#cut & run crack | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tonycries · 10 days ago

Text

Sweetener - C.K.

Synopsis. You, hit by your heat cycle and accidentally calling your best friend over in a daze. Choso Kamo, your utterly sweet best friend - and totally not an aIpha, right? Right?

Pairing. Choso Kamo x Reader

Content. MDNI, fem! oméga! reader, alpha! Choso, heats, best-friends-to-lovers, pining, creampíes, bréeding, Choso goes FÉRAL, OMÉGAVERSE AU, overstím, knots, MARATHONS, making him cúm blanks, MATÍNG BÍTES, cúmplay, first times (Choso), pússydrúnk Choso, oraI (fem), proposals, p talking, pet names, swéaring.

Word count. 8.1k

A/N. Hope you have a lovely week <3

“Open up f’me, beautiful.”

Choso Kamo was approximately four seconds away from kicking down your front door and tearing your apartment down in search of you. Or, at least, he would be if he didn’t know how much you’d huff at him afterwards.

Because it’s not everyday that his precious best friend wakes him up at 3AM with a hazy, six-second call. Mumbling nothing but an adorably sleepy “Cho— come over?”

So what if Choso had instantly thrown on the first t-shirt he saw and broken about seven traffic violations on his motorbike here?

“Come on, come on-” he’s hissing underneath his breath. Weight shuffling nervously between his two feet, he raps on your door once more. Twice. Thrice. “D-don’t make me use that spare key again.”

It was a half-threat - really, it was.

But the louder your answering silence grew, the tighter his fingers curled around his own metallic key. Breathing out a low, “I’m- I’m coming in.” And slowly - ever-so-slowly - he’s cracking your door just an inch open before-

Oh.

It hits Choso like a wave - hard enough to knock him down onto his knees.

“What-” he’s gasping, heaving. Words tumbling out drunkenly in rasping ahs! that he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t even register the bright, blossoming pain sweeping his knees with the way his lungs felt like they were scorching - and Choso just couldn’t get enough.

It wasn’t a new candle of yours, and Choso already memorized every one of your perfumes for this to be one. This was just so…carnally sweet.

He was drinking in every drop, every ounce, every waft of that candied air inside your cozy apartment like he couldn’t breathe if it wasn’t that.

And something in the sugary scent makes Choso twitch.

Oh, shit.

Hastily swiping away a translucent mess of drool that’d somehow made its home by the rosy corner of his mouth, he’s straining out once more. For his sanity, more than anything. “Beautiful? Anyone home?”

Still no answer.

Absolutely nothing.

It takes him a few more sloppy seconds swimming his melty mind to even consider stumbling back up onto his two unsteady feet. Blinking away the bleary film over his gaze, Choso slams! your door shut with the back of his foot - cutting off the heady perfume from emanating into the corridor.

Noise complaints from your neighbors be damned - he’ll apologize to them all personally later.

But right now, something about the way that mysterious essence was all his, his, his scratched at such a dangerously primal itch in his brain.

Shit- what was he even thinking?

Choso was here for you and only you.

He’s running a jittery few digits through the sweat-dampened valleys of his hair, tugging in a stinging little pull to try and snap some sense back into him. Clearing the strangled mess in his throat, Choso smacks! his palms against his burning cheeks before calling out once more, “I’ll be coming in–”

Because it’s not as if Choso’s never been in here before - he has. Many, many times, in fact. And during every one of those hangouts you’d made it a point to pout about how he should really “let loose” and treat this home as if it was his own, too.

Honestly, it was hard to feel anything but comfortable after knowing each other for so long - even despite those embarrassing, mushy feelings that he always drowned in around you.

But that was a conversation for another time.

And right now, Choso couldn’t even dream of any “comfort” when every step deeper into the saturated cloud of scent made Choso gulp. Every blink had his eyes watering even more - and his pants- fuck- Choso’s biting down on his rawly worried lower lip, eyes flickering anywhere but where he could feel his achy cock stirring.

Something about this smell was so…hypnotic.

And if he didn’t know any better then he’d have sworn he was practically floating down that familiar pathway to your bedroom. Feet padding down anxiously along the mahogany-covered floors, it was becoming so much harder and harder to breathe in the fragrant air without getting fucking addicted.

Or, Choso swallows, one arm balanced on the wall, the other feeling for his thundering pulse. He probably already was.

But what if you were sick? What if you needed help? Fuck, if he didn’t live every waking moment dancing along to your heartbeat.

That is, when he hears it. That.

Filtering from inside your bedroom…a moan. ”Ch-Choso–”

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

You didn’t know what you were thinking, forgetting to take your monthly dosage of suppressants - you’d blame it on all the time you’d been spending studying for finals with Choso lately, but you’d never put the fault on your sweet best friend like that.

After all, he was a fellow omega like you at the end of the day. Right?

“Fuck” You’re scrambling to clasp onto a sodden sweatshirt of his on your bed, nose burying into the slightly sunny vanilla scent. You knew it was wrong to think about him this way, you knew it was made even worse considering his second gender. But- but fuck, if he didn’t have your hands slipping and sliding guiltily down towards the slick-lathered spot between your legs. Concentrated puffs of heat stifling from between your lips, “Ch-Choso–”

Honestly, you wanted him so badly you could reach over for your phone and call-

No, no, no, no - your fatigued eyes flick over to the winking clock by your bedside. 3:26AM.

You couldn’t call him over for help now. Choso was so sweet that he’d probably rush over in his pajamas and rack up a fair few tickets on his motorbike.

Which was why you preferred to spend your heats without his help - it had been that way since you’d both presented back in high school.

You’d met Choso after your family had moved to the cutest little suburb in Tokyo, stumbling across the tiny boy-next-door with wide honeypool eyes and a chubby hand that waved shyly your way. Even at the wise old age of eight, you remember thinking how he was so pretty.

Pretty enough that something your health teacher had taught in your last school clanged throughout your mind - this boy was probably an ah…what was the word? Omega.

A quiet, comfortable understanding - and it wasn’t something that the two of you never quite had to talk about too in-depth. At least, outside of sneaking the answers to pop quizzes on secondary genders, and giggling when another classmate sauntered to school with a garish bitemark on their neck.

But, often, you wondered whether you’d ever see Choso with that type of mark.

He never looked at another alpha - not even another omega, or beta, for that matter. You knew that society was stepping towards a more accepting environment for rather “unconventional” pairings - but Choso Kamo seemed well and firmly intent on rejecting every single one of them.

Instead, staying by your side. Unpaired.

Even when he followed you all the way to university - two peas in a pod, so tightly intertwined that most wondered whether you two were mated for life. And he never bothered to disagree - but then again, neither did you.

Even when the years treated him well and he grew so tall, so unfairly attractive. All prettily timid smiles, glinting piercings marrying his ears, and dark, droopy eyes tinged with the slightest kiss of dark eyeliner. Rivalling even the most cocky alphas on your entire campus with his sheer stature and ambience.

Like he was right now.

Towering at the very edge of your unlatched bedroom door.

And only one word registers in your mind - alpha.

Choso - a Choso that was so utterly real and in the flesh - jumps once those startled syllables spill from your mouth.

Fuck, you didn’t even realize you said that out loud.

Not until he’s slamming! one massively spayed-out palm by the side of your doorframe. Shattered pieces of wood crumbling beneath him, you’re unabashedly ogling the flex of his curvaceous biceps. Another hand covering the lower half of his handsome face, Choso rasps. He whines, “You called, m-my omega?”

Oh.

Your entire shivering body bolts upright, like you were being electrified with a thousand voltages of bliss that make your drooling cunt gush. Treacly wafts of pheromones clouding out from you all over again - and the look on Choso’s face is just drunk.

Thick lids so heavy that they were practically falling half-closed, it’s as if his entire body was flushed a prespired red. Lips all ruddied and laminated thinly with spit, his teeth were drawn back into such a wild snarl.

Like he was about to tear something into bits and it might be you.

So…pretty.

It almost hurts you to dart your eyes away in an urgent glance at your suspiciously open call log - did you…really call him in your haze? Fuck.

“Y-you’re-” You swallow a few times - and even then, the words don’t come to you. They can’t. Too stuck on what a delicacy your best friend looked all slumped over by your doorway like he was begging for you. Like he’d crawled all his way to you and would do it all over again. “You’re an alpha, Cho?”

As if you had any doubt now. You could smell the sheer power on him, the thrumming strength threatening to rip through that clingy white undershirt of his. So transparently thin that you could still count every ridge of his washboard abs. And his velvety black boxers hung low-

“Shit-” he gulps. “Yes- fuck! Y-you’re an omega?”

You can only nod. Brows raising when Choso plants another slam right onto your doorframe, indenting all slender lanes of his digits onto it this time. “And is that…mine?”

With a sudden inhalation, you’re snatching behind that sweatshirt of Choso’s that you’d still been holding. Heart thumping - but there was nothing more to say. What could you say?

Turns out, Choso is the first to break. “L-Let me prove it.”

You’re blinking, squeezing your thighs together at the bittersweet throb. You didn’t know what had your honeyed head reeling more - the sudden reveal of Choso’s secondary gender, or his answer. His sheer need. “Prove it?”

Choso’s head hangs low, chestnut bangs covering his greedy gaze, but you could tell that he was looking at you. Really, really looking at you.

Words dripping with something you’d never heard of before. Hoarse. Tight. “Can I…can I come in, beautiful?”

You know you should say no to letting him inside your nest - you know it.

But oh, how it looked like it was taking him every shred of will to keep standing there. To not fucking collapse at the way your gooey pheromones have him spellbound. And he likely would have had it not been for your small, trembling answer, “Yes.”

Choso whimpers - if there was ever a singular moment that would have him crawling back from the afterlife just to re-experience all over again, then it would be this.

When he feels something in the back of his mind switch.

Senses sharpening almost painfully with one step inside your humid bedroom. Two.

Until Choso’s stalking so languidly towards you like a predator cornering his prey, foot by foot. He takes his dreamy time prowling towards you - all the way up until your flushed best friend is looming across the foot of the bed.

There’s something vicious in his eyes. Something that has him salivating, “Can- can I?”

You’re breathing out, “Y-yes.”

Slow, sultry fingers unfurl out to draw a steady line along your ankle - he walks. Fingers blazing up your twitchy thighs, up your drenched excuse of shorts, up, up, up to smear that delirious line of your dribble.

“T-tell me what you want, beautiful.” He pecks an innocent kiss on your forehead, then another to your throat - heaving in your perfumed air. “Anything- I’ll give ya hah- anything.”

His words are low. Hot against your face.

And just about the only thing you can do is slither your unsteady hands down to toy with the hem of your pants. A sight that makes Choso swallow thickly with a rasping grunt.

“I want you to…” you’re trailing off. Fingers dipping down to where you haven’t been able to satisfy for hours now. Your inner omega yelling - screaming that nothing was enough, but he might just be. “-touch me here, Cho.”

SWAT!

Instantly, you’re letting off a saccharine mewl at the way your hand is being oh-so-rudely thwacked away by one of Choso’s own. The slight sting throbbing - but not as much as your poor cunt is when meeting his digits.

Sliding just between your cottony shorts- oh? Choso’s heart stutters. No panties? You really are going to be the death of him. He’s lingering a dewy stroke down your teary slit, honeying his ringed fingers in all your slick juices.

For a second - just a second.

Lightning-fast, Choso’s trailing away with a slew of spatters left behind, and it makes his skin feel ten times hotter. Ten times dirtier in only the best way.

Even more so when those very digits end up slipping easily into Choso’s mouth. One by one. Eyes trained darkly on yours, his long pinkish tongue ends up lazily lathering up and down up and down up and down every beaded gleam of your juices.

“Y-you’re so-” your voice cracks embarrassingly - pathetically, in a way that makes every copious ounce of blood in his body sprint south. “-filthy.”

Pulling off with a waterlogged pop! Choso’s tongue probes between his two long fingers, smacking his lips open and shut with the sticky dredges. And you swear you catch a whiff of smugness in his scent. Yet, he’s blushing, “All for you- only for you, my girl.��

And you can’t even complain - you can’t even tease him about the way that just another mere touch up against your feverish pussypound has Choso gasping. Eyes crinkling with something like delight and sheer awe.

Because he’s crashing his mouth into yours, suckling on your lips like his favorite berry lolly-

“Sh-shit-” Choso’s rich tone cracks into shattering lilts, and you can hear him laugh against your lips. Laugh. Humorless and crazed - pure desperation bleeding out with every swash of his intoxicating vanilla scent. “Beautiful— you taste even sweeter than in my ngh- dreams, y’know that?”

No, you didn’t - you didn’t even know that Choso dreamed of you in the first place.

And you don’t get to pay it any mind because before you know it, the swirling edge of his rounded fingertips tuck just past where your puffy folds were pursing in a ready pucker. Cold metal rings making you gasp.

And Choso’s greedily snuffing out the sound with a sinking bite of his sharpened canines into your wobbly bottom lip. Drinking in every noise from his pretty girl. His pretty girl.

Cratering dimples notching prettily at the ends of his lipbite, he’s practically begging them out with every slow gyration of his fingertips around and around your peaked clit. Tracing over every tiny ridge and sensitive bundle like he was trying to fucking memorize it. “H-has any other- fuck-” Ringing out a thundering growl at the back of his throat that makes your skin coat in tiny goosebumps. “-has any- other- made you feel this good?”

No no no - your inner omega purrs, and you can practically feel yourself groaning lowly at the back of your throat when you pull away.

Trying - failing, when Choso’s chasing your kiss-bitten lips like he was hooked. Slurring after the syrupy strings of spit that smear the traces of your mouth, he’s meshing his lips in a dramatic smooch. Again. And again. And again and again-

“L-look how wet ya are…” And it wasn’t even a command, but you can’t help lolling your head down to blink at the way his pale wrist was glistening with all your laminated juices. Musing, “Gonna make ya feel so fuckin’ good. So good.”

Two deft fingers pinch your clit. Hard.

“Ah! N-no!” Your spine bends into such a pretty curve off the bed, perfectly in position for Choso to slide his massive palm underneath and massage away your tensely knotted back. Your fingers are trekking up the clamoring hike onto his broad deltoids to feel the droolworthy jolt of his back muscles. Babbling belatedly, “N-no other alpha has made me feel s-so…”

So…what?

Hypnotized? Addicted? Gone?

But whatever it was, the sight of you being ruined into a few shattered jumbles of limbs is enough to make Choso’s alpha hum.

Whispering out, “Can I…” And with a steep inhale of the thick surrounding air, he’s gulping. “C-can I-”

Before you’re gracing him with an answer, you’re helping inch those sleep shorts down. Snailing an almost-blasphemous slicked coat that seeps into your skin. He’s twirling his thumb over the remaining excess left behind - not wasting a single drop.

And it takes only one saturated hit from where your pheromones were the most concentrated - only one shy peak down at your drooling cunt - before Choso can feel his mind shattering. Gasping.

The top half of his body all but collapsing on top of yours.

It’s not even on purpose the way he flinches at the thick curve of your thumb floating upwards to tenderly glide away the swab of drool that was flooding Choso’s mouth right now.

His neat brows quirking upwards, heaving chest choppy - you’re so lustily trapped against the bumped-up planes of his pecs. Feeling the rumble of his heated words, “I-I’ve never…”

Sounding so utterly worn-out already, Choso’s planting a few firm pecks at the corner of your chin. He’d meant for it to reach your lips - but he couldn’t. Too in a trance to even think about it. And as if to make up for it, he’s kissing your neck, the valley of your thighs, your tummy. Every and any inch he hasn’t been blessed with reaching for the past few years.

Shuffling all the way until he was practically lips to lips with your sloshing pussy, eyeing down directly at the way your sloppy entrance was welcoming him with another fresh bout of clingy slick. Choso heaves in a long breath.

“Been waitin’ a looong time f’you, y’know? Can I make a mess?” Choso’s whining sweetly, greedy gaze still trained firmly downwards. Tenderly rubbing over your glossed-up folds, “Can I m-make you break?” And those grasping begs of his are barely even audible over the sheer squelching resonating from your slobbery pussy. Your jaw falls slack at how they only make Choso nod. “Y-you’re right- s-so right–”

Talking. And before you know it, the filthiest French kiss is being placed right on your cunt.

He’s not even hesitating, not even easing you into it - because Choso Kamo has waited so long for this. And he was going to have his fill.

“This is what y-you taste like- this good?” Dragging the very pointed tip of his pretty button nose down your plump clit, he’s smushing it in place with a firm kiss at the very edge of your snug hole. “Th-think this cute cunt can take my fuckin’ cock, beautiful?”

So fucking impatient.

You’re tangling one set of fingers into the stray strands of his hair, bucking up to drag a slow glide down the lower half of his pretty face.

And, usually, with an alpha you could be expected to be snapped at with a snarling command. An instruction to just stay put.

But Choso’s only letting his sharp jaw comfy against the silken sheets, head nuzzling drunkenly into your thighs when you’re pushing and pulling him as you please. Leveraging the vice-like grasp on his scalp to drive steady grinds just the way you like it.

Whining, “Need you so bad, baby–”

“Yeah- yeah, use me-” Choso snickers around a teasing bite against the fattened edge of one of your pussy lips. Sucking. “R-reach your pretty high on my face, omega- need you to cum all over me till I-I’m dripping.”

Fuck.

Was this really your nervous, sweet best friend? His words were so dirty, as if he didn’t even realize he was saying them. And they almost make you embarrassed. Shying way just an inch-

“Oh- no. No no no-” His words come buzzing around your clit, and with a final bite of his elongated canines, Choso’s frantic. He’s scrambling. He’s grasping his powerful arms to loop your thighs and dragging you to him like some ragdoll down the protestingly creaky bed. “S’gonna go to waste- can’t- can’t let it.”

And it’s only about then that you’re dredging up the courage to angle your head further downwards - immediately hit with the sinful sight of Choso in heaven between your limp legs.

His hair a disheveled curtain, eyes narrowed and smudged with eyeliner. Damply bleeding down onto the regal apples of his high cheekbones at the way your meady slick was reaching his blushing cheeks. It masks his coral pink lips, his jaw, his fucking chin.

So sopping wet that it’s forming a little puddle down below him that Choso could never even imagine being disgusted by. No, in fact, he was disappointed with himself for not lapping it up even sooner.

Pumpish lips jutting out in a pout, Choso’s pushing away the hair from his eyes sexily. “Wh-why are you runnin’ away- don’t run away, my girl.”

With a slight giggle, you’re veering your scent to tinge with something comforting. And oh, does it do the trick - because Choso’s eyes swoop downwards drunkenly. Almost closed, almost ruined, he’s huffing out a drawled-out mantra of your name, “Lock it.”

“Wh-what?” You’re choking out.

Soft palms massage gently down your legs, wrapping them around the back of his head. “Lock it.”

Oh.

That was a command, and it has your body pulling taut. Every sensory spot all down your skin screaming to obey - yet, this is something you would have done anyway. Ankles tying together, it’s jostling Choso’s hotly open mouth against your pussy so deeply that you wonder whether he doesn’t have to breathe.

Whether he doesn’t even want to.

Because your dear best friend looks so satisfied to die right in the heaven between your legs right now. And he would go such an utterly happy man, too.

Rosy red lips rubbing rawly against your clit, you’re left a puddle of a needy mess when the roughened tastebuds of his tongue swirl in meticulous little circles. Cheeks hollowing as he sucks, your whines can’t even be heard over the most oozy squelches.

“Heheh- she’s talkin’ back ta me-” Choso’s sputtering out peck after peck. In awe. “She’s talking. Th-think she wants ngh- more.”

More.

More, more, more.

Choso’s beginning to think that your dripping pussy’s speaking for himself with the way that’s exactly what he wants right now. Teasing the mushy outer lips of your puckered hole with his fat fingerpads, before bullying in. Inside.

You’re taking him so well - hips careening even further downwards when he’s feeding your greedy cunt with every long inch of his digits. Slow enough that you could count it - just about six, ringed inches all the way to his knuckles.

Shit- it’s so hot inside, as if your pretty pussy was practically melting around him. Molding to his every shape as Choso’s driveling swirling around in rummaging little stripes down your gummy walls. Slow. Slick.

Slender cylindrical intrusions that bump up deftly against your battered g-spots. The chilling stretch of his banded metal rings was too much. Your eager cunt is splattering out a pornographic little gush of your sweet, sweet juices all over again at the way he’s teasingly fondling over that magical spot.

“J-jus’ a little higher, baby–” you’re spewing out. Deprived.

And oh, Choso’s darkened eyes are practically lighting up. He doesn’t pull away from your bruised clit to answer - not even to breathe before vibrating out a keening, “Here?”

So desperate.

Even needier than you.

You’re blinking through large, globular tears that occupy the space behind your lids. Nodding, “A little more- jus- oh!”

And Choso didn’t need to hear it from your lips. Hell, he didn’t even need to hear it from the way your snug channel was all but milking his fingers dry. Clinging on in a soppy kiss when he’s probing into your g-spot harder. Meaner. Because the way your intoxicating scent changes - concentrating ever-so-slightly makes Choso realize that you’re cumming before even you register it.

Slamming headfirst into your high, you’re plowing out a belated cry of “I- fuck- m’cumming, Cho. M’cumming, m’cumming-”

Sparks of white splinter your vision, and your knees find themselves just wrenching free from the lecherous comforts of the bed - but Choso won’t let you escape so easily.

No.

Barely batting an eye, he’s straining his biceps deadlocked around your legs. Pinning you to the bed until you could barely squirm, barely do anything but take his punishing little clashes against your g-spot head-on. Bumping in. Over and over.

Choso suckles on your clit like his favorite little gummy, stretching and nibbling until you see stars with your orgasm.

“Don’t run away-” he’s puffing out into your cunt, the very idea of parting with drizzling pussy making him yelp out a pained grunt. “P-please don’t run away- I promised to make a mess. O-one more f’me, beautiful?”

You’re just molten at his touch. Ravenous and overwhelmingly greedy for you as much as you were for him. Something carnal inside you screaming for more-

“H-hear her?” His eyes are drifting closed at the pulpy little noises your cunt mashes on. Dangling ear piercings twinkling when he’s leering even closer to hear. “Tellin’ me she’s gonna give her- hngh- alpha one more.” Fuck, Choso’s features decorate with the most blazing blush at his own words. How embarrassing. “Wontcha use my mouth all over again? I didn’t get fuuuuck- messy ‘nough last time…”

And as if to prove his point, Choso traces a slow glide of his worked tongue across the sloppily wet coating that drips down his lips. Just for a second.

Your veins bubble sensitively with need at the broken whine sounding from the back of Choso’s throat when you drag him even snugger between your legs. Puffs of leaky pheromones driving the two of you wild, making your hips stutter out a slurring pace up and down his face.

“Th-this pussy is all f’me- isn’t it, my girl? S’all f’me?”

Even sloppier once you battle out a nod.

Your cunt is extra slobbery because of your heat anyways, but Choso’s making such a mess on purpose.

Eyes running away to the back of his head, tongue lolling out even messier. He’s planting such dousing draws of saliva, lathering your sweet spots mercilessly. And his fingers- oh, his fingers were relentless. Shovelling up in solid, wet nudges until you’re able to feel every circular indent of his digits on your g-spot.

Every run of his manicured nails across where you’re sure you were beginning to get bruised. And every-so-often whenever his eyes glaze green with raw greed - with slight, stupid jealousy over his fingers - you’d peek at Choso plunging his digits into his mouth and sucking.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Matching the lecherous sound of your thundering heartbeat, you can feel yourself squeal at the overstimulating touches. Sobbing out the cutest little whines that make Choso chuckle, “Easy– easy there, my girl.” Letting your cunt free with a sodden pwah! only to spit. Once. Twice. A sticky wad of his thick saliva that blusters its way to coat your puffy pussy lips, “You’re cumming again, right? A-all over my face?”

You’re nodding - nodding and nodding so hard, but that wasn’t enough for Choso Kamo.

He wasn’t satisfied until a slow pull of your clit right from between his pearly whites had you bawling out. The backs of your hands dipping upwards to hide your face - which he quickly, and calculatedly spanks away with his free hand. “M’gonna cum soon- ngh- please- Cho- don’ stop.”

Hah, if this was any other time then Choso might’ve laughed.

Might’ve teased you until you were begging for him in that cute voice once more. But maybe it’s the way his alpha was clawing at his chest from the insides to give you whatever you want, maybe it was the way seeing you fall apart on your heat like this all over him had his cock twitching-

Because Choso only smiles - drunk. Dazed. “Cum f’me, p-please. Ruin me, ma’am..”

He was ruined alright.

Absolutely sugar-coated with your overlaying juices - it’s dripping down his bed and disappearing into the now see-through fabric of his undershirt like a badge of honor. A badge to say that he’s made you cum for the second time on his mouth.

That he’s made you squirt.

Splattering out all over his face with every slurping taste - and yet, Choso still couldn’t get enough. Sweeping up the milky droplets, Choso’s boring his heady gaze right into your widened eyes when he’s leering his mouth agape to make you spy the way each splash slides down his throat.

God- you’re seeing white all over again. You’re seeing spots, having you gulp in necessary gasps of the soiled air to once more regain your steady heartpace.

“Ch-Choso-” you’re struggling, voice brittle and gone. Frantically trying to haul - to force - Choso from his favorite home between your cunt, to stop his greedy tongue. “S’enough- can’t cum anymore can’t- ngh-”

“But, beautiful–”

Shit- it would be so easy to get swept up all over again. Because Choso was parched, and he was still far from having his fill.

Words tinting with a slightly commanding tone, you’re making something dark and primal rear its head when you manhandle him upwards with one hand in his locks, and another on his undershirt. So heavy but pliant.

Up, up, up-

“Choso–” you’re mumbling out. And before you know it, Chosos hands had toppled you over into the cushiony mattress, and yours were tracing the edge of his too-tight boxers. Tugging. Needy. “I-I want these- off-”

“Anything.” He’s echoing, like it was all that he could right about now. Dewey brows scrunching up into something of a beg, you’re catching the way his Adam’s apple bobs. Deprived. “Anything f-for you-”

Fuck- in your currently woozy state you’re not sure if Choso removed his pants or if he ripped them off. Stumbling and tripping to let the few scarce tatters droop into the floor in a sullen pile.

With a gulp, your fingers skitter across the planes of his useless undershirt - letting his pretty, bulging muscles peek out at you from underneath when you slide them off of him. Palms smearing in gluttonous little touches across his push pecs, down his rippling abs, down that lusciously dark happy trail and oh-

“S-something the matter, beautiful?” Choso’s heaving in a struggling gulp at the way your gorgeous eyes widen, maw slacking into a soft oh! Head tilting innocently, “M’your hah- best friend, you can tell me a-anythin’.”

“You’re just so…” Comes the whirling answer, your voice slow and alcoholic. He was getting drunk on your words already. “...big.”

Not only was Choso big - he was massive.

The fat, rotund circle of his head ruddied a strawberry pink, gradiating all the way down his shaft to meet blend into his creamy base. He was so hard that it looked painful, visibly throb! throb! throbbing, bumpy lightning bolts of his veins hammering up at you cheekily. He was so pretty - thick enough that you’re feeling your cunt clench already. Even the burn of your stare has Choso’s reddish divot weeping out a few ropey spurts of pre. Making you dizzy with the incredible size and that musky vanilla scent of his.

And was that-

Oh. Fuck.

It was.

Through the honeyed slew of precum pooling at Choso’s thick tip, you’re gasping at the slight wink of something metallic.

Without thinking - without even breathing - you’re drifting your hand down to thumb those syrupy globules thin. Discovering the absolute treasure chest that was a studded Prince Albert’s piercing right near the weepy edge of Choso’s shaft.

“I got if for- you- Gotta a-another one, y’know-” His gentle rasp jolts you out of your sinful reverie, engulfing hands guiding your own to wrap around his flushed tip and peek under. Right on the slippery sliver of his slit, “A ngh- matching one. Th-thought you might like it…”

Oh- two.

And, embarrassingly, you can feel the way your scent turns headier. Hypnotizing. Enough so that Choso can’t help the way he’s hanging by a bare thread, head falling into the crook of your neck to breathe in. “Y-you act so innocent but…”

“But m’only l-like this for you.” He’s tucking your tender earlobe between his teeth. “P-promise. I haven’t even…”

Ah, a virgin.

Sweet and absolutely gifted.

And something about it was so cute the way Choso was acting exactly like it. Every wordless toy of your fingers up and down his sensitive glans, making him snarl a lipbite. Girthy length fucking up in shuddering slams into the cushiony tunnel of your palm. Weightily muscled abs flexing with heat when you’re running a thumb under his head to press down on that silver piercing.

“S-so tiny- heh- your pretty hands are so tiny takin’ my cock, beautiful.” he’s giggling - giggling. Perspiration-simmered forehead knocking into yours, Choso’s letting his tired head loll there and bore into your eyes. “You needa ngh- fuck! Needa slow down, my girl, m’already so close jus’ from making out with yer sweet c-cunt out.” Already close. Just from eating you out. “Else m’n-not gonna be able to control it-”

“I can handle it–” you’re pouting stubbornly. Soft digits clenching even tighter around his cock, and shit, Choso lets his head fall into the junction between your shoulder and your neck.

Finding himself growing more needy. More feral. Tight, hot curdling in his stomach building up and up.

“M’serious.” His lilting voice breaks, teeth skimming over the pulpy flesh of your sweetened pheromone glands. Nibbling. His incredibly shaky fingers wrap around your shoulders, “Please- ngh- please m’gonna break ya.”

And it’s like you wanted him to.

Dick twitching at those filthy fingers of yours - the way they only pump him faster. And faster. Tighter around the hefty base, more teasing up the slippery slope of his tip - like you were trying to milk out something delicious.

And you can already feel the way your mouth lathers with a fresh coating of saliva, face inching closer and closer to the bawling peak of his swollen cock. Wanting oh-so-badly to taste the silver of his Prince Albert’s.

“But I want you to, Cho.”

SMACK!

You’re left stupidly stunned when Choso’s behemoth palm coils like a tight shackle around your tender throat. Pulling you away from his achy cock in a flash, you’re being thrown around like his own personal ragdoll.

And Choso snickers at the way you’re bouncing cutely on the plush mattress, legs drooping wider and wider agape with every sleazy second he really can’t help but leer over you. Wrangling those boneless legs of yours over his shoulder with a sharp click of his tongue.

“I-I already told you, beautiful–” he’s bending down, down down to nose along your sweat-dotted cheeks, your skin stark hot against the icy chain of his silver necklace. Chest grumbling with a slight purr. “M’gonna make such a mess of you- can I?”

And that drunken look in Choso’s eyes made him look like he would absolutely shatter if you let your lips shape into a teasing no right about now. Like those warm, salted tears spattering from the corners of his half-lidded eyes and right onto your cheeks would only hasten.

“Can I- please, my girl- jus’ wanna-” His lips wobble adorably when his sobbing cock glides a slow line between the mushy lips of your pussy. A graze for a graze of his mouth down your own. “-wanna make you mine.”

And just the tip - just a single fat inch shoved into your gummy hole is all it takes for Choso to whimper.

You’re brushing over his precious cheek, “Ch-Cho, are you okay?”

And Choso can’t answer - hell, he doesn’t think he could even if he wanted to. Because that gushing little clench of your clingy walls all around his sodden wet tip absolutely ruins him. Delicate rivulets of slobber streaming down the smiling edges of his tongue, he’s puffing out an open-mouthed, “No- fuck- d-do I look okay?”

He didn’t.

He seemed like he was burning up - fucked-out already, practically. Pecs rippling with a bolting flex, muscled body shirking with violent shivers when with a low keen of your name - Choso’s cumming.

“No-” he’s crying out, head flailing backwards. Just from putting it inside for the first time. “No no no no- m’not s’pposed to- yet-”

But he was. Hips recklessly meandering again and again into yours - slight, tugging grinds of just his thickened tip like Choso was afraid of sinking into your heavenly pussy anymore. Like he knew it would break him even more.

Have him flooding out voluminous ribbons of thick seed, splattering against your spongy channel, and smearing around in dripping vertical patterns with every one of his animalistic ruts.

“Give it t’me–” you’re locking your ankles even tighter. Prattling out such filthy nonsense that you’re sure you’d get embarrassed about had you not been in your heat. “I-I need your cum, baby- wan’ it allll inside me-”

“Ngh-” Choso’s letting off a broken sound at the back of his throat, squeezing your own with that one hand of his happily making its home there. Blocking off your airway, your heady pheromones only struggle to waft out even more. Saturating. “D-don’t talk like that- n-not outta ya pussy, beautiful.”

“But I w-ngh! want it-”

He gulps, “A-are you sure?” Because this is his best friend - this is the one person he’d never even dreamt of having because that was too dangerous. Too fanciful. The one person he’d written about in every diary, and gotten teased for it by his family just the same. Perfect.

Yet, you’re so stubborn when you’re in heat. “Mhm– wan’ you to…breed me.”

And he loved it.

Couldn’t get enough of it - or you.

Choso’s scrambling up one of his jostling hands to latch your hips into a perfect almost-semicircle. Lower lip worried underneath his canines when he’s wiping his fat thumb over the dewdrops of seed treacling from your soppy slit.

That digit finds its way rummaging between your lips, “Lock it.”

This time, you don’t need it said twice - you don’t even need it to be a command.

Because Choso’s reigning up his own hand to pin both your ankles behind his head, and you think you’ll forever remember just how hot he looked this way. Biceps bulging with the strain, simmering with a slick sheen of perspiration, and his hips-

Oh, it’s like any and every slip of restraint in Choso’s hulking body snapped.

Because with a loud, saturated squelch! you’re being filled up to what it feels like your lungs with every solid inch of his engorged girth. Inflating your tender insides, buttering your poor cervix with a thick stream of pre when he’s kissing it with a wet thwack!

“Oh- oh.” Choso’s head pushes into the crook of your neck, into your pillow until you were sure that it was soaked with tears of absolute bliss. “Th-this feels nothing l-like my ngh- hand. S’so much more heavenly-”

Yet, you weren’t in the right state of mind to be paying attention to the utter filth that was spilling from your innocent best friend’s mouth. Breath choking up in a lead ball in your throat, you whisper, “Ch-Cho…s’that your knot?”

Your slicked-up folds puckering up in a wet snog against the overinflated ring ballooning around his thick base. The sheer thumping circumference of it makes you squeeze-

“Y-yes–” he’s humming out. The sodden base of his cock thwack! thwack! thwacking your bruising entrance when he’s rutting in and out. Sloppy. Slow. Still trying not to see stars. “God- s’even softer than I ngh- imagined.”

And soft you were.

This is what your sweet pussy felt like? This good? This should be fucking illegal, he was babbling out - but wouldn’t realize until much, much later.

Being spearheaded open with every unapologetic rifle to fill you up, the leftover dredges of Choso’s seed trickle a slippery pathway leading him to ambush your g-spot head on. Stubbing his cool metal piercing into your sweetened bullseyes so hard, you swear you could feel the indenting divot of that sinful Prince Albert’s.

“There?” Mesmerized, his eyes grow wide. “R-right there?”

And he’s hot - so feverish.

Glissading body on top of yours burning up with radiating heat, fracturing our rationality just as much as the sweet vanilla scent of his pheromones were. That tiny heart friendship charm on his necklace hitting your collarbones in a dirty staccato.

You can feel yourself start to drool with how stupid Choso’s cock was fucking you, curling a few neat raking lines down his statuesquely muscled back. It makes him just arch his cock even deeper to jostle your snug insides riotously.

“I-imagined about me a lot?” Ah, you’re finding it in yourself to smirk.

Something that Choso’s jackhammering out in quick, increasingly sloppy juts of his hips. Slathering the entirety of his cock with your slicked juices.

“O-of course.” He’s shifting his eyes gingerly away from yours with a boyish blush. But now that Choso had started talking, he couldn’t stop. “Always wan’ed to f-fuck you through a rut or h-heat like this- to-” Couldn’t keep from hiking up a flattened foot to angle his pierced cockhead into every untouched inch inside you. The special upright curve of his shaft driving you mad. “-to absolutely ruin you and-” The hand at your legs hover right over where he was plummeting your insides with gluey kisses - your womb. “-and make you mine. Ours.”

Ours.

God, just the mere act of confessing those embarrassing little words had Choso’s hulking body practically melting into yours.

It’s like his abs were made of adhesive, massaging up and down your front. Drowning you into the plethora of wrecked sheets and him when he’s collapsing on top of you - but still going. Still placing pound after pound.

“I-I want that too-” And you think you hear Choso sharply gasp, but you can’t confirm over your popping ears. “Always wanted it- ah- wanted you to fuck a baby into me, Cho.”

SLAM!

The slowly-splintering bedframe creaks when one particularly harsh rut has the headboard slamming into the wall behind.

And that’s all he needed to hear.

A baby - he wants a baby. He needs one - and this wasn’t just his alpha talking - and he was going to get it.

All that Choso thinks he ever could hear all through his honeyed mind for the rest of his life. Replaying it over and over in his mind like his favorite catchy tune.

You don’t miss the way that he looks so in love above you, gaze practically heart-eyed and gone. Choso’s raw, swollen lips meteor shower your face with peck after peck - just in time with the collisions of his rounded tip into your sweet spots.

“Boy or girl?”

“H-huh?” you’re questioning, barely-lucidly.

“Boy or girl.”

And after those senseless little answers are falling from your lips, Choso’s brushing a hand over your lower tummy. Pushing. Hard. Until his twitchy knot was covered in buttery residues of cum, “Ah- a-always wan’ed a daughter with ya first. With your c-cute smile and ngh- eyes.”

Huffing out an embarrassed, “Choso.”

And he’s only scooping back in the leaky sediments of seed that he’s responsible for making a mess of. Turning a slow thumb right over your tight ring of muscle, “Gonna have my- ngh- style of course, heh- you’d be the best momma. D-don’t care if you’re my best friend, m’gonna breed ya until you’re overspilling, beautiful.”

You needed it so badly. Your heat turning up a notch until it felt like you were boiling from the inside out, candied scent drifting more.

He’s giggling out, dark lashes batting without his permission. “M’gonna- ngh- take care of you-”. The hand caressing your elastic entrance flies upwards to get cleaned off by his own tongue - before prying your jaw sagging open to spit. “Goood fuckin’ care. N’ hopefully you’ll end up p-pregnant…hopefully.”

He’s encircling the dip in your waist and dragging you forwards to smack against his washboard abs. Unable to squirm. Unable to run away. “Gonna be the p-prettiest momma- the ngh- most beautiful.” Other hand restricting your throat so cozily that your vision tinges with black, “Gonna be mine.”

And when you’re cumming, it’s with those exact words in mind.

The way your sopping walls were milking him for all he’s worth - so greedily - shoving Choso to tip over the edge, too.

Choso’s letting his body sexily cave into yours, not breaking even a mere inch apart when he’s got you trapped and overfilled with every dollop of his cum icing your insides. And right now you could already feel the way your scents were mixing, the way Choso turns slightly cross-eyed-

Before sharply turning to your glands and biting.

Hard.

His predatory canines break through your epidermis layer like butter, a crimson lipstain gushing from the wound and staining his lips a handsome rouge.

And - only belatedly, once your omega’s snapping at you with her teeth bared - do you realize that it’s your turn to do the same. As if you would want any other.

Locking your jaw to dig into his pale, dampish throat, Choso sucks in his cheek to muffle the slightest whine when you’re wringing him through every speck of bliss he could possibly ever feel in a lifetime. Furious cock stuttering out a few more lazy wisps of cum at the mingling feeling of finally being yours.

“Not ‘nough-” He’s eyeing the leftover ring of cum painting his knot, “Can I fill ya up m-more? Please? Please- my girl.”

You’re pulling away with a woozy nod to rub your thumb over the dug indents of your teeth, gently soothing slow circles over the feral sting.

Filling you up over and over with each pound, he’s fucking you into the mattress like he hates you. And he’s fucking you like every shuddering ram had a creamy ounce of cum pouring into your gummy walls. Glueing in wet splats against your g-spot, your cervix, like a second sloppy skin.

Generous helpings of cum drifting into almost blanks-

“Heh- haaaah- y’know tha’s makin’ me still c-cum, beautiful.” Choso’s leaving sodden kisses on your own mark, your lips. “M’sorry m’sorry I- I can’t stop- I just- can’t.”

And it’s sheer animal nature in you that’s screaming at you that you don’t want him to stop until you’re sure it takes. That’s bending down a hand as much as deftly as possible to wrap around Choso’s slightly softening cock - that only tuts in impatience.

“Wh-when I said inside-” You’re pumping his soaked base as much as possible, feeling the stiffening twitch at his tip buried inside you. “-I mean- inside-”

It’s like you’re being split-apart - like you couldn’t be any fuller if you tried.

And, yet, only the very curvaceous top of Choso’s inflated knot had bullied its way in-between your lewdly stretched hole. Gaping a pathway so incredibly girthy that it makes you scrunch your brows, head tumbling backwards.

“Oh- oh, my greedy, greedy girl.” But Choso doesn’t look one bit admonishing - not one bit. Slithering a hand down to your cunt, he’s steamrolling two thick pads of his fingers. Rubbing up against your squeamish walls, scissoring your tight entrance so amply open. “I can put it…inside. R-really, really inside?”

Oh, Choso doesn’t know what blessings he’s received in his past lives. But absolutely nothing could have prepared him for how swelteringly hot and cushy you were around his fat knot.

Swallowing up the bulging circlet, plugging up your seeping slit safely so that you’re not spilling a single glutinous splotch of his cum. So that it will take. It’s such a tight fit. Such a burning stretch. You felt so full you could burst with every throb of his swollen knot probing your walls.

Ah, you look so pretty this way.

And Choso’s half-wishing he had a camera to capture this moment. With his lips pressing a few syrupy kisses along every inch of skin he could reach. Somewhere near your tummy - so full and slightly inflated with the copious amounts of cum that were dumped inside you.

He’s murmuring something drunken - something you probably weren’t even supposed to hear. But at the curious tilt of your head, your best friend chews over his lips nervously.

And a giddy smile plasters across your face at the saccharine love in your best friend’s eyes - the way he was probably mulling over asking you out on a date. There was no turning back at this point, and your omega purred in agreement as you got ready to say yes. For him to say a sweetened-

“Marry me.”

A/N. You show up at the next Itadori family dinner with a ring and Sukuna has an actual heart attack.

Plagiarism not authorized.

#choso x reader #choso smut #choso x you #jjk x reader #jjk smut #jjk x you #choso kamo x reader #choso kamo smut #choso kamo x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen smut #jujutsu kaisen x you #jjk #jjk fic #jujutsu kaisen #choso #tonywrites #choso kamo

11K notes · View notes

luveline · 1 month ago

Text

𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐧

Things between you and Peter change with the seasons. [17k]

c: friends-to-lovers, hurt/comfort, loneliness, peter parker isn’t good at hiding his alter ego, fluff, first kisses, mutual pining, loved-up epilogue, mention of self-harm with no graphic imagery

｡𖦹°‧⭑.ᐟ

Fall

Peter Parker is a resting place for overworked eyes, like warm topaz nestled against a blue-cold city. He waits on you with his eyes to the screen of his phone, clicking the power button repetitively. A nervous tic.

You close the heavy door of your apartment building. His head stays still, yet he’s heard the sound of it settling, evidence in his calmed hand.

“Good morning!” You pull your coat on quickly. “Sorry.”

“Good morning,” he says, offering a sleep-logged smile. “Should we go?”

You follow Peter out of the cul-de-sac and into the street as he drops his phone into a deep pocket. To his credit, he doesn’t check it while you walk, and only glances at it when you’re taking your coat off in the heat of your favourite cafe: The Moroccan Mode glows around you, fog kissing the windows, condensation running down the inner lengths of it in beads. You murmur something to do with the odd fog and Peter tells you about water vapour. When it rains tonight, he says it’ll be warm water that falls.

He spreads his textbook, notebook, and rinky-dink laptop out across the table while you order drinks. Peter has the same thing every visit, a decaf americano, in a wide brim mug with the pink-petal saucer. You put it down on his textbook only because that’s where he would put it himself, and you both get to work.

As Peter helps you study, you note the simplicity of another normal day, and can’t help wondering what it is that’s missing. Something is, something Peter won’t tell you, the absence of a truth hanging over your heads. You ask him if he wants to get dinner and he says no, he’s busy. You ask him to see a movie on Friday night and he wishes he could.

Peter misses you. When he tells you, you believe him. “I wish I had more time,” he says.

“It’s fine,” you say, “you can’t help it.”

“We’ll do something next weekend,” he says. The lie slips out easily.

To Peter it isn’t a lie. In his head, he’ll find the time for you again, and you’ll be friends like you used to be.

You press the end of your pencil into your cheek, the dark roast, white paper and condensation like grey noise. This time last year, the air had been thick for days with fog you could cut. He took you on a trip to Manhattan, less than an hour from your red-brick neighbourhood, and you spent the day in a hotel pool throwing great cupfuls of water at each other. The fog was gone just fifteen miles away from home but the warm air stayed. When it rained it was sudden, strange, spit-warm splashes of it hammering the tops of your heads, your cheeks as you tipped your faces back to spy the dark clouds.

Peter had swam the short distance to you and held your shoulders. You remember feeling like your whole life was there, somewhere you’d never been before, the sharp edges of cracked pool tile just under your feet.

You peek over the top of your laptop screen and wonder if Peter ever thinks of that trip.

He feels you watching and meets your eyes. “I have to tell you something,” he says, smiling shyly.

“Sure.”

“I signed us up for that club.”

“Epigenetics?”

“Molecular medicine,” he says.

The nice thing about fog is that it gives a feeling of lateness. It’s still morning, barely ten, but it feels like the early evening. It’s gentle on the eyes, colouring the whole room with a sconced shine. You reach for Peter’s bag and sort through his jumble of possessions —stick deodorant, loose-leaf paper, a bodega’s worth of protein bars— and grab his camera.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m cataloguing the moment you ruined our lives,” you say, aiming the camera at his chin, squinting through the viewfinder.

“Technically, I signed us up a few days ago,” he says.

You snap his photo as his mouth closes around ‘ago’, keeping his half-laugh stuck on his lips. “Semantics,” you murmur. “And molecular medicine club, this has nothing to do with the estranged Gwen Stacy?”

“It has nothing to do with her. And you like molecular medicine.”

“I like oncology,” you correct, which is a sub-genre at best, “and I have enough work without joining another club. Go by yourself.”

“I can’t go without you,” he says. Simple as that.

He knew you’d say yes when he signed you up. It’s why he didn’t ask. You’re already forgiven him for the slight of assumption.

“When is it?” you ask, smiling.

—

Molecular medicine club is fun. You and a handful of ESU nerds gather around a big table in a private study room for a few hours and read about the newer discoveries and top research, like regenerative science and now taboo Oscorp research. It’s boring, sometimes, but then Peter will lean into your side and make a joke to keep you going.

He looks at Gwen Stacy a lot. Slender, pale and freckled, with blonde hair framing a sweet face. Only when he thinks you’re not looking. Only when she isn’t either.

—

“Good morning,” you say.

Peter holds an umbrella over his head that he’s quick to share with you, and together you walk with heads craned down, the umbrella angled forward to fight the wind. Your outermost shoulder is wet when you reach the café, your other warm from being pressed against him. You shake the umbrella off outside the door and step onto a cushy, amber doormat to dry your sneakers. Peter stalks ahead and order the drinks, eager to get warm, so you look for a table. Your usual is full of businessmen drinking flat whites with briefcases at their legs. They laugh. You try to picture Peter in a suit: you’re still laughing when he finds you in the booth at the back.

“Tell the joke,” he says, slamming his coffee down. He’s careful with yours. He’s given you the pink petal saucer from the side next to the straws and wooden stirrers.

“I was thinking about you as a businessman.”

“And that’s funny?”

“When was the last time you wore a suit?”

Peter shakes his head. Claims he doesn’t know. Later, you’ll remember his Uncle Ben’s funeral and feel queasy with guilt, but you don’t remember yet. “When was the last time you wore one?” he asks. “I don’t laugh at you.”

“You’re always laughing at me, Parker.”

The cafe isn’t as warm today. It’s wet, grimy water footsteps tracking across the terracotta tile, streaks of grey water especially heavy near the counter, around it to the bathroom. There’s no fog but a sad rattle of rain, not enough to make noise against the windows, but enough to watch as it falls in lazy rivulets down the lengths of them.

Your face is chapped with the cold, cheeks quickly come to heat as your fingers curl around your mug. They tingle with newfound warmth. When you raise your mug to your lips, your hand hardly shakes.

“You okay?” Peter asks.

“Fine. Are you gonna help me with the math today?”

“Don’t think so. Did you ask nicely?”

“I did.” You’d called him last night. You would’ve just as happily submitted your homework poorly solved with the grade to prove it —you don’t want Peter’s help, you just wanted to see him.

Looking at him now, you remember why his distance had felt a little easier. The rain tangles in his hair, damp strands curling across his forehead, his eyes dark and outfitted by darker eyelashes. Peter has the looks of someone you’ve seen before, a classical set to his nose and eyes reminiscent of that fallen angel weeping behind his arm, his russet hair in fiery disarray. There was an anger to Peter after Ben died that you didn’t recognise, until it was Peter, changed forever and for the worse and it didn’t matter —he was grieving, he was terrified, who were you to tell him to be nice again— until it started to get better. You see less of your fallen, angry angel, no harsh brush strokes, no tears.

His eyes are still dark. Bruised often underneath, like he’s up late. If he is, it isn’t to talk to you.

You spend an afternoon working through your equations, pretending to understand until Peter explains them to death. His earphones fall out of his pocket and he says, “Here, I’ll show you a song.”

He walks you home. The song is dreary and sad. The man who sings is good. Lover, You Should’ve Come Over. It feels like Peter’s trying to tell you something —he isn’t, but it feels like wishing he would.

“You okay?” you ask before you can get to your street. A minute away, less.

“I’m fine, why?”

You let the uncomfortable shape of his earbud fall out of your ear, the climax of the song a rattle on his chest. “You look tired, that’s all. Are you sleeping?”

“I have too much to do.”

You just don’t get it. “Make sure you’re eating properly. Okay?”

His smile squeezes your heart. Soft, the closest you’ll ever get. “You know May,” he says, wrapping his arm around your shoulders to give you a short hug, “she wouldn’t let me go hungry. Don’t worry about me.”

—

The dip into depression you take is predictable. You can’t help it. Peter being gone makes it worse.

You listen to love songs and take long walks through the city, even when it’s dark and you know it’s a bad idea. If anything bad happens Spider-Man could probably save me, you think. New York’s not-so-new vigilante keeps a close eye on things, especially the women. You can’t count how many times you’ve heard the same story. A man followed me home, saw me across the street, tried to get into my apartment, but Spider-Man saved me.

You’re not naive, you realise the danger of walking around without protection assuming some stranger in a mask will save you, but you need to get out of the house. It goes on for weeks.

You walk under streetlights and past stores with CCTV, but honestly you don’t really care. You’re not thinking. You feel sick and heavy and it’s fine, really, it’s okay, everything works out eventually. It’s not like it’s all because you miss Peter, it’s just a feeling. It’ll go away.

“You’re in deep thought,” a voice says, garnering a huge flinch from the depths of your stomach.

You turn around, turn back, and flinch again at the sight of a man a few paces ahead. Red shoulders and legs, black shining in a webbed lattice across his chest. “Oh,” you say, your heartbeat an uncomfortable plodding under your hand, “sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? I scared you.”

“I didn’t realise you were there.”

Spider-Man doesn’t come any closer. You take a few steps in his direction. You’ve never met before but you’d like to see him up close, and you aren’t scared. Not beyond the shock of his arrival.

“Can I walk you to where you’re going?” Spider-Man asks you. He’s humming energy, fidgeting and shifting from foot to foot.

“How do I know you’re the real Spider-Man?”

After all, there are high definition videos of his suit on the news sometimes. You wouldn’t want to find out someone was capable of making a replica in the worst way possible.

You can’t be sure, but you think he might be smiling behind the mask, his arms moving back as though impressed at your questioning. “What do you need me to do to prove it?” he asks.

He speaks hushed. Rough and deep. “I don’t know. What’s Spider-Man exclusive?”

“I can show you the webs?”

You pull your handbag further up your arm. “Okay, sure. Shoot something.”

Spider-Man aims his hand at the streetlight across the way and shoots it. He makes a severing motion with his wrist to stop from getting pulled along by it, letting the web fall like an alien tendril from the bulb. The light it produces dims slightly. A chill rides your spine.

“Can I walk you now?” he asks.

“You don’t have more important things to do?” If the bitterness you’re feeling creeps into your tone unbidden, he doesn’t react.

“Nothing more important than you.”

You laugh despite yourself. “I’m going to Trader Joe’s.”

“Yellowstone Boulevard?”

“That’s the one…”

You fall into step beside him, and, awkwardly, begin to walk again. It’s a short walk. Trader Joe’s will still be open for hours despite the dark sky, and you’re in no hurry. “My friend, he likes the rolled tortilla chips they do, the chilli ones.”

“And you’re going just for him?” Spider-Man asks.

“Not really. I mean, yeah, but I was already going on a walk.”

“Do you always walk around by yourself? It’s late. It’s dangerous, you know, a beautiful girl like you,” he says, descending into an odd mixture of seriousness and teasing. His voice jumps and swoons to match.

“I like walking,” you say.

Spider-Man walking is a weird thing to see. On the news, he’s running, swinging, or flying through the air untethered. You’re having trouble acquainting the media image of him with the quiet man you’re walking beside now.

”Is everything okay?” he asks. “You seem sad.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, you do.”

“Maybe I am sad,” you confess, looking forward, the bright sign of Trader Joe’s already in view. It really is a short walk. “Do you ever–” You swallow against a surprising tightness in your throat and try again, “Do you ever feel like you’re alone?”

“I’m not alone,” he says carefully.

“Me neither, but sometimes I feel like I am.”

He laughs quietly. You bristle thinking you’re being made fun of, but the laugh tapers into a sad one. “Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person in the world,” he says. “Even here. I forget that it’s not something I invented.”

“Well, I guess being a hero would feel really lonely. Who else do we have like you?” You smile sympathetically. “It must be hard.”

“Yeah.” His head tips to the side, and a crash of glass rings in the distance, crunching, and then there’s a squeal. It sounds like a car accident. Spider-Man goes tense. “I’ll come back,” he says.

“That’s okay, Spider-Man, I can get home by myself. Thank you for the protection detail.”

He sprints away. In half a second he’s up onto a short roof, then between buildings. It looks natural. It takes your breath away.

You buy Peter’s chips at Trader Joe’s and wait for a few minutes at the door, but Spider-Man doesn’t come back.

—

I don’t want to study today, Peter’s text says the next day. Come over and watch movies?

The last handholds of your fugue are washed away in the shower. You dab moisturiser onto your face and neck and stand by the open window to help it dry faster, taking in the light drizzle of rain, the smell of it filling your room and your lungs in cold gales. You dress in sweatpants and a hoodie, throw on your coat, and stuff the rolled tortilla chips into a backpack to ferry across the neighbourhood.

Peter still lives at home with his Aunt May. You’d been in awe of it when you were younger, Peter and his Aunt and Uncle, their home-cooked family dinners, nights spent on the roof trying to find constellations through light pollution, stretched out together while it was warm enough to soak in your small rebellion. Ben would call you both down eventually. When you’re older! he’d always promise.

Peter’s waiting in the open door for you. He ushers you inside excitedly, stripping you out of your coat and forgetting your wet shoes as he drags you to the kitchen. “Look what I got,” he says.

The Parker kitchen is a big, bright space with a chopping block island. The counters are crowded by pots, pans, spices, jams, coffee grounds, the impossible drying rack. There’s a cross-stitch about the home on the microwave Ben did to prove to May he could still see the holes in the aida.

You follow Peter to the stove where he points at a ceramic Dutch oven you’ve eaten from a hundred times. “There,” he says.

“Did you cook?” you ask.

“Of course I didn’t cook, even if the way you said that is offensive. I could cook. I’m an excellent chef.”

“The only thing May’s ever taught you is spaghetti and meatballs.”

“Hope you like marinara,” he says, nudging you toward the stove.

You take the lid off of the Dutch oven to unveil a huge cake. Dripping with frosting, only slightly squashed by the lid, obviously homemade. He’s dotted the top with swirls of frosting and deep red strawberries.

“It’s for you,” he says casually.

“It’s not my birthday.”

“I know. You like cake though, don’t you?”

You’d tell Peter you liked chunks of glass if that was what he unveiled. “Why’d you make me a cake?”

“I felt like you deserved a cake. You don’t want it?”

“No, I want it! I want the cake, let’s have cake, we can go to 91st and get some ice cream, it’ll be amazing.” You don’t bother trying to hide your beaming smile now, twisting on the spot to see him properly, your hands falling behind your back. “Thank you, Peter. It’s awesome. I had no idea you could even– that you’d even–” You press forward, smushing your face against his chest. “Wow.”

“Wow,” he says, wrapping his arms around you. He angles his head to nose at your temple. “You’re welcome. I would’ve made you a cake years ago if I knew it was gonna make you this happy.”

“It must’ve taken hours.”

“May helped.”

“That makes much more sense.”

“Don’t be insolent.” Peter squeezes you tightly. He doesn’t let go for a really long time.

He extracts the cake from the depths of the Dutch oven and cuts you both a slice. He already has ice cream, a Neapolitan box that he cuts into with a serrated knife so you can each have a slice of all three flavours. It’s good ice cream, fresh for what it is and melting in big drops of cream as he gets the couch ready.

“Sit down,” he says, shoving the plates with his strangely great balance onto the coffee table. “Remote’s by you. I’m gonna get drinks.”

You take your plate, carving into the cake with the end of a warped spoon, its handle stamped PETE and burnished in your grasp. The crumb is soft but dense in the best way. The ganache between layers is loose, cake wet with it, and the frosting is perfect, just messy. You take another satisfied bite. You’re halfway through your slice before Peter makes it back.

“I brought you something too, but it’s garbage compared to this,” you say through a mouthful, hand barely covering your mouth.

Peter laughs at you. “Yeah, well, say it, don’t spray it.”

“I guess I’ll keep it.”

“Keep it, bub, I don’t need anything from you.”

He doesn’t say it the way you’re expecting. “No,” you say, pleased when he sits knee to knee, “you can have it. S’just a bag of chips from Trader–”

“The rolled tortilla chips?” he asks. You nod, and his eyes light up. “You really are the best friend ever.”

“Better than Harry?”

“Harry’s rich,” Peter says, “so no. I’m kidding! Joking, come here, let me try some of that.”

“Eat your own.”

Peter plays a great host, letting you choose the movies, making lunch, ordering takeout in the evening and refusing to let you pay for it. This isn’t that out of character for Peter, but what shocks you is his complete unfiltered attention. He doesn’t check his phone, the tension you couldn’t name from these last few weeks nowhere to be felt. You’re flummoxed by the sudden change, but you missed him. You won’t look a gift horse in the mouth; you won’t question what it is that had Peter keeping you at arm’s length now it’s gone.

To your annoyance, you can’t stop thinking about Spider-Man. You keep opening your mouth to tell Peter you talked to him but biting your tongue. Why am I keeping it a secret? you wonder.

“Have something to tell you.”

“You do?” you ask, reluctant to sit properly, your feet tucked under his thigh and your body completely lax with the weight of the Parker throw.

“Is that surprising?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“No. Just. I’ve been not telling you something.”

“Okay, so tell me.”

Peter goes pink, and stiff, a fake smile plastered over his lips. “Me and Gwen, we’re really done.”

“I know, Pete. She broke up with you for reasons nobody felt I should be enlightened right after graduation.” Your stomach pangs painfully. “Unless you…”

“She’s going to England.”

“She is?”

“Oxford.”

You struggle to sit up. “That sucks, Peter. I’m sorry.”

“But?”

You find your words carefully. “You and Gwen really liked each other, but I think that–” You grow in confidence, meeting his eyes firmly. “That there’s always been some part of you that couldn’t actually commit to her. So. I don’t know, maybe some distance will give you clarity. And maybe it’ll break your heart, but at least then you’ll know how you really feel, and you can move forward.” You avoid telling him to move on.

“It wasn’t Gwen,” he says, which has a completely different meaning to the both of you.

“Obviously, she’s the smartest girl I’ve ever met. She’s beautiful. Of course it’s not her fault,” you say, teasing.

“Really, that you ever met?” Peter asks.

“She’s the best girl you were ever gonna land.“

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I guess so.” After a few more minutes of quiet, he says, “I think we were done before. I just hadn’t figured it out yet. Something wasn’t right.”

“You were so back and forth. You’re not mean, there must’ve been something stopping you from going steady,” you agree. “You were breaking up every other week.”

“I know,” he whispers, tipping his head against the back couch.

“Which, it’s fine, you don’t–” You grimace. “I can’t talk today. Sorry. I just mean that it’s alright that you never made it work.” You worry that sounds plainly obvious and amend, “Doesn’t make you a bad person. You’re never a bad person, Peter.”

“I know. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. You don’t need me to tell you.”

“It’s nice, though. I like when you tell me stuff. I want all of your secrets.”

You should say Good, because I have something unbelievable to tell you, and I should’ve said it the moment I got home.

Good, because last night I met the bravest man in New York City, and he walked me to the store for your chips.

Good, because I have so much I’m keeping to myself.

You ruffle his hair. Spider-Man goes unmentioned.

—

He visits with a whoop. You don’t flinch when he lands —you’d heard the strange whip and splat of his webs landing nearby.

“Spider-Man,” you say.

“What’s that about?”

“What?”

“The way you said that. You laughed.” Spider-Man stands in spandexed glory before you, mask in place. He’s got a brown stain up the side of his thigh that looks more like mud than blood, but it’s not as though each of his fights are bloodless. They’re infamously gory on occasion.

“Did you get hurt?” you ask. You’re worried. You could help him, if he needs it.

“Aw, this? That’s a scratch. That’s nothing, don’t worry about it. I’ve had worse from that stray cat living outside of 91st.”

You look at him sharply. 91st is shorthand for 91st Bodega, and it’s not like you and Peter made it up, but suddenly, the man in front of you is Peter. The way he says it, that unique rhythm.

Peter’s not so rough-voiced, you argue with yourself. Your Peter speaks in a higher register, dulcet often, only occasionally sarcastic. Spider-Man is rough, and cawing, and loud. Spider-Man acts as though the ground is a suggestion. Peter can’t jump off the second diving board at the pool. Spider-Man rolls his shoulders back in front of you with a confidence Peter rarely has.

“What?” he asks.

“Sorry. You just reminded me of someone.”

His voice falls deeper still. “Someone handsome, I hope.”

You take a small step around him, hoping it invites him to walk along while communicating how sorely you want to leave the subject behind. When he doesn’t follow, you add, “Yes, he’s handsome.”

“I knew it.”

“What do you look like under the mask?”

Spider-Man laughs boisterously. “I can’t just tell you that.”

“No? Do I have to earn it?”

“It’s not like that. I just don’t tell anyone, ever.”

“Nobody in the whole world?” you ask.

The rain is spitting. New York lately is cold cold cold, little in the way of sunshine and no end in sight. Perhaps that’s all November’s are destined to be. You and Spider-Man stick to the inside of the sidewalk. Occasionally, a passerby stares at him, or calls out in Hello, and Spider-Man waves but doesn’t part from you.

“Tell me something about you and I’ll tell you something about me,” Spider-Man says. “I’ll tell you who knows my identity.”

“What do you want to know about me?” you ask, surprised.

“A secret. That’s fair.”

“Hold on, how’s that fair?” You tighten your scarf against a bitter breeze. “What use do I have for the people who know who you are? That doesn’t bring me any closer to the truth.”

“It’s not about who knows, it’s about why I told them.” Spider-Man slips around you, forcing you to walk on the inside of the sidewalk as a car pulls past you all too quickly and sends a sheet of dirty rainwater up Spider-Man’s side. He shakes himself off. “Jerk!” he shouts after the car.

“My secrets aren’t worth anything.”

“I doubt that, but if that’s true, that makes it a fair trade, doesn’t it?”

He sounds peppy considering the pool of runoff collecting at his feet. You pick up your pace again and say, “Alright, useless secret for a useless secret.”

You think about all your secrets. Some are odd, some gross. Some might make the people around you think less of you, while others would surely paint you in a nice light. A topaz sort of technicolor. But they aren’t useless, then, so you move on.

“Oh, I know. I hate my major.” You grin at Spider-Man. “That’s a good one, right? No one else knows about that.”

“You do?” Spider-Man asks. His voice is familiar, then, for its sympathy.

“I like science, I just hate math. It’s harder than I thought it would be, and I need so much help it makes me hate the whole thing.”

Spider-Man doesn’t drag the knife. “Okay. Only three people know who I am under the mask. It was four, briefly.” He clears his throat. “I told one person because I was being selfish and the others out of necessity. I’m trying really hard not to tell anybody else.”

“How come?”

“It just hurts people.”

You linger in a gap of silence, not sure what to say. A handful of cars pass you on the road.

“Tell me another one,” he says.

“What for?”

“I don’t know, just tell me one.”

“How do I know you aren’t extorting me for something?” You grin as you say it, a hint of flirtation. “You’ll know my face and my secrets and even if you tell me a really gory juicy one, I have no one to tell and no name to pair it with.”

“I’m not showing you anything,” he warns, teasing, sounding so awfully like Peter that your heart trips again, an uneven capering that has you faltering in the street.

Peter’s shorter, you decide, sizing him up. His voice sounds similar and familiar but Peter doesn’t ask for secrets. He doesn’t have to. (Or, he didn’t have to, once upon a time.)

“Where are you going?” Spider-Man asks.

“Oh, nowhere.”

“Seriously, you’re out here walking again for no reason?”

“I like to walk. It’s not like it’s dark out yet.” You’re not far at all from Queensboro Hill here. Walking in any direction would lead you to a garden —Flushing Meadows, Kew Gardens, Kissena Park. “Walk me to Kissena?” you ask.

“Sure, for that secret.”

You laugh as Spider-Man takes the lead, keeping time with him, a natural match of pace. It’s exciting that Spider-Man of all people wants to know one of your useless secrets enough to ask you twice. The attention of it makes searching for one a matter of how fast you can find one rather than a question of why you’d want to. It slips out before you can think better of it.

“I burned my wrist a few days ago on a frying pan,” you confess, the phantom pain of the injury an itch. “It blistered and I cried when I did it, but I haven’t told anyone about it.”

“Why not?” he asks.

He shouldn’t use that tone with you, like he’s so so sorry. It makes you want to really tell him everything. How insecure you feel, how telling things feels like asking for someone to care, and half the time they don’t, and half the time you’re embarrassed.

You walk past the bakery that demarcates the beginning of Kissena Park grounds across the way. “I didn’t think about it at first. I’m used to keeping things to myself. And then I didn’t tell anyone for so long that mentioning it now wouldn’t make sense. Like, bringing it up when it’s a scar won’t do much.” It’s a weak lie. It comes out like a spigot to a drying up tree. Glugs, fat beads of sound and the pull to find another thing to say.

“It was only a few days ago, right? It must still hurt. People want to know that stuff.”

“Maybe I’ll tell someone tomorrow,” you say, though you won’t.

“Thanks for telling me.”

The humour in spilling a secret like that to a superhero stops you from feeling sorry for yourself. You hide your cold fingers in your coat, rubbing the stiff skin of your knuckles into the lining for friction-heat. The rain has let up, wind whipping empty but brisk against your cheeks. Your lips will be chapped when you get home, whenever that turns out to be.

“This is pretty far from Trader Joe’s,” he comments, like he’s read your mind.

“Just an hour.”

“Are you kidding? It’s an hour for me.”

“That’s not true, Spider-Man, I’ve seen those webs in action. I still remember watching you on the News that night, the cranes. I remember,” —you try to meet his eyes despite the mask— “my heart in my throat. Weren’t you scared?”

“Is that the secret you want?” he asks.

“I get to choose?”

Spider-Man throws his gaze around, his hand behind his head like he might play with his hair. You come to a natural stop across the street from Kissena Park’s playground. Teenagers crowd the soft-landing floor, smaller children playing on the wet rungs of the climbing frame.

“If you want to,” he says.

“Then yeah, I want to know if you were scared.”

“I didn’t haveI time to be scared. Connors was already there, you know?” He shifts from one foot to the other. “I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it before. I wasn’t scared of the height, if that’s what you mean. I already had practice by then, and I knew I had to do it. Like, I didn’t have a choice, so I just did it. I had to save the day, so I did.”

“When they lined up the cranes–”

“It felt like flying,” Spider-Man interrupts.

“Like flying.”

You picture the weightlessness, the adrenaline, the catch of your weight so high up and the pressure of being flung between the next point. The idea that you have to just do something, so you do.

“That’s a good secret.” You offer a grateful smile. “It doesn’t feel equal. I burned myself and you saved the city.”

“So tell me another one,” he says.

—

Maybe you started to fall for Peter after his Uncle Ben passed away. Not the days where you’d text him and he’d ignore you, or the days spent camping outside of his house waiting for him to get home. It wasn’t that you couldn’t like him, angry as he was; there’s always been something about his eyes when he’s upset that sticks around. You loathe to see him sad but he really is pretty, and when his eyelashes are wet and his mouth is turned down, formidable, it’s an ache. A Cabanel painting, dramatic and dark and other.

It was after. When he started sending Gwen weird smiles and showing up to the movies exhilarated, out of breath, unwilling to tell you where he’d been. Skating, he’d always say. Most of the time he didn’t have his skateboard.

You’d only seen them kiss once, his hand on her shoulder curling her in, a pang of heat. You were curdled by jealousy but it was more than that. Peter was tipping her head back, was kissing her soundly, a fierceness from him that made you sick to think about. You spent weeks afterwards up at night, tossing, turning, wishing he’d kiss you like that, just once, so you could feel how it felt to be completely wrapped up in another person.

You’d always held out for Peter, in a way. It was more important to you that he be your friend. You were young, and love had been a far off thing, and then one day you suddenly wanted it. You learned just how aching an unrequited love could be, like a bruise, where every time you saw Peter —whether it be alone or with Gwen, with anyone— it was like he knew exactly where to poke the bruise. Press the heel of his hand and push. The worst is when he found himself affectionate with you, a quick clasp of your cheek in his palm as he said goodbye. Nights spent in his twin bed, of course you’ll fit, of course you couldn’t go home, not this late, May won’t care if we keep the door open —the suggestion that the door being closed might’ve meant something. His sleeping arm furled around you.

Now you’re nearing the end of your second semester at ESU, Gwen is going to England at the end of the year, and Peter hasn’t tried to stop her, but he’s still busy.

“Whatever,“ you say, taking a deep breath. You’re not mad at Peter, you just miss him. Thinking about him all the time won’t change a thing. “It’s fine.”

“I’d hope so.”

You swing around. “Don’t do that!”

Spider-Man looks vaguely chastened, taking a step back. “I called out.”

“You did?”

“I did. Hey, miss, over there! The one who doesn’t know how to get a goddamn taxi!”

“I like to walk,” you say.

“Yeah, so you’ve said. Have you considered that all this walking is bad for you? It’s freezing out, Miss Bennett!”

“It’s not that bad.” You have your coat, a scarf, your thermal leggings underneath your jeans. “I’m fine.”

“What’s wrong with staying at home?”

“That’s not good for you. And you’re one to talk, Spider-Man, aren’t you out on the streets every night? You should take a day off.”

“I don’t do this every night.”

“Don’t you get tired?”

Spider-Man’s eyelets seem to squint, his mock-anger effusive as he crosses his arms across his chest. “No, of course not. Do I look like I get tired?”

“I don’t know. You’re in a full suit, I can’t tell. I guess you don’t… seem tired. You know, with all the backflips.”

“Want me to do one?”

“On command?” You laugh. “No, that’s okay. Save your strength, Spider-Man.”

“So where are you heading today?” he asks.

There’s a slip of skin peeking out against his neck. You’re surprised he can’t feel the cold there, stepping toward him to point. “I can see your stubble.”

He yanks his mask down. “Hasty getaway.”

“A getaway, undressed? Spider-Man, that’s not very gentlemanly.”

You start to walk toward the Cinemart. Spider-Man, to your strange pleasure, follows. He walks with considerable casualness down the sidewalk by your left, occasionally letting his head turn to chase a distant sound where it echoes from between high-rises and along the busy street. It’s cold and dark, but New York is hectic no matter what, even the residential areas. (Is there such a thing? The neighbourhoods burst with small businesses and backstreet sales, no matter the time.)

“Luckily for you, crime is slow tonight,” he says.

“Lucky me?” You wonder if your acquainted vigilante flirts with every girl he stalks. “You realise I’ve managed to get everywhere I’m going for the last two decades without help?”

“I assume there was more than a little help during that first decade.”

“That’s what you think. I was a super independent toddler.”

Spider-Man tips his head back and laughs, but that laugh is quickly squashed with a cough. “Sure you were.”

“Is there a reason you’re escorting me, Spider-Man?” you ask.

“No. I– I recognised you, I thought I’d say hi.”

“Hi, Spider-Man.”

“Hi.”

“Can I ask you something? Do you work?”

Spider-Man stammers again, “I– yeah. I work. Freelance, mostly.”

“I was wondering how you fit all the crime fighting into your life, is all. University is tough enough.” You let the wind bat your scarf off of your shoulder. “I couldn’t do what you do.”

“Yeah, you could.”

He sounds sure.

“How would you know?” you ask. “Maybe I’m awful when you’re not walking me around. I hate New York. I hate people.”

“No, you don’t. You’re not awful. Don’t ask me how I know, ‘cos I just know.”

You try not to look at him. If you look at him, you’re gonna smile at him like he hung the moon. “Well, tonight I’m going to be dreadfully selfish. My friend said he’d buy my movie ticket and take me out for dinner, a real dinner, the mac and cheese with imitation lobster at Benny’s. Have you tried that?”

Spider-Man takes a big step. “Tonight?” he asks.

“Yep, tonight. That’s where I’m going, the Cinemart.” You frown at his hand pressing into his stomach. “Are you okay? You look like you’re gonna throw up.”

“I can hear– something. Someone’s crying. I gotta go, okay? Have fun at the movies, okay?” He throws his arm up, a silken web shooting from his wrist to the third floor of an apartment complex. “Bye!” he shouts, taking a running jump to the apartment, using his web as an anchor. He flings himself over the roof.

Woah, you think, warmth filling your cold cheeks, the tip of your nose. He’s lithe.

Peter arrives ten minutes late for the movie, which is half an hour later than you’d agreed to meet.

“Sorry!” he shouts, breathless as he grabs your hands. “God, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry. You should beat me up. I’m sorry.”

“What the fuck happened?” you ask, not particularly angry, only relieved to see him with enough time to still catch the movie. “You’re sweating like crazy, your hair’s wet.”

“I ran all the way here, Jesus, do I smell bad? Don’t answer that. Fuck, do we have time?”

You usher Peter inside. He pays for the tickets with hands shaking and you attempt to wipe the sweat from his forehead with your sleeve. “You could’ve called me,” you say, content to let him grab you by the arm and race you to the screen doors, “we could’ve caught the next one. Why were you so late, anyways? Did you forget?”

“Forget about my favourite girl? How could I?” He elbows open the doors to let you enter first. “Now shh,” he whispers, “find the seats, don’t miss the trailers. You love them.”

“You love them–”

“I’ll get popcorn,” he promises, letting the door close between you.

You’re tempted to follow, fingers an inch from the handle.

You turn away and rush to find your seats. Hopefully, the popcorn line is ten blocks long, and he spends the night punished for his wrongdoing. My favourite girl. You laugh nervously into your hand.

—

Winter

Spider-Man finds you at least once a week for the next few weeks. He even brings you an umbrella one time, stars on the handle, asking you rather politely to go home. He offers to buy you a hot dog as you’re walking past the stand, takes you on a shortcut to the convenience store, and helps you get a piece of gum off of your shoe with a leaf and a scared scream. He’s friendly, and you’re getting used to his company.

One night, you’re almost home from Trader Joe’s, racing in the pouring rain when a familiar voice calls out, “Hey! Running girl! Wait a second!”

Him, you think, as ridiculous as it sounds. You don’t know his name, but Spider-Man’s a sunny surprise in a shitty, wet winter, and you turn to the sound with a grin.

He jogs toward you.

You feel the world pause, right in the centre of your throat. All the air gets sucked out of you.

“Hey, what are you doing out here? Did you get my texts?”

You blink as fat rain lands on your face.

“You okay?” Peter asks, Peter, in a navy hoodie turning black in the rain and a brown corduroy jacket. It’s sodden, hanging heavily around his shoulders. “Come on, let’s go,” —he takes your hand and pulls until you begin to speed walk beside him— “it’s freezing!”

“Peter–”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Peter, what are you doing here?” you ask, your voice an echo as he drags you into the foyer of your apartment building.

Rain hammers the door as he closes it, the windows, the foyer too dark to see properly.

“I wanted to see you. Is that allowed?”

“No.”

Peter takes your hand. You look down at it, and he looks down in tandem, and it is decidedly a non-platonic move. “No?” he asks, a hair’s width from murmuring.

“Shit, my groceries are soaked.”

“It’s all snacks, it’s fine,” he says, pulling you to the stairs.

You rush up the steps together to your floor. Peter takes your key when you offer it, your own fingers too stiff to manage it by yourself, and he holds the door open for you again to let you in.

Your apartment is a ragtag assortment to match the one next door, old wooden furniture wheeled from the street corners they were left on, thrifted homeward and heavy blankets everywhere you look. You almost slip getting out of your shoes. Peter steadies you with a firm hand. He shrugs out of his coat and hangs it on the hook, prying the damp hoodie over his head and exposing a solid length of back that trips your heart as you do the same.

“Sorry I didn’t ask,” Peter says.

“What, to come over? It’s fine. I like you being here, you know that.”

All your favourite days were spent here or at Peter’s house, in beds, on sofas, his hair tickling your neck as credits run down the TV and his breath evens to a light snore. You try to settle down with him, changing into dry clothes, his spare stuff left at the bottom of your wardrobe for his next inevitable impromptu visit. You turn on the TV, letting him gather you into his side with more familiarity than ever. Rain lays its fingertips on your window and draws lazy lines behind half-turned blinds. You rest on the arm and watch Peter watch the movie, answering his occasional, “You okay?” with a meagre nod.

“What’s wrong?” he asks eventually. “You’re so quiet.”

Your hand over your mouth, you part your marriage and pinky finger, marriage at the corner, pinky pressed to your bottom lip, the flesh chapped by a season of frigid winds and long walks. “‘M thinking,” you say.

“About?”

About the first night in your new apartment. You got the apartment a couple of weeks before the start of ESU. Not particularly close to the university but close to Peter, your best, nicest friend. You met in your second year of High School, before Peter got contacts, ‘cos he was good at taking photographs and you were in charge of the school newspapers media sourcing. You used to wait for Peter to show up ten minutes late like clockwork, every week. And every week he’d barge into the club room and say, “Fuck, I’m sorry, my last class is on the other side of the building,” until it turned into its own joke.

Three years later, you got your apartment, and Peter insisted you throw a housewarming party even if he was the only person invited.

“Fuck,” he’d said, ten minutes late, a cake in one hand and a whicker basket the other, “sorry. My last class is on–”

But he didn’t finish. You’d laughed so hard with relief at the reference that he never got the chance. Peter remembered your very first inside joke, because Peter wasn’t about to go off to ESU and meet new friends and forget you.

But Peter’s been distant for a while now, because Peter’s Spider-Man.

“Do you remember,” you say, not willing to share the whole truth, “when you joined the school newspaper to be the official photographer, and you taught me the rule of thirds?”

“So you didn’t need me,” he says.

“I was just thinking about it. We ran that newspaper like the Navy.”

Peter holds your gaze. “Is that really what you were thinking about?”

“Just funny,” you murmur, dropping your hand in your lap and breaking his stare. “So much has changed.”

“Not that much.”

“Not for me, no.”

Peter gets a look in his eyes you know well. He’s found a crack in you and he’s gonna smooth it over until you feel better. You’re expecting his soft tone, his loving smile, but you’re not expecting the way he pulls you in —you’d slipped away from him as the evening went on, but Peter erases every millimetre of space as he slides his arm under your lower back and ushers you into his side. You hold your breath as he hugs you, as he looks down at you. It’s really like he loves you, the line between platonic and romantic a blur. He’s never looked at you like this before.

“I don’t want you to change,” he whispers.

“I want to catch up with you,” you whisper back.

“Catch up with me? We’re in the exact same place, aren’t we?”

“I don’t know, are we?”

Peter hugs you closer, squishing your head down against his jaw as he rubs your shoulder. “Of course we are.”

Peter… What is he doing?

You let yourself relax against him.

“You do change,” he whispers, an utterance of sound to calm that awful bruise he gave you all those months ago, “you change every day, but you don’t need to try.”

“I just… feel like everyone around me is…” You shake your head. “Everyone’s so smart, and they know what they’re doing, or they’re– they’re special. I don’t know anything. So I guess lately I’ve been thinking about that, and then you–”

“What?”

You can say it out loud. You could.

“Peter, you’re…”

“I’m what?” he asks.

His fingers glide down the length of your arm and up again.

If you're wrong, he’ll laugh. And if you’re right, he might– might stop touching you. Your head feels so heavy, and his touch feels like it’s gonna put you to sleep.

He’s Spider-Man.

It makes sense. Who else could have a good enough heart to do that? Of course it’s Peter. It explains so much about him, about Peter and Spider-Man both. Why Peter is suddenly firmer, lighter on his feet, why he can help you move a wardrobe up two flights of stairs without complaint; why Spider-Man is so kind to you, why he knows where to find you, why he rolls his words around just like Pete.

Spider-Man said there are reasons he wears his mask. And Peter doesn’t tell you much, but you trust him.

You won’t make him say anything, you decide. Not now.

You curl your arm over his stomach hesitantly, smiling into his shirt as he hugs you tighter.

“I was thinking about you,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“You’re quieter lately. I know you’re having a hard time right now, okay? You don’t have to tell me. I’m here for you whenever you need me.”

“Yeah?” you ask.

“You used to sit on my porch when you knew May wouldn’t be home to make sure I wasn’t alone.” Peter’s breath is warm on your forehead. “I don’t know what you’re worried about being, but I’m with you,” he says, “‘n nothing is gonna change that.”

Peter isn’t as far away as you thought.

“Thank you,” you say.

He kisses your forehead softly. Your whole world goes amber. He brings his hand to your cheek, the thought of him tipping your head back sudden and heart-racing, but Peter only holds you. You lose count of how many minutes you spend cupped in his hand.

“Can I stay over tonight?” he utters, barely audible under the sound of the battering rain.

“Yeah, please.”

His thumb strokes your cheek.

—

Two switches flip at once, that night. Peter is suddenly as tactile as you’ve craved, and Spider-Man disappears.

He’s alive and well, as evidenced by Peter’s continued survival and presence in your life, but Spider-Man doesn’t drop in on your nightly walks.

You take less of them lately, feeling better in yourself. Your spirits are certainly lifted by Peter’s increasing affection, but now that you know he’s Spider-Man you were waiting to see him in spandex to mess with his head. Nothing mean, but you would’ve liked to pick at his secret identity, toy with him like you know he’d do to you. After all, he’s been trailing you for weeks and getting to know you. Peter already knows you. Plus, you told Spider-Man secrets not meant for Peter Parker’s ears.

You find it hard to be angry with him. A thread of it remains whenever you remember his deception, but mostly you worry about him. Peter’s out every night until who knows what hour fighting crime. There are guns. He could get shot, and he doesn’t seem scared. You end up watching videos on the internet of the night he ran to Oscorp, when he fought Connors’ and got that huge gash in his leg. His leg is soiled deep red with blood but banded in white webbing. He limps as he races across a rooftop, the recording shaky yet high definition.

It’s not nice to see Peter in pain. You cling to what he’d said, how he wasn’t scared, but not being scared doesn’t mean he wasn’t hurting.

You chew the tip of a finger and click on a different video. Your computer monitor bears heat, the tower whirring by your thigh. Your eyes burn, another hour sitting in the same seat, sick with worry. You don’t mind when Peter doesn’t answer your texts anymore. You didn’t mind so much before, just terrified of becoming an irrelevance in his life and lonely, too, maybe a little hurt, but never worried for his safety. Now when Peter doesn’t text you back you convince yourself that he’s been hurt, or that he’s swinging across New York City about to risk his life.

It’s not a good way to live. You can’t stop giving into it, is all.

In the next video, Spider-Man sits on a billboard with a can of coke in hand. He doesn’t lift his mask, seemingly aware of his watcher. You laugh as he angles his head down, suspicion in his tight shoulders. He relaxes when he sees whoever it is recording.

“Hey,” he says, “you all right?”

“Should you be up there?” the person recording shouts.

“I’m fine up here!”

“Are you really Spider-Man?”

“Sure am.”

“Are you single?”

Peter laughs like crazy. How you didn’t know it was him before is a mystery —it couldn’t sound more like him. “I’ve got my eye on someone!” he says, sounding younger for it, the character voice he enacts when he’s Spider-Man lost to a good mood.

Your phone rings in the back pocket of your jeans. You wriggle it out, nonplussed to find Peter himself on your screen. You click the green answer button.

“Hello?” Peter asks.

You bring the phone snug to your ear. “Hey, Peter.”

“Hi, are you busy?”

“Not really.”

“Do you wanna come over? I know it’s late. Come stay the night and tomorrow we’ll go out for breakfast.”

“Is Aunt May okay with that?”

“She’s staring at me right now shaking her head, but I’m in trouble for something. May, can she come over, is that allowed?”

“She’s always allowed as long as you keep the door open.”

You laugh under your breath at May’s begrudging answer. “Are you sure she’s alright with it?” you ask softly. “I don’t want to be a burden.”

“You never, ever could be. I’m coming to your place and we’ll walk over together. Did you eat dinner?”

“Not yet, but–”

“Okay, I’ll make you something when you get here. I’ll meet you at the door. Twenty minutes?”

“I have to shower first.”

“Twenty five?”

You choke on a laugh, a weird bubbly thing you’re not used to. Peter laughs on the other side of the phone. “How about I’ll see you at seven?”

“It’s a date,” he says.

“Mm, put it in your calendar, Parker.”

—

Peter waits for you at the door like he promised. He frowns at your still-wet face as he slips your backpack from your shoulder, throwing it over his own. “You’re gonna get sick.”

“I‘ll dry fast,” you say. “I took too long finding my pyjamas.”

“I have stuff you can wear. Probably have your sweatpants somewhere, the grey ones.” Peter pulls you forward and wipes your tacky face. “I would’ve waited,” he says.

“It’s fine.“

“It’s not fine. Are you cold?”

“Pete, it’s fine.”

“You always remind me of my Uncle Ben when you call me Pete,” he laughs, “super stern.”

“I’m not stern. Look, take me home, please, I’m cold.”

“You said it wasn’t cold!”

“It’s not, I’m just damp–” Peter cuts you off as he grabs you, sudden and tight, arms around you and rubbing the lengths of your back through your coat. “Handsy!”

“You like it,” he jokes back, his playful warming turning into a hug. You smile, hiding your face in his neck for a few moments.

“I don’t like it,” you lie.

“Okay, you don’t like it, and I’m sorry.” Peter gives you a last hug and pulls away. “Now let’s go. I gotta feed you before midnight.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Apparently, nothing is.”

Peter links your arms together. By the time you get to his house, you’ve fallen away from each other naturally. May is in the hallway when you climb through the door, an empty laundry basket in her hands.

“I see Peter hasn’t won this argument yet,” you say in way of greeting. Peter’s desperate to do his own laundry now he’s getting older. May won’t let him.

“No, he hasn’t.” She looks you up and down. “It’s nice to see you, honey. And in one piece! Peter tells me you’ve been walking a lot, and I mean, in this city? Can’t you buy a treadmill?” she asks.

“May!” Peter says, startled.

“I like walking, I like the air,” you say.

“Can’t exactly call it fresh,” May says.

“No, but it’s alright. It helps me think.”

“Is everything okay?” May asks, putting her hand on her hip.

“Of course.” You smile at her genuinely. “I think starting college was too much for me? It was hard. But things are settling now, I don’t know what Peter told you, but I’m not walking a lot anymore. You know, not more than necessary.”

She softens her disapproving. “Good, honey. That’s good. Peter’s gonna make you some dinner now, right?”

“Yeah, Aunt May, I’m gonna make dinner,” Peter sighs, pulling a leg up to take off his shoes.

Peter shouldn’t really know that you’ve been walking. He might see you coming back from Trader Joe’s or the bodega on his way to your apartment, but you haven’t mentioned any of your longer excursions, and everybody in Queens has to walk. That’s information he wouldn’t know without Spider-Man.

He seems to be hoping you won’t realise, changing the subject to the frankly killer grilled cheese and tomato soup that he’s about to make you, and pushing you into a chair at the table. “Warm up,” he says near the back of your head, forcing a wave of shivers down your arms.

He makes soup in one pan, grilled cheese in the other, two for him and two for you. Peter’s a good eater, and he encourages the same from you, setting a big bowl of tomato soup (from the can, splash of fresh cream) down in front of you with the grilled cheese on a plate between you. You eat it in too-hot bites and try not to get caught looking at him. He does the same, but when he catches you, or when you catch him, he holds your eye and smiles.

“I can do the dishes,” you say. You might need a breather.

“Are you kidding? I’m gonna rinse them, put them in the dishwasher.” Peter stands and feels your forehead with his hand. “Warmer. Good job.”

You shrug away from his hand. “Loser.”

“Concerned friend.”

“Handsy loser.”

”Shut up,” he mumbles.

As flustered as you’ve ever seen, Peter takes your empty dishes to the kitchen. When he’s done rinsing them off you follow him upstairs to his bedroom and tuck your backpack under his bed.

You look down at your socks. Peter’s room is on the smaller side, but it’s never been as startlingly small as it is when Peter’s socked feet align with yours, toe to toe. Quick recovery time, this boy.

“There’s chips and stuff on my desk. Or I could run to 91st for some ice cream sandwiches if you want something sweet,” he says.

You lift your eyes, tilt your head up just a touch, not wanting him to think you’re in his space no matter how strange that might be, considering he chose to stand there. “I’m all right. Did you want ice cream? We can go if you want to, but if you want to go ’cos you think I do then I’m fine.”

“That’s such a long answer,” he says, draping an arm over your shoulder. “You don’t have to say all of that, just tell me no.”

“I don’t want ice cream.”

“Wasn’t that easy?” he asks.

“Well, no, it wasn’t. Saying no to you is like saying no to a puppy.”

“Because I’m adorable?”

“Persistent.”

“Yeah, I guess I am.” He drapes the other arm over you. The soap he used at the kitchen sink lingers on his hands.

“Peter…?” you murmur.

“What?” he murmurs back.

You touch a knuckle to his chest. “This– You…” Every quelled thought rushes to the surface at once —Peter doesn’t like you as you desire, how could he, you aren’t beautiful like he is, aren’t smart, aren’t brave, no exceptional kindness or goodness to mark you enough for him. It’s why his being with Gwen didn’t hurt; she made sense. And for months now you’ve wondered what it is that made him struggle to be with her. And sometimes, foolishly, you wondered if it was you. But it’s not you, it’s never you, and whatever Peter’s trying to do now–

“Hey, you okay?” he asks, taking your face into his hand.

“What are you doing?”

“What?” He pushes his hand back to hold your nape, thumb under your ear. “I can’t hear you.”

You raise your voice. “Why did you invite me over tonight?”

“‘Cos I missed you?”

“I used to think you didn’t miss me at all.”

Peter winces, hurt. “How could you think that? Of course I miss you. What you said to May, about college being hard? It’s like that for me too, okay? I miss you all the time.”

You bite the inside of your bottom lip. “…College isn’t hard for you.”

“It’s not easy.” He frowns, the fallen angel, his lips an unsure brushstroke. “What’s wrong? Did I say the wrong thing?”

You’re being wretched, you know, saying it isn’t hard for him. “You didn’t. Really, you didn’t.”

“But why are you upset?” he implores, dark eyes darker as his eyebrows tug together.

“I’m not–”

“You are. It’s okay, you can be upset. I just want you to feel better, you know that?” He settles his hands at the tops of your arms. Less intimate, but something warm remains. “Even if it takes a long time.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

“How would you know?” you finally ask.

Peter stares at you.

“I know you,” he says carefully, “and I know you aren’t struggling like you were, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen or that you have to be a hundred percent better now.”

“I didn’t realise that I was,” you say, licking your lips, “‘til now. I didn’t get that it was on the surface.”

Peter pulls you in for a gentle hug. “I’m here for you forever, and I’ll make it up to you for not noticing sooner,” he says, scrunching your shirt in his hand.

After the hug, he tells you to change and make yourself comfortable while he showers. So you put on your pyjamas and climb into Peter’s bed, head pounding as though all your energy was stolen in a fell swoop. You press your nose to his pillow and arm wrapped around his comforter, gathering it into a Peter sized lump. The shower pump whines against the shared wall.

Things aren’t meant to be like this. You thought Peter touching you —holding you— was the deepest of your desires, but you feel now exactly as you had before he started blurring the line, needing Peter to kiss you so badly it becomes its own kind of nausea. Why are you still acting like it’s an impossibility?

When he comes back, you’ll apologise. He hasn’t done anything wrong. He does keep a secret, but don’t you keep one too? He’s Spider-Man. You’ve had deep, complicated feelings for him for months. They are secrets of equal magnitude, and are, more apparently, badly kept.

You wish you could fall asleep. Your heart ticks in agitation.

Peter returns as perturbed as earlier.

“Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?” he asks, raking a hand through his hair. A towel hangs around his neck.

“I’m sorry for being weird.”

“You’re not weird,” Peter says, bringing the towel to his hair to scrub ruthlessly.

“It’s just ‘cos things have been different between us.” And, you try to say, that scares me no matter how bad I wanted it. because you’re not just Peter anymore, you’re Spider-Man. I’m only me, and I can’t do anything to protect you.

Peter gives his hair a long scrub before draping the towel on his desk chair. He rakes it messily into place and sits himself at the end of the bed. You sit up.

“Yeah, they have been. Good different?” he asks hesitantly.

“I think so,” you say, quiet again.

“That’s what I thought.”

“I don’t want you to feel like I don’t want to be here. I just worry about you.”

Peter uses his hands to get higher up the bed. “Don’t worry about me,” he says, “Jesus, please don’t. That’s the last thing I want from you, I hate when people worry about me.”

You curl into the lump of comforter you’d made. Peter lets himself rest beside you, his back to the bedroom wall, tens of Polaroids above him shining with the light of the hallway and his orange-bulbed lamp. His skin is glowing like it’s golden hour, dashes of topaz in his eyes, his Cupid’s bow deep. How would it feel to lean forward and kiss him? To catch his Cupid's bow under your lips?

You brush a damp curl tangled in another onto his forehead.

You lay there for a little while without talking, listening to the sound of the washing machine as it cycles downstairs.

“Am I going too fast?” Peter murmurs.

You press your lips together, shaking your head minutely.

“Is it something else?”

You don’t move.

“Do you want me to stop?” he asks.

“No.”

Peter rewards you with a smile, his hand on your arm. “Alright. Let me get this blanket on you the right way. You’re still cold.”

You resent the loss of a shape to hold when Peter slips down beside you and wrangles the comforter flat again, spreading it out over you both, his hand under the blankets. His knuckles brush your thigh.

He takes a deep breath before turning and wrapping his arm over your stomach, asking softly, “Is this alright?”

“Yeah.”

He gives you a look and then lifts his head to slot his nose against your temple. “Please don’t take this in a way that I don’t mean it, but sometimes you think about things so much I worry you’re gonna get stuck in your head forever.”

“I like thinking.”

“I hate it,” he says quickly, a fervent, flirting cadence to his otherwise dulcet tone, “we should never do it ever again.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Would you? For me?”

You laugh into his shirt, feeling the warmth of your breath on your own nose. “I’ll do my best.”

“Good. I’d miss you too much if you got lost in that nice head of yours.”

You relax under his arm. You aren’t sure what all the fuss was about now that he's hugging you. “I’d miss you too.”

May comes up the stairs about an hour later. To her credit, she doesn’t flinch when she finds you and Peter smushed together watching a DVD on his old TV. He’s holding your arm, and you’re snoozing on his shoulder, half-aware of the world, fully aware of his nice smells and the shapes of his arms.

“Door open,” she says.

“Not that either of us want it closed, May, but we’re adults.”

“Not while I’m still washing your clothes, you’re not.”

He snorts. “Goodnight, Aunt May. The door isn’t gonna close, I promise.”

“I know that,” she says, scornful in her pride. “You’re a good boy.” She lightens. “Things are going okay?”

Peter covers your ear. “Goodnight, Aunt May.”

”I have half a mind to never listen to you again. You talk my ear off and I can’t ask a simple question?”

“I love you,” Peter sing-songs.

“I love you, Peter,” she says. “Don’t smother the girl.”

“I won’t smother her. It’s in my best interest that she survives the night. She’s buying my breakfast tomorrow.”

“Peter Parker.”

“I’m kidding,” he whispers, petting your cheek absentmindedly. “Just messing with you, May.”

You smile and curl further into his arms. His voice is like the sun, even when he whispers.

—

To your surprise, Spider-Man comes to find you after class one evening. A guest lecturer had talked to your oncology class about click chemistry and other molecular therapies against cancer, and the zine book she’d given you is burning a hole in your pocket. Peter is going to love it.

You pull it out and pause beside a bench and a silver trash can, the day grey but thankfully without rain. The pages of your little book whip forcefully in the wind. It’s chemistry, sure, but it’s biology too, wrapping your and Peter’s interests up neatly. If it weren’t for Peter you doubt you’d love science as much as you do. He’s always been good at it, but since you started college he's been a genius. Watching him grow has encouraged you to work harder, and understanding the material is satisfying, if draining. You take a photo of the middle most pages and tuck the book away, writing a quick text to Peter to send with it.

Look! it says, LEGO cancer treatment!!

The moment you press send a beep chimes from somewhere close behind you, all too familiar. You turn to the source but find nobody you know waiting. Coincidence, you think, shaking yourself and beginning the trek to the subway.

But then you hear the tell tale splat and thwick of Spider-Man’s webbing.

You wait until you’re at the alleyway between Porto’s Bakery and the key cutting shop and turn down to stop by one of the dumpsters.

“Spider-Man?” you ask, shoulders tensed in case it’s not who you think.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

You gasp as he hops down in front of you, his suit shiny with its dark web-pattern caught by the grey sunshine passing through the clouds overhead. “Shit, don’t break your ankles.”

“My ankles?” He laughs. He sounds so much like Peter that you can only laugh with him. What an idiot he is for thinking you don’t know; what a fool you’d been for falling for his put upon tenor. “They’re fine. What would be wrong with my ankles?”

“You just dropped down twenty feet!”

“It’s more like thirty, and I’m fine. You understand the super part of superhero, don’t you?”

“Who said you’re a superhero?”

“Nice. What are you doing down here?”

“I was testing my theory. You’re following me.”

“No, I’m visiting you, it’s very different,” he says confidently.

“You haven’t come to see me for weeks.”

“Yes, well, I–” Spider-Peter crosses his arms across his chest. “Hey, you’re the one who told me to take a day off.”

“I did tell you to take a day off. It’s not nice thinking about you trying to save the world every single night. That’s a lot of responsibility for one person to have.”

“But it’s my responsibility,” he says easily. “No point in a beautiful girl like you wasting her time worrying about it. I have to do it, and I don’t mind it.”

“Do you flirt with every girl you meet out here in the city?” you ask, cheeks hot.

“No,” he says, fondness evident even through the mask, “just you.”

“Do you wanna walk me home? I was gonna take the subway, but it’s not that far.”

Spider-Man nods. “Yeah, I’ll walk you back.”

He doesn’t hide that he knows the way very well. He takes preemptive turns, crosses roads without you telling him to go forward. You can’t believe him. Smartest guy at Midtown High and he can’t pretend to save his life.

“Are you having a good semester?” he asks.

“It’s getting better. I’m glad I stuck with it. I love biology, it’s so fucking hard. I used to think that was a bad thing, but it makes it cooler now. Like, it’s not something everyone understands.” You give him a look, and you give into temptation. “My best friend got me into all this stuff. I used to think math was hopeless and science was for dorks.”

“It’s definitely for dorks.”

“Right, but I love being one.” You offer a useless secret. “I like to think that it’s why we’re such great friends.”

“Me and you?” Spider-Man asks hoarsely.

“Me and Peter.” You elbow him without force. “Why, do you like science?”

“I love it…”

“You know, I really like you, Spider-Man. I feel like we’ve been friends for a long time.” You’re teasing poor Peter.

He doesn’t speak for a while. He stops walking, but you take a few steps without him. When you realise he’s stopped, you turn back to see him.

Peter’s gone so tense you could strike him with a flint and catch a spark. It’s the same way Peter looked at you when he told you about his Uncle, a truth he didn’t want to be true. Seeing it throws a spanner in the works of all your teasing: you’d meant to wind him up, not make him panic.

“What’s wrong?” you ask. “Can you hear something?”

“No, it’s not that…” He’s masked, but you know him well enough to understand why he’s stopped.

“It’s okay,” you say.

“It’s not, actually.”

“Spider-Man.” You take a step toward him. “It’s fine.”

He presses his hands to his stomach. The sun is setting early, and in an hour, the dark will eat up New York and leave it in a blistering cold. “Do you remember when we first met, the second time, we swapped secrets?”

“Yeah, I remember. Useless secret for another. I told you I hated my major. It’s not true anymore, obviously. I was having a bad time.”

“I know you were,” he says, emphasis on know, like it’s a different word entirely.

“But meeting you really helped. If it weren’t for you, for Peter,” —you give him a searching look— “I wouldn’t feel better at all.”

“It wasn’t his fault?” he asks. “He was your friend, and you were lonely.”

“No–”

“He didn’t know what was going on with you, he didn’t have a clue. You hurt yourself and you felt like you couldn’t tell anybody, and I know it wasn’t an accident, so what was his excuse?” His voice burns with anger. “It’s his fault.”

“Of course it wasn’t your fault. Is that what you think?” You shake your head, panicked by the bone-deep self loathing in his voice, his shameful dropped head. “Yes, I was lonely, I am lonely, I don’t know many people and I– I– I hurt myself, and it wasn’t as accidental as I thought it was, but why would that be your fault?”

“Peter’s fault,” he says, though his head is lifted now, and he doesn’t bother enthusing it with much gusto.

“Peter, none of it was your fault.” You cringe in your embarrassment, thinking Fuck, don’t let me ruin this. “I was in a weird way, and yes, I was lonely, and I really liked you more than I should have. You didn't want me and that wasn’t your fault, that’s just how it was, I tried not to let it get to me, just there were a lot of things weighing on me at once, but it really wasn’t as bad as you think it was and it wasn’t your fault.”

“I wasn’t there for you,” he says. “And I’ve been lying to you for a long time.”

“You couldn’t tell me, right? Spider-Man is your secret for a reason.”

“…I didn’t even know you were lonely until you told him. He was a stranger.”

You hold your hands behind your back. “Well, he was a familiar one.”

Peter reaches out as though wanting to touch you, but your arms aren’t in his reach. “It’s not because I didn’t want you.”

“Peter,” you say, squirming.

He steps back.

“I have to go,” he says.

“What?”

“I have to– I don’t want to go,” he says earnestly, “sweetheart, I can hear someone calling out, I have to go. But I’ll come back, I’ll– I’ll come back,” he promises.

And with a sudden lift of his arm, Peter pulls himself up the side of a building and disappears, leaving you whiplashed on the sidewalk, the sun setting just out of view.

—

You fall asleep that night waiting for Peter. When you wake up, 5AM, eyes aching, he isn’t there. You check your phone but he hasn’t texted. You check the Bugle and Spider-Man hasn’t been seen.

You aren’t sure what to think. He sounded sincere to the fullest extent when he said he’d come back, but he didn’t, not ten minutes later, not twenty. You made excuses and you went home before it got too dark to see the street, sat on the couch rehearsing what you’d say. How could Peter think your unhappiness was his fault? Why does he always put the entire world on his shoulders?

Selfishly, you worried what it all meant for his lazy touches. Would he want to curl up into bed with you again now he knows what it means to you? It’s different for him. It isn’t like he’s in love with you… you’d just thought maybe he could be. That this was falling in love, real love, not the unrequited ache you’d suffered before.

But maybe you got everything wrong. All of it. It wouldn't be the first time.

—

You and Peter found The Moroccan Mode in your senior year at Midtown. The school library was small and you were sick of being underfoot at home. When you started at ESU, you explored the on campus coffeehouse, the Coffee Bean, but it was crowded, and you’d found yourself attached to the Mode’s beautiful tiling, blues and topaz and platinum golds, its heavy, oiled wooden furniture, stained glass lampshades and the case full of lemony treats. The coffee here is better than anywhere else, but the best part out of everything is that it’s your secret. Barely anybody comes to the Mode on purpose.

You hide in a far corner with a book and an empty cup of decaf coffee, a slice of meskouta on the table untouched. Decaf because caffeine felt a terrible idea, meskouta untouched because you can’t stomach the smell. You push it to the opposite end of the table, considering another cup of coffee instead. It’s served slightly too hot, and will still be warm when it gets to your chest.

The sunshine is creeping in slowly. It feels like the first time you’ve seen it in months, warming rays kissing your fingers and lining the walls. You turn a page, turn your wrist, let the sun warm the scar you gave yourself those few months ago, when everything felt too big for you.

Looking back, it was too big. Maybe soon you’ll be ready to talk about it.

The author in your book is talking about bees. They can fly up to 15 miles per hour. They make short, fast motions from front to back, a rocking motion. Asian giant hornets can go even faster despite their increased mass. They consider humans running provocation. If you see a giant hornet, you’re supposed to lay down to avoid being stung.

You put your face in your hand. Next year, you’ll avoid the insect-based electives.

Across the cafe, the bell at the top of the door rings. Laughter falls through it, a couple passing by. The register clashes open. A minute later it closes.

You don’t raise your head when footsteps draw near. A plate is placed on the table, pushed across to you, stopping just shy of your coffee.

“Did you eat breakfast?” Peter asks quietly.

His voice is gentle, but hoarse.

You tense.

“Are you okay?” he asks, not waiting for your answer to either question. “You don’t look like yourself. Your eyes are red.”

You lift your head. Wet with the beginnings of tears, you see Peter through an astigmatic blur.

“What are you reading?” He frowns at you. “Please don’t cry.”

You shake your head. Your smile is all odd, nothing like his, no inherent warmth despite your best effort. “I’m okay.”

He nudges you across the booth seat and sits beside you. His arm settles behind your shoulders. He smells like smoke and soap, an acrid scent barely hidden. “Can you tell me you didn’t wait long for me?”

“Ten minutes,” you lie.

“Okay. I’m sorry. There was a fire.” He rubs your arm where he’s holding you. “I’m sorry.”

“Will you go half?” you ask, nodding to the sandwich he’s brought you. It’s tough sourdough bread, brown with white flour on the crusts and leafy greens poking between the slices. You and Peter complain about the price. You’ve never had one. He passes you the bigger half, holding the other in his hand without eating.

“I know you’re hungry,” you say, tapping his elbow, “just eat.”

You eat your sandwiches. Now that Peter’s here, you don’t feel so sick —he’s not upset with you. The dull pang of an empty stomach won’t be ignored.

Peter puts his sandwich down, which is crazy, and wipes his fingers on the plates napkin. You’ve never seen him stop before he’s done.

“It was in the apartments on Vernon. I– I think I almost died, the smoke was everywhere.”

You choke around a crust, thrusting the rest of your half onto the plate. “Are you hurt?” you ask, coughing.

He moves his head from side to side, not a shake, but a slow no. “How long have you known it was me?” he asks, curling his hand behind your back again, fingers spread over your shoulder blade, a fingertip on your neck.

You savour his touch, but you give in to your apprehension and stare at his chest. “The night you caught me outside in the rain in November. You called me ‘running girl’. The way you said it, you sounded exactly like him. I turned around expecting,” —you whisper, weary of the quiet cafe— “Spider-Man, and I realised it’s him that sounds like you. That he is you.”

“Was that disappointing?”

“Peter, you’re, like, my favourite person in the world,” you whisper fervently, your smile making it light. You laugh. “Why would that be disappointing?”

“I thought maybe you think he’s cooler than me.”

“He is cooler than you, Peter.” You laugh again, pleased when he scoffs and draws you nearer. “I guess you’re the same person, right? So he’s just as cool as you are. But why would being cool matter to me? You know I like you.”

“You flirted pretty heavily with Spider-Man.”

“Well, he flirted with me first.”

You chance a look at his face. From that moment you can’t look away, not from Peter. You like when he wears that darkness in his eyes, the hint of his rarer side so uncommonly seen, but you love this most of all, Peter like your best memory, the way he’s looking at you now a picture perfect copy of that moment in a swimming pool in Manhattan with cracked tile under your feet. His arms heavy on your shoulders. You didn’t get it then, but you’re starting to understand now.

“I’ve made a mess of everything,” he says softly, the trail his hand makes to the small of your back leaving a wake of goosebumps. “I haven’t been honest with you.”

“I haven’t, either.”

“I want to ask you for something,” Peter says, a fingertip trailing back up. He smiles when you shiver, not teasing, just loving. “You can say no.”

“You’re hard to say no to.”

“I need you to talk to me more,” —and here he goes, Peter Parker, flirting and sweet-talking like his life depends on it, his face inching down into your space— “not just because I love your voice, or because you think so much I’m scared you’ll get lost, but I need you to talk to me. We need to talk about real things.”

We do, you think morosely.

“It’s not your fault,” he adds, the hand that isn’t holding your back coming up to cup your cheek, “it’s mine. I was scared of telling you for stupid reasons, but I shouldn’t have let it be a secret for so long.”

“No, I doubt they’re stupid,” you murmur, following his hand as he attempts to move it to your ear. “It’s not easy to tell someone you’re a hero.”

His palm smells like smoke.

“That’s not the secret I meant,” he says.

You take his hand from your face. Peter looks down and begins pressing his fingers between yours, squeezing them together as his thumb runs over the back of your hand.

“So tell me.”

The sunshine bleeds onto his cheek. Dappled orange light turning slowly white as time stretches and the sun moves up through a murky sky. “You want to trade secrets again?” he asks.

“Please.”

“Okay. Okay, but I don’t have as many as you do,” he warns.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“I don’t. It’s not a real secret, is it? I’ve been trying to show you for weeks, we…”

He tilts his head invitingly.

All those hand-holds and nights curled up in bed together. Am I going too fast? You know exactly what he means; it really isn’t a secret.

“I’ll go first,” he says, lowering his face to yours. You try not to close your eyes. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for weeks.” He closes his eyes so you follow, your breath not your own suddenly. You hold it. Let it go hastily. “What’s your secret?”

“Sometime I want you to kiss me so badly I can’t sleep. It makes me feel sick–”

“Sick?” he asks worriedly.

You touch the tip of your nose to his. “It’s like– like jealousy, but…”

“You have no one to be jealous of,” he says surely. He cups your cheek, and he asks, “Please, can I kiss you?”

You say, “Yes,” very, very quietly, but he hears it, and his smile couldn’t be more obvious as he closes the last of the distance between you to kiss you.

It isn’t the sort of kiss that kept you up at night. Peter doesn’t hook you in or tip your head back, he kisses gently, his hand coming to live on your cheek, where it cradles. It’s so warm you don’t know what to make of him beyond kissing him back —kissing his smile, though it’s catching. Kissing the line of his Cupid’s bow as he leans down.

“I’m sorry about everything,” he mumbles, nose flattened against yours.

You feel sunlight on your cheek. Squinting, you turn into his hand to peer outside at the sudden abundance of it. It’s still cold outside, but the Mode is warm, Peter’s hand warmer, and the sunshine is a welcome guest.

Peter drops his hand. “Oh, wow. December sun. Good thing it didn’t snow, we’d be blind.”

“I can’t be cold much longer,” you confess. “I’m sick of the shitty weather.”

“I can keep you warm.”

He smiles at you. His eyelashes tangle in the corners of his eyes, long and brown.

“Did you want my meskouta?” you ask.

Peter plants a fat kiss against your brow.

You let the sunshine warm your face. Two unfinished sandwich halves, a mouthful of coffee, and a round slice of meskouta, its flaky crumb and lemon drizzle shining on the table. You would ask Peter for his camera if you’d thought he brought it with him, to take a picture of your breakfast and the carved table underneath. You could turn it on Peter, say something cheesy. This is the moment you ruined our lives, you’d tease.

“You never told me you met Spider-Man, you know.”

You watch Peter lick the tip of his finger without shame. “They could make a novella of things I haven’t told you about,” you murmur wryly.

Peter takes a bite of meskouta, reaching for your knee under the table. He shakes your leg a little, as if to say, Well, we’ll work on that.

—

Spring

“Sorry!”

“No, it’s–”

“Sorry, sorry, I’m– shit!”

“–okay! All legs inside the ride?”

“I couldn’t find my purse–”

“You don’t need it!” Peter leans over the console to kiss your cheek. “You don’t have to rush.”

“Are you sure you can drive this thing?”

“Harry doesn’t mind.”

“I don’t mean the car, I mean, are you sure you can drive?”

“That’s not funny.”

You grin and dart across to kiss his cheek, too. “Nothing ever is with us.”

Peter grabs you behind the neck —which might sound rough, if he were capable of such a thing— and pulls you forward for a kiss you don’t have time for. “If we don’t check in,” —you begin, swiftly smothered by another press of his lips, his tongue a heat flirting with the seam of your lips— “by three, they said they won’t keep the room–” He clasps the back of your neck and smiles when your breath stutters. You squeeze your eyes closed, kiss him fiercely, and pull away, hand on his chest to restrain him. “And then we’ll have to drive home like losers.”

Peter sits back in the driver's seat unbothered. He fixes his hair, and he wipes his bottom lip with his knuckle. You’re rolling your eyes when he finally returns your gaze. “Sorry, am I the one who lost her purse?”

“Peter!”

“I can’t make us un-late,” he says, turning the key slowly, hands on the wheel but his eyes still flitting between your eyes and your lips.

“Alright,” you warn.

He reaches for your knee. “It’s a forty minute drive. You’re panicking over nothing.”

“It’s an hour.”

Your drive from Queens to Manhattan is entirely uneventful. You keep Peter’s hand hostage on your knee, your palm atop it, the other hand wrapped around his wrist, your conversation a juxtaposition, almost lackadaisical. Peter doesn’t question your clinging nor your lazy murmurings, rubbing a circle into your knee with his thumb from Forest Hill to Lenox Hill. There’s so much to do around Manhattan; you could visit MoMA, Central Park, The Empire State Building or Times Square, but you and Peter give it all a miss for the little known Manhattan Super 8.

It’s been a long time since you and Peter first visited. You took the bus out to Lenox Hill for a med-student tour neither of you particularly enjoyed, feeling out future careers. It’s not that Lenox Hill isn’t one of the most impressive medical facilities in New York (if not the northeastern USA), it’s that all the blood made him queasy, and you were panicking too much about the future to think it through. He got over his aversion to blood but chose the less hands-on science in the end, and you worked things through. You’re a little less scared of the future everyday.

You and Peter were supposed to get the bus straight back home for a sleepover, but one got cancelled, another delayed, and night closed in like two hands on your neck. Peter sensed your fear and emptied his wallet for a night in the Super 8.

The next morning it was beautifully sunny. The first day of summer that year, warm and golden. The pool wasn’t anything special but it was invitingly cool, blue and white tiles patterned like fish below; you clambered into the water in shorts and a tank top and Peter his boxers before a worker could see and stop you.

It was one of the best days of your life. When you told Peter about it last week, he’d looked at you peculiarly, said, Bub, you’re cute, and let you waste the afternoon recounting one of your more embarrassing pangs of longing. A few days later he told you to clear your calendar for the weekend, only spilling the beans on what he’d done when you’d curled over his lap, a hand threaded into the hair at the nape of his neck, murmuring, Tell me, tell me, tell me.

He’d hung his head over you and scrunched up his eyes. Cheater.

The best thing about having a boyfriend is that he always wants to listen to you. Peter was a good listener as a best friend, but now he has his act together and the secrets between you are never anything more than eating the last of the milk duds or not wanting to pee in front of him, he’s a treasure. There’s no feeling like having Peter pull you into his lap so he can ask about your day with his face buried in your neck, sniffing. Sometimes, when you text one another to meet up the next day, you’ll accidentally will the hours away babbling about school and life and things without reason. Peter has a list on his phone of your silliest tangents; blood oranges to the super moon, fries dipped in ice cream to the world record for kick flips done in five minutes. It’s like when you talk to one another, you can’t stop.

There are quiet moments. You wake up some mornings to find him awake already, an arm behind you, rubbing at your soft upper arm, fingertip displacing the fine hairs there and trailing circles as he reads. He bends the pages back and holds whatever novel he’s reading at the bottom of his stomach, as though making sure you can see the words clearly, even when you’re sleeping.

There are hectic, aching moments —vigilante boyfriends become blasé with their lives and precious faces. You’ve teetered on the edge of anxiety attacks trying to pick glass from his cheek with a tweezers, lamented over bruises that heal the next day. It’s easier when Peter’s careful, but Spider-Man isn’t careful. You ask him to take care of himself and he’s gentle with himself for a few days, but then someone needs saving from an armed burglar or a car swerves dangerously onto the sidewalk and he forgets.

He hadn’t patrolled last night in preparation for today.

“Did you know,” he says, pulling Harry’s borrowed car into a parking spot just in front of the Super 8 reception, “that today’s the last day of spring?”

“Already?”

“Tonight’s the June equinox.”

“Who told you that?”

“Aunt May. She said it’s time to get a summer job.”

You laugh loudly. “Our federal loans won’t last forever.”

“Harry’s gonna get me something, I think. Do you want to work with me? It could be fun.”

You nod emphatically. It’s barely a thought. “Obviously I want to. Does Oscorp pay well, do you think?”

Peter lets the engine go. The car turns off, engine ticking its last breath in the dash. “Better than the Bugle.”

You get your key from the reception and find your room upstairs, second floor. It’s not dirty nor exceptionally clean, no mould or damp but a strange smell in the bathroom. There’s a microwave with two mugs and a few sachets of instant coffee. Peter deems it the nicest motel he’s ever stayed in, laughing, crossing the room to its only window and pulling aside the curtain.

“There it is, sweetheart,” he says, wrapping his arm around you as you join him, “that’s what dreams are made of.”

The blue and white tiled pool. It hasn’t changed.

It’s about as hot as it’s going to get in June today, and, not knowing if it’ll rain tomorrow, you and Peter change into your swim suits and gather your towels. You wear flip flops and tangle your fingers, clanking and thumping down the rickety metal stairs to the pool. There’s nobody there, no lifeguard, no quests, and the pool is clean and cold when you dip your toes.

Peter eases in first. Towels in a heap at the end of a sun lounger, his shirt tumbling to the floor, Peter splashes in frontward and turns to face you as the water laps his ribs. “It’s cold,” he says, wading for your legs, which he hugs.

“I can feel it,” you say, the cool waters to your calves where you sit on the edge.

“You won’t come in and warm me up?” he asks.

You stroke a tendril of hair from his eyes. He attempts to kiss your fingers.

“I’m trying to prepare myself.”

“Mm, you have to get used to it.” He puts wet hands on your thighs, looking up imploringly until you lean down for a kiss. The fact that he’d want one still makes you dizzy. “Thank you,” he says.

“You’ll have to move.”

Peter steps back, a ripple of water ringing behind him, his hands raised. He slips them with ease under your arms and helps you down into the water, laughing at your shocked giggling —he’s so strong, the water so cold.

Peter doesn’t often show his strength. Never to intimidate, he prefers startling you helpfully. He’ll lift you when you want to reach something too tall, or raise the bed when you’re on his side to force you sideways.

“Oh, this is the perfect place to try the lift!” he says.

“How will I run?” you ask, letting your knees buckle, water rushing up to your neck.

Peter pulls you up. He touches you easily, and yet you get the sense that he’s precious with you, too. There’s devotion to be found in his hands and the specific way they cradle your back, drawing your chest to his. “I don’t need you to do a running start, sweetheart,” he says, tilting his head to the side, “I’ll just lift you.”

“Last time I laughed so much you dropped me.”

“Exactly, you laughed, and this is serious.”

The world isn’t mild here. Car horns beep and tyres crunch asphalt. You can hear children, and singing, and a walkie talkie somewhere in the Super 8’s parking lot. The pool pumps gargle and Peter’s breath is half laughter as he pulls you further from the sidelines, ceramic tiles slippery under your feet. In the distance, you swear you can hear one of those songs he likes from that poor singer who died in the Wolf River.

He’s a beholden thing in the sun; you can’t not look at him, all of him, his sculpted chest wet and glinting in the sun, his eyes like browning honey, his smile curling up, and up.

“You’re beautiful,” he says.

You rest an arm behind his head. “The rash guard is a good look?”

“Sweetheart, you couldn’t look cuter,” he says, hands on your waist, pinky on your hip. “I wish you’d mentioned these shorts a few days ago. I would’ve prepared to be a more decent man.”

“You’re decent enough, Parker.”

“Maybe now.”

“Well, if things get too hot, you can always take a quick dip,” you say.

You’re teasing, but Peter’s eyes light up with mischief as he calls, “Oh, great idea!” and lets himself drop backwards into the water. You pull your arm back rather than go with him. You can’t avoid the great burst of water as he surges to the surface.

He shakes himself off like a dog.

“Pete!” you cry through laughs, wiping the water from your face before the chlorine gets in your eyes.

“It just didn’t help,” he says, pulling you back into his arms, “you know, the water is cold, but you’re so hot, and I actually got a pretty good look at them when I was under, and you’re just as pretty as I remembered you being ten seconds ago–”

“Peter,” you say, tempted to roll your eyes.

Water runs down his face in great rivers, but with the dopey smile he’s sporting, they look like anything but tears. “Tell me a secret?” he asks, dripping in sunshine, an endless summer at his back.

A soft smile takes your lips. “No,” you say, tipping up your chin, “you tell me one first.”

“What kind of secret?”

“A real one,” you insist.

“Oh…” He leans away from you, though his arms stay crossed behind you. “Okay, I have one. Ask me again.”

You raise a single brow. “Tell me a secret, Peter.”

He pulls your face in for a kiss. His hand is wet on your cheek, but no less welcome. “I love you,” he says, kissing the skin just shy of your nose.

You’re lucky he’s already holding you. “I love you too,” you say, gathering him to you for a hug, digging your nose into the slope of his neck as his admission blows your mind. “I love you.”

Peter wraps his arms around your shoulders, closing his eyes against the side of your head. You can’t know what he’s thinking, but you can feel it. His hands can’t seem to stay still on your skin.

The sun warms your back for a time.

Peter lets out a deep breath of relief. You lean away to look at him, your hand slipping down into the water, where he finds it, his fingers circling your wrist.

“That’s another one to let go of,” he suggests.

He peppers a row of gentle kisses along your lips and the soft skin below your eye.

You and Peter swim until your fingers are pruned and the sun has been blanketed by clouds. You let him wrap you in a towel, and kiss your wet ears, and take you back to the room, where he holds your face.

“I’ll start the shower for you,” he says, rubbing your cheeks with his thumbs, each stroke of them encouraging your face from one side to the other, just a touch, ever so slightly moved in the palms of his hands.

“Don’t fall asleep standing up,” he murmurs.

Your eyes close unbidden to you both. “I won’t.”

He holds you still, leaning in slowly to kiss you with the barest of pressure. Every thought in your head fades, leaving only you and Peter, and the dizziness of his touch as he lays you down at the end of the bed.

｡𖦹°‧⭑.ᐟ

please like, comment or reblog if you enjoyed, i love comments and seeing what anyone reading liked about the fic is a treat —thank you for reading❤︎

4K notes · View notes