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gay-otlc · 4 years ago

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Keepers of the Chaos (Chapter 2)

Summary: Tam, Linh, Keefe, Biana, and Fitz are part of the tiny fandom for Keeper of the Chaos, and Tam and Linh's podcast convinces some of their other friends to watch it as well. The group finds themselves strangely invested in this show, where students at Tumblr High School who work together to write about an elf named Sophia, cause incomprehensible chaos, and fight their rival Pinterest High School.

Content warnings: Cursing, food, L*ura

Word count: 2005

Notes: Check out the beautiful theme song here!

(Read on AO3)

Sophie rolls her eyes as she opens the link her girlfriend sent her and puts in her earbuds. Biana has been incessantly pestering her to watch Keepers of the Chaos for so long that Sophie half wants to watch it just to shut her up, but she's always tired, or busy, and she doesn't really like watching new things. Still, Biana asked her very nicely to listen to this one podcast, and she looked very pretty when she asked, so Sophie's dumb omni ass couldn't refuse.

"Welcome to the Twins of the Chaos podcast," it begins after loading for an obnoxiously long time. The girl speaking has a pretty voice, Sophie has to admit- sweet and melodic and vaguely amused.

Maybe listening to this podcast won't be so bad if she can listen to that girl's voice the whole time.

But another person speaks, adding "Where some chaotic twins discuss our favorite show, Keepers of the Chaos," and his voice is not as pretty. She continues listening anyway, since Biana may or may not murder her if she stops.

The two voices- whose names are Linh and Tam, apparently- start talking about Keepers of the Chaos some more, giving Sophie a summary she's heard tons of times from Biana and Fitz- though the twins explain it slightly more coherently and with less... whatever the verbal equivalent of keyboard smashing is. Biana usually starts rambling about her favorite characters, like Lynn- not "Lynn the fandom mom," but the other Lynn- and Avery, or sometimes Nora and Darwin. Sophie doesn't understand any of those names and loses track of the conversation as soon as it involves too many unfamiliar names.

But Tam and Linh are making more sense, at least for the most part, until they start mentioning specific couples. The conversation gets again comprehensive soon enough, though, and Sophie does smile at the name "The Dark Duck."

By the end, when Tam says "half of them wearing sleeping masks with teal eyes painted on and the other half watching the chaos with mild amusement," Sophie is curious enough to be mildly intrigued. She listens to their outro music, and before she can regret it, types out a text message to Biana.

Sophie: fine

Sophie: ill watch it

Biana responds instantly with an array of heart emojis. Sophie blushes.

Biana: can i come over and watch with u?

Sophie: ok!

Sophie: moms making mallowmelt

Sophie: but u cant have any

Biana: >:(

Biana: hope u like being single then

Sophie: fine u can have some mallowmelt

Biana: yayyyy!

Biana: ily

Sophie: ilyt

Sophie: now lets watch ur stupid show

Biana: on my way!!!

Sophie smiles, shaking her head. She's a little annoyed, but fine, it sounds interesting enough from the podcast. And what else would she be doing? Studying? Having US history as an alternative would make even the most horrible of shows seem good. She stuffs her textbooks into her backpack and shoves some things out of the way so her room looks a bit neater before rushing downstairs. The mallowmelt smells good enough to make her mouth water.

"Mmm..." she sighs, barely taking time to let it cool off before taking a large bite. "That's so good. Thanks, Mom."

Edaline smiles. "You're welcome. Just save some for your father and I."

"Fine, fine. I have to share with Biana, anyway." Sophie huffs and takes another bite. "She's coming over, is that alright? We're going to watch a show together."

"Sure, just make sure to get your homework done."

Sophie rolls her eyes. "Fine."

"And keep the door open!" Grady calls. Edaline laughs as Sophie's face flames.

"I'm going back to my room," she grumbles, taking a plate of mallowmelt with her and walking up the stairs. She manages not to trip over her own feet and drop the mallowmelt, thankfully, as she grabs her laptop and opens Netflix. Sighing, she searches for Keepers of the Chaos and clicks on the show that comes up before waiting for Biana to arrive.

The doorbell rings soon, and Sophie carefully sets down her laptop and her plate on her bed before rushing down the stairs. Panting slightly, she opens the door for her girlfriend. Biana's wearing a t-shirt with the Amsterdam flag on it. Sophie has no idea why. Maybe Biana likes the country? Her girlfriend is pretty weird. "Come on in," she says, realizing she's been staring. In her defense, Biana is pretty and Sophie is very omni.

"Ready to go watch Keepers of the Chaos?" Biana asks. She bounces on her toes slightly.

"Alright," says Sophie. "I set it up on my laptop in my room."

"Awesome! You'll love it."

Sophie follows Biana up the stairs and into her room. They sit on the bed together, Sophie leaning against the wall and Biana leaning against Sophie, and Biana presses play. Somber kazoos begin playing in the background as the theme song starts.

We're on the edge of chaos

No one is straight

We're making fanart

Because L*ura we hate

And we're gonna have teal eyes in the end!

We must be weird, and we must be gay

(We must be gay!)

We will find every bit of sanity that we have

And give it all to Lynn

Ohhhh

We must be gay!

Biana dances a little along with the song, and Sophie can't help but smile. A curvy, round-faced person with short dark hair and colorful earrings plays a few notes on the piano, and then a KEEPERS OF THE CHAOS logo flashes across the screen. Then, a group of students sit in a classroom.

"Shai! Tater! Lynn! You three finally got together?" says the same person who just played piano, gesturing to a redhaed wearing a Sappho lesbian flag cape. She's holding the fingerless-gloved hand of a lanky person with brightly colored hair, and they're holding hands with a tall girl who has chin length brown hair. The rest of the class applauds the fiancees before returning to their own conversations.

"Yep! Thanks, Ink," says Tater.

Ink smiles at them and turns to a person with light brown skin and golden hoop earrings partially covered by long dark hair. "Hi, Kiri, how was your break?"

"Good! Here's to a good 2021?" Kiri turns to the person next to them. "How about you, Ref?"

Ref has short brown hair and red glasses. "Yeah, my break was dOPE," she says, leaving everyone to wonder how he did that with their voice. "oH, and happy belated Hanukkah to Shai!"

"Thanks, you too. And guess what! I didn't set my hair on fire this year!"

A short guy with strawberry blonde hair looks concerned. "Um. Congratulations?"

"Thanks, Sam!"

Sophie looks away from the screen and at Biana. "There are a lot of characters..." she mutters.

"Yeah, but you get to know them well enough eventually," says Biana. "Now shh, let's keep watching!"

A lot of other characters are introduced in various conversations, and Sophie's brain has a hard time keeping track of them all. She does remember Tara, a curvy, bored-looking girl with long sideswept bangs, and Blue, a bisexual who may or may not be an arsonist. She doesn't know either of their personalities very well yet, but she likes them so far. Lucat, a pale, blue haired asexual, who later joins the Hanukkah conversation, also seems cool.

Once quite a bit of introductions are done- Sophie lost count at around twenty something- are over, an announcement comes over the school's loudspeakers.

"Welcome back, Tumblr High School!" announces a voice. "I hope you all had a good break. Now, the Tumblr staff have an important announcement for you all. High schools in this county, like ours, Pinterest High School, and Instagram High School, will be holding a competition. All members of the winning team will receive a scholarship to AO3 college. If you are interested, meet in room 69 after school. Now, onto other announcements..."

Somber kazoos play again as the principal's droning voice fades into the background. A montage of the previously introduced characters wishing they could go to AO3 college moves across the screen. After a few minutes of them zooming through school and talking about how fucking boring it is, all of them gather in the room (some of them with more jokes than others) to discuss the competition.

A blonde woman welcomes them into the room. They wait a while to make sure no one else will arrive, but once everyone is there, the woman clears her throat. "Hello, everyone! I'm glad you're interested in joining the competition. My name is Shannon Messenger, and I'm in charge of admissions at AO3 College. My coworker L*ura and I designed this competition."

Sophie gasps and looks at Biana. "L*ura? But isn't that the person they hate? They said that in the intro!" Biana smiles at her, and she blushes as she realizes that she's kind of... maybe... invested in the show now. She decides she'll endure the "I told you so"s later and looks back at the show, trying to telepathically tell the characters not to trust this L*ura person... and perhaps not Shannon either. It's too early to tell whether Shannon will be an antagonist or not.

"All of you will be working as a team to write a story together. The main premise is that a twelve year old girl named Sophia is a telepath, but she can't tell anyone her secret. Then, she meets a teal-eyed boy named Finn, and he tells her that she's an elf. She travels back to the elf world with him, where she struggles a bit at the elf school Firefox, makes friends with some other elves, learns that she is an illegal creation of a rebel group called the Dark Duck, and another rebel group- the Rarelynoticed- tries to kidnap and kill Sophia and her friend Deck. There are other details to be included into the story, which will be given out to the participants as a packet. The object of this competition is not to determine your ability at coming up with story ideas, but your ability to work in groups and execute well developed ideas. Does anyone have any questions?"

Someone raises their hand- a short, tanned girl. "Lynn?" prompts the principal.

"Did you say the rebel group was named the Dark Duck?"

"And the Rarelynoticed?" adds another person, with rectangular glasses and a red bracelet.

"Raise your hand before speaking, Auran," scolds the principal. "But yes, those are the names."

"Alright then," Auran mutters.

"Unless anyone else has questions, we'll be sending out sign up forms for everyone interested, and then we will distribute the information packets about your story. You can talk to each other and start planning."

No one else has questions, so once they've all filled out the sign up form, they gather in small groups and flip through the packets, making sarcastic comments or mocking names ("'Rarelynoticed' though-" a stylish hijabi named Raiin sighs as they come across a page of information about the group) as they try to form some semblance of a plan. Once they all agree that they've made a lot of progress, they make plans to meet up again soon and walk back home.

Unbeknownst to them, a pair of ominous teal eyes watch from above.

Somber kazoos play once again, and the credits roll.

"So, what'd you think?" Biana asks as Sophie closes her laptop.

Rather inaudibly, Sophie mumbles "It was good."

"What was that?"

"It was good! I liked it!"

Biana grins. "I told you so." She leans over and kisses Sophie on the cheek. "Thanks for watching it. I have to go do some homework, awesome seeing you!" As she walks out, Sophie hears her singing under her breath. "We must be gay..."

#tumblr kotlc fandom fandom #keepers of the chaos #shai types things #cursing tw #we must be g a y #shai's writing

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ckerouac · 7 years ago

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fic: other duties as assigned

Title: Other Duties as Assigned (AO3)

Fandom: MCU

Summary: Peter wasn’t sure how exactly he ended up playing errand boy for the Black Widow in a department store downtown while she bullied Captain America into a new wardrobe, but if that's where the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man was needed, he wasn't going to leave his SPIDER BRO hanging.

Notes: This is all @slayediest fault - the prompt was ‘anyone takes Steve shopping for new clothes’ and, well, this happened.

Peter wasn’t sure how exactly he ended up playing errand boy for the Black Widow in a department store downtown. One minute he was working on a chemistry lab report with Ned, and then next he was getting a flurry of texts from Mr. Stark about an ‘intervention’ and ‘secret mission’ and ‘if it’s too much for you you can say no’. Which, of course he wasn’t going to say no! He was an Avenger! Well, sort of… mostly… close enough. Technically.

And then there was a text from the Black Widow asking politely if he’d be willing to help out a fellow spider because there was someone in terrible need.

HE WAS GOING TO BE SPIDER BROS WITH THE BLACK WIDOW.

Ned promised to keep the app open in his phone that they’d linked to KAREN just in case Peter needed his guy in the chair, because if it was something that Natasha Romanoff was asking for help with, it had to be something serious. Life threatening. Maybe there were more aliens. Or an accident at a chemical plant. Or a nuclear bomb. Or a mass arrest of guys on Wall Street because it turns out they were linked to HYDRA and that’s why they were trying to bring down American democracy. MJ talked about that lot, so that would totally be something that the Black Widow would be involved in. He wasn’t sure what he could do to help with that, but he could web up bad guys with the best of them and if they needed him, it didn’t matter what it was. He was going to be there!

“I just think the blue looks better,” Natasha said, reaching over to pull the navy blue t-shirt from the pile on Peter’s lap to hand to Steve. “It brings out the blue of your eyes.”

“Is that really a thing?” Steve asked, taking the shirt and looking for all intents and purposes like a defeated man as he stood in the doorway of the dressing room.

Natasha gave him a light squeeze of the shoulder. “I get that you’ve been out of the dating game for a while, but trust me. It’s a thing.”

“I’m not trying to get back into the dating game,” Steve replied. But he took the shirt, along with the pile of jeans Natasha had already handed him and retreated back into the dressing room.

“You can’t blame me for trying!” she laughed. “What about Melissa?”

“Which one is Melissa?”

“The one who coordinated the HVAC repair to the tower last month.”

Natasha…” Steve said, his voice going for ‘warning’ or ‘not again’. “You sound like Old Mrs. Goldstein who lived two floors down from me growing up. She was convinced Bucky was going to die alone and unloved if he didn’t find a girl who was dumb enough to settle for him.”

“And what about you?” Natasha asked.

That got Steve to crack open the door and smile. “She figured I’d die alone after getting punched by someone for talking back to them.”

“So, pretty much how you’re likely to die now,” Natasha pointed out.

“Pretty much,” Steve said, and closed the door once again.

“Excuse me,” Peter said. “But… um… I thought you said that there was a big crisis that needed the Avengers?”

Natasha dropped down onto the bench next to Peter and smiled. It wasn’t that it was unnerving when she smiled, Peter decided, it was just that you couldn’t tell at all what she was smiling about. Like, was she smiling about Captain America in a dressing room? Or the pile of clothes in his lap? Was she smiling about how it was silly that Peter thought she wanted to be spider bros, even though he’d never actually used the spider bros line yet? He was gonna wait until they were taking down the bad guys, and then slip is casually into conversation, and she was gonna laugh and think that it was brilliant, and then he’d name the text thread that they’d inevitably start SPIDER BROS and it would become a thing.

It’s like whenever MJ decided to smile. She only smiled when she thought he was doing something stupid.

Oh… shit… was the Black Widow smiling a ‘Peter you’re so dumb’ smile?

“What I said was there was someone who needed our help,” Natasha pointed out.

“And it was… Mr. Rogers?”

A bigger grin this time. “I love it when you call him that,” she said. “Look, I’ve been trying to get him to update his wardrobe. He lives in khakis and SHIELD shirts, unless someone specifically pulls something different out for him. I think if he had his way, he’d live in his uniform.”

“I mean, what’s wrong with that?”

Natasha leaned in a little closer. “Do you have someone you like?”

Yes. “No.”

“Have you dressed up for them in the past?”

Yes. “No.” Peter’s eyes went wide. “Wait, does Mr. Rogers have a date? Is that why we’re here? Are we getting him ready for a date? Where would someone like him go on a date? Like, the Statue of Liberty? Is that too cliche?”

She reached over and gave him a squeeze on the shoulder. Peter tried hard not to look too excited. It was the same thing she did to Captain America! They really were going to be spider bros! “It’s just a closet refresh,” she said. “Don’t think too hard about it.”

“But… if it’s not something… wait, why me?” Peter asked. “Why did you and Mr. Stark ask me to come along?”

Natasha shrugged as Steve emerged. “We told him you were struggling with a personal problem, and he jumped at the chance to help.”

“Wait, you used me as bait?!”

“And I fell for it,” Steve replied. He placed his hands on his hips and glared at Natasha. “Taking advantage of an old man is elder abuse.”

Before Peter realized what he was doing, he’d lifted his phone to take a picture of Cap’s stare of disappointment. “Sorry, sorry,” he said. “It’s just that’s the exact look you have in the videos they show when we have detention, and I always thought that was some acting they made you do, but it’s…”

“It’s just his face,” Natasha beamed. “But I’m immune to it. Plus, I don’t think that’ll be any way to get a response to profile I put up for you on SexySeniorDating.com.”

“What detention video?” Steve asked, ignoring Natasha’s jab because Peter was sure that she’d actually put up a dating profile for him behind his back. Would she?

“You know, the ‘so you’ve found yourself in detention’ video,” Peter explained, doing his best Captain America expression, complete with sigh and pursed lips. “There’s a whole bunch of them.”

Steve looked like he was going to deflate right there, and his frown was about as large as Natasha’s grin. “I still can’t believe I let Tony talk me into those,” he mumbled. “Just like your USO tour,” he mimicked. “But enriching the minds of today’s youth.”

“You were recently thawed, your brain was probably still a little icy,” Natasha pointed.

“No, wait, they’re great!” Peter insisted. Insulting Captain America would probably completely squash his plans to be spider bros with the Black Widow cause even if she liked to make fun of him, no one else could make fun of Captain America. I mean, he was CAPTAIN AMERICA. Why would anyone want to make fun of him? He was amazing, and he was here hanging out with Peter, even if it was technically because Peter was bait in a convoluted plot for the Black Widow to keep making fun of him…

Wait… ‘squash’... like a bug… he just got that! He needed to remember to tell Ned that he’d come up with a great spider pun with his spider bro Natasha.

“I can pull one up for you!”

“Please don’t.” “I already have one as my voicemail message.”

Steve and Natasha turned to stare at each other. Peter was pretty sure neither of them were telepathic, but he couldn’t actually be sure, but there was obviously something getting exchanged between them.

Steve was the first to relent. He sighed, shook his head, and grabbed another couple of shirts from Peter’s lap pile. “Let’s get this over with,” he said, retreating back into the dressing room.

“Wait, I’m going to find you a jacket,” Natasha said.

“I already have a jacket.”

“Not one you’ve gotten shot in, a nice blazer,” she called out as she left Peter to watch Steve and, as she’d explained when this whole outing started, ‘make sure he didn’t run away like a coward’.

“Is.. there anything I can get you, Mr. Rogers?” Peter asked.

A laugh came from behind the door. “No, kid, I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry for being bait,” Peter continued. “I thought there was, you know, a thing that needed attention and all hands on deck. I didn’t know shopping was part of the… internship. Mr. Stark keeps it pretty… undefined. You know, and I totally get why, and I’m not complaining about it at all. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m happy to be here and do whatever I can to help. I just didn’t think it would be… shopping buddy.”

“I’m pretty sure this falls under other duties as assigned. But if it makes you feel any better, people have tricked me into foolish job related duties since the 40s.”

OMG he and Captain America had something in common! Maybe it wasn’t just him and the Black Widow that were going to be SPIDER BROS. Maybe Captain America didn’t think he was just a kid from Queens and they were going to be bros too! He didn’t seem to hold the airport stuff against him. Not too much. He only brought it up once. Maybe twice. The Falcon brought it up a lot more. But if Captain America thought they were just like each other… oh man, if his seven-year-old self and his Captain America lunch box could see him now. Wait, there could be a lunch box with both Captain America AND Spider-Man on it! With their arms around each other! Giving a thumbs up!

He had to text Ned. He’d die seeing the same look on Cap’s face as the videos. just out w bw & cap bc we’re bff now he texted along with the picture, followed quickly by disappointed!cap is disappointed .

The response was immediate, like Peter knew it would be.

...but it wasn’t Ned.

I thought you were at Ned’s studying??

He’d accidentally texted Aunt May.

sorry!! I meant to send that to Ned

That was fine. She knew about… all of it. And it proved he wasn’t getting shot at or thrown off a building or any of the number of things she’d yelled at him that Mr. Start was irresponsible for letting happen to him once she found him in his suit. And considering that that’s what he thought he’d be doing on this little outing, she should appreciate how little danger he was in compared to how much he could’ve been in if what he thought was going to happen actually had happened. How could she object to a shopping trip… even if he had told her this morning he was spending the day with Ned working on their lab reports?

Why is Captain America disappointed with you?? What did you do?? AM I GOING TO BE DISAPPOINTED WITH YOU??

no it’s fine I didn’t do anything. I’m at my internship.

“Are you texting the girl?” Natasha asked, scaring the shit out of Peter because for some reason she was the only one who could sneak up behind him without his senses catching on. “Is it the one who you dressed up for that you said you didn’t?”

“What? No!” Peter tried to look as casual as possible, but his phone started buzzing again. Wait, I recognize those dressing rooms. I’m going to give Captain America a piece of my mind.

“Is something wrong?” Steve asked, cracking open the door to the dressing room and catching the blazer Natasha decided to throw at him. “Do we need to-”

“My aunt is coming cause I accidentally texted her, and I thought I was texting Ned cause you made the face and I thought he’d find it funny, and May’s too worried that I’ve done something to make Captain America mad at me, and I think she’s coming to yell at you, so please don’t be angry with her, she doesn’t mean it, she just… I think she likes yelling at people. Mostly Mr. Stark,” Peter explained. “But she doesn’t yell at him a lot! Only when he shows up. Or when I come home with a bloody nose. But those aren’t always Mr. Stark’s fault.”

“Just usually,” Steve said. “Does she… know about...”

Peter nodded. “Yeah, she knows.”

“Maybe this is a good thing,” Natasha said. “We could use another opinion. Because those jeans are going to make Heather in Operations -- “

“No.”

“Or how about Tonya in -”

“Natasha.”

She just smiled that MJ smile again. Peter was certain there was no way she was giving up, and surely Cap realized that. He could say no all he wanted, but Peter would bet money she’d have him on a date by the end of the week.

It took 15 minutes, but eventually the back and forth interrupted by, “Peter?”

The three of them turned at the new voice and Peter gave his Aunt May the most contrite, most apologetic, most ‘but at least I’m not dangling off of a building and the highlight of the 11pm news’ wave that he could muster. “Hi Aunt May.”

“I think you wanted to yell at him,” Natasha added motioning to Steve, who at this point was standing there with a pile of clothes draped across his arm.

“Yes,” May said, pausing to just stare at him for a moment. Peter was sure this wasn’t going to end well. She wasn't impressed at all with Mr. Stark each time he showed up, and sure he was the only one of the Avengers to show up at their apartment, but if she wasn’t impressed by Iron Man, surely she wasn’t going to be any more impressed by Captain America, especially once she got it into her head that he was angry with him. “You’re a lot taller in person.”

Steve smiled. “Yeah, I get that. Sorry, where are my manners. I’m Steve,” he said, extending his free hand.

May shook his hand and smiled as well. “May Parker. You know Peter through… his internship?”

Steve nodded. “He’s a good kid. Quick on his feet,” he added.

“Sticks with something until it’s finished?” May volleyed back.

“Really swings for the wall,” Steve replied, amused. He was interrupted by Natasha clearing her throat. “Oh, and this is Natasha.”

May let go of Steve’s hand a gave the Black Widow a wave. “Yeah. These are not the friends I thought Peter would be hanging out with in high school,” she added. “Or the job I thought he’d have in high school. I mean, Jesus, I worked in a grocery store in high school.”

“Oh, really? Me too!” Steve beamed. “And, I don’t mean to brag, but I got pretty good at stacking apples into a pyramid.”

“And there would be some ass who thought it was funny to pull the piece of fruit from the bottom of the stack?” May laughed.

“And then I’d point it out and get knocked around a bit in the alley,” Steve admitted. “They didn’t pay me enough to put up with that kind of jerk.”

“How much did they pay you?”

He grinned. “A quarter.”

“Oh yeah, you totally deserved at least 30 cents,” May replied.

“Yeah, that’s what FDR said too,” he laughed.

“See, May, he’s not angry at me,” Peter interjected. He didn’t want May to get laughed at any more by Captain America, and if he could just convince her that he was fine, and Captain America wasn’t angry with him any more, and it was just a joke, she wouldn’t have to hang out in the dressing room with them any more. “His disappointed face was for something else.”

“What was his disappointed face for, then?” May asked.

“I got tricked into going shopping,” Steve admitted. “Natasha thought I could use some help with some new clothes and told me that Peter needed my help.”

“And you just wanted to help him?” May asked.

“He’s a good kid,” Steve said. “Of course I wanted to help him if he needed it.”

“Yeah, I like him.” May turned and smiled at Peter over her shoulder. “I think I’ll keep him.”

“So… everything’s cool,” Peter said. “You can head home.”

“Or you could help Steve decide between a couple of shirts that he was debating,” Natasha intejected. “We could use another woman’s opinion. I like the blue, but Steve is partial to the white.”

“Sure,” May said. “Always glad to help. And blue is always a good color. Especially with your eyes,” she added.

Okay, so not how Peter saw the afternoon going. At this rate he’d never find the right time to suggest to Natasha that they be SPIDER BROS, especially not with May bothering Captain America…

***

“May?” Peter called out as he closed the apartment door and dropped his backpack on the couch. “I’m home.”

“How was school?” she called out from her bedroom.

“It was fine,” Peter answered. “Sorry I’m late, we had Decathlon practice and then I had to finish my lab report with Ned.”

“Not a problem, dinner is in the fridge. Blue lid. The spaghetti from last night.”

“Are you going somewhere? I thought you worked days this week?”

There was a knock at the door. “Peter, can you get that?”

“Sure.” He opened it to find Steve standing there, in one of the outfits Natasha had bullied him into buying last Saturday. “Hi Mr. Rogers. Hey, wait, what are you doing here? Does… does Mr. Stark need me? Did he send you to come get me? Wait, what’s going on, I can… May!” he called out. “I’m going out-”

“Hey, no, it’s not an internship thing,” Steve said, stepping inside the apartment and closing the door behind him. “Not an Avengers thing.”

“Oh,” Peter said. “Then what are you doing here?”

May popped her head out into the living room and smiled. “Hey, you found it okay.”

“Yeah,” Steve replied. “Sorry, I’m a little early. Never spent much time in Queens.”

“Not a problem, I’m ready to go.”

Peter realized that May looked a lot nicer than her normal Tuesday night sweatshirt and… “Wait, where are you going?”

“Steve and I are going to grab some dinner,” May said. “Like I said, spaghetti is in the fridge. I’ll be back in a little while.” She kissed his forehead as she walked past. “Make good choices.”

“Good to see you, Peter,” Steve said before focusing on May. “You look really nice.”

“Why thank you.” She gave a quick little tug on the hemline of his t-shirt as he opened the door for her and led her out into the hall. “Blue looks really good on you.”

It took Peter a full minute after the door closed before he was able to sputter out, “You… make good choices.” Before he could question it any further, his phone buzzed.

Thx for your help on Sat! Mission accomplished - FINALLY got old man out on a date

No shit, Peter thought, as he changed the name of the text thread from ‘Natasha’ to ‘SPIDER BROS’. She could just deal with it.

#mcu #fanfic #marvel #mcu fic #spiderman #chasingkerouac writes #this is fluff #shameless fluff #and my first time writing in this fandom

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