#if you actually read the whole thing. IM SORRY :( but also thank you! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mygnolia · 3 months ago

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to weave my love ⭒ n. riki

⭒ SYNOPSIS -› Riki is good at many things- dancing, making fun of his friends, playing it cool (debatable.), Hell- he’s even good at saving people from falling buildings without getting whiplash. But the things he’s bad at? Well, it’s asking you out to prom, and trying to balance the shared assignment he has with you…while being Spider-man.

⭒ PAIR -› spiderman!nishimura riki x fem-pres!reader

⭒ GENRE -› fluff, banter, action ⭒ TROPES -› classmates to lovers, idiots to lovers ⭒ WC -› 17k (i’m sorry idk why either.)

⭒ INCLUDES -› SPOILERS FOR GREAT GATSBY, cursing, non-graphic injuries (reader discretion advised), yes i made the patching up with first aid kit trope SUE ME!! takes place in a busy city similar to new york never specified, reader is rich, jake and heeseung are seniors and riki’s a junior, is riki stupid? yes… jake reveals stuff because he is also a little silly, reader wears a red dress!

⭒ GREAT GATSBY -› basically jay gatsby has this weird amt of money but no one rlly knows how he got it (nefarious reasons) and hes been in love with this girl daisy for five years but then she got married to tom buchanan but he gets rich so he can get the house across from her and wistfully watch her and he pines after her like CRAZY but he dies at the end

⭒ REN SAYS...special huge fat kiss to thena @sensitively-taken you will be in the will when im a millionaire THANK YOU for helping me with so much of this I WUV U AND I WLL BE WAITING FOR UR HUENING FIC!!! | LIBRARY

NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE FROM PRE-ADULTHOOD STRESS, IF THAT’S EVEN A THING.

What exactly does Riki have to worry about as a seventeen-year-old junior in high school? Right now, his most daunting responsibility is catching up on the chapters of The Great Gatsby because the only thing Riki’s actually read from the novel is that the main character shares a name with his best friend and senior, Park Jay. His second most daunting responsibility is handling the fact that with the new seating chart in his Literature class, it means he’s sitting next to the object of his very subtle affections, you.

See, the problem with having a crush on you is that Nishimura Riki’s committed to thinking that you’re way out of his league, and unfortunately, the boy believes that almost too well. Not only are you minted beyond his wildest dreams (having seen your posts on social media), but you’re hardworking, helpful, and dedicated to your role as student body treasurer. He’s already understood that you’d never go for a guy like him. Maybe someone more like Park Sunghoon, whose parents’ salary matches yours. If Riki lived in a rural estate with generational wealth, handling the whole ‘Spider-Man’ thing might be a bit easier for him, considering he wouldn’t have to try so hard in school. It might even change the fact that Riki dealt with some alleyway criminals last night and is currently catching up on lost sleep, as your English Literature teacher goes on and on about a project on the book you’re reading.

In class, and even sometimes outside of the classroom, your small tendency to not pay attention to your surroundings has landed you in some awkward situations—like now.

“I don’t really tell anyone this, but I hate Daisy.” And instead of getting a response, you glance over to see Nishimura Riki slumped on the desk. Without trying to make preconceptions about what could land him in a situation like this, you poke his arm, stifling a smile at how his eyes widen when you’ve caught him rubbing the very obvious sleep from his eye.

“Sorry,” he whispers, still fighting the post-nap grogginess, “Did I miss anything?”

(Nope.)

Shaking your head, you return your attention to your teacher as he continues to answer questions. The second Mr. Yoo assigned a report, you wanted to die even more considering the work you had to do on top of the impending due dates. But for it to be partnered? And for you to get seated and paired with the one boy who's known for not caring about school? Maybe things are a little stacked against you, but there has to be a reason why Riki’s somehow still passing all his classes…right?

Considering it’s the last assignment about the book, you’re glad that you already read it so many times to know what you want to put into words. And in retrospect, answering a few open-ended questions about it can’t be that hard—the hardest part would be getting your partner to stay awake in class.

A small tap at your side makes you turn to face Riki, who you see has frantically written a page full of notes about the project in the past three minutes and how he can succeed. “Can you go over the first part? Sorry…I was…y’know.”

“It’s a partner project. And we’re partners.” You wince at the awkward wording.

Great! Riki was caught sleeping and that was your first impression of him for your paired assignment? Riki feels so stupid in front of you right now—in front of your meticulous notes with annotations and proper highlighting. He wants to curl up into a ball when he sees you glance over at his haphazard attempt to look like he was paying attention when, in truth, he was trying to remember the dream he had just ten minutes prior. When you offer him a small smile and nod, leaning over with your notebook in hand, he sighs in relief, thanking whoever it was that let him get away with his naps without the consequence of irritating you afterwards.

The bell rings when Mr. Yoo stops talking, and you pause, startled by the sound. Instead of leaving, however, you pack your bag and shuffle to his side of his desk, continuing to parrot details about your report in hopes that it all makes sense. You need to make sure he knows what he’s doing.

“I think one of the questions he mentioned was like ‘Is Gatsby a good person?’ and do you remember how in Chapter Eight…” The rest gets zoned out and forgotten in the boy’s head, because he in fact does not know what happened in Chapter Eight. He doesn’t know what happened…in any part of the book. But he agrees anyway, pretending like he understands what scene you’re trying to explain. What he notices is how thorough and dedicated you are towards ensuring he comprehends what you’re explaining, and although it could be because you don’t want him to fail you both, he chooses to believe you’re doing it because you tolerate him.

You’re so engrossed in covering all the little details and telling him random tidbits regarding the book that you don’t realize your feet have made it all the way to the cafeteria. “But here, let me get your number. I’ll totally explain more over text.”

Riki is definitely not freaking out when he silently grabs his phone and hands it to you with the contact page, staring a little longer than necessary at the cute smiley face you added to your name. “Thanks,” he mumbles, forcibly tearing his eyes away from the ten digits of your number, “For helping me with this, too.”

“Of course! The Great Gatsby is a fun read for me. A little hard to read sometimes because of some of the characters, but still easy to understand.” And Nishimura RIki realizes that he has to do well. He’ll read the book five times over if it means gaining your approval.

Jake notices something a little different about the tuft of black and blonde hair when his friend walks in. The first thing is that he’s actually here, and that you’re next to him, smiling. The boy rubs his eye to make sure he’s not dreaming somehow, but when he looks up again, you’re waving goodbye and joining your friends across the room.

“Did you get hit with something while fighting a villain that makes you more bold? I feel like I just saw you and ____ talking,” Jake starts when Riki finally joins him with his lunch.

Riki laughs, shoving Jake’s head out of embarrassment and opening his chips. “It’s just school. Got some project in English and she says we’re partnered.” He looks over at his friend chuckling, rolling his eyes at how Jake pokes at his side and wiggles his eyebrows.

“I better hear you two are dating by next week.”

“Who’s dating by next week?” Heeseung places his bag of food in front of them and takes a seat, opening the fast food he got last period and stuffing a fry in his mouth.

“Riki and ____. Let me have one,” Jake answers, reaching inside the bag.

Heeseung looks over at his junior curiously. “You asked her out?” And the two older students hear a groan from the boy in question.

“Me and ____ aren’t anything, for your information.” He prods at the vegetables on his tray and takes a bite before a look of displeasure washes over his face. “You’re both way too excited for two guys who do not have girlfriends.”

“Hey! You know the girl I’m always fighting with is the reason why I’m single. I have to focus on studying to do well in school to do better than her.” Heeseung’s whining falls on deaf ears as Riki smiles victoriously, seeing how defensive the former got.

Jake offers him a shrug of defeat. “I got nothing.”

The three of them fall into normal conversation and Riki finally explains everything that happened during English. “So you’re telling me your plan to ask ____ out went down from 18 months to 6?” And with a nod from the younger, they both groan once more. Heeseung exclaims, “We’re both going to graduate, dumbass. Make the plan go down to like…two months? Please?”

Jake cuts in before Riki has a chance to respond. “Make it one and a half, so we can see you with a prom date before leaving forever.”

“You act as if you’re going to die after graduation. It’s like you’re begging to be a super senior.”

And they’re silenced immediately.

“Do you think the guy I was with earlier hates me?” you ask on the other side of the room. Minjeong stares at you blankly, waiting for your explanation. “I don’t know if you saw when I walked in but I was talking to this really tall guy with blonde hair and black tips. He seemed really out of it, like he kept staring at me and nodding. I think I scared him off by talking about the book too much.”

Sunghoon, who is also listening in, opens his neatly packed lunchbox and begins mixing his noodles. “I think you did scare him off, ____.”

“Not helping,” Minjeong interjects, “Just talk to him more and maybe he’ll warm up to you. You two sit together in class anyways, so hopefully he’ll talk more?”

“I know him,” Sunghoon comments, “Well, sort of. I’m friends with Jake who’s friends with Riki, and it seems like all that boy does is sleep.”

“Maybe he’s really good at subconscious in-class comprehension?” you try, taking a bite of your sandwich. “I just hope it doesn’t interfere too much with treasurer stuff.”

NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE IF HE SWINGS INTO ANOTHER WALL AT 100MPH LIKE HOW HE ALMOST DID TONIGHT.

All he’s had on his mind since school ended till now is how he should probably text you, if he really discarded the slimy acid monster from last week properly, and when the prom theme is going to be released, but there’s something amiss that confuses his spidey-senses and makes Riki much more alert.

He snaps out of whatever train of thought he had before, focusing on the situation at hand and looking around to follow his instinct. Riki cautiously plants himself on the side of a random apartment building to get a sense of what's going on. A tingle of some sort of in the air permeates the material of his suit and leaves him shivering from the cold.

He doesn't like it one bit.

Moving to the side of the building to the top, the boy finally catches a glimpse of something when he gets a decent view of the city and highway systems. Riki knows something’s wrong with the bridge the closer he gets. He zips from one side of the tall, metal tower to the other, crawling down on all fours making sure he isn’t caught. He feels the electric feeling once more, only amplified. It runs up his spine and he wants to slap it, almost like a frantic, summertime bug. The air around him is charged with something he has never recognized before. With a puzzled expression under his mask, Riki continues to investigate the surrounding area.

Riki finds a lone figure with some sort of attachment to his left arm, like a long glove made out of metal. The bulkiness of it seems to have no impact on his body as the man fiddles with the contraption, and the boy watches with bated breath as the machine fizzes and spurts with electricity. It begins to glow as power concentrates on his plated palm and the superhero sees it for the first time. It’s like a fizz, like a match striking at fire only to produce a quick burst of friction, but it almost feels liquid when he watches the person play with the flickering blue ball of electricity. It dances in the dark in a hauntingly beautiful way, with bolts jutting out from the metal as it spurts and buzzes with a life-like manner.

A spark.

“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” The sound of Riki’s voice from the end of the bridge causes the stranger to look up with wide eyes. Although Riki fully expects it to simply enhance strength or block damage, the immediate strike of blue that flies straight towards him is anything but defensive. With a yelp, he jumps away, this time refusing to show himself.

What the hell was that?

He knows he should go back down there to change things and get the person and the metal pieces away before it escalates, but when he goes back down to watch, it's ten times worse. The bright blue illuminates the scarred face of the villain as he’s picked up the metal arm–but this time, it’s no longer clunky and sparking, but fused into his arm.

Riki’s face pales at the sudden change before his body acts on its own and he shoots out a web to stop the man.

The villain is shocked by the intrusion, but quickly yanks free from the webbing and flicks another bolt of electricity, one that flies much faster now that the metal flows into the arm instead of simply resting on the skin. It’s unlike something Riki has ever seen, something that is so controlled in motion and yet so erratic in nature, and it instills a deathly fear when it grazes his arm he hisses in pain. The sharp feeling springs Riki into action as he jumps away. He’s lucky another bolt isn’t sent his way, seeing how the villain’s too busy marveling at the power of his new gadget.

“You know that fucking hurts, right?” He yells out, cupping his wound. “Maybe leave the gadgets to the kids!”

The man scoffs. “It better have hurt. I sacrificed half my body for this to work.”

“But why?” All Riki wants is answers. Some sort of explanation.

The man charges up yet another bolt, almost like a laser gun is built into the machine. “Less talking, more running, Spiderman.”

That scared the shit out of him.

The boy doesn’t have time to think as he jumps out from the dark tunnel to the bridge and up the metal towers—he hates having to fight with people right below. The villain follows in pursuit, almost crumbling the metal with his engineered arm as he hoists himself quickly. Riki continues to jump between the structure to avoid the flashes, trying to get out and apprehend the man as quickly as possible. When he reaches the top, however, he feels death is near as he glances down at the villain below who’s quickly gaining on him. He shoots out webs to slow him temporarily, letting himself fall and swing from the side of the tower to escape.

What he doesn’t see on the way across the bridge is the flash that misses his cheek and hits his thigh instead. It burns, and mid-air, Riki gives the wound a quick assessment before he lands on the metal, immediately forcing his body to climb. While dealing with his wound, he fails to notice the villain swinging from the bridge support lines to meet him.

He needs to end this fast before he becomes burnt toast.

Riki doesn’t often rely on instinct to carry him, but he can tell that the villain he’s facing isn’t just a criminal.

“Land another hit, would you?” he tries to say, his voice strained from the pain in his arm and leg. It doesn’t do much to deter the man in front of him as the arm continues to destroy and bend the metal on the way up. “What are you going to do now, Sparky?”

The man says nothing, charging energy into his metal glove again before aiming and focusing on the target: him.

Riki jumps off, not able to properly land his web in the right spot as he goes from one section of the bridge to the other. The man behind him looks enraged at the boy’s attempt to escape—so much so that he reaches out with his normal hand to try to grasp the suit when Spider-Man swings past him. Instead of the feeling of fabric, the villain feels sticky spider fluid on his fingers. Riki shoots out a web, one that curls around the villain’s wrist and drags him off the tower. Instead of being able to launch him into the surrounding waters, the man slips from the poorly shot-out webs and falls from mid air into the sea of frantic cars, including one semi truck that collides directly with his arm. In the air, the boy winces when he hears honks and shouts from the impact, hoping it’s the last time he’ll have to witness it.

With his gaze trained on the falling figure, the weakly attached web breaks, and Riki all of a sudden starts falling down as well. He curls up defensively before bracing for impact, curling into himself when he feels the metal dent and the truck driver scream from outside of the parked vehicle, the body of the villain right in front of it.

Riki staggers, holding onto his arm and thigh the best he can before getting up. With wobbly steps and a small jump, he lands near the unconscious man, whose metal arm is cracked and fizzling—something that Riki knows is bound to leave more scars.

“Call the police. I’ll get rid of the pieces.” Although Riki wants to figure out who the criminal is and make sure he’s properly apprehended, the gashes in the boy's limbs leave him winded and exhausted. With hot metal scraps bound together by webbing in his hands, Riki swings out and dumps it somewhere rural, trying his best to cover the pieces with the pounding headache that

Riki revisits the secluded spot under the bridge, looking for clues to the man’s identity, and his expression falls when he notices a lanyard dangling near a trash can.

His name, his position, and the company. FLiGHT Corp. The company name caught the boy’s eye, and he pockets the item before leaving.

It seemed like he was a normal research scientist, but Riki’s recollection of the scars and tattered skin leaves him retracting his last thought. He heard something about the failure of a time travel machine at FLiGHT, and if the mass of the incident was anything to go by, he was in the center of it.

No matter how many times Riki tries to get it out of his head, on the way home, all he can think about is the inexperience he displayed and the lack of response he gave Riki during the whole time. But Riki can’t bring himself to really take away someone’s life—and maybe for that, he’s a horrible superhero.

He knows he should stop the man before it's too late, and especially with how many self-proclaimed villains there have been, it's not easy to see so many innocent people ruin their lives chasing a power that inevitably consumes them. He knows it’ll only get worse if he lets them run free.

And while the superhero has never been fully honest with himself, there are many times where Riki hates his role as Spider-Man, and wishes that he was just some teenage boy who didn't have the lives of others in his palm. He wishes he didn't have to sacrifice so much to stay behind a mask—and he wonders deep down if there’s anyone else who felt the same.

His swings lead him across the city above hundreds of lives he has to protect, and he tries to find some semblance of peace. He thinks about how he has his homework due despite having just risked his life, he thinks about how your project is going—and about you.

In the night under the stars, Nishimura Riki wishes for something just a bit normal. He wishes a good night for himself, but also for you, wherever you could be.

NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE FROM TRYING TO READ THIS BOOK IN ONE NIGHT.

The Great Gatsby is exactly like how you described it; a little hard to get through but fun with the plot’s eccentric characters. He’s pretty sure he could’ve just used a detailed SparkNotes explanation for the book, but having a crush can make someone do weird things. And in Nishimura Riki’s case, his infatuation has got him reading a novel about morally-skewed characters and rich society to impress you.

When you come into class barely on time, Riki gives you a confused look when you sit down, but doesn’t comment on it any further. Instead, he takes out his book and tries to act like his eyes weren’t closing shut from exhaustion by the time Daisy was finally confessing how she loved Gatsby.

The moment Mr. Yoo stops talking, however, Riki isn’t asleep—much to your surprise. He has his book out, pages filled with sticky notes and a whole section of his notebook dedicated to characters (written in bright red to keep him awake) and their traits.

“I got it.” It’s the first thing he says when you two are left to do in-class work. It’s ominous, and maybe a little too enthusiastic in a high school literature class for a boy who doesn’t even care that much for school, but you’ll accept it with open arms if it means you get a helping hand on your project.

“Continue,” you tell him slowly, leaning back in your chair to listen to him. And you don’t know why, but a small part of you thinks that the boy who sleeps every period the book was discussed wouldn’t have much to say or contribute to such an open-ended prompt, but life is full of surprises.

What you fail to notice is how Riki is nervous and his stomach does at least twenty flips before he swallows dryly and starts rambling in hopes to impress you and redeem himself from his embarrassing slumber a few days ago.

“So you know how our prompt is based on one character and basically all their actions?” he asks, and you nod, absentmindedly thumbing a sheet in your journal. “I’m thinking we should talk about Jay Gatsby because so much is revealed to us about him that we might as well use it to our advantage. Y’know, talking about how the theme of exploitation and secrets is veiled under Gatsby’s desire for Daisy.”

“You don’t think Gatsby’s a good character?” Riki wants to tell you that Gatsby is more relatable than good or bad, but he shakes his head.

“I mean, not really.” He feels like with those four words, he’s completely changed the trajectory of his relationship with you from a positive slope to completely downhill—and a wave of panic washes over him. “Should I? I mean, I could see him as more redeemable if you gave me examp-“

You wave your hand to quell his worries. “To be honest, I don’t like him either. But he’s an interesting main character to write about, so I think we should go with your idea.”

To win your approval feels like he’s won at least three fights against a villain in a row without getting any bad injuries—it feels good. And for the rest of the period, you are able to finish a detailed outline of your work for the next few weeks, mapping out sections for each other, and he even gets to see a part of prom planning on a word document you had open. He considers your shared productivity a win when he packs up and bids you goodbye before leaving for lunch.

One wave doesn’t catch Riki’s attention from across the room. Not even two, or three calls of his name could get Nishimura Riki out of his thoughts, and Jake frowns before moving up in the lunch line.

“Something’s caught your eye again.” Jake feigns innocence and sighs dramatically as he places the food down next to Riki’s plate. “Could it possibly be our school treasurer?” Jake laughs, leaning over to catch a glimpse of what’s got his friend so entranced and non-responsive.

Riki scrunches his nose, annoyed, but never breaking his gaze from where you’re sitting. “We talked in class–like, a lot,” is all he says, paying his friend no mind. “She’s genuinely so understanding.”

“God, I don’t think you can be any more down bad for her than you are right now.” Jake picks at his food, and despite his concentration directed towards the olives on his pizza, he’s able to dodge the flying loaded nacho that goes his way, even if he wasn’t the one with superpowers.

“Can you shut up?” Riki grumbles, laying his head on his arms as he notices you smile and point to something. “I just got pummeled into a semi truck last week. Let me have this before I die tomorrow.”

“Very grim,” his friend notes, ruffling the younger’s hair, “I think this is exactly what all of those mental health assemblies that we get are for.” And Riki basically tunes him out, too tired to fight and too used to the teasing remarks to come up with anything useful in response.

Riki sits up a bit, letting his head rest on his propped elbow as he looks at the school food and touches another nacho gingerly. “Y’know, I read the book for English so she wouldn’t think I’m an idiot.”

His friend snickers, successfully pulling out yet another sliced olive from the cheese, much to the disgust of Riki. “She probably already thinks you’re an idiot.”

The superhero debates throwing another cheesy nacho in Jake's face, before deciding to eat it instead. “Don’t say that asshole! You make it seem like I have no chance with her.”

Jake shoots him an exasperated look that makes Riki break eye contact. “That’s because you don’t.”

“I’ll prove to her that I’m worth her time.” Riki says somewhat wistfully, still stealing glances from a few tables away. “Maybe I’ll ask her out to prom, show up in my suit. Do that cheesy upside down kiss shit people say Spiderman does.” When his friend raises an eyebrow at him, Riki shrugs. “I will! Well-maybe not the Spider-Man thing, but prom definitely.”

Jake continues to look at him unconvinced as he takes a bite out of a slice of pizza with mangled cheese. “You barely talk to her in class and you think you can ask her out to prom as Nishimura Riki?” And the younger grins, eyes still stuck on how your eyes crinkle and how your shoulders shake with laughter.

“Yup.” And his fate is sealed, just like that.

“What’s your project about, anyways? Didn’t you tell me last night that she gave you her number? Must be pretty serious if she wants to text you.” Riki furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head.

“It’s just tying the theme of the book to one character and writing about how they show it. So we did the theme of money and Gatsby, because it’s easy and mentioned so many times.”

Jake gawks. “You must really like her,”

“I was planning to read it regardless of who I was partnered with.”

“Okay- that’s debatable.” There goes another one of Riki’s nachos.

“Gross.”

He thinks things are going pretty well for you two. The report is being written and your quotes are basically finding themselves, so Riki should give himself a pat on the back for pitching the initial idea for how to go about your assignment. Maybe reading the whole book offered him a few useful pointers, and he goes to sleep that night satisfied with your progress. Maybe Heeseung and Jake were right—maybe he could finally ask you out by prom.

NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE TRYING TO SAVE THE CITY FROM YET ANOTHER MONSTER TERRORIZING THE STREETS.

He wakes up the next morning, not expecting his alarm to alert his senses to danger. It rings in his head and makes him feel delirious, trying to shake sleep off as he looks out the window for any visible sign of what's wrong. If he could hear the danger in his head then that meant someone could be hurt, and he could go to school without a few hours of sleep if he worked fast enough, right?

Riki slips into his suit without much thought and goes to crack his window open, only to look back at his clock and read the horrific time of 6:23AM.

Who the hell picks a fight with a teenager at this ungodly time?

Then, he shoots from his wrists, once, twice, and suddenly, he's off, covering more ground through the air in just three seconds than he ever could while walking or running for minutes on end.

The source of his tingling spidey-sense is some large metal centipede creature that was setting off car alarms in a neighborhood near the market. Thankfully, no one was really awake to be caught in the crossfire, but he has to figure out how the hell he's going to catch that thing in...he checks his watch…twenty minutes?

Hopefully, his instinct will help him win this time—again.

The web he shoots out does nothing to stop the monster, and considering how it connected them both, the threads only drag the superhero to the edge of the building he was initially watching from. With some yelling and pulling, he finally detaches, and realizes that the odd sizzling feeling in his bonds must be from the same source as a few days ago; Spark.

He had this gut feeling that a villain as strong as him wouldn’t have been destroyed so easily, but his wounds were so deep and the blood loss so bad from a few nights ago that he couldn’t have truly dumped him in the ocean without fainting or suffering something permanent, and although Riki hoped things in the universe would work itself out, the presence of the giant fifty foot insect alone is proof that things were not in his favor.

He jumps off the building onto another, working quickly as he strings up a few webs between the houses as a wall for the monster, watching it slide and knock over cars in its wild pursuit. The monster spends a few seconds breaking down the wall of webbing and climbing over it, the many legs easily breaking through. As the superhero jumps across buildings and keeps track of the centipede’s movement, he has no idea why it isn’t going for him, and that makes his job much harder without the attention of the monster. One glance at the direction the centipede is headed in sets off another ding in Riki’s head—but this time, it finally clicks why the centipede is headed away from the boy.

It’s attracted to the power plant.

Riki immediately jumps and swings off of a lamp post, using the momentum of gravity and the force of his swing to propel him faster than the slithering creature. Squinting, he holds out his fist and points his pointer and pinky out, following the movement of the centipede as he aims.

Bam.

He sends clusters of silky white threads down precisely at the first pair of legs to pin it down. The webs stop the creature momentarily, and Riki doesn’t have time to watch how the body shrinks up and fizzes out with blue shocks as it tries to wiggle loose and malfunctions. This fight would be over soon, and the boy smiles when he jumps down to shoot more webs to apprehend the centipede. It wiggles and sends electricity out through parts of its body, trying to pry itself out. He expects it to simply be a robot of sorts following a mission considering its avoidant behavior, but as he approaches the tail, the monster suddenly swings at Riki, and its mass and speed is incomparable to the boy’s reaction speed.

Riki lands into a tree and someone’s garage, feeling the crumbling wall falling all over him and the sudden pain blooming in his lower back.

This fight will, in fact, not be over soon.

With his superhuman abilities, Riki grabs onto the metal of the car beside him to hoist himself up, coughing from the dust, and jumping over the rubble to see how quickly the centipede creature can get out, without regard for his current state. The sound and rumble of the giant monster is all he needs to know that the traps are effective, but not at the previous capacity.

The plan is simple: apprehend the legs and crush the head, where Riki assumes the decision-making and programming is taking place. But the monster’s angry and erratic actions throw a wrench in his plan. Its legs move faster, digging into the cement and leaving ruin in its wake as it continues down the road. While both the villain and superhero are fast, the distance between the power plant is finite—and only grows smaller and smaller.

Although Riki can feel the bruises coming, he runs and swings, hearing the wind in his ears as he catches up to the centipede in no time. He tries the same tactics again–aim, shoot, stick, all the while keeping his distance. Although the monster’s body spans incredibly long, and should carry an immense amount of weight, the way it snaps at Riki’s flying body and sends shockwaves through his core leaves him shivering as his body slams into the ground, coughing. It hurts all over, and it feels like there’s weight on his eyes when he tries to open them and get up. His head is spinning as he staggers onto his knees, clutching his chest as he watches the centipede shrivel and crackle.

It seems like the voltage produced is a double-ended sword, one that burns up the centipede body as much as it deals damage, and with the way the mutant creeps towards the electricity of the plant, Riki gets the feeling there’s a magnetic pull that forces the mutant to continue to crawl even against its instinct to stop.

Despite his waning strength, however, Riki knows better than to half finish the job like last time. He creates a net from experience, weaving together the thickest and most durable threads to trap the entirety of the slowly approaching creature. It seems to crawl slowly up the makeshift barrier, knocking its head against the white and spreading the bright blue waves of its energy throughout. The boy watches as the thin white mass absorbs all of it and clings to the creature. It works, finally, after his attempts to nullify its movements, and he knows that despite the ache in his every step, the almost mummified centipede that hangs between several roofs for all the neighbors to gawk at is his sure sign of victory.

All he remembers is hearing a familiar call of his hero name before his legs give out and his head hits Jake’s chest.

Holy fucking shit is the first thing Riki thinks when he wakes up.

He’s not out of his tattered suit and he feels grimy all over, but his body has done wonders in reducing the otherwise fatal injuries he got. No human body should be able to withstand two energy-filled blasts, but his suit and superhuman healing are of greater help than ever in alleviating the damage from his wounds.

He knows why he’s in his bed with bandages thrown over his open wounds. He knows that every time something like this happens, it’s Jake who shoos away the concerned civilians, telling them he’s a medic. Jake is not a medic—rather, he’s a seventeen year-old boy who knows about his friend’s double life and with all the times he’s saved Riki, someone might as well dub him the greatest medic of all time.

The clock on his bedside table has only served as a bearer of bad news. He looks over to see how it’s practically midday, and he’s missed yet another day of school from fighting crime. He’s in no condition to get up or get his bag, seeing how his hair is frizzy and his cheek has a cut that would warrant questioning. It seems only fair that he stays absent, and before he falls back asleep, he only prays you aren’t too mad at him for leaving the seat next to you empty.

But you aren’t mad, just worried. The soreness in his muscles doesn’t go away though, and he groans when he sits up in his bed, with bandages around his arms and an ice pack discarded next to him.

He’s most definitely not coming to school like this.

While you bore holes into the clock hanging off the wall, that doesn’t speed up the time. Two minutes pass, then another minute. As your classmates find their partners and begin discussing, you notice how the room gets louder with the due date looming near. It’s the first time you’re alone without the familiar boy beside you, and something hangs low in your chest when you put in a pair of earphones and open your laptop.

Riki’s absence should have no effect on you. After all, you’re both just high school students who’ve talked once or twice, and yet you still look over at the empty chair. Staring doesn’t make Riki appear, though, and you return to your edits. It feels empty without his insight, or without him asking you to help him with a passage. Riki was your solution to all things boring. If he wasn’t doing his work, then you two were laughing at something on his phone. And if you agreed to both do something other than the report, then you could ask for an extra opinion when deciding prom details. There was something freeing about working with him that attracted you. Riki knew how to lighten the mood on days that weren’t so good for you, but he also worked hard and let loose at the same time. There was a perfect balance in Riki’s life that you aspired to have; it was a good mix of playful, dedicated, and fun all in the same vein.

The words blend together on your screen. Jay Gatsby this, Tom Buchanan that, it all looks monotonous the more you keep trying to read and comprehend what exactly you’re talking about.

Before class is dismissed, Mr. Yoo steps to the front of the classroom to gather everyone’s attention. He introduces your new novel for the next month, explaining yet another large assignment associated with the text.

Truth be told, you don’t pay attention to any of it.

The only thing you remember to do is to grab extra copies of the printed graphic organizers, as you get out of your seat and rush out when class ends in pursuit of one specific boy.

“Sim Jaeyun!” The call of his name diverts Jake’s attention from his phone to your waving arm as you weave through the students and finally reach him.

“You can just call me Jake,” he explains, “what’s up?”

You begin to reach into your backpack, trying to feel for your folder, and pull out a few sheets. “These are for Riki.”

Jake cheers internally for his friend who’s busy recovering at home. “What, you got a crush on him or something?”

He tries to play it cool by teasing you, but the smile you bite back leaves the boy questioning if there really is anything going on. Jake knows better than to tell you anything about Riki’s feelings, and opts to instead grab the papers and to thank you for looking out for his friend.

“Is Riki okay?” You have to know, just to make sure he’ll be here tomorrow to cure your boredom.

What Jake says is much different than the nonchalant wave and half grin he gives you. “He’s just bedridden.”

“That’s pretty serious! Did he come down with anything?” He seemed fine yesterday, so what’s the catch?

He blurts, “He just got badly hurt.”

Immediately, Jake knows he’s fucked up.

Your confusion and silence answers him far more than words ever could–he basically hears the gears turning slowly in your head.

Jake weakly defends, “His parents had a fight with him because he hit his head or something. He’ll be fine by tomorrow. Just bedridden from sadness, y’know?”

The look you give him is unconvinced, but when Heeseung pats him on the shoulder and waves to you, the boy realizes that maybe staying quiet would’ve been the better decision.

“I’ll see you later, ____.” And he’s off, waving half-heartedly and dragging a very confused Heeseung out of the cafeteria.

NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE TRYING TO WAKE YOU UP AS GENTLY AS HE CAN.

Ever since March started and flowers began to bloom, your energy seemed to do the opposite, dwindling until Riki catches you mirroring his frequent in-class action: sleeping. And it worries him beyond belief, because you’re not the type to fall asleep like… ever. However, Riki does not have the heart to wake you up, even if it’s with a little nudge that you probably barely feel with how light he taps. It breaks his heart to have to ask you to review what he has done, because the bell is about to ring and the teacher might just send you to detention if he catches you off-task.

The allergies always make Mr. Yoo irritable, and Riki knows not to get on his nerves.

Your eyes flutter open to the pokes and prodding from none other than Nishimura Riki, who gazes at you softly when you adjust to the bright classroom setting once more.

Panic settles in. “Wait- how long was I sleeping for?”

He shrugs and scrunches his nose, not giving you an answer as he finishes scribbling something in his notebook.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Your hand squeezes into a fist at the frustration that you’ve let your partner down.

And yet, Riki seems to be unfazed, frowning when he sees you stressing out. “Don’t ever sweat the little things, yeah? If there’s anything you ever need to talk about–trust me, I know what it’s like to have a lot of pressure on your shoulders.”

Smiling at him, you respond with, “Thank you, really.”

Being treasurer is daunting in the spring. It’s full of requests, forms, and small tasks that leave you spent by the end of the day. “But,” you glance at the clock to see just how much time is left, “how’d you know?”

He motions to your open computer with a now dark screen. “I saw your document pulled up. ____’s tasks or else she will be kicked out of student government,” he taunts, snickering when your eyes grow wide with embarrassment and you lightly nudge his shin with your foot in warning.

“It’s not polite to snoop,” and although you say that, you catch something in your peripheral vision. It’s a few drawings of a figure and gadget drawn, shaded from rigid shapes with small descriptions pointing to different places. You weren’t sure what was more surprising; how good the drawings were, or the subject of his imagination.

Weird. Inherently, there was nothing wrong with Riki drawing a villain, and you chalked it up to him being creative. Nothing more, nothing less.

He puts his hands up in surrender at your last comment, his grin showing anything but. Just one look at the boy makes you realize that everything you’ve just thought about is foolish.

There’s no way he’d have time to be a villain and a student. With one final thought, you let your raging thoughts rest and focus on the present; him. You’ve seen his hair messy, especially after his naps, but when Riki tries to style it like how he did today, you pay more attention to the streaks of blonde and how he often hides behind his bangs and scrunches his nose. It’s cute. He’s cute.

The truth is, you enjoy being around him like this, joking around and never worrying too much about your responsibilities and expectations. It’s refreshing. Being around Riki gives you the feeling that things will be okay in the end.

You snap out of your thoughts to see that his desk is empty, while your’s hasn’t changed one bit.

“You’re going to sell prom tickets now, right?” He makes small talk before leaving for lunch, closing the notebook you were suspiciously eying before slipping it into his bag.

“Yup,” you answer, popping the ‘p,’ “I’ll see you later,” and you two part ways.

All the long lines and constant distribution of change doesn’t allow much wiggle room for you to daydream. As time goes on, the ticket-selling line grows smaller and smaller, but the only thing you truly care about is eating the lunch your parents packed you. Your sandwich is probably sad and soggy now that there are only a few minutes of lunch left. When you finally sign off one last time after triple checking the forms are all correct, you let out a sigh, leaning back and finally getting a break.

Then, it hits you that you’re not even sure if the boy you’re fawning over is attending the biggest event of the year, and you feel stupid for forgetting to ask.

Yesterday was a rookie’s mistake–today, you’d make sure you get an answer from him.

“Are you going to prom, Riki?” is the first thing you ask when he sits down, grabbing his book and laptop with a little too much enthusiasm.

“I’m thinking about it.” Yeah, whatever confidence he had when convincing himself he’d ask you out isn’t serving him well at this moment. Quite frankly, Riki feels lame as ever trying to be nonchalant around you. “You?”

“I’d have to set up, so I would be there, yes. But whether or not I have a date is another story.” You smile to lighten the mood, but Riki watches you and nods, focusing back on signing into his laptop and getting his notes for the new book you’re reading.

“Well, you’re not the only single one here.” And he wants to reprimand himself for saying something without thinking. “If someone asked, would you say yes?”

You think about it carefully, really because you don’t have anyone in mind when it comes to prom if Riki’s not planning on going. “It’d have to be someone I know—someone I talk to somewhat regularly. I’d be nice to be with someone who doesn’t make it awkward.”

Nishimura Riki might die from over-thinking if he keeps on wondering whether or not he fits that description to a tee.

RIKI'S TO-DO LIST BEFORE PROM

☐ talk to ____ regularly

☐ don't make it awkward

☐ be..cute?

The boy decides that his superhuman responsibilities might be easier to complete than any of those three things.

He switches the subject to stop his head from hurting too much. “Did you finish the report?”

You still, and Riki’s question reminds you of the report looming over your head. In your defense, you two hadn’t brought it up much in the past week, and he didn’t seem to worry over how much of your time was spent emailing teachers or making spreadsheets. Although caught off guard, you’re quick to respond with, “What did we have to finish? I thought we were done since last week, but if there’s anything else-”

“Sorry,” he rushes out, biting his lip, “I meant, if you finished reading it.” And the answer is no, you haven’t read it since your last edit on it three days ago.

Within a few clicks, you find the document and scroll to the bottom, seeing the small note that Riki left that said ‘let me know how it looks.’ It’s sweet to know he thought about your input as much as you did his.

“While some can agree that Gatsby’s rise into high society was sketchy, Gatsby still retains the same reserved character from years ago, and doesn’t manipulate others into success or use his money for nefarious purposes. It’s not like he changed after his wealth, and it could be argued Gatsby loved Daisy until his last breath and was willing to die as long as she was happy, emphasizing the theme of sacrifice.

So, is Jay Gatsby a good person? The question targets the morality of a character who many can empathize with. Those who are charmed by his overwhelming love for Daisy would say that he’s committed textbook crimes, but focus more on the intent behind it. To pine after someone from a distance isn’t easy, but to pursue her after years of separation is even harder. It’s universally agreed, however, that love as a driving force doesn’t nullify what he’s done to others and the dirty schemes he’s enacted to gain the power he has. Therefore, Gatsby makes for an interesting main character, and highlights just how twisted a system around money can be.”

The last page is–for the most part–his writing, and your admiration for him grows when you finish reading and scroll to hit your Works Cited page.

“It’s good,” you tell him wholeheartedly, “Didn’t think you had it in you.”

Riki cracks a smile at your light teasing, soaking up your praise.

“Now you know.” He shrugs. And he can only hope that you like him as much as you like his literary skills.

NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE WHEN HE COMES TO THE REALIZATION THAT HE IS EXACTLY LIKE JAY GATSBY,JUST WITHOUT THE MONEY—DESPERATE FOR THE GIRL OF HIS DREAMS, DYING YOUNG, AND A FRAUD HIDING BEHIND SECRETS.

Nevermind the last one, he has to hide when he has an identity to protect as the city’s only superhero, but Riki feels his heart sink to his heels when he read a few weeks ago how much Gatsby simply adores Daisy. When Gatsby died, he scoffed, closing the book with a sudden disinterest. If he were the male lead, he wouldn’t have been laying in a pool for target practice. Maybe being a superhero teaches you how to avoid being easy bait for all your enemies, or maybe Gatsby was too carried away with love to think straight.

Fighting crime gives you insurmountable experience with sneaking around, but it wasn’t something he could just teach to anyone. When he gets this horrible gut feeling that something’s happened to you, he just knew something was wrong. He might not be easy to catch, but for anyone else? Definitely.

For everyone else, prom was a month away, but for you, it was three weeks of talking to your advisor and president, arguing with your other board members, and sitting behind that damn money box for another five days to sell tickets. For you, it was realizing that you were supposed to buy streamers and balloons yesterday on your way home from school. It was the thinly veiled disappointment in your board member’s texts when they told you they were at a loss for words. ‘I’m sorry, and I know you’re busy, but how could you forget? Prom is so important for all of us. What if they don’t have what you need anymore?’ It all repeated in your head as you bit your lip in frustration and slipped on the first pair of shoes you could find. Although it was dark and dangerous, you could care less if it meant avoiding the passive aggressive comments you’d get tomorrow during your meeting.

There it is again: that little tendency to not pay attention to your surroundings.

You yelp when you feel someone grabbing your wrist and pulling you in, muffling your screams as he pulls you along. To see him on the news was worrying, but to see Spark in person with your life on the line is even worse.

Tears spring to your eyes as you struggle against the metal to no avail, and you curse every previous moment you spent worrying about balloons rather than your safety.

Spark suddenly stops, shoving you against the wall before his hand grabs a brick with his metal arm, beginning to climb. “Don’t let go.” And you don’t think twice before holding on.

The city view would be beautiful if you weren’t hearing your heartbeat in your ears or if you weren’t dangling from the railing of some company building, trying to wiggle yourself free of the rope around your wrists.

Spark speaks up, drumming his fingers on the railing next to you. “You wouldn’t happen to know where your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is, would you?” And you furrow your eyebrows, genuinely questioning for a moment if he really knew how the superhero operated.

A voice from across the street puts a temporary hold on your thoughts, and you glance up to see a flash of blue and red soaring through the air, followed by a groan and a beam of light next to you. Seeing Spark’s powers right in front of you spurs you into action, yanking at the rope and trying to take tiny steps away from where they were fighting.

“From what I’m seeing, you wanted to hold someone hostage because you’re not feeling too good, huh?” Spider-Man shouts as he shoots out webs and blocks hits. You shake your head in partial disbelief of how unserious he is, but also how unbelievable all of this seems. “You tried to take a potion or something? I’m going to tell you this now, but these usually don’t work.”

Riki’s assumption is right, and considering how Spark now has a leg and arm from metal instead of just the arm, the procedure for the additional limb couldn’t have been easy. The superhero still proceeds with caution, making sure to pay attention to anything new as he dodges and fights back.

The villain immediately gets back up, stumbling for a moment before he regains his stance and runs towards the boy. You hear the clanging of fist hitting metal from their fight, and considering the difference in height and build, you’d expect Spider-Man to be easily flung to the side, but he holds his weight in battle.

Riki aims for around the left shoulder, where an abundance of stitches cover the skin and fuse the metal into muscle. He lands a hit, and almost another one, before a punch to the side knocks him from his momentum. The boy wheezes when his back makes instant contact with the ground, rolling and getting up before Spark has time to shoot.

He notices how quickly the gadget generates electricity now. Before, the beams took longer, and were easily predictable, but now, it glows bright for a moment before it fires directly in Riki’s path. The boy dodges the first, but the second one almost hits the top of his head before he ducks and creates distance.

From the roof-top, Riki scans his surroundings before making the split-second decision to jump.

He swings to the other side of the building, keeping you in his peripheral vision as he works on apprehending the villain in front of him. They spring into yet another fist fight, with Riki’s agility easily letting him avoid punches and land precise hits to make the previous injuries even worse.

You think Spider-Man has the upper hand in this, seeing as how none of Spark’s punches seem to slow down the superhero, but you hear something loud before you can register it.

You figure out what happened after Riki stumbles and suffers a blow to the stomach, sending him tumbling to the edge of the building. Spark knew that Spider-Man was avoiding his left arm—he knew that one wrong move paired with the tungsten material would have a lasting effect on the superhero’s fist.

Riki coughs from the impact before his spidey-sense rings, pulling him back into battle as he runs as fast as his body can take him.

You. He still needs to save you.

With renewed vigor, he continues to avoid the flying sparks as he ducks between structures and uses the terrain to his advantage. He can tell, though, that the villain is slowing down. The shots are less accurate–a telltale sign that the enhancer Spark tried is working against him.

Between all of the chaos, Riki finally lands a proper web, yanking as hard as he can to pull Spark to the ground. He stumbles, grasping at thin silk before Riki lets go on his side. The villain’s balance is off, giving the boy an advantage as he closes the distance, hopping over a thrown slab of metal and landing a solid kick into Spark’s ribcage. As he stays down, Riki continues to aim for muscle and flesh, his head spinning as he packs punch after punch to keep the villain apprehended.

Spark’s body–curled into itself to absorb the hits the best that he can– hides the growing blue flash that he’s slowly charging up with his remaining power. The moment it escapes from under his abdomen, Riki directs his efforts towards avoiding the electric glimmer. The villain rolls over, his body tattered from the consistent injuries, and he fires what seems like an intense bullet of energy. It zips by the boy’s cheek, cutting the mask and leaving blood to run down in its wake. Time slows down as the superhero tries to process the unlocked speed of the burst, and Spark loses focus marveling at his new abilities. Never before had either of them seen power so concentrated, and it inflicts both fear and excitement.

He lifts his arm, the other holding it up for support, and Spider-Man notices the fizzle of bright blue. Riki’s about to jump out of the way, preparing for yet another high-speed bullet, but before Spark fires, something clicks. The arm doesn’t directly point to Riki–but it skews off to the right.

Except, he’s no longer aiming for Riki in the split second that the boy blinks. He’s suddenly aiming at you, where your hands are tied to the railing and your feet are dangling from the bent metal that holds you precariously over the edge, leaving a fifty foot drop in its wake. When you see the blue energy in the villain’s palm growing slowly bigger, you pull at the rope desperately with zero regard to the tender rawness of your wrists.

In your attempt to somehow break the rope, your cry of fear snaps Spider-Man into action.

Riki pushes his sore body to jump as quick as he can, leaping across the rooftop to the building over. He easily avoids the metal railing, grabbing onto your arm as he yanks hard on the rope, the force of it separating a piece of metal from the railing. He immediately jumps, sending out a web to swing him back up. It all happens in a flash–first, you were bound to the edge about to fall to your death, and all of a sudden, you’re tightly pressed against Spider-Man’s chest with your bound wrists still attached to the metal. Shutting your eyes, you trust Spider-Man entirely, closing your eyes to avoid seeing just how far up you were. Wind rushes in your ears and leaves your stomach fluttering with butterflies until the superhero sets you down on a secluded rooftop.

“Please,” he begs, “don’t leave. I’ll be right back.”

You’d be a fool to do anything but wait.

Riki checks on you one last time before diving down, springing himself back up with another web. The damage from the blasts is recognizable even from far away, and yet, he notices the reflective shine of a metal arm on the edge of the building before Spark lets go.

To Riki, Spark is dead after dropping from a fall having taken that much damage, but he hears no impact. Making haste, the boy fails to find any figure no matter how hard he looks, but Spark’s laboratory has to be here somewhere. The badge from a week ago was stuck on Riki’s mind, and he could only imagine the reasons why he pursued this life. Was he recreating something? If he needs to power some sort of machine, then the heart of the city is a perfect place to harness the electricity for any large scale project. As much as he wants to dedicate the rest of the night to searching the city for some sort of clue, the fact that you’re still stranded on that rooftop after having just experienced a life-changing event blares like an alarm in his mind.

He quickly leaves, returning to where you’re seated.

Without the fear of falling to your death from earlier, you were able to focus on undoing the knots from the rope. Red scratch marks and irritation bloom on your wrist, and the reality of it all happening still hasn’t settled in. Despite not being harmed once, the fear and incessant pounding of your heart overwhelms your senses, and it leaves you heaving with confusion.

A pair of footsteps only become apparent as Riki walks closer, taking a seat beside you and letting out a large sigh. He stares at the stars silently as if he doesn’t have a cut on his cheek and bruises waiting to paint his skin purple–as if he isn’t hiding his true self under a facade.

“You’re not hurt, are you?” You shake your head, grateful that Spider-Man was the reason you got away without a real injury.

“Thank you, really, for saving me. I don’t know how you manage to do it.”

Riki chuckles under the mask. “Eh, you get used to it,” you hear Spider-Man say. “You fight a couple bad guys, get over a fear of heights and eventually you get the hang of things.”

Scoffing, you gently rub at your wrists to ease the redness. “Easy for you to say. I haven’t been taught a crash course on how to avoid being supervillain bait just yet.”

“Maybe you should learn it sometime,” Riki responds absentmindedly, “someone like you shouldn’t have been out so late doing whatever it could’ve been.”

Sighing, your mind drifts off to think about the balloons and streamers that are not in your hand. “I had stuff for my upcoming events.”

He knew about all of it when you’d explain your cryptic reminders and notes on your computer, but he still feigns curiosity. “What upcoming events?”

“Just prom,” and he hears just how strained it makes you.

Riki tilts his head in faux confusion. “What do you have to do for prom?”

He notices how you immediately slump, as if the mere mention of prom deflates your happiness. “It’s only a few weeks away, and I was supposed to get decorations for our venue yesterday. I just wanted to slip out before my parents noticed.”

Despite the fabric over his eyes, Riki’s expression shifts from surprise to pity when he understands your stakes. “You still need to be careful. Is your student council strict?”

“Not strict necessarily, but judgemental–I ran for the position because I thought I could help my school raise funds and find more opportunities, but it just feels like no one truly wants to try anything new.” You wave it off as if it’s not that important, as if it isn’t the reason why you find yourself stressed so often. “I just don’t want to disappoint or give people something to talk about.”

Despite not being involved with school the same way you are, the boy next to you resonates with the fear you currently face. The fear of letting people down was a large part of why Riki continued to put on that mask and step into the most dangerous situation of his life; he never wanted to sit down to hear the news that Spider-Man quit.

So he keeps doing his job, even if some days are harder and some fights aren’t worth winning–just like what you do.

“Yeah, I get that,” he tries to console, “You must be doing a lot for everyone around you, and I’m sure a lot of people appreciate what you’ve done. Don’t beat yourself up too much, yeah? You’ll always have me.” He smiles, but he knows you don’t see it. You’re looking at the stars, trying to calm your mind and return to your life before everything happened.

You glance over at Spider-Man, wondering if he’ll truly be around for you when you need it. “If I need to talk to you, should I step out of my house past 8PM again?”

Riki chuckles, watching clouds slowly dim the moon’s glow in their path. “If I’m not fighting crime, I’ll show up at a moment’s notice.”

There’s no way he means it, but you grin, feeling a lot of the pressure and stress of earlier slowly wash away. After all, nothing happened to you–Spider-Man made sure of it. Maybe things really were going to be okay.

“Let’s get you home, yeah? Don’t you have stuff to do anyways?”

You shrug, nothing really coming to mind. As you get up, you remember having to run a plagiarism check on your work, and how Riki told you to text him when you got home after your student government meeting.

Riki. Spark. Spider-Man.

“Wait,” you tell Spider-Man, sitting back down on the cement, “I need to talk to you about something else, too.”

“It’s not like my dinner’s getting cold,” the superhero mumbles quiet enough that you can’t hear.

“There’s this guy,” you start, paying no mind to how dirty your clothes are getting when you cross your legs.

Spider-Man scoffs, looking off into the distance, and it makes you believe he has to be your age or older. “You have a crush on him, or something?” And a whole tidal wave of deja vu hits you in the chest.

‘He must be badly hurt’ isn’t just something people say. People don’t just draw insanely detailed drawings of Spark’s arm and machines without notes to follow unless they knew. People wouldn't just randomly miss school without any impending signs. You’re sure of it–the tired naps in class, the random drawings of superheroes and superhumans alike, or how awkward he could act–it all makes sense.

Your classmate, aka Nishimura Riki, aka the guy who you’ve questioned if you had a crush on for the past few days, might be a villain.

The swirling feeling of trepidation in your stomach leaves three words running around your head.

What. The. Fuck.

Although you tried so hard to stop thinking about it, Jake’s comment from before rubbed you the wrong way. It was sometime last week where you couldn't get your mind off of the implications of his words, but that feeling was brushed underneath your responsibilities.

Until now.

“Yeah, there’s this guy,” you breathe, feeling your chest constrict, “Nishimura Riki. I think he’s Spark.”

His blood runs cold.

“You think this…why?”

You take a deep breath, trying to organize all your thoughts. “Well, first, it was his friend, Jake. He said that Riki was badly hurt, and I was really confused at first, but tried to let it go.”

Riki was going to strangle his best friend.

“And then, I was looking at him in class, right? And keep in mind, he’s pretty cute, and we sit next to each other, so I just noticed how good his hair looked that day, but his notebook was out, and I saw all these drawings of Spark. Like, the arms, the metal things, even the projectiles! Who would know the ins and outs of that thing if it wasn’t Spark himself?”

He didn’t know what to think about first; the fact that you gushed about him for the first time, or if he should even tell you that Spider-Man would know those things, too.

“And sometimes, I notice he’s a little awkward around me. I can’t explain it. It’s like he’s paying attention to me. That must’ve been why he captured me.” He wants to laugh at how damn close you are to figuring it out, but in reality, nothing is funny about the situation.

Nishimura Riki is actually listening to this, right now, as Spider-Man–not Spark. The awkwardness, though? It was his crush on you, and was not superhuman related in the slightest.

“I don’t know,” he attempts to divert, pretending to focus, “I saw a badge for FLiGHT. You know the company that’s been making time traveling machines? I saw a glimpse of his name and face. It’s not that guy you mentioned.”

You raise an eyebrow. “And you haven’t gotten him caught?”

“Villains aren’t easy to find, y’know. It’s not like playground hide and seek,” Riki defends, crossing his arms.

You shrink in your spot, feeling sheepish for questioning a superhero so bluntly.

“Plus,” he continues, “Spark has never had a hostage. Wouldn’t it be pretty mean of that friend of yours to kidnap a girl from his class?”

“Yeah—that makes sense. Thank god,” you breathe, closing your eyes momentarily. “Then what do you suspect all that evidence leads to? Maybe he’s a secret agent?”

“I think,” Riki continues to keep up his clueless facade, “Your friend might just be clumsy. Or creative. I mean, maybe he went through a break-up?” Nice one, Riki.

You shake your head. “No, there’s no way he has a girlfriend. You’d think I like guys who are taken?” Scoffing lightly, you then remembered that Spider-Man really would have no idea who any of you are.

He shrugs and stands up stretching before motioning for you to follow him. “I have no idea what you high school kids do. Come on, let’s get you home.”

As you hug him tight, the cold air whips around your body and leaves goosebumps in their wake. You barely open your eyes from the fear of seeing yourself inches from hitting a building or up in the air. Spider-Man only yells his confirmation after asking how to get you home, finally placing you on the ground outside of your large gate.

“Thank you for saving me tonight.”

“Anytime. Figure things out with that friend of yours, and don’t go out late, okay?” You nod and take his words to heart.

“Goodnight, Spiderman.”

—-

Nishimura might die. One, because he has this horrible guilty feeling in his stomach, and two, because of a villain.

Yesterday, he ignored the salmon and rice bowl that waited for him back at home, choosing to follow the coordinates he saved on his phone after he took you home. It led him to a seemingly harmless auto-shop, with an arrow on his GPS pointing to a garage that was shut down completely with nails and blocked with boxes. The exterior pointed to it being abandoned, but Riki suddenly saw some light coming from a makeshift above.

The boy scaled the wall as quietly as possible, glancing into the source of the whirring. He caught small glimpses of something–metal, glowing, blue.

Or at least, for a few seconds it was on until the power went out.

The voice that complained from inside the room sounded identical to the man Riki fought. Spark grumbled, turning on a flashlight and quickly waving it around. Riki ducked from the window and held his breath, waiting for the man to suspect something.

Nothing.

One lightbulb slowly flickered back on, and then the other dingy light followed. The space was cramped with the metal equipment in the middle, resembling what Riki had seen in the news.

He was right–it was the same time travel portal that was ruined from a few months ago.

Spider-Man continued to observe the man as he worked and drilled, plugging certain wires or pausing momentarily to read from a journal. To anyone, it’d seem peaceful, like some sort of renovation project. But in reality, it was so much more than that.

Riki searched for any sort of information about the machine, trying to see what exactly was left to do until his gaze landed on something.

There was some sort of date on a bright pink sticky-note, and Riki’s eyes widened when he finally comprehends it.

The machine was scheduled to be completed tomorrow.

A street lamp next to Riki dies out—which was a clear sign that something was powering up. From the dark, he hears the metal from the same place as last night moving again, and he knows that Spark has left. His presence sends anyone down the street and immediately running, leaving the area for only them two.

Riki finally sees the completed metal build. Half of his body is wrapped in or replaced with metal parts as he sets down the metal portal, beginning to push it in the direction of the power plant.

A truck or car would make things much easier, but whatever.

Riki wants to cry from fear and run away. He wants to leave and pretend he never saw anything from last night.

He’s going to die fighting Spark and he will quite literally a) never finish highschool and get that stupid diploma, b) finish explaining how Gatsby is not a good person and is naturally selfish, and c) he’s never going to tell you how he’s had a small crush on you ever since he saw your cute campaign video as to why you should vote y/n l/n for student body treasurer last spring.

“You sure that thing works?” Riki asks, jumping into action as he sends webs to immobilize the machine.

“You’re annoying, you know that?” Spark sends a projectile in the superhero’s direction, hitting the wall behind him instead as Riki jumps out of the way.

With another duck mid-air and the roof of a flying car dangerously close to his nose, Riki thanks the dance practice he does for his flexibility as he shoots another web and swings away.

Spark is uncontrollable by now, sucking the light from street lamps and fizzing wires in his wake. He has no idea how he’s supposed to get in contact with the villain like before. The body of his suit fizzes with bright electricity that sizzles and pops. It illuminates Spark’s figure, making him easy to spot, but not so easy to defeat. It’s an overload of power, causing the voltage to escape between the joints and gaps of the metal pieces in his suit. And Riki can feel it; the air is heightened and so are the stakes of this fight—and with how the man that stands in front of him looks upgraded and menacing, he knows only one person can make it out of this fight alive.

“You injected the city’s ‘Gas and Electric’ into your system or what?” Riki calls out, making light of the situation. If he’s being honest with himself, he’s scared out of his wits seeing the six foot figure with blue and white shooting from every crack, looking like a nightmare to touch.

Riki avoids a few more angrily thrown objects, using the momentum of his jump from the side of the building to zip from the top of a yellow fire hydrant to go from one side of the street to the other. “You’re slow!” He taunts, tucking in his legs to avoid a shot of electricity directed at him.

The screech of metal from the nearby hydrant can be heard as the top flings off, making Riki lose his anchor/ Before he can process it, instead of smoothly landing on the building, he crashes into it faster than expected, groaning when his back makes contact with the glass and he tumbles into the living room of someone’s apartment.

“Fuck,” he curses, fighting his aching limbs to get up once more.

And the solution hits him. Literally.

When he steps out and quickly attaches a web to the top of the building, he’s met on the way up with a splash of water from the hydrant to his face, and Riki splutters as he wipes his mask, regaining focus as he lands on the concrete and hides behind the ledge.

Water. If he can get it in contact with Spark and pour enough water on the right spot, the excess of electricity blazing from his mechanical body should work against him.

“Too scared? You should know better than to run away.” The superhero rolls his eyes, crawling away silently to avoid being seen by Spark. Riki does his best to look around for something, and finds a black flower pot in the corner, using a web to grab it before he scales the side of the building and runs away while Spark is distracted as the villain also climbs the wall to face him there. But when Spark climbs the ledge and scans the premise, Riki is nowhere to be seen.

Instead, Riki swings across the street and fills the pot with water, heaving the extra weight as he shouts out from the sudden pain in his side. He stumbles on the pavement, crying out from the injury as the pot falls with his whole plan.

Maybe this is where Spider-Man dies.

He sucks in a deep breath before rolling from his back onto his knees, ignoring the wound to pick up the flower pot. The hydrant still shoots out water, and the superhero rushes towards it, causing Spark to follow. He narrowly avoids another shot from behind him, reaching the yellow hydrant before dropping the pot on the ground. Spark is th

While Spark has always been intelligent, Riki could tell that the man didn’t fear the water, believing he’d be invincible to the elements now that his suit was perfected. There was something off, Riki could tell, and he would make sure to use it to his advantage. Spark was uncontrolled, and his powers drastically decreased the more he used them. There’s no way his body isn’t in overdrive with how recklessly he’s been letting himself get hurt.

Riki uses a web to get himself on higher ground instead of fighting, waiting for the supervillain to follow. If he could get Spark off the edge and fall into the growing puddle of water, it should slow him down.

Spark scoffs. “Run away, then. Like you always have.” Riki hears the wall crumbling under the villain as he climbs within seconds, immediately preparing to fight when he makes it onto the rooftop. But Spider-Man was also prepared, jumping from his crouched hiding position and attempting to catch Spark off guard.

All he can focus on now is pushing him off. There’s no way it’d be easy, considering he had to focus on his touching any of the electricity off of his suit. Riki delivers a kick to Spark in the ribcage near his heart, where he’s fused metal into flesh. The villain coughs before taking a step back, his metal arm reaching for Riki’s outstretched leg. He grabs it, twisting with anger before the boy meets the ground in a violent throw. Not only is the slam greater because of the enhanced strength, but the power seeps into Riki’s skin, leaving it hot from the energy radiating off of his palm.

The boy groans, flipping to his side to avoid a fatal hit to the chest. He reaches for Spark’s normal arm, swinging the villain’s body away with as force as he could to create distance between them.

Riki has been in enough fights to simply know when to run, even if he doesn’t know what’s coming. He could feel the tingle of the charge as it powered up, and with its energy so unrestrained and its user so unstable, the large attempt to hit Riki sends the villain stumbling back from the force. The more Spark uses his powers, the more likely he’s going to end up dead.

“Your skin can handle that anymore!” he shouts, getting ready to swing himself closer as a plan manifests itself in his head. “You’ll die like this!”

Spark seems to know that too as he wipes his mouth and recovers from Riki’s attacks.

“You think I care?” He shouts, desperately pressing his wounds to stop the bleeding. “You think I have anything else for myself?” The vulnerability of his character shines through as he clutches his bleeding wound without regenerative powers to help. “You think I didn’t know that when I did it to myself--what they did to me?”

Riki doesn’t respond, grimacing as he continues hand-to-hand combat. Although he takes a solid punch to his jaw that’s forming a deep purple bruise, he manages to trip Spark onto the ground.

The man stumbles back from the head injury, the pounding from earlier not letting him to think straight. Riki doesn’t try to injure him anymore, but he instead blocks an incoming punch and tries to force Spark towards the edge.

The villain barely notices how much space there is left, and the boy lunges with full force. They tackle each other into the ground, and Riki gets off after apprehending him once more.

The city's a mess, and Spider-Man’s eyes want to shut down so badly, but he takes a few steps in Spark’s direction, pushing him off the side of the building as quickly as he can. Riki hears the thud before he peeks over the edge, seeing the water erode all of the engineering from the machinery. He slowly descends from the rooftop.

“You were in the accident, huh?” Riki shouts on top of the plethora of sounds. Pain, buzzing electricity, splashes of water as he lands next to Spark; it all echoes in his ears as he pours the water from the pot on Spark’s body. “Why did you try it? Why did you want to go back so bad?”

“If I could go back,” Spark coughs, trying to get away from the large pool of water, “I could’ve prevented the accident from taking the lives of the people around me. I could’ve saved them.”

Spider-Man understands loss, and he understands the regret that comes with failure. He understands how the man in front of him feels after having everything taken away from him, but his emotions could never justify his actions.

“You know you can’t change things,” Riki responds, “You tried your best, Spark.” It’s the last thing Riki tells the villain before his body slumps and police sirens grow louder and louder. It’s the last thing that he continues to think about, even if the medic quickly assesses the severity of his wounds.

“I’m fine- really,” he pushes away the hands of a concerned woman as she holds a roll of bandages. “There’s something else I need to do.”

Riki knew he had to tell you about this–he couldn’t just let you confide in him about..well, him, without your knowledge. And Riki wasn’t morally perfect, but he knew an explanation would be the only way to fix things.

Your house looks different when jumping over the fence instead of standing in front of it. When he realizes he has no idea what room belongs to you, he racks his brain, suddenly remembering how yours was the only one with a gray balcony over the pool. And so he climbs, slipping from the exhaustion creeping into his body.

You’ll understand after he explains everything, right?

“____, a little help?” And what the fuck is Nishmura Riki doing outside of your door? You go to investigate the muffled sound, inching towards the curtains and pulling them back to expect him there. When you hear a half yelp and a hissing sound that follows right after, without a person anywhere in sight, your heart drops to its stomach.

Do not say it’s true.

“Riki, where the fuck are you?” you ask, traversing out when you don’t see him anywhere across the glass.

“Down here.” You run in the direction of the voice, and your eyes grow comically large and you gasp, staring down at the sight before you.

“Holy shit.”

There Nishimura Riki is, with his mask half burned off his face and his blonde and black hair messy and matted to his forehead with sweat. The suit is ripped in multiple locations with gashes and purple replacing the healthy skin underneath. His face is in more of a grimace, as he holds onto the web with both hands and one foot planted on the stone of your balcony—read; the bottom of your balcony.

“A little help?” And you see his sheepish emotion through the tattered fabric, embarrassed after you had to find him in such a compromising situation. “I’m a little worn out and I think my webs are getting weaker.”

You’re a little frustrated with him for being out so publicly, but more scared and worried for his condition. Your gaze narrows on the mask, tattered and covered with scratches, but clearly visible. It was Spider-Man’s mask. The material gives way to a familiar face, and your mind almost blocks you from putting the pieces together. It’s impossible, almost horrifying to think of the implications of what it means to wear the blue and red suit.

Instead of being the villain, Riki is, in fact, the savior.

The harsh truth is that your classmate, who you spent the last month working on a project with and suspected was a villain, is the same superhero that went out and risked his life every night fighting crime. It’s jarring to see him like this, breathing heavy and straining against the stone of the balcony, and his cough snaps you out of it. “What the fuck do I do?”

Riki tries to put his hand up in surrender and shuts his eyes at your harsh tone. “Okay, okay, I get-“ and he cuts himself off with a yelp as his footing slips.

He holds out his hand, and you immediately bend over the smooth railing to grab it, leaning back on the heels of your feet to help him up the most that you can. You’re filled with confusion when the boy hobbles over the cool surface of the balcony and lets his head rest on the stone, not saying much as he catches his breath. You watch the rise and fall of his chest and how his right arm goes to nurse the left side of his ribcage, wincing and sucking in a pained breath as he assesses the smear of red on his fingers.

Sitting there with your mouth agape, you’re not really sure what to think about first; to check if RIki’s alright, to think about how your city’s greatest superhero is your English project partner, to yell at him for going to your house instead of his house to fix himself up, or to think about how good his side profile looks in the moonlight. Maybe you should’ve just been relieved that the boy you started to like wasn’t a fear-inducing villain.

“Okay, first of all, we need to have a huge talk. But I’m not a medic Riki- I’m going into accounting for fuck’s sake.” He hears the amount of curses flying from your lips as you ramble, and sees how stressed you look watching him sit against your railing.

“I don’t know how to help you. And also,” you lower your voice and scoot closer, looking around at the large property to really make sure no one’s listening. “you’re Spider-Man?”

The information all hitting you at once is worse than when your history teacher told you your essay was horrible. At least then, in her office, you could process everything. But here? You’re about to faint.

“I’m pretty cool, huh?” And of course Nishimura Riki says such a thing, taking deep breaths as he shallowly presses on the blossoming bruises on his skin and wipes the sweat from his brow.

“Pretty fucking stupid is what it is, Riki.” You cross your arms and try to take a look at where he’s been hurt, hoping that at least he has some sort of regeneration ability that helps him heal much quicker—because there’s no way he could deal with all of this on top of school.

“I have my reasons,” he says, his voice quiet.

You pause. “For being Spider-Man?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “For coming here.”

“What could possibly make you want to come over to my house instead of the nearest hospital? What’s that important to you?”

“I really want to ask you to prom.”

You simply stare at him, surprised.

“You came to my house, even though you’re like, a punch away from passing out, to ask me out? And you couldn’t have, I don’t know, asked me anytime during the classes we have together?”

Riki somehow finds it in himself to frown and shrink from your angry piercing gaze. “I can’t because talking to you makes me nervous–so yeah, I’m sorry I’m half conscious on your balcony in my suit instead of at your door with a poster.”

You’re conflicted, your mind still reeling from the recent discovery and your flood of emotions. Ever since you questioned his identity on top of your feelings for him, you had a hard time really knowing if you could like Riki if he turned out to be a villain, so to know that he proved both of your theories wrong leaves you quiet as you think. If possible, the color in the boy’s face drains even more when you go back inside, but the door stays open, and he thinks he hasn’t ruined things after all. You emerge with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, a bowl of warm water, and a pristine white towel.

“I’m not mad about that, you idiot,” you reprimand him, setting everything down as you examine the cuts on his face. You squeeze the towel and start to dab at his skin, avoiding the cuts as you clean it. “Who does this for you if not me?”

“Jake.”

“Seems like a pretty good friend.” Riki nods in response.

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, sitting up to properly address you, even if you weren’t able to meet his gaze.

“For what?”

“For putting this on you–all of it. Not just the whole Spider-Man thing.” He knew he’d have to tell you at some point, or else it’d eat him up inside to know he kept all of it from you.

“Look at you, saving me mid-air and talking to me as if you didn’t know who I was.”

You notice a flash of regret through his wince as you clean up a cut with antiseptic. “I meant it when I told you I knew what it was like to have a lot of pressure.”

“Guess I wasn’t so far off, then. If we never talked, would you have told me?” Riki shakes his head, and the simple motion leaves you somehow disappointed.

“How do you ever tell anyone you’re…y’know, Spider-Man?” Even if it’s a hypothetical, you shrug, not being able to answer.

“How’d Jake find out?”

Riki chuckles and hisses at the same time before trying to remember. “I think I just kicked his window in after a nasty poison got hold of me. He was a little too excited to have Spider-Man on his bedroom floor, and less excited to know it was me. I’m not really supposed to tell anyone, though.”

“Then why’d you tell me? You could’ve just gone back to your friends.”

“I felt guilty–I know, I know, it sounds stupid. I’d definitely get my identity revealed at this rate.” You shake your head.

“Not stupid. Keep going.”

“I didn’t care that you suspected me, or if anyone else did, because I knew it was never true. But I felt so bad knowing you were sharing to me how you felt without even knowing it was me who was listening–like I was holding something from you.”

You admire his honesty, and when you look at his furrowed brows and his lip that he’s been gnawing from worry, you can’t even imagine what he’s had to hide and do for this. In a way, you look up to him more, for trying his best even if he’s gotten all odds stacked against him. Riki’s commendable in your eyes–he always had been, ever since you woke him up in class.

“I like those things about you, Riki. That you’re honest with yourself and the people around you as much as you can be, and you try to help others when you can. I’m glad we got to know each other more this past month.” Talking to him feels different than talking to Spider-Man from a few days ago; it feels raw, like you’re not just confessing something to a brick wall anymore. If none of this ever happened, you doubt you’d get the chance to tell Riki any of this properly.

The boy stays silent, taking deep breaths while processing what you’ve told him. “I’m glad I could help you out.”

You furrow your eyebrows. “I hope you know I don’t like you because you help me out. I like you because you’re attractive, and because you’re genuine,” you blurt.

Riki laughs despite his ribcage hurting everytime he does so. Riki nods and mumbles a ‘thank you,’ also glad to truly get to know you. While his crush was more of an infatuation with your hard work and amiability, the past few weeks really opened his eyes to who you were. You never wanted to disappoint, and even if your recklessness left you in some dire situations, Riki could see how much effort you really put into things.

There wasn’t anything else he needed to tell you–you were smart enough to see how much he cared about you.

You’re so close, your lips glossy with lip balm as you watch him carefully. You hear and see it all; the heavy, labored breathing from his body healing itself rapidly, and the way his hand is full of rough cuts and calluses as his fingers intertwine with yours. But your eyes catch a glimpse of his mask tossed to the side, the blue shining in the corner of your eyes as you’re reminded of who he is right now, and what role you play. You are still ____ ____, but he’s a superhero.

It makes you momentarily forget whose suit you're peeling away, whose skin you're cleaning. It reminds you that he’s just the boy in your English class that you fell for. “What does that make us?”

“Prom-goers,” he answers with a slight nod.

You smile, wiping a cut before placing the towel back into the bowl for the last time and getting up. “We can be prom-goers, yeah.”

You’re not sure if you’re ready for anything, and you’re thankful that he understands that, too. As much as it warmed your heart to see him again and hear his confessions, the blaring truth still hangs over your head. You grab his mask, finally looking at him before handing it back and grabbing your things. His secret identity wasn’t something you could just ignore.

“Go home, Spider-Man,” you turn your back on him, and time slows when you falter before sparing him one more look. “I want you as Riki, not like this.”

MAYBE NISHIMURA RIKI DOESN'T NEED TO DIE–OR ALMOST DIE–ANYMORE.

He went home that night with his scars somewhat cleaned and his bruises miraculous healing on their own, and even if slipping through the window left him clutching his side in pain, Riki silently jumped up to celebrate his multiple victories before slipping out of his suit and finally getting some rest.

Riki’s scared of how he’s affected your relationship. He’s worried you’ll avoid him in the halls, and he’s worried you’d never want to see him again after putting you through all of it. As much as he'd understand how upset you'd be towards him, he hopes he did the right thing by telling you.

But you see him on your way to English, and you call his name. His eyes search for yours in the crowds, and you two see each other before you crush him in a hug.

Riki isn’t sure how to feel at first, but eventually wraps his arms around you as relief settles in his stomach.

“Thank you for saving me, Spider-Man,” you whisper, loud enough for only him to hear.

He smiles at you, ruffling your hair as you go to English together. “Anytime, ____.”

NEVERMIND, NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE WHEN HE SEES YOU IN YOUR RED PROM DRESS.

But first, he has to try something out.

He curses to himself when silently zipping from a tree outside your family property to the top of your house, staring past the ledge two and luxurious stories to your well decorated porch light and door. He just prays that Google Maps is right about how secluded the area is, so no one can see him pacing around your rooftop, with flowers elegantly wrapped in his hand (courtesy of your mother’s sleek envelope from a few days ago).

“Fuck it,” he says to himself, shooting a web and dangling himself down. Riki’s upside down figure watches swirled window frames and meticulously designed accents as he descends, and he wonders what kind of shady business your parents could’ve done to afford something so grand.

He faces your door—hanging down instead of rightside up, but he’s still here on time like he promised.

The door opens at 6:00PM like he instructed you to, but what he didn’t tell you what to do was shriek and slam the door. On his nose. With a loud yelp, Riki clutches his nose, rubbing the spot you hit and trying to apply pressure to alleviate the pain.

When the door slowly creaks open again, you face with the image of Nishimura Riki, aka your boyfriend, aka your English partner, aka Spider-Man, curled upside down in the fetal position as he cradles the sore spot on his face and swings slightly from the breeze.

“You scared me, dumbass! How was I supposed to know it was you? It was so hard to see!”

Although muffled, Riki’s able to mumble, “You have a porch light for this reason, _____,” and a jab at his stomach from you follows his sarcastic remark. Finally, his nose feels better, and he straightens out to finally look at you.

Pretty, pretty, pretty, and the boy wonders how you look even more stunning with a glittering red dress and perfectly done make-up. “I like the red,” he says, trying not to freak out over your beauty. “Reminds me of a certain neighborhood superhero.”

“I have some blue spider earrings to match.” With a beautiful smile, you turn to show him the little accent, and it melts his heart. “Are you okay, though?”

“I’m fine. I should’ve probably put more thought into that.”

You snicker, sliding into your heels and closing the door behind you.

“One of us is better at romantic gestures, it seems.” It warrants a scoff, and Riki brings a gloved hand to poke at your forehead teasingly.

“Let me have a do-over, then?” And the way your lips curl up into a bright smile leaves him quiet and in awe.

“What, were you going to kiss me? Very original, Spider-Man.” With the way the fabric shifts over his features, you can tell he’s pouting.

“I thought girls liked this.”

You shrug, pretending you aren’t swept off his feet by the effort he’s put in. Taking a step in his direction, your hands reach up to gently pull the mask over his chin, ears, and then his nose.

Whispering quietly, you ask, “You’ve kissed other girls upside down?”

Riki’s quick to shake his head. “You’re the only girl I’d withstand a head rush for.” And god, you just can’t stop yourself from grinning at his sweet, genuine words.

You lean in, placing a small kiss on his nose as a silent apology. Then, you close your eyes and lean into him once more, feeling his hands carefully holding the side of your head and his lips on yours. Your kiss with Riki is saccharine and slow, making you pull away when the urge to beam at him is too much. Your cheeks definitely hurt by how romantic he’s being, and you can’t resist kissing him once more.

“I’m not gonna lie,” he starts, finally letting himself down, “It feels weird.”

“You ruined the moment.” And he really didn’t, but you enjoy his subtle reactions to your light digs at him.

“Whatever.” Riki laughs. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

You nod, sitting down on the porch and dragging a manicured nail over your lips with the ghost of his affections, thinking about how you literally just kissed Spider-Man.

Riki comes back, dusting off his suit and smoothing out the wrinkles, with a large bouquet of red roses and one blue one snuck in there. Your lips stretch into a grin and you accept the bouquet, keeping a mental note to read the card in there.

“You never cease to amaze me, Riki.” It’s the last thing you mutter to the air before you loop your arms around his neck, urging him to lean down as you kiss him once more—this time rightside up, but still as sickly saccharine as the one before it. Your heart is fuzzy with fondness and your eyes glitter with adoration.

“So, which kiss was better?” he asks when you pull away, a little breathless and dizzy.

You swat his arm and walk past the gates, seeing the sleek limo waiting by the curb. “I don’t know, Spider-Man. Maybe show up in your suit and we’ll try it again.”

REBLOGS AND FEEDBACK ARE ALWAYS APPRECIATED AND ALWAYS READ!

RIKI FIC DONE!!!! ngl y/n u were right there how did u not know riki was spiderman but whatever idc she's a hard worker not smart LMFOAOAO. my first ever action fic so i hope you enjoy! also i hate the ‘oh he pined after her for 4 years she liked him for 2 months’ bs because I WAS IN IT. and it sucks so i tried to deviate from it :)

꣑ৎ permanent fic taglist (TAGGED IN TEASERS, FICS, HEADCANNONS, DRABBLES, ETC.): @dimplewonie @minleeeknow @heeheesang @mintpjzroll @llvrhee @firstclassjaylee @in-somnias-world @rairaiblog @suneng @mavlogist @sensitively-taken @sumzysworld @simpjay @moons-v @riksaes @txtari @jungwonscatcus @tya0 @sasfransisco @woorcve @shypen @pinkriki @rikisluv @saranghaohoshi @lilifiedeans @wonmyheart @k1ttyluvr @nikisgfff @ramenoil @laurradoesloveu @lvcky-g1rl-syndr0me @ikeulims @missychiefs1404 @qwonyoung23 @yangjungwonnie @onementally-unstabel-kid @microwvdstrawb3rri3s @blooqz @anormieee hi permies hope u enjoy! kith

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gyuswhore · 5 months ago

Text

Grease (the tragedy)

“Careful, those marks on the floor aren’t just oil and paint.”

jeon wonwoo x reader

word count: 5.8k

warnings: smut [minors DNI], fluff, angst, mechanic!wonu, annoyances to lovers, blind date gone wrong but then gone right, kissing, clit stuff, oral (f. rec), thigh fucking (oop), this all happens at a desk LMAO, title is a what I thought was a funny spin on how people say "grease (the musical)"....has nothing to do with the musical though but lots to do with actual grease!!!

synopsis: In which you have to sit through one of the worst dates of your life, followed by the insistent tug of fate and compulsion that lead you straight back to where you'd sworn you'd never go.

[a/n]: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY WIFE CAMOTHY @highvern everyone go say happy birthday to cam or ill appear in your room at night 🔫 anygays HAVE FUN READING THIS I hope this is all the sexy wonu content you wanted, I cant wait for your reaction hehehhehe

and also bigbigbigbig thank you to jessifer @the-boy-meets-evil for proofing this for me!!! ily heh

and and to everyone reading this who is not cam, I hope you enjoy reading mechanic!wonu as much as I liked writing him heheh PLS REMEMBER TO REBLOG AND TELL ME UR THOTS it could be in the tags, replies, an ask literally anything!!!! id love to hear what you guys think!!!!

masterlist

[You]: do you think he died on the way [Liv]: hes still not there??? [You]: what do you think????? [Liv]: let me ask Amelia [You]: dont bother [You]: he can show up whenever he wants im leaving in 5 [Liv]: you promised you’d sit thru this!! [You]: sit thru what? an empty seat across from me???

Liv doesn’t respond immediately, and you immediately know she’s buggered off to ask her cousin why your date still wasn’t here.

It’s not like you couldn’t have asked him yourself, the sparse textbox sitting just under Liv’s contact. You open it to inspect the contents.

[liv’s cousin’s something]: Amelia gave me your number [liv’s cousin’s something]: friday night at the sage&salt at 7 [liv’s cousin’s something]: is that okay [You]: uh hey [You]: yeah that’s fine

Today 7:20 PM

[You]: im here?

The first thread of texts were enough to make you feel like this was some cold business meeting instead of a date, knowing wherever this would lead would be either the city dump or off a cliff. Liv was hearing none of it, taking the guilt tripping route, saying she’d already committed and her cousin was irritating enough even without a scuffle.

So when Friday evening came around you’d pulled on the first dress your fingers could find, took all of ten minutes fighting with your makeup to make it look like you did something and left the house with zero expectations.

Despite that, as you see a man walk into the establishment dressed like he’d gotten into a fight with a squid and a paper shredder, you feel the stone in your chest tank into the abyss. Zero expectations, and he’s somehow managed to strike out anyway.

The jacket looks like he’s put it on as a weak cover for the grime stains on his shirt and trousers, a couple jet black splatters across the outfit to really pull the whole thing together. It’s not like he looked homeless or anything, his face surprisingly handsome with his hair pushed away from his forehead. Although he remains looking like he’d been playing football in some neighbourhood parking lot before remembering he had an adult appointment too.

You’d never seen the man in your life, but your gut told you this was the shit texter who’d kept you waiting for nearly an hour. He seems to notice too, eyes locking from across the restaurant as the waitress leads him to your table.

“Wonwoo,” you greet with a difficult smile, half sure it came out as a grimace. “Right?”

“Yeah,” he huffs as he practically slams back down on the chair, and you wonder for a moment how the legs didn’t give out. He says your name and you nod. “Sorry I’m late, I got a call in the parking lot.”

He’s been in the parking lot this entire time?!

It’s like you’ve been doused in gasoline and lit on fire, yet somehow needing to give him a shaky reply anyway.

“O–oh, I see.”

The waitress saves you from spitting in his face when she asks if you were ready to order.

Dinner was off the table, as you discussed with Liv who forwarded it to her cousin to her–whoever it was that set up this god awful date–and agreed on dessert and perhaps a drink.

“I’ll have the chocolate cake,” you request in an attempt to make this somewhat better. You consider for a moment before asking for a drink as well, “And a dry gin martini, please.”

“Um,” he staggers as he barely skims the menu, ultimately flipping it closed. “I’ll have the same, I guess.”

Deep voice. You might’ve liked that if you weren’t already so peeved.

The waitress disappears with the menus, leaving you two alone for the first time.

“So,” you start with an exhale. “How do you know Amelia?”

“Her husband.”

“I see.”

Silence.

“How do you know her husband?”

He sighs like this is all inconveniencing him, and it irks you to an irrespective degree. Like you wanted to be here either.

“He brings his car to the workshop alot, became friends somewhere along the line.”

“Workshop?”

He looks a little startled, cocking his head to the side. “I’m a mechanic? Did Olivia–was it–not tell you?”

“No, she didn’t.”

It’s silent yet again as the man across from you refuses to elaborate. You curse as you ask him a follow up question. If there was anything you hated more than shouldering a dead conversation, it was sitting through an awkward silence.

One hour. You’d sit through this for one more hour and then you’d leave.

“What kind of cars do you work on?”

“Expensive ones,” he answers. You might’ve kicked yourself if he’d ended it at that, but he continues with a purse of his lips. “Ones that rich people abuse to an inch of the machine’s life and wonder why the dealership gives up on it. Vintage pieces too.”

“Have I heard of it?”

“The cars?”

“No, I mean,” you let out a breath. “Your workshop.”

“Jeon Motors, just a couple streets down actually.”

You did know what he was talking about, not expecting to recognise it through the empty question, passing by it on multiple occasions in this part of the city.

“Oh, I’ve seen it a few times.”

“Yeah, we’ve been there for a while.”

“Family business?”

“Uh–sort of.”

“Okay,” you sigh in an irritated laugh. This was going to be a very difficult hour. “Keep that to yourself too.”

“Is there a problem?”

Just as you lift your eyes to lock with his, a ready yes, there is actually a problem on your tongue, there’s an intrusion.

“Here are your chocolate cakes,” the waitress places the cakes down, and then the drinks. “And your dry gin martinis. Do you guys need anything else?” By the time the waitress is gone you’ve somewhat forced yourself to put that sudden surge of flames out, to a degree at least.

“Okay,” he sighs, grabbing his glass and downing nearly half the contents. He emerges, wiping a bit of a spill from the corner of his mouth. “Let’s get this out of the way.”

“Hm?” He’s speaking to you with a very weird surge of intensity, and it confuses you.

“Neither of us wanna be here. You’re clearly trying to be hospitable but I’d really rather you not, especially when we’re both doing this to get our respective ticks off our hides.”

There isn’t much you can do but stare at him.

“Have I misjudged your advances?” he asks over his glass, sharp eyes piercing.

“No!” you yelp, reaching for your drink yourself, taking big sips only to emerge sputtering and heaving.

Your date looks like he’s rising out of his chair when you raise a hand to stop him.

“No,” you repeat, less jumpy this time. “I guess we could’ve cleared that out from before.”

Did he…snort?

“Sorry.” Dropping his chin to his chest, he composes himself.

“What?” you ask, remaining annoyed as ever.

“Nothing.”

That does it. You slam your now empty glass down on the table, slipping your fork out of the napkin a little forcefully, the metal glinting in the light of the restaurant. You dig into a corner of the cake and shove it in your mouth.

If he was gonna be rude, you could be too.

“I don’t know about hospitable.” You swallow. “But I assumed not being an ass was kind of an unwritten rule for any situation really. Including the ones you’d rather not be in.”

Wonwoo stares at you with a blank face, his cake untouched. “I’m being an ass. My laugh couldn’t have offended you that much.”

“So you did pick that up,” you comment. “With the way this conversation’s going I would’ve thought it flew right over your engine.”

“I’d argue your laugh was the least offensive thing you’ve done tonight.” You plunge your fork into your cake again. “But clearly we’re in different realms of etiquette.”

Your eyes meet the rough stains on his attire, and then his own that bore into yours like a challenge. The cake isn’t too sweet, rich just the right amount and texturally sound. Maybe something good did come out of this fiasco.

“Okay fine,” he announces, sitting up straighter. “I apologise.”

“For laughing?”

“And for being obscenely late.”

“And?”

“And…” he genuinely looks like he’s struggling to figure it out, but catches your eyes flickering to his tattered and stained outfit. “And for my entirely inappropriate dressing sense. You’ll have to forgive me for that one, oil and grime are my spoils of war.”

“Wear it like a badge, mister mechanic, but perhaps somewhere it’s appreciated.”

Wonwoo has already finished his drink, his cake remaining untouched. “You’re quite adamant on disliking me.”

“And you’re quite adamant on being a horrid conversationalist.”

The corners of his mouth lift the slightest bit. Opening his mouth to respond, you cut him off. “Cars don’t talk? Or perhaps, machines are easier to understand?”

“More like I don’t care to be personable.”

“That can’t be good for business.”

“The cars speak for themselves.”

He’s a weird one. Even more so when he offers to pay the entire bill, promising you he wasn’t lying when he said he was good at what he does, and to “make up for lost personality points.” You manage to pay your half anyway, considering the circumstances.

“Can you at least let me drive you home?” Wonwoo asks as you both step out of the establishment soon after.

“Depends.” You fix the strap of your bag. “Will it fall apart on the highway?”

The blaring white of the restaurant's outdoor lights backlight Wonwoo to make him look like some sad angel. He turns to you, the same slight smirk that seems to be plastered on his face. “Why don’t you find out?”

“What do you mean sell it? I got this thing a year ago!”

There isn’t much you can do but sigh loudly as you listen to Olivia talk about the state of her car, the one that cost too much to justify but she seemed to use and abuse like a very replaceable toy truck.

Leaning against the hood of the darn thing, you talk to her. “The dealership is giving you a shit deal to take it off your hands, you might as well try your luck.”

The look on her face is easy to read as she silences. Not convinced in the slightest, waiting for the conversation to end just so she could figure it out on her own. Sighing loudly, you look back to the dark beauty with a crate of issues that make it spit and sputter to a stop every few weeks.

“How much did you say the repairs cost again?”

“Enough to put me on food stamps,” she whines through her frustration, tears pricking against her eyes as they glisten under the neighbourhood streetlights. “Why are you smirking like that?!”

“It’s just,” you pause as you consider your next words, pressing your lips together. “This is a little bit your fault.”

Lies, it was entirely her fault.

Liv stares like you’ve just offended her, which you’re sure you have.

“Care to share how this possible bankruptcy could be my fault?"

“Because you drive the thing like you have a secret reserve buried somewhere in Tenerife.”

“My apologies for making a habit of not being a public nuisance and going forty on a national highway.”

“Your speed-o-metre is not the issue here.”

“Yes, of course, everything’s my fault.”

“Liv, please!” You groan loudly. “Just…let’s try putting up a listing tomorrow. Consider the prospects and you can decide from there.”

Sagging her shoulders and stretching her neck, Liv decides to simply trudge back indoors in silence. You take it as a begrudging yes, and follow her inside.

That very night, when you were at the very cusp of falling into the dark space of sleep, your brain re-awakens before your eyes do. A jolt as the memory comes back to you of the many months ago, sitting in that restaurant across from a man who was too handsome for the personality he seemed to sire.

“Expensive ones,” he had said. “Ones that rich people abuse to an inch of the machine’s life and wonder why the dealership gives up on it.”

How fitting.

“Are you going to explain or should I explode instead?”

You’d mentally prepared for the bombardment of accusations from Liv, her questioning perfectly right as you yourself cringed at the thought of showing your face here of all places. The one last one that’d officially banned her from ever setting you up with an individual of her choosing ever again.

Hearing only silence as her answer, she appeals; “I thought he was the worst date of your life.”

“Nothing to do with his skills as a mechanic,” you mumble, refusing to make eye contact.

“And everything to do with this being a horrible idea anyway!” Liv stares up at the sign on top of the garage. Jeon Motors. “What makes you think this guy can fix my car?”

What did make you think he could fix Liv’s car? If you’d known you might have given her an answer, but as you stare at the giant signboard that you’ve driven past for longer than you can remember, you can’t help but feel this place has been haunting you. Just a little.

You can’t help but feel the tingle of goosebumps rise on your skin, the hairs across the expanse standing up at the thought of walking inside. There was no way you could differentiate the reaction from plain nerves or from the cringing drills that sound all the way outside the establishment. Regardless, you make an attempt to look confident as you make your strides into the pungent of the workshop.

The first thing you note is how…clean everything is. Cleaner than any other workshop you’ve walked into anyway.

The interior is bigger than it looks from the outside, the ginormous hall hosting about a dozen cars within your eyeshot alone. One side of the great hall holds an array of parked cars in different stages of dismantled and deconstructed, while the other side is lined with contraptions that look like stripped and enlarged elevators.

Once you’ve inhaled a beyond recommended amount of smoke fumes and listened past all of the clanging, banging and sparks, you register the people that are elbow deep in the hoods of the vehicle they’re working on, enough to leave you and Liv standing at the entrance of an establishment that you can barely make sense of.

“Can I help you?” A man in stained beige overalls approaches your wide eyed pair, face half covered in his baseball hat and hands occupied with a rag.

To your slightest dismay, it isn’t the man you’re looking for.

“Uh– is Wonwoo here?” you ask.

“He’s in a meeting right now. Are you a friend?”

No, just a failed love interest.

“He,” you falter. If you weren’t a friend…then what were you? “He gave me his card.”

“Do you need help with your car?”

“Mine, actually,” Liv pipes. “It’s outside if you wanna take a look first.”

With one sweeping look across the warehouse, your eyes land on one of the few doors on the left. You register the plain look of it for barely a moment before joining Liv outside.

By the time her car has been rolled and parked inside for a more thorough inspection, it’s taken you every last grain of your willpower to not stalk back out and wait in your car. For whatever reason, you can’t help but feel a very familiar spasm of irritation spark through you. Here you are, left anxiously waiting for the same man for a second time, merely feet away but remaining occupied with more important things.

At the very least, the multiple hands prodding around the car’s engine were being somewhat of use, attempting to survey the same issues that had been looked at about a dozen times before. You silently promise to be a better person if this trip wouldn’t be for vain.

“Am I late for something again?”

Your throat is suddenly clogged as you open your mouth and no sound graces your presence. The face that meets you has his eyebrows raised as he stares at you in expectation, a ghost of a smile on his face.

“W–Wonwoo, hi, um.” You clear your throat loudly, heat cursing your cheeks. “No, of course not.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure after…four months?” he asks, hands on his hips and his back straightened.

“I…my friend’s car needed to be looked at so…”

“Ah, of course!” He turns to where you’ve motioned, looking at the popped hood of the car his employees are working on. “I’ll take a look at it myself, don’t worry about it.”

He’s already walking away, towards the car and leaving you a ways away from the action. You stare at his back; the overalls tied at the waist and the stained white T-shirt that clings to his form from the humidity.

Wonwoo remains a man of a few words, and you remain at wits end about it all.

A loud honk gives you something to do as you jump at the sound so up close, scrambling to move away from the smack centre as another car pulls into the garage.

“Careful, those marks on the floor aren’t just oil and paint.” Wonwoo snickers from his place hunched over the hood as he cranes his neck to look at you.

You walk over to where he is to get out of the way. “Was that meant to sound like an innuendo?”

“I was talking about the occasional running over someone’s foot,” he answers. “Not sure what you were thinking.”

Ignoring the jab, you note that it was now only you and him crowding the car, “Where’s Olivia?”

“Went to look at spare parts.” You watch him as his gloved hands reach further into the enclave and yank at something hard.

“So you can fix it?”

“The car? It’ll take a couple days but it’s not really an issue.”

Furrowing your brows, you press on, “But the dealership—”

“Dealerships are the spawn of the devil,” he grunts as he finally wrenches out a spare nut or bolt or something that’s covered in oil. “Let me guess, they wanted her to sell it back to them?”

It’s your turn to raise your brows. “Yes. They tried fixing it, but it'd just stop again.”

“Because they’ve been fixing the symptoms.” He raises his eyes to meet yours, hands occupied with rubbing the part in his hands relatively clean with a rag. “They haven’t bothered to do anything about the actual problem.”

“Because that’s gonna cost…?”

“Couple hundred, give or take,” he announces nonchalantly, turning his focus back to the engine.

“But—” That’s it?

“Fifty extra for every question I have to answer after this.” You briefly wonder if Wonwoo’s eyes were always this piercing, boring into your soul like he didn’t need words to know what was going on with you.

“Fine,” you huff, moving to drag a chair over, mostly just so you could have reason to break eye contact, and plop down as you watch him work.

The more you think about it, the more you can find yourself unbothered by his strange behaviour. He wasn’t bleak, but nowhere near one of the more interesting people you’ve met. Taking the opportunity to really scan the man head to toe, you can’t say you find anything truly concrete to be this put off by him.

Not much of a talker, but with the times you’ve prayed for a man that knew when to shut up sometimes, you wonder how much you can actually complain about this boon in particular.

Besides, he was a looker, and you were completely content shutting your trap if it meant you got to shamelessly ogle at him from this close.

“You know, this place looks bigger than it does from the outside.”

Wonwoo stares pointedly.

You raise a shoulder in nonchalance, “Wasn’t a question!”

He simply huffs as he mumbles, “More length than breadth I suppose.”

“What are those things called?” you ask as you watch a sedan get lifted into the on some platform on the other end of the row.

Glancing back, he answers, “Post lift, car lift, whatever you wanna call it.”

“What does it do?”

“Take a wild guess.”

“Touché.”

Glancing back at him, you catch sight of his stained shirt once again. “Is that the same thing you wore to our date?”

Chin to chest, he registers what he’s wearing, hands still working on pulling bolts and boxes out of the hood. “Have about twenty of the same shirt, I can never be too sure.”

“You’re impossible.”

He smirks, “Touché.”

You questioned if this was a mistake.

Olivia could pick up her car herself, so why did you insist to be the one that did it? As you pay the taxi driver, you feel your ankles lock for a moment as you move to slip out of the cab. Frozen, you hear the driver ask you if everything was alright, to which your legs seem to work again, finally foot to gravel in front of the dreaded workshop.

The Jeon Motors sign blares the same as it always has in the afternoon light, glinting as it encourages you to walk in and do one of the stupider things you’ve done in life. Other than the ridiculous outfit you’ve put on, of course.

But alas, as you hand over your slip to one of the many mechanics in the workshop, you find yourself praying he wasn’t here after all, that perhaps you could miss him as you leave and never have to see him again.

Somebody yells out his name, and the dream drifts away like smoke.

Finding the courage, you look up to where the man shouted for him, and immediately wish you hadn’t.

Wonwoo remains in his overalls, the same ones that he had tied to his waist the last time you saw him. His undershirt however…

The tank top is revealing too much for you to pretend you don’t care, his hair remaining pushed back and away from his forehead as he walks over to you in what feels like slow motion. He takes the slip that he does not need, smiling at you as he says his hellos.

“Car’s all fixed up, just need some papers that need signing and you’re all set.”

“Oh, but Liv isn’t here today.”

“That’s alright, you can sign them too,” he reassures, motioning for you to walk with him towards the car. “The car was alright in the test drives, revving hasn’t caused any problems either.”

He halts in front of the now (supposedly) fixed black sedan and pats the hood lightly, “If anything happens tell her to bring it straight here, although it shouldn’t have any more problems.”

“What’s your rate of return on customers?” you ask, a slight smirk on your face.

He thinks for a moment, “Pretty crap. But I guess that means I’m doing something right.”

You consider yourself something of a helicopter parent when it comes to your own car, but perhaps you’d change that if it meant you’d get to come here a little more often.

Goodness, what’s gotten into you.

Wonwoo’s smiling too, and for a brief moment the silence is nearly awkward. A pause before he proposes leaving.

“Shall we go to the office then?”

Nodding eagerly, you trail behind him as he leads you towards the other end of the workshop, passing by even more cars in all their stripped or constructed glory. Glancing in front, you catch sight of Wonwoo’s back, ensnared for a moment before you snap your head away, reciting every curse word you know like a mantra.

“It’s less hot in here too, keep the air on all the time.” Wonwoo stands in front of the plain doors, hands on the handle to wrench it open. You recognise it as the same door you had noted a few days ago. “Would you like anything? Coffee, tea?”

“Um, just water is fine, thanks.”

It’s quite plain, beige and leather against cream walls and unfittingly white lights. There’s a desk on one corner that’s beyond cluttered with more papers than you can register, pens and other office supplies mixed into the disorganised chaos of the large tabletop.

“Sorry about the mess, I can never find time to sort through it.” To your surprise, the light tinge of his cheeks suggest he might actually feel a little embarrassed.

Cute.

There’s cabinets that line on one of the far walls, and you watch him take his gloves off to open it and reach for a cup. The white porcelain emerges stained with an ashy grey as his fingers betray him. He looks flustered, glancing at his hands and back up to the cabinet.

You can’t help but laugh a little, moving forward to help. “It’s alright, let me.”

“Sorry,” he apologised again, with a sheepish look on his face. “I’ll, um, wash this off.”

“Go on, I’m here,” you reassure as you move towards the water dispenser in the corner to fill your clean cup.

He returns with significantly cleaner hands and apologises one last time. “Seems all I do around you is apologise.”

You have the good humour to chuckle, “So I’ve noticed.”

He does well to clear out most of the clutter that’s on his desk, leaving enough room to set down a few pieces of paper as you take a seat on the opposite side.

As you scan through the papers, he attempts to make sober conversation. “You should…bring your car around for inspections if you want.”

“Oh? Even if I ask a million questions?”

“I can make an exception or two,” he grins.

“And if you charge me double?”

“Might not charge you at all.”

“Might?” you question as you lift the pen he’d given you to sign the first space.

“Might.”

“And what’re the conditions for that?”

He doesn’t answer as he ponders and you fill in the second blank. “I’ll have to think about that.”

You snort before you can help it, your last signature coming out a little wonky as your hands shake. Turning the papers over to him, you continue, “Well then, let me know when you figure it out.”

He stares pointedly as he accepts the papers before dropping his eyes again, “Can I?”

“Hm?”

“Can I? Let you know?”

It’s like you’ve been frozen over, the typewriter in your mind jamming as it punches out the implications of what he’s saying.

“It seems, at least to me, that we may have gotten off on the wrong foot,” he continues.

You hesitate. “I think so too.”

“I…I don’t want to put anything like pressure on you but–”

“Would you like to try the new gelato place downtown this week?” you ask finally as you save him from his misery. “If…you’d like.”

He looks stunned for a moment before he’s scrambling, “Oh–of course! Yes, anytime is fine with me.”

“Great,” you smile, lifting from your seat. “It’s a date.”

“I’ll promise to wash my hands this time…and my shirt. And I won’t be late.”

“Let’s not make promises we can’t keep,” you tease.

You’re nearing the door as he follows behind, and just as you’re about to pull down on the handle, you hear him say your name.

Turning around, almost too eagerly, you look up at him in expectation. He’s close, almost right behind you as he looks like he’s debating whether opening his mouth is a good idea.

“Are you doing anything else today?”

“Um,” you stutter for a moment. “I don’t have to drop off the car till later tonight, that’s all really.”

He swallows. “Do you wanna stay? Just a little while. We can stay in here, nobody comes in anyway.”

You aren’t entirely sure why you said yes, because you did actually have dinner plans with Liv later tonight, but the teeny tiny voice in your mind egged you on anyway. Besides, Liv wouldn’t mind, not if you were cancelling for this.

This entailed the very friendly contact of Wonwoo’s tongue in your mouth, and the extremely cordial way it seemed to caress your insides. If somebody asked you how it led to this, you don’t think you’d have an answer. Not that you care, especially when his hands are grabbing your waist and hips like that.

He’s already locked the door, reassuring you that nobody would find their boss and client in the smack dab middle of the devil’s tango. You take his word for it, relishing in the way his hot breath hits your skin below your ears, his mouth sucking under your earlobes as you whimper ever so quietly.

Your hands are on his exposed biceps, feeling him up all to your heart's content. “Do you–Do you always wear stuff like this?”

He emerges, wet lipped and eyes trained. “So I wasn’t imagining it.”

“Imagining what?” you ask as you let him unbuckle your trousers.

“Please. Like you weren’t stripping me with your eyes.”

If you were warm before you, you're boiling up now. Were you being so obvious?

“It’s alright,” he reassures as you feel his fingers make contact with the crotch of your panties, pushing in to put pressure on your clit. “Wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t picked up on it.”

You feel his fingers push the dampening fabric away as his fingers make contact with your hole, coating his fingers in the arousal that’s made itself known. It’s hard to not hiss at the way he begins to circle it, thanking the universe that the loud noises of the workshop outside were masking whatever evidence of the heinous crime you were committing inside.

Back against the couch in his office, you settle into the cushions once you feel him rub at your clit, one hand spreading your lips apart as he continues to massage your own wetness onto your throbbing cunt.

When he retreats you almost cry out, but are smothered when he plunges two fingers into your hole instead, curling them almost immediately inside you. The consistent brush of the tips of his fingers on your walls are making it difficult to keep your eyes open, and absolutely impossible to keep your moans at bay.

“Wonwoo, that’s so good, fuck.”

Through your closed eyes, you don’t note when Wonwoo gets on his knees. But you do feel him yank your trousers off entirely, and you definitely feel him place his wet mouth flush on your lower lips, sucking at your clit as he continues to pump his fingers in and out of you mercilessly.

That’s all it takes for your noises to become increasingly high pitched, hands buried in his beautiful hair as he continues to pleasure you beyond imagination.

“I’m so close, keep going, please, it feels so–”

He somehow buries his face in deeper, sucking harder, licking faster, and it’s enough for you to finally feel yourself collapsing on the inside, your composure dissolving as you moan so loud you’re sure they can hear it outside, even through all the clanging and revs of cars.

There’s no way for you to know how long you lay there slumped against the couch cushions, but when you hear Wonwoo speak to you in your ear, you answer.

“Was that okay?”

“More than okay,” you say as you grab his face and pull his lips to yours, tasting the tang in his mouth from your arousal. “Do you have a condom?”

“I–fuck,” he thinks for a moment. “I don’t think I do.”

You try not to feel too disappointed, but you sigh into his mouth anyway.

“Can I fuck your thighs?” you hear him ask, and you might have just orgasmed again, untouched.

“Fuck, yes you can.”

With a yelp, you feel yourself lifted off the couch as you wrap your arms around Wonwoo’s neck, letting him guide you to his desk. “Wonwoo!”

You hear a loud crash of the desk being stripped of all its inhabitants, and your back hitting the cool of the table top.

Wonwoo unties the arms of his overalls around his waist, letting the legs pool to the floor before slipping his hard cock out of his boxers.

You don’t see it as you feel him lock your knees together and lift both your calves to rest on one of his shoulders. But you do feel it as he pushes the head into the seam of your thighs, watching the indent as the pink of his dick appears before you through the skin of your thighs.

Wonwoo’s face is contorted as he pulls back and pushes back through again, this time brushing against your still sensitive clit. You gasp at contact, and immediately feel him thrusting faster.

“Wonwoo,” you grunt. “Lower.”

He obliges, pushing his dick lower so it can rub flush against your clit as he begins to roughen up his pace.

You moan as you feel his free hand that isn’t holding your legs trail to the ends of your shirt, caressing over your stomach to pull it up and reveal your bra clad tits. He pushes his hands under the nearest cup and begins to grope you so wonderfully with his big, warm hands. Rolling the bud between his fingers, you can only grasp onto his wrists as a handheld to keep you down on earth.

The desk beneath you is rattling with noise, the full drawers making themselves known as Wonwoo pounds into your thighs like he would die if he stopped, mouth coming in contact with whatever skin of your legs he could reach, his breath fanning the side of your knees.

You’re close again, and you know he is too with the way his thrusts are beginning to grow sloppy.

“There,” he pants. “Almost.”

You orgasm for the second time, the throb your clit beyond comprehension as the rough of his dick slides across your clit mercilessly.

“Cum like this, Wonwoo please I need to see you cum.”

And he does, shooting the heft of his load to cover your already wet cunt and thighs, landing on your stomach as he continues to ride out his high between your legs.

The back of your head hits the table as you take in gulps of air through the aftermath of it all. Wonwoo is putting his weight on the back of your thighs, holding onto the table for support.

“Oh, Liv is never gonna let me live this down,” you pant, lolling your head to one side as you register him.

He peers up at you through his hair, the stupid smirk on his face, “Do you care?”

You’re smiling a little too when you answer, “Not really.”

And then your legs are off his shoulders as he nestles between them instead, diving in to lift your head and kiss you.

And you let him, although you wouldn’t really call it too much of a kiss—not when the both of you were smiling like idiots through the clash.

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motherlvr · 1 year ago

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3+1 times Prowler! Miles Morales x Spider-woman! reader

SPOILERS FOR ATSV

read part 2 here!

3 times Miles tried to confess, + 1 time he did.

Word count: 2.7k

Summary: Instead of the radioactive spider biting Miles, it bit you. You turned into Brooklyn's one and only Spider-woman, while Miles turned into the prowler. Miles also helps you with Spanish.

Warnings: friends to lovers, lots of cursing, most definitely not canon, kind of slow-burn?, jealousy, morally gray reader, he's lowkey toxic, no smut, heated make-out session, im feasting on crumbs (his 2 minutes of screen time), this is not ATSV plot heavy, the whole prowler x spidey thing isn't really until the end (enemies to lovers)

A/N: for the sake of the plot, the reader doesn't fluently speak spanish, but can speak some. this has been rotting in my drafts ever since ATSV came out

Miles glares at you two from across the room, predominantly at the guy you're laughing with. Surely he's not that fucking funny. Miles thinks as jealousy spreads within the pit of his stomach like a forest fire. However, you don't seem to notice his stare burning holes through the guy you're speaking to. The same cannot be said for him, however. Miles makes eye contact with him and sends him one glare that immediately makes the poor guy cower with fear away from you.

"I uh...gotta go." The guy squeaks out to you, his voice cracking with terror as he runs away. You raise an eyebrow as you watch him run away. What the hell was that? You think.

Miles appears next to you within the next moment and says, "Hey, ma." he gives you a slight smirk and wraps his arm around your shoulders. That smirk made you weak in your knees, you almost kissed him right then and there. You should be given an award for your amount of self-restraint.

"Hey Miles, qué pasa?" You greet him with a smile that reaches your eyes. Miles' smirk drops and he furrows his eyebrows at you as he inquires. "Who was that guy?" "He's just a friend, why?" You raise an eyebrow and question back. "Don't worry about it, you like him?" His words catch you off guard. You pause for a moment and turn your head to him with a judgmental stare as you shake his arm off you and say, "Miles. What is this? 20 questions?" You deadpan and continue, "He's not important, alright?" Seemingly satisfied with your response, he drops the subject.

After school, Miles and you head to his house. You've been struggling in Spanish class. Spanish grammar might actually be the death of me, you think. Since Miles excels in Spanish due to primarily being raised by his mother, you asked him to tutor you, which he surprisingly agreed to.

It doesn't hurt that you get to spend more time with Miles, either. Something about him never fails to send butterflies straight to your stomach, maybe it's his intense stare that makes you weak in your knees, his accent that somehow makes him ten times more attractive, or- You cut your thoughts off. You felt guilty for feeling this way about Miles. You know you shouldn't. These feelings you harbor would only cause more harm than good. After all, the people you love always seem to be in danger.

After a couple of hours of pure torture, (Spanish grammar) Miles started to speak, "Escúchame, mami. I-"

Loud, blaring police sirens cut off his sentence. Thanks, Brooklyn. Pretending to get a message from your mother, you glance at your phone's screen and look at Miles with an apologetic expression, "Shit, sorry Miles but I gotta go. My mother wants me home. She said it was urgent. But we're still on for tomorrow right?" Miles raises a skeptical eyebrow but ultimately says, "Yea. It's 'Ight, princesa. See you tomorrow" his accent lacing his words. You get up to kiss his cheek and wave him goodbye. As normal friends do, you tell yourself. Shit. You shake the thoughts away before your overthinking completely undoes your brain.

You wait until you're at least a couple blocks away from his house before you reveal the spider suit underneath your clothing and pull your mask down your face. You thwip your webs and swing away to investigate what crime was scheming tonight in Brooklyn. Leaving Miles alone in his room to regret not telling you.

Honestly, you weren't paying attention to whatever Miles was saying. Instead, you were just focusing on how attractive you found his accent. You'd suffer through two more years of Spanish just to hear his voice. In fact, during most of these tutoring lessons with Miles, you weren't paying attention to the actual lesson. It doesn't help that he keeps staring at you with those eyes of his. But behind that cold exterior, you knew he had a soft spot for you. Even if he didn't outright admit it.

Miles' voice brought your attention back to the actual lesson, "Lo entiendes, princesa?" Miles asked you with a knowing smirk. You nodded your head immediately, trying to play it off. "Uhh, si." You said with a thumbs up, immediately regretting it. That was so nerdy. You shame yourself in your mind. You pretended to take notes, shamefully lowering your head down to your notebook.

While you were pretending to take notes, Miles broke the silence.

"So what's up with you and that guy from earlier?" "I told you, he's just a friend. Nothing is going on between us." Miles puts his hands up in his defense, "Alright, mami. It just didn't look like that with the way you were laughing at whatever he said. He's not Kevin Hart."

Way to completely ruin the mood. You dropped the pencil you were holding and stopped taking notes. Looking directly into his eyes, you said "Miles, I really don't know what your deal is." "You really wanna know what 'my deal is'? 'Ight. It's 'cause-"

Miles' phone beeps, interrupting him. He cursed in his mind, not being able to tell you how he felt yet again. He glances down at his screen. "Ay princesa," Miles spoke up, his words never failing to make your face go warm. His nicknames for you weren't new by any means, but they still made your heart flutter. He continued, "Uncle Aaron needs me, I gotta roll. He said it's an emergency. Don't think I'm trying to cut this short. You're still my girl, alright?" He started to leave when he turned around suddenly. He walked over to you and turned your head to him with his hand, kissing your forehead. "Hasta luego, mami." He left the room, leaving you alone in his room with only your thoughts swirling around your mind. You were sure you were about to have a heart attack. His girl? The kiss? Miles was acting oddly affectionate. And what's with him practically using the same excuse I used? It's not like he's the crime-fighting vigilante here. You rolled your eyes.

You didn't know what Miles and his uncle were so busy doing, but you had a feeling that it wasn't very morally right. That would explain how ambiguous he's been lately. More often than not, he's had to leave in the middle of tutoring to tend to whatever his Uncle needed him for. But you can't entirely blame him, you have secrets you've been hiding from him too.

You packed up your things and left his room. "Chao, Mrs. Morales. Thank you for letting me into your home!" You said to Miles' mother while leaving. "Of course, you're always welcome here." She replied to you with a warm smile. That woman was a true saint.

If you had to spend any more time confined in a room alone with Miles and just your emotions, you were sure you'd fucking lose it. By losing it, I mean grabbing him by the collar of his hoodie and kissing him senseless. But you were afraid. Afraid that he would take your heart right out of your chest to shatter it and then leave you alone to pick up the pieces. So, you came up with a little white lie to get out of tutoring today.

"Is it alright with you if I skip tutoring today? My mother is sick and I have to take care of her." The lie slipped off your tongue like butter.

"Nah that's cool." He shrugs. Huh. He let me off that easy? You were two seconds away from having the dreaded 'What are we?' conversation with him after last night, until someone's arms wrap around you from behind.

"Hey, beautiful." Your friend from the other day was back. And he clearly didn't see Miles right next to you. You cringe and awkwardly take his arms off of you and turn around, "Hey, Josh." "Are you free tonight?" Miles was watching this interaction with jealousy coursing through his veins. Did this douche seriously not see him right next to you? Right before you could even open your mouth to respond, Miles responds for you. "Hell no she isn't. Get the fuck out of here, man." Miles snaps at him. Your friend's head whipped to Miles so fast you were sure he'd get whiplash. "Oh shit." He stuttered, "Sorry, man. I didn't see you...I'll leave now." He ran away as fast as his feet could take him. Poor Josh.

You glared at Miles. "What the actual fuck was that, Miles? He was just asking me a question." "He was asking you out, idiot." Miles said right back to you. "So what if he was? Honestly. What's it to you? You've been acting so possessive. May I remind you that we are not together?" You snapped at him. "Maybe I want-" He started, but this time, he was the one cutting his sentence off. He couldn't find the words to tell you just yet.

The bell rings. You look at Miles, awaiting his response. When a few silent moments pass by, you finally say, "What? What is it you want?" For once in your friendship with Miles, he didn't have a response. You, he thought. "Y'know what Miles? Until you've come to your senses, just leave me be for now." He had no right to start acting like you were bound to him. You walked to your class without him. He cursed himself in his head.

You'd been ignoring him the whole day. Yet ever the petty, he hadn't messaged you at all.

Your phone pings. "You busy with Jake?" You read. It was from Miles. That petty fucker. Your face immediately drops. That's not even his name. You left him on read and turn off your phone. For someone who thinks he's heartless and nonchalant, he sure was acting possessive.

Dusk approaches Brooklyn and you're out patrolling instead of thinking about Miles. That's all you've been doing lately, and you needed a distraction.

Unfortunately, Miles had the same idea. He was out taking missions Kingpin gave him.

As you were searching the streets of Brooklyn for crime, you sensed a presence. Ahead of you was a silhouette in a dimly lit alley, their back facing you. You hid behind the wall. Finally something interesting tonight! As you climb on the walls and get closer, you recognize the figure.

Oh, great. It's the Prowler.

This wasn't your first time meeting the Prowler. No, you've fought with him in the past. He's ruthless and a cold-blooded killer. He's efficient and excruciatingly fast. That's what makes him an imminent risk to be allowed to roam the streets freely.

As Spider-woman, it's your responsibility to keep the streets of Brooklyn crime-free. So, you follow him. As you're trailing behind him, crawling on the walls, you notice the people he's meeting with. It's an arms deal, you realize. As you crawl closer, you notice that they weren't regular arms. They were abnormally high-tech for these seemingly harmless criminals.

I'll just web up the couple of amateurs and then deal with the big guy Prowler, easy. Oh how wrong you were.

"Hey, boys! Nice toy you've got there." You said as you dropped your voice down an octave, disguising your voice. You jump down from your place on the wall and thwip your webs at the unsuspecting arms dealers, binding them to the wall. They were knocked unconscious.

You thwip'd your webs at the weapon and effectively took it away from them. You'd have to drop it by the police station later with a friendly note.

The Prowler lunged at you, his steel claws missing your face by an inch.

"Hey, man! That felt a little personal." You shouted, thankful to still have your face attached to your head. You used your webs to grab onto the Prowler and strike him directly on his mask. You started to run, with the Prowler tailing right behind you.

He had you cornered, but you weren't surrendering that easily. You positioned into a defensive stance, ready to defend yourself.

His mask was cracked a bit, causing his voice modulator to reveal his unfiltered voice. "Nowhere to run, spider."

Your heart dropped as your eyes widened through your mask. Not in fear, but in recognition. You could recognize that voice anywhere. That was the voice that sent shivers down your whole body, yet made you want to strangle him the next.

"...Miles?" The words came out more of a whisper. Your voice sputtered as you dropped your fake voice. You webbed the weapon to the wall, disregarding it. Turns out, he didn't need to reject you to shatter your heart into a million pieces.

His stance immediately faltered. He could recognize your voice out of a thousand others.

Prowler, or rather Miles, stood silent.

“Miles, take off that damn mask. I know it's you.” You took off your mask, and he opened his. His eyes were unreadable. “What the hell have you gotten yourself into Miles?" You sighed. You didn't recognize him anymore. You didn't know who he was. There was no way the Miles you knew had become this.

"Fuck, princesa. I didn't want you to get involved in this shit. You're the fucking spider?" You feel as if he was seeing you for the first time again. "I'm fucking Spider-woman, you dick. And I've been involved with this 'shit' ever since I got bit by a spider. Now explain this, whatever you've turned into!" You spurted out, pointing at his suit. "I got roped into business with Kingpin after my father died. Shit, I never meant for this to happen." He exclaimed.

"What, you think you're protecting me by not telling me? Bullshit." You say, throwing your hands up in the air. "I was protecting you. I was protecting you from Kingpin. Because I fucking love you. I meant it when I said you were my girl." He proclaimed.

When you thought this night couldn't get any wilder, it just did.

Alarms blared in the back of your mind, telling you to leave. Your brain is screaming at you to think about your moral obligation to stop the Prowler, no matter who he is. But your heart is telling you otherwise. You choose the latter.

"Fuck, Miles. Shut the hell up." You threw a web at his abdomen and pulled him towards you, efficiently shutting him up by connecting your lips to his. Sliding your hands onto his braids, you pulled him in closer. He immediately reciprocated and grinned into the kiss, setting his arms on your hips.

Turning into a heated make-out session, he backed you against the wall of the alley. You felt your legs giving out on you. Miles put his knee in between your legs, supporting you. He kissed you with passion. He's pinned for you for the longest time, and he finally has you. He wasn't going to give it up for anything. Unfortunately, you needed oxygen to live, so you pulled back. A string of saliva connected your lips as you parted.

He took away all the oxygen in your body, and apparently your moral compass as well, with only one kiss. Unable to open your eyes until a few moments after, you fluttered your eyes open. "I fucking love you too, Miles" You whispered against his lips. "Oh, really? Couldn't tell." He teased with a smirk, his lips seconds away from yours as he looked down at you. He held your gaze with longing in his eyes.

Muffled screams ruined the moment. Miles and you react immediately, putting your masks back on. You got your webs ready while Miles had his steel daggers out. Lowering your guards, you realize it was the couple of guys you webbed up and forgot. "Sorry, I'll go take care of them." You said as you rubbed the back of your head awkwardly. Miles stifled a laugh as he said, "That's alright, ma. You can make it up to me later." You heard the smugness in his voice as you swung away to the police station. You made sure to fulfill his request later that night.

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part 2!

#miles morales x reader #miles morales #miles morales x y/n #miles morales x you #earth 42 miles morales x reader #earth 42 #across the spiderverse #across the spider verse spoilers #into the spider verse #spiderman across the spiderverse #spiderman #prowler miles #miles morales spider man #spider man #spiderman into the spiderverse #jealousy #enemies to lovers #friends to lovers

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prodbyton · 2 months ago

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જ⁀➴ dirty little secret chapter 5: i don’t bite

half smau, half written wc. idk sorry😭 warnings: smut!!! +18 mdni!! smut can be read on its own but if you want to read the rest of the story here’s the mlist! id still recommend reading the whole story bc yes 🙂‍↕️

tomorrow comes around a lot faster than you expected. you dont know why, but you’re almost nervous.

you dont know what it is about anton, but he was different than other guys you pursued. you were never the type to chase, never the type to be so bold and be the one to call the shots. something about anton being so shy in your presence excited you, and you knew you could use that to your advantage since he was already wrapped around your finger after only talking to you once.

so you dont understand why you’re hesitant to knock on the door to his apartment.

you stare at the door, thinking of all the possible outcomes of what will happen once you step foot into his space.

you’re here to study, you tell yourself, but you know that you can’t focus on that when you’re too focused on your attraction to the boy. he obviously is into you, but you don’t know if he’s into you enough to do the things that you were thinking about. what if he does just want to study, and you make him uncomfortable by trying to make a move on him? what if giselle was right about him being a virgin, not that it would be an issue but you don’t want this to be his first time. or even worse, what if he’s not good in bed?

just worry about studying, thats the most important thing here. you continue to tell yourself, still staring at his door.

right as you lift your arm to finally knock, the door swings open and reveals the tall boy you were here to see. he looks at you and smiles softly, and you smile back before taking in his appearance. he looks good, and he seems a little less nervous than he seemed the day before.

you thank yourself for not dressing up too much for today, seeing that he was in a loose tshirt and some shorts. you wore something nice but casual, a low cut shirt and a pair of leggings. easy to take off, just in case. right when you were done looking anton up & down, his eyes quickly darted back up to your face and your smile grows wider when you realize he was probably looking down your shirt when you weren’t looking.

“sorry if i startled you,”

“its okay, i was just about to knock”

anton moves to the side so you can come in, and your eyes scan the room as you take off your shoes. it was pretty clean for an apartment with college student boys, and you wonder if it always looks this clean or if anton cleaned up for you. and you smile trying to imagine anton frantically cleaning around the house knowing that you could be over any minute.

you let anton lead the way to his living room, where he already has some papers spread across the coffee table along with his laptop. you admire his efforts into making sure that you were comfortable in his space, since he also had various snacks and drinks on the table along with a few blankets and pillows on the floor.

“i don’t know what kind of snacks or drinks you like, so i just bought a bunch of stuff” he lied, he asked seunghan this morning what stuff you like. you stare at the various snacks, smiling when you realize it was filled with snacks you actually like. not like you would’ve declined anything he offered, you’re sure he had good taste. maybe you both just have the same favorites.

“did you wanna study physics again or another subject?” you set your bag on the couch, sitting down on the floor on top of the blankets anton had laid out, and pulling out your laptop once anton sat on the ground next to you.

“you’re really smart, anton” you nudge his arm, and he shyly looks away from you at your praise.

“thanks,” antons voice was so soft, and you hoped that you could break that nervous shell off of him soon. you could tell he wanted to talk more, but it was like he was holding himself back.

“im kinda bored of studying now, can we take a break?”

“yeah, of course"

anton is surprisingly easy to talk to, and you wish that he wasn't so shy because you could have realized how much you two had in common. you stare at his face while he talks, going back to make eye contact with him every few words so he knew you were still listening. you look at his lips, liking the way they curve into a smile while he speaks and the way his lips purse out when he says certain words. you stare a little harder at his lips, and anton notices, and he tries to ignore it but he's starting to forget what he was talking about. you only look back at his face when you hear him stumbling over his words and stops talking.

"why'd you stop talking?"

"sorry," anton gulps, his ears turning red as he tries to come up with a reason, but he couldn't lie to you when you were still staring at him like that. "you were staring"

"you're so cute. do i really make you that nervous?"

"y-yeah"

"can i tell you something?" your words were just above a whisper, and anton nods nervously when he sees you looking at his lips again. "i really want to kiss you right now"

and with that anton was leaning in, pressing his lips onto yours without any further question. you were taken aback by his sudden action, not expecting him to be so bold all of a sudden with you. you couldn't complain though, his lips felt so soft and perfect against yours. you kiss him back faster than you could process the situation, holding on to the back of his neck to kiss him harder. his hands that were nervously playing in his lap move so he could grab your waist, pulling your body closer to his.

anton shifts his body so he could face you better, his other hand that wasn't on your waist rests on the ground to stabilize himself as he kisses you. you pull away for a brief second to take a breath, quickly going back to kissing anton and sliding your tongue against his bottom lip.

it takes a moment for him to get the hint, and you have to bite his lip softly in order for him to open his mouth so you could slide your tongue inside.

anton feels like fireworks are going off in his mind. you were kissing him right now. he couldn't believe it. and you're the one who wanted to kiss him, whatever anton did in his past life he thanks himself internally, because he would never believe that he could ever be in this situation.

you two groan into each others mouths, tongues clashing against each others and spit is dribbling down both of your chins. when you two finally pull away, anton is almost as red as a tomato. you were breathing hard, bottom lip tucked between your teeth as you took in antons appearance. he looked so attractive like this, lips swollen and parted, a little shiny from a mix of spit and your lip gloss. he was so kissable. you wanted to kiss him again, and again, and again.

so you do. you kiss the breath out of him over and over, you somehow end up in his lap, kissing him even more. you kiss down his face, down his neck, you even bite him a little bit just to hear his breath hitch. antons hands still lay on your waist, gripping onto the skin a little harder whenever you lick or bite a sensitive part of his neck. you were in your own world, and you only realize how much this is effecting anton when he tries (and fails) at subtly pushing you down onto his clothed crotch and you can feel his boner pressing against your core. you remove your lips from him and sit up, staring at his flushed face then down to where your bodies met.

"you're hard" you say it bluntly, still staring at the bulge in his pants from what you can see from the angle you were sitting in.

"you're really pretty" anton talks in the same tone you spoke in, no point in being shameful when you both clearly wanted each other. it was your time to be shy, you knew anton liked you to some degree, but hearing him compliment you as well as getting this hard from just kissing you has you flustered. you feel your core throb the longer you stare, and your mouth feels empty without antons lips on yours.

you run your fingers through antons hair, smiling at the sight of his eyes shutting at the feeling of your nails slightly scratching his scalp. you give his hair a small tug, and before anton can even react your tugging him again so your lips could connect again.

this kiss was somehow even more desperate, teeth clashing and tongues colling more than lips locking. it was messy, but it only made you feel hotter. you experimentally grind your hips down on anton and he groans, holding your hips harder as you make the same movement again. you let out a small whimper when you move just right enough to feel the pressure on your clit, repeating the same movement until you find a steady rhythm.

anton looked an absolute wreck when you pulled your lips off of him. he threw his head back against the couch, eyes barely open as he watched you grind against him. he looked like he was 3 seconds away from cumming in his pants, and you honestly wanted him to. so you move a bit faster, and you lean down to re attach your lips to his neck.

the moans that leave the both of you fill up the living room, and you forget that anton has roomates that could possibly walk in at any given moment. anton seems to forget too, because he's slipping his hands under your shirt and trailing them up to cup your breasts over your bra. antons boldness has you pressing harder against him, moaning against the skin of his neck which makes him shudder.

"wait- im gonna cum-" anton warns, hands that fondle your boobs under your shirt grabbing onto you tighter as he feels his orgasm build up embarrassingly fast. he hopes that you stop moving, but you keep going, and when he feels you smirk against his skin he knows that it was fine.

without any warning anton was moving his hands back to your waist, holding you down as he thrusted against you while his orgasm hit. he was silent, only a string of small whimpers leaving his mouth as he kept you moving while he rode out his high.

watching him cum in his pants was truly a sight, and you felt yourself growing wetter as you watched. he was almost trembling, and it made you clench around nothing before you started to move your hips again. anton was still sensitive and he whine at the feeling of you still grinding down on him, weakly attempting to push your hips off of him.

you quickly move yourself so you were sitting on his thigh, desperately moving against the thick muscle while you chased your own orgasm

"are you close?" you can only nod your head as you move faster, your clit rubbing against antons thigh so deliciously you knew it wouldn't take much more for you to reach your peak.

"kiss me, please-" anton had his lips on you as fast as possible, kissing away the pout you had on your lips. you moan softly when you feel his tongue slip into your mouth, and you feel your orgasm hit you hard when he sucks on your tongue.

you shake on top of anton, body going limp as you feel the aftershocks of your orgasm. you both stay quiet for a moment while you try to get your breathing back to normal, and anton shifts slightly, the feeling of sitting in his cum stained underwear starting to set in and feel uncomfortable.

"im gonna change my pants- ill bring you a pair too" he was so considerate, feeling that you were probably just as uncomfortable in your soaked through underwear. anton helps you move off his thigh, and helps you stand up as well before he's telling you he'll be right back. you sit on the couch while you wait for him, checking your phone while you wait and seeing that your brother texted you a few minutes ago about your whereabouts. you roll your eyes, not wanting to leave antons right after you both just came in your pants, but not wanting to have to deal with your brother nagging you about how late its getting.

"here, you can change in my room" anton turns the corner and hands you a pair of his sweats, and you take them and follow him back down the hall to where his room was. he closes the door and waits outside for you, and you take your time taking off your leggings and your underwear that was uncomfortable and sticky, slipping his pants on and making tying the strings to make sure they don't fall down. you also take in antons bedroom as quick as possible so it doesn't seem like you were snooping.

the boy is smiling at you like a dork when you open the door, and you smile too before his smile drops at the words that leave your mouth.

"my brothers blowing up my phone, so i have to go, but um, today was nice" his heart thumps in his chest, and he swallows in hopes that the feeling subsides and he hopes that it was only loud in his head and that you couldn't hear his heartbeat from where you were standing.

"yeah, it was. i can walk you to your car, its getting kinda dark." anton helps you collect your things, and you two silently make your way down to where you parked.

the walk from antons apartment to your car was awkward, and you wish that it wasn't. you didn't really know what to say, or what to do in this situation. usually guys you hook up with don't go out of their way to give you some of their clothes, or walk you back to your car, or have good conversation with you. but anton was different, and you felt it the moment you decided to give him attention, because you really don't want to go home, and you really don't want this to be the last time you two fool around.

anton stays outside until your car pulls off and until he cant see you anymore before he starts his walk back to his apartment, and he can't stop the wave of thoughts that run through his mind now.

he's praying internally that you really do text him, and that you enjoyed today as much as he did, and that him cumming in his pants didn't throw you off and that you'd never want to speak to him again. he hopes you text him and that you want to see him again.

all of his internal prayers seem to come true faster than he thought when he enters his room and sees your soaked through panties on his bed.

m.list | prev | next

a/n: sorry for posting this so late !! anyways hope you guys like it hehe haha

synopsis: living with your older brother had its perks, including easy access to his hot best friend

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artslovergirl · 27 days ago

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red wine supernova

recently divorced!tashi duncan x reader

notes: cw: age gap of 9 years! reader is a girlfailure loser who would sell her soul for one chance with tashi duncan, tashi being a twilight fan mention (tashi duncan weird girl agenda), reader is the biggest tashi apologist ever she does not gaf, artashi caught a stray in this im sorry i promise i love them, commas are just fun accessories to me, if you read all of this i will give kiss ur heart and soul, i love u chappell roan thank u for this song, tashi duncan a girlfriend WILL save you in this

wordcount: 9.6k (omfg)

she was a playboy, brigitte bardot

she showed me things, i didn't know

you met tashi duncan by complete accident. like actually.

you didn't meet her in the stands at a match for any of the new players she's coaching or some fundraiser or gala that only rich people would attend. you met her at the grocery store. you remember it pretty specifically because the memory makes you crumple up in embarrassment every time.

you turned your shopping cart around the corner, your mind being laser focused on getting green tea because you forgot it last week and you were almost out and you also forgot your grocery list at home which means you’ll inevitably buy everything BUT the stuff that you need and-

is that tashi donaldson? you stopped in your tracks, it felt like your whole system had been reset. holy shit. that IS her.

she was wearing a tight black top, designer pants with three golden necklaces (that you were sure cost more than your laptop) and her bob was thrown into a short low ponytail.

you felt like a deer in headlights considering that you’d never really met a celebrity before. i mean, you had only gotten into watching tennis a couple of years ago ( at first only because of your stupid ex boyfriend, but now you enjoyed it genuinely…and you enjoyed it as a way to spite him a little too.) but still she counted as a celebrity to you.

a celebrity you find crazy hot. oh god and of course you looked severely terrible right now. you had just thrown on the first outfit you saw and threw your unwashed hair up with a claw clip. also you had not cared enough to put on shoes and were just wearing slippers.

great. not as if you wearing a cocktail dress and having a blowout would have really changed anything but maybe you did have the fantasy that if you looked hot enough you could seduce this powerful gorgeous rich woman. not that it matters now since that wasn't what was happening at all.

should you say something? no, right? you'd imagine that no one would really want to be disturbed by a fan while shopping for groceries of all things. then again, she didn't even have a shopping cart. or a basket. so maybe it would be fine? what was she even doing here? you highly doubted that you and tashi fucking donaldson were in the same tax bracket.

she should be at erewhon or whatever that store for rich people that get off on paying 30 dollars for bread is called. fuck it, you were gonna say something. you gingerly walked up to her, noting that the closer you got the more intimidating her presence felt.

“hey, i'm so sorry to bother you but are you tashi d-” before you could get out the rest of your sentence your gaze fell onto the tabloids that were propped up on the shelf behind her. on the covers stood in big fat neon yellow letters “DONALDSONS DIVORCE? Is this it for the Tennis-IT couple?”

oh, right. divorce. fuck. what is it now…duncan or donaldson? fuck. tashi obviously noticed the sudden break in your sentence and the way your eyes were glued to something behind her. she turned around, saw the unmissable headline, huffed and turned back to you. “just duncan is fine.” she said, staring down at you with an expression you couldn't quite read.

you felt your stomach drop in shame and suddenly really prayed that the floor would open up and just swallow you whole so you wouldn't have to continue embarrassing yourself in front of one of the hottest women you had ever seen.

“right, i'm so sorry, i didn't want to be rude but uh.. that just now made me seem very rude.” you awkwardly stammered, drumming your fingers against the warm plastic handle of your shopping cart. your hands were sweating.

to your relief she just gave you a small smile and shook her head, “don't worry about it, this isn't the first time this has happened.” you were honestly surprised at her nonchalance. in your mind she could have pulled out a gun and shot you point blank for that and you would've probably forgiven her.

“ah..yeah..still. sorry. um, i just came over to say that im um..a big fan. i mean, ever since you started coaching hayden and torres, their game totally changed, its insane.” you felt like you were forgetting to breathe because your entire focus was on making a somewhat good impression and hopefully making her forget what just happened.

tashi seemed a little amused by your nervous energy, that's something at least. “thank you, they were already great players just needed some refinement.” she looked you up and down. you felt a shiver run up your body as if her gaze had physically touched you.

“ah, well, yeah, i just mean if you compare this season to last season..um..anyway..” you shifted from foot to foot anxiously. she was so hot. a faint smirk tugged at her lips.

“do you play?”

“hm?”

“tennis?”

“oh!”

you shook your head quickly. “no, no, i'm far too unathletic for that.” you chuckled to divert from the fact that you had been so caught up in mentally drooling over her that you made her specify tennis.

“uh, plus the barrier to entry is a bit too expensive for me. i mean rackets and lessons and all that..” you fiddled with the hem of your worn down sweater. you're pretty sure you've had this sweater since middle school and now you were wearing it while meeting the hottest woman alive. tashi duncans gaze felt like the sun, and for some reason she insisted on making very intense eye contact with you.

“right. well maybe you can give it a try one day, i think it would suit you.”

does this make you now legally obligated to play tennis? it really feels like it. you feel heat crawl up your neck.

“ha…really?” you sound like you're gasping for air.

she looked you up and down again. jesus christ. “mhm.”

okay, well, you were on the verge of passing out and she really wasnt giving you a lot to work here conversation wise so you just squeaked out, “um…do you mind signing something?” she seemed a little surprised for a second like she had forgotten the reason you had come up to her in the first place, but after a short moment she nodded. “sure.”

you rummaged through your messy bag, trying to find anything signable (yeah, you hadn't really thought asking for a signature through) but luckily you quickly found your daily planner and a random hello kitty pen you genuinely didn't remember buying.

you began thumbing through your planner until you found a blank page and quickly handed the two items to her for her to sign.

you felt awkward just watching her sign so you pretended to browse the aisles with your gaze until the handed the small book and pen back to you.

“thank you so much!” you eagerly took it and stuffed it back in your bag. “sorry for taking up your time.” you chuckled sheepishly.

“its really not a problem. it was nice meeting you.” you were genuinely about to melt into the floor. “u-um..oh! yeah, it was really really nice meeting you too!” you nodded a little too intensely.

you exchanged small waves before you watched her disappear down an aisle. as soon as she was out of earshot you exhaled sharply and you draped your torso over your shopping cart like a ragdoll.

oh my god.

put her canine teeth

in the side of my neck

later that evening (after unpacking your groceries and realizing that you had indeed forgotten to buy green tea) you read through every article written on the donaldson's relationship and recent divorce.

you even paid for the ones hidden behind paywalls.

you felt a little ashamed of it, since you knew a lot of these journalists loved to exaggerate for the sake of drama but you just..wanted to know everything.

and you stumbled across a particular article that left you...gob-smacked for a lack of a better term. it was titled:

‘what really happened at the phil’s tire town challenger?’

you remember vaguely hearing about that a couple months ago...maybe a year ago? but you didn't think much of it at the time. but this? this article revealed everything that was truly beneath the surface of that match.

it revealed relationship entanglements between tashi her (now ex) husband and her ex-boyfriend that led all the way back to 2006. you were honestly a little concerned how they even got this much information.

you should probably be scandalized or shocked or whatever but honestly all you could think was: what a woman. she made two guys play a fucking tennis match not to win the us open juniors singles title but to win her number? what a fucking woman..

the next day you opened up your planner to write down an appointment you had just booked when you were greeted by tashi’s signature. before you could swoon and admire her pretty handwriting you noticed something you hadn't seen when haphazardly throwing the planner into your bag earlier. a string of neatly written numbers under her autograph. holy shit. she gave you her number.

i'm in the hallway waitin' for ya

mini skirt and my go-go boots

“is this too short? or like…just short enough?”

you did a small twirl for your roommate, aubrey, who you had been subjecting to a fashion show of different skirts for the past ten minutes.

“show me the back again?” she was half paying attention to you, half scrolling twitter. you turned around. “you cant see my ass right? i don't want to flash her. leave a little mystery y'know.”

she looked up for a second and then nodded, “no, you're good. just pick that one.” you huffed at her lack of taking this seriously. to be fair you hadn't told her that the “recently divorced slightly older woman” you’d be seeing was tashi duncan but still! where’s the support!

you looked back in the mirror…hm…this one did look cute while not showing off too much. also you only had an hour left until the meeting and you still had to put on the rest of the outfit and style your hair, so this one would have to do.

“okay, thanks, love you, bye.” you hurriedly skipped to your room. “hey! you left all your shit all over the floor!” aubrey yelled after you pointing towards the mountain of clothes you had discarded after mixing and matching outfits.

“i'll pick it up later!” you yelled back as you slammed the door behind you and you could faintly hear her responded with a groan. whatever! this was literally the opportunity of a lifetime! you were going on a FUCKING DATE with the hottest woman to ever live who just also happened to be insanely rich and one of the most iconic figures in the tennis world.

you must've been a nurse or a doctor or something equally charitable in a past life to deserve this.

okay, well, to be fair…you weren't 100 percent sure if this was…actually a date? but you also didn't know what else she could possibly mean by meeting. what actual business would she have to discuss with a 24-year old college dropout who doesn't even play tennis?

you had texted a little bit with tashi since that fateful day, three weeks ago, when you discovered her number in your planner. you still had no clue why she gave it to you but you weren't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

the many drafts you had crafted for the first message to her were still in your notes app and looking back on it, each one seemed more pathetic than the last.

the one you ended up sending was okay, not great, but you quickly realized that tashi preferred calling to texting anyway. which suited you just fine because her style of texting was far more formal than you were used to (i.e. she capitalized the appropriate words and used periods at the end of her sentences.)

and it always made you just a tad nervous she was mad at you or something. for about two weeks now, it had almost become routine to receive a call from tashi at exactly 10 pm, which was when she always did her nightly routine.

you knew that because you could always faintly hear her changing into a night robe and applying various lotions and cleansers. it made your heart beat three times faster thinking about the fact that even with how busy she was, she worked to somehow fit you in.

the first calls were..a little clunky and awkward mostly due to the fact that you could barely hear anything she said over the booming sound of your heartbeat in your ears.

but as soon as you made her laugh for the first time all that anxiety seemed to just dissipate. it made you realize she wasn't asking you to perform for her, and she seemingly enjoyed you the way you are.

after that, each conversation flowed much easier and even though you seemingly didn't have much in common on the surface, you found yourselves talking for an hour every night.

the topics didn't matter, because every topic was exciting and made you giggle and kick your feet as long as you were talking about it with her.

you sat down at your desk and examined yourself in the small vanity mirror that stood on it. you huffed and quickly began messing around with your hair and touching up your makeup until you were finally satisfied with the results.

and then right on time your phone started buzzing aggressively on your small desk, effectively scaring the shit out of you, with a reminder that you had to leave like right now to catch the subway.

you checked yourself out in the mirror one last time. you took a deep breath. okay..okay..you looked good. hot. super hot definitely. hot enough to go on a date with tashi duncan? well, no, no one would ever achieve such a thing but you got close enough.

you grabbed your small purse and rushed out of your room to quickly strap on your heels in the hallway. as you shut the front door behind you, you heard aubrey shout after you “good luck, hope you get fingered!”

a girl can dream.

okay, really, you didn't need to be running.

you had left with like 20 minutes buffer time to get to her place just in case something went wrong but..you somehow needed to get that pent up anxiety out lest you end up vomiting it all out later.

but as you began booking it down your street towards the subway station a loud honking violently stopped you in your tracks.

you automatically whipped your head around to look for the origin of the noise. there was a sleek black car parked right in front of your shitty but overpriced new york apartment complex. there's no way that belonged to anyone living here. you were a little tempted to keep running since this seemed sketchy as hell.

the car honked again and the driver leaned out the window, he was dressed in some kind of uniform? “i’m here to pick you up for miss duncan?” he raised a brow like he wasn't sure if you were really the one he was here for.

maybe because you were staring at him like you’d never seen a chauffeur before. huh. now that you think about it, you actually had never seen a chauffeur before.

“oh..um..tashi duncan?” you almost whispered like it was a secret that needed to be kept. he gave you a look. rude.

“yes. tashi duncan.” he replied. “um..i don't mean to be rude but is there like..confirmation for that? because..i don't just want to get in some guy's car.”

the driver already seemed fed up with you. at that moment your phone buzzed again but this time with a text message from none other than the woman of your dreams.

“I sent you a ride. I think the subway is far too dangerous for you to take this late.”

talk about timing. you looked up from your phone and shot the driver an apologetic smile as you quickly clambered into the backseat.

wow, this is a fancy ass car. and it had that weird new car smell. you knew that most people liked it but it just made you dizzy for some reason.

now that you didn't have to worry about arriving on time, you could stop freaking out about that and instead freak out about the fact that..

holy shit, she sent a car for you! you weren't quite sure if this was like a for real chauffeur or just a very fancy uber but you didn't care because it just made you so giddy. like this was definitely confirmation that this was a date, right? right? yes, totally…possibly!

it was also a little exciting to receive this kind of treatment, especially from a woman like her.

shortly before you arrived you checked your reflection in the car's tinted window. you pulled out your shimmery cherry scented lip gloss and applied it generously until you could see your lips shine. perfect!

breathe in, breathe out, this will go fine. this will go perfectly. you gave yourself an encouraging nod (and immediately cringed at yourself for it.)

you mumbled a quick thanks to the driver and quickly got out as soon as the car slowed to a stop. your 2 inch heeled boots could be heard clacking against the pavement as you walked towards probably the most luxurious apartment complex you had ever seen.

it was very much “insanely wealthy recent divorcee” chique.

then you noticed the door man who was already looking at you a little weirdly, probably because you had stumbled towards the apartment like a newborn fawn.

“um, hello.” you gave a polite smile. “i’m um..here to visit tashi duncan?” you didn't know why you phrased it like a question, you should really be more assertive, this was all just so unusual for you.

“right. youre miss y/ln?” your heart fluttered..because this meant she had informed him prior to your visit and that this was all real and happening. “yes.” you nodded quickly and even showed your ID even though he insisted it really wasn't necessary.

on the elevator ride up you could feel anxiety in the form of nausea burrow itself through your stomach lining. oh, god. this would be fine. ding. the doors opened.

you were immediately enveloped by the warm scent of cinnamon mixed with fresh laundry and expensive perfume. that scent seemed to go through your nose and slowly invade each part of your body until it softly curled up in your heart, making you yearn to never smell anything but this ever again. you took a cautious step out of the elevator and took in your surroundings.

it wasn't a surprise that this apartment was maybe…5 times the size of yours? maybe 6? it seemed huge from just the size of the entryway. the color scheme was quite neutral, with a lot of white and earthy tones which you could appreciate.

it gave everything a sense of calm and comfort. it was well-decorated too, which you had already expected but evidence of her having good taste only made you even more attracted to her.

you must've spaced out because all of a sudden the woman herself stood in front of you. and she was an absolute vision. the soft warm lights of the apartment bathed her in its glow making her dainty golden jewelry glimmer, her short gently curled locks fell around her defined face like a silk curtain, her skin shimmered like fresh morning dew and the pearl colored dress she wore accentuated her chest and wrapped around her hips like honey.

“hey.” she smiled softly as she took a step closer. you were NOT gods strongest soldier in this moment. or any moment. but especially this one.

all the nerves you had gotten over during the phone calls returned full force now that she actually stood in front of you, looking like a muse. you weren't sure if you could handle all that to be perfectly frank.

“h..hi. thank you for..sending the ride.” you stammered out in a low breath. “i wasn't really looking forward to having to endure the smell of urine for an hour on the subway..” you continued just because the silence made you nervous.

“it’s no problem. i figured as much. plus i couldn't possibly make you take the subway to our first date, hm?” she said it like that sentence alone didn't put you at serious risk for spontaneous combustion.

so this was a date! you didn't even notice but you were absolutely beaming at her. “oh..well..yeah, um..thank you, anyway.” your front teeth caught your bottom lip in their grasp. you could feel her slender fingers wrap around your wrist and she gently led you through her apartment, you weren't sure where to.

but you didn't care, wherever she wanted you to be that's where you would go. “you have really good taste..like..decorating wise and stuff” your voice was still shaky but you were feeling a bit more at ease now that she had confirmed that this was in fact a date.

she looked back at you over her shoulder. “you like it?” she smiled. “yeah!” you nodded a little too eagerly, “it's very..hm..calming. i think. and very chique.” she let out a bemused exhale through her nose at your use of the word ‘chique’. “i appreciate it.” she assured you with a small glimmer of something in her eyes.

i just want you to make a move

so slow down, sit down, it's new

in the center of her spacious dining room stood a circular glass table which was set up beautifully with candles flickering gently while they illuminated the two plates that you could now see carried your favorite dinner. (huh, so that's why she asked you about that yesterday.) the plates were accompanied by two wine glasses and a small dish of creme brulee set to the side.

you were honest to god speechless. i mean… i mean , what do you even say in this situation. the fact that this woman was evidently just as enamored with you as you were with her was something you still had difficulty comprehending.

everything moved so quickly and yet at the same time these past two weeks felt like they stretched over months.

she gently led you towards the chair, you could feel the gentle pressure of her hand against the small of your back. you tried to remember to breathe.

you took a seat and she headed over to the counter that connected her dining room and kitchen. she grabbed the two wine bottles that you hadn't even noticed until that very moment.

she held them up and asked, “red wine or white?” to be truthful, you had never really drunk wine before. you vaguely remember having it once on your 20th birthday, but not ever since. that made you feel a little immature, so instead of admitting this you just blurted out, “white?” out of sheer panic.

she nodded and carried both bottles over to the table and poured white wine in your glass and red wine in hers. looking at the glasses you secretly wondered if this meant kissing her later would now taste like rosé.

as she took her seat across from you the candlelight highlighted her face in the most flattering way, defining her sharp features while somehow softening them at the same time as she sat before you.

one thing that was the exact same in real life as it was on tv and photos, was tashi's intense gaze. at first it made you anxious but now it simply excited you. you almost reveled in it. you wanted her gaze to be on you. to pin you down.

“i have one rule for tonight.” she spoke up after taking a sip of her wine. your eyes widened a little, like a curious fox you tilted your head to prompt her to continue. “no tennis talk.” she said with a certain seriousness. oh. phew. that you could certainly handle. and it wasn't very surprising either. most people didn't enjoy shop-talk during dates.

“that is gonna be no problem for me.” you chuckled with slight relief. “i mean, not that i would really have that much to say about it anyway. i'm more of a casual fan anyway.” you shot her a quick sheepish grin, quietly fidgeting with the hem of your miniskirt under the table.

you could see a faint smile play on her lips in response. silence could only fill the room for a mere second before you spoke again, “i kind of have to admit um..i’m a little nervous.”

to say that you were stating the obvious was an understatement.

“i could tell. you don't have to be.” she reached over and gently ran a finger over the back of your hand, tracing your veins. you shivered.

“i know, it’s just…i don't know. i want this to go well.” you nervously looked up to meet her gaze. “it will.” she hummed.

“we’ll just talk, like on the phone.” her voice was like a soothing balm to your pounding heart. “yeah, but it's different. like..being here. a..and..i..”

should you admit it? you were almost sure she wouldn't care, yet you were riling yourself up about it. she raised a brow. “i've never really..like i don't have any experience with women.”

she intertwined your hand with hers. “that's okay, i mean, the last time i was with a girl was like..college.” she chuckled wryly.

she continued, “really, that doesn't matter to me. i just wanna get to know you.” she reassured you as she squeezed your hand. in that moment she made you feel so seen and so safe with such ease that you wanted to cry a little.

but obviously, you wouldn't, because that would be supremely lame to do on a first date..okay, tearing up did not count! (thankfully she did you the kindness of not pointing it out.)

i like, i like, what you like, what you like

long hair, no bra, that's my type, that's right

after her reassurance, your nervousness started to slowly ebb away and your conversation started to flow more naturally again.

the dinner was long done by this point and you now sat next to her on the couch with your legs almost touching hers. you were already feeling a small buzz in your system that led to you feeling very giggly as you sipped on your second glass of white wine.

tashi was currently recounting the story of her first and last frat party she went to at stanford, to be honest, you were only paying half attention. you tried very hard (really, you did) to not stare at her lips but it was getting harder and harder the more tipsy you got and you were definitely laughing way too much at her story to overcompensate.

you knew she noticed because she leaned a little closer, her arm leaning on the backrest of the couch, “you are not listening to me at all right now.” she huffed playfully, a smirk dancing over the very soft-looking lips.

“what?” you giggled and subtly shifted so her thighs were fully touching yours now. “no, i'm listening.” you tried so hard not to grin but the way she was looking at you just made you want to smile and giggle and kick your feet.

“what did i just say then?” she raised a brow and leaned even closer. you could smell her perfume and it made you dizzy. “uh…umm..” you scrunched up your nose in thought. “some guy..did..something?”

she rolled her eyes but you could tell she was only teasing, “good guess.”

“what, so youre gonna tell me i'm wrong?” you challenged playfully. “i’m saying you're not paying attention.” she hummed, her hand reaching out to gently play with your hair which made you feel the urge to curl up in her lap like a cat.

ooh, okay, you were gonna go for it now because you were justttt tipsy enough to not cringe at yourself flirting. you leaned forward, you could feel her breath on your cheek, “can you blame me?” you muttered, now unabashedly staring at her lips.

she seemed caught off guard by your sudden forwardness but she certainly didn't seem to mind it. her head tilted down a little until her nose brushed yours, “i guess not.” she grinned like she knew she had you in the palm of her hand. and she was right.

you wanted to kiss her so bad in this moment that if she asked for it, you were certainly not above getting on your knees and begging. your fingertips trailed over her thigh and you were looking up at her with the most pathetic ‘please kiss me’ eyes you could manage.

apparently that worked on her because before you could form another thought you felt her lips brush yours and everything in your mind screeched to a halt. your breath hitched and you eagerly reciprocated, the hand resting on her thigh tensing slightly.

you could feel her ringer-clad fingers travel down to your waist and squeeze gently which elicited the most embarrassing whimper out of you.

you could feel her smile into the kiss in response. subconsciously almost, you leaned even closer to press against her like you were trying to mold yourself to fit against her body like a puzzle piece.

one of your hands tentatively traced over her chest. you already knew she wasn't wearing a bra, since her dress had very thin straps but exposed no bra straps. but to actually somewhat feel it through the silky fabric clinging to her curves felt life-altering.

her other hand began to reach up to gently caress the back of your head, tangling her fingers in your hair, to draw you closer into the kiss.

you weren't sure if it was because she was older and more experienced or if it was because you'd never kissed a woman before or maybe everyone you've ever made out with before her sucked but if you were honestly not sure if you could ever kiss anyone but her again after this.

it was like she had been given a manual on you and your body and she knew every single button she had to press to make you gasp and yearn for more. it could also be because she could probably do anything and you’d find it hot.

the kiss turned messier and deeper, your noses were bumping and smushing against each other and you were pretty sure some of her hair was caught in the kiss at one point but neither of you realized nor cared.

all you could think of, all you could feel, all you could smell, all you could hear was tashi. she was everything and everywhere. it was like anything outside of this moment suddenly didn't exist anymore.

until she pulled back. without even realizing it, your lips chased after hers for one last kiss before allowing it to end. it was only then that you noticed how out of breath you truly were. you inhaled shakily. her hand rested on your neck, rubbing gentle circles with her fingers. you couldn't meet her gaze without giggling.

but at least you weren't alone, as she couldn't stop grinning either. you leaned your forehead against her shoulder, tilting your head slightly so you could look up at her.

your entire body felt like it was radiating warmth, but it felt nice. you let out another bashful chuckle, “is the first date too early to say that i really like you?”

tashi’s heart jumped at your words. ha, like? she couldnt remember the last time she had heard someone say they ‘really liked’ her. maybe college? but after a near decade of a marriage that fizzled out as pathetically as a candle in the rain, she found herself excited at the prospect. she found herself excited in general actually, which had almost become a foreign feeling to her these past few years.

all the heart-pounding, late-night calls, first kisses, she hadn't realized until this moment how much she had truly yearned for this feeling again. the feeling of something fresh, of a beginning, of something exciting, of you.

you made her feel a sudden spark of connection to a part of herself she had thought died back on the court at stanford along with her career.

you made her feel like tashi duncan. and after 8 years of being tashi donaldson, she fucking craved that.

“i dont think there's a rule for that.” as she looked down at you, her smile was still as present as ever. “but i really like you too.”

by the time you left her apartment complex it was already midnight. you two had spent the time mostly talking, making out some more, finally checking the time, being walked out by her, getting distracted and making out some more in her entryway, and then actually leaving with two new lovebites on your neck.

the doorman from earlier gave you a knowing look as you stumbled out of the elevator which you did not appreciate. tashi paid for some fancy uber to drive you home again and as soon as you got home you let yourself collapse onto your bed basking in the lingering buzz of tashi's touch spreading through each and every cell in your body. you squeaked and giggled into your pillow.

“so. did it happen?” you sat up in surprise as your roommate suddenly appeared in your doorway. it was like she faded into rooms sometimes with how quiet she was. “i told you to knock.” you complained. “also did what happen?” you raised a brow.

“did you..” she made a crude gesture with her hand. “man, get out!” you threw a plushie at her as she quickly retreated back into the living room, snickering to herself.

well, back at my house

i got a california king

okay, maybe it's a twin bed

and some roommates, don't worry we're cool!

“no, she’s out for the night.” you mumbled in answer tashi’s question about your roommates whereabouts while continuing to jiggle your keys as you struggled with unlocking the door.

you’d called your landlord 6 times already on this piece of shit lock and how it was near impossible to open without brute force, he promised to fix it…take a wild guess if he ever did.

so now said lock was embarrassing you in front of your girlfriend (well, you had started calling her that in your head but were too cowardly to actually ask) because it was kind of making it look like you had lied about having an apartment and were now trying to break into some other persons place.

“this stupid thing never works..” you grumble. you shot her an apologetic look, “sorry, the locks kinda finicky.”

with one more brutal tug (one that really hurt your hand a lot but you were going to pretend like it didn't because for some reason you still wanted to impress her) the lock finally clicked and the door opened. you sighed in relief.

“its a pretty small place.” you said as you let her into your apartment and shut the door behind her. you knew she wouldn't care and she had assured you that so many times. plus you couldnt meet up at her place like you had the last few months because apparently her ex-husband was there currently for whatever reason.

you werent really keen on meeting him, nor was tashi it seems. as you walked down the narrow hallway, leading her to your room you suddenly shrieked and jumped back into tashi’s chest in shock. she instinctively caught you and put her arms around you which would have made your heart flutter under normal circumstances but right now your heart was preoccupied trying to regain its normal rhythm.

“what the hell!” you groaned, holding your chest recovering from the jumpscare of your roommate sitting on the couch. she looked up. “oh, whats up.” she nodded to you and then nodded to tashi, “hey, im aubrey.”

before tashi could greet her back you interrupted, “aubrey! what the hell are you doing home, you said you’d be out for the night!” you said in a tone mixed between anger and whining. “felix got food poisoning.” she shrugged, kicking her feet up on the coffee table. “what? is he okay?” your eyes furrowed in concern. “yeah, he’s cool. he got dared to eat gas station sushi.” “what? that's-” you looked back at tashi realizing that this conversation made your friends seem a little childish.

“whatever just…do you have to be here right now?” you huffed. “chill, im not gonna cockblock you.” usually you loved your roommate but right now you wanted to strangle her.

“oh-kay.” you gave up, covered your face in embarrassment and quickly dragged tashi to your room before aubrey could make things even worse with her crudeness and her propensity for embarrassing you in front of guests.

you slammed the door shut with your foot. “sorry, that's..uh my roommate..she’s…yeah.” tashi chuckled, rubbing her thumb over your wrist in the way that always soothed you. “relax, okay? i'm not gonna start clutching my pearls.”

you exhaled through your noise and nodded, “right, yeah, i was just caught off guard. i wanted us to be alone.” you sighed, leaning your head on her shoulder.

she was a bit taller than you, especially in heels, which you really liked. “we are alone.” she pressed a kiss to you earlobe. “you know what i mean!” you groaned.

once again she seemed amused by your tendency for dramatics when in distress. “also the walls are thin.” you pouted. “well, we don't always have to-” “yeah but i wanted to!” she looked over her shoulder at your bed, “you have a twin bed” she snorted.

“so? we could've made it work.”

“i'm sorry baby but as soon as i left college i vowed to never have sex in a twin bed again” she laughed lowly.

“youre mean.” you whined into the crook of her neck. “mhm..” she gave your back a small pat, “now c'mon, you promised a room tour remember?”

you raised your head to give her a look, reaching out your arm to gesture at the small space. “what's there to give a tour of? this thing is a shoebox.”

“don't be like that. cmonnn~” she nudged you with her elbow. ugh, you were nothing if not weak for her. “fine.” you cleared your throat to get into your best ‘real estate agent voice’.

“over here is the “walk-in closet”-” you made air quotes with your fingers. “-but you can really only stand in it. also the door hinge is broken so the door doesn't close.” you demonstrated by pushing the door which wouldn't budge. “this-” you pointed to the woven hamper-like chest that stood at the foot of your bed, “is where i keep like..everything i couldn't fit anywhere else. not interesting.” you shrug.

“i dont know, sounds interesting to me..” you looked back at tashi, she was leaning against your creaky wooden desk and was looking at you in that way that always made your legs shaky.

she looked at you like you were the most interesting, entertaining thing in the world, with her gaze warm and her lips quirked up in a soft smile.

“what?” you said as you narrowed your eyes at her, “stop that.” you forced yourself to look away from her.

“stop what?” she leaned her torso forward with a teasing smirk.

“the look.”

“what look?”

“tashi.” you stepped in between her legs and glared. her slightly crooked front tooth showed as she grinned, “what i cant look at my girlfriend?”

FULL STOP. full. stop. did she just call you her girlfriend? oh, how the heavens have smiled upon you this day, truly. from the woman herself, you were officially tashi duncan's fucking GIRLFRIEND.

the shock must've been extremely visible on your face because she tilted her head in confusion a little, “what?” you snap out of the celebration you had been holding in your brain and stumble over yourself a little, “huh? no, nothing-”

your voices overlap as tashi says, “are we not?-” “no, we are!” “because i thought-” “no, no, we are, we are!”

no way in hell you were gonna let tashi think you didnt want to be her girlfriend, actually no fucking way!

there's a short moment of silence. “we just never talked about it. so i wasn't sure. but i really want it. like want you. like i really want to be your girlfriend,” you couldn't get the words out fast enough.

tashi chuckled softly as she shook her head, “i thought we made it official on the fifth date?” you giggled in surprise, “what? i would've remembered that!” “we were talking about exes-” “mhm..” “and then you asked if i felt ready for a new relationship already and i said yes.”

you blinked, “okay but thats not making it official.” she huffed out a small laugh, “what did you need me to spell it out?” “...yes?” she pulled you in closer by your waist, “mh, fine, then..” she paused for dramatic effect, “...will you be my girlfriend?”

you snickered, “do you feel very high-school right now?” she let out a dry laugh, “i feel super high-school but i'm willing to do that for you.”

you wrapped your arms around her neck, “and i'm very appreciative. i would love to be your girlfriend.” you smiled into the kiss. yeah, you’d also agree to marry her this very second if she asked but obviously you weren't gonna tell her that. that seemed more like a tenth date conversation.

after almost convincing tashi to break her rule about having sex in a twin bed but ultimately having your roommate ruin the mood by blasting some horror movie in the living room you decided to just put a movie on yourself.

the bed was a little cramped but eventually you managed to find a comfy position with half of your body draped over her chest, your head resting on her shoulder and her head leaning against yours.

the laptop rested on your thighs as you scrolled through netflix trying to find anything interesting to watch with her. you felt her body shift a little bit when you hovered over a specific movie.

you chuckled looking up at her, “twilight?” “oh, i mean, if you want.” she shrugged trying to feign nonchalance. “do you want?” you raised your brows teasingly.

"i don't care.”

“mhhh..i think you do.” you sat up with a shiteating grin.

“i think somebody had a twilight phase…”

she snorted and glanced to the side, knowing she had been caught red-handed. “i was like 20 when the movie came out, thats silly.”

“mhm. did you read the book?”

silence.

“knew it. caught you! i caught you. give it up.” you nudged her shoulder. she rolled her eyes but couldn't hide her amusement, “yeah, fine, i had a twilight phase, whatever.”

you bounced up and down a little in excitement, pretty much beaming. you didn't know why it pleased you so much. maybe it was the fact that you felt this bonded you both in some way. it wasn't only because you too, had a twilight phase, no, it was more the fact that it hinted at something you had been secretly suspecting.

that natasha “tashi” duncan was in fact a massive dork. just like you. although she was admittedly far better at hiding it.

you certainly had this image when you first met her that tashi was akin to a statue. like you could look at her from every angle but you would not be able to find even the smallest crack in the marble. not the slightest hair out of place. not a single imperfection to be found. but the more you got to know her, the more the marble chipped away. but instead of leaving an empty hole behind, it revealed something better. it revealed her. with every imperfection she had, with every bad thing she’s ever done, with every odd habit or quirk, with everything that made her real.

“we’re watching twilight then.” you said with finality and laid back down next to her. “we really don't have to.” “oh, yes, we really do.”

one more fun-fact you learned about her that night was that she was an extremely heavy sleeper. like. like it was crazy.

she had fallen asleep against you about halfway through the movie which you thought was extremely cute and you took like 20 pictures all while trying not to move so as to not wake her.

which apparently was not necessary at all because when you accidentally sneezed so hard it shook the mattress you instantly looked at her with worry expecting her to wake up. but no. nothing. not even an eye twitch. so. obviously. you needed to conduct an experiment.

you paused the movie and untangled yourself from her embrace. you lightly shook her shoulder. “tashi…tashiiii..” you mumbled. once again nothing.

“tashi!” nope.

and..well, youre not proud of how you got here but after a row of attempts to wake her you were standing in front of your bed holding two pots in either hand about to bang them together.

but before that could happen tashi slowly stirred and opened her eyes. she furrowed her brows at the sight that greeted her “what the hell are you doing?” you hid the pots behind your back as if she hadn't already seen them.

“nothing.”

“were you trying to wake me. by banging pots together?” she sounded genuinely offended by how stupid that idea was.

“no?”

silence.

“you're a really heavy sleeper.”

“if you wanted to wake me you could've just set an alarm.”

“you'll wake up from alarm but not from someone shaking you?”

“you were shaking me?”

“no?” … “yes, okay, i'm sorry, i love you. it was done out of at least 50 percent concern i promise.”

she groaned and placed her hands over her face. you placed the pots on the ground and crawled back in bed with her.

“don't be mad?” you pouted, peppering kisses over her neck until she broke with a small laugh, “okay, okay, stop, i forgive you.”

she gently pushed you off. you sat up.

“i promise to never do it again. i was just..very surprised how heavy of a sleeper you are.” you began playing with her fingers. “you seem really tired, though. do you wanna sleep over?” you mumbled softly.

she took a moment to think about her schedule for tomorrow. “if you promise to not wake me with anything but an alarm clock.” “pinky promise.” you linked your pinkies and she smiled.

you felt your heart ache for domesticity as you felt tashi softly breathing next to you, her warm body pressed up against every part of you due to the lack of space in your bed. she was wearing your pyjamas and her skin smelled faintly of your lotion.

and weirdly enough, in the morning, tashi was the one to wake you up.

baby, why don't you come over?

red wine supernova

“are you sure you're ready?” tashi asked for the ten thousandth time as she clipped in her cartier earrings. “yes! what can i do to convince you that i am?” you pouted her, wrapping your finger around her wrist and swaying her arm gently.

“it's not that I'm not convinced, it's just that i'm worried about how cool you’re being.” she glanced at you from her peripheral. “are you saying i'm not normally cool? you really know how to hurt a girls feelings.” you dramatically placed the back of your hand against your forehead.

“hey, im being serious.” she suddenly said.

you dropped your hand. “i know, sorry. i promise i'm ready, and plus i don't think people will care that much anyway..right? i mean it's been like almost a year and a half since the divorce.”

you brushed some hair out of her face. it was longer now than it was when you first met her and darker too ever since she decided to let her natural brunette roots grow out.

“yes, but still, for whatever reason people were very invested in that whole thing and i don't want you to get dragged into a repeat.“ genuine concern shimmered in her cinnamon colored eyes.

“i want people to know about us. even if it'll lead to weird gossip articles. i don't care about that. i've met art, i've met lily, and their opinions mattered far more than the publics.” you tried to reassure her gently, pressing a kiss to her shoulder.

“i know, but-”

“we don't have to if you're not ready.” you interrupt her. you have been with tashi for almost a year now. 10 months, 2 weeks and 5 days. not that you were counting.

but because of that, you and her have decided to finally make your relationship public. not with an announcement or anything obviously, you would just be accompanying her to a fundraiser thrown by the donaldson foundation.

but this was still a big deal because ever since the challenger in new rochelle, journalists have been far too invested in tashi’s personal affairs, and that only worsened with the divorce.

you hugged her from behind and gently kissed up her neck until you felt the tension in her shoulders dissolve.

“but i feel like keeping it secret is stressing you out.” you glanced at her furrowed brow through the mirror.

“it is. i don't want it to be out of my control. i mean, i don't want people to be in my business at all but if they are going to be anyway i at least want to be in control of the story.” she said firmly, you hummed empathetically. “so, then..let’s go?”

she nodded, “yeah, lets go.”

you nervously wrung your hands together the closer the car got to the venue were the fundraiser was held. tashi gave you a questioning look.

“now that you're not freaking out, i think it transferred to me," you chuckle shakily.

“you want to go back home?”

“no, no, its not that bad. just jitters.” you quickly shook your head. “are you sure?”

“i’m sure!”

“okay, well, tell me if that changes, okay?”

oh, and in that moment you were once again reminded of how much she cared for you that you felt the space you had carved out in your heart for her glow.

you smiled and pressed a short kiss to her lips, “yes, promise.”

the venue was extremely fancy that even though tashi had bought a dress for you just for this event you still felt underdressed.

it wasn't very flashy or anything but you don't think you've ever been in a room with this many rich people at once and that alone sent an itch of discomfort through your skin.

you felt a little bit like everyone could tell you didn't belong here and usually you wouldn't care because its true. this was not your scene.

but you cared now, because this was tashi’s life. these kinds of events were a part of her in some way. and you wanted to be able to fit into that part of her. but now that you were here…what if you couldn't? what if you just couldn't do it? what if she realized you weren't fit for her life and she found someone that was? what if-

you felt tashi’s warm hand rest on your waist with a familiar pressure and your doubts were quickly muffled. you were sure they would come back full-force later, leading to you spending hours tossing and turning in bed before giving up at around 2 am and just binging your comfort shows all night long.

but right now, they were quiet, and you had tashi to thank for that.

“well, that was..” you tried to look for something nice to say. “boring.” tashi finished your sentence. “oh my god, yes! so boring!” you groaned, feeling instant relief that you didn't have to put up a front of genuinely enjoying the event.

tashi chuckled, pulling you in closer by your hip as you walked back out to the car. “i was expecting more drama.” you hummed. “at a fundraiser for new courts?” she raised a brow with the corners of her lips quirked up.

“no, well, yes, i mean because of us.”

“oh, well, that'll come. just not tonight. they would never say shit like that to my face.”

tashi had introduced you as her partner if the question came up, which you had thought would have been more exciting for you than it turned out to be.

yes, you were happy people would now know you as 'tashi duncan’s girlfriend'. thrilled, honestly, you would have shouted it from the rooftops after your first date if you could've.

but you realized that to the tennis world..that's really all you wanted to be. you didn't want people to know you, or your name, or get to know you through small-talk at boring galas and events.

because truthfully, none of this was you. you didn't know enough about tennis or the donaldson foundation to hold a proper conversation with any of these people.

and unlike earlier, you were content with that realization now because of what tashi had said to you earlier in the evening, when you managed to get away from the constant barrage of small talk and questions to step outside for just a moment.

you sighed in relief as the cool night air filled your lungs, replacing the stuffy polished floor air from the venue. “you're too worried about impressing those people.” tashi started.

you turned your head towards her. “i want to leave a good impression.” you defend. you didn't want to embarrass her.

“i know. but it's..hard. watching you force yourself like that.” yikes. that one felt like a swift kick in the stomach.

you had never been very good at keeping a poker face so she quickly followed up, “i just meant…i don't want you to do that. you don't need to do that.” you absent-mindedly fiddled with your necklace, “what do you mean?”

“all my relationships this far have been connected to tennis. and i thought that was good..or at least made sense. tennis has been the focal point of my life since i was 5 so, of course, it would find its place in my relationships too.” she leaned her hands against the railing,

“but it was like this..all-consuming thing. my identity was tied to not only tennis but also my relationships that had been forged through it.” she paused trying to think of how to best articulate herself.

“i think i lost a part of myself through that.” she murmured. “and i'm just about finding it again, and you have been so helpful in that, you dont even know.”

she looked at you with a weight of sincerity you felt sink into your heart.

“so i don't want you to change, or us to change. i don't need you to be art. i don't need you to be anyone you're not.” you were honestly speechless and you feared that you would burst into tears right now if you tried to muster up a response.

so you just quietly nodded (eyes getting misty despite your best efforts), took her hand and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist before pulling her into a gentle embrace.

you knew who you wanted to be to the public, and you knew who you wanted to be to her colleagues. you just wanted to be her pretty (perhaps controversially young?) girlfriend who really had only the most basic understanding of tennis and nothing else.

her thumb rubbed gently over the tennis bracelet that adorned your wrist which snapped you out of your thoughts.

she had given it to you as a present for your 6 month anniversary and you had immediately burst into tears babbling about how much you loved it and her and the universe for bringing you two together. (you were a little drunk)

god, what she wouldn't do to have a video of that night. by her expression you could already tell she was preparing to tease you about it.

“hey, do you remember-”

you let out an exasperated sigh, “yes, i do. stop reminding me.”

you could hear her snicker a little bit and you glared, “stop laughing.”

“i’m not!” she lied while actively laughing. unfortunately her laughter was pretty infectious so you soon joined with your own cacophony of giggles.

your joined duet of laughter could be heard by guests leaving the fundraiser as it echoed through the quiet parking lot.

fall right into me.

“hey, look, i'm your rebound.” you grinned happily as you held up a tabloid that had a picture that was taken by some pap last week of you and tashi after your date with the headline:

“TASHI DUNCAN’S ON A REBOUND?”

tashi just rolled her eyes with an amused smile. “good for you, baby.” she gave you a small pat on the ass. “i know, i'm really moving up in the world.” you joked as you threw the magazine in the shopping cart. she gave you a look. “what? i wanna see what it says!”

#challengers #tashi duncan #tashi donaldson #challengers x reader #tashi x reader #tashi duncan x reader #tashi duncan x you #challengers x you #ames writes~!

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