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luveline · 8 months ago

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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❤︎

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gojoflirts · 13 days ago

Text

FRIENDS FOR FIRSTS.

Practicing kissing with your best friend doesn’t seem so bad. Although you digress, unbuckling his belt does not meet a best friend's terms and conditions.

→ best friend!choso kamo x fem!reader

WORD COUNT | 7K

WARNING(S) | smut content—minors dni! fluff, mutual pining and frustrating sexual tension, choso is a desperate loser, profanity, jokes ab choso’s dick, choso teaches reader how to kiss from shitty first time experience, praising, unprotected sex (wrap ur willy), body worship, breast play, riding, overstimulation, shower sex for a second round, choso monster cock, first times, and no readers hymen does not bleed, mentions of yuji at the end! (he is not involved btw..)

A/N | first fic releaseeee! a lil straight smut debut before i release the word vomit fics that are pwp and 15k+ so enjoy this little nut i squeezed right out of my brain hehe i love choso so bad :cry: i tried to implement how a first time would usually go so i digress there are some crack ass perspectives to break away the awkwardness and i also tried to mix in a lil romantic aspect bcs ik choso is a hopeless romantic and i will die on that hill!

PLAYLIST | is there someone else - the weeknd, not around - nova, all mine - brent faiyaz, haunted - beyonce, sex money feelings die - lykke li, hotel - montell fish

It felt like forever since Choso last sat on the sagging mattress of your bed, which was seemingly four brooding years ago.

He’s slumping his body at the comfort of your pillow, mouth puckered and body language totally on the brink of greening out. Nothing beats the awkward silence; it had been forever since it was this solemn between the two of you, which was when you both first met. Four. years. ago.

“So..why are we doing this again?” Right, your head tumbles at Choso’s question. “I don’t know, I’m just sort of curious.”

Curious about what seems to sound like the strangest idea to just about anybody with the right headspace, that is.

“Yeah, sure. Curious about… wanting to make out with me.” He chuckles, and you feel it rumble through his chest due to your proximity, or lack thereof. You move your hand to scratch your nape, putting on a clueless act which wasn’t working to your apparent demise. “Shut up, you’re making me sound like a pervert.”

He lets out a sheer giggle, palming the bottom half of his face as his nose rests on the rim of your pillow. “Come on Choso, have you not thought about what it’s like to kiss? I can’t stay a kissing virgin forever, like, honestly... I can’t bear seeing couples eat each other’s faces out every day. It’s sickening.”

“And you want that?” He nudges a brow.

You shyly look down, hands fidgeting on your thighs. “I might as well try kissing the person I'm closest to, so if I’m ever classified bad or whatever, we can guide each other until we’re satisfied.”

Choso is almost impressed at your pointers on trying to make this whole idea work. He tries to remember the first time he ever laid his lips on a girl, which was the very middle year of high school. “If it helps, I’m not a so-called kissing virgin anymore. I can’t guarantee you I’m an expert at it, though.”

“As I said, we’ll guide each other until satisfied,” Repeated with much clear intent, you immediately shoot a dirty look at your best friend. “Also, what the hell? How’d you lose your first kiss before me?”

“I don’t even know if I’d count it! It was like a soft peck or two, for a stupid dare, mind you. Not even enjoyable, she reeked.” He sneered, the corner of his lips tugging upwards at the thought of the strong, distinct, and acrid smell of hers that lingered. Choso would like to note that she was awfully bad at it.

“So, how exactly are we going to do this?”

“You wanna find out?”

Choso props himself in front of you, chuckling at the sight of your knees being so formally situated, and.. how perfect your face looks. God, he defies the right headspace– he wished about doing this just as much as you did. Bringing up the idea felt like being coupled with a revelation.

“Anything you feel uncomfortable with?”

“No, just.. go with the flow. You’d have to be physical to get in the moment, right?”

He nods, gesturing for you to come closer to his face. You seem compromised enough to understand his signals, crawling closer.

The intervals between you and Choso seemed foreign yet comforting, it was almost every day that the two of you were always physically close-knit, but not in a way where that would confuse the both of you sexually and romantically. Not a state where Choso tends to your glistening eyes that were beading with interest, how your hair perfectly wafted away from your face, and your lips so full it honestly makes him lose his mind a little more.

You could bet just the same. You figured that befriending the most handsome guy you’ve ever met in your entire life wouldn’t have its precautions, but you’re just about miles, fuck it, centimeters away from his lips.

Kissing your best friend is an anomaly, but the two of you beg to differ right now that you’d give up anything to kiss each other on the lips with this coercing haze of noticing the intricate features of both your faces.

You had always remembered the comments made by your peers. ‘Both you and Choso look so unbelievably good together, such a shame that you two just ended up as good friends.’ Such a shame. It’s an over-repeated sentence, but you wouldn’t think anything of it.

After all, the two of you really were good friends, the best of friends. Even when you’re about to get your first kiss stolen by said best friend who everyone adores you to be with.

But again, you guys are just friends.

Good friends. Best friends.

Choso could sense you were going through some sort of brain fog, puzzled face and all, with an almost tense demeanor. Knowing you well, for years, he’d come just as close to comprehending your entire body language and how you reacted to certain things. As if the two of you have always corresponded with each other's actions.

And so, he finally plants his lips on yours to divert your attention.

The first peck lingered; the shock of having your lips touch his almost gives an unearthly sensation. Choso licks his lips, slowly leaning in to properly give you a passionate kiss. For somebody with an uncalled-for first experience, he’s a good kisser. Not unbelievably, but to yearn for? Absolutely.

The way his lips softly mingle with yours in this temperate motion, not haste, and just the means of savoring the taste. You sort of catch on to his pace, understanding that for a kiss to be pleasant, it needs to be done gradually. Gradually, in a way that makes you need more, crave for it until you go insane. Until then, you’ll be allowed to get ‘sloppy’ or ‘filthy’ all you want, needy in the way I digress.

His hand cups the side of your cheek, the warm temperature of his fingers engulfing your face as the spaces between the two of you get more restricted by the minute.

Choso scooping your waist to allow you to sit on his lap goes unnoticed, totally complacent, as if being hypnotized by the kiss almost.

There’s no doubt that it’s getting heated. At this point, your bodies are pressed against each other, and Mr. Kamo is holding himself back from touching you anywhere else but your face. He slowly shifts to support his back on the headboard of his best friend’s bed, the room filled with just soft moans and slight sounds of smooching.

The kiss is slightly losing its first form of being gentle, veering to a more passionate and desperate intent, where both of you are hungrily exploring every crevice of each other's bodies.

The two of you pulled away just about immediately to catch your breaths, a string of saliva threading from Choso’s wet lips. “Holy shit.” He huffs, licking his lips as his chest exhales.

You stayed silent, almost, slightly wiping the excess off your lips.

Choso covers his mouth in awe, exasperated but slow gasps leaving his mouth that just seems to whisper your name louder and louder.

Nothing beats silence; the air was thick with unspoken words.

Nothing beats the way Choso was looking at you. His gaze bores through your eyes, searching, yearning. You feel your composure yielding, and for a second, your breath gets caught in your throat. “W-was that good enough?” You ask, batting your eyelashes.

“Not sure, I’m gonna need more to know if it is.” His jaw tightens, and his hands snake their way to the back of your neck.

“Show me how good you are.”

Choso could assert that you wanted more, on a blind note; that you desperately needed him. The bed is vast, but it felt as if the two of you were lying in a preserve that extended throughout, like a land full of nothing but a void enveloped in an ivory white.

In simpler terms, that was how kissing Choso felt. Everything around you was capacious, but the mere vicinity between you and him was enough to almost suffocate you. Enough to pull you into a pit of brainfuck that makes you think of Choso and only Choso.

The two of you only continued making out, his hands were more weary of where to hold and where not to, attempting to resist the urge to make your body only remember his touch. The pace slows down to regain composure between you two, soft pecks in between breaks of hasty breaths.

Slithering his fingers under your shirt, he pauses his movement as if emitting a non-verbal question.

You nod. “Please, touch me.”

A nervous gulp shoves whatever lump was inside his throat. The manner of your tone drove him insane, like a kill switch in his soul broke. Like giving enough force to break the scale on a high striker. Choso was beyond saving.

Trailing his fingerprints on your body, his head leans to give little marks on your neck. Soft red marks that ingrained your skin, marks that screamed Choso’s name.

At this point, it didn’t feel like teaching a best friend how to kiss; it felt like a scheme for him to mark his territory.

You always knew Choso was acclaimed as both possessive and protective, even with his blood brothers and his undying wish to serve and protect his family. One thing you knew for certain, is that Choso knew damn well he wanted you all to himself.

He knows all of your weaknesses. To his advantage, he’s known you for so long that it’s almost as if he’s lived in your body. He can pick up each and every one of your behaviours, like he’s got receptors built in specifically for you and your mannerisms and everything else. It was always either information from your mouth or sheer observation from being by your side almost every day.

“I can’t get enough of you.” He exhales, pecking hickeys as his calloused hands reach to fondle your breasts. Choso can feel your breath hitch at the sensation, watching your nipples perk from his touch alone.

You could almost die from sensory overload. His mouth grazes your skin as he leaves it to commute a tender, dark purple, tongue streaming wet, sodden lines across your bruised neck. It left his hands to caress your breasts, and the other slightly pressing against your waist.

He leaves your nape to tend to your exposed chest, tongue licking your aroused bust as his fingers continue to touch up the other. Pulling, twiddling, and flicking it to make sure you could feel each tug– both from his tongue and his fingers.

Your audible moans were loud enough to inform him he was doing a good enough job at making you cock drunk. “You smell so fucking good,” He chuckles, allowing his tongue to play around with your areolas, making you jerk. Your spine tenses up at the feeling, and you don’t know how he’s so good for someone who you presumed had only kissed a girl out of spite for a dare.

“C-Choso…”

He enjoyed seeing your face being so derived from pleasure. Seeing you whimper and helplessly attempt to find a gasp, he was so oblivious of himself, merely getting hard at your voice just uttering his name while your face begged for him more.

He moves his finger down your sternum, making your body twitch at every sensation he flits through your body. “You don’t know how much I need you..” He huffs, admitting that during the period of him pleasuring you, he was on the verge of making himself break. Seeing you in this delicate and vulnerable state, Choso wishes he could just ruin you. Although he wasn’t a man full of resistance— inside, his soul was whimpering for you. He can try to take control but fuck, he couldn’t watch you so impuissant under his touch. You drive him insane too.

Your body reacts to his statement, seeing his eyes blanketed with an intense need, reveling in the sweet state that was in front of him. He’s got you under some spell.

“I need you.”

It was raw how there were no pet names of the sort, just you and Choso basically yearning for each other in all its bare glory despite the best friend barrier.

“D-do you want to..” You shyly look away, initiating the all-time question usually assholes say at the end of the first date.

Except obviously, your intentions were much different; both you and Choso have gone out on a limb for each other. Memory lane would extend more than a hundred football fields could ever. Choso’s eyes twinkle, “I do,” He chuckles at the thought of the both of you taking each other’s firsts, it sends him small tingles.

You move yourself away from his lap, clearing your throat as his hands cup his mouth— trying to cover his face that flushed deep red, hair tumbling over his other shoulder.

It was quiet again.

“I have no condoms..” He mumbles.

“I can take it raw.”

Choso’s eyes widened at your response. “S-Since.. when did you learn how to say that?!” His breath hitches, and he’s back to being the timid boy you’ve always known. His eyes look away from your figure, biting his lips as his eyes slightly narrow. You let out a small giggle at the sight of him being embarrassed that his innocent best friend bared dirty words in her throat.

“Okay then..” He leans but appears a little restless, proffering you the signal to unbuckle his belt for him. Never in the four years that you were attached to Choso’s hip would you be pulling down his pants to his knees. So much for being best friends, am I right?

You acquit something you’ve seen online before, pulling strands of your hair behind the shell of your ear– the metal clinking as you loosen his belt, pulling it away as it no longer wovens his waist like a hug. Then there you go, leaning in to tug his zipper with your teeth as your eyes doe up to look directly at him.

What an ultimate move, Choso could feel his dignity stripped away from his body.

You slowly pull down the hem of his pants and boxers to reveal his cock. Something you’d only hear in fiction, it’s swaying from slapping his abdomen. You would have never thought about the dick size of your best friend, and now it’s dangling straight up in front of your face, funny enough.

He seems sheepish, cheeks still embellished pink. His hands gripping his pants as his huge cock is damp in pre-cum from previously. God, it's so big, it’s almost useless to penetrate a woman. Your mouth could not fit his entire girth and length. You almost wonder how the fuck Noritoshi Kamo birthed this monster.

You sit yourself on his lap again, his hands guiding the flounce of your shirt to take it off. You can sense Choso’s eyes heave an encompassing gaze on your body.

Something about him is that when it comes to being intimate, he swears to feel you like a well-crafted jewel– lifted with care as if you were a rare feather. “You never fucking leave my mind,’ He almost confesses, one hand sweeping down to trace the winding curves of your body. “I’m thinking about you all the time.”

His voice rumbles deeper than rocks thud on the ground, and his words have a more heartwarming lilt to them.

Your eyes widened.

Your legs tightly wrap around his waist as you lean in to embrace him. It was prolonged, bodies pressed against each other. To Choso, you had started to smell like everything he’s come to associate with safety and home, and hugs he used to be wary of– he let linger a little longer.

“You’re such an idiot,” Your cheeks start to grow warm, face planted perfectly on the crook of his neck. A light chuckle fills the room, watching you pull away to feel his palm on your face. The meld between the warmth of his body and the heat rising to your face felt balmy, at the same time pleasant.

He gingerly caresses your skin, “You don’t know how long I’ve felt this way,’ He mutters, leaning lips that tenderly interlaced with yours.

You felt your mouth turn cold from inhaling before he leaned in, hands gripping his broad, sharp shoulders as his arms continued to hold your hips to prep yourself onto him better. “Funnily enough, I’ve always felt the same too.” Your eyes crinkled at the edges, and the corners of your lips turned upwards. It never took long for your face to beam when Choso was around. It was evident enough when someone as indifferent as you- whose eyes were so full of void, would laugh every time Choso’s presence graced.

Vice versa. Choso found himself opening up to someone other than family, and you were just about the most important person in his life.

The feeling of familiarity and solace. Both you and Choso confided in each other like no other, and that was what mattered for the two of you.

Which is why you even came to him in the first place, knowing that you would be safe in his arms. As congenial as his presence is, you wouldn’t have felt any mite of regret if it were with him. You digressed. Choso felt the very same way.

“I really need you.” Choso heaves a breath that craves your touch. “Are you ready?..” He huffs.

“A-as ready as you are.”

Choso is a little nervous, given it was the first time for the both of you, and the last thing he would ever want to do is hurt you in any way. His teeth slowly gnaws down on his lips, eyes intensely observing as you try to position his cock into your hole. “Take it slowly, baby. Go at your own comfortable pace.” Choso exhales at a soft tone, attempting to guide you.

The sudden pet name puts your mind in a trance, feeling yourself getting wetter the whinier his voice seems to get.

You slowly push down on his length, his tip engulfing your tight opening as it slightly stretches you enough to make you jerk. The sheer girth of his cock makes your body slightly tremble, words unable to leave your mouth as short moans come in seconds from trying to adjust yourself to his size.

The more you push yourself down, the more Choso twitches. “Fuck, fuck.. -ah..” He slightly pants, the claws from his fingernails obscurely digging into your waist. The insert had almost no friction; you surmise the build-up (more so, foreplay) had gotten the both of you frisked up to some degree, maybe the highest degree possible. After all, both of you are, or were, two virgins that were concurrently pining for each other– now seeing and embracing each other in such a vulnerable and a disposition that’s in the buff.

Sliding down on Choso’s cock felt impossible almost, you deduced it was because one, he was extremely huge, and two; he was about as hard as a rock himself.

You can feel the web of your hymen with Choso’s cock not even halfway into your hole. “You feel so -mmh.. fucking good…” his moans were in coeval with yours, like mentioned before, since the two of you are extremely correspondent with each other’s actions, Choso could feel the validity from the solicit moans exiting your lips every time you even slightly try to push him deeper into your sodden walls.

“So warm..” He seemed like he was losing his head, discerning as if he was slipped in reverie from the tightness of your pussy enfolding his length. I beg to differ, you weren’t even halfway down- let alone his entire cock? Both of you would sanctify your souls to leave your bodies.

You let your body take control to adhere to the immense pressure his cock rubbed into your walls, feeling your hymen slowly caving in– Choso could feel it well too, especially the warmth of your clit. God, you were so tight, and so, so warm. “Do you feel it, baby? Do you - mmpf.. f-feel my cock in you?” He gasps breathlessly, hips trying to contain themselves from gaining a mind of their own to just thrust deeper until his leaking tip bruises your cervix. So deep you can’t even feel anything but his cock.

You nod, jaw slightly ajar the more you split your pussy apart to his full length. Choso watches as your body shakes merely at his cock, a sinful drawl leaving his lips. He had always learnt that being humble was a great virtue, but growing an ego from seeing you rumble from his massive cock doesn’t sound so bad.

“You got it baby.. -mmh.. looking so pretty..” You could feel your hymen break its core, losing your virginity minutes after Choso - who lost his the moment he even put his dick in you. You couldn’t tell the difference, but oh, the walls between your ready hole could feel every inch of Choso Kamo.

“Oh f-fuck -ah!” You cover your lips to muffle a scream. Your best friend’s cock is balls deep in you, a thought that would have never crossed your brain until this second.

In ruly first-time fashion, it was an amalgam of pain and absolute heaven. Choso slightly pushes his hips forward to make sure he’s all the way in, and when he is- his eyes roll back until he could catch a glimpse of heaven.

“Holy f-fuck! - nghh.. your pretty pussy is so ahh.. s-so fucking tight..” His fingers grip the silk sheets, every confine sticking to the gaps of his hands to avoid piercing your skin with his nails. After all, the amount of pleasure sinking into the surge of his veins was uncontrollable - Choso could feel you, every inch of his soul - and his dick.

You were shuddering, rattled moans and haggled breaths unable to contain themselves to stay put in your throat. Choso watches you unfold beneath him, what a lewd scene, he thought. “Do you feel it?”

“Mmm..” You nod, slowly rolling your hips to quench his cock against your inner walls. It was almost too much, your brain could only focus on feeling him deeper and deeper. “Ah shit.. keep doing that..” His tone reeked of desperation; he wanted all of you, he needed you. Seeing you ruined, naked and dripping on his cock kept riling him up– although he couldn’t contain himself much either.

Your flesh mixed with his. He could break at any moment.

Each squelch produced from the sound of your hips bouncing on his dick, integrated with your juices dripping down your cunt– the surfaces of your skins slapping intimately. Lewd, lewd, it was all so unimaginably lewd.

The impure rapture of two virgins experiencing rampant endorphins, it’s even better to note that the two of you are simply best friends; the more you’ve suppressed the emotions, the larger they just tend to burst.

“You look so pretty all fucked up on top my cock..” He lets out a long-winded groan as you repeatedly move up and down, making him twitch with every movement.

He sort of loses control, hips bucking forward to thrust into you deeper, and his hands roam their way to dig themselves into your skin. “Wanna.. feel you -mmh! d-deeper please…” You squirm, steady moans fleeing your lips with each thrust.

“Doesn’t it feel so good, baby? ahh.. Fucking yourself on my cock like the pretty girl you are..” His sentences are cut off by his moans, unable to withstand the feeling of himself buried in you. “Do you wanna change positions?” You abruptly say, stopping in your stirs as your lower abdomen merely trembles at his cock staying still in you. He was so massive, he didn’t need extra work to pierce your spot harder. He looks completely fucked out, “Doggy?” It almost sounded like a plea from Choso, leaving you to nod while you chuckle.

A wet plop belches as you take yourself off Choso’s dick, leaving you to gasp at the feeling. It felt almost empty, you wouldn’t expect that the lack of his cock inside you would drive you crazier for more.

Choso gets up from his position, seeing you get on all fours. He could dwell on the fact that this position was almost like a drug for most men. Although, he’s damn well near his climax— he tests the waters.

Seeing your ass up all ready for him, he could push you deeper into ecstasy if he promised. “So pretty, so fucking beautiful oh fuck—” his voice strained as he started thrusting into you, slowly and sloppily, as best as he could acclimatise with the newfound experience — just as you were doing. Choso couldn’t believe it, the internet was fucking right. This shit was pure heaven.

Your walls clenched into him so much tighter, seeing your body jerk proved to him just as much. You could finally feel all of his length, the curve of it, and the tip touching your walls as it drags deeper into your cervix. You let out quite a succinct moan, indicating the sharpness and the sudden pressure in your vagina.

“I’ll fuck you like you belong to me.” He was muttering as he adjusted to the further feeling of your insides; he absolutely fucking loved that he could feel you. His hands placed on your hips made it easier to control your body.

“Y-yes!” You whined out once he pressed deeper, plops becoming louder as he thrusts into you faster than the pace you set for yourself when you first rode him, “I-I want -mmh!.. only you..”

He’d thought about you like this more times than he’d ever admit, always feeling guilty every time you’d smile in his direction or peer up at him in question, and his mind would immediately go to the image of you underneath him and panting for air like you were now.

You were driving him crazy with the sounds you were making and the way you were clenching around him, having half the mind to reach his hands down and press down onto your stomach just so he could feel himself inside of you.

The push of his fingers wasn’t making it any easier for you to handle, the familiar tight coil building in your stomach as he continued to fuck into you rough.

“Please, please.. H-haaa.. faster..” You were begging, your mouth was just moving on instinct, so he didn’t stop under any circumstances.

“I know, baby, I know.” His voice was more gentle than it had been before, but still just as tight and overwhelmed, definitely reaching the end rapidly himself like you were, and trying his hardest to prolong it, considering how good you felt, almost as if your souls were interconnecting. “Squeezing my cock so good, you’re so perfect for me.” He hums, fingers threading to pull your hair. His hips had grown a mind of their own, rocking them into you.

He was so sure you liked your hair being tugged, seeing your head drop back to meet his eyes.

“F-for you, just for you ahh..” You were quickly responding to the casual possessiveness he had showed and this seemed to affect him more than anything, his hips faltering for a second in their movement before he was fucking into you even harder than you thought was possible. He clearly liked hearing you claim yourself as his own, and you felt overwhelmingly dizzy at the realization.

It was a complete blur now as he thrusts into you, coming undone faster than you ever had before and blacking out for a few seconds from the pleasure of him doing the same inside of you, bending you over, all dirty, just for him.

You can feel his breath behind your ears, “I’m so fucking close..” He huffs, and you cry out a moan. “M-me too, Choso..”

“Say that again.. please.” He whimpers, feeling himself nearing at the way you uttered his name. “C-choso..” You say once more, feeling your hole filling up with your own juices. It ridiculously felt like the after-relief of peeing after holding it in for so long. Feeling the release, you beg with Choso’s name for one more time before he pulls out to cum on your back.

“Haaa…” He breathes heavily, dick twitching at every pearly bead dropping out the tip. “Oh my fucking god..” Weary breaths leave his quivering mouth every time his chest rises, and your back has pools of his semen. “Oh shit, that’s a lot. I’ll grab the towel.”

You catch a breath yourself, feeling yourself ultimately drop on the bed from sheer exhaustion. Choso is quick with it, taking a nearby towel to wipe away his cum. “Let’s get you cleaned up, sweetheart.” He chuckles apologetically, picking up your knees to pull you up bridal style– comprehending you were exhausted to get up, legs probably fucked, and shaking like you had the tremors or something.

You feel your lips bend into a small smile, head gently leaning on Choso’s warm chest. He admires the sight of you cuddling up to him like he were a being that protected you. “You’re just as beautiful like this.” He mutters to himself, softly smiling.

“Thank you.” You whisper, appreciating him for making love to you. These words are always used in everyday conversations, but hearing them from you felt like a small droplet distinctly falling into water. It was such a gentle feeling. “Thank you.” He enunciates, turning on the heater as rushes of water leave the nozzle of the showerhead. The warm feeling hits your skin as he slowly puts you down.

Choso cards his fingers through his now wet hair, hands slowly snaking around your waist as he softly peppers kisses on your head.

Both of you melt into this moment. The invigorating warmth of the water gave ardor, the sounds of minuscule droplets splashing onto the bathroom floor, and his embrace reduced the tension in your muscles. It was soothing.

“Let me take care of you.” He hums, pressing soap into both his hands, rubbing them together to create foam bubbles. He lathers the product onto your body, every texture of his fingers, ensuring your body felt the sensation. This was a rather different feeling from just now. It was so much more intimate, and it makes you shy under your exterior. You were helplessly moaning his name just minutes ago, and now you’re caving at this romantic feeling.

It was sensual yet so relaxing. Feeling him explore your body just to make sure every part of your body is clean and covered with soap. His hands move from your waist, to your ass, down to your legs, all the way up to your neck– shifting to massage your boobs playfully.

The feeling slowly riles you up from the feeling, making you turn around to fervently kiss him. Choso is surprised but immediately presses into your lips, hands supporting the back of your head as your hair fills the gap of his fingers. It turns more eager, and he slowly pushes you against the wall.

The steam shrouds the shower doors that were once as transparent– now hinged opaque.

Your mewls don't get muffled by the sounds of the water, but rather they echo louder. Choso’s hand was stamped to the side of the shower doors that were blanketed with moisture, now a clear imprint of his hands visible from the sheer impact.

His other unoccupied hand chooses to grab onto your thigh, lifting it as if wanting to carry you into his arms. “Second round?” He pulls away to ask, words slightly quelled by the streams of water. You eagerly nod at his words, surprised he even regained his energy so quickly. “Please.” You plead, smashing your lips into his again.

Choso digresses that his sex drive is somewhat unusual. Being born differently has its perks, he guessed. With his blood manipulation, he could heal open wounds quicker than sorcerers with similar abilities. He wouldn’t have known it would work in other places as well, healing anywhere else that wasn’t shrouded in blood or flesh. Maybe it was his body; he didn’t know.

But you were here to help him figure that out.

With his unorthodox strength, he picks you up and makes sure your back is against the wall. Lips still intact, he’s strong enough to carry your thighs with his arms alone— feeling no sign of exhaustion, even after fucking the shit out of you. It’s as if his body went through hours of respite in minutes, and he’s feeling fresh as new again.

Although that’d be a good thing. Every round would feel like the first, every single time.

He positions himself, this time your clit is familiar with the head of his tip, the mere strain of him inserting himself into you. He’s much gentler this time, heading your waist’s to bounce on his cock. He gasps at the feeling once again, feeling his jaw widen at the proximity of his cock flushing against your walls once more.

His forehead meets yours, slithering droplets running down your bodies. It felt filthier, although it was a supposedly sanitary environment. Maybe it was the wetness of your skin; every touch felt slippery. Looking at your body glisten in crystal drops of water, and this time, he got a better view.

He watches your figure bob against him, breasts bouncing with every thrust and your mouth moaning with every movement being pitted against your dripping cunt.

Not to mention, your beautiful face.

Even if his body convalesces faster, his drive does go down by the minute. “I-I don’t think I can hold in for long..” He whimpers, his rough exterior also ravaged. He honestly feels like he can’t hold it in further when he sees you fall underneath his embrace.

The second time goes by more quickly than expected, a few thrusts and whines, with Choso putting his all into thrusting and ruining your insides for a double. You fret not, enjoying every moment he roughly buries his cock deep in you.

“I’m coming.. I-I can’t..” He huffs, but his hips move quicker than his words, making sure he feels every inch of you before reaching his climax. You could only cry out at his pace. Mentioning again that he’s extremely huge. Even after getting stretched out once, you don’t think you can ever adhere to his monster length. He’s nearly rearranging your guts, and the pit of your stomach feels itself getting full again.

He quickly pulls out once more, testing his game. Panting as he lets his juices flood your body again, but it quickly washes away from the continuous streams of water.

Although after that, the two of you properly wash up this time. Thawing in the intimacy, with soap bubbles and hot steam.

You get out of the shower first, wrapping a towel around your body as you stretch your arms from the cushy shower, and Choso comes out after you, looking hellishly handsome with wet hair slicked back, strands of his long hair clinging to his neck. With the towel dangerously hanging low on his waist? You thought to yourself, if you weren’t so tired from getting your back blown out, another round or two would suffice. Oh, well.

The reflection echoes both you and Choso, how he looks at you so lovingly, even if you weren’t facing him. This face was what you saw all the time, but the more you realized, he always stole glances in this endearing sort of way. He puts his arms around your neck, the crook of his nose resting on your collarbones as he smells your scent. “Awh man, you smell clean now. I loved your natural smell.” He grins playfully, making you jerk a hand to smack his head. “Stop being a weirdo.” Rolling your eyes, you relish the fact that you were still acting like best friends.

That he didn’t care and wasn’t awkward about the fact that you took each other’s first times.

That was what scared you. Usually, best friends don’t end up being best friends after this. Strangers or less, even. The ‘what are we?’ phase of confusion that usually imbues in the latter, or maybe both.

You would beg to differ, though. You had no questions or doubts, maybe you were a little afraid, but thanks to Choso, he reassured you well enough; that he’s always felt the same way. The endearing stares, the genuine moments you shared, every laugh, every time he swore to be by your side. It had never been one-sided.

He made sure to make it clear.

“Let’s rest. I’ll take you out on a nice date tomorrow.” He gently emits, planting a soft kiss on your cheek. You felt your inner soul yell in pure bliss; you never once negated Choso.

He grabs your wrist to pull you out of the bathroom, and the night is complete with shared kisses, a late-ordered pizza, warm cuddles, and cold blankets.

It’s safe to say that you would have never imagined this happening, although part of you wished for it, prayed almost. The latter desired just the same.

This pining could have ended in many different ways, the sole longing of this void that needed to be filled by you, and you only.

Choso’s eyes are still open, reminiscing about everything. Your delicate snores soothe his ears, any sound you made was his favorite melody, and he would do anything to just make you feel secure around his presence. His eyes rest upon your figure one last time before he closes them to rest himself.

It was a long three hours full of just, everything that amounted to years of being best friends.

Choso even joked to you that he’s finally moved up the chain after being stuck at second rank for so long. You laugh, “What a fucking dumbass.”

“You love me, though.”

“Oh, shut up.”

—

Yuji groans groggily, turning on the lights of the living room as he rubs his swollen eyes that have just awoke. He sees your handbag still sitting atop the kitchen counter, wondering to himself, ‘She’s still here? Huh.’

Shrugging his shoulders, a yawn leaves his mouth as he slouches to the laundry room to find his towel.

Although he couldn’t find it, at all.

“Did I put it in Choso’s room?” He blinks, question marks visibly popping out of his head like a speech bubble.

Before he walks out, his eyes sharply peek at the light pink color of his towel.

In the dirty basket.

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion, picking it out with two of his fingers. It’s sticking oddly to each other, and it’s got a smell to it.

“Oh hellllll no.”

#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 #choso kamo

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lnfours · 15 days ago

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heaven | ln4

summary: loving you was easy to him, like second nature, like breathing. and it’s finally time for you to know.

warnings: nothing but heart clenching, feet kicking, and giggling into your pillow fluff. this is kind of short (i apologize 🥲) but nonetheless the lando brainrot has been back in full swing!

💌 - message from jordan: hi guys! long time no see :,) this came to me while watching the race yesterday morning, and beings im a sucker for a toothache-inducing-sweet romance, i figured this would be the perfect comeback fic. nothing too crazy with this one, but i still hope you enjoy, nonetheless <3 i’ve missed you all v much and i can’t wait to post some more of the things ive been working on while i was away! sending you all my love, always. talk soon! 🤍

masterlist | inbox

the filtered sunlight from the curtains in the hotel room casted shadows that illuminated the sleeping boy’s face next to you. his face was squished against the pillow, an arm lazily thrown across your stomach. he was always finding a way to be touching you, even when he was unconscious.

you watched as he slept peacefully next to you, tan skin a contrast against the bright white sheets. he had finally reached a break in his busy schedule, two weeks of having him all to yourself. he had even gone the extra mile and decided to take you on a little getaway, somewhere where it was just the two of you. alone. making up for the time he had spent away from you.

his curls were messy on the top of his head, you couldn’t help yourself from reaching out and brushing them from his forehead. however, you slightly started to regret it when you felt him move next to you, a soft sigh leaving his lips. not out of annoyance, but out of comfort at the feeling of having your nails scratch his scalp.

“like what you see?”

his morning voice was raspy and sleep coated and hot. you couldn’t help the smile growing on your face as he blinked his eyes open, squinting at you in the bright room as he tried to get his eyes to adjust.

you nodded, your fingers now trailing down the side of his face and resting on his cheek, your thumb tracing over one of your favorite moles that littered his skin, “always.”

he leaned into your touch, smiling sleepily at you before pressing a kiss to the palm of your hand, humming as his eyes searched yours, “missed this,”

you smiled back as he pulled you closer towards him, giggling as you nuzzled your head into his neck, his chin resting on the top of your head, “me too.”

lando pressed a soft kiss to the top of your hair as you took in the smell of his leftover cologne that clung to his skin. you two laid like that for a while, basking in the feeling of having each other close after the weeks he had been all over the world. you knew what you were signing up for when he asked you on your first date a few months back, but you were certain that each time he left, it was only harder and harder to let him go.

you adjust your body so you could look up at him, his eyes meeting yours again. you smiled, thinking back to the very first date you had ever went on. how he had asked your friends what your favorite flower was so he could bring them to dinner. how he always managed to make you feel like the only person in the room. always gentle, even after a bad day. he made you feel valuable. seen, heard, loved.

he tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, smiling softly down at you, “what’s going on in that pretty little head?”

you sucked in a breath, “just thinking about you, about us,”

a hint of worry flashed through his eyes and you immediately clarified, “not in a bad way! i swear,”

he raised his eyebrow, playing with some strands of your hair slightly, “what is it then?”

you sucked in a breath, a feeling in your chest rising that you couldn’t quite describe, “i love you, lan.”

his eyes traveled back to yours immediately, the three words neither of you said before now ringing in his ears. he had known for a while now that you were the one for him. he had never felt this way about anyone before, never felt the need to settle like he does with you. with you, he pictures the white picket fence dream. the house, the kids, and hell, even the dog he had always talked about getting when the time was right.

you made him feel like he had found the missing piece to the puzzle that was his soul. and he was yours, too.

he leaned down, pressing his forehead against yours. the usual witty, jokester brit now all of sudden feeling a sense of realism. this was his future, the woman laying in front of him. the one he got to call his own. the woman he loved.

“i love you,” hearing him say it back made your heart clench in your throat, “more than anything in the world.”

you reached up, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him down to your lips, kissing him with as much love and passion you could shove in it. he kissed you back, sweetly and slowly. just like he always had, but this time it felt different. it felt like page turning to a new chapter of his life. the chapter he desperately wanted to share with you.

you giggled into his mouth when his hands found your hips, pulling you on top of him. the material of his shirt from the night before meeting his bare chest, legs tangled under the covers. you had pulled away to catch a breath, running your hands through his hair, nothing but love filled gazes staring right back at each other.

his own little slice of heaven.

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oescil · 9 days ago

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𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗠𝗣𝗔𝗚𝗡𝗘 & 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗨𝗠 ⟡ rich husband!jay ❛ 𝗌𝗁𝖾 𝖽𝗈𝗇’𝗍 𝖻𝖾𝗅𝗂𝖾𝗏𝖾 𝗂𝗇 𝗌𝗁𝗈𝗈𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗋𝗌, 𝖻𝗎𝗍 𝗌𝗁𝖾 𝖻𝖾𝗅𝗂𝖾𝗏𝖾 𝗂𝗇 𝗌𝗁𝗈𝖾𝗌 & 𝖼𝖺𝗋𝗌 ❜ 🥂

珍珠 3O612 • 𝑓𝖾𝗆!𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋 ─── 𝑓𝗅𝗎𝖿𝖿 𝖾𝗌𝗍. 𝗋𝖾𝑙𝖺𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇𝗌𝗁𝗂𝗉 ᓚ₍ ^. .^₎ ダイヤモンド & 共同

🌷 • we’ve all seen rich husband!jay hcs but this is my take on it, i hope u enjoy reading ! 💌

REBLOG★𝟰𝗞𝗜𝗦𝗦 !

rich husband!jay who never lets you open your car door — even after months of marriage. it doesn’t matter if it’s a Rolls, a town car, or a vintage drophead. his hand is reaching for you. always.

rich husband!jay who has staff for everything— but still insists on doing your things himself. he steams your dresses, brings you your coffee the exact way you like it, holds your purses and shopping bags when your out. just little things that make you appreciate him more.

rich husband!jay who buys two of everything when he shops for himself—one for him, and one, tailored for you. matching coats, matching luggage, matching silk robes. nothing too flashy, just connected. “you’re apart of me, of course we can match.”

rich husband!jay who always walks on the street side of the sidewalk, no matter where you are or how many times you switch sides. he just strides behind you, one hand on the small of your back guiding you gently.

rich husband!jay who insists you stay in bed when you’re tired. he’d cook you your favorite comfort meals without you asking. no “what do you want to eat?” just: “i made you something light, go ahead and rest honey, you don’t need to do anything.”

rich husband!jay who travels with a mini pouch just for you. it has everything you need: hair ties, eye drops, hand creams, meds you always forget, a roll-on perfume you once liked in a hotel lobby—he hands it to you mid-flight when you starts digging through your bag.

rich husband!jay who keeps a separate calendar for your schedule, be it appointments, birthdays, dinners with friends or just small anniversaries. so when you forget something, he’d already remember. “didn’t you say you wanted to call your sister today?” “i heard you wanted to re-watch that movie, yeah? i pulled it up for you.”

rich husband!jay who takes you shopping on vacation and says nothing when you hold up four colors of the same blouse, he just hands them to the cashier.

rich husband!jay who keeps a camera (film, of course) on him when you’re traveling, and takes pictures of you when you’re not looking. he just captures moments you don’t even realize are beautiful—your hand over your drink, the sun on your legs, or your eyes half-closed when you were in the plane. you’d find those photos weeks later, tucked in you bag.

rich husband!jay who listens when you say something and remembers it forever. you tell him your coffee order once? he makes it better than the barista. you say you hate the sound of ticking clocks? he removes the one in the guest room before you even sleep there

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swordgrace · 2 months ago

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❝ 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐥 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭. ❞

┊ 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: you and john go undercover to infiltrate an arms dealing ring in paris. you take your roles a little too seriously.

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: john walker x fem!reader.

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 6.3K.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: smut (mdni), semi-established relationship (no label yet), fake marriage trope, espionage stuff, mild plot, mild mentions of insecurities, thigh riding/thigh grinding, dry humping, dirty talk, biting/marking, john is needy, making out, hair pulling, john walker’s praise kink, unprotected p in v sex, cowgirl/riding position.

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: this was so fun to write & can be read in the same ‘universe’ as “bite the hand that needs you” !! lowkey I’m becoming john walker trash ,,, expect more fics of him because he’s delicious. I loved this sm & I hope you all enjoy! 🫶

Covert operations were never considered your expertise — in fact, they were completely foreign to you, so outlandish that you wanted to crawl out of your own flesh. Discomfort comes with new territory, with putting on some new facade for the sake of a mission.

The ripstop mesh of your suit is gone, exchanged for a gaudy dress that seems torn from the cover of some business magazine, fabric the color of bruised plums. It’s awkward, constricting; you’re squirming in your seat.

Valentina had sent you all trailing after an illegal weapons manufacturer in the heart of Paris, superpowered machinery being bartered off to the highest bidder.

There were too many hands involved, too many bad people getting their hands on equipment that could level buildings if used improperly. It seemed like a threat that might’ve required Bob’s help, but he was still out-of-commission.

Admittedly, you weren’t sure why Bucky had put you and John up to the task as bait; it set your nerves ablaze, trying to step into a role that was the antithesis of your personality.

While you and John were out masquerading as a husband-and-wife duo who owned a technology company, the rest of the team were infiltrating an underground warehouse.

Given the newfound nature of your relationship with John, it made the predicament all the more humorous. No one knew, but the irony of being paired together for something of this nature had made you laugh, initially.

If you’d known about the blisters gnawing at the flesh of your heels, you might not have been so enthusiastic to volunteer yourself for this.

A tangle of nerves sat heavy within your stomach, a tight knot that continued to bounce around your belly, prompting you to bounce your knee. The stiletto pumps you wore blistered and chafed at your heels, the sensation grating.

Grenadine syrup oozes onto your tongue at the first sip of an iced Shirley Temple, perched at the countertop of a bar that seems excessively lavish. Everything is pretty — the scenery, the city, the hotel’s interior.

The atmosphere is light, casual; though, you’re actively avoiding looking over your shoulder. Tension curls within your muscles, your posture abnormally rigid; any attempt to relax is met with resistance.

John is talking with the target — pressed, tailored suit clinging to his musculature, blonde tresses less disheveled, smile easy; too trusting, too naive. You remind yourself that this is all an act, that you’re both Avengers playing pretend.

It’s difficult to discern if he’s enjoying himself or not — he’d rather be fighting, you think, expelling all of his frustrations into a few henchmen.

Nevertheless, you’re making a valiant effort to enjoy yourself; this was a free hotel stay, after all. Beyond the thin, sparkling window panes of the Hotel George V, you catch a glimpse of Paris’s glittering cityscape.

There’s a peculiar solace you find in the teeming nightlife, and much of the hotel’s clientele screams wealth and lavishness. It’s a life that you never had, growing up — now, being an Avenger, it was all within your grasp.

Even when you served with S.H.I.E.L.D, your assignments never took you to France. Despite the intensity of the mission at-hand, you were thrilled to be somewhere new.

As the liquid evaporates from your glass, you’re left with a twinge of disappointment, sucking what remnants you can from the bottom, ice half-melted. Sliding the empty vessel aside, you peer over your shoulder, noticing John’s gaze directed toward you, waving you over.

Act the part; the reminder repeats over and over again, a mantra screaming from the forefront of your mind. Gliding from the stool, you straighten out your dress, knees wobbling as you steady yourself on your stilettos.

With a tremulous exhale, your gait is somewhat poised, unpracticed; anyone observant enough could tell that you were one step away from fumbling over.

Pointed heels click against marble tile as you join them at the table, beaming and bristling with a fake excitement.

John notices the tremor in each step, unbalanced, and he finds it cute, in the way one finds a newborn foal to be cute.

He can taste the discomfort that rolls from you in anxious waves, and so he attempts to soothe you in the only way he knows how.

“Mr. Bertesy, this is my wife,” He introduces you without missing a beat, the words smooth, lacking an ounce of hesitation. John is better at this than you thought, smiling as if he’s won the lottery. “She’s also helming the company.”

Andras Bertesy — the name held some familiarity, a Hungarian arms dealer, prominent in much of central and eastern Europe. His features are gaunt, narrow; he reminds you of a spider, his physicality noticeably spindly.

Andras regards you with a thinly-veiled perplexity, as if he’s attempting to pierce through whatever barrier you’ve concocted. He remains seated, reaching for your hand with suave cordiality.

“Charmed, madam.” He carries a heavy accent, sitting heavy within his voice as you meet him halfway for a handshake. Instead, it’s taken a step further when he presses his lips to your knuckles.

Unphased, you offer him a pleasant smile; John’s jaw tenses, though it’s a subtle gesture. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Bertesy. I hope my husband’s been good to you.” Teasingly, you let your hand perch atop John’s shoulder.

With a listless chuckle, Andras nods, hand withdrawn to the table. “Your husband tells me of your interest in my work.” He muses, purely absorbed with striking a business deal.

Pulling up a cushioned chair to the table, it’s wedged beside John’s, space nonexistent as you sit down, folding one leg over the other. It relinquishes the sting in your feet, and you vow to never wear stilettos again.

“Yes,” As if to play up the facade, you reach for John’s hand, posture posh and prim. “We’ve been searching for something revolutionary, to take our company in a new direction. We think your work might be the key to that.”

Admittedly, John is mildly impressed with you — you’re swift to turn on the bubbly charm, the same charm he’d fallen for, and cater to the man’s inflated ego. You’re quick-witted, though he feels the anxiousness through your grasp alone.

As if to placate your nerves, John absentmindedly trails his thumb over your knuckles, pretending to be engrossed by the conversation at-hand.

This wasn’t part of his skillset, disguises and the covert, but being with you made it tolerable. “My wife and I would be interested in striking up a business deal.” John interjects, flashing a false smile.

My wife; for someone merely adopting a role, he doesn’t seem like he’s acting when he says it. A beat passes, cerulean hues shifting to gaze at you lovingly, your heart lurching within your chest.

Heat curls over the back of your neck, a brief hitch settling within your throat before you swallow it down. Digits tense, woven together, prompting you to shift within your chair, facing your target.

“I am certain that we could come to some arrangement,” Andras hums, his hawkish glower still picking you apart, a knife attempting to pierce through your defenses. “Assuming you’ve enough money.” He laughs.

John chuckles too, a noise that sounds so characteristically sardonic. “Name your price.” Part of you is amused by how serious he’s taking this, as if he’s going for an acting award.

Andras quirks an eyebrow, hands pressed together as he appraises the both of you. “I must reconvene with my associates,” More shady dealers? There’s a veiled perplexity written on John’s face. “Aren’t you curious to know what you’re purchasing?”

The warehouse — an anxious coil forms within your belly, teeth catching against the inside of your cheek. This is all supposed to be some distraction while they’re running infiltration, which prompts you to clear your throat.

“We’re very curious,” You concur, trying to navigate through the sudden uneasiness you feel. Bertesy doesn’t seem naive, but you’re also a poor liar. “Though, we’re pressed for time, and —”

“Of course. You must be very busy people,” Andras murmurs, tapping his fingers together. “Perhaps, a private viewing? Transportation would be provided, and we can cement our transaction.”

John’s mind is turning, turning again, attempting to think of something quick. His communicator is sitting in the waistband of his belt, growing heavier as minutes tick by.

The idea of playing into Bertesy’s proposition seems dangerous, unpredictable. Neither of you have your suits in-reach, no defense, and even with John’s super-soldier stamina, the odds are looking rather grim.

As if on-queue, a humming noise pierces the tenuous silence, awkward and grating, causing your heartbeat to climb dramatically. John clears his throat, flashing a brief smile before he moves out of his seat.

“Got a call I need to take, excuse me,” John shoots you a sideways glance, the ghost of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I’ll be back, honey.” He says it as if it’s dripping with sweetness, and you have to stifle a laugh.

Before departing, he squeezes your hand, and that isn’t acting; it’s sincere.

Gooseflesh crawls along your spine, stomach a tempest of nerves as you face Andras, forcing a cordial smile. John walks away, slipping into a marblesque corridor, his voice beginning to taper off into a dismal hum.

Left alone with a dangerous arms dealer, you didn’t say much, unsure of how to progress the conversation. Though, you were intrigued by him — no one simply took to this line of work without being catapulted in that direction.

“How long have you been married to Mr. Wayne?” Andras questioned, and you very nearly laughed at the surname of John’s persona.

John Wayne — he loved Westerns; you bit your tongue to keep from snickering.

“Three years.” It sounded natural, and you tried to ease up, force yourself to relax. Your hands folded atop your lap, digits picking at the stitching of your dress in an attempt to relieve yourself of nervous tension.

“Americans, hm?” It was difficult to discern if he was interrogating you or simply facilitating conversation to fill the silence. Either way, you decided to answer truthfully to keep the peace.

“Both of us, yes,” A cough stirs within your throat as you proceed to make up a half-truth of how you met. “We met at a previous job, and it seemed to grow from there.” It was like a lament of your life beneath the shoddy disguise.

“How sweet.” The sudden sharpness of Andras’s voice makes you shift uncomfortably within your seat, heart threatening to rip from your chest. His gaze is poignant, discomforting; you want to look over your shoulder for John.

Silence crackles between, a terse hush that could be cut with a knife. Beneath the table, your fingers curl into your dress, fraying the stitching as you wrack your brain for something intelligent to say. Coming up short, your only hope is to wait for your partner to come back.

Andras cants his head to one side, wisps of brown hair moving with it, brows pinching together. “You seem familiar,” Shit — please don’t recognize you. “Are you certain that I haven’t seen you anywhere before?” He questions, and the anxiety builds against you.

With the formation of the New Avengers, your face plastered worldwide, someone was bound to know you if they scrutinized hard enough. An awkward laugh spills from your mouth. “That’s flattering, Mr. Bertesy. I must have a common face.”

Before the conversation could shift into a more accusative direction, John returns, much to your relief. He gives you a brief glance, putting on another mirthless, fake smile.

“Sorry about that — business calls,” He stands beside you, stance involuntarily protective, as if he’s a barrier between you and Bertesy. “Would you be willing to meet us in an hour, Mr. Bertesy? Name the place to meet.”

Andras regards you with something indiscernible, making your blood run cold as you avert his gaze, leg bouncing violently beneath the table. You’re wanting this to be finished, and it seems to be heading that way.

Wordlessly, the Hungarian removes a nondescript business card from the pocket of his blazer, offering it to John without missing a beat. “One hour. Look for a black horse.” He replies, abruptly standing up from his seat. “I look forward to your patronage.”

Scrambling from your seat, your feet ache again with the pressure of your stance, backs of your stilettos digging into your heels. Andras ends the interaction there, departing from the hotel’s lobby, a spot of black against the ivory.

Once he’s gone, you feel as if you can breathe again, tension unfurling from your shoulders in one fell swoop. Smoothing your hands over your dress, you’re eager to return to your room.

John is pensive, twirling over the business card between his fingers. ‘DARKFORCE SYNDICATE’ is all it says, stamped with the head of a black horse.

“Seems a little obvious,” He scoffs, sneering at the shady name; a seedy name for a less-than-moral organization. Tucking it into the pocket of his suit-jacket, he glances at you. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” With a tremulous exhale, you attempt to expel your nervous energy, feeling lighter now that he’s gone. No longer playing the part, you clear your throat. “I think he was getting suspicious. He said he thought he recognized me.”

Smug, John’s mouth twitches with the ghost of a smirk, hand skimming over the small of your back. “Think he needed to keep his eyes off of my wife.” He teases, though it stirs some flickering fire within you, a familiar heat crawling along the back of your neck.

“Your wife wants to go upstairs and get out of these godawful heels.” Your remark is lighthearted, keeping the mood playful in the wake of the growing intensity. Even then, you weren’t out of the clear just yet, but it gave you room to breathe.

John’s smirk grows, cocksure as ever, a flicker of amusement passing over his features. “Thought you’d collapse if you took another step.” His statement earns him a look of veiled frustration from you, but he isn’t entirely incorrect.

His attitude has changed; it’s tolerable, but he still has a habit of callousness and being unnecessarily harsh at-times. Less with you, more with the others. John’s gotten soft for you, more vulnerable — he’s still getting used to the feeling.

Admittedly, he’s terrified of losing you now, like he lost Lemar, lost Olivia. Beneath the flawed exterior, there’s a man left, attempting to reclaim his roots, try and better himself despite the world looking down on him.

Offering you his arm, you’re quick to accept, taking measured steps to ensure that you make it to the elevator, unscathed. His bicep is thick and taut beneath your palm, warm even through his expensive blazer.

Inside of the elevator, you decide to pry about his supposed ‘phone call’. “Where is the team at with the warehouse situation?” You asked, leaning against the metal railing behind you.

“Bucky said they’re cleaning up, but he wants us to catch Bertesy,” John murmurs, fishing out the communication device from his waistband. There’s a GPS watch too, keeping tabs on the others. “We’ve got an hour to kill.”

A soft ‘ding’ reverberates throughout the corridor, eerily hushed for this time of night. The hallways are glistening, pristine — you’ve never seen anything like it. Dimly-lit braziers mark your path as you return to your temporary lodging.

As soon as you cross the threshold into your room, you kick your heels off, black stilettos soaring toward the chaise lounge in the center. The room came equipped with an open fireplace, extravagant bed, and the bathroom — a luxury shower.

“Do you think Valentina could incorporate some of this into the Watchtower?” You muse, nose wrinkling as you settle down onto the ivory cushion, sprawling back with a soft exhale.

“She’s cheap.” John utters, tone flat as he grabs a duffel bag from beneath the bed, containing his suit and his still-bent shield. It’s become something of a staple, mildly sentimental, and he can’t bring himself to get rid of it.

The playful banter you shared before begins to wane; he becomes focused before a mission, before a fight. A sliver of you wonders if it’s because of what happened in Latvia, and the thought makes you grimace.

Tossing his suit-jacket aside, he’s already itching to be back in his kevlar and tactical gear, loosening the tie as if it’s choking him. He’s quiet, and it prompts you to stand, bare feet crossing cold stone as you inch closer.

“We’ve got an hour to spare, John,” The softness of your cadence is unmistakable, giving him pause as he stops in the middle of undressing. “We’ll handle this — just relax.” You soothe, noticing the tension simmering within his posture.

He’s coiled, ready to go; it’s an amalgamation of military training and past trauma, constantly on-edge, expectant for the unpredictable. John tries to loosen up, sitting on the edge of the bed with a begrudging huff.

“I want to get the job done.” He’s eager, hungry to complete a mission, like a trained attack dog. Even still, John is attempting to unravel some of the rigidity enforced upon him, but it’s a process.

“I know. We’ll get it done,” Sitting next to him, your toes barely brush over the cold marble, hands loose within your lap, nail picking at the stitching of your dress. “Bertesy said an hour, and we have fifty-two minutes left.”

There’s an impatience present, and he doesn’t enjoy waiting around; the deep breath before the plunge. If it weren’t for you sitting beside him, he would’ve been pacing.

Hesitation has never been his strongest suit, driven by impulsivity that only seemed to crush him after Lemar passed. Though, he’s tried to get better, reminding himself of his training, where he’s come from.

He just wants to make sure you’re safe.

Blonde lashes flutter in rapid succession, cerulean hues shifting from curtain-shrouded windows to you, gaze becoming a touch shadowed. You look gorgeous in that dress — he wanted to tell you before, so he settles on telling you now.

“You look beautiful,” John murmurs, low and husky, as if his sudden shift in cadence is a deliberate choice. A fleeting smile crosses his features, faint as he appraises you. “Should’ve told you before.”

He knows what he wants to do with those fifty-two minutes.

Flustered, you can’t help but smile, preening beneath his kinder compliment, giving a lackadaisical shrug of your shoulders. “Thanks,” You hum, but you don’t feel pretty; you feel like an imposter. “I don’t feel beautiful.”

Perplexed, John decides to push the matter, head cocking to one side. “Why not?” He struggles with his own insecurities, but nothing regarding physicality. Even then, he thinks you’re breathtaking, violet silk molded to your curves.

“I don’t know,” You confess, huffing a nervous laugh before you stare absentmindedly into your lap. “I feel stupid in this dress, worse in heels. It’s like I’m an imposter in my own skin or something.”

John understands the sentiment more than you fully realize. He doesn’t always understand himself, or his rage — it’s a labyrinth he’s still navigating, and like you, he’s still healing. He nods, shoulder brushing against yours.

Quiet, you steal a glance at him, heart beginning to thrum with an erratic beat. His beard is scruffy, a shadow of a darker blonde, tresses somewhat disheveled after removing his tie.

After you slept together two weeks ago, things have felt different; the tension is prevalent, unspoken feelings crackling between, and he gets increasingly protective of you. You don’t mind it, but the team notices the sudden shift in his demeanor.

He’s staring at you, gaze lingering on your mouth, over the delicate slope of your jaw, over your throat, which bobs when you swallow. John’s countenance softens, a rarity reserved only for you in private moments like these.

“Think you’re perfect.” He murmurs, brows creasing together as if he’s concentrating on something. A subtle hitch bubbles within your throat, breath catching on the exhilarating feeling of his words, hands stilling.

Unable to keep from smiling, a familiar tendril of heat coils within your belly, causing you to shift against the mattress. “John …” Before you can try and fully express your feelings, you feel his hand press against your thigh.

Though, you’re quick to indulge him and yourself, tilting in until your mouth clamors for his. Lips meld together, passion oozing through like thick honey, saccharine, eliciting a yearning that he tried to bury before the mission.

His beard scratches against your mouth, a pleasant prickling that reminds you he’s real, flesh and blood, a beating heart. John exhales; a steady, exaggerated sound, attempting to cling to the fine line of restraint.

The communicator is eerily quiet; he’s expecting Bucky to ping him, but he’s eager to take advantage of what time you have together.

Much of the past two weeks were agonizing; stolen glances in the training room, fleeting smiles shared over breakfast with the team, kissing in the corridors where the cameras can’t reach. He wanted you, you wanted him.

A delighted shiver grips your spine when his calloused digits tease the hem of your dress, threatening to push beneath. Hands find the muscled expanse of his chest, firm underneath your palms, warm to the touch.

Lips collided in a heated exchange of fiery affection, your stomach flooding with molten heat. John kisses you as if he’s burning alive, nearly flush against you, other hand cupping your jaw.

“John, I … Is this a good idea?” It is a wonderful idea, but you’re uncertain if squeezing this in beforehand would make things worse; for both of you. You’re still in the thick of a mission — things could change instantaneously.

Foreheads brush together, noses ghosting over another as he huffs a placating chuckle. “We’re married, remember?” His signature smirk pulls at his mouth again. “There’s a lot we can accomplish in forty-six minutes.” He murmurs.

His cheeky remark makes your insides turn with an excitable heat, and you want him terribly. “You’re a needy husband.” You tease, throwing caution to the wind, and his lips are back on yours with a thrilling haste.

John can’t help himself, a grunt splitting through his chest, raw and taut, each kiss leaving the both of you sputtering for any scrap of air. Your fingers are fumbling with the buttons of his dress shirt, trembling with exhilaration.

Between deepened kisses, he coaxed you closer, strong hands drifting to the swell of your hips as he urged you into his lap. Skirts shuffled, fabric hastily adjusted as he slotted you atop one thigh, muscle firm and tense between your legs.

There was a sense of relief he felt, lost within the labyrinth of your lips, passion burning with a searing intensity. Whatever stress that he’d felt before began to unfurl from his shoulders, abandoned to the sanctity of your presence.

Crisp fabric untangles itself from his musculature, revealing his abdomen to you, which you caress with reverent touches. John feels you adjust against his thigh, catching the pleading whine that coagulates in your throat.

His scruffy countenance melds with yours, bleeding heat, kissing you with enough vigor that it prompts you to hold onto him. Your heart gallops, races — it’s quick and erratic, beating in your ears.

Lungs burned, wilted in the flame of his kiss, evoking a breathy moan that ripped through your diaphragm. Hips lurched forward, a sluggish roll as friction grew between his thigh and your clothed nethers, nearly making you writhe.

John catches you in the act, rucking your dress up around your hips, lips stilling against yours. “Need it that bad?” His voice is dangerously low, husked cadence curling around you, making you squirm.

Embarrassed, you nearly retreat from the intensity of his gaze, but he doesn’t let you, hands firm against the swell of your hips. He’s strong enough to move you without breaking a sweat, effortless, grinding you into the muscle of his thigh.

“John,” A warbled whimper splits your throat, the noise raw and needy. He’s getting off on watching you like this, cerulean hues burning with heat, an incendiary stare. “I—I …” Words turn to ash in your mouth.

In a clamor of bodies, your knee happened to brush over the growing tent in his trousers, eliciting a low groan from his lips. That seemed to momentarily silence his lascivious remarks, much to your satisfaction.

He gives you a pointed stare, knowing that you’re winding him up with the constant grinding and your damned knee, bouncing into his groin. “Stop it.” John hisses with no real malice behind it, only frustration.

The picture of faux innocence, you shrug, and he cages you against him, stifling another grunt mouth hot and fervent as he kisses you. You accidentally shift again, knee brushing over his erection.

Again, he drags you over his thigh, taut muscle thick through his dress slacks, watching your countenance blossom with bliss. There’s an excitement prevalent, something daring; you’re in the middle of a mission.

A sharp moan punctures your lungs when he jostles his thigh against your core, biting back a dirty smirk when your hands curl into his chest. “Yeah? You like that?” John murmurs, low timbre echoing beside your ear, causing you to shiver.

With an eager nod, you want more, hips urging into the friction of his thigh. The sensation sends shockwaves through your body, arousal coalescing between your legs.

Still, you rocked yourself atop his thigh, unable to smother a whimper as kisses began to cease, foreheads pressed flush together. John’s breathing is a touch labored, hot breath pluming over your features, bones aching with desire.

“I want you,” Your confession makes his brain short-circuit, trapped within a haze of desire. You’ve nearly forgotten about everything else, allowing it to simply diminish into the background. “John, please.” A low moan echoes from your mouth.

John tries to curb the smugness, but it’s swiftly replaced by his hunger for praise, validation. His mouth climbs toward your throat, beard burning your flesh, but the sensation is borderline intoxicating.

He’s getting a little rough, but you don’t care, hips erratically urging themselves into his thigh, friction tingling against your cunt. “Mind if I leave marks?” John grunts, pearlescent teeth scraping over the column of your throat.

“Please, please.” Gasping, he’s quick to take your sensitive flesh between his lips, suckling a hickey into your neck without a second thought. A muted buzz surges through him, muscles coiled, cock throbbing incessantly.

The grizzled scratch of his beard prickled against your neck, goosebumps icing your spine, filling you with anticipation. He’s still rocking you into his leg, mouth a tempest as it storms over your throat, teeth nipping at your flesh.

Dizzying moans slip past your lips in noisy droves, feathering beside his ear, hands gripping your haunches like a vice. A hoarse ‘Jesus’ hisses beneath his breath, a subtle noise that you nearly miss.

An urgent ache throbs within his cock, which continues to strain with obvious need against his pants. Between the friction of clothed bodies and wandering hands, John is wanting to take it further.

A sharp gasp penetrates your lungs when his mouth roughly sucks another mark into your jugular, laced with exhilaration and an excitable zeal. His communicator buzzes in his pocket; he ignores it.

Your hands are crawling over his chest, one palm dropping to the rather obvious bulge. Insistent, your hips urged in a rhythmic dance, grinding yourself still against the taut muscle of his thigh.

Lips momentarily collide in a messy kiss of tongue and teeth, the both of you clawing for one another, succumbing to baser instincts. Throaty whines escape you, consumed by his kiss, one that ached with desperation.

He stops, only to press kisses over the freshly-formed hickeys, visage dropping to your throat, lavishing your skin in endless kisses. There was something raw about him, exuding strength, caging you in over his lap.

“Jesus.” John groans, low and heady into the hollow of your throat, feeling one of your hands fist at his blonde tresses. The other kneads against his cock, ripping another grunt from his chest.

A coil pulls taut within his abdomen, an intensity that he had become acquainted with, lips parting as he continues to let you ride his thigh. “Want you inside of me.” Through a strangled whine, your words make his jaw tick.

It’s as if you’ve reached into his being and turned on some primal switch, feeling his grasp grow tight against your thighs. Undeterred, your hand grinds over the swell once more, as if tempting him, goading him into taking you then and there.

A shadow passes over his stare, cerulean hues eclipsed by desire as he shifts his thigh, muscle making contact with your core. A hitch forms within your throat when his hands fist at your dress, hastily dragging it towards your hips.

Admittedly, you were just as pent-up as he was, desperate to feel him inside of you. Arousal began to coalesce between your thighs, an incessant ache that spread throughout your belly, a fire that demanded to be extinguished.

In a frenzied clash, your lips were on one another again, feeling his fingers hook into the waistband of your panties. Teeth knock together, moans swallowed through greedy kisses, fabric being manhandled past your thighs.

Hands fumble for his belt, and he’s grunting into your mouth like some feral animal, cock throbbing incessantly when you unzip the front of his pants. John doesn’t waste a second — neither of you have the time to spare.

Time has slipped your mind, but you estimate that it’s growing slim, hands steadying themselves against the nape of his neck. You hovered, soft palm guiding his length to your slick cunt. John inhaled — a sharp, poignant noise that signaled relief.

Intermingled sighs of passion float between faces, hot and wanton, your thighs twitching when you sink onto his cock. The sensation makes you dizzy, muscles shaking with the sting of exertion.

“John,” A gasp is pulled from your throat, raw and hoarse as he fills your cunt, hands tensing over the swell of your hips. “You feel so good.” You moan, unabashed, heat licking over your flesh as if you’re feverish.

The praise makes him keen, mouth pressing a kiss to your jaw, beard scratching ragged over your soft skin. He’s gripping you like a vice, strong enough to guide you effortlessly onto his cock, friction bristling when you roll your hips.

It was a sluggish start, agonizingly so, bodies finding moments to grow accustomed to one another, finding familiarity. You drew yourself up, his cock filling you in such a pleasant way, nothing discomforting about it.

John shuddered at the feeling of your cunt, tight and warm around him, clenching around his cock with each roll of your hips. You took him perfectly, as if you were made for him, molded together; the pace begins to increase.

Neither of you hear the communicator thrumming; though in John’s case, he doesn’t seem to care in the heat of the moment. Each urge of your hips is drawn-out, intended to savor. “That’s it,” He husks, caressing your hip. “That’s my girl.”

It’s innocuous, the nickname — simple, but it sets off a catalyst within you, a furnace of heat that blankets your bones in fire, wasting away to ash. You’re moaning beside his ear against, fingers fisting at his blonde tresses.

The way in which you milked him, moved agonizingly slow, allowing him to feel your cunt tighten around him — it was nearly overwhelming.

Calloused, careworn palms rubbed circles into your hips, wishing that he ripped your dress, instead. Regardless, John’s trapped in the same desirous haze that you are, chests brushing together, bodies leaving no scrap of distance.

Skylights pool in through darkened windowpanes, blanketing you in some euphoric glow. He thinks you’re beautiful, and some small part of him wonders why you’re indulging him like this, but John’s quick to push it aside.

His smug swagger and bravado seems to dissipate when he’s buried himself into your cunt, as if it’s nearly shut him up completely.

“So good at this.” You breathe, knowing how it sets him off. John kisses you, fleeting, hips jolting against yours as one hand leaves your hip, shifting to the coalescing warmth between your thighs.

If it weren’t for the mission, he would’ve fucked you right into the mattress, maybe break the headboard, but he’s restraining himself. Even then, you look so pretty in his lap, riding his cock as if you’re made for him.

A whimper of bliss bubbled from your lips as you became invigorated in your pace, rocking yourself up and down along his cock, aided by the sudden pressure of his thumb against your clit. It draws another moan from deep within your diaphragm.

Your pace was tantalizing, nothing too swift to let it feel sloppy and rushed, yet fervent enough to make his head swim with the haze of desire.

A familiar coil of heat began to unfurl within the pit of your stomach, just as it did his own. A sharp inhale inhabits your lungs, one of a dizzying surprise as he circles over your clit, sending tingles through your spine.

Thighs twitched, the action alone bringing you closer to the precipice of your release. His cock throbs inside of you, nearly kissing your cervix with each downward movement.

“Christ,” John huffed, countenance focused yet wrought with ecstasy, muscles in his stomach tightening up. “You close?” He grunts, voice low and gravelly, itching something lascivious within your brain as you clench around him.

With a disheveled nod, you don’t stop, maintaining the same pace, a steady rhythm that’s winding the both of you up. His groans make your stomach turn with exhilaration.

With a brief jolt of his hips, he bucked up into you, cock hitting new depths, toying with your pearl as you squirmed within his lap. Gooseflesh ices your spine, mind clouded with a salacious haze, bringing you closer to an ecstatic oblivion.

Even as he crescendoed into his own release, he continued to circle your clit, lips peppering themselves along your exposed collar. A string of murmured expletives escape him.

Nails dug into the nape of his neck, a choked sob wracking through you as you clung to every shred of friction. John huffs, letting your hips stutter into more of an erratic rhythm as you soar toward your orgasm.

Euphoria crashes into you, white-hot and blinding, the tension unfurling from you in one wave. The coil snaps, cunt clenching around his cock, evoking another low groan from his mouth.

Stars floated across your vision in the wake of your release, a moan of ecstasy rippling through your chest. John’s name spills from your tongue over and over again, as if it’s the only word you know.

The pressure between your thighs begins to wane as he holds steadfastly to your hips, chest heaving with labored breaths in the afterglow. It’s hushed, save for your ragged breathing as you come down from your peak.

Fingertips gently shift his blonde tresses back into place, sweeping over his hairline. John adjusts your position enough to pull out, heartbeat beginning to climb down from its exhilarated pace.

“You okay?” John asks, watching as your head bounces in a brief nod. A smile crosses his features, faint, as if it’s only reserved for you, lacking the usual sarcasm.

“We should clean up, before …” With a click of your tongue, you gesture to his GPS, sluggishly climbing from his lap with wobbling legs. The both of you need to be prepared, and that includes getting your suits on.

“Right.” A twinge of disappointment stirs within him, wishing that it would’ve lasted longer; or that you were both back at the Tower. The facade of your false marriage fades; you’re back to the mission.

Before you depart, you plant a chaste kiss against his lips, as if to remind him of your affections.

John watches as you grab your duffel bag, making for the bathroom with a bit of a spring in your step. He’s getting soft, wanting to pursue a relationship with you, but there’s fear prevalent, still.

He’s ditching the suit-jacket and slacks, exchanging the suave outfit for tactical pants; kevlar and body armor that feels more comfortable. John follows after you, nearly dressed, and you’re perched along the rim of the bathtub, wrestling with your boots.

“Need help?” He offers, and you’re moderately embarrassed, still fumbling with the knots in the laces that won’t come apart.

“Yeah,” Defeated, you’re losing the fight with your boots, ripstop fabric thick enough to stop knives, perhaps a bullet or two. “I didn’t expect to have trouble with the knots.”

The purple dress is pooled on the floor, forgotten, but the memory will be burned into your mind for weeks to come. John steps closer, crouching down between your legs, shoulders broad, marred by indents of your nails.

He’s quick at unraveling the knots and tangles in your boot-laces, glancing up at you from his kneeling position. “When this is all over, I’m taking you out.” John states, matter-of-factly, as if you’re both in agreement.

Bewildered, you fight to smother your smile, but it appears, still curling at the corner of your mouth. “It took you long enough to ask.” You hummed, fingertips reaching to caress over his bearded jaw.

With a sardonic huff, John’s mouth twitches into a smirk, cerulean hues glittering with a humorous gleam. He’s so handsome, smug; he’s grown on you to the point that he’s covering you like ivy.

“Wouldn’t be a good husband if I didn’t.”

#mcu #marvel #thunderbolts #thunderbolts*#the new avengers #john walker x reader #john walker x you #john walker x y/n #john walker #us agent #thunderbolts x reader #john walker fanfic #john walker smut #thunderbolts fanfiction #thunderbolts smut #marvel x reader #marvel smut #marvel fanfic

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kimstills · 10 months ago

Text

crazy

pairing: aaron hotchner x fem!bau!reader

summary: after one heated and spontaneous night together, aaron can’t seem to get his pretty subordinate (or her pussy) out of his head.

content warnings: smut, 18+, minors do not interact!, pussy!whipped hotch, age gaps, dirty talk, rough unprotected office sex, multiple orgasms, oral (f receiving, mentions of m receiving in the past), choking, hair pulling, ass slapping, groping, some angst if u squint, love confessions and some asshole behavior, hotch is a munch and masturbates in his office.

word count: 6.5k (yea…)

a/n: this may seem a lil out of character for hotch? we all know he’s a professional thru and thru but the point is this is that he’s pussy whipped! also lots of flashbacks in italics whoopsies <3

Aaron was sure he was going crazy.

Or maybe he already was, and he was just starting to feel the effects of his craziness.

Aaron Hotchner, usually poised in a way that unwillingly intimidated others and made them back away from him, was unraveling in a way he had never done so before.

Having a one-night stand with his subordinate, the same subordinate he had been harboring painfully arising feelings for literal years, often led to such a reaction.

He could still recount every single detail from that night, from the moment the tension between you both began building itself up to the moment it actually snapped. It was as if he had everything engraved in his mind; the views he never thought he'd get to see to the things he never thought he would get to feel etched into his brain.

It had all been a blur that night, and a part of Aaron still couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that you reciprocated his attraction towards you, letting him, not only touch you but also fuck you.

You two had stayed up late in your shared hotel room only to talk, really. After you and the rest of the team had wrapped up a somewhat good case, you only wanted to rant to one another. Aaron knew that you weren’t a ‘whiskey girl,’ or whatever it was that you said, but he had offered you a drink either way.

Neither one of you had even gotten tipsy, so he couldn’t even blame it on the alcohol. But the connection had always been there, though, one thing finally leading to another and all the unsaid words and stolen glances between you both began to surface.

It was as if everything you both silently felt for another was starting to seep through and everything that hindered you from telling each other no longer mattered.

It had felt so hot, from the way you held him close with your legs wrapped around his waist to the messy yet passionate kisses you shared, your bodies connected beneath.

It was everything Aaron envisioned it to be. But, as magical and heated as it was, he was the one to have ended things before they even had a chance at starting.

The morning after, as soon as you had both untangled your bodies from one another and got dressed to get back home to Quantico, he had done the stupidest thing imaginable.

“We shouldn’t do this again.”

You froze in your spot, half-way through tugging your pants up your legs. You blink at him from where he stood on the other side of the bed, already dressed, “This?”

“Yes.” Aaron says, voice awfully neutral.

You frown, jutting out your bottom lip that same way you did when you were thinking, “May I ask why?”

He takes a deep breath, “I’m your boss,” he gives you a pointed look, as if he had to remind you after fucking you dumb, “and you’re my subordinate. This goes against several workplace regulations and if anyone were to find out we could both lose our jobs.”

You’re quiet for several moments after that, and Aaron uses the silence to his advantage to prepare for any arguments you could be thinking of to use against him. He can’t seem to read you, though, your expression pensive as you stare at the floor.

Then you shrug. “Okay.” You say, simple and nonchalant.

Aaron watches as you continue finishing getting ready and he doesn’t know if he should ask if you were actually okay with it.

He decides that it’s for the best, not getting any pushback or having to argue on why he’s just subconsciously pushing you away after having one of the best nights of his life.

“Okay.” He repeats, giving you a small nod, even though you weren’t looking at him. With one last glance to your surprisingly calm figure, he finishes collecting the rest of his things and heads out of the room.

Even after the team had checked out of their hotel and settled onto the jet, you didn’t spare him a second glance. You hadn’t necessarily moved to ignoring him or silently lashing out, but it was as if everything went back to normal, with no mentions or glances back to that night.

That should be what was driving him crazy; the way he didn’t know if you were only calm because you were planning on going to the higher-ups, to HR, about what had happened. If you were secretly planning on putting him on blast out of anger or betrayal or telling him that he had coerced you to sleep with him and threatened you in case you didn’t.

No. What was driving him crazy was that he couldn’t get you out of his head, even after he broke things off.

Everything was engraved into his mind, from the sight of you on your knees, mouth full of his cock while you stared up at him with tear-pricked eyelashes and basked in his praises. Or the way your nails dug into his skin as he thrusted into you and the way you felt around him, all while he took pleasure in the sweet sounds he emitted from you every second.

He was going mad, and the already established feelings he had for you weren’t helping, either.

Aaron stared at you from inside his office, studied your features from afar whilst you sat on your desk. Your face was set in a neutral expression, flickering your attention from your computer screens to the physical files in front of you, but all he could see was the same face and person morphed into the one that had been withering in pleasure underneath him.

“Hotch…” you whine, a hand wrapped around his bicep as he dipped a finger inside your glistening pussy.

He watched as your back arched off the bed, throwing your head back against the pillows at the feeling of his thick digit inside you, “What, sweetheart?” He asked, the nickname rolling of his tongue easily. “What do you need? Hm?”

Your hips stuttered as he inserted another finger, thrusting them in and out you, “Y-You. I want you. Inside me.” You peered at him through your fluttering lashes, your mascara smudged underneath your eyes from the tears that had slipped out while you were sucking his cock.

“Yeah?” His voice is filled with amusement and bewilderment, one part of him indulging in seeing you this way—all disheveled and needy for him—while the other was still stunned at the whole thing. “Want my cock inside you after you just had it in your mouth?”

You nod meekly at his words, a sweet pout adorning your flushed lips.

Despite the heat and tension that suffocated the room, Aaron’s heart fluttered at the sight of you. The way you were asking for him ever so bashfully after just giving him the best head of his life tugged at his heartstrings and made his cock twitch.

“Please,” you whisper, bucking your hips upwards. A stuttered gasp emits from your lips when you feel the tip of his dick prod at your sopping entrance, “Aaron…”

Aaron lets out a low, throaty groan at the sound of his first name mumbled in desperation, and he thinks back to all the times he’s thought about you like this. How many times he’s dreamed of having you underneath him, encaged by his broad figure and whining for him.

“I got you, sweet girl,” he says promisingly. He lifts himself to his full height on his knees, lining himself up with your entrance and holding onto the meat of your thigh. Another groan utters from the back of his throat, mixed in with your gasps and puffs of breath as he begins to sink inside you.

A knock on his office door forces Aaron to snap out of his train of thought. He looks down at himself, registering the painfully hard boner he was now sporting. Quickly, he scooted further into his desk so that the tent in his pants wouldn’t be visible by whoever was knocking on his door. Clearing his throat, he lets out a somewhat proper ‘come in.’

In walks Garcia, and Aaron doesn’t know if he should be thankful or mortified it was her out of all people.

“Sir?” She asks politely, files in hand and head tilted in an ever so Penelope manner. “We’re ready whenever you are.”

Right. It was barely nine in the morning and Aaron was already sporting a growing tent in his suit pants.

He nods, doing his best to feign being busy, “I’ll be there in five, Garcia.”

He wants to think he comes out as somewhat normal, but panic surges through him briefly when her expression turns into a curious one.

“Are you alright, sir?” She takes a step forward and Aaron has to hold himself back from screaming for her to stay where she is. “You look red and pale at the same time.”

He shakes his head, waving a hand dismissively yet good-naturedly, “I’m fine. Jack is coming down with something and I think I might be, too.”

Great. Now he was using his innocent son as a scapegoat for his own horniness and bad decisions. Some father he was.

Garcia nods, looking convinced enough before bidding him a nod shuffling out of his office and closing the door behind her.

Aaron lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding in. His boner had softened the slightest bit, and he was conflicted in trying to make it go down completely or taking care of it right here and now. But the thought of having to face his team after fucking himself into his fist mortified him. Of seeing you, right after fucking himself into his fist to the thought of you after leaving you hanging coldly.

He opted out of it, though it took more than five minutes to settle himself before heading over to the conference room. Once again, he tried to play it as casual as possible while he walked to his seat with everyone staring expectantly at him, including you.

“Let’s get started.”

The team’s briefings went on as so, everyone presenting their perspective cases and discoveries within them. It was a bit easier to lose focus of what he was thinking earlier when the gory crime scenes showed up on the TV screen each time someone went up, but all focus was lost when it was your turn.

You stood from your seat, taking the control from Penelope’s hands and talking everyone through the case you were currently focusing on.

Aaron held his fist up to his face as he tried to focus on the details of the case instead of you and your entire being. Your hair whipped out and into your face each time you looked from the screen and back to the team. The top part of your dress twisted with each turn and motion you made, the bottom part of it creasing along with it. Was it a new dress?

Didn’t matter. It didn’t compare to the pajama shorts he had slowly, almost tauntingly, pulled down your legs before–

“...makes me think he’s keeping them in a secluded space. He obviously likes the control and the pleasure of having his victims’ screams and cries for help to himself, so I’ve advised police to search condemned and empty areas far away from the city and even on the outskirts of the town.” You finished with a nod and once again Aaron was snapped away from his unholy thoughts.

While everyone else added their own commentary and advice, Aaron realized he had been the only to have not said anything during your presentation, too preoccupied with you once more.

“Adding in the possibility of him keeping them outside of the main town the victims have been found in was a smart move,” He quickly added, trying his best to comment on what he had paid attention to. His breath hitched when you turned to look at him. “Law enforcement might have missed that and can collaborate with police from the next town over. Good job.”

You smiled softly and nodded in appreciation, “Thank you.”

Fuck. How were you so nonchalant about this? Aaron’s mind wandered back to the probability of you getting back at him by going to Strauss about your rendezvous. It was only early morning Monday, the first day back in the office after said events, so it wasn’t a surprise he hadn’t heard anything from her. Yet.

He nodded back in response, though, casting his gaze downwards and collecting his things, “Great. I expect everyone’s reports to be on my desk by tonight, please.”

Everyone stood from their seats, shuffling out of the room with mumbled conversations. Aaron held back, taking his time in looking through his files and stacking them together while you did the same, leaving the two of you alone once everyone else had gone.

He wanted to say something, gather the courage to ask you something. Anything, just to make sure you were alright. If the two of you were still right, in spite of everything.

Only when you finished collecting things did he bring himself to open his mouth, a soft utterance of your name to get your attention.

You stopped in your tracks, a good couple feet away from him and the door. You stared at him, waiting for him to speak with a neutral expression on your face.

Not one of annoyance or irritation. Just expectant.

God, you really were driving him crazy.

You raised a brow when he didn’t say anything, “…Yes?”

He clears his throat again before asking, “Is everything okay?”

You blink and tilt your head, dumbfounded, “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Aaron grips at his files, guilt consuming him all over again. “With us,” he clarifies, swallowing harshly. “Is everything okay with us?”

You blink a couple more times, eyes wandering to the side as if you’re trying to catch onto what he’s implying.

It makes his heart churn.

“Oh.” You finally say, meeting his gaze. “Yes. We both agreed, no? To what you said.”

Aaron can’t decipher if the smile you give him is genuine or jeering, and he can’t tell if what you say last is clarifying as his answer or if it’s something underlyingly petty.

Either way it’s something. You’ve given him something and he’ll take it.

He nods finally, “Yes, we did.”

You shrug, smiling a bit wider this time, “All good then.”

He gives another curt nod, stepping to the side so you could exit the room. He moves to follow behind you, but he gets a whiff of your perfume as soon as you brush past him. The scent makes him halt and he has to hold onto one of the back posts of a chair to stabilize himself.

He takes a deep breath, inhaling the remnants that linger behind you for a moment.

He truly was going crazy.

The rest of the day goes by the same and hardly any work gets done on Aaron’s end. He’d scribble whatever he needed to write down or fill out then get distracted by the void of you.

It was getting impossible for him to keep working with the relentless problem that was his ongoing boner. He was tucked into his desk all the way yet it hurt whenever he leaned forward or backwards while moving around. Oftentimes he tried to give himself some sort of relief by running a hand over himself, but it didn’t help much, and the dirty thoughts about you certainly didn’t either.

The sounds that filled the room were lewd, your gags and moans from below mixed in with Aaron’s grunts and words of encouragement echoing off the hotel room’s walls. His large hand was entangled in your hair, pushing your head forward to take more of him, as if your jaw wasn’t aching enough already.

Though there wasn’t a way for him to tell, really. You gave no sign or indication that you wanted him to stop, your tongue swiping at the head of his cock each time he dipped your head even more. Saliva pooled from your tongue and leaked from your mouth, dripping into the carpeted floor and entailing a trail from your lips to your chin.

Aaron’s head was thrown back in utter pleasure and astonishment, bewildered that you’d ever be doing this to him. He didn’t want to finish before you, but it was taking everything him to not give in and fuck your face the way he truly desired.

He’d never received head this good, nor had he received it much recently. His legs were spread with you settled in between them contently. “That’s it sweetheart,” he mumbled, brushing fallen strands of hair out of your face lovingly. “Taking me so good, such a good girl.”

His praises only edged you on even further, bobbing your head up and down a couple more times before pulling off of him with a slick ‘pop!’ You rest your head on his thigh in an attempt to catch your breath, a shaky, stuttered sigh heaving from your chest as your hand comes up to continue the rest of your work.

Aaron has to run a hand over his face to try and keep his composure, his nails digging into the skin of his palm albeit their short length. He throws his head back against his chair, a grunt threatening to emit from his throat as he coercively runs his hand over his boner.

At least he wishes he can say it’s coercively, really it’s just a tainted image of you he’s embedded in his own dirty mind.

It doesn’t take long for Aaron to give in and reach inside his pants, sparing another careful glance to his now locked office door before springing his painfully hard cock free. A low, pleased grunt spills from his pursed lips as he wraps his hand around himself. He gives his length a good tug, bucking his hips up instantaneously, the same way he did when you first wrapped your mouth around him.

Still, as cautiously and quietly as possible, he begins to stroke at his length, a hand covering his mouth as he continues to dart his eyes from below himself to his door–as if anyone would walk in at any second and catch him jerking himself off in his own government-issued office.

He begins to imagine that his fist is you. That you’re sitting in the space between his legs with your hot mouth licking long stripes up his length and that your hand is toying with his balls the same way you did before. It only makes him pump at his fist even faster, the hand that was covering his mouth shooting down to the armrest of his chair, gripping at the cushioned leather as he began to reach his high.

“Fuck, Hotch, fuck!” Your whines are eccentric, head thrown back in pure ecstasy. Your legs wrap around Aaron’s waist, pulling him closer to you as he continues to thrust into your sopping pussy.

Aaron groans loudly, silently thanking that his and yours room was placed further down the hall from everyone else’s. His hands rest at the bottom of your thighs, his large hand gripping the flesh for support as he pounds into you relentlessly. Your pussy grips him like a vice and your nails dig into the skin of his biceps from where you hold him.

His sight is focused on you only, the way your tits bounce with each thrust and the way your mouth is curled into a wide ‘o’ from the pleasure you’re receiving.

“So good for me, baby,” he mumbles, hand coming down to grab at your breast, squeezing possessively before leaning down to crash his lips against yours hungrily.

You whine through the kiss, grabbing a fistful of his hair and tugging while your other hand scratches at his back. A string of saliva connects at your lips when he pulls away, his head dipping down to kiss and suck at your neck while he grabs your hips to better pistol himself inside you.

A moan echoes through the room again and straight to his ear, your back arching into his chest, “Feels so good, Aaron, so good!”

Aaron’s release sputters everywhere messily and he has to bite at his fist to stop himself from groaning loudly. His come spills onto parts of his leg, his desk, and even onto the floor. He leans back into his chair, trying to contain himself and his heaving chest.

He takes a look at the mess he created–the mess you unknowingly entailed from him. Like clockwork, the paranoia and guilt from doing this begins to seep in and he’s quick to snatch a handful of tissues from the box he kept on the corner of his desk to clean himself up. He tucks himself back into his pants then moves to clean at his desk and his floor.

Clearly, he hadn’t known what he was thinking. Not when it came to calling things off between the two of you before they even happened and certainly not now after he realized the spell he was currently in.

The last hour of the work day comes by agonizingly slowly. After his little session, Aaron finds it a little bit easier to get the rest of his work done (key word: a little bit). The rest of the members all begin to spill into his office to hand in their finished paperwork and files, all of them sparing him brief glances of curiosity and concern–the same way Garcia had done earlier–before bidding him goodnight and leaving.

The only one that hasn’t come to hand in anything was you. He knew you were still here, he could see you sitting at your desk from the view through his blinds, scribbling away casually like you had been doing so the whole day. After you had stalled to follow behind the rest of your co-workers, Aaron had gotten up from his desk and pretended to be walking around his office with a file in hand, lifting his head every few minutes to see if you were ever making your way towards him to turn in your work.

He wanted desperately to know what you were thinking. If you were secretly being tortured by the recollections of your hook-up, too, or if you truly didn’t care about him basically dumping you after having sex with you and telling you that it could never happen again due to your perspective titles.

With a defeated sigh, he closes the file he was still pretending to read. His eyes instinctively travel back to where your desk was at and his breath immediately catches in his throat when he sees that you aren’t there. He hears the sound of footsteps approaching closer and closer through the staircase that leads up to his office and you walk in soon after.

You freeze in the doorway when you see that he’s already staring at you. Your eyes flicker to a space behind him then back at him before you take a tentative step back and glance at the clock hung on the wall facing his desk, “Uh, is this a bad time?”

“No!” Aaron takes a step forward when you take another one back. He rubs at the back of his neck awkwardly, “No, no, it’s not. I didn’t know you were still here. Everyone else left almost half an hour ago.”

“Oh,” you glance back behind you to the rest of the bullpen before looking back at him. “I was just finishing up the reports you said you wanted done by the end of today.” You jut your chin toward the stack of files you were carrying in one arm.

“Right.” He clears his throat, motioning to the pile of files the rest of the team had stacked on his desk. “You can just leave them there.”

You nod, giving him a small smile.

He watches as you walk over to his desk, taking in your appearance while you double-check that everything was correct. He swallowed harshly, taking in the way your skirt hugged your lower figure perfectly the same way it did during the morning debriefing. Your hair flows ever so slightly and he takes in a good look at your side profile when you tuck a loose strand behind your ears while you continue to flip through the pages of your file.

You’re breathtakingly gorgeous and Aaron doesn’t know if what suddenly makes him start walking up behind you is from what he’s felt since sleeping with you or if it’s everything he’s felt since way before that.

You halt your movements when you feel his presence directly behind you, gasping when you turn and find how close he was standing.

“Hotch–” you gulp, heat blooming through your cheeks albeit feeling confused. “W-What are you doing?”

Aaron takes in your tone and he can tell that you’re not asking in a disgusted, annoyed way, more so in a flustered way. He lifts a hand to brush the hair that frames your face past your face but doesn’t actually move to do it, keeping it there to see if you push him away. But you don’t. So he brushes it away.

“I can’t get you out of my head.” He mumbles, eyes boring into the side of your face as you stare up at him as best as you can from your practically rigid figure.

You scoff, a sound filled with so much humor yet so little at the same time, “You were the one that said this couldn’t happen again.” You twist your head, trying to turn your body around more with the way he had you pressed against the front of his desk.

“That was a mistake,” he whispers. He dips his head so that his mouth is by your ear, watching you shiver from the proximity.

“A mistake?” You repeat, brows raised. You lull your head to the side but you don’t know if you do it to get away from him or to grant him access to your neck.

Aaron takes it as the latter and hovers his lips over your skin, the same spot where he had left splotches of pink and purple last time.

“Yes,” he confirms, “a mistake.”

You want to ask why he said it then, want to press him for answers but you can’t when his hot breath sends shivers down your spine and arms. Your legs go weak when he brings a hand around you to wrap at your middle, big hand splayed across your stomach to pull you in even closer, if possible.

“H-Hotch,” you clear your throat. “We can’t. You said so yourself.” You roll your shoulders back in a weak effort to push him away, but all he does is hold you tighter.

“I was wrong,” he mutters, pressing a feather-light kiss to the very side of your neck. He takes a deep breath, inhaling the aroma of your perfume again and letting out a pleased hum from the back of his throat. “I was so wrong.”

You gasp when he flings an arm out in front of you, proceeding to knock over the multiple things from his desk. Files, pens, and other trinkets fly off the hard wood and land on the floor with a loud crash. Aaron spins you around before you can process the whole mess, turning you around so that you were facing him.

“Aaron-!” Your mind is a whirlwind as he grabs at your hips and easily sets you down on the edge of the desk. His lips crash onto yours messily and you hum, satisfied.

The kiss quickly becomes sloppy and hungry, muffled whines as you two practically devour one another. Your hands wrap around his neck while his own roam your body, curious hands searching for the zipper of your dress and bunching up the fabric in the process. You mewl when he finally finds it and slowly tugs it down. You break apart from the kiss in order to help him, scrambling from side to side so that it comes off from under you.

Aaron lets out a groan at the sight of you as he tosses the dress to the side. You’re wearing a matching set: a lacy white bra that cups your breasts gorgeously and a lacy white thong paired with it. It takes everything in him to not come undone right then and there.

Holding your gaze, Aaron sinks to his knees, shrugging off his suit jacket as he kneels before you.

“Aaron…”

He immediately shushes you, discarding the jacket somewhere next to your dress on his office floor. “Spread your legs for me, sweetheart.”

Instead of obeying, you knock your knees together bashfully, the fat of your thighs pressing against each other.

Aaron’s eyes darken at your shy defiance. “I said spread your legs.” His hands come out to grab behind your knees and you gasp again when he spreads them apart forcefully, large hands holding them in place.

“Oh, sweet girl,” he utters, gaze locked on your soaked panties. His palms slide down your legs, eyes flickering back up at you as he begins to kiss at your calves. Each peck to your skin leaves a wet trail from your earlier kiss and you whine in anticipation as he makes his way up before coming face to face with your pussy. His fingers hook themselves inside the thin fabric and you immediately get the message, lifting your hips once more so he could slide them down your legs

Aaron swiftly shoves the wet material into his pockets, wasting no time before diving straight in and burying his head in between your thighs.

His tongue swiping at your folds elicits a loud moan from you, your hands shooting out to grab at his head, “Aaron!” You yell out, fingers tangling in his hair to stabilize yourself from the suddenness.

Aaron grunts from below you, the sound sending vibrations up your body and causing you to arch into his touch. He didn’t know how he hadn’t thought of tasting you that night in the hotel room, too preoccupied with the pleasure he had received from you. But–dare he say–this was better than head, better than anything else he had ever gotten, tasted or even done. He wasn’t even a minute into devouring you and he had already decided that this was the best pussy he had ever had in his whole life.

“Fuck, sweetheart. You don’t know how many times I’ve thought about this pussy.” He lapped at your juices, mouth hot on your dripping cunt. His hands continued to grip at your thighs, large palms still keeping you in place from where you were writhing in pleasure.

“A-Aaron,” you whimper, grinding your hips against his face. “Please, I need you. Need you so bad.”

Your head was thrown back in utter bliss, hips stuttering with each nibble at your clit. Your fingers tugged his face closer despite the longing you had to feel him inside you, caging his head to keep him there.

Aaron couldn’t help but bask in the sounds he was pulling from you. It was as if his mouth had a mind of his own and all it could focus on was licking up every single one of your juices, the taste nearly intoxicating. He flickered his eyes up to you, taking in the way your chest heaved and your breasts pushed against the cups of your bra, practically spilling out.

Without removing his tongue from your pussy, he reaches behind you and easily undoes the hooks.

You let the straps fall from your shoulders and aid him in tossing it somewhere in the room along with your dress. Desperately, you reach for Aaron’s hands and place them on your breasts, groaning when he rolls each already hard and sensitive nipple in between your fingers.

Your legs begin to shake and you’re quick to wrap them around Aaron’s head, the heels of your feet digging into his muscular back. “Mm, fuck, ‘m gonna cum,” you toss your head back as the coil in your belly threatens to snap.

“Yeah?” He teases, angling his head so that he could spit onto your cunt, all before diving right back in and swirling it together with your arousal. “You gonna cum on my mouth, honey?”

You nod, feverishly, eyes rolling to the back of your head as you feel your orgasm getting closer and closer.

“Go ahead, pretty,” Aaron ushers, voice deep and rough from his non stop nibbling and sucking. “Come on my mouth, sweetheart.”

A certain bite on your clit immediately has you seeing stars and the office is soon filled with your cries of ecstasy as your orgasm washes over you violently. Your body shakes and stutters as you ride out the high on his face, leaning backwards until your back was resting against his desk.

Aaron doesn’t relent even as you begin to come down from your high, enhancing the way your legs shook from where they were wrapped around him.

“No, n-no more, Aaron, p-please,” you begged, keeping your back on the desk while weakly attempting to push him away.

“Just one more, honey. You can give me one more, can’t you?”

You don’t get the chance to answer, back arching off the desk as his fingers prodded at your entrance briefly before he shoved two inside. A high-pitched moan emitted from your swollen lips and your hips rutted against his face once more as he scissored the thick digits inside your gummy walls.

“That’s it, pretty girl, that’s it,” Aaron’s sultry words only encouraged you further, his face wet with your arousal and the release of your first orgasm. “I’m gonna make it up to you, sweetheart. But first you gotta give me another one.”

His thumb came up alongside his mouth to rub rough circles on your already sensitive, swollen clit and you immediately felt that coil snap once more, mixing in with the first orgasm you hadn’t even properly come down from.

“Aaron, Aaron, Aaron!” You mumbled dumbly, mouth agape and head hanging back from the desk as you rode out your second high on his face, the heavy wood shaking with every motion.

Aaron’s head was buried even further in between your legs, lips trying to catch every single drop that leaked from your hole, pulling out your fingers and cleaning them with a swirl from his tongue. He delivered a sweet kiss to your folds before standing, his knees cracking in response to being kneeled on the ground for so long.

He leans over, bringing a guiding hand to the back of your neck to get you to sit up, “You good, honey?” Aaron asks, brushing away the stray hands of hair that had stuck to your face. “Still with me?”

You hum, nodding weakly, “Need you, Aaron.”

Aaron chuckles at your fucked-out form, pressing a gentle kiss to the side of your head, “I got you, sweetheart. Bend over the desk for me.”

You stand on wobbly legs and do as he says blindly, the need to have him inside you outshining your nearing overstimulation. You feel yourself salivate as the sound of him undoing his belt is heard from behind you and you look back to watch him pull himself out from his boxers.

He hears you gasp when his cock springs out and hits against his stomach, tip an angry red and leaking with precome. He wraps a hand around himself and groans at how painfully hard he was. He quickly lines himself up with your entrance, slapping his length against your dripping folds before easing himself inside little by little.

You whine from in front of him when he bottoms out, the tip of his dick easily hitting your sweet spot the same way it did before in the hotel. This time, though, it feels even better with how wet you already were, his cock glistening when he pulls out before shoving himself back in roughly.

It doesn’t take long for Aaron to set a brutal pace, hands on your hips as he begins to pound into you from behind ruthlessly, a stark contrast from the way he had asked you if you were okay.

“Fuck, sweetheart. You have no idea how crazy you’ve driven me since I first fucked this pretty pussy,” Aaron grunted form behind, fingers digging so hard into your hips he was sure there would be an imprint there. “Had to get myself off in my own office, that’s how crazy you had me going.”

You don’t answer. You can’t answer. Your mouth is wide open, small huffs the only noise you can make while a line of saliva drools from your tongue. It’s only when you feel him wrap your hair in his hand and pull your back flush against his chest that you squeal, the angle pushing his cock further inside you.

“You like that, pretty?” He asks deeply, voice hoarse and gravely as he continues to pound into your pussy, the squelching that comes from beneath scandalous. “Like getting this pussy fucked by me, huh?”

You nod dumbly, too fucked out to properly answer him. A harsh slap against your ass makes you cry out, the sting somewhat snapping you back to reality.

“Answer me,” Aaron commands, tugging at your hair and making your back arch even further against him. “Did I fuck you dumb like last time?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” you babble, legs shaking even in your standing position. “I l-love it, Aaron. Feels so g-good.”

He chuckles against your ear, the way you could barely register his questions only making him quicken his pace, “You gonna come on my cock, sweetheart? Gonna give me one more wrapped around me?”

You nod with as much fervor as possible, “Yes, y-yes, can I, Aaron? Want you to c-cum inside me, please.”

“Yeah? Want me to stuff you full of my cum?” He asks. He doesn’t bother to correct you when you don’t answer, instead snaking his hand to your front and down to your pussy.

The feel of him rubbing circles on your clit is the final push you need before you’re clenching around him, body trembling against him as he continues his assault on your swollen bud.

It doesn’t take long for Aaron to spill his own release inside you, giving you a couple more shallow thrusts as he comes down from his own high.

You whine when you feel him pull out, a string of your mixed releases following suit on the tip of his cock.

“So good, baby,” he praises, wrapping a hand around your neck gently and pressing soothing kisses on your cheek. “Did so good for me.”

You lean your head against his shoulder as he reaches for some tissues to clean you up, “So I guess we’re definitely doing this again?”

Aaron laughs, a pink adorning his cheeks, “Yes. Yes, we are. In fact, I’m telling everyone to work from home tomorrow so I can take you on a proper date. I’m not risking going crazy again.”

You suppress a giggle, “You went crazy? Over my pussy?”

He sighs, “If only you knew.”

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