let's write good angel on the devil's horn

A warm breeze sighs through the trees as you stare up at Peacemaker’s, uh, house? It’s a mobile home, at least, but it’s painted in such a gaudy stars and stripes way that it makes your toes curl just looking at it. Stepping up to the place, you have to weave around multiple little garden ornaments that are weather-beaten and moss covered to various degrees.

You couldn’t get ahold of Peacemaker, but you still have to retrieve the dossier on Senator Goff from him before he can get into any more trouble with it. Knowing him, the guy probably smoked a joint and is laying passed out on his bed right now. You don’t really care, as long as you can get back to Project Butterfly HQ without a fuss.

You rap on the door twice, turning to look over your shoulder at the kids across the cul-de-sac riding their bikes. You don’t hear anything behind the door, and it occurs to you that maybe he isn’t home, and you briefly chide yourself for not checking the tracking in his head to find out where he actually is. But then, a second later, you hear a shuffling and then the bright red door pops open to reveal… not Peacemaker.

“Vigilante?” 

You squint up at the red visor on the masked man in front of you, just barely able to pick out two eyes staring back at you. Admittedly, you only know Vigilante superficially at best; you couldn’t tell anyone his name, and even less what he looks like under the mask (just that he has a nice ass). You’ve barely even had a full conversation with him thus far, even though you’ve often caught yourself checking him out from across the room. He strikes you as a little too unhinged to be approachable, and he tends to linger around Peacemaker more than anyone else. 

“Yeah, that’s my name. Don’t wear it out.” His voice is way too bubbly and chipper for that sarcastic of a statement, but you don’t think he really absorbs how snotty the line is supposed to be. His head dips as he pointedly looks you up and down, and then his head snaps up in the direction of the kids across the way. “Oh, fuck- come in, quick.”

“I take it you’re not really supposed to be here. Where’s Chris?” you grumble as you step into the messy house. It’s apparent that someone has been trying to clean it, but whoever it is hasn’t gotten very far. 

Almost as if he reads your mind, Vigilante picks up a trash bag and sweeps his arm along a line of empty potato chip bags and water bottles on the kitchen counter, knocking them all into the bag. “Well, uh. ‘Supposed to’ is kind of a choice of words. Peacemaker had to go do some shit at his dad’s house, but didn't say when he’d be back. It seemed like a while, though, he told me to stick around and watch Eagly and Goff.” 

You stop dead, staring at his broad-shouldered form over the kitchen counter. “Goff?”

“Fuck,” he mutters to himself, and then sort of turns on his heels to shoot a look over his shoulder at you. “Uh… Goff? What Goff? I don’t know a Goff-” You fix him with a dead eyed stare that makes him falter, his hands fisting in the plastic bag in his hands. You could swear he looks almost meek when he blurts, “We sort of kept Goff sorry.”

“Motherfucker, I will bury you- what do you mean, ‘you guys kept Goff?’” 

“W-well,” he tilts his head back toward the ceiling, his posture so rail-straight that you know he’s completely tense. “I didn’t, it was Peacemaker. I just kinda helped him wrestle it into the jar-”

“Jar? What the fuck is going on, man?” 

You can see him blink at you in stunned silence from under the visor. Then he sighs and, tossing the trash bag onto the floor, reaches under the kitchen counter and pulls out a pickle jar with a perforated lid.

“Holy shit,” you breathe, inching closer to squint at the thing in the jar. It looks like a cross between a moth and a mosquito, overly large for a normal insect and bright turquoise. It blinks at you with glassy black eyes. “That’s Goff?”

“Well, it’s… it’s the thing that came out of the dude’s head when Peacemaker blew his brains out.” Vigilante shrugs, tilting his head as he stares down at the jar. “I dunno, I think it’s kinda cute in a weird praying mantis type of way. Y’know, I used to keep mantises as a kid, whenever I found them. I thought they were cool as hell. Did you know they’ll eat anything smaller than them? And the females sometimes eat the males after sex. I mean, talk about a way to go, right?”

You glance up at him during his impromptu National Geographic lecture. “Aren’t praying mantises protected? I don’t think you’re supposed to keep them.”

“Hey, Peacemaker has a bald eagle. I don’t see you raising an issue about that.”

You shrug as you draw back from the jar. “I dunno, I feel like you’ve killed people for less.”

“I have, but Eagly loves Peacemaker. Who am I to fuck with the natural order of things? The little guy would be heartbroken.”

“No, I meant- ah, forget it.” You blow a harsh breath out as you straighten your spine. “Have you seen the file Chris has on Goff? I’m only here for that.”

“Bedroom, maybe.” As you trod past him toward the back of the house, he goes back to clearing piles of trash off the counters. A small smile quirks your lips; Vigilante is playing housekeeper while watching Peacemaker’s menagerie. The concept is… well, not really surprising, but just odd. You wouldn’t have imagined it happening, except that now that you see it taking place it makes sense.

“Where’s Eagly?” you call as you walk the length of the hallway and still don’t find the bird anywhere in sight.

“Went for a fly, I dunno. The skylight’s open, so he’ll be back. Hopefully.”

The bedroom isn’t much better than the kitchen, with piles of clothes and empty bottles of every description covering the floor. Thankfully, and as the rest of the team had feared, Peacemaker isn’t very concerned with hiding sensitive documents. The classified file on Senator Goff has been tossed freely onto the bedside table, some of the contents poking out of the corner of it. You sigh and scoop it up, leafing through it briefly to ensure that everything is there before making your way back to the kitchen.

As soon as he hears you coming, Vigilante is right back to talking. “Hey, have you ever seen anything like this? It’s fucking… what’s the word… effervescent?”

You turn your head to find Vigilante dipping two gloved fingers into a mason jar filled with the amber goo that had been found at the Goff residence. The food that the butterflies presumably live off of glistens on his fingertips, vaguely sparkling in the light. You freeze in place as he curiously rubs his fingers together, pulling them apart to have the viscous liquid cling together and create a web across them. In the silence, it makes a soft, wet sound against the textured pads of his gloves. 

“Iridescent,” you correct, watching. There’s absolutely no reason why that should look as suggestive as it does, but you find yourself swallowing past an inexplicable dryness in your throat all the same. “Why are you playing with it?”

“I’m not… I mean, I’m just curious.” He shakes his hand roughly, but the goo remains stuck to it. “Y’know, there’s a fine line between scientific research and just dicking around, and the line is writing shit down. Go grab a pen.”

“You are not a scientist,” you object, but you hand him a pen from the cabinet behind you, anyways. 

“Don’t be presumptuous, you don’t know shit about me. I could be a biochemist for all you know…” Instead of writing anything down with the pen, he dips the end of it into the jar and swirls it around before pulling it out, covered with the amber fluid and pulling a long string of it out of the jar. “I gotta be honest, it looks like honey. I want to eat it.”

“That is so inadvisable, I don’t even know where to begin.” You shake your head. “If you were a biochemist I promise you would not be talking about eating the suspicious alien substance you stole after killing said aliens.”

“But you gotta admit, it looks fucking delicious,” he continues, gathering all the goo from the pen onto his fingers again. You tear your eyes away just before he starts playing with it again, and stare down at your shoes as he says, “We should totally try it together.”

“We should not.”

“Hey, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“UM, let me think. Hives. Anaphylaxis. Sepsis. Organ failure. Probable death.”

“Damn, you really know how to turn a guy on, huh?” Vigilante gives a crazed little giggle that makes your heart do a flip in your chest. “Anyways, I know you’re probably thinking about it, too.”

“Why’s that?” you ask challengingly. 

“Because you haven’t left yet.” He shrugs, and even though you can’t see behind his mask, you can almost guarantee he’s smiling at you. “Unless you’re staying for me, in which case I’d be like, sweet! We should totally go out for drinks. But like, I can’t take off the mask, so… that might not work out so well-”

“Maybe I’m sticking around because you’re talking about eating that, and I won’t be held accountable if I knowingly leave you and you die. If I have to rush you to the hospital, I will.” 

“Aw, that’s so nice. I think there’s a romcom that starts that way. Or maybe it was a horror movie? I don’t remember.” He pauses for a moment like he’s thinking. “Oh, hey! I know! We can ask Goff if it’s safe.”

“Goff can’t speak.”

“You have like zero imagination, you know that? Watch this.” Vigilante leans down to look directly into the jar. “Hey, Goff. One tap is yes, two is no. If we eat the honey stuff you eat, will it kill us?”

“This is so stupi-”

Tap tap.

Your face falls, and you blink down at the alien in the jar. “Did it just…?”

“Hey Goff, if we eat it will it make us sick?”

Tap tap.

“Works for me,” Vigilante says in that same chipper manner, and moves to scoop a glob of the stuff into his fingers.

“Hey, wait,” you snap, reaching forward to catch his wrist. “How do you know that thing is even trustworthy?”

“I dunno. He has honest eyes.”

“What, the creepily sentient insectoid ones? Yeah. Super trustworthy.” You roll your eyes. “Plus, didn’t it try to kill you before?”

Vigilante stares at you- or, you think he does. With the mask blocking out all his facial features, talking to him is kind of like trying to uphold a conversation with a mannequin at the GAP. 

“You’re sounding kinda prejudiced towards aliens right now.”

“Dude!”

“What? He can’t help it if his eyes are insectoid. He’s a butterfly.” He shrugs again, and this time he tilts his head to the side, reminiscent of a confused puppy. “Besides, what would be the advantage of killing us? He’s literally trapped in a jar and we’re the only ones who can get him out. Also, I’ve never been able to stay away from sparkly gold things. Like, I remember I had this one shiny gold book about Egypt as a kid-”

“The Egyptology book?”

“Yeah, that one! You had it?”

“Yeah, I had it. It was fucking awesome.” You stare down at his hand, his two fingers extended toward you, covered in sticky gold syrup. “Fucking… fine. I don’t like it, but I won’t stop you if you insist on shoving random things in your mouth.”

“It’s not a random thing, Goff said it’s fine.” He says it with such conviction, but he still hesitates when you let go of his wrist. There’s a pause, and then, “You sure you don’t want to lick it off my fingers?”

Your face heats up, and you clench your jaw as you look away. Is it bad that you’re almost tempted to? “Nice try. You’re on your own, buddy.” 

Vigilante sighs and leans back, looking down at his fingers. “So… how am I gonna…? Can you, like, turn around or something?”

“Why do I need to turn around?”

“This mask doesn’t have a mouth hole, dude.”

“It’s elastic, right? Just pull it up a little bit, don’t be shy. It’s like a strip tease.”

He’s quiet for a long moment. “That’s… the weirdest way you could have put that. Are you trying to Spider-Man kiss me right now?”

You squint at him. “Am I what?”

“You know. In the Spider-Man movie with Tobey Mc-whatshisface and Kirsten Dunst, when she pulls down his mask so she can kiss him upside down?”

“I’m not trying to Spider-Man kiss you, man. Now just do it if you’re gonna do it so I can figure out whether or not I need to call an EMT.”

“Okay! Geez!” He hooks his thumb under the bottom edge of his mask, yanking it sharply outwards to tent the fabric around his jaw. You only catch a glimpse of his throat before he shoves his fingers under the fabric and, presumably, into his mouth. 

He makes a startled noise in the back of his throat, and it sends you into immediate panic mode. 

“Oh, fuck, is it okay?” He mutely shakes his head. “Is it bad? Gasoline? Motor oil? Sewage? Can you fucking breathe? Dude, talk to me!”

He pulls his fingers slowly out from under the mask, and they still glisten with a certain amount of the syrup on them. “No, it’s… it’s way better than okay, it’s like… like milk and honey? With apricots? It’s like the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life-”

You snatch his hand and lift it to your mouth so that you can wrap your lips around his fingers. He stills, his mask snapping back into place over his jaw as he lowers his hand to brace himself on the counter. You can feel his eyes trained on you, but you’re not really paying attention to him anymore. 

You’re focusing on the absolute burst of flavor on your tongue. You know what he means by never having tasted anything like it. It’s composed of the most incongruent, fantastic flavors melded together, but somehow they work; chocolate and orange, kiwi, strawberry. You do taste the creamy bit of milk and honey on the back of your tongue, but it’s like each flavor changes from taste bud to taste bud. Like, somehow, your brain doesn’t know exactly how to process what it’s tasting.

You succeed in cleaning off his gloves, until the Willy Wonka bullshit dissolves into the flavor of leather and gunmetal. And Vigilante lets you- granted, he’s standing rigid and staring at you, probably like you’re just as insane as he is, but he doesn’t try to pull his hand away from you. You might imagine it, but you think his forefinger twitches against your tongue like he means to shove them further into your mouth, but he doesn’t. 

He lets you pull his fingers from your mouth, and his grip on your hand lingers for half a second. Quietly, he begins, “Do you want to…?” 

“Get a spoon?”

“Yeah, that’s… that’s what I was gonna say.”

“What’s your biggest fear?”

Vigilante passes you the jar as he snaps the edge of his mask back against his neck. “This is the strangest conversation I’ve ever had on a first date.”

You feel like your blood is boiling beneath your skin, but you’re trying your best not to show it. Your eyes track every little glimpse of his skin you can get like you’re ravenous for it- every time he pulls the mask away from his jaw to stick the spoon under it, your eyes are on his throat. You swear you caught sight of his jaw at one point, and you nearly fell out of your seat over it.

You run a shaking hand over the back of your neck, finding it a little bit damp with perspiration. You’re not hot, you’re just way too worked up. It doesn’t help that you’ve always had a thing for guys in gloves and masks. God, you sound like you’re begging to be mugged.

If you were being mugged, Vigilante could save you. And then fuck you up against the wa-

“This is not a date, man, I’m just trying to talk about something other than Meet the Robinsons with you.” 

“It’s a cinematic masterpiece!”

“So you keep saying.” You sink back against the arm of the couch, propping your feet into Vigilante’s lap as he turns to face you. “How many dates have you been on if this is the weirdest it’s gotten?”

“I’ve been on, like, two actual legitimate dates,” he sighs with his face pointed towards the ceiling. “And they didn’t really end well. One girl didn’t have any idea where she wanted to go so I took her to an ice cream shop, and she failed to mention she was lactose intolerant so she puked on my shoes. And then the other person I was really into, but they took me to a rave and then disappeared in the crowd and ghosted me. So that’s why I don’t date.” 

“Cool. So, what’s your biggest fear?”

“Man, you’re really not gonna let this go, are you? I was just being honest with my feelings, a little sympathy would be super nice.”

“Sorry. Poor baby, I would never eat ice cream and then puke on your shoes. I’m built different.” You give him a noncommittal hum as you pop a spoonful of the alien honey into your mouth. You stifle an obnoxious moan that threatens to bubble up out of your throat, despite the fact that you’ve been passing the jar back and forth with him for nearly thirty minutes now. Every time it hits your tongue it’s entirely different, gliding sweet and almost hot down your throat like whisky. “Now tell me your fear and I’ll tell you mine.”

He bends his knee, sort of spreading his legs to accommodate yours as he leans back against the armrest across from you. You notice that he tends to lounge like a king from a medieval painting, and it’s absurd how everything between your legs draws up tight and aching at the sight of it. “Uhhhhh… radiation poisoning.”

“Are you fucking serious? That’s it?”

“What? Do you know how many times I’ve had literal nightmares about all that shit that happened in Central City with S.T.A.R. Labs? It’s scary.” He shifts, and his leg bounces up against yours, knocking your legs apart in the process. It takes everything in you not to snap your legs shut as he continues, “Anyways, I can’t imagine a big fucking explosion rocking the city and then suddenly waking up with, like, X-Ray vision. Having to see everyone’s boners and skeletons and shit? No way… well, actually, I don’t think I’d mind the boners as much. But I don’t like skeletons. And then if it doesn’t give you mad superpowers, it just melts your skin off. Sounds bonkers.”

A smile curls your lips. “What if the radiation gave you super sex magnet powers? Would you still be scared of it then?”

He shakes his head. “Why… why would it make give me super sex magnet powers? What basis does that have? You think I fuck like a maniac or something?” A pause. “I mean… not. Not saying that I don’t fuck like a maniac, I mean, I get tons of, uhhh. Pussy. And dick. But like, would that even affect my superpower? Theoretically?”

Your face grows hot at his rambling, and you bluster for a moment looking for a reply. “I don’t know, maybe? Why would it give you X-Ray vision?”

“Because I have… because the visor…” he gives you a perturbed sigh. “Doesn’t matter. You promised you’d tell me your fear.”

“Mm. Rejection.” The metal spoon clinks against the glass rim of the jar as you hand it back to him.

“Who the fuck would reject you?” He even has the decency to sound genuinely confused, bless him. 

You scoff. “Plenty of people, believe it or not. Turns out that if it happens enough, you can develop a fear of it.” 

“That makes no sense,” he begins, and you open your mouth to start waxing on about the psychology of traumatic reactions, but he cuts you off before you can get a word in. “You’re gorgeous, like I swear I can’t stop staring at you no matter what I do. And you’re smart, and funny, and you stopped what you were doing to make sure I wasn’t going to die if I ate this stuff, even though you don’t even really know me, which is probably more than even Peacemaker would do and he’s my best friend.” His voice drops in volume as he concludes, “You’re just… good. You’re so good. And I like that about you.”

“You’re good too, you know.” Your eyelashes flutter as you take him in, staring down at the jar as he swirls the spoon around, seemingly lost in thought. “And I can’t stop staring at you, either.”

The leg that he has braced with his foot flat on the floor bounces twice, and then stops when he realizes he’s bouncing your leg as well. Then it bounces again, and then stops. Christ, is he having a panic attack?

Are you, would be the better question. Your heart might just jump out of your chest and into his lap for how hard it’s beating against your ribcage. Your hands are starting to shake, and you clamp a hand against the back of the couch to try to steady it. It also acts as leverage for you to press yourself back into your seat, because the need stirring around in your core like a cement mixer has you wanting to crawl forward and grind on his lap. 

Which, you know, might be a bad idea, considering. 

You need to calm down. Think of something other than him, and how good it would feel to have him bouncing his leg between your thighs. 

No, fuck. Concentrate. Cool off.

A wave of heat rushes down your arms and up the back of your neck, and you jump to start unzipping your jacket. 

“Huuhhh oh my god? Wh- what are you…?” Vigilante rears back against the armrest like he’s rankled just by the sight of your arms. 

“It’s just fucking blazing in here. Aren’t you hot?” You say to save face as you tug your jacket out from behind you and toss it to the ground. 

“Oh… oh, yeah.” He thrusts the jar at you without having really touched it, and moves to shirk off the straps of his machete holster, and then the chest plate of his armor. It’s nearly half-performance, half-genuine struggle as he removes an obscene amount of weapons from compartments you hadn’t even noticed before, one shoulder pad and then two, and then, finally, he unlatches the thing across his chest.

You realize then how fucking easy he has it, keeping his face hidden from view. You’re staring, and it’s so painfully obvious that you are when your mouth drops open just a bit as his black undershirt is revealed, skin-tight and nearly pasted to his body with sweat. 

You actually draw your legs back, knees toward your chest as he tosses the chest plate down on top of your jacket, and then starts undoing his arm plates. He fumbles with buckles and hooks, looking quite consumed by the act in itself.

“You need help?” You ask, your voice coming out smaller than you’d like it to. 

“Nah, I got it. I do this all the time.” One plate hits the floor, and then two. And then the motherfucker rolls his sleeves up, and you can feel your cunt pulse between your thighs as your eyes trace up the line of his forearms. 

Holy fuck.

You sit completely still across from each other, surrounded by a tension so palpable that you could cut a knife with it. You shift your hips once on accident, and then a second time on purpose, grinding hard down into the couch cushion and trying to stave off the aching need boiling in your gut and running hot through your veins at the sight of him.

Then, Vigilante reaches behind him and pulls a purple velvet pillow out of the corner by his hip, and places it directly over his crotch in the most non-subtle way he possibly can. You don’t think he’s looking at you, his head is tilted a little too far down, but he kind of clutches the pillow like a teddy bear against his navel as he resumes bouncing his leg.

“Dude, are you okay?”

“Huh?” He snaps his head up towards you, and then sucks in a sharp hiss through his teeth like it’s causing him physical pain to look at you. “Yeah… no, yeah I’m totally. Totally fine. One hundred percent. Nothing going on, nope.”

Tap tap. 

“Goff! Shut the fuck up!”

A short little chuckle falls from your lips as you turn to look at the jar on the kitchen counter. The butterfly wiggles back on its haunches, watching the two of you like it’s getting ready for a show about to commence.

You blink twice, and then slowly turn your head to Vigilante, who is somehow clutching the pillow tighter against him with his gloved hands, and feel a twinge of white hot need surge up your spine and along the curve of your shoulders. And you look down at the jar of amber goo, glistening so tantalizingly against the glass and on the spoon as you raise it. And you look back at the creepy little alien that’s watching it all happen. 

The smile disintegrates from your face as quickly as it formed. “Goff… you said this stuff wouldn’t make us sick. Does it still have side effects?”

Tap.

“Goff, you son of a bitch.” So, that’s what this is. It’s not just your inexplicable desire for him. It’s the raw amber fluid that’s making your mouth flood with saliva each time you glimpse his bare skin. God, you’re so fucking turned on by him already that it’s not even funny, and seeing his arms flex as he shifts his hips and tries to hide the fact that he’s being affected the same way isn’t helping you to calm down. 

“I think-” he pants behind his mask, audibly out of breath as he sinks further back against the arm rest, “I think Goff is a f-fucking… pervert. Shouldn’t have trusted him. You were right.”

His head tilts back against the armrest, chest heaving as he softly whimpers up toward the ceiling. A thin strip of his throat is revealed in this position, drawing your eye as his hips threaten to lurch forward, and he shoves the pillow even harder against his crotch. He’s nearly fucking up into it at this point, and a jittery sound just this side of a laugh comes barreling out of your throat before you can stop it.

“Hey, no, it’s… you’re fine,” you breathe, spellbound as you watch him struggle to keep still. Maybe you could use a pillow of your own to grind on. It would probably help to keep the fucking heartbeat that’s kicked up between your legs at bay. You swallow back the rush of saliva in your mouth and continue, “It’s fine, I’m… I’m in the same boat as you. We’ll get through it together.”

“Together?” Vigilante’s voice cracks, and his head lifts just enough that you know he’s looking at you. God, what you wouldn’t give to be able to see his face right now, and read all the need in his voice written on his expression. The mask just barely moves with the flexing of his jaw, and his hands shake as they dig a death grip into the pillow between his legs.

“Yeah, I’m- I mean- fuck!” The glass slips in your sweaty palms. As you struggle to keep a grip on the jar in your hands, the spoon catches on the front of your tank top and slips out of the glass, smacking fully against the fabric over your cleavage and leaving a glob of fluid to slide gooey and thick in a line down your front. It drips, seeping into the fabric and leaving a wet trail against your skin.

You jump into immediate action, throwing your legs over the edge of the couch and placing the jar on the coffee table. Vigilante tosses his pillow aside just as you stand, straightening your top so that you don’t smear the mess any more than necessary across your front. 

It was a good time for an intermission, anyways. Maybe if you get enough air being across the room from him, you can calm yourself down enough to not throw yourself at him the first chance you get. Maybe he can stretch out and get a little bit of rest, instead of nearly back-bending over the arm of the couch like he wants to get away from you. 

You mutter a string of curses incoherently under your breath, and then, “God, fucking… of course. Do you want some water, while I’m up?” 

Vigilante doesn’t answer. For how chatty he is, he’s particularly good at surprise attacks, like he’s secretly a goddamn ambush predator. He doesn’t even make a noise when he moves, silent as a fucking spider, so you almost yelp when you feel his hands on your hips. His fingertips dig into your skin for half a second, and then he pulls, bringing you down between his spread legs. 

You stare directly forward at the window on the wall across from you, swallowing thickly. Here, with your back against his chest and his head so close to yours that they nearly touch, you can hear his labored breathing and how it nearly rattles in his lungs with his effort to keep it steady. You can feel the hard length of his cock against your tailbone when his arm snakes around your waist to press you harder against him, like he’s just replaced his beloved pillow with you. And when he holds you just a bit tighter, his small whimper resounds in your ear and makes your skin prickle.

You aren’t prepared for how shaky and thin his voice is in your ear when he says, “All I want is you, now.”

Your teeth catch on your lower lip, biting down harder than necessary. It takes everything in you not to squirm back against the press of his erection, to hear him whimper in your ear again. Your hand wraps around his forearm across your waist like a vise, everything below it wound up unbearably tight and aching, begging to be satiated. His skin is hot against your hand, nearly burning to the touch, and you can’t imagine how stifling it must feel to be under that mask now. 

Your face contorts in desperation, fingers crooking forward and nails digging into his skin enough that he draws a sharp breath in. “I’m- I w-w-ant…”

Your breath catches loudly in your throat, your words hiccupping when his other hand comes up to your chest and, using one gloved finger, he collects the sticky trail of golden syrup, pausing just at the hem of your tank top to wipe it all off of the fabric. And then he lifts his hand, and brings his finger to your mouth.

“We don’t want to waste it,” he says quietly.

You suck on your teeth for half a second. It’s obnoxious how wet you are, how you can feel your arousal saturating your underwear and probably beginning to leak through the thin barrier of your leggings. You’re already fit to burst, sitting between his legs and pretending it’s not exactly where you want to be, alien-induced lust or no. But then you make the executive decision to open your mouth and wrap your lips around his finger, and he fully fucking moans in your ear. 

Holy shit. You jam your hips back against his crotch without even trying to hold back. So much for the art of seduction.

A sharp breath hisses through his teeth behind the mask. His hand tightens down on your waist, his forearm squeezing you harder against his chest as he rocks his hips forward so slowly . You know that you’re not doing yourself any favors, but you can’t help it. This time he does press his finger further into your mouth, curling down and physically stroking your tongue as you suck the criminal aphrodisiac off of it. 

“You want to… want to handle it together? Yeah?” He whispers, slowly dragging his finger out of your mouth and leaving you panting. “Want me to- to help? God, I won’t do it if you don’t ask-”

You don’t know exactly what he means by ‘help.’ It could be that he’s saying he’ll push you face-first into the couch and fuck you senseless, right here. You’ve seen how unforgiving he can be to people, and he could probably wring you out and leave you wallowing afterwards. To be honest, you don’t really mind if that’s what he has planned. Your judgment is just clouded enough that you’d let him do anything he wanted with your body, as long as he screws this overwhelming need out of your system.

“Yeah, I’m- please.” You hear his breathing stop, and you reach back to place a hand on the side of his head, feeling the contour of his cheek through the slippery fabric of his mask. “Please, I… I want you to.” 

“Yeah?” His voice is soft. Vulnerable. He clears his throat, and then his gloved hand is dragging down your chest, fingers fumbling along the band of your leggings and wedging under them. “Yeah, okay. Fuck, okay.” 

Once you realize what he’s doing, you know that it’s going to turn you on to no end that the leather of his gloves is so cold and impersonal, making his fingers bulkier and unyielding. To add to that, little ridges are moulded into the pads of them, you presume, to help with grip. What they’re really helping with right now is making you lose all sense of focus, when his finger dips through your slick cunt and drags long and so painfully slow over your swollen clit.

The moan you make is obscene in its volume and has nearly the same intonation as humming a high pitched and long mhmm. Your nails dig in and scratch up his forearm hard enough to leave four long claw marks, raising welts on his pale skin, to which he groans into your ear and presses his finger down just a bit harder for you. 

“Fuck. Shit’s got you so wet. Feels good, doesn’t it?” He breathes. You swear you can nearly feel the heat of his breath on your neck as it punches through the fabric of his mask. “Yeah, I bet it does. I bet it tastes even better.”

“You can… you can taste-” you cut yourself off with a whine when drags the length of his gloved finger over your clit again, and your back nearly arches away from his chest. His arm crushes you back against him, keeping you from moving away even an inch.

You feel him shake his head. “Not yet, I wanna help you first. Let me?”

You give him a wordless whine in response, but you think he gets the message. His finger dips down and curves along the slope of your pussy to find your entrance, the leather of his glove slick enough with your wetness to provide only the kind of resistance that makes you crave more. Your head drops back onto his shoulder when he slides in and curls upwards, finding the pad of muscle that lights up with nerves when he presses it. 

“Oh, fuck fuck fuck,” you groan when he starts moving in a slow, smooth back-and-forth that makes your legs jerk and spasm alongside his. Your hips rock onto his hand to mirror that motion, but all you succeed in doing is grinding back against his erection even more, and his free hand presses down against your stomach to get you to stop. 

“Please, I- I know you want more but if you keep doing that I’m gonna come so soon and I don’t want to do that before I’m inside you and I don’t want to be inside you until I kiss you,” he blathers, keeping up the repetitive movement of his finger into your cunt that has your body writhing against him. His mask presses hot and damp along your shoulder, and you realize that it’s his lips you feel tracing your skin through the fabric. You feel them move as he mutters, “I want to kiss you so bad.”

“Then kiss me.” You gasp, your cunt tightening down around his finger. God, it’s so thick with the leather, and you feel like grinding down on it despite his warning. “Kiss me, you fuuuu-cking idiot, don’t wait. I want to kiss you, too. Why are you waiting?”

“The mask, I can’t.” 

You impatiently scratch your fingers along his neckline, searching for that bottom edge that he’s been fucking around with for the last hour. Your hips involuntarily rock down against his hand again, and he jams his palm up against your clit to give you a bit more of the friction that you seek. 

He gives you a weak sound in the back of his throat when you hook your finger under the edge of his mask and pull, yanking it up to just past the edge of his nose. You hear it when he gasps, uninhibited by fabric, and it’s so fresh and clear, arguably hotter. 

He curls his finger sharply, making you jolt against his hand and grab onto his neck for stability, his face bared for your hand. His skin is smooth, his jaw sharp and defined against your palm. “Shit, you’re so- so hot. So fucking-”

“J-just…” A gasp. “Shut up. I’m trying to Spider-Man kiss you.” 

You pull at his cheek, turning your head to awkwardly kiss him over your shoulder. His nose bumps yours, his breath hitting your mouth in a heavy, nervous rush. Then he tilts his head just slightly and he’s on you, lips parted and tongue brushing yours. 

Oh god, the heat of it could burn you alive if you let it. 

He pulls his finger slowly out of you, and you whine into his open mouth with the loss of contact. He shushes you, quick to smother your mouth once again, and his fingertip turns to rubbing gentle circles around your clit. 

You make a series of desperate noises, pawing at his face and trying to draw him further into your mouth. Your body shudders against him, hips pushing downward onto his finger like that will make him touch you more. 

He pulls back just enough that his nose brushes yours, and you crane your neck to try to find his lips again. His breath hits your mouth, and it tastes nearly as sweet and seductive as the alien syrup was. 

“Shit, I-I didn’t think this was how it would happen,” he sighs, his lips just brushing yours as your hips seek friction in his hand. 

A long, wordless whine leaves your mouth, and then you wheeze, “You thought about it?”

“All the time. When I see you. When I try to go to sleep. When I jerk off.” His hips grind against the curve of your ass, his soft grunt meeting yours in the air. “I wanted… wanted to- wanted you to see my- ah, fuck it.”

His free hand comes up, and you just barely see him rear back and slip his hand under the edge of the mask, giving it a swift yank. It makes a quiet thunk on the ground with the rest of his discarded armor, but you’re too strung out to pay much attention. 

Your hand plunges back into a mess of curly brown hair as he stretches forward to kiss you again. Your eyes meet a flash of green, and your cunt throbs forebodingly against his fingers.

“You h-have-” you suck in a shaky breath, nearly struggling to take in air properly. Exhale… exhale inhale? Inhale?? Ex...exhale… “Green eyes. I love- love-”

You come with a strangled noise, painfully clenching down on nothing as he kisses you, continuing to stroke your clit even though your legs jolt and your heels push and kick against the couch cushion like you’re trying to get away. His free hand presses against your chest, keeping you flush against him- you catch him squeezing at your breast through your thin tank top, but you can’t fault him for it. He’s been so patient, so attentive. More than you’ve been. 

“That’s good,” he whispers against your mouth. “Pretty. You’re so pretty.”

You’re out of breath, panting heavily towards his face. “You… you.” You’re not able to form a more coherent sentence just yet, so you sort of pat the side of his head and hope he understands. 

He slows his fingers gradually to a full stop, letting it rest dormant against your throbbing clit. His forehead pressed to yours, he lets you take a few cleansing breaths before he says, “Can we…?”

He leaves that open-ended, but you guess that you’re both just taking your cues from the context at this point. You smack your hand down over his and pull it away from your chest so that you can move forward. He whines. 

“I’m just trying to take off my clothes,” you tell him plainly, lifting your tank top up over your head. “You could do the same, y’know.”

“You could help.” His hand touches the middle of your back- his bare hand, now.

You freeze, tank top hitting the floor. He took off the gloves. His skin is on yours. Your brain short circuits, a small shiver running up your spine. 

You take your sweet time turning around, your hips twisting with the movement. You sling a leg over his, your toe just barely brushing the carpet as you try to maneuver the odd position you’re in. You almost feel like you’re trying not to look directly at his face, like it’s improper to get anything other than an indirect glimpse of brown hair, green eyes, sharp jaw, pale skin. 

Your eyes land on his thigh first, tactical pants stretched taut across hard muscle. Then they shift to his bulge- which honestly looks like something painful, at this point, straining ungodly hard against the front of his trousers. You trail your eyes up his torso, over the black shirt that made you nearly lose your mental faculties. You hesitate when you reach the neckline of it, but finally, your curiosity wins over.

You find his face, and you don’t know why you hesitated. You want to stare at his face for the rest of time. 

He watches you with a shy, almost nervous expression. His lips are pressed tight into a thin line, his jaw twitching as he clenches and unclenches his jaw. His hair is flattened over his head in matted curls, a bit damp with sweat and hanging across his brow. He blinks, and long eyelashes catch the light.

You take a few swift breaths, steeling yourself to look directly into those round, green eyes. “You know, it’s really fucking criminal that you hide your face, Vigilante.”

“Adrian.”

“What?”

“My name is Adrian,” he admits softly. His eyes fall to where your legs are thrown over his thigh. “Also I wear glasses and you’re kind of sitting on them right now.”

“Oh.” 

You awkwardly shuffle back, bracing yourself on your knees between his legs as he reaches down to open a pocket on his thigh and pulls out a pair of aviator glasses. He puts them on, pushing them up to the bridge of his nose before he looks back at you. Or, he makes direct eye contact with your tits.

“Oh, Jesus Christ.” You roll your eyes, sitting back on your feet.

“What? You have a really nice rack. I mean, I’ve been able to look at your face this whole time and you’re gorgeous.” He reaches out like he means to grope your chest, but pulls back at the last second. “Like, all of you. Perfect.”

You hum, leaning forward to straddle his legs and push your chest into his outstretched hands. His breath hiccups in his throat, his eyes finding your face when you cradle his cheeks in your hands and tilt his head up toward yours. “I’m gonna get you naked now, Adrian.”

He nods eagerly, his hands squeezing your breasts almost instinctively. “Okay. Okay, yeah, good idea.”

You kiss him once, and then your hands yank his shirt up over his head without any flourishing. He scrambles to catch his glasses before they fall, fumbling to get them back on his face. You reach down to undo his belt, but then you stop, and cast a glance back at his somewhat complicated-looking boots and padding.

“Dude, could your armor be any harder to get off?” you grumble as you scooch back to lift his boot into your lap.

“That’s kind of the fucking point,” he says as he pulls his other leg up to start undoing the other. “I mean, can you imagine if I was fighting someone and my boot just fell off? That’s a safety hazard. Also, this is a nice bonding experience for us.”

“Oh, is it?” You yank the boot after loosening the laces, and it’s still not coming off.

“Yeah, I mean, you’re getting to see how my armor works. I’m getting to have you undress me. Careful, there’s a-”

“OW!”

“-knife in there, sorry.”

You huff a sigh as you pull a long dagger out of the ankle of his boot and toss it down onto the coffee table, then lifting your hand and sucking at the cut on your thumb. “This is like trying to get you out of deep sea diving gear. Look, I just want you to fuck my brains out before I do it myself.” You lose your patience and drop your hands from his boot. “Or I could just sit on your face. You want me to sit on your face?”

He groans as he roughly tugs his boot off, then starts working on the one in your lap. “Christ- You want me to cream my pants? I will, I’m so fucking hard right now. I already almost did when I had my finger in your pussy. Don’t talk to me about it- don’t.”  

He throws his second boot so hard that it plops down on the other side of the coffee table. You swallow hard, your pulse pounding in your ears. You scoot back further on the couch, crushing your back up against the arm again to muscle your way out of your leggings. Your legs bump his as he lifts his hips to slide out of his own, and with a graceless snap of elastic, you fling your leggings back against the window behind you. Your bare legs plop down over his, leaving you naked and spread-eagled across from him. 

He gets his pants down- fucking finally- kicking them off roughly and discarding them with the rest. You glance at his cock; hard, impressively long, swollen and looking like it desperately needs attention. He surges forward, clambering over you and pushing you back to lay against the couch cushions.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” he babbles as he strokes a shaky hand up your thigh, “You’re so hot and I’ve wanted to do this for so long but you’re so soft and I don’t know if I can be gentle right now-”

“So don’t.” You’re just as breathless as he is as his hand finds your face and his thumb traces your bottom lip with a touch of innocence. You part your lips and suck on the end of it, finding his eyes wide and dilated as you pull back. “You think you’re the only one who’s been wanting this? Don’t be nice. If you’re nice, then I won’t be.”

He gulps. “But I don’t want to actually hurt you.”

“Adrian, just wreck my shit. Do it.”

He slips into you in one fluid motion, the stretch your body makes to fit him nearly overwhelming despite how wet you are from your first orgasm. He groans fantastically loud into your shoulder, and just stops. Stops moving, stops breathing, maybe even stops thinking as you shudder and wrap your legs around his hips. 

“Adrian-”

“Don’t.”

Your hands find his hair, soft and pliable between your fingers. “Are you going to come already, baby?” 

“Don’t- don’t call me that- I don’t want to-” He gasps, his muscles tensing up as he struggles to hold still. He breathes out with a sharp blast of air against your skin. “You’re so perfect you feel so good oh my god oh my god-”

Your face burns. You draw a hand up his spine, fingers dancing along his smooth skin. You didn’t imagine he would be the one unable to hold on. “If you need to, you can. It doesn’t matter, I’m not finished with you yet.”

“I’m not- not usually like this,” he admits in a high, weak voice. His hips instinctively grind into yours, and he reaches the end of you and presses up against something absolutely devastating that has you moaning up toward the ceiling. “It’s the fucking- ah- iridescent… butterfly shit. Fuck butterflies.”

“It’s fucking fffffff-” your eyes nearly roll back in your skull when he fully pulls out and slams back in, jolting you up toward the headrest. The couch creaks, a warm breeze sweeps in through the open skylight, somewhere across the room the voyeuristic alien titters in the confines of its jar, but you don’t care. You feel stifled, like you’re drowning. It’s even harder to breathe when he’s giving something between a sob and a whimper into your shoulder, the rim of his glasses digging into your skin. “It’s fi- huuh. Fine. Oh god.”

You told him not to be nice, so, he’s not. You don’t think he’s being particularly mean, but he’s jackhammering into you so hard that you’re seeing stars at the end of every hard thrust. Your nails scratch down his back, likely leaving more welts like they did to his arm. All at once, your muscles clamp down around him, and he shouts into your shoulder. His hips snap into yours one final time, and his entire body shakes against you. He pauses for a drawn out moment, hovering over you, and then you feel him squeeze your thigh twice.

You take a steadying breath, hardly able to think past the ache in your core, halfway to orgasm and just sitting idle on that plateau. “Did you just…?”

“Yeah.”

“Was it enough?”

“Absolutely fucking not.” He pulls back to look at you, and confusion is written all over his expression, along with something that looks close to concern. “I’m still… still…?”

He’s still hard. You can feel it, pulsing within you, hard and thick like you’re still just getting started.

“What the fuck is in that stuff?” He casts his eyes gravely toward the jar on the table, like he has a bone to pick with it.

“I’m gonna take a guess and say something not from Earth.” You reach up to tilt his face back toward you. His eyelashes flutter, and he sucks in a ragged breath when you whisper, “Keep going, baby.”

He draws out slowly this time, and eases carefully back in like he wants to treat you gently now. His eyes stay fixed to yours, his nose nearly brushing against your own as he rocks his hips, moving in small circles that make your toes curl and your hips buck up toward his impatiently.

“Don’t go slow,” you whine, arching your back when he moves smoothly into you, all the way to the end and back, “Why are you… don’t be gentle, I-” 

“No, I read somewhere that most of sex is mental, like it’s the teasing that turns you on the most,” he says clinically, continuing to move within you. A short puff of air meets your lips, and then he adds, “Plus, if you asked me not to be nice wouldn’t it make sense that I do the opposite of that? It’s like a double negative.”

“Adrian, shut up. Please, shut up.” You thump your hand down on his shoulder blade, trying to buck your hips up into his again and ultimately failing.

“No, because it’s hot when you lose your patience with me like that.” Your eyes flutter shut, mouth falling open, and his face is close enough to yours that the lenses of his glasses fog up. He reaches up a shaking hand to tug them off, and they clatter to the floor with the rest of his clothes. “It’s also cute when you try to hurt me. I get stabbed regularly. Turns me on when you do it, though. You should try to stab me sometime, it would be fun.”

He speeds up for just a second, just enough that you moan and grab onto him, but ultimately slows back down to that languid pace that keeps pleasure winding up tight in your core. 

“I h-hate you,” you stutter out, weaving your fingers through his hair just to yank on it. He hisses through his teeth, and after another sharp tug you feel his hand grab yours and pin it against the armrest above your head. “I hate you.”

“Really? But you’re so wet for me right now,” he mutters with that chipper, happy note to his voice that’s just shy of infuriating. “Mm, and tight. God, I love your pussy.”

Your free hand grips his shoulder so hard that you know you leave crescent moon shaped dents in his skin. He lets out a groan, a soft sound vibrating from the back of his throat, and you just barely process it before he kisses you, giving you one hard thrust to make you squeak against his lips. 

He bites down on your lip as he pulls back. You feel his hand skimming your hip, your stomach, reaching down between your bodies. “You think if I rub your clit again I’ll make you come quicker? I think you’ll last ten seconds.”

You snap your eyes open and hiss a warning, “Adrian…”

“Hm. I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Adri-”

His thumb touches your clit, and a loud moan punches out of your lungs, your head rolling back and legs spasming on either side of his hips. It feels so fucking good, too good, and you can barely comprehend him releasing your arm above your head and bringing it down to hook around the back of his neck. 

You come with another loud cry of his name. It pours over you in waves, burning brighter than the sun and making your body jolt up against his. Your hands scramble for a hold on him anywhere they can get, one finding the curve of his lower back and giving it a weak push, urging him deeper into your spasming cunt.

He fucks into you harder, making you sob into the open air as the pleasure turns raw and sharp, a cutting edge on a cathartic kind of pain. And then he heaves a heavy breath, and his teeth sink into your shoulder as he groans and stills his hips, a flood of warmth leaving you full and wetness leaking from you onto the cushion below. 

His teeth leave your shoulder once he stops moaning, a warm cloud of breath making the sore skin there tingle. He kisses the marks he left, and then he fully slumps down on top of you, his sweaty skin sticking to yours.

You lay still, your hand still pressed into the dip of his lower back. You take a sharp breath through your nose. He smells so… distinct. Like fennel and pinewood and maybe a little bit of sea salt. Vigilante. 

You just fucked Vigilante. 

You blink up toward the ceiling. You just fucked Vigilante… on Peacemaker’s couch. 

Again, he seems to read your mind. His voice cracks in your ear when he whimpers, “Peacemaker’s gonna fucking kill me.”

“Us. He’ll have to go through me first.” You playfully squeeze his ass, and he shivers as he pulls back to look at you with an obvious fucked-out haze in his eyes. It makes you smile, and you twist one of his tousled curls around your fingertip. You give him a taste of one of his own crazed giggles. “No super sex magnet powers, huh?”

He blushes. After all that, you still manage to make him blush, as he gingerly pulls out of you and braces himself on his elbows in order to kiss you on the nose. There’s something so cute about it that you grin, another giggle threatening to spill out as he rests his chin on your chest, staring up at your face through his lashes. 

“Can I take you on a date?” He blurts out, his words still a little shaky. “Like, a real date. Without Goff’s weird food fucking us up. You like pizza? I know this really neat pizza place that has a bunch of old arcade games, we could go… I’ll give you all my quarters.”

“Yeah.” You sigh, pulling him up by the neck to give him a swift kiss. “I won’t even puke on your shoes.”