, that I’ve been losing some sleep over.” 

He took another deep breath.

“Okay, here goes nothing. Serious Tony moment. If this all goes south… I need you to know that you’re my family just as much as Morgan and Pep and Rhodey and Happy are. Honestly, I don’t think I could’ve asked for a better big brother for my little girl. I hope I get to see you on the other side of this, Pete, but if not… you are everything I ever wanted to be, kid, and more. I love you, I’m obnoxiously proud of you, and I should’ve told you that more often.”

Tony gave one last wistful smile at the camera, and then the recording cut out.

Peter didn’t know how long he sat there on that bed, trying to process everything that had just played out in front of his eyes. He was still in a daze when a tuft of dark hair peeked into the room.

“Mommy asked me to give this to you,” she announced, handing him a folded up piece of fabric and jumping up onto the bed next to him.

“Daddy made them. I have one too, but it doesn’t fit me anymore.”

Peter held up the gift in his hands, revealing a red T-shirt with the words Mark I printed across the front in gold lettering. Morgan, as if to prove her point, pulled out a much smaller shirt, with Mark II printed in identical font.

“I’m Morgan,” she said.

Peter smiled, clearing his throat to try and hide how choked up he was, “I’m--,”

“Spider-Man,” she finished, grinning, “I know all about you. You like cheeseburgers, like me. And you can stick to walls and shoot webs out of your hands.”

He laughed, “All of that is true. But you can call me Peter. Spider-Man is just my pretend name.”

Morgan frowned, “Can I call you Petey?”

“Of course.”

“Good,” she declared, and then added softly, “because daddy used to call you Petey.”

Peter’s not quite sure what about that sentence sets him off--maybe the way Petey feels intimate, like something a parent would call a child--but suddenly he’s choked up again.

Morgan didn’t hesitate, she just wrapped her little arms around him.

“Come on,” she said a moment later, “Mom made cheeseburgers for dinner.”

Peter spent the evening having dinner with the Starks, and by the time he was ready to leave, he didn’t feel so out of place in the lake house anymore.

Pepper walked him to the door, and whispered, “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

“Yea,” Morgan added, much louder, “Come back and play! I wanna see how you swing with your webs!”

“I’ll be back soon, I promise. And I’ll teach you how to swing. How does that sound?”

“Awesome!”

“Oh, you two together are going to be all kinds of trouble,” Pepper frowned, but she couldn’t hold back a laugh when Morgan giggled maniacally.

Because this, this little family they’ve created, is exactly what Tony would’ve wanted.

[elisaphoenix13]

Antlord Drabble 35

Drabble prompt: Hiding from someone. (Can be serious or humorous.)

By: @funkylittlebidiot (posted with permission).

Hailey was hiding.

She was hiding as Cassie had told them.

All she knew was that it wasn’t just a normal afternoon.

Daddy hadn’t been home when they’d returned from kindergarten. There hadn’t been any fruit cups waiting for them in the fridge.

FRIDAY didn’t answer when she tried to talk to her. And a man Hailey hadn’t recognized was standing in their kitchen.

She wasn’t sure why the man had scared her or why he looked so mean, but she was too tiny to fight, so she hid. Just like Cassie had asked them to.

The tower was darker than it usually was, Hailey thought, though that might just be because she was crouched in the shadow of the sofa chair in the corner of Cassie’s room.

It was her favorite place to hide.

She could keep an eye on the door, and could sometimes manage to sneak away and switch hiding spots while the searcher was checking Cassie’s closet.

Hailey often won hide-and-seek. Unless she was playing with aunty Nat, but then she’d just hide along with her; aunty Nat never minded sharing a hiding place. She was the one who’d convinced Hailey moving hiding spots wasn’t cheating.

Hunter was too big to hide with her. He was already taller than her, which made her want to hit him whenever she thought of it. It wasn’t fair. She wanted to be big too.

Even now, she felt anger towards her brother. If he’d been smaller they could have hidden together and she wouldn’t be alone.

She knew he was hiding in the laundry room instead. She always knew to find him there. She could have hidden there along with him, but it had been a habit to come to this spot, despite aunty Nat telling her to never use the same hiding space twice. She hadn't been caught yet, in her little corner, so she trusted it.

Whenever they played hide and seek, she would insist they hide separately, push him out of her corner so she could hide alone. She’d wanted to be the only one who won, wanted to prove that she had her own skills, that she was just as good - better - than her brother. Now, she felt guilty for it.

If Hailey strained her ears, she could hear Cassie’s voice coming from the living room. When Hunter and Hailey had gone into hiding, they had left Cassie alone with the scary man. Hailey whimpered at the thought, thinking how scared she would have been if they’d left her alone.

And even though Cassie was bigger and braver than them, she knew she still couldn’t fight - at least not like dad or papa or Petey.

Hailey schooled her fears and stood up out of her hiding place, quietly sneaking towards the hallway. She wanted Cassie. Cassie always managed to soothe her whenever she was afraid, and the thought of leaving her alone now didn’t seem right to Hailey. She wanted Cassie to tell her everything would be alright, wanted to hold Cassie’s hand, and be strong for her too.

The hallway was empty as Hailey snuck through it. She was as quiet as she would be trying to get to a different hiding space during hide-and-seek. As quiet as she would be sneaking to get some pudding in the middle of the night.

Papa was the only one who ever managed to catch her when she snuck around, but that was okay as she would just share her cookies with him and he wouldn’t rat her out to daddy.

Hunter must still be in the laundry room. The door was open as she snuck past, but she ignored it and continued as the voices grew louder. She placed herself flat against the wall next to the door into the living area, finally able to hear what was being said.

“He’ll kill you,” she could hear Cassie’s voice clearly. Hailey wasn’t sure she’d ever heard her older sister be that angry. Her voice was firm and unwavering, and Hailey snuck a glance into the room. She was still standing in the same spot as before, in the middle of the room. The man had circled around a bit, now standing near the elevator.

He still looked mean and ugly, Hailey decided, anger coursing through her at the smirk on his face. It’s then that she noticed the man had an object in his hand, pointing it at Cassie. It reminded Hailey of the machines she saw on the television sometimes, the guns aunty Nat and Uncle Bucky always hid from them.

She whimpered again quietly, and couldn’t understand how Cassie seemed so calm. Well, not calm - angry, determined, but not scared.

A hand on her shoulder made her jump, and she turned to find Hunter behind her quietly shushing her. She glared at him and hit his shoulder, but quickly turned back to watch the scene unfold.

“It’s a good thing I’m willing to die, then, missy.” It sounded nothing like the way Tony spoke to Dia or Val sometimes. Instead, the man spat out the word, corrupted it until all that was left was disgust. Like the way Hailey would pronounce ‘vegetables’. “I’ll be happy knowing I’ve taken you with me - that I made that brute watch as you bled to death. Knowing he’ll never find that boy toy of his.”

“You’re disgusting,” Cassie spat back at him. This time Hailey could hear the small waver of her voice - recognized it as Cassie trying to stop herself from crying - and immediately Hailey felt tears well up as well. “And incredibly arrogant.”

The man growled, tightening his hand around the gun. “Any second now…”

Hailey couldn’t help herself anymore; she ran into the living room, shrugging off Hunter’s hand as he tried to hold her back, and immediately clung to Cassie’s leg as she stared the intruder down.

“Hailey,” Cassie hissed, “I told you to go hide.”

For the first time, she sounded truly scared. It made Hailey regret her decision momentarily, but her determination grew as she clung on tighter and shook her head, glaring towards the stranger. The man just smirked but didn’t move, gun still pointed at Cassie.

“It doesn’t matter; one or two daughters, who really notices the difference?”

“I do,” a voice growled from the elevator which had silently slid open. The tone would have any bad guy wet himself, but Hailey only found comfort in it. This bad guy in question had been distracted by Hailey’s entrance, but quickly regained his composure as he tightened his hand around his gun, ready to fire.

But Papa was quicker, too close already. He pulled the man back by the coat, the shot going wide and hitting the wall a few feet away from Cassie and Hailey.

Cassie reacted instantaneously, turning to grab Hailey and run back into the hallway. Hailey immediately buried her face in her sister’s neck, finding comfort in the touch as she held on tightly.

They found Hunter still standing behind the wall, eyes wide as he looked up at them, lip quivering, but Cassie quickly grabbed his hand and pulled him along towards their bedroom.

It didn’t take long for the noise to die down, however, their papa’s voice calling out for them.

Cassie sighed in relief and called out in turn, arms still firmly around both Hailey and Hunter now. As soon as their papa burst in though, Cassie jumped up and ran to hug him, tears now clearly streaming down her face.

“Papa, they took dad-,”

“I know, baby girl,” Hailey could hear him mumble into Cassie’s neck as he held on tightly. His voice sounded strangled, which made Hailey uneasy. “I had to choose. But I’ll find him.”

He opened his eyes, locking eyes with Hailey over Cassie’s shoulder, and he let go of their sister so he could sweep both Hunter and herself into their own hugs.

[littlejeanniebean]

Ep. 3 | The Marauders: Riddle Records

A/N: “Come to the dark side. We have a solo career.” - Tom Riddle Jr., probably. On a lighter note, I can just see them backstage like this by the lovely artist @theimpossiblefifth​. Read on AO3 :) Enjoy! - J xx

One look in your eyes

I can read your mind

 You're naughty, my type

Care for a good time?

You could be just like all your high society friends at high tea

You could get with a football player

But there’s nothing like a shot of adrenaline in the morning

You know you want a dragon slayer

“Like me,” James mouthed seductively to the camera and winked.

“I’m Alice Fortescue, these wonderful lads are The Marauders, thank you for joining us this Saturday Night Live!” the actress grinned widely as the camera backed away.

The boys all gathered around her in a group hug.

“Holy shit! That was incredible!” Obviously, this was Sirius speaking.

“You were wonderful, honey,” a low voice whispered.

A smiling man with sweet eyes and a mop of dark hair put his arms around Alice.

“Oh, everyone, this is my boyfriend, Frank!” the bubbly actress grinned widely, “He’s a photographer for GQ.”

“Sick!” James shook his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Frank; lovely working with you, Alice; hope you’ll both come to one of our shows sometime, ta-ta!” Sirius practically dragged the band away before anyone could say anything more.

“What was that?” Remus tutted at his boyfriend.

“Yeah, ta-ta?” the bespectacled boy wiggled his nose to adjust his glasses that had gone askew, “Who says that?”

“Not what I meant,” the pale, mousy-haired boy shrugged off his suit jacket in their shared dressing room.

“Look, I’ll explain later!” Sirius pleaded, “Just hurry up and let’s get the hell -”

“Yoo-hoo! Siri!” a warbling, high-pitched voice giggled on the other side of the door, “This is their room here, Tommy...”

“Christ,” the dark-haired boy covered his face with his hands. 

“We’ll deal with Bella,” James set his jaw and turned to the other two, “Ready?”

Remus and Peter rolled up their dress shirt sleeves and nodded.

The trio filed out of the dressing room, forcing Bella Black and her friend backward, and immediately shut the door behind them.

“He doesn’t want to see you or any of your family again, Bella,” said James sternly, giving the show's new cameraman the stink-eye for good measure. 

Bella stuck her tongue out childishly. 

Her guest grimaced and offered his hand to the boys, “I’m sorry about her. She overheard I was interested in speaking with you young talents and… well, it got a bit out of hand. I’m Tom Riddle, of Riddle Records.” 

Really, the man with chiseled features and dark slicked back hair wasn’t much older than they were. But he was dressed more expensively than they could ever be comfortable with, even with the fresh success of their debut album.

“You’re Senior’s kid,” James nodded, his mother being an agent in the industry. He noted just the smallest flinch at the mention of the man's father. “With all due respect, we already have a label.”

“A label that has you locked into a contract as a group,” Tom gave them each his card and presented James with another one for Sirius, “We would pay any fees associated with breaking your current contract, then we would launch your solo careers - James as the pop prince, Sirius as the rock and roll bad boy, Remus as the R&B god, and Peter as the jazz legend!”

“We’re better musicians together,” said Remus.

Tom leaned in, “Your success now, quadrupled. Plus the potential for high-engagement collaborations among you. The freedom to create in your own style on top of that. Imagine it. And give me a call.”

"Ta-ta," Bella blew them each a kiss in a way that could only be described as menacing. When they were out of the boys' earshot she simpered, "You're such a clever businessman, Tommy."

"Don't call me that," he yanked his arm away and pressed his phone to his ear irritably, "I found us some new business and laid the groundwork. Can I have my allowance now?" 

The Marauders flew back to Scotland that night and rehearsed for months until they were ready to drop before flying back to LA for Night One. 

“Nervous?” Sirius whispered while they waited for their opening act, DJ Dedalus Diggle, to finish his set.

“Why would you ask me that?” James huffed, adjusting his bright red tie for the umpteenth time. 

“You need more glitter,” Molly patted his cheekbones lightly with her pointer finger, which was covered in the golden stuff.

“Five minutes, boys!”

“Thanks, Arthur!” Remus spoke for them all.

“We’ve got this, Jimbo!” Peter bounced excitedly on his heels.

“Easy for you to say. You’ve been performing at recitals since you were big enough to reach the keys from the bench.”

“The jitters never get old,” his baby-faced friend told him, “but we’re all going out there. And with everything we do together, we always have fun.”

James nodded to himself and made sure to check on their drummer for the tour, “You good, Kingsley?”

The man in a rose-red disco suit twirled the sticks deftly in his hands, “Let’s do this.”

“... and now, Los Angeles,” Diggle hyped the crowd, “give it up… for The Marauders!”

The lights went up and the boys looked out at the incredibly emotional fans who’d come to see them.

“Right,” James whispered, reaching for the microphone with shaking hands, “A-one, two, three.”

I don’t have a lot of time

I’m running for my dear life

Can’t breathe without you by

Aye aye aye

It’s a full house

But I’ll seek you out

It’s a wild crowd

But I’ll seek you out

I don’t know how

But I’ll seek you out

James couldn’t help grinning ear to ear as Sirius broke out into his guitar solo.

Remus pointed out a sign that said, “Marry me, James Potter!”

The lead singer laughed and spoke into his mic, “Well, will you buy me dinner first, at least?” 

The girl promptly fainted.

Arthur was by her side immediately to make sure she was alright.

“Oh, dear, you’ve hit your head,” Molly crouched down beside him and handed the young girl an ice pack.

The red-headed manager got his first good look at the videographer and her multi-pocketed fishing vest and cargo pants.

She noticed him staring, “I’ve known these boys a long time. You never know what you’re going to need.”

“Good advice,” he helped her and the fan back up in one go, “I’m Arthur.”

“Molly,” she grinned, hoisting her camera back onto her capable shoulders and focused back in on James.

Under your spell, I like how you play it

Keeping it cool is so overrated

Waiting on you, every breath bated

Hey hey hey

They played LA two more nights before moving on to San Francisco. Then Vegas, then Seattle, and across the rest of the continent, all the way to New York.

“Madison Square Garden,” James swallowed, taking in the iconic jumbotron above their heads and the entire stadium, really.

Just three hours later, he was up on that very stage, sweat trickling down his back and the bridge of his nose as he sang his heart out about a funny story the designer, Lily Evans once related about her sister via Instagram post.

There’s a little house on Privet Drive

Where nothing ever happens

Little curtain twitcher of a wife

And a little boy and husband

But when they leave for their nine to five

And the little boy goes to school

The little old lady with cats ninety-nine

Does what she wills to do

Living next to ordinary no. 4

So much to do, so much to explore

The grocer down the street from me

His daughter left for university

And he needs the comfort of my tabbies

Yessiree, that’s what I’m here for

Your neighbour next to ordinary no. 4

After that, they went all over South America. The streets were typically too narrow to drive a tour bus around, so they often jetted from one country to another and rented a little convoy of minivans to take them to the arenas from their hotels and back.

“Shit, Petey’s got food poisoning!” Remus fussed over the poor boy.

“I’m fine! Really!” the blond insisted before doubling over and retching once more.

“I can fill in,” DJ Diggle adjusted his signature flat cap, “I have all your songs pre-recorded -”

“We have half an hour to get it out of his system!” Sirius declared determinedly, “We’re not going on without you, Pete!”

“I’ve got the doctor!” Arthur came in, followed closely by a middle-aged woman with apple cheeks and curly hair.

“You need to replace your fluids,” Molly handed Peter a bottle of electrolytes.

“Yeah, it’s a common bacterial infection going around among tourists,” said the doctor, giving him a dose of antibiotics, “He’s not in any shape to perform, you lot, so you might as well let him rest.”

“I can - oh,” Peter ran to the bathroom.

“How soon can you give him another dose of that?” Sirius asked anxiously.

“Not any time in the next half hour,” she narrowed her eyes at him, apparently having overheard his earlier proclamation.

“Poppy’s right,” said Arthur, “Peter’s health comes first. Dedalus, isolate the keyboards in every track and queue the set list.”

“Try to keep in time,” Sirius added.

“No improvising for tonight, lads,” Arthur warned the regular band members.

“But -” 

“I’m serious.”

“And so am I!” he could only maintain a straight face for two and a half seconds after he said this.

James sighed as they waited for the DJ to introduce them half an hour later, “It’s not going to be the same without Peter.”

“We’ll make the best of it, Jimbo,” Remus assured him, “and he’ll be back with us for the next one.”

The frontman set his jaw, pushed his glasses up his face and pulled the microphone to his lips.

Do you remember

The games we used to play

Mermaids underwater

Aliens in outer space

Do you remember

The sticks we’d raise aloft

We called them swords and never

Lost the battles that we fought

Peter was back on stage the next night, to much celebration and all too soon, they flew back across the pond for their European leg. Of course, their first stop was Scotland.

“It’s so good to be home,” James sighed happily, pausing to wipe his glasses on the hem of his shirt and winking at a girl who lost it at the sight of his abdomen, “This is our last song. Please join in if you know the words. Or make them up. Just have a good time. Be as loud as you want to. We love you all, thank you for everything you’ve done for us. We’re the luckiest boys in the world.”

Is there a risk to it?

Is it a challenge?

If there isn’t, if it isn’t, I don’t want it

Yeah, I wanna do some damage

I feel lucky tonight

I got you by my side

Seven days in a week

And you spend them with me

So hell yeah, I feel lucky

"That sounds really good, Pete," said James from where he lay on the floor of their stage after the arena emptied, "We could use that."

Peter chuckled, "It's Chopin. A waltz."

James ambles over and his friend makes room for him on the bench.

"It's a split C chord, then F, A flat..." he guides him through the song. It's out of time and messy, but they're having fun. "James…"

"Yeah, Pete?"

"What are we going to do about Tom Riddle's offer? I mean, his dad’s label practically owns half the music industry. And Castle is just this little independent… He could make our lives more difficult than he already has." 

"Unless we join him, you're thinking?" 

"We could ask Arthur to negotiate a group contract just the same. I doubt they'll dislike the idea of paying less upfront."

"But what about loyalty to everyone at Castle? McGonagall? Urquart?" James shook his head, "We're having a successful tour in spite of the ticket bots Riddle set on us. We're looking out into seas of fans all wearing our merch in spite of his shipment hijacking. And we're having bloody good time because we're not letting any of the homophobic slander he's fueled the press with get to us."

"Here, here!" cheered Sirius, clinking his beer bottle with his boyfriend's.

"Right, rest up, lads! You deserve it with all the work you put into this show," James stood and ambled back to the tour bus, where Shacklebolt was already sleeping soundly, being the earliest riser of them all.

“Goodnight, all!” Peter loved his friends, truly. But he was convinced their stubborn sense of the meaning of courage would do them a great disservice.

As always when confronted with a decision to make, he visited the only jazz bar in Scotland, the Leaky Kettle. Immediately upon stepping inside, he let the smooth piano carry away the stress. 

“The usual,” he told the bartender.

“Put it on my tab,” Tom Riddle swivelled around on the bar stool, "Fancy meeting you here."

"You mean you didn't expect to? Didn't plan it?" Peter received his drink with barely more than a sideways glance at their adversary.

"It's just business, Peter. I know you understand that."

"Then why go through all this trouble for one act? There must be thousands - hundreds of thousands - of talented artists who could make you rich."

Tom rolled his eyes, "My father was always… a bit single-minded. He wants to put me through my paces before handing me the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. But don’t worry about that. Just know this: I think your group is talented and I can see that you’re the musical glue holding it all together. You’re the only one with any formal training, after all. And I really can see to your career’s longevity. If you stick with this boyband too long, though…” 

Peter raised his eyebrows, “Then what?”

“Well,” the label executive leaned in, “then you’ll need to think about what that does to your image as a real, serious musician.”

The blond boy finished his drink. 

“Another one for my friend,” Tom told the bartender, took his jacket, and left.

His calling card sat heavy in the keyboardist’s wallet.

[the-desolated-quill]

She Was Killed By Space Junk - Watchmen (TV Series) blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. if you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

The first episode was a shaky, but intriguing start. The second episode was both incredibly provocative and intelligently written. What about the third episode? Um... I’m honestly not too sure what to make of it, if I’m honest. I watched it twice like I do with everything I review and I genuinely don’t know what to say about it. I couldn’t even tell you if I liked it or not. I think I liked it.... but I couldn’t tell you why.

Okay. Sorry. Hi guys. Let me explain what happened. I wrote that first paragraph and then I got writer’s block, so I decided to step away from it. I had a nap, played a video game and then decided to watch the episode again for a third time with fresh eyes. Now my thoughts are a little more concrete. So. She Was Killed By Space Junk. Having watched this episode three times now, I’ve decided that I don’t like this episode very much at all, and that’s less to do with what’s in the episode and more to do with what isn’t. 

Let me explain.

Reviewing episodes like this one can often be very frustrating because it’s hard to tell what is a genuine flaw and what is merely setup for what’s to come. I have a number of problems with this episode, but for all I know, what I’m about to talk about might not actually be problems at all and will all be explained in a future episode. Or they are genuine problems and I’m inadvertently giving the writers way too much credit. I don’t know. That’s why it’s so frustrating.

My main point of contention is with the character of Laurie. First of all, let me just say that Jean Smart doesn’t put a foot wrong. She gives a great performance and is a good choice to play an older Laurie. The problem I have is with her characterisation. Or, at the very least, bits of her characterisation. I don’t know. It’s complicated.

Laurie’s inclusion in the TV series was something I was actually most looking forward to because I felt her character was kind of shortchanged in the graphic novel. Initially starting out as an effective and scathing critique of how women are often presented in comics, over the course of Watchmen’s story her role was reduced until she ended up becoming little more than a prop for the male characters’ stories. It was disappointing and it’s led to me arguing multiple times that Silk Spectre is one of the most underrated and wasted elements of Watchmen. The HBO series felt like a perfect opportunity to right some wrongs and give Laurie the attention she deserves. She Was Killed By Space Junk certainly gave her the focus and attention she didn’t receive in the graphic novel, but I’m very much struggling to ascertain what the show was trying to achieve here.

Let’s quickly remind ourselves where the graphic novel left us with her character. She had recently discovered that the Comedian, the man who tried to rape her mother, was her biological father, she was in a relationship with Dan Dreiberg, aka Nite Owl, and they were both on the run from the law, hellbent on continuing their lives as vigilantes. Okay. How does the HBO series continue this? Well it turns out she and Dan are no longer together. I know some fans really don’t like this, but I personally don’t have a problem with it. In fact I’m perfectly happy with it. In my review of A Stronger, Loving World, I explained how I didn’t believe their relationship could possibly last long term because it was clear that they were together not because they were in love, but rather because they were indulging in each other’s fantasies, and the fact that Dan’s seeming fascination with the Silk Spectre porn comic supported this. Showrunner Damon Lindelof clearly agrees, so cool. It’s always nice to be proven right.

Anyway, at some point between the graphic novel and the HBO series, the fantasy was shattered and the pair split up. I’m assuming what shattered the fantasy was them getting caught by the FBI. It’s unclear what’s happened to Dan at this time. Judging by the fact that the police in Oklahoma are using Owlships and goggles, I’m assuming that Dan was arrested and his equipment was appropriated by law enforcement. Laurie meanwhile has struck some kind of deal and now she’s working with the Anti-Vigilante Taskforce and enforcing the Keene Act, which is an interesting parallel with how her father, the Comedian, served the American government during the Vietnam War. But you see this is where I start to get a bit confused.

The episode opens with Laurie setting a trap for a vigilante known as Mister Shadow (basically Fake Batman) and shooting him, either not knowing or not caring whether or not Mister Shadow’s body armour would save him. She’s also taken on the Comedian’s last name Blake and displays a very similar nihilistic attitude, making dark jokes and exhibiting uncaring, unsympathetic behaviour. Now I don’t necessarily have a problem with Laurie becoming more nihilistic, given what she’s been through. Having witnessed Ozymandias and his squid of doom, it’s bound to affect her worldview. However, her turning into a female Comedian doesn’t really marry up with her character at all. And yes, I know at the end of the graphic novel she talked about getting a gun and body armour, like the Comedian, but it didn’t work there either. It felt too drastic a character shift and was painfully on the nose. I didn’t like it there and I don’t like it here either. I just don’t buy that she would want to emulate the man who tried to rape her mother. 

I especially don’t like her violent, uncaring attitude toward Mister Shadow. Why does she have such a disdain for vigilantes? Is it because of what happened with Dan, and she’s projecting that onto everyone else? Has she become so nihilistic that she just doesn’t give a shit anymore? There’s a moment later in the episode where she asks someone if their civil rights are being violated only to then turn around and say she was being sarcastic. That really didn’t sit right with me. It just doesn’t feel like something Laurie would say.

And then there’s the whole thing with Doctor Manhattan. Throughout the episode we see her in a phone booth trying to tell a joke to Manhattan (quite what the purpose of these phone booths are, I don’t know. Considering that people in the world of Watchmen believe that Manhattan was giving people cancer, why would anyone want to call him?). She clearly misses him to the point where she has a large blue dildo hidden a briefcase that’s clearly a direct reference to Pulp Fiction. I REALLY don’t like this. At all. The reason Laurie left Manhattan in the first place was because he couldn’t emotionally satisfy her, being an omnipresent demigod and all. So why would she be pining after him? The blue dildo joke in particular just felt kind of degrading. Just... why?

Weirder still is the joke she spends the whole episode trying to tell him. It’s clearly an indirect reference to the Pagliacci joke from the graphic novel, except the Pagliacci joke had a specific purpose in the graphic novel and its meaning was clear. Rorschach was remarking on how America was relying on the Comedian to save them from violence and corruption, which was futile considering what a violent and corrupt person the Comedian was. Here, however, I have no idea what Laurie is trying to say with the brick joke at all. I’m assuming the bricklayer is her father and she’s following in his footsteps. Okay, I kind of get that (except not really for the reasons I’ve already mentioned, but whatever). But then we come to the whole bit with God at the pearly gates sending Nite Owl, Ozymandias and Doctor Manhattan to Hell, only to then get killed by the brick from the previous joke. Now... what the fuck is that all about? I’ve been racking my brains, checking what other people said, and I can’t find any satisfying answers. It just feels like pretentious, unnecessary fanwank. The best I can come up with is that Laurie is expressing how she’s not letting men dictate her life anymore. But... she’s spent the whole episode pining after Doctor Manhattan, she’s modelled herself after her rapist father, and at the end of the episode, she sleeps with her assistant Petey, an agent who claims to not to be a fan of superheroes, but is totes a fan of superheroes. So... is that the joke? She wants to escape from the shadow of the men in her life, but can’t? Or she intends to overcome the patriarchy that has kept her down, but she still ends up choosing to indulge in the power fantasy of Petey? Or does it refer to something else she’s planning to do later? It’s all so frustratingly vague.

As I was watching this episode, I honestly lost track of the number of times I thought to myself ‘I don’t know where Lindelof is going with this.’ Sometimes this approach works, keeping the audience in the dark in order to build intrigue and suspense, but for Watchmen, a story that’s famous for its dense material and subject matter, it’s just plain annoying. In fact this whole episode feels really off to me. Instead of focusing on character narratives and thematic storytelling, She Was Killed By Space Junk relies more on a plot heavy story that moves the pieces of the larger arc forward and keeping certain specific details vague in an attempt to keep people watching. Except that’s not really what Watchmen is about and it results in leaving the more integral aspects of the story in the dust. Angela barely gets a look in here, and considering a significant portion of the episode focuses on Judd Crawford’s funeral, it feels like a massive, missed opportunity. How does it feel discovering that the man you liked and respected wasn’t the man you thought he was? Does that change your feelings toward him? Does it invalidate the good times you had with him? And with Laurie there, the show could have compared and contrasted the two. How these two women move forward knowing these uncomfortable truths about the men in the lives? But the show never really capitalises on this.

And the annoying thing is, for all I know, all the things I’m talking about could actually be addressed in a future episode, thus rendering what I’m saying moot. I don’t know. I can’t tell if this is all just really bad setup for an eventual satisfying payoff or if it’s just plain bad.

That being said, while I do ultimately dislike this episode, there are a few things I like. For instance, I do like what we learn about the larger world of Watchmen. We learn that Oklahoma is the only state that’s allowing the police to mask up and that this law was passed by Joe Keene Jr., whose father was responsible for the Keene Act that was passed outlawing vigilantes. Joe Keene Jr. was briefly introduced in the previous episode and it looks like he’s going to be playing a larger role from here on out. Let’s wait and see where that goes. 

We also learn that Looking Glass knows Laurie and has prior history with her. He even confirms Sister Night’s secret identity to her, albeit reluctantly. So is he a plant? Maybe sent by the FBI to try and sabotage Keene Jr? Hmmm, what’s going on here then?

And then there’s Ozymandias.

While I dislike how Laurie is being handled so far, I love, love, LOVE what they’re doing with Adrian Veidt. After the events of the graphic novel, it seems he’s gone into self imposed exile. Whether this is as a punishment or as a way to make sure he doesn’t inadvertently blab about his involvement with the squid is unknown. Anyway, he’s been here for three years now, judging by the candles on the cake, and he seems to be going a little bit stir crazy. He’s sacrificing his clones in order to try and find a means of escape and now he has to contend with a bloodthirsty game warden (another clone). The idea of Ozymandias being hoist by his own petard and being oppressed by the very tools and instruments of his own vanity is absolutely tantalising, and I love what Jeremy Irons is doing with the part and the way he’s depicting the character’s slow descent into lunacy.

Also a special shoutout has to go to the costume department for the Ozymandias costume we see Adrian finally don. It’s gloriously, breathtakingly terrible. Truly one of the worst superhero costumes ever seen on screen... which is exactly what it should be! 

One of the things I intensely disliked about the 2009 movie was Zack Snyder’s attempts to make the characters look cool and stylish when in reality these characters are supposed to be the complete opposite of that. Rorschach looks like a hobo, puts on a gruff voice and wears lifts on his heels in a pathetic attempt to look more imposing. Nite Owl wears a ridiculously tight fitting costume that shows off his belly bulge. Silk Spectre’s outfit looks more like something a stripper would wear and is not even remotely practical. They look stupid to us, the outsiders, but to the characters, it makes them feel powerful. That’s the whole point, and the HBO series captures that perfectly. Adrian is going to war with the game warden and wants to feel powerful, so he puts on his objectively silly purple and gold shawl in an effort to reclaim the power he once had. It’s laugh out hilarious, made all the more funnier by the fact that he’s clearly far too old to be playing dress up. It’s moments like this that demonstrate that Lindelof clearly does understand the source material, which is what makes the way Laurie is treated all the more baffling.

She Was Killed By Space Junk isn’t a bad episode. There’s stuff to like, but it doesn’t have any of the intelligent thematic storytelling or characterisation the previous two episodes had. Coupled with the apparent mishandling of Laurie’s character and the deliberate vagueness of some of its plotting leads to it being an episode that’s ultimately more frustrating than enjoyable to watch.

[r3b3lgrrrrrrrl]

A LunaTic and her Gunn (Part 82Xs1)

"Bridge Parties & Strippers"

@creatureofthen1ght-v3

@lovemythsworld

@crystalbaby12

Ashleigh runs into Pete first. He's furious and headed out of the venue.

"What the hell is going on?" She asks him.

"Dude..." He shakes his head.

Giving her a quick run down of the events between Colson, Luna and BeBe.

"BeBe's was here!?" Ashleigh asks shocked.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's STILL here. Luna fucked her up." Pete tells her.

"I don't doubt it... And can you blame her? Why would he even do that??" She asks.

"No... And I don't know. You seen 'em, they were all Booed Up OnStage, announced their engagement and not even an hour later, THIS shit is going on." He answers. "Let him know I went to see Kate.... He's on some fuck shit right now, so he probably won't even notice." Pete tells Ashleigh. Shaking his head before kissing her cheek GoodBye.

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"Another mess to clean up..." Ashleigh sighs "Fucking Kells." She thinks annoyed. Even before Luna, there's always been constant chaos with him.

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Curled in a ball on the floor clutching his balls, Colson opens his eyes. Pain is shooting through every nerve of his body. Focusing, he sees a bloody Bleta on the ground not far from him. Closing his eyes again, he groans as he rolls onto his back.

"Fuuuuck... That Bitch dick punched me so haaaard.... I wish Bleta would just go awaaaay...." He thinks of the second girl Luna has knocked to the ground in a violent rage. "In my defense... They shoulda shut the fuck up." He tries to justify their injuries to himself. "Oh FUUUCK... My balls..."

Colson opens his eyes again to Ashleigh standing above him. She has no sympathy.

"My balls, Ash..." He whines.

"I don't care, Kells...." She dismisses him.

"Fine. Then, at least get Bleta out of here. I can't deal with that right now. Please." He asks, looking up at her.

"Whatever." Ashleigh shakes her head as she walks away.

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The room is still full. The Band, Crew, Girls, Vendors. There's a shit ton of people everywhere BackStage.

Looking around, the word LAWSUIT flashes through Ashleigh's mind. Thinking of Luna and the advice she's given her regarding spin control, Ashleigh puts on her Boss Bitch pants.

She signals The Band over to her. As they head her way, she looks up generic Non-Disclosure Agreements on her phone. She quickly downloads and fills it out, emailing it to Slim.

"Listen, we gotta clean this shit up. Slim, I emailed this to you." She says, showing him her phone. "I need you to print out, what?" She sighs, looking around the room. "Three hundred copies to be safe?" She asks out loud to his nod. "Everyone needs to sign one before leaving. Use your charm. Try not to make it a big deal."

"Gotcha, Ash." He agrees as his phone dings with the email.

"How many people are with BeBe?" She asks to their head shakes of I Don't Know. "Run me back the first three copies." She instructs Slim.

"Bet. I'll be back." He agrees, heading to The Bus.

Turning to Baze, AJ and Rook, Ashleigh directs them next. "I want you to keep everyone in here having a good time. Once Slim gets the NDA's, help him. Please. With charm." She asks as she reminds them of the key component. "One of you run up. See if there's any ready. I gotta get BeBe to sign first." She finishes.

All three nod in agreeance. AJ heading to The Bus. Rook and Baze to attend to the room.

"Help me get her out of here?" Ashleigh sighs again as she asks Benny.

"No problem G-H..." He teases her as he puts his arm around her shoulder.

"I'm gonna fucking kill 'em both." She laughs lightly, catching the Luna reference as they walk towards BeBe.

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Colson has decided to play opossum. He can hear Bleta calling his name a few feet away but refuses to acknowledge her.

"Maybe if I just lay here, she'll think I'm dead... Ugh... I feel like I'm dead.... She destroyed my baaaalllls" Colson mentally cries to himself.

Still on the the ground. Still holding his whole junk. He stays perfectly still when he hears Benny and Ashleigh approaching. Peeking out of the sliver of one eye, they pass him. He hears Ashleigh speak.

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"Hey... Are you okay?" Ashleigh asks BeBe as she and Benny help her up and hand her a towel.

"No. I think that psycho bitch broke my nose!" She cries through the cotton.

"Are you here with anyone?" Ashleigh pries.

"No. I came to surprise Kells." BeBe answers, looking at her bloody hand as the other holds her face together.

"Did he invite you?" Ashleigh asks.

"No!" BeBe looks up, angrily. "I wanted to see him because he owes me an explanation for this Brooklyn Cunt or whatever the fuck her name is... He's fucking me then blocks me a month ago and all of a sudden he's getting married?? What the fuck is that!?" She shoots a glare between Benny and Ashleigh. "Besides, the way he was speaking to me, didn't seem like he put a ring on anything." She says snidley.

This pisses Ashleigh off.

"So, what happened?" She asks the million dollar question.

"She came up talking shit to Kells so I told her she could get her ass beat. That's when she head butted me. Like a fucking goat. Who does that?" BeBe winces from snaking her head while her hand holds her nose in place.

AJ taps Ashleigh on the shoulder. He slips her a clip board with a pen and a few copies of the NDA.

"So, you threatened her and she protected her life?" Ashleigh manipulates BeBe's words. "I'm gonna need you to sign this." She says handing the clipboard over.

"What? No." Bleta says pushing it away.

"You just admitted fault. If you sign this no one can speak about tonight or sue you." Ashleigh does NOT know where these incredible lies are coming from.

Neither does Benny, but he likes it. Encouraging BeBe to sign the paper also, he throws Kells name into the ring. Overwhelmed and in pain, BeBe scribbles her signature.

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Ashleigh isn't a lawyer but she knows that what they're doing right now is technically illegal. "Most American contracts are signed under some form of duress...." She tries to reassure herself. "Murica'!!" Her brain insists, pushing her on.

***********************************************

Face hurting, embarrassed and wanting to get out of there, Bleta shoves the clipboard at Ashleigh.

"Can I fucking go now?" She asks, irritated as she pulls the blood soaked towel from her wound.

"Yeah, come on, Benny and I will walk you out." Ashleigh says as they guide her outside.

Once in a cab, Ashleigh leans in.

"Some advice, woman to woman? Luna and Kells are something different. It doesn't matter what he said to you, I guarantee she'll be back in his bed tonight and they'll be fine tomorrow. Save yourself the heartache and let him go." Ashleigh says as kind as she can.

With more than just her face hurt, BeBe simply closes the cab door.

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Still laying on the floor, Colson waits until the coast is clear before he stands up. Looking around, he can't find Luna.

He watches, confused as Slim, Rook, Baze and AJ walk around having people sign papers. Seeing Ashleigh and Benny walk back in, he heads over to them.

"Where the fuck is Luna?" He asks firmly.

"She split with Nikki and her friend Sam..." Ashleigh answers.

"Oh, yeah? Fuck THAT Bitch." Not caring what His Boys are doing, he turns and shouts. "YO FUCKERS, WE OUT. NOW!!"

Ashleigh sighs for the hundredth time in less then an hour.

"Follow them?" She asks Benny.

"That's my job.... You know, if they keep snappin' out and disappearing separately, you might wanna bring in Bullet..." Benny says, looking down at Ashleigh.

Bullet is Colson's other bodyguard. Ironically, his government name is also Thomas.

"You honestly think that when Luna's pissed, she's gonna let anyone follow her anywhere??" Ashleigh asks Benny as if he's silly.

Both of them already knowing the answer.

"Facts... Extra hands wouldn't be a bad idea with those two though, Ash..." He continues to make his case.

Sighing again, Ashleigh agrees to call Bullet. Clearly they can't handle Kells and Luna on their own.

Benny kisses the top of her exhausted, little head before he follows The Madness outside. Slim coming over to hand her a stack of papers.

"I think we got 'em all..." He breathes out. "I gotta catch up with them. Sorry you gotta deal with this bullshit, Ash!" He kisses her cheek before jogging off.

***********************************************

"It's my job... And my bestfriend." She thinks as she flips through the NDAs. Debating on if she should call Monica on Luna's behalf.

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In the back of the cab, Luna's phone rings. It's Pete.

"Hey!" She answers. "Yes, I'm Okay. I'm with Sam." She replies to his questions. "I'll be fine, Petey!!" She laughs as he teases how THAT'S what he's worried about.

Pete then unloads onto Luna his feelings about Colson and tonight. Listening, she doesn't speak until he finishes.

"Don't be mad at him, Petey... I know why he did what he did. I made him jealous and he tried to do the same..." She explains to their friend.

Pete tells her how she's making excuses for him the way she used to for Justin.

"Pete." Luna never calls him that and he knows it. "It's not the same..." She trails off. Pete doesn't know about her affair with Tommy. "I need you to trust me. He wasn't right but he had his reasons." Luna partial explains.

Her words stop him. He's known Luna for a long time and knows she doesn't put up with being disrespected. Knowing that both she and Colson are extremely complicated individuals, he accepts her shut down with a promise of lunch. SOON. Luna agrees with a grin.

Pete and Luna end their conversation with Be Safes, Love Yas and A Definite Lunch.

Hanging up, Luna turns to Sam. She's wedged between her and Nikki in the back of the cab.

"Where we goin'?" She asks.

"Mothafucken' Bridge Party, B!!" Sam exclaims to Luna's excitement.

Luna turns to Nikki asking if she wants to change as she pulls a red scarf out of her bag. Drapping it around her shoulders, Luna's dressed in cutoffs, a tank, stockings and Docs. It's what she performed in. Always Bridge Party ready.

"Fawk NO!! I look FABULOUS, BITCH!!" She exclaims to both Luna and Sam's laughter.

"Yo. You said he had his reasons... Why?" Sam asks Luna directly.

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Sam and Luna have known each other since 6th grade. Making Sam one of Luna's oldest friends. Being based in NY, Sam knows EVERYONE. Not just Nikki and Pete but Justin, Ashley, Mack, Frannie... Even Jackson. Sam being Luna's drummer in their band Dysfunctional Baggage, they'd seen a lot and been through a ton of shit together. Sam was who Luna first called when she found Justin. Not 911, not his mother or her grandmother. Luna called Sam. Rushing over, Sam had witnessed Luna break in a way she'd never allow anyone else to. Or probably ever will again. Luna trusting Sam beyond her life.

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Before Luna can answer, they pull up to the corner Sam requested. Tipping the cabby, the three women jump out.

"THIS IS GONNA BE SO FAWKING FUUN!!!" Nikki exclaims, wrapping an arm around both Luna and Sam's laughing necks.

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Hitting The Bus first, Colson changes. Slipping a cool, pink, silk shirt onto his body, he thinks of Luna.

"Bet she's wit fucking Tommy. Whore." He tries to convince himself before he heads out into his own recklessness. Knowing he's wrong.

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The Bridge Party is raging. Making Luna happy to be home. Linking arms with Sam and Nikki, they skip down into the music and lights.

NYC's party scene is a culture all in it's own. Heading under the bridge, it's like a multicolored, twisted, high school reunion. Luna and Sam seeing people they love. Nikki running into others she hasn't seen in YEARS.

"Wanna get on?" Luna asks Nikki with a grin as she opens her mouth.

She has a blotter and three single stacks on her tongue.

"FAWK YEAH!!!" Nikki grins, ready for another Nix&Loons MessABout.

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Colson and The Band are a Flashers, an elite gentleman's club in NYC. Not that they're gentlemen or anything.

Tossing bills everywhere. Asses all over him, Colson pounds drink after drink. He's trying to erase Luna from his mind. He's got about an eight ball left over from the half ounce from Philly. Pulling it out, he dives face first.

He's on a mission. Not necessarily to overcome as many women as he can like before but to forget One who is like no other. Standing with a beer and drink in hand, joint in his mouth, he leans down to pick up another shot.l

Wanting to erase ever meeting That Brooklyn Bitch.

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Luna is living her best freaking LIFE!! And she doesn't give a FUCK. Music flows as she dances with Nikki and Sam.

"I HAVE FUCKING GLOSTIX!!!" Luna exclaims as she bounces to the side to dig in her travel bag.

EVERYTHING is in there. Clothes, drugs, makeup, things to play with, candy and SCARVES.

Luna ties a flowered one around her head as she brings back GloStix and lollipops to her grateful friends.

They continue to bop and groove. Luna is tripping her PUSSY off. Playing with the red scarf around her body as she dances with Sam and Nikki.

"WATER!!!!" Sam shouts after what feels like two beautiful lifetimes but is probably only an hour.

Nikki and Luna nod in agreeance.

Bridge Parties are the ancestors of WoodStock. The grandmother of a non-profit festival, if you will.

Making their way to the water table, there's ten old orange Gatorade coolers set up. The City knows what's needed to party.

Grabbing her water bottle out of her bag, the three friends stand, drinking water continuously. Raving over it's Holy Greatness.

They laugh and catch colors. Trails and magical objects. Keeping close to one another to not be lost upon their voyage.

Bellies full of life fluid, they fill Luna's water bottle before going to squat and pee. What does Luna have? Toilet paper and baby wipes because LIFE.

They pee together, alllllllllll the way at the end of the bridge. Nikki teasing Luna how she's an Old Lady when she has hand sanitizer too.

Still living in the real world, Sam reminds Nikki.

"Nah, Boojie. Remember... THAT'S how we roooooll!" Sam teases Nikki as she squeezes her friend. "Dirty hands, Bitch!!!" Sam shouts laughing.

"Ahhh... Get the fawk owf meeee!!" Nikki laughs, hugging Sam back. "Nah... That shit was good."

Nikki agrees with a smile. Her hallucinating soul, mind and heart floating back to the early days of her career and their friendships.

Together the three of them grab hands. Skipping into the lights like they have no worries or cares.

Slowing down, Luna remembers. "Yoooo... I have chalk." She grins as she reaches into her bag.

Plunking down right where they are, the three artistic friends begin to display their tripping minds. Like a Mandela. Once they're gone, it too will be. Shortly after.

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Colson's leg is jumping. He's high as fuck and still irritated. Downing shots as a pretty blonde wiggles up and down him. She's doing nothing for him.

"Take you in the back, make you feel better?" She offers as she bounces her tits in his face.

"No thanks." He says, pulling his head back and shoving a hundred towards her.

Insulted, she rises off of him.

Slim's been watching His Boy all night. Taking this as his opportunity, he slides over.

"What's good, Dawg?" He asks his bestfriend as he hands him his pen.

"Shit, Man." Colson puffs on it hard.

"So... Tonight is nothing?" Slim leads.

"Tonight was fucked, Homie." Colson responds, hitting the pen again.

"Talk to me, Brotha..." Slim continues to lead Colson.

Leaning back, Colson hits the pen a few more times. He's trying to collect his angry, confused and as always, inebriated feelings.

"She seen Tommy today." Is all he says.

Colson's a lot like Luna. He doesn't like his things to be touched.

Slim nods. He knows it's a contentious subject with Colson and Luna.

"Why?" He asks.

"I don't know... We didn't get that far. She told me and..." He looks at one of his longest friends. "And I shoved her. Hard enough to break a mirror." Colson looks down as he says the last part.

"Shit, Man." Is all Slim can say.

"I know... I don't know why the Fuck she was with him though." Colson starts to get angry again.

"She didn't say why at all?" Slim asks, not believing that if Luna was gonna pull some shit, she'd be careless.

"A fucking business meeting or something.... I don't know." Colson answers.

"Dawg. Do you know who this Tommy cat is? Like really? Besides from Luna?" Slim asks, suddenly worried Colson doesn't know what he's gotten himself into.

Colson shoots him a dirty look. He remembers what Benny had said.

"Dawg. He's like THE BIGGEST hitter in NY.... You know Luna's got her hands in a lot of shit. Remember how she freaked out over the picture of them? It could be business. HIGH FUCKING BUSINESS, Homes." Slim sighs. "Look, I don't know up from down when it comes to LunaTic because that bitch is wild, but what I will speak on, is she ain't never done you dirty and I ain't never felt her motives as dirty. Even if she got dirt wit this Tommy cat. That was before you... You really think she fucked him and came back to you?" Slim cuts to the chase.

"Nahh..." Colson says with an irritation to his certainties.

Another girl walks up on them. Colson shrugs as he throws his arms out. The girl takes this as an indication to climb on top of him.

Never thinking he'd take a chick's side over his boy's, Slim shakes his head as he watches another girl slither upon Colson.

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Luna texts Ashleigh, hitting her Google locate. Letting her know where she is in The City. She goes on to apologize for not bringing her with her, promising to be back soon, to hit her up if she needs to.

"I should've fucking grabbed her..." Luna thinks. "If anyone needs a fucking escape, it's her...." Luna deciding her and Ashleigh will have an official MessAbout.

Sam climbs onto the cement wall Luna's sitting on, she's lost her shoes. Nikki is dancing free in the night.

That's the thing about The City, you can be everyone and no-one at the same time.

Nikki's appreciating being no-one in this moment.

"So... You never answered my question..." Sam asks Luna.

"Hmm?" She hums.

"Why? Why would you even consider marrying him after we spent tonight under a bridge like we're 19 because he wanted to schmooze up on some twat?? Are you not trading a junkie for a whore?"

Sam's words cut deep, but not enough to phase Luna. A calculated woman who knows what she expects out of this life, Luna doesn't care to explain.

"Sammy. I tell you. You know I'm not without fault. Neither is he. But love is love and sometimes that shit makes people jealous and they retaliate. I fucked her up for her OWN words. Not his actions. He may have antagonized it but let's not act like he fucked that bitch on the middle of the floor." Luna tells her friend.

Both always one to call a spade a spade. Neither bullshit.

"You know murder was the case that they gave me." Sam states, eyeing her friend.

Even tripping balls, Sam is very much like Luna. She don't fucking play.

Bursting into laughter, Luna grips Sam. Squeezing her tight.

"Let's go find your shoes, Bro." Luna laughs.

Lacing fingers with Sam before they begin their hunt.

Nikki comes running up with one of Luna's scarves on her head. She attacks both her friends with a hug.

"I FAWKING MISS THIS, YO!!!" She shouts, pecking Luna and Sam with kisses.

Luna relates to one of her greatest friends. Unhappily for the first time ever. Her third eye realizing how much she hates being out of her element.

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"I wonder if she'll come back..." Colson thinks as another random ass grinds against him. "Maybe I should hit her up... No. Fuck that. She fucked up first... Not me." He stubbornly thinks as he slides a bill into the g-string in his face.

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Sam and Nikki are dancing within the crowd as Luna sits by herself. Finding a random lighter beside her she flicks it.

Giggling at the colors radiating off of her finger tips. She wishes Colson was with her.

Tripping out of her mind, Luna closes her eyes and imagines him bouncing around with her. She grins at the idea of his excitement. Then her mind jumps to red. The blood. The girl. The anger.

Luna whips her eyes open. Knowing how to stop a bad trip, she leaves the lighter where she found it. Jumping off the ledge, Luna heads into the crowd. Letting the beat take control of her body as she finds her friends.

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Still slamming lines, Colson's not hungry when they leave the high class strip club.

As everyone one else gobbles down pizza, he continuously checks his phone. Leg bouncing maniacally off the floor.

He wants to know where the fuck Luna is. But like an Asshole, he won't contact her.

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"Ahhhh!!! I haven't had THAT much fun in SO long!!" Nikki laughs in the back of their cab.

It's rounding out 6A. The sun is coming up. The day is done and Luna had a fucking blast.

"That's why I don't ever wanna be famous..." She groans, placing her head in her hand. "You're so fucking busy and miss out on all the cool shit... For what??? Your fucking name on people's lips??" Luna snidley complains.

"Not all of us can be born with a silver fucking spoon, Loons." Nikki cocks back.

"Shut the fuck up, Nix." Sam comes to Luna's light defense. "We both know Patti didn't raise Loons as a baller and even if she did, Loons don't give a fuck about that shit." Sam states with a knowing smile.

"Enh... You got some truth in that." Nikki smirks. "But royalty is royalty and you can't deny that shit."

Luna and Sam don't dispute the truth.

"I love your rich, white ass doe!!" Nikki laughs as she hugs Luna.

Their cab pulling up in front of her Upper Eastside buiding.

"BOOJIE." Sam laughs calling Nikki out.

"Fawk you!!" Nikki laughs as she hugs her friends GoodBye.

Sam and Luna heading back to The Bus.

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Walking onto The Bus, it's awake and aware. Luna grabs Colson by the collar of his shirt. Dragging him with her, she leaves Sam. Knowing she's been on tour before and that Boys are no obstacle for her.

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"Kitten.." Colson starts to say.

"Shut the fuck up" Luna states as she grips the back of his neck. Kissing him fiercely.

She may understand Colson's jealously but it does not excuse his shove. Luna has a strict Don't Hurt Me Unless I Ask For It policy. He broke that. And now, she'll make him pay.

Releasing him, she demands he strip as she pulls off her own clothes.

Colson listens. Pulling his shirt off and dropping his pants for her. Happy she's in their room but starting to grow pissed over Tommy again.

Luna shoves him on the bed.

Climbing on top of him, she kisses his mouth with anger as she plays with her folds. Opening herself enough for her to jam him inside her tight pussy.

Even furious, his girth is too much. Luna cries out from his cock as she tries to work him into her.

"Kitten.." He says again.

Clasping her hand over his mouth, Luna tells him to Shut The Fuck Up as she rides him to her pleasure.

Not one to be told what to do, even by Luna for too long, Colson losses his patience.

Grabbing her ribs, he flips her over on the bed. Luna wraps her legs around him as he drives into her.

"Tell me what to fucking DO..." He taunts huskily in her ear.

This infuriates her. Using all her strength, Luna flips him off her. Keeping his dick in place, she rides him like she owns him. Because she does. Placing her hand on his throat as she bucks against him, Luna demands Who The Fuck Does He Belong To.

He gasps out "YOU."

Colson is stronger than her. Gripping both hips, he easily tosses her back off of him.

On top of her, as her head hangs off the bed, he demands Who's Pussy Is This as he punishes her with his dick.

Hips jolting against him, Luna diverges. "NOT YOURS IF YOU DON'T ACT RIGHT!!!"

She bites his neck hard, causing him to whimper. Flipping him back over, Luna commands his body.

She fucks him strong and hard. The rage and anger from the last couple days only peeping out.

Pulling his hands to her ass and holding them there, Luna shifts Colson deep into her. Using his body until she's done with it.

Feeling herself cum, not caring but knowing he did too, Luna drops on to the bed beside him. He doesn't get the luxury of staying inside of her.

"Kitten..." He hums as he reaches for her.

"Don't fucking touch me." Luna spits out, swatting his hand away.

Just then The Bus jerks to a stop. It was only a two hour ride to NJ.

Luna climbs off the bed, throwing on her clothes from last night.

"Don't think we're fucking good. At all." She states before grabbing her bag and marching out of their room.

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Word Limit (1 of 2)

To be continued....

[heythereunderoos]

Catching a Killer

Pairing: Forensic Anthropologist!Peter x FBI Agent! Tony Word Count: 1865 Warnings: Graphic depictions of death?

This was the first time the pair had been on a case in months. With Peter having traveled to Laos to catalog new bones discovered there and Tony having returned from his summons to the Pentagon. The two were a little on edge. Peter was excited to see the agent again, though he'd never say that aloud, and he could feel himself flushing with anticipation. Tony, though just having arrived home was trying to leave for vacation and this case just happened to get in his way.

"Is there any way you can hurry this up, kid? Just give it your best guess and I'll put someone in cuffs so I can catch my flight?"

Peter released a loud huff, choosing to ignore both Agent Stark and his ridiculous nicknames, as well as choosing to believe his flush was a result of the sun sat high in the sky. Peter could feel the sun beating down on his back, but was far too engrossed on the partially decayed remains in front of him and the markers bred within the bone that could help identify who this person was.

"From what I can see, she's female. Presence of wisdom teeth indicates they're over eighteen. Width and shape of the pelvic bone would concur with those deductions." Peter pauses for a second, snapping a pair of latex gloves onto his hands before reaching down and slightly rotating the skull. "Normally I wouldn't be so quick to state this, but since someone has a flight to catch, I figured I should inform you that from what I can currently see, it would seem the manner of death here is a homicide considering this large blunt force trauma to the back of the skull that could indicate cause of death."

"Petey, baby, I would say that a girl gettin' her skull bashed in is more than indicative of foul play." At this, Peter turned his head over his shoulder, still squatted over the body and sent the man a chilling glare. Despite what it seemed from the outside, the pair made a good team, though always fighting over seemingly trivial things, always managed to crack the case and put the bad guy in cuffs.

The agent looked at his shoes and adjusted his tie, trying to escape the look he knew was geared towards the stupid pet names that Peter absolutely despised. But Peter knew that if he was ever in a jam, or in any form of danger that Tony would be there to save him, though the boy avidly claimed he was no damsel in distress.

Having put the agent in his place, the boy returned to his work of examining the person before him. It was evident to him that the body was partially buried: as every part of the body excluding the lower half of the girl's right arm was covered in adipocere.

"Hey Pete, why does half of her look like that?"

"Like what?"

"All waxy, it's kinda freakin' me out." Peter sighed, as he had moved over to examine the patch of green grass beneath the partially exposed radius and ulna, before collecting all of his jumbled thoughts to explain the answer to the older man's question.

"From what we can see here," The boy gestured to the waxy half of her body, "we know that she was partially buried. For the sake of time, what you need to know is that because dirt is so compact it lacks oxygen in comparison to above the ground. And as a result of it raining pretty recently, the dirt is a moist anaerobic environment, prime for creating adipocere from the body's fat. The fat reacts with the water in the dirt in a process you may know as hydrolysis and creates this waxy substance." Peter couldn't help the condescending tone that seeped into his words and honestly he didn't even care to try to take it back.

"Right, knew that." The agent shrugged, running a hand through his messy hair and trying to observe the boy working, but at a decent distance. Tony had been working for the FBI for 7 years and considering this was his line of work, dead bodies were no new sight, though he liked getting guts on the rug of his car even less than he liked finding people dead.

"Surely." The kid replied in a snarky tone, attempting to formulate some sort of time of death gap within his head as his eyes focused on the remnants of flesh that were beginning to slip off of the arm bones.

With a sigh, the kid stood to his feet and began removing the gloves, making his way back to the car.

"Where the hell are ya going kid? I didn't get much insight on what the hell happened to this girl!" Stark called after him, with his ridiculously tiny notebook and pen in hand, attempting to catch up to the younger scientist.

"From what I can tell, as indicated by the skin slippage, the body has been there for approximately 2 or 3 days? It's a little difficult to gauge time of death considering adipocere takes weeks to form over an entire body and yet the arm that was left to the elements looks as if it has only been there for a few days. So the answer to your question is: I have to run more tests. Back at the lab. So we're bagging up the body, and taking surrounding soil samples. I'm sure that Bruce can collect those, so you're going to drive me back to the lab."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, really."

"Well I missed breakfast for this call, so you and I are gonna head to the diner and grab a piece of pie, how's that, sweet cheeks?"

"Please just drive, Tony."

\\\\\

True to his word, Peter worked tirelessly at the lab, trying to discover the mystery of the accelerated rate of the formulation of adipocere and the slippage of skin. It had been long past 24 hours since he had eaten pie with Agent Stark, and though he could feel the exhaustion in his limbs, his mind was moving a mile a minute.

"Have you slept yet, kid?"

The boy laid the skull back on the lab table and let out a sigh, before shaking his head, his back still turned to the door and by extension, the agent.

"You really need to catch some z's in order for us to catch this guy, Pete." Still refusing to turn around, the boy stared over to the other lab table where another body laid.

"I know, Tony. This case...it's just...really getting to me." Peter swallowed the lump in his throat, attempting to shove down the load of emotions that came with working on cases like these. "I'm fine though, honestly, I feel like I could put in a couple more hours worth of work."

At this, Tony sighs, before crossing the threshold and grabbing the boy's forearm, turning him gently to face him. The agent smiled at the boy, a gentle smile, one that reassured the kid that no matter what happened, the older man would be there for him in whatever capacity he needed him to be. And so the boy gently smiled back.

"Please go nap on the couch, and I'll keep looking through what we have, see what I can find, okay?" Huffing in defeat, Peter nodded and slipped out of the room, towards his office where that heinous orange couch called his name.

\\\\\

After days upon days of endless researching, swabbing, running things through the Mass Spectrometer, calculations, phone calls, pulling strings with higher ups, and far too many all-nighters, Stark had caught the man.

He was a nobody, just like they all were. Thinking they were somebody enough to take another's life, and that was part that made Peter shiver. That was the part that reminded Peter of how he lost his brother, Harley, to some absolute nobody.

It was cases like these that shook Peter to the core, and made him reconsider his occupation. Made him wonder if he was cut out for this: looking at corpses every day and helping Tony find criminals. Criminals who felt no remorse, or sometimes who couldn't even remember their victims' names. It was days like these when he realized that he couldn't be alone. Couldn't hold himself together without someone acting as glue.

So during days like these? Tony came over.

Peter would sob, hysterically, laid atop his bed and Tony would just hold him. Tony would card his fingers through the boy's knotted, curly locks, and press kisses to his forehead. Tony would just lay there and hum gently, as the boy curled into his chest.

Tony would let him fall apart, but he would always put him back together.

"T-Tony?" The boy called out in a gravelly voice, and the man stopped his humming.

"Yes, Pete?" The man's eyes shifted from where they were focused on his hand carding through Peter's hair, to the boy's honey brown eyes, before smiling gently at him.

"W-We can do this right?" At the boy's question the man quirked an eyebrow, continuing to run his fingers through the soft strands atop the boy's head. He thought for a moment before inquiring.

"Can we do what, babe?" The boy's fists were balled up in the man's t-shirt, and silent tears streamed down his round, flushed cheeks, before he spoke up again.

"We can keep doing this. We can find bodies...and run labs and-and catch killers? We can keep looking into the face of death in order to f-find justice right? These people deserve at least that, right?" The boy looked so lost, and Tony let a soft sigh escape his lips.

"Peter...I can't even fathom how difficult this must be. How hard it must be to get out of bed every day and know that what you do is what someone did for Harley all those years ago. But you have to recognize that we're better than them. We can, and we will make sure that all of those criminals receive proper punishment for the crimes they've committed and the lives they've destroyed. Petey, baby, what we do here, together is so incredibly difficult, so incredibly taxing in that every day adds up but Pete, we save the lives of those who were potential victims. We bring peace to families and I am so incredibly sorry that you may never know that peace, but you do amazing work." The boy was shaking in his arms and so Tony held him as tight as he could without causing him pain.

"D-Do you think that maybe one-one day we'll find whoever hurt, Harley?" The man held his breath, unsure of making false promises, but he shook his head gently to himself, before nodding with fervor.

"I think that if you and I put in the time and effort that we could, yeah." Peter barely nodded on the man's chest before his honey eyes locked with the older man's dark whiskey ones.

"You wouldn't mind? P-Postponing your trip to help me?" With an airy chuckle, the man kissed the younger boys forehead and shrugged.

"Eh, the Bahamas ain't really for me anyways. What do you say we take a trip up to the NYPD and look at those old case files? See what we can dig up?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

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Just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone that read my story is supporting all of my work! I greatly appreciate it and hope you appreciated my first piece of work for Stark Week 2k19. Anyways this was based on the tv show Bones and so yeah! Love you guys and feel free to check me out on ao3